The Curmudgeon Speaks

I have read quite a few battles online lately that involve some portion of the population not appreciating some other portion. When you think about it, most folks work at something that is necessary in some sense to others or they would not be compensated for their efforts.

Anyway, I want to address those who believe farmers are not paid their due. I have mixed feelings about this position. I grew up on a farm and I can assure you that physical labor 50 years ago was very different than today. Sitting all day in an air conditioned tractor cab is not that different from sitting all day in an office. Farming is a business and presents unique challenges, but this is the case for most individuals who work alone or in small businesses. Much of what farmers produce is far removed from what you or I will eat. The production of corn to produce alcohol for gasoline or soybeans to sent to China has nothing to do with feeding you or me. As far as feeding folks go, I have far more empathy for those immigrants toiling in those small plots of land to produce vegetables to sell at our local farmers’ market. They have families to support just as much as the guy down the road with a thousand acres of land and massive equipment to work it.

Anyway, I do think that an appreciation of where our food comes from is important and I have long support school gardens as a way to develop such insights. Yes, I would not expect the kids to kill and pluck the feathers from chickens like I did growing up to appreciate the production of our primary protein source, but at least they can experience growing some what they eat.

I garden, but I also have a recommendation for those with little land. Grow vegetables on your deck. My recommendation would be a Garden Tower. The tower makes use of vertical planting and is combined with vermi – composting (worms converting material to compost). It is a like a science project on your deck.

Our tower is now operating a maximum capacity producing herbs, tomatoes, and other green leafy stuff we use for our salads. As you can see, the quantity of material is impressive. The basil (plant at top) is great for making pesto and we obviously have more basil that we can consume. Gardening is like that and it can be difficult to predict how much, if any, of a given plant you will bring to harvest in a given year.

The worms?

There is a cylinder down the middle of the tower in which you cultivate a culture of red wrigglers. You constantly feed these worms green material and they convert this material into compost (castings generated by the worms) to support your garden.

Taxes and tax cuts are a major focus of the present political climate. Yet, it seems to me that people are easily misled. They don’t understand very well how the tax paid relates to income and more to the point of this post what should be considered a tax. I have two examples

Tariffs make the best example. We are told by the present President that our nation benefits from increasing tariffs on imports because money flows into the coffers of the U/S.. This may be true, but the reality with tariffs is that consumers either pay more because they purchase goods and services originating in the US, or they pay more for imported goods because of the tariff. The exporter does not pay the tariff. This increase in the cost of goods, no matter the origin, is essentially a tax.

I think it can also be argued that the removal of a safety net program such as Medicaid is also a tax. If you have ever spent time in a public hospital emergency room you should understand why. There are folks there needing immediate help. There are also people there with less severe problems – say a family with a child who has a painful ear infection. Why doesn’t the child with the ear infection seek help from a family physician or urgent care? The answer is likely that the family does not have medical insurance and the public hospital will not turn people needing help away. Who then pays for the costs of the “freebies”? We all do. The hospital has to meet expenses and the option without safety net support is to charge more of the people who can pay – a tax. Preventative care and treating problems before they become serious and more costly would be a better approach.

I think there is value in identifying an author and perhaps reading multiple things they have written. There is then a context for the ideas shared and having this context provides a way to think about what I am reading. Back a few years when educators were first trying to develop online literacy skills, young readers were asked to identify and consider the author as part of evaluating the credibility of what they were reading. It was argued to be important to identify the source.

I think we are losing what might be called source awareness and while it is important to have this context for readers, it is also important to writers. Often, recognition and the awareness of someone’s work is all they get out of the effort they put in.

Here is how I see the progression toward oblivion.

When I first started a blog (2002), after somehow gaining the attention of a few readers the hope was that some readers would add your site to their RSS reader. A reader was now following you and had easy access to what you might write in the future. RSS still exists, but I don’t think those who are now coming to online content use it.

What replaced RSS seems to be links in social media and even more commonly search. A few years ago I added a counter to my main blog. This counter would increment post by post when that post was visited independently of a general visit to the front page of the blog. I started to notice a phenomenon in the pattern of my hits that would not have resulted from regular visits to my site. Older posts that happened to fit a current trending interest (say an AI tool) accumulated hits even if the posts were written before the counter had been installed. The most recent posts did not necessarily get the same attention. Search allowed the entire collection of content to be available, which I guess is good, but this seems different than readers following specific authors.

AI search continues this trend. Whatever I write now ends up being vacuumed up and merged into giant LLMs. The ideas are abstracted, summarized, and combined. People may still read these ideas, but the original context and the identity of the authors is at best added as one source within a list of sources appearing at the end the AI search output or not connected at all. I generate very little ad revenue, but the principle of rewarding or at least recognizing authors for their work is now mostly eliminated. AI functions as an ad blocker and also obscures the source for ideas. I wonder about the long-term consequences of this source of external and internal reward for writing.

I cross-post my blog posts to Medium and I pay to read the work of others on this platform. To host my blogs, I pay approximately $250 a year (Bluehost). I have always valued owning my content and paid to support my writing as a hobby. Yes, $250 a year is an inexpensive hobby. I am struggling with conflicting principles at this point. I want to own my content, but I also want people to know that I have written what I have written. I could just shut down the blogs and rely on Medium or some similar subscription site, but then I am no longer directly sharing my content in a way that I control.

I think it is worth all of us who participate in online content sharing to think about the situation as it has emerged. Perhaps my personal description will encourage this reflection in some. I certainly welcome comments on my observations.

We began visiting the Amish greenhouses near St. Charles, MN, in 2019. As I sometimes do when it comes to what I regard as unique and interesting experiences, I created a blog post about that day. What to me was a surprising experience, this post is probably the most viewed individual post I have ever written, and even though it is now a significant number of years later, this continues to be the case. In addition, the popularity of this post from 2019 continues to grow.

My guess is that these data demonstrate the importance of finding the right niche. When I first generated the post, I don’t think the collection of Amish farms had an online presence despite the interest of folks visiting for this unusual gardening experience. My post was available via search and accumulated enough attention that it appeared at the top of the hit list. Despite new competition, the advantage of being already there has meant that total views continue to make my original post competitive.

Just for old times’ sake, here are some new images and a description of our most recent visit.

A number of Amish farmers have clustered near the community of St. Charles, MN. As these comparatively small farmers have attempted to find ways to generate revenue, they have hit on several effective options. Some are questionable from the perspective of other cultures (puppy farms), but others attract favorable attention (furniture, dairy). Some of these ventures gain an advantage from the collective commitment of several farms to the same venture. The greenhouses are an example. You can pick up a crude map at several local outlets and then visit at least a dozen greenhouses that are close to one another. The greenhouses vary in size and offerings, so although we drive about a hundred miles to reach these farmms, the prices and the options make it worth the trip.

Here are a few photos to offer a feel for what a visit is like. The greenhouses are heated by wood fires/boilers, but otherwise would be similar to what you might find in your own community. It is very unlikely you would find baked and canned goods.

Other sights are common, but different. These small, labor-intensive farms are nested among large farms with massive equipment, and the Amish have created a lifestyle and mutual support network that keeps them competitive.

One more thing. If you are aware of the Amish culture (now sometimes the focus of reality TV programs), you probably know that the Amish do not like to be photographed. It is always important to ask when taking pictures of individuals. I did not make the effort on this trip. I have in other years and sometimes it is OK. I grew up on a small farm some 65 or so years ago, and know enough to carry on a conversation about small farm agriculture (e.g., milking cows, cleaning out the manure). Although never my dream, talking to some of the younger men hoping to purchase a small acreage and have their own farm took me back.

This new tariff story is hilarious. The Trumpsters are now in the position of trying to hide what most of us knew pre-election. Tariffs don’t make money for citizens. The cost is to the importer which is typically passed on at least in part to the consumer. Amazon simply wants to declare this cost to the consumer. Cost of item + tax + tariff = what you pay. Seems honest to me. If this is political, this is the case because it demonstrates the dishonesty of claims made. I hope Amazon institutes this idea. Like other issues with hidden fees consumers should be aware of the source of the price they pay.

We seem to be in a time when questioning and even attempting to control experts’ opinions has become acceptable. While this challenge may apply within several realms, this post focuses specifically on the issue as it relates to higher education. Recent public awareness has likely focused on the controversy pitting the Trump White House and Harvard University over Harvard’s decisions related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies. The Trump administration has cut government grants to the University and threatened modification of the university’s tax-exempt status over this issue. To this point, Harvard has refused to comply with what it argues is an arbitrary and more of a political loyalty test rather than a function of educational appropriateness. 

I mostly write about issues involving educational strategies and technology, but because I am (now emeritus) a university professor, I feel I must respond to what seems to be a misrepresentation of how academic experts work and how universities fulfill their missions. While political, I would argue that the DEI controversy and issues of expertise are more an infringement of politicians on the work of educators than the work of educators on the work of politicians. Yes, many universities and educational institutions at all levels receive public support. This is often far less than you might think, given the level of control politicians feel they should be able to exert – tuition, donations, and grants/contracts are more important, more competitive, and more dependent on the choices of individuals. You really cannot have a situation in which the party in control at the state or national level can dictate curriculum decisions that are potentially quite disruptive and arbitrary. The extent to which a given faculty member addresses a given issue varies greatly, and yet political efforts crudely impose a blanket ruling based on an issue that may involve a few students or a couple of courses. 

I wonder about the support of citizens for recent efforts at educational manipulation. Here are a couple of thoughts:

• What proportion of citizens could translate DEI into words and what about each of these educational commitments does a citizen see as potentially objectionable?
• If a citizen has been a college student, do they recall issues of DEI or any other politicized issue being addressed in a course in a way that was offensive? Was the presentation not factual? Were factual alternatives rejected?
• I am an educational psychologist teaching mostly undergraduate and graduate educational psychology and courses focused on the use of technology in classrooms. I have tried to identify topics I have covered that might involve issues of equity or diversity. Here are some examples – the relative role of background knowledge and aptitude in impacting achievement and related home and environmental factors that would determine background knowledge; equity issues in home access to technology and how teacher expectations for assignments involving technology should take into account what students can do at home; reading readiness and how income and other home differences in parental reading behavior, differences in reading to children, and the availability of reading materials might be influential. There are other similar issues related to motivation, perceptions of the importance of post-secondary education, and finances that are important. So, I ask myself – shouldn’t a future or practicing teachers understand such issues if these factors account for differences in how students they will work with will learn? Can I offer evidence (facts) that the differences I describe are real and known to impact performance? 

Even being part of the focus on this controversy, I cannot understand what could possibly be objectionable about dealing with the reality of the world into which we are going to send practitioners. When it comes to specific concerns, such as critical race theory, I also struggle to understand where politicians think this is taught and what exactly they think it is. What I think the theory involves I find kind of intriguing, arguing that certain biases are part of our acculturation process, and this can be demonstrated as being influential at below the level of consciousness (reaction time and autonomic system responses). For example, bias can be demonstrated in people claiming they are not biased. Such data are certainly interesting to consider and try to understand, but this is not the fare of lower-level courses. If learning that U.S. citizens kept and abused slaves bothers you, you are normal and should find that reality offensive. 

This is an open invitation. If you have had relevant experiences, I hope you will respond to this post. I want to understand just how serious this issue is and be convinced it is not a political “nothing burger” circulated to misinform the public. 

The Death of Expertise

The negative reaction to expertise is a recent interest of mine. Perhaps it has always been there and I did not notice, but I think the embrace of this reaction has been enhanced in strength, but also made more visible by the efforts of MAGA politicians.

I would refer anyone interested in thinking about how and why this has happened to a couple of sources – Science Denial and The Death of Expertise (see sources at end of post). I suppose the suggestion to consider scholarly sources may seem futile in a post about why many refuse to consider the products of scholarly work, but I can’t help myself. My own values focused on how to make a reasoned and credible argument requires referencing support for personal claims. Consider the first section of this post my more personal argument.

The following are arguments gleaned from these and related sources:

• Information overload and polarization – The public is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of available information, making it hard to distinguish credible expertise from misinformation. The issues are not just numerous, but also complex making simple conclusions and courses of action not the type of thing experts can provide. This confusion is amplified by political polarization and targeted disinformation campaigns. 
• Mismatch in Communication Styles – Experts tend to use a communication style that annoys those with less sophisticated backgrounds. The terminology used and the arguments advanced seemed hedged and unnecessarily complicated. In part this is due to the hesitancy of experts to oversimplify situations and issues that are simply complex and the tendency to be more cautious. People want certainty and not probability and best guesses. Experts are not necessarily prepared to write for public consumption and tend to write for peers who they know will carefully scrutinize their claims.
• Perceived lack of accountability – When taking positions based on the best information available at the time, experts frequently make mistakes that they later correct without apparent humility. Citizens may not understand the self-correcting nature of science and the meaning of hypotheses. The process of science involves multiple experts attempting to refine understanding by testing extensions and alternate explanations of current thinking. Ideas are constantly challenged to move understanding forward.
• Confirmation bias – Personal values and affiliations (political, religious, cultural) motivate the processing of information in a way that tends to maintain existing models of the world. What sticks is what fits and other inputs are avoided or discounted in various ways. The notion that experts are elites is one mechanism allowing sloppy consideration of what experts claim.

Conclusion

We presently are living in a dangerous time, made worse by attacks on universities that reduce the consideration of expertise. My personal experience questions the legitimacy of claims made about the intent of universities, but I invite those with college experience to reflect on their own experiences and identify actual examples of factually inaccurate learning experiences. I also reference sources attempting to examine the resistance to expertise to determine how such dismissal is possible. 

Recommended sources: 

Nichols, T., & Nichols, T. M. (2024). The death of expertise: The campaign against established knowledge and why it matters. Oxford University Press.

Sinatra, G. M., & Hofer, B. K. (2021). Science denial: Why it happens and what to do about it. Oxford University Press.

The reports of many government cuts justified as wasted or worse tend to be an abstraction in most people’s minds. Old folks like me may react when hearing about threats to social security and Medicare and parents with special needs children may fear the funds that support the educational needs of their kids may have a more personal reaction. Perhaps you try to visit National Parks in the summer and know that access is already challenging and the reduction in staff can only make that situation worse. Here is another example.

We are coming up on National History Day. One educational event associated with the focus on the importance of the study of history is a program in many schools that hosts a contest in which students pursue a history project of personal interest and compete in a display of what their project accomplishes. Many years ago, I did Science Fair projects and when learning that our grandkids had competing in History Day projects, I used my science experience as a way to understand what this was all about. Like Science Fairs, History Day involves personal student projects that are judged in a competitive process that moves from school to state to national level competitions of students are selected to advance. The prizes at the highest level are substantial and represent projects of spectacular ingenuity and scholarship.

The opportunities in schools to focus on a personal or “passion project” are very limited. The skills of independent research are important as life skills and the integration of information from multiple varied types of sources is unique. Most adults would be impressed by the range and uniqueness of the topics selected. I provide a link to sample projects at the conclusion of this post.

These programs require a great amount of organization and effort on the part of educators and administrators. Funds are required to augment the. effort of volunteers and support a process that is national in scope. Some of these funds were provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and this support has now been cut by the Trump Administration. 

Sometimes, I get the feeling that when politicians oppose government spending they give the impression that the government is an abstract object of some type and the funds allocated to government agencies are burned rather put toward the accomplishment of very concrete tasks. My point is that this is not the case. Funds go for actual projects and the funds enabling these experiences must come from somewhere. In a time when school experiences have come under scrutiny often involving those experiences that describe the history of our country. Just what is to be made of targeting the personalized study of history? The reality of history is not fiction and exploring and accepting reality has to be a good thing.

National History Day

Sample projects

National History Day theme 2025

Tariffs are not a tool for addressing inflation. I thought this was easy to understand. Tariffs are a way to protect specific industries a country values and wants to have within its own borders. If computer chips and solar panels are essential, you might place a tariff on such imports to encourage and sustain the development in these sectors within your country. Simply put, the U.S. standard of living and wages are high enough that many things will be less expensive if imported. Blanket tariffs are going to raise prices and will increase inflation. Corporations unable to compete with foreign production may benefit, but you won’t.

There will also be repercussions as other countries respond in kind. Our farm economy is such that we produce certain products – soybeans – that are less expensive than can be purchased elsewhere. However, this won’t be the case with tariffs other countries will impose in response to our tariffs. There are other sources for ag products. The U.S. government will increase subsidies for farmers costing the rest of us money in taxes. You and I lose whether goods are coming or going. This is basic economics that should have been easy to anticipate.

I see Warren Buffett agrees with me.

Perhaps some books are banned because folks would be disturbed by the arguments made. Caste is such a book. The author draws heavily on historical documents in making her case and it is such content and logic that scholars would take on in trying to make other arguments. For some, the task of mounting such challenges is too demanding and the weaker approach is to try to block such positions from reaching the ears and eyes of those looking for facts. The history of this country makes a good case that the use of religion was involved in creating and defending a caste system. This is one of those facts some simply don’t have a way to defend so they would rather each of us not be challenged with this reality.

We are in Kauai this year in very unusual times. We were here at the end of the Biden term in office and for the beginning of the Trump administration. The early days of the Trump administration have been chaotic with many executive orders and the firing of many Federal employees. Without knowing what lays ahead in the next few days, it is worth preserving some of the experiences.

We stay in Princeville which is on the edge of the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge. A few days ago I posted an image taken from the overlook with a comment about the concern of those working at the refuge because of cutbacks. Cuts were made. I posted something about the cuts to Facebook and had some unusual reactions. One claimed wetlands didn’t need to be managed.

Just for the record, we took a quick trip into the reserve today by car. No use of the hiking trails to take a few images. These are multi-use facilities that preserve the natural resources but also serve the recreational interests of locals and tourists and in the case of this space offer small fields for locals who want to raise taro. This plant has special meaning to native Hawaiians and has some commercial value. The water suppresses competing weed growth and serves as habitat for birds.