| ESSAYS ON CURRENT AFFAIRS BY CHARLES EUCHNER | UPDATED JUNE 1, 2008 |
|
WAR BY OTHER MEANS: Nonviolence is not just a moral means of appealing to people's higher selves. It is also a pragmatic and effective strategy of conflict, which can be used to wrest power from the most brutal despots. MADAME PRESIDENT: If Hillary Clinton wins the 2008 presidential election, she will owe a big debt to Marie Wilson, the founder of the White House Project. Countering Freud, Wilson says the major question of American politics is: "What can women want?" SUBWAY SERIES: What if New Yorkers Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and Michael Bloomberg all run well-financed campaigns for president in 2008? It would be a first in American history -- three major candidates from the same state. The best guide history can offer is a glimpse into the five races involving two major-party candidates from the same state. VIRTUES OF FEDERALISM: When New Haven began issuing identity cards to its residents, both the right and left screamed. Here's why Mayor John DeStefano has got it just right.
TOO FAR TO WALK: Big school buildings, regional sprawl, and fear of crime conspire against the all-American ideal of walking to school. While some districts have rediscovered the benefits of small, local schools, most are moving further away from that ideal.
FALLING MAN: How can a man survive a 500-foot plunge off a building? The miracle of Alcides Moreno involves a lot of physics and even more luck. MIND GAMES: To win at chess, you need not only intellect but also passion, says Garry Kasparov. As the international chess champion for 15 years, Kasparov should know. The question now is whether Kasparov can transfer those attributes to politics, where he has become one of the leaders of the democracy movement in Russia.
THE EDUCATION MAYOR, by Dennis Wong et al., assesses the impact of City Hall takeovers of school systems. CAPE WIND, by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb, explores the strange politics of wind power. HOW LIFE IMITATES CHESS, by Garry Kasparov, draws lessons from a lifetime of the ultimate board game. THE POWER OF A POSITIVE NO, by William Ury, shows why saying "no" is sometimes the quickest way to "get to yes." BROKEN BUILDINGS, BUSTED BUDGETS, by Barry LePatner, explains how obsolete practices produce cost overruns and building flaws in the trillion-dollar construction industry.
|
 |
INCOMPLETE: Mayors like Boston's Thomas Menino, Chicago's Richard Daley, and New York's Michael Bloomberg think they can fix public schools by taking command at City Hall. But a real revolution in schools requires smashing the paradigm of district control and starting over. The mayor can only tinker at the edges of this multigenerational failure. SO FAR AWAY: Big school buildings, regional sprawl, and fear of crime conspire against the all-American ideal of walking to school. While some districts have rediscovered the benefits of small, local schools, most are moving further away from that ideal. IVYBALL: Could Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale become sports powerhouses, again, like in the days of the :flying wedge"? Maybe not in all sports. But watch out for a different look in NCAA basketball. GREENIES BY PRESCRIPTION: For years, major league baseball players used amphetamines to get through long, grinding seasons. When baseball banned amphetamines two years ago, the number of ADD diagnoses spiked.
LET 'EM PLAY: Granted, we live in a different time than Huck Finn -- or the post-war boomer years, for that matter, when kids played ball in streets and sandlots. But can't we give kids some control over their own games? CRACK OR CLUNK? Metal bats, which started as a cost-saving measure for amateur leagues, have changed baseball into a power game. But what if the same metal bats that send home runs rocketing into space also endanger pitchers? Is it time to go back to wood bats, at least on an experimental basis? SIBLING REVELRY: When Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn accepted their plaques at baseball's Hall of Fame inductions this summer, the biggest cheers came from their brothers, who also played in the major leagues. For a copy of the article, send an email to Charles Euchner. THE OTHER POSTSEASON: For more than a half of a century, the best baseball players barnstormed all over the country. Players like Babe Ruth, Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, and Joe DiMaggio brought the pastime to the tiniest corners of the country. In the years before Jackie Robinson broke the color line, these exhibitions provided the only real sense of just how good were the black players banned from the big leagues. For a copy of the article, send an email to Charles Euchner.
NOR'EASTER: Put together all the beautiful people who "summer" on Cape Cod and the islands, who make all kinds of loud claims for energy independence and clean air, and what happens when someone comes along to build the ultimate clean energy facility? They scream bloody murder, of course.
VIRTUES OF FEDERALISM: When New Haven began issuing identity cards to its residents, both the right and left screamed. Here's why Mayor John DeStefano has got it just right. |
|
 BrainerciseBy Charles Euchner CommonWealth June 2008 Music from a homemade CD blares from a crackling sound system at the Millis Middle School in the town of the same name. Twenty eighth-graders stream into the gym and pick up heart monitors lying in a straight line on a desk. The students wrap the long black plastic bands around their chests, slip on wristbands that record the heart signals sent from the bands, and start to move. Some stretch their legs. Some shoot baskets. Some run laps. After a while they start playing "ultimate ball," a fast-paced game where teams of three kids run up and down the gym floor throwing the ball to each other. Players get the ball, run, and throw. They constantly change direction and sometimes bump into each other. With such urgency to get rid of the ball, no one kid dominates the floor, and no one gets left out of the action. The one constant in all this activity is nonstop motion. For a visual image, think of the hyper Jim Carrey in the movie Mask, multiplied by 20. The goal is to keep students in "the zone" — with their hearts beating at peak rates of at least 175 beats a minute — for 20 or 30 minutes. At the end of the class, students check the data from their heart monitors. In this March class, all but two of the students played in the zone for at least 20 minutes. Fitness experts have long celebrated the effects of aerobic activity on the body, such as weight loss, increased oxygen supply, lower cholesterol levels, better efficiency in the nervous system, and better lung and heart capacity. Now Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John Ratey says another benefit can be added to this list: dramatic gains in learning capacity.
|
CHARLES EUCHNER | 46 TURNOR AVENUE, HAMDEN, CONNECTICUT 06517 | 203-287-8928 | EUCHNER@GMAIL.COM