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Polyphemus the Cyclops: Reflections in a single eye

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Tuesday, 02 July 2024

Written by Pitt Dickey

Seeing is believing, or is it? Remember the old joke about the wife who walks in on her husband and her best friend making whoopee? The husband denies it happened as the best friend gets dressed and leaves the room.
His wife says: “Of course it happened. I just saw it.” He replies: “Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?” Which allows us to effortlessly segue into my favorite one-eyed denizen of Greek Mythology- Polyphemus, the Cyclops.
It is possible you haven’t given much thought to Polyphemus recently. You really should think more about Cyclops than all those weight loss miracle drug ads infesting TV. Today we will close the attention gap between Polyphemus, America’s favorite Cyclops, and Ozempic the little pill with a big story to tell.
As we all know, a Cyclops is a giant with only one eye, the better to see you with My Dear. Polyphemus came from good stock. His Daddy was Poseidon the God of the Ocean. His Momma was Thoosa, a sea nymph with a human upper body and the lower body of a giant snake.
The union of Poseidon and Thoosa shows that there is someone for everybody, so keep swiping right. Love can come to everyone. Baby wart hogs are proof that a female wart hog looks good to a male warthog.
Polyphemus lived a quiet life raising large sheep on a lonely island. His pastoral life was interrupted when our old pal Odysseus was coming home from the Trojan War. Odysseus had been at sea for a while. He needed to resupply his ship to feed his men. Like Carl Denham landing his ship on King Kong Island, Odysseus landed on Polyphemus’ island looking for vittles.
Without so much as a By Your Leave to ask Polyphemus, Odysseus and some of his men started pillaging Polyphemus’ cave which was more crowded with good stuff than the Buc-Ees on I-95 at Florence, South Carolina.
Polyphemus came back to his cave with his sheep while Odysseus and his buddies were still inside stealing food and loot. He was not amused at the home invasion of his cave. You might even say Polyphemus was Hangry. Thanks to Snickers candy we know humans “are not you when you’re hangry.” You can imagine what a giant hangry Cyclops would be like. You would not like Polyphemus when he is hangry.
Polyphemus grabbed up two of Odysseus’ men. Like Hannibal Lector, he ate them for supper with a nice Chianti and some fava beans. He dropped a giant boulder to block Odysseus from getting out of the cave.
The next day, Polyphemus ate two more men with his morning coffee. When he came back in the evening he had two more men for dessert. Odysseus, being pretty clever, saw where this was going.
Fortunately, Odysseus had some magic wine with him from a prior adventure which he gave to Polyphemus to drink. Polyphemus got drunk and started chatting with Odysseus.
He promised Odysseus he would eat him last if he told him his name. Odysseus lied, telling him his name was “Nobody.” Polyphemus promptly passed out from all the wine. While he was asleep, Odysseus rammed a sharp stake into Polyphemus’s one eye blinding him.
The sharp optical stick woke Polyphemus up. He started yelling for help from the other Giants. When they asked who was hurting him, Polyphemus said “Nobody” had hurt him. They figured the Gods were punishing Polyphemus. They recommended thoughts and prayers instead of helping him. The next morning, blind Polyphemus let his sheep out to graze. To be sure Odysseus and his men didn’t sneak away, Polyphemus rubbed the back of each sheep to be sure it was a sheep. Odysseus had all his men tie themselves under the sheep so Polyphemus would not realize they were escaping. They pulled the wool over Polyphemus’ bad eye. When they got back to their ship, Odysseus had to rub It into Polyphemus by yelling his real name as he sailed away.
Polyphemus was sorely vexed by this turn of events. He could tell where Odysseus was by his yelling insults. Like Ernest T. Bass with a brick when he was in love with the beautiful Rowena, Polyphemus ripped off the top of a mountain and chunked it at Odysseus’ ship barely missing sinking it.
So, what have we learned today? Beware of Greeks bearing sharp sticks. Odysseus should have kept his mouth shut once he got out of the cave. Always remember, if you get what you want, you do not need an awards ceremony. Take the win and sail away. Discretion is the better part of valor.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)

Higher exports would aid Carolina economy

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Tuesday, 25 June 2024

Written by John Hood

While some economic metrics continue to offer good news to North Carolinians, others point in a different direction. U.S. agricultural exports, for example, fell by $17 billion last year and appear to be on track for another decline of about $8 billion or so this year.
As U.S. Sen. Thomas Tillis and 21 of his colleagues pointed out in a letter to key Biden administration officials, some fluctuations in export markets are inevitable, the result of currency flows and international factors beyond the control of any one country or set of policymakers. But this two-year decline in ag exports sticks out like a sore thumb.
Tillis and the other farm-state senators argued it was “directly attributable to and exacerbated by an unambitious U.S. trade strategy that is failing to meaningfully expand market access or reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade.”
For decades, they pointed out, leaders of both political parties had made it a priority to expand overseas markets for agricultural products and other goods and services.
They “accomplished this feat through negotiations of actual free trade agreements, removal of technical barriers to trade, and holding our trading partners accountable to their commitments,” the senators wrote. They urged U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to pursue a similar course today.
They’re right, of course, but such policies are a hard political sell at the moment. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have a history of indulging populist opposition to trade agreements. Partly following their lead, an increasing number of Democrats and Republicans in Congress seem less inclined to vote for international agreements that lower barriers to our exports abroad (and also, by happy necessity, lower prices for consumers here at home).
Whatever the consequences may be for other sectors of the economy, a continued turn away from free trade will wreak havoc on agriculture, forestry, and related industries that rely heavily on export markets.
According to North Carolina State University economist Mike Walden’s latest analysis, the production and sale of food, fiber, and forestry products generate more than $100 billion in economic impact, accounting for about 16% of our state’s gross domestic product. The sector employs nearly one of every five North Carolina workers.
Our largest ag exports include meats, tobacco, soybeans, grains, and fresh vegetables. North Carolina firms constitute America’s largest exporters of broilers and tobacco. We rank third in pork exports, seventh in cotton and wood-product exports, and ninth in the production of softwood lumber.
The livelihoods of many North Carolinians — and thus the economic and fiscal health of many North Carolina communities — depend on the expansion of international trade, not its contraction.
In an American Enterprise Institute study published last fall, AEI fellows Barry Goodwin and Vincent Smith observed that when the administration of former President Trump imposed tariffs and other restrictions on America’s trading partners, they retaliated by erecting barriers against our exporters. Instead of repealing his predecessor’s policy mistakes, President Biden has doubled down on them.
Chinese restrictions against imports of soybeans and other agricultural products were especially painful. As Goodwin and Smith point out, Washington responded not by ratcheting down trade tensions but instead by doling out federal dollars to agricultural enterprises.
“Many of these subsidies were poorly targeted,” they write, while even deserving farmers would have been better served by restoring their export markets, not paying them subsidies.
Are there legitimate concerns about trading sensitive technologies and defense-related products with the Chinese, the Russians, and others who wish harm on America and our allies? Certainly. Tillis and the other senators aren’t denying the need to take national security into account when fashioning trade policy. What they’re calling for is a default policy of free trade with free people in pretty much anything, along with opening export markets around the world for such products as pork, wood pulp, and soybeans.
That would be good for America. It would be particularly good for North Carolina.

Editor’s Note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

It's all about the kiddos

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Tuesday, 25 June 2024

Written by Margaret Dickson

If you suspect North Carolina’s children are under siege, I agree with you.
First, there is the ongoing and relentless attack on public education by the current brain trust at the North Carolina General Assembly.
Somehow millions of American parents, including an alarming number in our state, have signed on to the notion that public schools are irrevocably broken, despite the reality that almost 9 out of 10 Tar Heel students are indeed in public schools. This belief has given license to a rogue legislature to decrease support to public schools and give tax dollars paid in by you and by me to private, often religious, schools with next-to-no oversight.
Some of this shifting of public funds comes under the banner of “parents’ rights.” Of course, parents have rights but so do everyday, hardworking taxpayers who want and expect public education to give their children, grandchildren, and future North Carolina workforces the tools to make our state’s economy thrive.
Then there is the all-out assault on North Carolina educators, who are leaving their chosen profession in droves. AXIOS reports that 11% of NC teachers bolted during the 2022-2023 school year, up almost 4% from the prior year. Money is certainly part of the departure equation. North Carolina ranks 41st in teacher pay, down from 38th the year before, and 36th the year before that, according to the National Education Association. The World Population Review ranks North Carolina even lower, ahead of only West Virginia, Mississippi, and South Dakota.
Inadequate pay is bad enough, but it is hardly the only issue teachers face. The Assembly, an online, non-profit newsletter, recently ran a piece written by one of those departing teachers, Lisa Williams, now working in the private sector. Williams taught in public high schools for more than 2 decades in Kentucky and New Hanover County, teaching about 3500 students. Salary does not appear to be her major concern. Instead, she wrote this.
“This year, I started carrying a bulletproof backpack to work. I kept my classroom door locked all day….When we were called into lockdowns, I stood behind the classroom door so I could greet anyone who might be on the other side, because, while I might go down, I could buy time for my students to run.”
And, this.
“This year, I worked an average of four hours after school every night and at least 10 hours during weekends….It wasn’t because I enjoyed the work or because I am a perfectionist. It was so I could meet the demands of the local school board policy stating that every paper should be graded within one week of its due date.”
Also, this.
“There’s a mentality surrounding teaching right now that involves gaslighting and misinformation….They ask, Isn’t that what you signed up for? Welcome to the myth of the American teacher. Most of us are not trying to become stumps in exchange for abuse and martyrdom, but at the core of our being, a voice of conviction poses the question we all have to answer: What about the kids?
“Kids are losing the most in the battle over public education.”
How anyone thinks degrading public education is a forward-thinking policy is beyond me. North Carolina valued and protected public education through most of the 20th century but beginning around 2010, we seemed to forget that we all benefit from an educated and productive workforce, and we all suffer when we do not have one.
It becomes a 5-alarm fire when we also realize that United States students lag behind their peers across the developed world. According to PBS, students in 29 other countries have higher math scores than American 15-year-olds and US scores in reading and science rank 20th and 23rd respectively.
Clearly, North Carolina needs to get its education house back in order and fast.

Excellent Public Schools Act: Science of Reading bears fruit

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Tuesday, 18 June 2024

Written by John Hood

Over the past two years, North Carolina had made critical investments in the future of our state.
No, I’m not talking about highway projects, or university R&D, or the private investment in new companies, locations, and workers facilitated by the legislature’s pro-growth tax and regulatory reforms.
These are, indeed, valuable instances of capital formation — of physical, intellectual, and human capital — but today I refer to a different piece of legislation.
In April 2021, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the Excellent Public Schools Act. Gov. Roy Cooper signed it.
Among other things, the bill requires that literacy instruction in the state’s public schools be based on the science of reading, a term of art that describes a research-based consensus in favor of “phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling, fluency, vocabulary, oral language, and comprehension.”
After decades of “reading wars” between competing camps of educators, researchers, and policymakers, those advocating phonics as an indispensable tool for decoding words prevailed in both scholarly debate and practical results.
When the state of Mississippi rewrote its instructional approach to emphasize the science of reading, for example, its performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress dramatically improved — and not just in reading.
According to the most recent Urban Institute analysis of NAEP scores, Mississippi fourth-graders ranked second only to Florida in average reading scores adjusted for student background (which is the proper way to assess the value added by schooling).
The year Mississippi passed its science-of-reading bill, it ranked 40th in the subject. During this same period, Mississippi also rocketed to third in math scores, behind Florida and Texas. After all, learning how to read proficiently opens the door to learning other subjects.
North Carolina’s reading instruction was never as bad as Mississippi’s. Indeed, as I’ve often pointed out, our public schools have ranked high in value-added performance for many years (our fourth-graders rank sixth in reading and seventh in math, according to the Urban Institute analysis).
Nevertheless, our students have much to gain from the 2021 reforms. So far, we appear to be implementing them effectively. EdNC’s Hannah Vinueza McClellan reported last week that some 44,000 elementary school teachers have been trained in North Carolina’s LETRS program (which stands for Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling).
“We know how critical literacy is to student success,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt, “and I’m thankful for the passion and commitment of North Carolina educators to help our students achieve their goals.”
Early evidence suggests the new approach may be bearing fruit. From 2022 to 2024, there was a marked decline in the number of students rated below the state’s benchmark for reading fluency, accuracy, and comprehension. Minority students made especially strong gains.
It’s far too early to declare victory, of course, but it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider how this promising change in policy came about.
Nationally and within our state, education researchers and policy analysts across the spectrum were willing to follow the evidence on reading instruction wherever it led, even if it challenged their preconceived notions. Republican and Democratic lawmakers did the same — the Excellent Public Schools Act passed unanimously in the Senate and by a 113-5 margin in the
House — and appropriated $114 million to train teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators in the LETRS program.
North Carolina’s turn to the science of reading occurred within a national context. We were willing to learn from the practical experience of Mississippi and other jurisdictions.
Our legislation has, in turn, become a model for other legislatures to follow. That’s how public policy is supposed to happen.
And just to finish the thought: as promising as our initial experience seems to be, there are no guarantees. We may find that the early improvements in reading performance don’t persist into later grades. We may discover flaws in the LETRS training that require administrative or legislative tweaks.
Public policy is, itself, a learning process. Let’s all strive for fluency and comprehension.

Editor’s Note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).