Tom Friedman Sure Can Sound Stupid Sometimes

An editor might've encouraged him to reconsider this opening line.: "For me, the most frightening news in The Times on Sunday was not about North Korea’s stepping up its nuclear program, but an article about how American kids are stepping up their use of digital devices."

Let This Be China's Problem

Reacting to news of North Korea shelling South Korea, Conor Friedersdorf yesterday tweeted: "Can this be the start of when we start thinking of some things as China's problem?"

Good question, and that -- along with today's story about China's difficulties managing North Korea -- raises a good issue for those concerned about the rise of China in the Pacific. That rise is usually portrayed as a challenge to the United States, both in terms of prestige and in access to markets and materials needed to drive the economy. But why can't it also be a process that burdens China with wearying and expensive issues?

Look what being the "world's policeman" has done for the United States. We're stuck in two wars through a combination of folly and, when you get down to it, being the biggest kid on the block. As China becomes one of the other biggest kids on the block, it's going to attract the attention and demands of the same problematic individuals and nations that now make being No. 1 such a pain in the butt for America. Let them have it! And good riddance!

Afghanistan Quagmire Watch

Robert Wright offers up two nuggets of information about the Afghanistan War that make me wince:

• At just over nine years of age, this war is already the longest in American history. And this Saturday we’ll eclipse the Soviet Union’s misadventure in Afghanistan; the Soviets brought their own personal Vietnam to an end after nine years and seven weeks.

• And the cost of the Afghanistan war already exceeds the cost of the Vietnam and Korean Wars combined, even in inflation-adjusted dollars. At $100 billion a year (seven times the gross domestic product of Afghanistan) this war is feeding a deficit that will eventually take its toll in real, human terms.

Wright makes a pretty good case that America's presence in Afghanistan does more to hurt our security than to help it. Read the whole thing.

Philly Schools Don't Have Libraries? Maybe It's Time To Buy iPads For The Students.

I'm still getting to know the city, obviously, because this is shocking to me:

"Nearly half of all city public schools have no libraries, a fact that has long galled Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president Jerry Jordan.

Tuesday, at a news conference at University City High School, Jordan called for the district to ensure that each of the district's 258 schools was equipped with a library.

'There's nothing more important in educating your children than developing them into great readers,' Jordan said in an interview. 'Librarians work with teachers and help support curriculum across disciplines.'

Students whose schools have libraries score better on crucial standardized tests. And because city libraries have had cutbacks in hours and staff, having such resources in schools is especially crucial now, Jordan said."

As it happens, I recently wrote about a similar situation involving a charter school in Colorado. Pikes Peak Prep addressed its problem by getting iPads for all its students.The idea was to expose kids to current technology while putting an entire library at their fingertips.

“The decision we made was based on: Do we build a library and a science lab, then buy books and a bookshelf and hire a librarian? You can do the math,” said Kevin Teasley, president of the GEO Foundation, an Indianapolis-based charter school management group that runs Pikes Peak Prep. “Or do we look at some more economical approach in which we can achieve essentially the same outcome at a reduced cost to the taxpayer?

I'm not sure whether stocking and maintaining a fleet of iPads in Philadelphia would be more or less than building, stocking and maintaining a series of school libraries. But to shrug your shoulders and cite "budget constraints," as local officials do, means you've given up on the kids who attend those library-less schools.

Philly Convicts Can't Read Or Write

Not sure why this is surprising: "A test of reading skills among inmates in Philadelphia's prison system yielded some worse news than expected: About 25 percent to 30 percent of prisoners read at a second- or third-grade level. The average reading level was at a fourth-grade mark, but city Prisons Commissioner Louis Giorla said he had previously assumed that the average was between a sixth- and eighth-grade level."

TSA Backlash Watch: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Oh, come on:

"The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.

“[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on 'Charlie Rose.'

“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”"

This isn't going to end well. The ability to move freely about the country -- about one's own city, even -- appears likely to be restricted. Somebody needs to take a deep breath.

How Obama Created The Tea Party

Interesting critique on the London Review of Books. I found this passage gave me the most to think about:

Obama’s largest rhetorical miscalculation – and it bears part of the responsibility for 2 November – was to suppose he could move people to admire and sympathise with government even as he encouraged them to disdain and deprecate politics. By holding himself above politics he cleared a path for an insurgent movement that put itself below politics. Obama echoes Reagan in speaking often of ‘Washington’ in a tone of assumed displeasure. The difference is that Reagan had so little grasp of the details of his administration that the disavowal in a sense showed consistency. For Obama, the same posture is transparently inauthentic. And in a democracy like the United States, as in any representative government, a contempt for politics whets the people’s appetite for sudden remedies.

A Reagan-loving friend of mine isn't so hot on the disparagement there, but otherwise I wonder if this isn't getting at something. In a representative democracy, politics is how we make government go. If you're always grumbling about the mud that you're in, is it any wonder if people think you're a pig?

That said, there are limits to this theory. I still stick with the theory that the Tea Party originated as a gathering of sore losers from the 2008 election; I don't imagine there's much President Obama could've done to win them over.