Some Boynton Beach History, "Our Kids" and Checking the Facts

                                                

A Book Review

I recently read a book that I must draw to your attention.  It is probably one of the most important books to come out this year.  I am referring to “Our Kids, The American Dream in Crisis” by Robert D. Putnam.  Get a hold of a copy, read it and I hope, recognize the importance of the issues with which it deals.  Oh, yes.  He does offer solutions … but please read the book.

What is the American Dream?  It may be summed up in one word: Opportunity.  That is what brought waves of immigrants to our shores and sent Americans across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  It’s what created businesses, families and communities.  Robert D. Putnam, Harvard political scientist, in his book “Our Kids, The American Dream in Crisis,” focuses in on how over the past two or three decades, our society has been increasingly divided into two classes, defined by the interrelated criteria of educational level and income, and how that has closed off that “opportunity” to massive numbers of American children. 

The “tracks” that these classes are in effect locked into include where members of each class live, where they go to school, what kind of families they have, when they have children, the nature of the communities in which they live and the way they earn, or fail to earn, their livings.  Mobility between the two classes is next to impossible, and results in the absence of growth opportunities for children in the “lower” class, whose status they inherit from their parents.

It always wasn’t that way.  As recently as the 1960s, rich and poor attended the same high schools, lived in neighborhoods that were not that far from one another, shopped in the same stores, and were considered part of the same community.  People were still able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.  But that world where such mobility opened the door to opportunity has disappeared.

                              Read about Santa Ana High School (Orange County, CA) in the book.

Putnam documents that this class division is not racially determined; it is found equally among Black, Latino and White populations.  We see the result of this class system in our decaying cities, in teenage pregnancy statistics, school dropout rates, drug usage, crime, family disintegration and unemployment.  These problems affect members of the poorer class far more than those who are more affluent and better educated.  And the ones who suffer the most are the “kids,” who in earlier generations had the opportunity for climb a ladder out of their class.  But that opportunity no longer exists.

The book includes detailed case histories of these “kids” which are enough to break one’s heart.  Bottom line:  Economic hardship translated as the inability of a “breadwinner” to get a good job contributes to family disintegration and turns life into a scenario where the struggle to simply survive so saps the energy of the lower classes that the nexus of the American Dream, opportunity, is in danger of permanently fading for them.

If you read one book this year, this should be it.

Jack Lippman

                                                    
                                               

Where's the "Beach" in Boynton 
(reprinted from an earlier posting)

A goodly number of the followers of this blog reside in Boynton Beach, Florida.  Some of them may wonder why it is that Boynton Beach, as contrasted to nearby Delray Beach or Boca Raton, actually doesn’t have a beachfront!  Well, here’s the story.

Up to 1931, this whole area, including the oceanfront, was known as the Town of Boynton.  “Beach” wasn’t part of the name until 1931 when there was a dispute as to how oceanfront property would be taxed.  Also at that time, the town’s “debt load” was pushing it toward bankruptcy.  Apparently, to resolve the problem, Boynton split off its oceanfront area except for retaining rights to a municipal beach.  This new, separate and highly desirable area took on the new name of Boynton “Beach.”  Eight years later, in 1939, that oceanfront community officially changed its name to Ocean Ridge.  Two years later, the Town of Boynton was able to add the word “Beach” to its name, becoming Boynton Beach, which continues to be what it is called in its present form as a city, even though the only “beach” it possesses is its small municipal beach, retained from that 1931 arrangement.  (Of course, this should not be confused with the Boynton Beach post office designation, which encompasses a far wider area extending deeper “out west” into unincorporated Palm Beach County, some parts of which still get their water and sewage service from the City of Boynton Beach and which is far more populous than the city itself.)

Boynton Beach Inlet (one of  the two "county" beach parks located on fomer Boynton Beach beachfront)

I don’t know what caused Boynton to have debt problems 81 years ago, but it would appear that letting its prime asset, its oceanfront area, go its own way and become a separate town (now Ocean Ridge) resolved those problems.  This left what is now the City of Boynton Beach without an oceanfront, an asset which neighboring Delray Beach and Boca Raton both possess and have successfully developed and expanded upon. (Along the way, the oceanfront areas of Manalapan and Briny Breezes also managed to separate from what we now know as Boynton Beach, completing the disappearance of its beaches, except for the municipal beach and two county-run beach areas.) 

JL                                           

 

Checking the Facts!

Recently, when I pointed out inaccuracies in an eMail which had been forwarded to me via the internet, I cited snopes.com and factcheck.org as the sources of my information.  The sender’s response to me questioned the reliability of my sources, as just partisan parts of the liberal media.  This brought to mind a Miami Herald column written by Leonard Pitts, Jr. about a year ago which I reproduce below. 

Pitts

 “Obama is a Muslim,” it said. “That is a FACT.”

As best I can recall — my computer ate the email — that was how the key line went in a reader missive that had me doing a double take last week. It was not the outlandish assertion that struck me but, rather, the emphatic claim of its veracity. We’re talking Shift-Lock and all-caps so there would be no mistaking: “Obama is a Muslim. That is a FACT.”

Actually, it is not a fact, but let that slide. We’re not here to renew the tired debate over Barack Obama’s religion. No, we’re only here to lament that so many of us seem to know “facts” that aren’t and that one party — guess which — has cynically nurtured, used and manipulated this ignorance for political gain.

Consider a recent trio of studies testing the effectiveness of fact-checking journalism. They were conducted for the nonpartisan American Press Institute, and their findings actually offer good news for those of us who fret over the deterioration of critical thinking and the resultant incoherence of political debate.

Researchers found, for instance that, although still relatively rare, fact-checking journalism has been growing fast and saw a 300 percent rise between 2008 and 2012. Also: most Americans (better than 8 in 10) have a favorable view of political fact-checking. Best of all, exposure to fact-checking tends to increase respondent’s knowledge, according to the research.

But like stinkweed in a bouquet of roses, the studies also produced one jarringly discordant finding: Republicans are significantly less likely to view fact checkers favorably. Among those with lower levels of political knowledge, the difference between Republican and Democratic voters is fairly small — 29 percent of Republicans have a favorable view, versus 36 percent of Democrats. Surprisingly, among those with higher levels of knowledge, the gap is vast: 34 percent of Republicans against 59 percent of Democrats.

The traditional rejoinder of the GOP faithful whenever you bring up such disparities in perception is that they mistrust “mainstream media” because it is biased against them. Putting aside the dubious validity of the claim, it’s irrelevant here. Fact-checking journalism is nonpartisan. One would be hard-pressed, for example, to paint Politifact as a shill for the donkey party given that it regularly dings Democrats and gave President Obama (“If you like your health plan, you can keep it”) its uncoveted Lie Of the Year award for 2013.

That being the case, one can’t help but be disheartened by this gap. What’s not to like about journalism that sorts truth from falsehood? What’s partisan about fact?

Nothing — you’d think. Except that, for Republicans something obviously is.

Perhaps we ought not be surprised given the pattern of party politics in recent years. On topics as varied as climate change, health care, terrorism and the president’s birthplace, GOP leaders and media figures have obfuscated and prevaricated with masterly panache, sowing confusion in the midst of absolute clarity, pretending controversy where there is none and finding, always, a ready audience of the fearful and easily gulled.

As political strategy, it has been undeniably effective, mobilizing voters and energizing campaigns. As a vehicle for leadership and change, it has been something else altogether. When you throw away a regard for fact, you throw away the ability to have effective discourse. Which is why American political debates tend to be high in volume and low in content. And why consensus becomes impossible.

The API statistics documenting the lack of GOP enthusiasm for fact- checkers, ought to tell you something. Who could have a problem with a fact-checker? He or she is your best friend if what you’re saying is true.

You would only feel differently if what you’re saying is not.

Leonard Pitts’ Miami Herald columns frequently appear in other papers including the Palm Beach Post.                                                                                                             

JL

                    
                                         

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