July 02, 2007

MPP awards)

What I call - and no doubt you will call - one of the World's Dumbest, Saddest, and Most Pathetic Videos has just won the 'MPA/MPP You Tube Public Policy Challenge: Change the World in 1 Minute' contest. The contest was sponsored by the "National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration" (NASPAA, naspaa.org), and the MPA/MPP stands for "Masters of Public Administration/Masters of Public Policy".

The video in question is here; it's called "Crossing Lines: Immigration Reform in America" and the author is Jon Hickey, who's a Masters of Public Administration student at the "Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington in Seattle". In other words, he's in graduate school, not the 2nd grade as you might first suspect.

I'm stunned at how stupid the video is, and I even feel a bit embarassed for everyone involved, even including Youtube's Steve Grove, shown here kicking off the contest.

The video's argument is so self-evidently faulty that I am honestly surprised that no one pulled anyone involved aside and told them that, for instance, there are billions of people worse off than "Carlos". And, one would think something calling itself "public policy" would be able to understand the role the Mexican establishment plays in their current situation and instead of supporting that support reform.

From naspaa.org/youtubechallenge/index.asp:

Hickey also tried to be creative and different and chose to create his video by color cartoon instead of filming real people or places.

Yeah, I do that too, but at least I have a real argument.

These were the judges:

Kathryn Newcomer, President of NASPAA
Chris Wolz, MPA & Founder of Forum One Communications
Jeremy Bronson, Producer with Chris Matthews 'Hardball' on MSNBC

Someone please tell me this is a prank or something.

Posted to Immigration2007a at July 2, 2007 04:42 PM