Why is public education being attacked?

[via Sideshow]

The short answer is that changing staffing needs in the new corporate push-button economy have resulted in a need for fewer successful students and rising stratification of the new economy needs to be explained (by the people at the top) as the fault of the people at the bottom.

If this analysis is even close to correct (and I'm afraid that it does explain a substantial part of the phenomena described), it represents a failure of imagination on the part of the business communities: a bigger pool of talent means cheaper talented people. It also means more entreprenurialism which, though it does lead to competition, also leads to innovation and growth.

Quranic Translation Challenges

The above link is a fantastic collection of excerpts from relatively recent translations of one section of the Quran, demonstrating the difficulty of translation, specifically the translation of gender. Aside from the technical issues, the sheer beauty of the text is eminently obvious, but the effect it has varies with the choices of the translators. Great stuff.

Quotations #043

"It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them." -- Alfred Adler

"There are two kinds of marriages -- where the husband quotes the wife, or where the wife quotes the husband." -- Clifford Odets

"Business succeeds rather better than the state in imposing its restraints upon individuals, because its imperatives are disguised as choices." -- Walter Hamilton

"Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm." -- C. Wright Mills

"Canada has no cultural unity, no linguistic unity, no religious unity, no economic unity, no geographic unity. All it has is unity." Kenneth Boulding

Quotations #042

Normally I bold my favorite quotations. I can't possibly pick one or two of these over the others. Consider them all Bold.

"Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective way of saying things." -- Matthew Arnold

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being." -- Johann W. von Goethe

"If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other causes for prejudice by noon." -- Senator George Allen

"Politics should be the part time profession of every citizen." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, in their separate and individual capacities." -- Abraham Lincoln [And a happy belated birthday to you, too!]

The History Teacher Card

Me, too.


You are the the Hierophant card.
The Hierophant, called The Pope in some [Christianized] decks, is the preserver of cultural traditions. After entering The Emperor's society, The Hierophant teaches us its wisdom. The Hierophant learns and teaches our cultural traditions. The discoveries our ancestors have made influence the present. Without forces such as The Hierophant who are able to interpret and communicate traditional lore, each generation would have to begin to learn anew. As a force that is concentrated on our past and our culture, The Hierophant can sometimes be stubborn and set in his ways. This is a negative trait he shares with his zodiac sign, Taurus [I'm not a Taurus]. But like Taurus he is productive. His traditional lore can provide a source of inspiration for the creatively inclined, and his knowledge provides an excellent foundation for those who come into their own in the business world. [Not to mention ethical and moral foundations] Image from: Morgan E. Cauthers-Knox.
Which Tarot Card Are You?
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Pop Culture Dichotomy

Well, it's no worse than most of the commentary which has followed the election. It's a bit late, and it's not entirely fair, but it's amusing, particularly if you're a Democrat. But it does raise the question: which pair of characters would a Republican choose to characterize the worldview differences (they might still pick Lisa Simpson for "Blue" but I doubt they'd pick Homer Simpson for "Red"), and how would they characterize them (I'm pretty sure Lisa wouldn't come out quite as well)?

Childhood is not a disease

Mr. Jones may be wrong about a lot of things, but he's not wrong about this: the overuse of medication (particularly cocaine-like amphetamines like Ritalin) to control behavior in children, particularly boys, is going to be looked back on in a few years much the same way we look back on flogging and corsets and footbinding.

How to Prepare for College

My high school was like this... well it offered tracks like this. Number 3 was rarer than it should be, and I never really needed #4. But we had 1 and 2 in abundance. Is it that hard?

four major characteristics shared by these high performing high schools:

1. High-level, college-oriented content in core courses -- All schools offered coherent sequences of courses focused on college-readiness content at a level beyond most state and district standards.

2. Qualified and experienced teachers -- All of the teachers were certified in their subject area, and nearly all had a Master's degree or higher with at least one degree in their subject area.

3. Teaching that is flexible and responsive to students -- Most teachers frequently asked and answered questions and checked for student understanding. In classroom discussions and lectures, they helped students make meaningful connections to the content by using examples that had meaning to students, making reference to prior learning, current events and popular culture.

4. Out of classroom support for students -- Students were provided with extra support outside the classroom through tutors, teachers, and other helpers, including peers and adults from the community. Teachers offered help outside of class and reminded students that they were available for assistance.

Numbers Games

There was a time when government documents and figures were considered the "gold standard" of historical sources. Now look what we've got. It's not bad enough they're cooking the books: the ingredients are US soldiers and the outrage is only coming from the left. Who's "supporting" the troops?

Homework: Media Bias

Here's an interesting exercise: compare two independently produced lists of underreported stories for the past year. I've condensed a few stories together, and the summary language is my own (I've tried to be fair, but who knows?).

WorldNetDaily Top 10	Project Censored Top 25 [Note: for fairness, only the top ten included here]
Nuclear Terrorism al Qaeda-Iraq links Immigration/Border control Sandy Berger Document Theft SBVT were right ACLU/Judicial Activism anti-Christian arrest incident UN Oil-for-Food scandal Darfur Genocide	Corrosive Wealth Stratification Nuclear energy/waste dangers Human Rights v. Corporations Administration attacks on non-partisan science Administration giveaways to corporations (Energy, logging) Conservative Judicial nominations 9/11 RICO lawsuit filed against US gov't