January, 2015 archive
Droning On 0
Who could have predicted?
Guess it wasn’t high enough.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite in the presence of prosciutto:
His license needs to be revoked because of stupid.
Facebook Frolics 0
Facebook reaches beyond satire.
Chartering a Course for Disaster 0
Charter schools are the new seg academies.
You, Too, Can Be King 0
Here are real-life lessons in how to King yourself.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Run-away politeness:
And another gun that “discharges” itself.
Football Uber Alles, Statue of Limitations Dept. 0
Don Giordano has qualms about returning a statue of Joe Paterno (who was a football coach, not a statesman or general or a scholar) to a place of honor on the Penn State University campus. In case you have forgotten, Paterno was revered as an all-around nice guy until it was learned that, upon being informed that one of his friends and long-time associates had been seen molesting a little boy, did as little as he could possibly have done about it.
Old friends and we’re all members of the club and all that, eh, what?
Nevertheless, the Penn State alumni continue to revere JoePa because he embodied their highest value, their most revered goal, the reflection on the Platonic wall of all that is sacred, the highest ideal of honor and integrity: NCAA bowl games.
Here’s a bit from Giordano:
I wonder what Paterno’s reaction would have been if McQueary had told him that he saw Paterno’s grandson in that shower. Would Paterno have merely done the minimum and reported it only to his supervisors?
The second wave of defenders loves to tell me that Joe did all that he could to stop Sandusky. He reported Sandusky to his “superiors.” Who was JoePa’s superior at Penn State?
The third wave of defenders has started the argument that we beat the NCAA and now we’ll put Joe’s statue back because we are a huge alumni group with a lot of power. I wonder what an alum would do if it was his child or grandchild who had been victimized by Sandusky. Would he truly be OK with JoePa’s minimum effort?
I Am Boggled . . . 0
. . . and I have never played Boggle.
Those categories include literacy, math, social skills and self-regulation – children’s ability to manage their emotions and behavior. About 20 percent of students lack the needed social skills. About 11 percent lack literacy skills, and 8.5 percent aren’t ready for math, according to the report.
Five-year-olds are supposed to be ignorant. That’s what schools are for.
Words fail me.
Afterthought:
“Educational science” has become a scam.
Of course, back in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un, it was widely rumored that persons who concentrated in the “E-School” did so because they were unable to cut it in a real major, such as history or physics or chemistry or sociology or even for Pete’s sake Art History. That seems to be unchanged.
We are a society awash in stupid.
Ignorance can be cured. The cure is called “learning.”
Stupid has no cure.
I shall stop now. Otherwise, I shall just sputter.
Scarey-Vous Francais? 0
French comedians mock Fox’s mythical French “No-Go” Zones.
Via C&L.
Marvels of Modern Engineering 0
At The Guardian, Suzanne Moore points out that an economy is not natural, like a tree. It’s man-made. Here’s a bit.
The rich, via lobbyists and Byzantine tax arrangements, actively work to stop redistribution. Inequality is not inevitable, it’s engineered. Many mainstream economists do not question the degree of this engineering, even when it is highly dubious. This level of acceptance among economists of inequality as merely an unfortunate byproduct of growth, alongside their failure to predict the crash, has worryingly not affected their cult status among blinkered admirers.
Empty Gestures 0
Michel Olszak doesn’t think much of Arizona’s recent law to require a “civics” test for high school graduation. He looks at how this law was rushed into being and observes:
So the irony is that Arizona students will be required to take a civics test imposed on them by politicians in desperate need of a civics lesson themselves.
But this measure isn’t about education, as you might suspect. It’s about politics and the power to push things through.
An example of good governance would be more valuable than this SNL skit of a legislative performance.
Full Disclosure:
When I was a young ‘un, back in the olden days when Martin Luther King, Jr., was being pilloried as a commie revolutionary subversive determined to destroy “Our Way of Life (TM),” my state required high school graduates to have passed a course on “government.” Passing the course in no way predicted how conscientious a citizen one would become.
Everybody Must Get Fracked 0
The professor in the interview tries to be scientifically accurate, so his comments are ponderous and heavily footnoted (listen to the interview all the way through to understand why I say that). If you want to get to the gist, skip to the four-minute mark.
A Loss of Words 0
Every year, there is a spate of stories about words added to various dictionaries.
In my local rag, Bernadette Kinlaw points out that, every year, words are also dropped from dictionaries. Here are a few of this year’s casualties:
This is an aircraft that flies because of its rotating blades.
Deliciate
When you deliciate, you indulge in feasting. I’m going to use that word starting today.
Frigorific
A frigorific thing causes or creates cold. The polar vortex is like that.
Read her list. Several of them are words I’ve actually heard of (alienist, for one). I have heard somewhere gyrocopter, but not cyclogiro.
“Massive Resistance” 0
In an article about Longwood University, which was Longwood State Teachers College when my aunt attended it during the roaring 20s (I wonder if she roared? Probably, knowing her) my local rag looks back. A snippet:
Then, from 1959 to 1964, Prince Edward County public schools were shut down as local officials resisted desegregation orders.
Read the rest.
This is what the New Secesh look back on with longing.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite in the playpen.
White says the bullet struck the 9-month-old, who was in a playpen.
Gun nut paradise approacheth apace.
