2016 archive
Buyer’s Remorse 0
Shorter Erika D. Smith: You get no sympathy from me.
“It’s Not Me. It’s You.” 0
Gerald Haslam considers how racists convince themselves they are not racist. A snippet:
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite to your neighbors.
A bullet went through a kitchen cabinet and shattered some glass pans in a home on Evergreen Road.
The rear neighbor was putting his gun in a new holster when it misfired.
The bullet went through the dining room wall, through the backyards, and into the neighbor’s house.
. . . and yet another gun that fired itself
Afterthought:
When I was young ‘un, back in the olden days, “misfire” meant that, when you pulled the trigger, nothing happened. Must be some of that gun nut newspeak.
No More Classes, No More Books, No More Teachers . . . . 0
In a lengthy essay, Alan Taylor looks at the place of education in United States history. He points out that, by and large, the founders believed strongly that an educated citizenry was essential to the survival of the new nation and pushed, sometimes with more success, sometimes with less, to make learning more available. Ultimately, this resulted in a strong system of public education.
He fears this trend has reversed, as school budgets are cut back, college students are laden with debt, class-sizes increase, and public systems of higher educations are being starved for funds. Here’s bit from the essay; follow the link for the whole thing (emphasis added).
Although the current definition of education is relentlessly economic, the source of the crisis is political. Just as in Jefferson’s day, most legislators and governors believe that voters prefer tax cuts to investments in public education. Too few leaders make the case for higher education as a public good from which everyone benefits. But broader access to a quality education pays off in collective ways: economic growth, scientific innovation, informed voters and leaders, a richer and more diverse culture, and lower crime rates—each of which benefits us all. Few Americans know the political case for education advanced by the founders. Modern politicians often make a great show of their supposed devotion to those who founded the nation, but then push for the privatization of education as just another consumer product best measured in dollars and paid for by individuals. This reverses the priorities of the founders.
And Now for Something Completely Different 0
You can hear a lengthy interview with Francois Rautenbach, the narrator, at Hacker Public Radio.
(Errant tag fixed.
In the close link notation for the embed, there was an errant “i” tag.
i./a
In HTML 4.0, em is the new i. I didn’t know that “i” tags still worked! I thought they had been, as the geeks say, “deprecated.”)
Trumpling the Privatization Scam 0
These people do not believe in the existence of a common good.
Still Rising Again after All These Years, Core Values Dept. 2
Over at Delaware Liberal, Evey shreds to pretense of the “Alt-Right” to be anything other than what they are: the latest attempt of the Secesh to repackage themselves. A snippet (emphasis in the original):
That sentence is nothing more than a thinly, thinly veiled* attempt to sanitize racism.
Read the whole thing.
__________________
*I would argue that it’s not “thinly veiled,” merely paraphrased.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is essential in a process of learning.
Droning On 0
Once more, it’s only a matter of time . . . .
At one point, Joseph Roselli allegedly flew the drone as high as 1,500 feet, which is restricted for use by Philadelphia International Airport.
Roselli was charged with risking a catastrophe and recklessly endangering another person, court records show.
Aside:
I was in my local drug store the other day. They had quadcopters for sale on the toy rack.
Thinking is a lost art.
