Takin' 'Em Down

Jon Stewart at his best:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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I Got Yer Reform Right Here

A great little reminder regarding "Gubmint should be run more like a business":  For every spectacularly successful company like Google, there are thousands of equally spectacular failures - Value America, eToys.com, and on and on and on.  Thousands.  Is that really the model we want schools (eg) to follow?

(via Democratic Underground)

Somebody new to me - using the name jacobbacharach:

The cheating scandals prove that education reform is a wholly fraudulent endeavor. It isn’t the equivalent of a doping scandal in sports; it’s the equivalent of Enron, Madoff, the financial crisis. You think testing has something to do with compensation, hiring, and firing? It doesn’t. Testing is the accounting of the reform movement, and the executives are cooking the books. They’re manipulating the statements so it looks like the venture is turning a profit. Well, actually, it’s got negative cash flow. The gains are phantoms. The enterprise is insolvent. Even by its own standards, reform fails.

The central proposition of so-called education reform is that it endeavors to make schooling more entrepreneurial. Now this is bogus on its face. The most salient fact about entrepreneurialism is that most ventures fail. Is that the proper model for the delivery of a universal service? Consider the question irrespective of your thoughts about the larger questions surrounding the provision of universal education. Ostensible reformers say they want to mimic the dynamism and innovation of the private sector. The first question is: to what end, exactly? The second is: do you know how dynamism and innovation work?

"High-Stakes Testing" is just another good example of an entrepreneurial idea that sounds pretty good, but then fails miserably when we try to shoe-horn certain enterprises into it.

Today's Toons

 (hat tip = Democratic Underground)

Let The System Work

When we follow the plan (as directed in that silly old thing called The US Constitution), it seems like we always end up better off for the effort.

Sometimes, it doesn't feel quite right - we don't always get the exact results we're hoping for - but on average, the system works for us when we let it work.

So, when the news came out that about half of the local Justice System was convened in Jahar Tsarnaev's hospital room yesterday, and they read out the charges against him; and they informed him of his rights; and they made sure he understood them; and that he was properly "lawyered up" - I just felt better.  There was something kinda normal about it, and I'm exceedingly relieved that John (Get-Off-My-Lawn) McCain and Lindsey (Huckleberry Closetcase) Graham didn't get their wish about turning him into a super villain straight out of the comic books.

This guy is nothing special.  We should be looking at how his brother got riled up and a little crazy; and how Jahar got caught up in it, but that's a different thing altogether.  What we don't do - what we must never allow - is for anybody to make him out to be anything more than the punk-ass little shit he chose to be.

Today's Homework

Finally.  I've been chasing this one for a long time.

This is the old PBS series that got me going and thinking in a dozen different ways.

The production values are kinda old and a little overdramatic at times, but this really is the real deal.  Stay with it for at least a few episodes.  It's worth it to learn something about how we got here and what we need to be thinking about if we wanna get where we oughta be going.

Connections with James Burke, Episode 1

Parent Ed

Take a few grams of pot, add 2 or 3 otherwise knuckleheaded teenagers; then stand back and be amazed - instant Design & Engineering Department.

Mind Mining

Here's a bit from Sir Ken Robinson at a TED conference.



Those who love to dance are often thought insane by those who cannot hear the music.

(hat tip = facebook friend Carol)

Whoop Di Do

This whole complex of "Guns, Inc" is a ridiculously profitable thing - and it includes "grass roots" joints that can be put together for almost literally a few bucks, which can then be used to fleece the rubes. And all of that is a big reason we'll be hard pressed to do much of anything to cut back on gun violence.

Comfort

Charlie Pierce at The Atlantic:

The comfort of the ordinary. The comfort of the mundane. Let's just have a trial. Let's just have an open and honest trial, with all the evidence right there in the open, and not whispered piecemeal and half-baked out of Spookworld to Richard Engel or Barbara Starr. Let's have an open and honest trial with no showboating from an embattled U.S. Attorney, and all the evidence laid out there in good, honest cop-speak -- "The suspect said..." "The suspect did..." (One of the most startling examples of this came during the sanity hearing granted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee when, reading from his own notes, one of the arresting officers testified, "The suspect stated it takes about an hour to boil a head.") We can do that here. 

Music

Put this on after a few drinks on a warm night, and you still can't get laid?  Well then you'll need to straighten up and just do something about yourself.