Schools

"Is our children learning?"

I think they are (most of 'em, anyway).  Which kind of amazes me, because the school systems (and especially the teachers) don't get much help really.  The kids are criticized a lot for being lazy or self-centered or spoiled or distracted or whatever sound bite the politicians need today so they can use it at tonight's fundraiser.   The kids' parents get hammered - mostly for the same reason.  Everybody gets madder (at each other), the problems don't get addressed, and the schools just continue to circle the drain.

I don't know answers and I don't have solutions, but I know we don't "fix the schools" doing the things we've been trying for the last 20-30 years.  And really, guys, we're not gonna get anywhere without putting some serious money into the project.  Which is what a lot of people think we've been doing for a lot of years.  Unfortunately, we've been pouring all the money into just about everything but the schools.

Here's a pretty fair example, from Minneapolis-St Paul about one of the biggest problems - Standardized Testing and Assessment.

Though the efficacy of standardized testing has been hotly debated for decades, one thing has become crystal clear: It's big business.

In 2002, President George Bush signed the infamous No Child Left Behind Act. While testing around the country had been on the rise for decades, NCLB tripled it.

"The amount of testing that was being done mushroomed," says Kathy Mickey, a senior education analyst at Simba Information. "Every state had new contracts. There was a lot of spending."

The companies that create and score tests saw profits skyrocket. In 2009, K-12 testing was estimated to be a $2.7 billion industry.

So, yes - we need reform in our education systems, but we need to be sure we're keeping the ideology separate from the economics.  In short, the starting point is this: Stop trying to force-fit the art of teaching into some bullshit standardized business model that really doesn't even exist in the first place.

Peter King Is The Terrorist

I guess the Repubs thought we were getting to a place where we understood how phony "The Islamist Threat" is.  So, of course, they have to ramp up the fear again.  We won't be distracted enough from the strip mining of the economy, so we need something more to rail against.

I have an idea.  There are a few Dems on that committee, and they should call people to testify who'll say nothing but the this: "Why don't you guys just tell me what you want me to say, and I'll say it?"

BTW: here's a list I cribbed entirely from Crooks and Liars.  It might give us a slightly different perspective.

-- July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how "liberals" are "destroying America," walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.

-- October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.

-- December 2008: A pair of "Patriot" movement radicals -- the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted "to attack the political infrastructure" -- threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.

-- December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear "dirty bomb" in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.

-- January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.

-- February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.

-- February 2009: A 60-year-old former Republican Party campaign volunteer opens fire on a gathering of Chilena exchange students in an apartment complex in Miramar Beach, Fla., after telling a neighbor he wanted to start a "revolution" against Latino immigrants.

-- April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.

-- April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama's purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.

-- May 2009: A "sovereign citizen" named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

-- June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.

-- February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one "domestic terrorism" too.)

-- March 2010: Seven militiamen from the Hutaree Militia in Michigan and Ohio are arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate local police officers with the intent of sparking a new civil war.

-- March 2010: An anti-government extremist named John Patrick Bedell walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two officers before he is himself shot dead.

-- May 2010: A "sovereign citizen" from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.

-- May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.

-- May 2010: Two "sovereign citizens" named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.

-- July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.

-- September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year--old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the "Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant.

-- January 2011: A 22-year-old gunman named Jared Lee Loughner with a long grudge against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and a paranoid hatred of the government walks into a public Giffords event and shoots her in the head, then keeps firing, killing six people and wounding 14 more. Gifford miraculously survives.

-- January 2011: A backpack bomb with the potential of killing or injuring dozens of people is found along the route of a Martin Luther King Day “unity march” in downtown Spokane.

-- January 31, 2011: An Army veteran from California with a previous arrest record for making threats against President Bush is arrested for making terrorist outside a mosque in Michigan inside a car whose trunk was filled with Class C explosives.

Planned Parenthood

Circus America

Lindsay Lohan is in court again, and of course, there's lots of press coverage to make sure we all have a good close look and a great chance to understand the ins and outs of the issues and nuances of Lindsay's difficulties.

Meanwhile, Bradley Manning is stripped naked every night; he's "interrogated" every day; he's allowed one phone call and to send one letter per month; he rarely gets to talk with his lawyer; and the Press Poodles do nothing, see nothing, report nothing.

This is what we call justice?

Late Winter

Gray and rainy-looking. Colder than it oughta be.

Worth Remembering

A basic rule:
Every snarly complicated problem has a solution which is simple and elegant and wrong.

Common Sense Correlative:
It didn't suddenly get fucked up yesterday, and it's not going to get unfucked by tomorrow.

Infrastructure Issues

Small-c conservatives do in fact get it.  We did not build roads because we're a great nation - we became a great nation because we built roads.

From a report out of The New America Foundation:

Under-investing in infrastructure carries costs for households, businesses, and the government by increasing maintenance, wasting time, and allocating resources inefficiently.  These costs reduce efficiency and impede economic growth.

Ya want your government to act more like a business?  Then insist on business-savvy investment in things like Physical Plant and Human Resource Development for starters.

Teachers' Pay (updated)

Here's a look at what teachers get paid in various countries.  And, gosh, there seems to be a connection between higher pay and better school performance.  Hoodathunkit.

This chart can be easily (mis)interpreted to mean that we're paying more for teachers and getting less in return.  The problem with that assumption is that Finns have (on average) about $450/month more disposable income than the average here in the US.  And their bennies are better, primarily because their healthcare coverage costs a lot less.  Surprise, surprise.

The oddest thing tho' is that generally, the cost of living is quite a bit higher in FInland vs the US except for some very important items - Mortage Rates & Utilities - but they're eatin' our lunch on education. 

I wonder if we could possibly learn something from Finland.  They seem to be doing something very very right.

Nobody Tells Us

I was in a running battle on FaceBook last week with an old high school buddy who insists that Gubmint Workers are greedy and that the real problem is that their retirement bennies are causing the states to go broke.

When I'm talking politics or anything else, my training tells me to listen, process, deconstruct, reconstruct and then rebut.  I'm learning (gradually) that the talking points from Right Radicals need to be dismissed loudly as soon as they fall outa their little pie holes - no matter what it is, I'm trying to retrain myself to demand verification and backup.

Unfortunately, as Mr Churchill said, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to gets its pants on."

From McClatchy:

A close look at state and local pension plans across the nation, and a comparison of them to those in the private sector, reveals a more complicated story. However, the short answer is that there's simply no evidence that state pensions are the current burden to public finances that their critics claim.

The Beauty Of Ugly Things

From J Henry Fair via Gerald Peters Gallery in NYC

Great photos and some obvious talent at work, but I get the feeling that the net effect is to give us another way to rationalize the destruction of our habitat.

Refrigerant Manufacturing Waste

Hog Fecal Waste Lagoon

BP Oil Spill - Deep Water Horizon

Coal Ash Pond

Stupid Republican Tricks

I just copied and pasted all these in directly from NYT.  The 3rd one down is the one that really chaps my ass.  I was ridiculously lucky in my career, and got to work with a bunch of skilled and committed people who busted their humps night and day to make the world a little safer for humans.  This feels like somebody wants to throw all that away.

I plan on making some calls, to see if there's any kind of bright side to this, and put up an update later.

The Budget Fight Continues

House Republicans’ efforts to slash federal spending could derail the economic recovery and would not address the real sources of budget deficits.

February 27, 2011OPINIONEDITORIAL

Slashing Community Service

House Republicans voted to cut programs that encourage Americans to serve their communities and the country. A look at the possible fallout.

March 2, 2011OPINIONEDITORIAL

Cutting Poison Control

House Republicans’ request to cut nearly all the money for poison control centers perfectly illustrates the thoughtlessness of their austerity bill.

March 4, 2011OPINIONEDITORIAL

On Climate, Who Needs the Facts?

When it comes to preventing and mitigating the effects of global warming, among House Republicans, politics trumps science.

March 5, 2011OPINIONEDITORIAL

Government Mule

Louis CK

Takes some getting used to, and ya gotta stay with it to get where he's trying to go.

Wish You Were Here

The Tribe Explained - update

Here's a bit more on Agnotology from Wired Magazine.

"People always assume that if someone doesn't know something, it's because they haven't paid attention or haven't yet figured it out," Proctor says. "But ignorance also comes from people literally suppressing truth—or drowning it out—or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what's true and what's not."

I get into arguments all the time.  Usually online, but sometimes, I just can't let some random comment by some random acquaintance slide by unchallenged.  I also have a few drinkin' buddies and when we get together, it's time to play "What's Yer Fuckin' Problem?".  It gets pretty heated on occasion, but we're still good friends and at least nobody's ever hit anybody.  I've been trying to work on tempering my more aggressive impulses.  I wouldn't say that I have a short fuse for the most part, but there are definitely some things that'll set me off, and this idea of WIllful Ignorance is at the heart of the matter for me.

I'm always looking for obscure (or just different) and seemingly unrelated concepts; trying to find ways of mixing ideas together to come up with something new or at least something that pushes me forward in my own development in whatever small way is possible.  I guess I tho't everybody did the same, and I should hope that most still do, but it's pretty apparent that an awful lot of folks don't.

Anyway, my new synthesis has to do with putting Agnotology together with the ice cream scene from Thank You For Smoking.  I can argue with somebody who is impervious to the facts all I want, but I'm never going to change his mind.  So the point of the exercise is not to wear myself out on him, but to argue in a way that could influence whoever else might be listening.