We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I blame the teacher's unions and their resistance to change. I have never had an issue with math. My older son is not very good at it, however. My younger son may be much more proficient than I am. Why are they different?
A few reasons. First, my younger son loves sports and sports analysis. Statistics were something he followed from an early age. My older son did not. Secondly, my older son had different teachers and slightly different math programs. These programs mimicked the comedian's schtick:
The comedian Louis C.K. parodied his daughters’ homework in an appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman”: “It’s like, Bill has three goldfish. He buys two more. How many dogs live in London?”
I had an extremely difficult time helping him learn his math based on the program offered by his school. I was unable to learn the principles they were making him learn, how could I provide any assistance?
My younger son's experience, on the other hand, engaged a teaching method similar to that mentioned in the first four paragraphs of the article. He was using life experience and discussion with friends to learn the basics. The math program he was taught was significantly different from his brother's, the methods similar to those I from which I learned (I know the way I learned math was different from public school kids - my Catholic school was outperforming other local schools on standardized tests for years).
Ultimately, it's important to realize math is the basis of logic and reason. A deficiency in math skills may go a long way to explaining why so many Americans think they can get something for nothing from the government. Common Core may have fine intentions, but its implementation is a disaster, and is heavily politicized. It is unlikely to solve the issues it is designed to fix.
Confessionals like this one can sometimes help those people blessed with sunny dispositions to have some understanding of those unfortunates without such dispositions.
What’s driving the libertarian convergence of our two parties, as described by Edsall and Wehner? In a nutshell, the morality of capitalism has won. All of American life is being transformed by the imperatives of the 21st century global marketplace. The Koch brothers, we read, are “moderating” the Republican party by purging it of its concern with social issues, which are really just reactionary prejudices. Silicon Valley is “moderating” the progressivism of the Democratic party, purging it of policies that stifle growth and innovation by stripping members of the meritocracy of their honestly earned property and money. Impediments to globalization have fallen away, and the results are astonishing. More people than ever have access to the world past and present through what they can call up on their various screens, the average lifespan continues to get longer, and the realm of personal freedom or autonomy, as our Supreme Court explains, continues to grow. More than ever, America is defined by a meritocracy based on productivity. Race, class, gender, sexual orientation, even the imperatives of biology (such as birth and death), and so forth mean less than ever in constraining the opportunities for free and industrious individuals.
This libertarian convergence of opinion is clear in both parties...
Few kids would turn down an Ivy scholarship, but, after your first job out, you are on your own and nobody cares about it anymore except for you and your narcissistic needs. Done right, wonderfully life-enriching, speaking as an older Dartmouth fellow from the era when your Ivy BA meant something; many things, really. Lots of social signalling and networking, because everybody likes a Dartmouth lad (or lassie). Those were the good old days when elitism gave you a leg up in the sport of life. Clubs, jobs, friends, grad school, social acceptance, deals, etc. Of course, being a Col. or above in the US military offered similar perks. Respect.
It reminds me of the oldie, "Don't send my boy to Harvard, the dying mother said, Don't send my boy to Harvard, I'd rather see him dead, but send him to Columbia, or better yet Cornell, but as for Pennsylvan-i-ay I'll see him first in hell."
He begins, In the spring of 2008, I did a daylong stint on the Yale admissions committee...
Is there anything that I can do, a lot of young people have written to ask me, to avoid becoming an out-of-touch, entitled little shit? I don’t have a satisfying answer, short of telling them to transfer to a public university. You cannot cogitate your way to sympathy with people of different backgrounds, still less to knowledge of them. You need to interact with them directly, and it has to be on an equal footing: not in the context of “service,” and not in the spirit of “making an effort,” either—swooping down on a member of the college support staff and offering to “buy them a coffee,” as a former Yalie once suggested, in order to “ask them about themselves.”
The best book sale in New England begins this Friday in Southport, CT. It's good fun, and I have stumbled on some random life-enhancing goodies there.
See ya there. I'll be the goofy jerk with the Cape Cod t-shirt and the 16-gauge baseball cap, and I'll be carryin', of course, so don't try to take my precious book.
Everybody judges you by what you read: read Maggie's Farm.
NYC offers countless sights and countless sensory delights - many of them free (someday I may make a list of our favorites for those readers with vehement New York-ophobia - they just never did NYC right), but we have come to make strolls on the High Line an annual pleasure. This July, the perennial beds were wonderful to see. Why can't we make gardens this interesting at the farm?
Well, I thought the idea of making the High Line trail out of the old elevated railroad which was built to bring animals from the Hudson ferries to the slaughterhouses and meatpacking factories (the now-popular and fashionable Meatpacking District) was foolish was stupid (from the West 30s to Gansevoort St.), but I have been wrong a few times in the past. Only a few times.
Who can know or understand all of this crap? All people know is that you can get in trouble if you do not. Insane, but it keeps lawyers and lobbyists employed.
I have always found it fascinating that while elitists and NWO champions constantly proclaim that morality is relative and that conscience is not inherent, somehow they are the ones who possess the proper definition of the “greater good.” If “good” is in all cases relative, then wouldn’t the “greater good” also be entirely relative? This inconsistency in their reasoning does not seem to stop them from forcing the masses through propaganda or violence to accept their version of better judgment.
and
We would be far better served as a species if we were to turn our back on the NWO altogether and move swiftly in the opposite direction. Imagine what tomorrow would be like if there were no controllers, no statists, no despots and no philosopher kings. Imagine a tomorrow where people respect the natural-born rights of others. Imagine a tomorrow where people’s irrational fears are not allowed to inhibit other people’s freedoms. Imagine a tomorrow where interactions between citizens and government are rare or nonexistent. Imagine if we could live our days in peace, independently building our own destinies, in which our successes and failures are our own, rather than the property of the collective. It may not be a perfect world, or a utopia, but I suspect it would be a much better place than we live in today.
Thomas is what's happening today! 
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Anti-GMO Activists 
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