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.
We should re-think the subject boundaries in high school education so that they align with important ideas and concepts that will give our children useful analytical lenses for viewing the world.
This education theorist is obviously an idiot. He proposes to teach prepared. synthetic synthesis before those empty brains have any fundamental knowledge. Maybe the foundational knowledge is just too hard to learn or teach. It is both.
Synthesis? Do it on your own time if you can. Got your calc? Got Avogadro's Law? Gas laws? Got the laws of thermodynamics? And the laws of electromagnetism? Got the math of cardiac physiology? If you have these things, and more, maybe we can talk "synthesis." I would wager the author knows none of these.
New ideas about formal education can be assumed to be wrong.
... all our money is, in effect, pocket money, doled out by the
government-parent to the citizen-child. We are the wards, not the
masters, of the state.
Deputy State Department spokesman Marie Harf gives the catastrophic foreign policy of the Obama administration a lighter than air, Valley Girl kind of feel. She is a walking self-parody. As such, she presents a novel use of expressive form.
The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.
- Please, if you must walk, or walk your dogs, in the street in the nightime dark or the morning dark because the sidewalks are snowdrifts, wear something light-colored instead of black. Sheesh. I swerve over the icy roads to try to avoid hitting you.
- I love the wintry cold. Problem is dressing. You go from outside frigid to frigid-then-warm auto, then to cold again, then to heated building. There is no way to dress for the changes.
- Feeding birds. Either do it daily, or not at all. They become dependent on your food to survive, like people on welfare. If you miss a day, they will die unless neighbors are feeding them. If you don't feed them at all, they will figure it out on their own. Or go south.
I was wondering whether Gore is now working on a second documentary, “An even more inconvenient Truth – I was wrong”. But of course he is not doing this. Ideas that have become an ideology do not admit falsification. Global warming has become an ideology, mostly but not exclusively concentrated in the progressive portion of the political spectrum. Its three central propositions have become axiomatic among progressives: that significant global warming is in fact occurring (“the science is in”); that its consequences will be dire; and that its major cause is industrial pollution (especially by evil American capitalism—never mind the fog of pollution hanging over the cities of India and China). Deeply committed progressives are as eager to sign petitions to stop this or that “carbon footprint” as petitions to pull American troops out of Afghanistan or to boycott Israeli products. The only (rather ambiguous) concession to the notion that, just maybe, all the science is not in, has been a shift in language from “global warming” to “climate change”. Critics of the ideology are pelted with pejorative labels—political reactionaries, uneducated ignoramuses (comparable to creatonists or flat-earth theorists), or agents of the petroleum industry.
I am not a climate scientist. But I can claim to be a specialist in ideologues who claim to be privileged epistemologically and thus entitled to disdain anyone who dares to reject their alleged truth...
I was a tough-minded secularist with the kind of soul that looked at the pictures of life with a hard, unblinking eye. Oh, yeah? Show me.
Ditto, Gerard. That is good. Been there, done that too. The sterile life, arrogant life, the "it's about me" life. I am long done with that; got the good infection by finally just letting it happen, opening my cold heart, and letting it in to change me. Or at least to try to.
In the piously denied but ongoing clash of cultures, Islam has multiple advantages. Most are not self-made: the PC-defined victim contributes them. Whatever presents itself as a “religion” benefits from a tolerance that is unwarranted by the facts. Curtailing religious liberty is harder than it is to limit the freedom of speech. In the case of secular opinions, free expression is granted but not unlimited. Example: the exploitation of freedoms to abolish democracy. The softness against extreme leftists shows, the assertion against all subversives determined to abolish democracy suffers from the one-sidedly applied Nazi precedent.
All they want is more love and understanding? Well, so do I...and I am not getting any from them and, on a bad day, I don't even get enough tolerance from my girlfriend.
It's all interesting. However, it's all a repeat of ancient history. Except for the UK, most of the anglosphere has little to do with all of this. Who needs to watch out? Europe, the Saudis, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia. The US can get out of the way and let them all work it out. They have all done this before. Gates of Vienna, Poitiers, Lopanto, and all that.That's why I dislike the FOX warmongers and fearmongers, Yellow Journalism. Chill, and let the locals deal with their issues as they have always done.It's just a blip in a long history of cultural warfare. Let's include Thermopylae.
“I thought the Crown Heights riots were a pogrom because you’re going out trying to kill Jews,” Giuliani said. “Why is this man incapable of saying that? You’ve got to be able to criticize Islam for the parts of Islam that are wrong. You criticize Christianity for the part of Christianity that is wrong. I’m not sure how wrong the Crusades are. The Crusades were kind of an equal battle between two groups of barbarians. The Muslims and the crusading barbarians. What the hell? What’s wrong with this man that he can’t stand up and say there’s a part of Islam that’s sick?”
It's not so much about bubble-wrapping our precious snowflake kids as it is about municipal lawsuits. "Sled at your own risk" does not insulate. Same goes for skating on ponds, etc. Something is deeply wrong with the American tort system, but it's about politics. The wealthy tort bar fills the Democrat cash register. There will never be tort reform, and all outdoor fun will be illegal except on your own property.
It's a rare kid in the northeast who has not broken or sprained something sledding or skiing, not to mention concussions, etc.
The issues with ski areas are complex, and ambulance-chasers abound. Very few things in life have zero risk and even waivers are limited. In the US, almost anybody can sue somebody for anything and get a settlement just to go away. Generally, a settlement is cheaper than defending a case.
Mike Rowe has been, lately, one of my favorite commentators and pitchmen. His primary pitch these days is his foundation Mike Rowe Works, which is geared toward getting people to focus on trades and skills as opposed to higher education. I happen to agree with his view that higher education is not for everybody, should not be for everybody, and is not essential for a large percentage of the jobs available in the world today. Including mine. While my position, if posted, would require some college degree, I happen to work with someone who does not have a degree, and it is entirely likely this person could do just as good a job as I can. Though it took this person much longer to gain similar experience and background to me, this should not be an impediment to further growth.
From my perspective, a college degree is good for a few things. These are not limited to: expanding one's view of the world, improving one's own process of inquiry and learning (my father's old line is you go to college to get an education, not to get a job), and to become technically proficient in a variety of specialized fields where proficiency is otherwise difficult to achieve. I'd toss in that it's also a means of networking and learning social skills to improve future prospects in both life and work.
College is not the only place to learn these things, though it's probably one of the better places to learn them. You could say the same for the military, in some respects. Be that as it may, limiting one's view of a person's potential and capabilities to very specialized qualifications, such as college or military backgrounds, is a bit odd.
Why is this America's problem? As I say, the Russians and Chinese are laughing at us for getting involved in tribal and religious fights in the Middle East. It's about time for a shake-up there anyway, and the national borders are nuts.
I can't narrow down my favorite hymns to a handful, but this is one of them. It was the favorite of a pal of mine who died a year or so ago. It's been on my mind, not sure why.
I am not recommending this as something to take. It's just interesting. Would I try it before all studies are done? Perhaps, just for fun. You can always stop.
Given the effectiveness of marriage in reducing poverty and other social problems, you would think that strengthening marriage would be a top priority for the welfare state. Wrong. The welfare system does the opposite. Welfare actively penalizes marriage by reducing benefits when low-income couples do marry.
Nearly all the Islamic State’s decisions adhere to what it calls, on its billboards, license plates, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology.”
There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.
It's a challenge to be multiculturally-understanding when the cultures want to kill youbut, like the Swedes, Danes, Germans, Brits, and French, we must tryanyway.
We jumped into a chilly and breezy NYC right after early church to catch the Lauder Cubism Show at the Met. Thanks, Leonard Lauder, for this amazing gift to the public. Tomorrow (Monday) is the last day.
In my opinion, pictures like these are best seen in a house, best lived-with, and not in a museum, but such is the world today. Regular people cannot afford them, but really nothing wrong with good prints. Fun.
81 paintings and drawings from 1904-1925 - spectacular but overwhelming. I am a Cubism fan. I consider it highly decorative - eye candy - interesting to the eye, and I imagine that my hero Cezanne would have been fascinated had he lived long enough to see it.
Below is Picasso's 1909 The Oil Mill. Cubism is as abstract as the genius Picasso ever got. His authority of line, color, and design never ceases to amaze me regardless of whatever style he was exploring or inventing. He kept moving but, for a while, he and Braque had a cool thing going with Cubist experimentation.
Winter's Tale: 
It's chilly in olde Newe Englande. I like to say "invigorating." Five below zero F here, with blustery wind. Almost like a normal day in Minneapolis. 
Embarrassed to admit that, being Protestant, I missed Ash Wednesday but that is rare for me.
Indeed we do because we refuse to 
My Doctor Just Gave Me His Cell Phone Number …
ting the men 
The
Some 