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Education

Friday, October 17, 2008

MICHAEL POLLAN HAS WRITTEN AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT-ELECT—START THINKING ABOUT FOOD

MICHAEL POLLAN has written A NUMBER OF BOOKS, the last several of them about food, and the U.S. food supply, and our peculiar way of producing it.

I recently finished THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA, and Thank You, LAURA for insisting, and for loaning me the book. I truly enjoyed the last half of it, where he talks about sustainable agriculture and about hunting and gathering…but the first half about U.S. factory agriculture, is pretty horrifying. Even given that, I recommend the book - it will change the way you look at the grocery store, and for the better.

Posted by Earl on 10/17 at 03:47 PM
Miscellany • Education • Food • Politics • Domestic • Healthcare • Economics • Comments •

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

WHAT ABOUT BARACK OBAMA AND WILLIAM AYERS - ‘60S RADICAL BOMBER? UPDATED.

Well, CNN (well-known functionary of the vast right-wing conspiracy) has taken a look:
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I guess the question that pops into my mind is something like: “Would Anderson Cooper be asking ‘What’s the big deal?’ if the two principals were John McCain and ERIC RUDOLPH?”
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Somehow, I kinda doubt that Cooper, and the legacy media in general, would find that relationship copacetic. So…..why the difference?
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UPDATE: In case you’ve been buying the dismissal of this connection with something like “He did something terrible when I was a child, so what’s the big deal?” CHECK THIS OUT

An idea of what Ayers has in mind for America’s schools was provided in his own words, not 40 years ago when Obama was eight years old, but less than two years ago in November 2006 at the World Education Forum in Caracas hosted by dictator Hugo Chavez.

With Chavez at his side, Ayers voiced his support for “the political educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how . . . all of you continue to overcome the failures of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.”

Ayers told the great humanitarian Chavez: “Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions large and small. La educacion es revolucion.” It is that form of socialist revolution that Ayers, and Obama, have worked to bring to America.

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READ IT ALL, and remember…..one of the two Presidential candidates carried on a long-term working relationship with this man, including working on educational issues in Chicago. A relationship that ended ONLY IN 2005 , when the first national senatorial campaign began. Think carefully - how much do you really know about your candidate?

Posted by Earl on 10/07 at 09:19 PM
Miscellany • Education • Politics • Domestic • Comments •

Sunday, July 01, 2007

YOUNG WOMEN ARE DOING MUCH BETTER AT EDUCATION THAN YOUNG MEN

There’s a fair amount of discussion about this among U.S. academics….with a strong contingent holding that this really doesn’t matter much. In fact, there are some who seem to think it’s a good thing that girls are “getting a little back” on the boys, who were somehow favored in the patriarchal past.

A very short-sighted view, it now appears (confirming common sense, I’d say.) In eastern Germany, there is a growing shortage of women—in many towns only 75 for each 100 men, in a few it’s down to 40 - due to the emigration of the young females to more promising locales in the west.

It is a vicious spiral. Girls are more studious than boys, so they get better qualified and migrate west to find both partners and jobs. The boys lack role models at home, where fathers are often unemployed, and at school, where teachers are mostly female. Young men now account for 65% of German high-school dropouts….The study, which combines reportage with figures, tells of frustrated gangs of youths drinking outside supermarkets and sleeping on their loading ramps.

Young, poorly-educated men with no jobs and no particular prospects - either for earning a living or finding a mate who might civilize them. And in whose universe is this not a serious problem? Surely we shouldn’t wait until the situation in our country is as dire as it is in eastern Europe…...

READ THE WHOLE THING

Hat Tip: Mark Steyn in THE CORNER

Posted by Earl on 07/01 at 05:52 PM
Miscellany • Education • Politics • Domestic • Comments •

Saturday, February 17, 2007

SMART WOMEN, STUPID CHOICES…..?

The sad truth is that it is “educated” women who are having their choices more and more limited these days…...but not by men.

Despite all the hype about glass ceilings, and favoritism for males, and the rest of the nonsense being sold by the feminists in our country, the real problem is that young MEN aren’t taking education seriously, with nasty repercussions for society, and more personally, for young women who graduate from college and would like to find a nice young man with similar educational attainments.

Posted by Earl on 02/17 at 10:58 PM
Family Matters • Miscellany • Education • Comments •

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

MORE FROM THE “DEPARTMENT OF ‘DUH…...’”

Today’s news flash is…..wait for it…...it’s coming…....

Students actually DO (gasp) reward easier teachers with higher ratings on the “student evaluations of teachers” that college administrators love so much! And the corollary is that the ratings on teacher quality are NOT predictive of actual student learning, as measured by how well-prepared students are for the next class in a sequence.

Posted by Earl on 01/30 at 11:14 AM
Miscellany • Education • Comments •

Thursday, December 14, 2006

HAPPY TO LIVE IN TENNESSEE…...

Where mychurch has a table in the lobby offering members the chance to write a letter to one of our soldiers….and where elementary school teachers can engage their students in showing apprciation for the guys (and gals) who keep them free.

READ THE WHOLE THING

Posted by Earl on 12/14 at 10:03 PM
Miscellany • Education • Politics • Iraq • Comments •

I’M GETTING GRADES OUT AND REALLY DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS, BUT…......

I HAVE to share this with you. Charles Rangel recently made comments about how if our military guys had any other options they wouldn’t have “settled for” an Army (or Navy, etc.) career. Oh yeah?

Ari Steinmetz wanted to join up but didn’t make the cut:

I was also struck by the Doonesbury arc in which a student declares he can best serve his country at a hedge fund. My story is something of the opposite.

I tried to gain admission to the Air Force Academy but, while I received a congressional nomination, my school record wasn’t strong enough. I tried to enlist after college to enter flight school, but my recruiter said competition for such slots was too stiff and my test scores weren’t high enough. My fallback was the M.B.A. program at Columbia. After one semester there, my recruiter called me up to say a slot had opened for me. I jumped at the chance and dropped out of school. After three months of officer training I shipped out to flight school at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Okla. While I had a great time, once again I didn’t make the cut and flunked out after nine months. I went back and finished my M.B.A. Now I am a mutual fund manager.

So, you see, I had to settle for an Ivy League M.B.A. and a Wall Street career because I wasn’t good enough for the military.

MORE responses to one of our Congressdummies are to be found HERE

HAT TIP: Brother Victor

Posted by Earl on 12/14 at 04:30 PM
Miscellany • Education • Politics • Iraq • Comments •

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