tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036302587216847922024-02-20T20:33:52.380-08:00Obliquely EdifiedEducationally-based blog that explores issues and proposes real solutions.Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-13505561881730276762010-07-20T12:12:00.000-07:002010-07-20T12:13:11.576-07:00If we build it, will they come?Distressing images of relief efforts still failing to provide hope in Haiti bring to mind that which could easily provide jobs, even elite ones, and a quick source of revenue for an underdeveloped resource in Haiti: its people.<br /><br />Reading an article about Pierre Garcon of the Indianapolis Colts worrying about his family brought an obvious question to mind: How many world-class athletes must there be in Haiti who simply have been afforded the opportunity to develop and showcase their skills? Certainly, much has been made of the constant flow of Major Leaguers from its island neighbor, the Dominican Republic. Similarly, Jamaica has produced stunning track stars, why not Haiti?<br /><br />If you build it, they will come!<br /><br />Perhaps the Baseball should consider how rapidly baseball helped revive a war-ravaged Japan. The ability of MLB (and perhaps some colleges as well) to set up facilities rapidly, providing scouts and trainers should produce some needed good publicity for MLB while sprouting a farm system that would have long-range benefits as well. Why not a major league-style ballpark somewhere in the island’s interior built almost entirely by their unemployed and under-entertained? <br /><br />Think of the jobs, the good will, and the re-integration of baseball that may result. And while this U.S. government-subsidized monopoly begins to understand its obligation to reach out, perhaps the NBA, NFL, and MLS may see the light as well. Give people some hope for the future and some jobs along the way. Provide as many athletes as is practical with educational visas and bilingual support, perhaps in some of the small towns and rural areas in the United States where they could bring their families with them, sponsored by local churches and civic organizations. <br /><br />Such controlled immigration could dramatically re-vitalize the Haitian economy, providing immediate jobs and helping to build a future with the obscene amounts of money our subsidized sports institutions generate.Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-44978251022867759042010-03-24T14:23:00.000-07:002010-03-24T14:52:50.986-07:00El Rushbo, demagogueWhile many see this guy as a harmless windbag, an entertainer whose teddy-bear charm endears him to little old conservative ladies who would vote Republican anyway, others see him as a pernicious influence on the body politic, a polarizing force who drives a wedge between members of his own party who moderately progressive ideas he should be considering, if not embracing.<br /><br />Those of us who worry about him are concerned about his ability to misinform the masses, cynically manipulating the political process, elevating pseudo-science and half-truths into the realm of credibility, thereby painting himself as the sole teller of "truth" on the airwaves. This self-aggrandizement is made all the more dangerous by an American listening public which has been schooled in a largely socialistic public school environment where mediocrity is acceptable and intellectual curiosity discouraged.<br /><br />The end result of his bloviations and intentional misstatements has been a Republican Party in disarray. The once proud, thoughtful GOP which had William F. Buckley as its intellectual guide and politicians of the caliber of Barry Goldwater, Everett Dirksen, and Gerald Ford has degenerated into a radicalized shell of principles it once eschewed: war-mongering, budget-busting, and authoritarian-praising. <br /><br />That this cabal of radical, war-hawking former Democrats can take over the Republican Party's political apparatus, polarizing public opinion and destroying the ability to build a national consensus disturbs many who understand the value of strong countervailing in which neither held a monopoly on "truth."<br /><br />Democracy can only survive if we have strong competition for the best ideas, a political atmosphere where consensus is sought; failing that, compromise is reached and the mechanism of government continues to serve. That entire principle was eroded first by the leadership of Newt Gingrich (with the reluctant acquiesence of Ronald Reagan), then Tom DeLay, his intellectual inferior who with Karl Rove sought a permanent majority of Right Wing ideologues, something that only fascist countries have ever glorified. The demolition of the Party was complete with the arrogant tactics exemplified by the derisive term RINO (Republican in Name Only) which forced the defection of moderates such as Arlen Specter, Jim Leach, Colin Powell, and Lincoln Chaffee.<br /><br />To all of this, Rush has only gloated, professing "we don't need them!" To the contrary, the country needs them to anchor the political center, the swing voting bloc that decides elections. Pushing them away only ensures bitterness and the occasionally violent displays of hatred we're seeing now with increased regularity and within-party sanction.<br /><br />This is likely the end Rush has in mind as he creates the "Liberal" hobgoblins only he can defend us against. The problem with this is that the circle of "Liberals" to one who espouses such intractable views is ever-increasing; his core admirers will probably remain faithful until they either die (yes, most of the most devout are in the elderly age cohorts) or he implodes (an incresingly likely possibility). At any rate, it's a cult of personality which has far less to do with democracy than it does in laying a blueprint for the very Communist takeover he rails against. <br /><br />“I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave cries ‘Give, give!’” - Abigail Adams, letter to her husband, 1775Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-33075828628669998702009-11-03T19:10:00.000-08:002009-11-06T08:12:55.038-08:00<span style="font-weight:bold;">Dumbing down to the LCD</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” – Ray Douglas Bradbury (b. 1920), American writer of science fiction</span><br /><br />We’re rapidly achieving this goal in American education as we increasingly hand over the reins of education to the least well educated among us, then reduce expectations to the pacification required of a teenage babysitter. As long as we’re not bothered by the brats we’ve sired, whoever is handling them is doing a good enough job.<br /><br />What happens, then, when these coddled and drug-addled miscreants finally attain chronological adulthood? Will they be so willing to reward our non-interference with lavish Social Security and Medicare benefits as we have our elders? Will we finally get what we deserve?<br /><br /> <br /><br /><a href="http://izlematic.com/video/wKEmlxDge9E/todd-snider-at-shakori-hills.html">Stuck on the Corner</a> (Prelude to a Heart Attack)<br /><br />by Todd Snider (From “Peace Queer”)Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-40475285868562475212009-07-01T09:24:00.000-07:002009-07-08T14:36:58.014-07:00Why we can't handle the "truth"<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/01/_in_a_move_that.html">Item:</a> New Obama Order on Transparency, FOIA requests<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Can President Obama be expected to keep his promise to facilitate transparency in government?</span><br /> <br />"Transparency" in politics is truly a joke, one which I wish President Obama would not propagate. While progress toward transparency is admirable and necessary, particularly when one considers the blatant stonewalling that was so much a part of the previous administration, the idea that we can actually get there is laughable and perhaps not always desirable.<br /><br />Fact is, if a group of politicians sits in a room together knowing everyone is watching, nothing can get done; too much posturing and pandering is inevitable. This has been verified by research. The more dogmatic the position, the less likely that progress toward an equitable resolution occurs.<br /><br />The only way things get done is through deals that involved compromise. That's where "morality" gets fuzzy and invites corruption. People don't want the truth unless it favors their agendas. Since no two people have the exact same agenda, there must always be compromise if anything is to get done ion a democracy. It's easy to see how a politician then learns to lie to protect this truth; it's the only possible way to get elected. The degree to which they are willing to “lie” for the greater good determines their altruism (though they’d prefer the euphemism, “prevaricate”).<br />We fail ourselves by electing politicians only on the basis of what they can do for us. Parochial interests necessarily conflict with the good of society as a whole. It's not until we consider what's good for the country that we can get rid of the pork-barreling, pandering, hypocrites we have now in politics.<br /> <br />All politics is ultimately local, and there's the rub. Our vote for the President doesn't even count, yet we attribute everything right or wrong about this country to Obama. That detracts from the necessity of our personal involvement on local levels, going to school board meetings, city council meetings, finding out exactly what the people who work for us are doing to the best of our ability. It's so much easier to abstractly comment on some vague issue we have no control over whatsoever.<br /><br /><br />“Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us - and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.” - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney DetectionDon Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-39804858430658528972009-06-30T00:58:00.000-07:002009-06-30T01:00:31.391-07:00Back to your Baracks!<span style="font-style:italic;">News item on the Yahoo home page 2:29 a.m., June 30, 2009:</span><br /><br />"AP - Honduras' ousted president said he will return to his country in two days and reclaim control from coup leaders, urging soldiers to go back to their <span style="font-weight:bold;">baracks</span> and stop cracking down on thousands of his supporters who have protested his overthrow."<br /><br />Was that a freudian slip? Do the Honduran soldiers each have their own personal Barack or must they share him with others?Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-6752755329295506432009-06-26T19:25:00.000-07:002009-06-26T19:32:25.614-07:00Politcs + Power = Predictable resultIt's said that we get what we pay for. With politicians, that certainly seems to be the case. Pseudo-religion and political chicanery have produced a batch of legislators who grasp for our wallets all the while professing noble intent. Believing that sexual misconduct wouldn't be involved within this atmosphere of power and greed requires tremendous naivete.<br /><br />The recent spate of those who've dallied with women not their wives remind us of the importance not of faithfulness, but why so many insist that monogamy is some sort of virtue that the rest of us should aspire to.<br /><br />Sociobiologists have long questioned whether some men are simply programmed for dalliance, whether the genetically implanted need to further improve the species though diversity of mating trumps the religiously enforced rule to remain faithful. That the futility of such sexual repression makes a liar out of so many, brings the very rule into question: Is it realistic to require marriages to remain forever exclusive?<br /><br />Dan Umanoff, a doctor whose prolific postings about addictions are so often at odds with the medical community's treatment of the subject, postulates that some evolutionary need is being fulfilled here, that without these perjoratively labeled "addicts", mankind would be hopelessly stuck in a reactionary, conservative past of the nature religion reinforces. Umanoff coins the term "hypoism" to collect all whose addictions, may include drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, gambling, business workaholicism, OCB, or simply ADD, under a roof of excess, suggesting that the allele labeled the "hunter" gene is also found in so many whose contributions to society we so much admire, yet with personal lives so prone to tragedy.<br /><br />Micahel Jackson is certainly among those whose eccentricities has evolved music beyond those he once emulated, but whose personal peccadilloes left him the subject of an endless barrage of bad jokes. Whether we can have one without the other seems to be the unanswerable question; can someone whose gone through extraordinary lengths to build a career through personal obsession suddenly relinquish that quest once the "goal" has been attained? How long can Michael Phelps stay out of the water before he turns into just another fast swimmer?<br /><br />Many atrocities have been committed in efforts to keep the hypotic "hungry", therefore retaining the desire to achieve even through artificial means. Saltieri's deceit of Mozart gave us some of the best music this world has ever seen, yet likely contributed to his early demise.<br /><br />Today, we have a couple of million inmates in American prisons, some guilty of no more than adherence to their biological urges, yet we construct complex systems whereby these hypoism victims can be judged and set aside from society despite increasing evidence that such behavior can be re-directed constructively. But then, perhaps those in a position to extend forgiveness and progressive treatment have a vested interest in status quo, in bringing everyone down to their level instead of up to the levels of society's mavericks.<br /><br />We're not paying our politicians enough to promote progress, and we clamor for non-reform. Every neoconservative position taken, every fanatically religious position adopted, every anti-evolutionary position voiced, is yet another impediment from the duplicitous exhortation for us to be what we want to be.Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-21315425980708709132009-06-17T06:49:00.000-07:002009-06-17T07:37:55.088-07:00<span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Our friends, the Zionists?</span><br /><br /><br />When the United Nations agreement to wedge the terroristic Jewish state in Palestine received our backing (in an apparent betrayal to our oil buddies, the Saudis, to whom we had pledged our unwavering support) all watchers knew there would be trouble. Most figured the hostile surrounding Arabs would simply wipe them off the map, but their survival first amazed, then worried onlookers. Would Israel project the harsh treatment many had received at the hands of the Nazis onto their newly-subjugated Palestinian neighbors?<br /><br />Certainly a case can be made that gestapo-like tactics have kept the Palestinians down, economically and politically. It's a mixed back certainly worthy of much more scrutiny than most Americans--whose tax dollars flow their at a rate of over $3 billion per year--are willing to give it. Our <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza"><span style="font-style: italic;">affluenza</span></a> has made us more than willing to stave off our enemies by proxy, some religious nuts even prophesizing Armageddon using modern day Jews as a tool to bring it about.<br /><br />President Obama's recent unequivocal speech makes their present denial of an Arab state untenable. The United Nations created this state; it should be their responsibility, not just ours, to ensure that the indigenous population of that area is not systematically oppressed.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);font-family:arial;" >More than a thousand words</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkblBs5Dlz1aAEo2VUg-d-DjZMx_ppDICyI4eSXoA8CuRB471nBj0xQC9VBYe5x6ndY0_VmWwvKxnlGZHD8dcWDRBkgm0G7o_iId2PnpGuPJirvqm6pu-ijGImS0YbrLoidsyCPP1ZOSEW/s1600-h/600xPopupGallery.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 451px; height: 291px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkblBs5Dlz1aAEo2VUg-d-DjZMx_ppDICyI4eSXoA8CuRB471nBj0xQC9VBYe5x6ndY0_VmWwvKxnlGZHD8dcWDRBkgm0G7o_iId2PnpGuPJirvqm6pu-ijGImS0YbrLoidsyCPP1ZOSEW/s400/600xPopupGallery.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348302658871336050" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">A Palestinian boy reacts as youths frighten him by pointing their toy guns at him in an alley in the West Bank refugee camp of Al-Amari in Ramallah.</span> AP photo by Muhammed Muheisen<br /><br /><br />Obvious comment to be made after reading <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%22Let%20your%20kid%20text%20during%20dinner%21%20Let%20your%20kid%20text%20during%20school%21%20It%20pays%20off,%22%2015-year-old%20Kate%20Moore%20said%20Tuesday%20after%20winning%20the%20LG%20U.S.%20National%20Texting%20Championship.%20%20After%20all,%20she%20said:%20%22Your%20kid%20could%20win%20money%20and%20publicity%20and%20a%20phone.%22%20%20For%20the%20Des%20Moines,%20Iowa,%20teenager,%20her%2014,000%20texts-per-month%20habit%20reaped%20its%20own%20rewards,%20landing%20her%20the%20competition%20prize%20of%20$50,000%20just%20eight%20months%20after%20she%20got%20her%20first%20cell%20phone.">this:</a><br /><br /><blockquote>"Let your kid text during dinner! Let your kid text during school! It pays off," 15-year-old Kate Moore said Tuesday after winning the LG U.S. National Texting Championship.<br /><br />After all, she said: "Your kid could win money and publicity and a phone."<br /><br />For the Des Moines, Iowa, teenager, her 14,000 texts-per-month habit reaped its own rewards, landing her the competition prize of $50,000 just eight months after she got her first cell phone.</blockquote>Will that $50,ooo be enough to cover her phone bills thus far as she "practiced" for the competition?<br /><br /><br /><blockquote></blockquote>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-27801531663086458742009-05-16T16:54:00.000-07:002009-05-16T16:56:43.277-07:00Amazing to see how vociferously (even stupidly) they defend their own...<br /><a href="http://www.usmagazine.com/news/sarah-palin-defends-miss-california-2009145"><br />From US magazine:</a><br /><br />Miss California Carrie Prejean has Sarah Palin on her side.<br /><br />The conservative Alaska governor released a statement Wednesday night (as picked up by Fox News) slamming "the liberal onslaught of malicious attacks" against Prejean, 21, who first ignited controversy for coming out against same-sex marriage at last month's Miss USA pageant.<br /><br />"I can relate, as a liberal target myself," Palin said. "What I find so remarkable is that these politically-motivated attacks fail to show that what Carrie and I believe is also what President Obama and Secretary Clinton believe -- marriage is between a man and a woman."<br /><br />Continued Palin: "I applaud Donald Trump for standing with Carrie during this time. And I respect Carrie for standing strong and staying true to herself, and for not letting those who disagree with her deny her protection under the nation's First Amendment Rights."<br /><br />"Our Constitution protects us all -- not just those who agree with the far left," Palin went on.<br /><br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Once again, Sarah Palin betrays an astonishing lack of understanding what the First Amendment is all about.<br /><br />Lesson One: It is NOT about telling the media who they can or cannot criticize.<br /><br />I strongly doubt that anyone with a legitimate press card acted in any way to deny Carrie Prejean her right to make a absolute fool out of herself. To the contrary, they've been shoving mikes under her nose hoping she'd say something even stupider than the laughable beauty contest political statement. Just because the neocons "Dixie Chicked" Natalie Maines doesn't mean the uberLibs did the same to most recent blonde to spew stupidity in front of a microphone. Many simply exercised their First Amendment rights to ridicule her. And it was soooo easy!<br /><br />For Veep wannabe Sarah to even suggest the First Amendment played anywhere into this scenario shows remarkable ignorance as to what it's all about. The Donald or anyone else running the pageant could have denied her the right to speak at a function they financed into a mike they paid for. They didn't. If she said something they didn't like, they would have been perfectly within their rights to fire her. The Donald did not. Only when public funds are involved is this even a controversy.<br /><br />Lesson Two: It is NOT acceptable for a government official to even suggest to a public librarian that certain books ought to be removed from a library. That is totally unacceptable prior restraint, fully subject to the United States Constitution. Even in a little town like Wasilla, Alaska.<br /><br />Lesson Three: This one was learned by the voters in the last election who resoundingly acknowledged that Sarah Palin is too stupid to be Vice-President. My guess is that far from preventing her run for the Presidency in 2012, Democrats would do what Rush did to Hillary: encourage her to run!Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-90416947633532067272009-04-10T00:36:00.000-07:002009-04-10T00:46:06.842-07:00New school religion: narcissismA letter writer in Thursday's Houston Chronicle, Neil Stovall, commits an error of false logic when he connects the downfall of public schools to the elimination of a school-imposed religious preference. Religion is part of the world geography curriculum in public high schools, particularly when discussing a peoples' cultural exigencies. What I'm not allowed to do is devalue a particular religious belief any more than the facts of a situation such as colonialism allow. In that case, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how religion was used as a political weapon, something our forefathers sought to avoid when they wrote about separating church and state. Christianity has never prevented violence, though there’s plenty of evidence to support the contention that it provokes it. When I teach about compasses, I'm not allowed to point them in a moral direction; my own sense of morality will not permit it.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjztS_gIwji_SO5GL3BqSwSaWLh1PKhBR95kfaxewBSCpI-wooIZX8h_QY6qp2JP3kP0p4Hico_UNGhz3kqH-0GiJ3TXoc3EWpYsjkKXtLUao8P6dz7MU-Wb2pXcYJBYglfj-If1N23K6EP/s1600-h/compass_rose.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 105px; height: 94px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjztS_gIwji_SO5GL3BqSwSaWLh1PKhBR95kfaxewBSCpI-wooIZX8h_QY6qp2JP3kP0p4Hico_UNGhz3kqH-0GiJ3TXoc3EWpYsjkKXtLUao8P6dz7MU-Wb2pXcYJBYglfj-If1N23K6EP/s400/compass_rose.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322965744976446898" /></a><br /><br /><br />Schools do teach a form or morality which is rarely discussed. The pervasive self-esteem myth has assumed a religious dimension to the point where we jeopardize our jobs if we do not pass a prescribed number, thus perpetuating the false belief that the primary purpose of school is to promote an unrealistic comfort with mediocrity. Religion, therefore has not left the schools, it has simply morphed into a socialistic devaluing of our culture through the lowering of mass expectations, thereby perpetuation the institution itself rather than the students it purports to serve. Principals have gone from the unyielding upholders of discipline to the pandering liaisons between the school and parents. Just as priests once obfuscated the sacred doctrines as a means of retaining political power through mysticism, modern administrators erect barriers (in the name of security, of course) to prevent parents from having a more direct involvement in schools. The “Pass TAKS” mantra has replaced means to pass it--namely reading—as teaching to the test has replaced the assignment of projects once designed to improve critical thinking skills. After all, if children are actually taught critical thinking skills, it stands to reason they might actually use them to criticize, and the institution cannot allow such subversion from within.Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-30593500509076643032009-04-08T21:08:00.000-07:002009-04-09T00:40:55.465-07:00Bainbridge takes on pirates...againThe last time pirates boarded an American vessel at sea, as far as I can tell, was during the early 19th-century when the Barbary pirates based along the Mediterranean coast of Algeria manage to capture the pride of the fledgling American Navy, the <span style="font-style:italic;">Philadelphia</span> and captained by William Bainbridge, after she ran aground in pursuit of a pirate vessel near the Tripolitan harbor in 1803. Rather than concede to the rapscallions this powerful frigate, a daring plan was implemented by a young Lt. Stephan Decatur to set her afire without loss of life. Even the British were impressed. It took Decatur and Bainbridge the better part of a decade to make that part of the Mediterranean safe for commercial shipping.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3kaeRTzKvn4lL6W5T90HjkPxxxggHfhypHK6Sp40Y0nU3Y-POzJO9Lfu_fMqmgbHETdvmCO4M9q_rMqYgoSZlmU-Q4yHmZMWUGx-HkoBKHduA_eXFFrZANmhPX83nNspOHXu564Ju6yaY/s1600-h/bainbridge_firing.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 255px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3kaeRTzKvn4lL6W5T90HjkPxxxggHfhypHK6Sp40Y0nU3Y-POzJO9Lfu_fMqmgbHETdvmCO4M9q_rMqYgoSZlmU-Q4yHmZMWUGx-HkoBKHduA_eXFFrZANmhPX83nNspOHXu564Ju6yaY/s400/bainbridge_firing.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322545047853124498" /></a><br /><br />Two centuries later, Bainbridge is again chasing pirates, only this time as the nameplate of a nuclear-powered frigate. The latest news reports indicate that the crew of the <span style="font-style:italic;">Maersk Alabama</span>, including 20 Americans, overpowered their armed attackers, sending them adrift in a lifeboat though with their unfortunate captain. Perhaps the droning of Navy choppers overhead can convince those would-be extortionists of their untenable position and that handing over Capt. Phillips unharmed would be in their best interests.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe68ec1nClpAAW-zBgrT2qWgsD2j87MRPLlxKbTj00ey0u71QkOPQBvRzCO-DYAd00jVuRm7U6dwNJyAREBF4pPK7ngUy_hxUMVtXeINRdmH8WIwVWw4LiveXv36EHDgxbkQwdKIz2lNUL/s1600-h/_45647804_-4.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 226px; height: 282px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe68ec1nClpAAW-zBgrT2qWgsD2j87MRPLlxKbTj00ey0u71QkOPQBvRzCO-DYAd00jVuRm7U6dwNJyAREBF4pPK7ngUy_hxUMVtXeINRdmH8WIwVWw4LiveXv36EHDgxbkQwdKIz2lNUL/s400/_45647804_-4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322558452512436354" /></a>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-24460848343798591412009-03-28T14:05:00.000-07:002009-03-28T14:09:30.572-07:00War on Terror Cannot be WonWhat Bushies and his neocons never seem to understand is that we cannot "win" a war against insurgency any more than police can win a riot. We can only quell and mollify. Certainly we need to eliminate as much of the murderous al-Qaida who actually instigated the terrorism as we can, but in a manner that those most directly affected will accept as right and sensitive to their morality and culture.<br /><br />We'd have done much better in Afghanistan had we poured money and rebuilding immediately after the initial 2002 invasion coupled with a more direct and stronger hounding of OBL's Taliban in Bora Bora. This was the only time when we likely had them on the ropes, but let them off when we diverted resources by invading Iraq. <br />We sacrificed our moral high ground at that point. Our high-handedness and failure to study the British examples produced the chaos and increased resentment. The clumsy use of torture (of course we’ve always used it; everybody does, but discreetly and sparingly) and the sanctioning of it gave the antiwar extremists legitimacy. <br /><br />We created them monster that we later have to defend ourselves from. It’s called “blowback.” It’s also called “come-uppance” by some who would either support us or not oppose us had not President Bush declared “You’re either with us or against us.”<br /><br />Right now, the Afghan economy is supported almost entirely by the opium trade, but all we do is destroy their fields and tell them not to plant. In the meantime, we're allowing Turkey to plant opium since it is the only source of our analgesics. Perhaps we ought to extend that monopoly to Iraq, thereby both lowering our price for it and providing them with a legitimate means of making a profit. There are not many other cash crops that can be grown in that semiarid environment. It's about being "smart", something sorely lacking in the former administration that was ideologically based.<br />“If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road.” - George W. Bush<br /><br />Boy, was that man smart!Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-71190764768634771532009-03-18T12:07:00.000-07:002009-03-18T12:33:14.047-07:00AIG call and stallWhen my wife lost her job last year, the income reduction left us perilously close to home foreclose. In a last-ditch attempt to stave it off, I contacted AIG to cash out my Sun America annuity February 27 thus beginning a pattern of call-and-stall which I can only conclude was deliberate and methodical.<br /><br />The AIG representative did send me the form I requested which I immediately filled out, had notarized and faxed to the number given before noon that Friday. Three hours later I tried calling for confirmation (I had been asked for a PIN which had not been requested before after frantically searching my records for any sign of a PIN, I called another AIG number only to find out that the four-digit PIN was merely the last four numbers of my SSN so I called the original number initiating a the next in a series of 20-30 min. holds). I finally spoke with a representative who said she had no way of knowing if the company received my fax and it might be as long as 48 hours before that could be ascertained. Nearly 48 hours later (that Friday) I found another open half-hour and called to see if they had indeed received my request. They hadn’t. <br /><br />I took off from work the following Monday, calling again (the extension number I had been given to expedite my call hung up on me three times-I reverted to the original number which resulted in an additional 20-min hold) only to find out I had submitted the wrong form, and that the correct one would be mailed to me. I was also told that it could be downloaded from their site and was given a form number. Possessing reasonably competent Internet skills, I located the AIG site and search engine, entered the form number given only to be told there was no such form available. Using common sense, I located two forms that appeared to request annuity account liquidation, (one called ERISA and the other non-ERISA). Just to be certain, I sacrificed another half-hour to confirm I indeed had the right form and filled out correctly. I recited the information I had written line-by-line to the representative and asked directly if there was anything else I needed to fax. He said that since I had already sent the notarization, the form I was sending would be sufficient to release the funds.<br /><br />I finally faxed this document at 11 a.m., calling back near 5 (only 10-min. hold this time!) to find out if the fax had been received. Again, the canned response to my increasingly irritable challenge was that it may be as long as 48 hours before they could even ascertain whether the form had been received. I took off that Wednesday, calling ion the morning only to find out that I had not submitted documentation proving the necessity of obtaining these funds. I asked if “Notice of Default” would be sufficient and was told it would. Again, I promptly submitted the required form, calling in the next day to see if it had been received. I was told that it had been received and that to expect another 5-7 working days before the request could be processed.<br /><br />So nearly three weeks after the initial request and my mortgage default hanging in the balance (Texas law permits foreclosure proceedings to begin only 20 days after notification of default) I can only wait and beg the mortgage company to have patience while AIG holds the money I’ve paid them, taking full advantage of the time value of this insignificant (to them, not me) amount.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">March 18, 2:30 pm update:</span><br /><br />I received a check for $600 today with the following explanation dated March 13 from Angie Davis, Distributions Team 2:<br /><br />"We have received your request to surrender your annuity under a hardship qualification. We were unable to process your request asyou (sic) cannot surrender the annuity under a hardship. We have processed a hardship withdrawal for the maximum available."<br /><br />Can somebody please explain their logic for their NOT releasing the full amount of that annuity ($1631)?Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-22030410139469347172008-08-08T03:22:00.000-07:002008-08-08T13:16:01.296-07:00Oprah's school fix not all it's cracked up to be<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=303630258721684792&postID=2203041013946934717"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=303630258721684792&postID=2203041013946934717" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=303630258721684792&postID=2203041013946934717"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=303630258721684792&postID=2203041013946934717" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=303630258721684792&postID=2203041013946934717"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=303630258721684792&postID=2203041013946934717" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="">As so many programs on education have done before this one, <a href="http://www.oprah.com/dated/oprahshow/oprahshow_20060411">Oprah’s show Aug. 7</a> revealed much, but proposed little of value. All of us who teach are aware of the myriad of problems that mitigate our providing children with the education they need, but a unified approach to dealing with any of these issues is sorely lacking. Now the Gates family wants to throw some money at the issue. Like most previous solutions, this commendable effort will do some good somewhere, but falls short of addressing the overall problem, even when the diagnosis is correct. <span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">As impressive as the Gates’ $51 billion dollar fortune is, it hardly justifies their superficial understanding of the issue.<br /><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 281px; height: 215px;" src="http://static.oprah.com/images/tows/200604/20060411/20060411_101_284x218.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></p>Hardly surprising, then, that a corporate executive would identify a media-based problem, state plausible causation that removes corporate responsibility, then propose a costly remedy that the government is unlikely to adequately fund.<br /><br />Like so many theoreticians and talk show hosts seeking audiences, blame was delivered as scattershot in fog, blindly aimed and only occasionally on target. The deplorable <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">District of Columbia</st1:place></st1:state> model of public school dilapidation was presented by CNN’s indignant Anderson Cooper (Vanderbilt family scion and former host of Whittle Communications’ Channel One). The decaying infrastructure of one of the nation’s best publicly funded school systems (its $12,000 per-pupil expenditure exceeds the national norm by some $4,000), indicate the problem may not be purely financial. As one student put it, “the school looks good on the outside, but the inside it is crumbling.” <p class="MsoNormal" style="">The basic problems with education are addressed daily, but sporadically. Those with workable solutions are largely unrecognized and scattered about the country. Those in charge of the educational apparatus are largely the result of academic semi-competence, political manipulations, non-competitive pay, and public apathy. The resulting scholastic bureaucracies tend to encourage uniform mediocrity while discouraging personal initiative.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">Only in passing is the educational deficit attributed to an overall lack of reading emphasis in our schools. Most telling was the “Kid Swap” episode in which several students from inner city <st1:city st="on">Chicago</st1:city>’s low income <st1:placename st="on">Harper</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">High School</st1:placetype> traded places with their affluent cohorts at suburban <st1:city st="on">Naperville</st1:city>’s <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Neuqua</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Valley</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype st="on">High School</st1:placetype></st1:place> which “graduates 99 percent of its students” the program gushed, while Harper “graduates just 40 percent of its 1,500 students.” Another example of the common educational tool of comparison and contrast meant to display inequitable results buried something less obvious: “At <st1:placename st="on">Neuqua</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Valley</st1:placetype>, 78 percent of students meet <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Illinois</st1:place></st1:state>' reading standards, 76 percent meet the science standards, and 77 percent meet the math standards. At Harper, 16 percent meet the reading standards, 1.5 percent meet the science standards and just .5 percent meet the math standards.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><br />That only 76 percent of the students in the $65 million school met <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Illinois</st1:place></st1:state> reading standards should be cause for alarm. <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Houston</st1:place></st1:city>’s <a href="http://www.kipphouston.org/kipp/KIPP_Houston_High_School1_EN.asp?SnID=2">KIPP Academy</a> which has a mostly low-income student body similar to Harper’s boasts a passing rate on the Texas TAKS test of nearly 100%. It would seem that either the TAKS is far easier or KIPP’s adherence to stern measures is incredibly effective.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><br />What we have, instead, is an expensive glossing-over of the true literacy issue. Immerse these richer kids with enough expensive media and entertaining instructors and something is bound to soak in. That “something” however, still leaves us far behind our European cohorts and many of our schoolchildren will likely stand by as we’re exceeded by several rising third-world countries who understand the shortcut to a good education---well, there is none. It’s hard work, something our over-mediated, over-medicated, overindulged, overweight, and over-schooled students cannot be made to understand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><br />Public schools cannot fix what’s wrong with American students because ultimately, they’re beholden to the driving force in this country, corporate consumerism. Unrealistically high expectations, fueled by a never-ending flood of overly optimistic ads and adult pandering has given us a predictable “product,” the fruits of our <a href="http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/">“affluenza.”</a> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><br />We get what we pay for, and in the case of education, we suffer because of it. Intrinsic motivation to read and learn cannot be bought; reluctant youngsters must be prodded and pushed, for when the “light” comes on in their heads—usually around 10<sup>th</sup> grade—that education is the key to future achievement and collegiate success, they must have enough of the basics to convert that knowledge into critical thinking—something not actively taught in public schools despite protestations to the contrary. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><br />The service industry, for which most of our public school students are groomed, neither need nor desire most of their workers to be able to do much more than show up and follow instructions. Since the tenets of Marxism are only rarely a scholastic discussion, the ugly realities on which it is based must be experienced by the workers before they even discover the need to revolt. By then, the lack of unions and other organizational skills leaves them prey to unscrupulous employers whose knowledge of union-busting and unrest suppression is buttressed by the better-educated private school graduates. Class privilege then becomes the <i style="">de facto</i> marker of the ever-increasing wage and income gap; immigrant (or outsourced) labor becomes its tool.</p>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-35439845224772455782008-08-03T02:30:00.000-07:002008-08-03T03:34:21.628-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.chron.com/photos/2005/01/20/8314183/311xInlineGallery.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://images.chron.com/photos/2005/01/20/8314183/311xInlineGallery.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal">When I first heard about the tragic shooting of the Eli Escobar child in northwest <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Houston</st1:place></st1:city> in 2003, my first reaction was sympathy for the parents of the child shot, even though the news reports indicated that the child was something less than an ideal citizen.</p> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><br />Later, when I heard the officer’s name, I was shocked: first that this mild-mannered former student of mine was even a policeman, for my impression of him was that he was not of particularly rigid stock, like most policemen I’ve known; second, that anyone could possibly accuse him of intentionally hurting anyone dismayed me even more. This was a gentle giant, a tall, genial student who got along with everyone and never had a malicious word for anyone. I would never advised him of that vocation, for I wouldn’t have adjudged him “harsh” enough, or physically stout in mind or body.</p><p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal">This assessment was confirmed in 2007 when I read about his case in <a href="http://shron.wordpress.com/">The Houston Chronicle</a>:</p><span style="font-family: times new roman;">The rookie Houston Police Department officer who shot and killed a 14-year-old special education student in one of the decade’s most controversial shootings earned his badge and gun despite flunking a crucial test of firearms handling as well as initial police field training, according to documents recently made public as part of a civil rights lawsuit. </span><p style="font-family: times new roman;">Officer Arthur J. Carbonneau also failed 16 of 30 subjects in his mandatory Texas peace officers’ test, including “use-of-force law,” “use-of-force concepts” and “arrest, search and seizure,” records show.</p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;">In field training, records show, he repeatedly got lost trying to find locations he was called to and became so rattled that trainers had to take over his calls. When the 23-year-old rookie was assigned to remedial training because of the problems, he mishandled the subduing of an agitated person — a mistake his instructor said could have cost lives.</p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;">Yet, Carbonneau still became a full-fledged officer in December 2002. Eleven months later, he killed Eli Escobar II, 14.</p><br /><p class="MsoNormal">The system let us all down; this was certainly a tragedy that could have been avoided.<br /></p>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-49213755776787779392008-07-28T11:45:00.000-07:002008-07-29T03:43:15.158-07:00Book availability crucial for learning<p><span style="font-size:85%;">I usually hit a wall on the several bulletin boards to which I post (<a href="http://slate.msn.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Slate</span></a>, <a href="http://www.chron.com/commons/forums.html?plckForumPage=ForumEditPost&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3a1b9731d0-7e1a-45be-9f26-ebb966eeaaa3Forum%3a9908ee4a-340a-49c7-863a-b269bd4de9dbDiscussion%3acd3e92c4-4f10-4ffb-8260-6bf1bea8f46c&plckPostId=Cat%3a1b9731d0-7e1a-45be-9f26-ebb966eeaaa3Forum%3a9908ee4a-340a-49c7-863a-b269bd4de9dbDiscussion%3acd3e92c4-4f10-4ffb-8260-6bf1bea8f46cPost%3aac9014b8-5c81-4a11-9853-7faa15a25fb6&plckCurrentPage=0&plckCategoryCurrentPage=0">Houston Chronicle</a>) when I bring this up. Folks like to debate politics, but ignore the fact that as we have become a less literate society (more oral) we fail to encourage our children to read. That, of course, is the root of the problem. Schools success is limited by what parents fail to impart.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">What teachers in the lower grades do well is teach reading and, if standardized testing pressures permit, allow for reading aloud and silent reading. Somewhere around the sixth grade, however, the intrinsic pleasure reading imparts is supplanted by the required readings--including dry textbooks--and the classroom time allotted is minimized since TAKS is all. I believe this fuels naturally rebellious students, and mischievous proclivities turn to subversiveness, discouraging the few remaining readers from doing so openly, thereby losing "cool."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><b><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0);">"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good." - <i>Dr. Samuel Johnson</i></span></b></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:85%;">I'm a geography teacher, so my point about a World Almanac pertains to my experiences with both in the hugely successful computerized learning game: <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.broderbund.com/jump.jsp?itemID=144&mainPID=144&itemType=PRODUCT&RS=1&keyword=carmen+sandiego&ysmchn=GGL&ysmcpn=TLC&ysmcrn=sr2br19go91se2841pi20ai9&ysmtrm=sr2br19go91se2841pi20ai9+carmen+sandiego&ysmtac=PPC&ovtac=PPC&SR=sr2br19go91se2841pi20ai9">Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?</a> and the need for students to know how to look things up manually without the use of a computer. Particularly with boys who naturally tend to read nonfiction (studies confirm this) an almanac or even a Guiness Book of World Records provides an unmeasurable amount of information that some kids will read on their own. That's why the books (most Dollar stores have some in stock) need to be in their actual possession.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0979660742/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link"><i>Strunk & White</i> </a>is recommended simply because of its portability and its usefulness in directly addressing the grammar issues some folks have. Besides, so many of them were produced that they're easily available secondhand. </span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>N</i><i>ot all methods reach all people, but each reaches somebody.</i><br /></span></p><p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8F3a-bS-8ed-HUUlcy9qUzqvV-dIYytBT1tZd7VfKedoyucbVJ-ymUTQiqMYbmYn4YRJAzwTpXs2Le9kw19DuUHr921Gsqxy9grmWioDip-ZULnSdoaD3feTzmM1e3H3pFLrfJsQjK3L_/s1600-h/Biography.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8F3a-bS-8ed-HUUlcy9qUzqvV-dIYytBT1tZd7VfKedoyucbVJ-ymUTQiqMYbmYn4YRJAzwTpXs2Le9kw19DuUHr921Gsqxy9grmWioDip-ZULnSdoaD3feTzmM1e3H3pFLrfJsQjK3L_/s200/Biography.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5228150725528748418" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Yeah, I'm cheap. If I was not, I wouldn't have thousands of volumes of books in my house, cluttering up my living room. The fact that books are so readily available to our children, however, means that they're readers, too, without us having to push it onto them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0);">"[Book collecting] is a curious mania instantly understood by every other collector and almost incomprehensible to the uncontaminated." - <i>Louis Auchincloss, A Writer's Capital,</i> 1974</span></b> </p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">When I ask students how many books they have in their houses, few can list more than a dozen. I know, for example, that for every ten books, our kids my only peruse two, but if we have a hundred, that means they gone through at least twenty. Spending time at a local libray is useful as well, but I'm dismayed at how soon they close. I do my best reading at night.<br /></span></p><p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0);"><b>“To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations--such is a pleasure beyond compare.” - </b><i><b>Kenko Yoshida</b> </i></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:85%;">A Bible, even a Qu'ran is necessary, not because I want to preach, but as a matter of common reference. Since so much of what we value in society has its rootys in our religions, simply pointing out where a Bible references this can provide one more realistic tie to their lives, <i>relevance. </i>Churches provide an ideal opportunity to add a day of education; if students can relate what they learn in school to religious belief, learning can be supplemented without having to cross the church/state boundary. Schools need not teach a belief, but it is perfectly valid to tie in factual information to what students already believe (<i>e.g. geographical places & concepts: Tigris/Euphrates rivers, Sinai Peninsula, Israel, Zionism</i>).</span></p>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-29355171331526403802008-07-23T04:18:00.000-07:002008-07-28T12:37:19.819-07:00Should churches be taxed?<span style="font-family:arial;">Many have questioned why churches should retain tax-exempt status. Huge property holdings by some churches allow them, to operate with quite a lavish budget with a bit more pocket change than Jesus was accustomed to carrying.<br /><br />By what logic is this profiteering allowed to continue?<br /><br />Keep in mind that they're not required to </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2008/03/25/churches-non-profits-and-politics.htm">disclose records, either</a><span style="font-family:arial;">. This applies to Muslims as well, which has frustrated the U.S. Treasury's attempt to "follow the money" after 9/11. </span><p style="font-family: arial;">Several of the Founding Fathers would have taxed them if they could have: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States">Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Franklin</a> were among those who had no special affinity for organized religion as it was then.</p> <p style="font-family:arial;"><span class="articletext"><i><span style="font-weight: bold;">"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."</span> - </i></span><i><span class="articletext">Ben Franklin, (Poor Richard's Almanac, 1754)</span></i></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtjT_6x-WZLBVM1PgT5rJ_Xp-rUKLyJdhkknUlNCC6N-XkmyFP2XQWhkfl3pNOy6r43WaLX2dtMa5XhrGFOchGfr9CXkFrFGZkT1E9reOOa61TSMu3GClRx6RowDFoLt0CNKrVITXU725t/s1600-h/Picture+054.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtjT_6x-WZLBVM1PgT5rJ_Xp-rUKLyJdhkknUlNCC6N-XkmyFP2XQWhkfl3pNOy6r43WaLX2dtMa5XhrGFOchGfr9CXkFrFGZkT1E9reOOa61TSMu3GClRx6RowDFoLt0CNKrVITXU725t/s200/Picture+054.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5228147241021041042" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 204); font-style: italic;">Image at right shows Houston Mayor Bill White addressing my Presbyterian Church congregation on city-state issues.</span></span><p style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.daylightatheism.org/2006/10/tax-the-churches.html">Here's a valid point</a> from SM's Atheist "Bible":</p> <p><span style="font-size:85%;">"It is not just one tax that religious organizations are excused from paying, but an entire constellation of them. Clergy are <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/business/11religious.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all">exempt from federal taxes on housing</a> and can opt out of Social Security and Medicare withholding. Religious employers are generally exempt from federal and state unemployment taxes, and in some states, religious publications are exempt from sales tax. Church benefit and retirement plans do not require the church employer to match its employees' contributions. Churches are automatically exempted from filing annual public informational reports on their financial status and activities, and donations made to churches are eligible for income tax deductions. And, of course, the two major tax breaks: church groups do not have to pay income tax and do not have to pay taxes on property which they own.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>Repealing churches' tax exemption threatens no one's freedom of religion.</i> If a church sought to rent property from a private owner to conduct religious services but could not afford the rent that the owner was asking, would the church members' freedom to practice their religion have been destroyed? ..."</span></p>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-5821875356601613972008-07-21T01:41:00.000-07:002008-07-21T02:56:51.103-07:00Postville Round-up time!<p>Looks like <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5898226.html" mce_href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5898226.html">The Houston Chronicle</a> doesn't like the way ICE took it to the employees up in Postville, Iowa. Apparently they think non-Americans have due process rights.<br /></p><p>Here's how the venerable <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS/80512012/1001" mce_href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS/80512012/1001">Des Moines Register's covered</a> the story as it was happening.</p><p>One way to deal with an issue such as this in the classroom is to explore its many facets with a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20070502wednesday.html">New York Times Learning lesson plan</a>. Check out their <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/learning/index.html">Learning Network</a> for archives, crossword puzzles, and Current Events quizzes for a supplement to Social Studies learning.</p><p>For a more irreverent view on Mexican-American issues, I cautiously suggest reading Gustavo's Arellano's <a href="http://www.ocweekly.com/columns/ask-a-mexican/ask-a-mexican/19246/">Ask a Mexican Column.</a> Bring your sense of humor and prepared to be edified.<br /></p>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-16972499855243927082008-07-17T02:11:00.000-07:002008-07-28T12:50:09.394-07:00Send Immigrants home?<span style="font-family:arial;">Would we ever deport 12 million Mexicans just because they living in this country illegally? Not a chance. Whenever ICE initiates raids here in Houston <a href="http://www.houstonpress.com/2007-12-20/news/illegal-immigrants-in-the-restaurant-industry/">looking for undocumented workers</a>, nearly every Mexican restaurant (and a bunch of others) shiver.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Author and TV star Anthony Bourdain is one of the few chefs who's been willing to speak frankly on the issue. He says the American restaurant industry would be in big trouble if all the illegal immigrants in this country were rounded up and deported. "The bald fact is that the entire restaurant industry in America would close down overnight, would never recover, if current immigration laws were enforced quickly and thoroughly across the board," Bourdain told me. "Everyone in the industry knows this. It is undeniable...I know very few chefs who've even heard of a U.S.-born citizen coming in the door to ask for a dishwasher, night clean-up or kitchen prep job. Until that happens, let's at least try to be honest when discussing this issue."</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It's convenient to blame "Congress" or the "Guvmint" when in actuality it is we whose ambivalence clouds this issue. Yeah, we like low food prices that result from low-wage pickers and building costs kept low by "don't ask, don't tell" subcontractors, but we detest the idea that anyone who has done such menial work for decades be granted the same citizenship status as we who are lucky enough to have be born into affluence.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> The work ethic that these people embody is often lost on our youth. Too lazy to pick up a few bucks mowing neighborhood lawns or bagging groceries, their insistence that "Mexicans are taking our jobs" elicits little sympathy. How many high schoolers really want to wash dishes all through high school and/or college?<br /><br />Certainly, these immigrants put a strain on our profit-dominated health care system that shoves the uninsured onto the public health care system. Their nonresident status means that they are inclined to go to the more expensive Emergency Rooms that cannot turn them away than the much cheaper clinics that can. If a publicly-funded clinic tried to deal with these people, local talk show blabbers would have a field day "exposing" them while doing nothing for the problem except kept costs high. Lou Dobbs and other demagogues </span><span style="font-family:arial;">neither explore the problem in any kind of sympathetic depth nor provide a workable solution other than bigger fences. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> The contradiction between blatant profiteering and xenophobic electioneering in the formerly Republican majority is made clear when the President's former business partner while with the Major League Baseball's Rangers, Tom Hicks, <a href="http://www.houstonpress.com/2007-04-05/news/swift-meatpacking-plant-and-illegal-immigrants/">scandalously employs</a> Central American immigrant groups to his Swift Packing plants.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">Today Salcido is a plaintiff in two separate class-action lawsuits against Swift. One alleges that the company wrongly terminated dozens of injured workers to save on workers' compensation costs, slashing them from $6 million in 2002 to just $600,000 two years later, and another claims the company deliberately and systematically replaced native workers with illegal Guatemalan immigrants in a scheme to depress wages. While Swift acknowledges that it fired employees who'd been on injury-related restrictions for more than six months, it denies any wrongdoing. The company also says it did its best to obey immigration laws during hiring.</span><br /><br />Right. They probably just thought all these folks were from some big Guatamalan clan that lived near Nacodoches for the last century, but hadn't bothered to teach its children English.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Perhaps the best thing about immigrants is that they reflect so vividly what is wrong with us. We say we want democracy, yet are unwilling to participate in it; we want "universal" medical care, but only for those rich enough to afford it; we want justice, but only for the folks we like. If another country treated our citizens as badly as we do--allowed as many children to be undernourished, unsupervised, undereducated, and medically ignored--we'd declare war on them. Instead, we single out those least able to defend themselves and scream "wrong!"<br /><br />I realize this is an overused quote, but the irony of blaming others when so often we fail to accept the consequences of our own actions/inactions cannot be ignored.<br /></span><br /><em style="font-family: arial;">"We have met the enemy and he is US!"</em><span style="font-family:arial;"> - Pogo<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3YZQHA81CqYaYdcWQzX05bXaM-COI4T7FrxtJkXxZQDSbuq0gP7EFD9wL23VPjm7NpMIeh2Z6mkgZUgBP9SuaxE_52pJxHGFoOFhDarginVegQ5N02V8rXtGBycQACONj_2ZlpjsDQtSW/s1600-h/JoeHornMarch.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3YZQHA81CqYaYdcWQzX05bXaM-COI4T7FrxtJkXxZQDSbuq0gP7EFD9wL23VPjm7NpMIeh2Z6mkgZUgBP9SuaxE_52pJxHGFoOFhDarginVegQ5N02V8rXtGBycQACONj_2ZlpjsDQtSW/s400/JoeHornMarch.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5228154345987407650" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Failure to act when the consequences are minor lead to the overheated media events that surrounding the Jo Horn shooting. Much of the uproar had to do with the shooting victims' undocumented status.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-55944389425914009662008-07-16T11:21:00.000-07:002008-08-04T01:27:41.596-07:00Race , money, and other articles of faith<p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >To argue that racism does or doesn't exist is like arguing the existence of bullion to back up our money supply. Evidence of institutionalized racism still pervades in financial institutions (see: <a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=169&Itemid=33" mce_href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=169&Itemid=33">race-based banking practices)</a> but putting your finger on the racists themselves is as elusive as finding out who really controls our money supply.<br /><br />It stands to reason, then, that "race" is a fiction created by those seeking to gain economically from it. <i>"Money" is a figment that we choose to believe, for if we don't, our entire tenuous economic system would collapse.</i> Both are articles of faith. That people of color tend to have less money can be backed by statistics, but that does not necessarily imply that their "race" has anything to do with it.</span></p><p><br /><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >Every identifiable group of people maintains power by identifying the groups that represent a threat to their establishment and shrewdly manipulating them, depending on their perceived ability to maintain group solidarity. Whether by "divide and conquer," legalistic maneuvering, media discrediting, or simply ignoring their existence, the various groups are marginalized, usually with their complicity, into non-relevance. Only when political/economical equality is achieved can a group merge with the existing power structure, thereby creating a larger one, but only slightly altering the dominant culture.<br /><br />If that doesn't work, the best and the brightest individuals are co-opted, thus reducing the movement to perpetual insignificance. Once employed by their heretofore "enemies" the most vociferous of rebels find out how intractable the system can be, impervious to outside change.<br /><br />The entire concept of "negro" didn't even enter into the conversation until the the early 1700s.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_discrimination" mce_href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_discrimination"> Explorers in Africa</a> pushed it as a justification for poaching the continent.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >"Academic racism was pushed by white supremacists during the period when </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/wiki/White_people" style="font-style: italic;" mce_href="http://www.blogger.com/wiki/White_people" title="White people">white people</a> garnered great profits from slavery and colonialism. Academic racism had the effect of attempting to deny the culture, history and ancestry from the victims of the profitable slave and colonial systems."</span><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >The advantage that this set of racial characteristics provided for workers in the heat of the Americas were gradually discovered, therefore economic considerations and the fragmentary nature of African slave culture allowed the concept to take hold. Indeed, some of Jefferson's early writings provide <a href="http://www.common-place.org/vol-01/no-04/garrett/" mce_href="http://www.common-place.org/vol-01/no-04/garrett/">a startling portrait of an educated bigot</a>.<br /><br />A view of history rarely taught in public schools provides that this country was founded on weak idealistic propaganda provided by a self-serving plutocracy. Those "Forefathers" were often slave-owners, and only allowed those males who owned property to vote. I did not get that complete message until college.<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >Once the British aristocracy was supplanted, the war-mongering moneyed American ruling class had to label and disparage every definable group vying for power, the earlier, the better. Racism, xenophobia, and sexism were an accepted means to bully the less privileged into compliance.</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>The only good injun is a dead injun!</i> </span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >The acceptance of inferiority status among blacks depended on the <a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Southern+rite+of+human+sacrifice-a0135813894" mce_href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Southern+rite+of+human+sacrifice-a0135813894">deviousness of those within the clergy</a> to convince the Southern ignoramuses that Africans were not humans, therefore not subject to Locke's Natural Rights. To do so, Southern schools had to exclude blacks, particularly those who would eventually be able to challenge the basic assumptions with which the racial caste system was maintained.<br /><br />That exclusion led toward the type of race-based segregation that could not have occurred had <a href="http://www.theocracywatch.org/civil_war_canadian_review.htm" mce_href="http://www.theocracywatch.org/civil_war_canadian_review.htm">authoritarian churches</a> not held so much sway. Certainly, underfunding would perpetuate the progation of ignorance through hatred, and those educated blacks who hold such debilitating attitudes are perhaps more likely now to be the products of the disadvantaged schools and the scurrilous caste system partly initiated by the "house slave" class and maintained throughout Jim Crow as these were the lightest and first to be educated (some were already, albeit furtively). </span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.thecode.net/books/blackbourgeoisie.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 230px; height: 350px;" src="http://www.thecode.net/books/blackbourgeoisie.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.thecode.net/books/blackbourgeoisie.jpg"><br /></a></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >That a class of blacks would accept this secondary role, thus creating a segregated, stratified <a href="http://www.hartford-hwp.com/HBHP/exhibit/04/index.html" mce_href="http://www.hartford-hwp.com/HBHP/exhibit/04/index.html">black bourgeoisie</a> is both cause for celebration and contempt. Many history books deny there ever existed such a class of educated, exclusionary blacks. The dissolution of the <a href="http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=L2FJBxXLbxth4bJmbnhCWzlfp9jw74XHZdQWRjHlqLlJbrlpnT0b%211784242240?docId=5000189514" mce_href="http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=L2FJBxXLbxth4bJmbnhCWzlfp9jw74XHZdQWRjHlqLlJbrlpnT0b%211784242240?docId=5000189514">Washington D.C. "strivers"</a> was partly a result of the success of Civil Rights in achieving integration, thus depriving them of their exclusive power base.</span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.thecode.net/books/blackbourgeoisie.jpg"><br /></a><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >It's always been about money in this country, and Booker T. Washington noted that <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov:8081/ammem/amrlhtml/dtnegbus.html" mce_href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov:8081/ammem/amrlhtml/dtnegbus.html">successful black businessmen</a> were typically treated with the same deference as their white counterparts, thus buttressing his argument that only through education and hard work could black make lasting inroads into the ruling elite. One thing that always blocked black economic growth, however, has been a lack of access to banking. </span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >Certainly, the Tulsa race riots proved Washington's position not entirely tenable, but the abject failure of the subculture that grew up from slavery's field slaves to embrace education as a means to shed the political shackles created a society where far too few controlled the fate of too many.</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >Democracy can only work when there is group participation, and the historical tendency of blacks as a group to base their political persuasion on the oral abilities of their Baptist clergy gives us the Reverend Poverty Pimps we have now.<br /><br />Urban blacks from impoverished backgorunds are overtly more racist than whites, but white bigotry uses "code" words that lead to de facto segregation, suggesting a degree of complicity that still exists to maintain status quo both black and white), thereby perpetuating an undereducated class of citizens. Since this class can be any color, "race" no longer accurately describes it; instead, class conflict might be more accurate.<br /><br />It's not going to all go away until we start telling more truth, first to ourselves, then to each other. An open society reduces the deviousness necessary for political machinations to remain effective. If the <a href="http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/dollar-deception.php" mce_href="http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/dollar-deception.php">total truth</a> was known about our morally bankrupt banking system, the country would plunge into Depression as it did when Wall Street financiers panicked over this fact in the late 20s. Banks create the paper that lenders accept as "money," but have to pay back with earned green stuff.<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >An educated, participatory populace reduces the ability of corporate America to deceive the lower classes through carefully chosen wordplay and racist demographics. That education needs to extend into our ability to manage money, yet the average American has no savings and <a href="http://www.lowestrate.com/credit-card-laws-the-basics/" mce_href="http://www.lowestrate.com/credit-card-laws-the-basics/">a sizable credit card debt</a> which turns him/her into a "wage slave."</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >Anyone with an awareness of this country's banking policy knows how t<a href="http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/04/congress-debate.html" mce_href="http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/04/congress-debate.html">he laws are tilted to protect credit card issuers over consumers.</a> That we continue arguing over an agenda set by those seeking to maintain power rather than those seeking to share it assures the success of the red herring tossers.</span></p><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" ></span>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-46740178477361307262008-07-16T03:33:00.001-07:002008-07-23T04:32:22.412-07:00Reading Rooms? Why not?<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I would identify the single most important issue in education as the one most frequently over-looked: reading. As obvious as it may seem, the fact is that in most area schools, students are not provided with a place and time to simply sit and digest that which is taught or supplement it with outside reading. It's as if teachers are telling the students: "what I provide you is all you need to know about this topic."<br /><br />Absent among the many "How to..." books is the one that discusses various ways in which a reading environment can be constructed that is most conducive to the way children read. Perhaps the modern library with its multimedia buzz is not the best place for this to happen.<br /><br />I would like to see each school provide a nice, quiet place where students, teachers, and even parents could simply sit and read whatever they want without direction or interference. The role of parents as reading models cannot be overestimated; parent volunteers would be on hand constantly simply sitting and reading quietly, teaching by example. Perhaps an adjoining room could be set up as a "read-aloud" room for small groups to share what they enjoy most about what they read.<br /><br />Do not expect administrators to buy into this concept anytime soon. I have submitted detailed proposals in three area school districts, been patted on the back and told how "wonderful" it sounded, then waited for any kind of action. I'm still waiting.<br /><br />Crucial to this concept is allowing students the freedom to read whatever they want. Libraries are actively censored with “net-nannies” and book banning restricting rebellious thought. Rebellion is inherent in teenagers, it’s how they’re hardwired (perhaps, as socio-biologists postulate, so they “leave the nest”).<br /><br />Could it be that administrators fear what might happen if their professed desire to teach "critical thinking skills" was actually implemented, that encouraging students to do so might also imply that they can criticize the way schools are being run? The near-complete lack of free-wheeling student newspapers in area schools is indicative of the reticence principals have to allow First Amendment rights to be practiced since doing so might invite criticism—valid or otherwise—of the current school environment.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Or perhaps the administrators fear parents busying themselves with what should be their own business. What if, God forbid, the parents come to the realization that quite a bit of time was being wasted in a school when a more productive endeavor—reading, perhaps—could be taking place?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">If a child is to internalize reading as a necessary activity, it will require adults to model this behavior and many more, still, to show that it can even be a viable alternative to a jail cell (prisoners typically have plenty of time to read; teachers enjoy teaching such captive audiences)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i style="">If I were to impose school policy, I was require all students in school ought to have in their possession as an absolute minimum</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">:<br /><br /><b style="">1)</b> two dictionaries, an unabridged one for the house and a cheap, portable one they can write in to put in their backpacks.<br /><br /><b style="">2)</b> ditto with a thesaurus<br /><br /><b style="">3)</b> a World Almanac<br /><br /><b style="">4)</b> a Strunk & White's grammar book<br /><br /><b style="">5)</b> a set of encyclopedias, World Book or better<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6) </span>a comprehensive world atlas<br /><br /><b style="">7)</b> religious books: Qu'ran, Bible, Talmud, etc.<br /><br /><br />All of the above can be had for less than $100 if newness is not the conspicuous consumption is not the primary objective. Bibles and Qu’rans can be obtained just for the asking, and dollar stores often sell dictionaries, thesauri, almanacs (useful even if up to 5 years old). Salvation Army usually stocks the old textbooks,<br />encyclopedias, and atlases.<br /><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br /><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">If we continue to believe that only through lecture/discussion can learning take place, we’ll develop a society of Instant Messengers with little insight into what they write.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="color:black;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good." - <i style="">Dr. Samuel Johnson</i></span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-39799388134381637612008-07-15T11:45:00.000-07:002008-07-28T12:05:56.402-07:00Reading is fundamental<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtknjOjO0f88UdK3Cuif1gUZHsRuoZygkjc67GFRSJYx3x86TBAwPlGoTSVR7D7cS_oOARz7eUYTLrMmII7ovQ7L7C81HsKpJgGxNdd6fA1XmpRlNBGqBSWyrIq9B-MotB4IPGle1sF20B/s1600-h/ComedyBooks.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtknjOjO0f88UdK3Cuif1gUZHsRuoZygkjc67GFRSJYx3x86TBAwPlGoTSVR7D7cS_oOARz7eUYTLrMmII7ovQ7L7C81HsKpJgGxNdd6fA1XmpRlNBGqBSWyrIq9B-MotB4IPGle1sF20B/s320/ComedyBooks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5228143155731363970" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal">The best way to teach our students to read is to allow them to read. If that sounds redundant, I can assure parents that this basic task is not at the top of the priority list for most public high schools, falling somewhere behind paperwork pushing, <a href="http://www.schoolcio.com/showArticle.php?articleID=188101700">cell-phone gathering</a>, and restroom policy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I propose that if schools are serious about <a href="http://www.nea.gov/news/news04/ReadingAtRisk.html">teaching students to read</a>, they’d facilitate the reading habit throughout the day, especially during slack times and <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-04-08/news/the-new-home-room/">home room</a>, then after school, both by promoting the concept to parents and providing a quiet place for the students to read. In addition, enough books would be provided that students could read as much for their own enjoyment as for a course requirement.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">One of the first things I noticed upon arriving in <st1:city st="on">Houston</st1:city> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Iowa">Iowa</a> 23 years ago to teach at the all-black <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worthing_High_School_%28Houston%29">Worthing High School </a>was the paucity of books available for my students to read outside of the library and reading classrooms. On the occasions that I would ask students to bring a book or a magazine in from home for a specific project, many students would claim that they had none to bring. When I had the temerity to suggest to students that they consider buying books for birthday or Christmas presents, I was nearly laughed out of the room. It hit me that the idea of getting these students to read anything substantive was akin to chopping firewood with a Bowie knife.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Having married the older sister of one of my first students, I learned from the inside that societal factors prevented these otherwise bright children from reading, that the few who did were subjected to considerable peer pressure to remain under the teacher’s radar, lest he/she be accused <a href="http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/189/39/">of “acting white.”</a> It made little difference if I introduced black-authored books, for although the students would be less reluctant to be seen holding and looking at them, the level of readership hardly changed. The books I would loan them rarely made it home.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I soon realized that these students were somehow passing English and Social Studies without actually doing the required reading. It was only recently that I heard schoolteacher and author <a href="http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/profdev078.shtml">Cris Tovani</a> label this as “fake reading.” The savvy students learned the education game, that teachers were being pressured to pass students along despite their glaring inadequacies. Most chose the path of least resistance, the one where they did only what was required of them shortcutting wherever possible. Administrative insistence that teachers maintain a high passing rate still prevent teachers from presenting challenging materials lest the students be discouraged and simply quit. Too often their <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684839660/learninfreed">real needs were ignored</a> as they were passed along until their lack of skills caught up with them, usually about the ninth grade where they stayed, unable to move along in the educational system, dropping out anyway.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br />My more ambitious students employed a combination of cheating, grasping the predictable teacher patterns, and remaining docile in class, thereby securing grades high enough to be placed in "honors" classes where the learning environment lacked many of the noisy subversives and the ill-mannered. This fiction of high achievement would be maintained throughout junior high where <a href="http://www.bcnys.org/ppi/sep4.htm">researchers</a> have often noticed a precipitous drop-off in reading skills. Reading level tests I've seen administered while at Elsik Ninth Grade Center consistently indicated <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060910313/learninfreed">only around 14% of the districts students read</a> at or above ninth-grade level and that was before the recent influx of students (mis-)educated in New Orleans.<br /></p><o:p><br />In my next column, I'll lay out my simplistic plans for improving reading (that I don't expect to be implemented simply for that reason).<br /></o:p>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303630258721684792.post-91361259336813122182008-07-14T10:43:00.000-07:002008-07-15T13:52:58.516-07:00"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” - Will Durant<p>With Will Durant's quotation, defining "education," I'm making my first attempt at blogging as opposed to the chaotic futility of arguing on forums.<br /></p> <p><i>This essay started with a comment on a forum supposing proselytizing couldn’t be stopped without infringing on the First Amendment’s guarantees:</i></p> <p>Freedom of speech is granted by the First Amendment to the Constitution insofar as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. That's sometimes a subjective measure, and most who are outspoken are accused of or subjected to various forms of suppression.</p> <p><a href="http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/firstamendment/hazelwood.html">The Supreme Court</a> has held that students do not have an absolute right to freedom of speech in school if it interferes with the rights of others to get an education. Given this subjectivity, teachers tend to seek a balance between individual versus group rights. Discipline-first teachers and meddling administrators tend to be oppressive, seeking order and uniformity at the expense of freedom of expression and critical thinking skills. Proselytizers have their own religious agendas which also tend toward the oppressive, as opposition is discouraged and the tyranny of the majority squashes dissent.</p> <p>Without discipline, chaos prevails, and no student's interests are served. The idea, then, is to seek that balance; the trick is to actually find it.</p> <p>Where it's NOT is the modern political arena. No Child Left Behind is precisely the form of federal intervention our forefathers seemed to want to prohibit with the 10th Amendment that would leave such issues to the states.</p> <p>With this libertarian goal, President Reagan sought to abolish the Department of Education at the Cabinet level, but instead, he expanded it with ideologue William Bennett mouthing platitudes and hypocrisies (<a href="http://allanturner.com/0671683063_m.jpg"><i>The Book of Virtues</i></a>).</p> <p>Following an inconsistent, but increasingly influential path, we get<st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"></st1:place></st1:city> former Superintendent of Schools in Houston, Texas, and Physical Education major, Rod Paige. I've attended speeches where he seemed unable to frame a grammatically correct sentence. He fits the stereotype of an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom">Uncle Tom</a> appointee whose mere skin color curried favor from the Left (esp. Ted Kennedy).<br /></p><p>He did have one good quote that I appreciated, however, when he spoke of "the soft bigotry of low expectations." I will argue that this is a hypocrisy, however, in light of the numerous local school districts (including HISD) whose emphasis is in having students merely pass rather than raising academic standards.<br /></p><p>Now we have the more articulate Texan, Margaret Spellings. Though smarter, she's still a bureaucrat, apparently more interested in the perpetuation of the Department of Education than improving the overall level of American public school education.</p><p>The hotly debated School Voucher issue seems to have polarized into a simplistic debate:<br /></p> <p>The Right wants vouchers, a theoretically sound concept likely to be subverted into just another welfare program, this time for private schools. It's virtually impossible to believe this concept can work on a national scale without leaving millions of children behind. </p> <p>The Left seems to be in control of public schools with its unions and apparent control of educational philosophy. I would argue that what much of this amounts to is <a href="http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/">The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.</a> (You can download this entire provocative book free), in which Christine Iserbyt, a Reagan appointee, sees the current public school institution as a drive toward socialism. A strong case can be made for that position.</p> <p>This Cabinet post opportunity to lead by inspiration, to lend assistance without mandates, fell into a political football game in which neither side sought real improvement, only political advantage. No Congress is likely to supply enough money without "strings attached" to equalize educational opportunity. Anything less than that is a political pander.</p><p>What is needed first is a strong local consensus, then a national rethink about what should be taught in schools. Personally, I find E.D. Hirsch's books on <a href="http://www.as.ysu.edu/%7Eenglish/cea/wessling.htm">Cultural Literacy</a> to be most edifying and comprehensive, but as was stated earlier, no one person has identified the panacea that will fix all, or even most of education's problems. </p> <p>Certainly a child's parents are ultimately responsible for their school performance, but when parents fall short, the mis-educated and ill-informed offspring become society's problems (and often criminals). Effort spent just pulling them into social compliance is less time and energy spent instilling work ethic and promoting excellence. It's a trade-off that varies according to teacher and school.</p> <p>As much as I'd like a heftier salary, I can see why people are loathe to give schools more tax money given current SAT/ACT results. Accountability issues and a less-than-transparent administrative system tend to muddle the picture.<br /></p><p>I would say that vague criticism should be ignored from afar, that those taking potshots at the system have no real desire to learn about it, only criticize it.</p><p>Only those who volunteer, who encourage community service and are willing to expend time doing so should have a say in system reform. It's not until one becomes personally involved with a school, observes it for awhile before inputting, and actually does something with students or teachers to effect small changes that he/she can understand the magnitude of the problems facing us in public schools today. Only then can they speak to an issue with any authority or any hope of improvement.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">“Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave.” - <span class="cite"><i>Baron Henry Peter Brougham</i></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">“Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” - <i>Malcolm Forbes</i></p>Don Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09886156204037525632noreply@blogger.com0