I Don't Get It

With the start of school right around the corner (I go to some training this Friday), I thought this article would be an entertaining way to start off the new year:

New study links arming teachers with more polite students

I think IDB put the wrong headline on that story, because the URL and the story itself match--it's a bunch of Obama's Birthday jokes.

My Trip To Visit The Grimaldis Started Most Inauspiciously

Sacramento International, 10:16 am

Freakin' TSA-holes. Minimum wage-caliber employees given the full power of the US government to be stupid. I went through the scanner and, as will happen the rest of my life, a dot showed up on my left knee; long-time readers of this blog might remember that there's a screw in that knee due to a skiing injury over 2 years ago. Anyway, I'm wearing shorts that go down just about to my knee, and the only thing showing up on the scanner output is a small dot on my knee. The government employee genius deems it necessary to grope both of my legs to ensure I'm not going to blow the plane up.

Shortly after arriving at the gate I'm called by name up to the counter. Seems that my flight is running late and I'll miss my connection. I've been put on a direct flight in 4 hours—lovely place to spend 4 hours, this airport is—but here's the kicker. I'm flying Southwest, and when I checked in I got an early boarding group number. On this flight 4 hrs later, though, I'm in a late boarding group. I'm surprised Southwest can't do better than this.

Yes, I admit these are First World problems, but by definition they're still problems. In the grand scheme of things they aren't horrific, but neither is an itchy mosquito bite—but no one likes those, either.

If I were really visiting the Grimaldis instead of merely staying at a hotel named after their principality, I'd see what they can do for me. Instead, I make do for the next 4 hours.

Las Vegas, 4:24 pm

There was a direct flight to Las Vegas an hour and a half after my original flight, but it was so full they thought it would be oversold.  Instead there were 3 seats open, so I got on that flight as the last person to board.  Still, there was room in the overhead for my bag and I got an emergency row seat, albeit a middle one.  Additionally, I got to Las Vegas within 10 minutes of when my original flight was supposed to arrive.  No problems checking in--and internet access is included in my mandatory "resort fee" so I'm darn sure going to use it!

Valley of Fire State Park tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to it :-)

Only A So-called Academic Could Think This

What can I say, except that I shouldn't be surprised?

Traditional classes in English language are a “bit unnecessary” at a time when pupils have so much access to state-of-the-art technology, it is claimed.

Sugata Mitra, professor of educational technology at Newcastle University, said good spelling and grammar was necessary “maybe a hundred years ago” but "not right now".

He insisted that children should be encouraged to express themselves in a number of different ways – including using mobile phone text messaging – rather than relying on established linguistic rules. 

The good news is that this idiot is a professor of "educational technology", a field just about as silly as that of education itself.

Hat tip to reader MikeAT.

Smart People Jokes

The geeky highbrow jokes in this article are pretty funny.  Examples:

The barman says: “We don’t serve faster-than-light particles here.” A tachyon enters a bar.

Did you hear about the jurisprudence fetishist? He got off on a technicality.

Did you hear about the man who got cooled to absolute zero? He’s 0K now.

What does the “B” in Benoit B Mandelbrot stand for? Answer: Benoit B Mandelbrot.

A programmer’s wife tells him: “Run to the store and pick up a loaf of bread. If they have eggs, get a dozen.” The programmer comes home with 12 loaves of bread.

What's Good For The Goose...

My guess is it's only good for geese with a (D) after their name:

On the cusp of the July 4 holiday weekend, President Obama quietly announced (via an underling’s blog post) that he had unilaterally chosen to delay Obamacare’s employer mandate—its requirement that businesses with 50 or more workers provide federally approved health insurance. Obama claims to possess the legal authority to choose not to execute this aspect of the law that he spearheaded and signed, despite the fact that Obamacare’s text declares that the Shared Responsibility for Employers Regarding Health Coverage provision, commonly known as the employer mandate, “shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013.”

That’s almost exactly the same language that Obamacare uses to refer to the starting date for its budget-busting exchange subsidies. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, over the next ten years, Obamacare would funnel a colossal $1.212 trillion from American taxpayers, through Washington bureaucrats, to insurance companies—the ultimate recipients of those subsidies. Obamacare’s text states that the subsidies “shall apply to taxable years ending after December 31, 2013.”

So, if Obama can unilaterally decide not to execute Obamacare’s employer-mandate provisions (which “shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013”), does this mean that a future Republican president can unilaterally decide not to execute its exchange-subsidy provisions (which “shall apply to taxable years ending after December 31, 2013”)? If Obama can grant himself what Nebraska Senate hopeful Ben Sasse calls a de facto “line-item veto” over parts of an existing law, then couldn’t a future Republican president grant himself that same power and wield it over different parts of that same law? If Obama isn’t constrained to execute laws as written, wouldn’t a future GOP president enjoy similar liberties?

I don't want this to be how our government operates. If it is to operate that way, though, I don't want my side to play by the old rules. Let both sides do this until the issue is resolved, one way or another.

Improving (Or At Least Not Worsening) The Environment

As a conservationist (not an environmentalist) I can easily get on board with this:

We need a deep rethinking on the policy front. The problems of climate science need to be disaggregated. How do we help China and India move from coal to less carbon-intensive forms of energy use. How do we accelerate the US shift from coal to cleaner natural gas? How can we accelerate the shift from an industrial economy to an information economy in ways that allow the economy to grow and living standards to rise without making the environment worse off.

Environmental policy thinkers almost always begin with statist, top-down fixes, and quickly embrace crony capitalist ideas that involve subsidies for certain types of energy production, such as the ethanol abomination. Powerful economic lobbies then run with these ideas, perverting them until their environmental benefits take a back seat to their usefulness as tools of wealth capture.

The problem is that for many so-called environmentalists, improving the environment isn't what they're really after.  That's why so many of them are against relatively cheap electricity provided by safe, clean, mature nuclear technology.

Where I Went Today

I helped transport some belongings to Redding, home to one of only a few footbridges in the world designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava:

click to enlarge

Update, 8/3/13: Now that I've updated the pictures, let's add a selfie:

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

From the major Sacramento newspaper's editorial board:

The University of California Board of Regents did not have a good week demonstrating it is attuned to concerns over transparency and taxpayer accountability.

Just six days after announcing her nomination, the regents hired Janet Napolitano, the U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, to be the next UC president. Just minutes before approving her and with no opportunity for the public and university community to weigh in, the regents announced her base annual salary – $570,000 – a vast sum more than the $199,700 she earned yearly protecting the United States from terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

While $570,000 is slightly less than what outgoing UC President Mark Yudof has earned, it perpetuates the administrative salary bloat that UC faculty, taxpayer groups and this editorial page have criticized for years. UC was once an institution of relatively even salaries between faculty and administrators, partly because the latter were nearly always drawn from the faculty, with plans to return to teaching after finishing their administrative terms.

That has all changed, with UC administrators being treated like corporate CEOs and receiving salaries and benefits out of sync with every other form of public service. That bloat undermines their ability to work with faculty and lower-paid staff, and it undermines their credibility when they go to the Legislature to seek increased financial support for UC and its mission.

It's politicians and their liberal followers who bemoan the pay differential between CEO's and the worker bees, but I don't hear any of them pitching a fit about this particular government job.  If our government won't set the example, why should anyone be inclined to follow?  Answer: because liberals believe in government by coercion, it's how they operate.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/19/5577757/uc-insults-public-with-its-process.html#storylink=cpy

"Restoring" History?

The New York Times has an interesting piece on the Via dei Fori Imperiali, a road built by Mussolini between his palace and the Colosseum.  Part of Trajan's Forum had to be destroyed to build it, and it goes right through the ancient forums (fori/fora)--separating the major Roman forum on one side of the street from the forums of Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, and Nerva on the other.

The current mayor wants to turn the road into a pedestrian area, as it's heavily trafficked.  Locals complain about worsening traffic on other nearby streets.

Mr. Marino’s plan to ban private traffic on the roadway, which bisects a vast archaeological site, from the central Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum, has prompted grousing and histrionic debate over a project that conservators say would solidify the world’s largest urban archaeological area...

But it seems that the mayor can, and did, forging ahead with a project that was a centerpiece of his campaign. In this first phase, the tract of Via dei Fori Imperiali closest to the Colosseum will be off limits to private vehicles, but not to buses and taxis. A rather optimistic simulation is visible on the city’s transportation Web site. 

The final goal is to make the Via dei Fori Imperiali a pedestrian area from one end to the other, and to finance the project with subsidies from the European Union....

I spent a lot of time on this stretch of road last summer.

Update, 8/2/13: Here are two shots from Google Earth.

Imperial Rome:

Modern Rome:

The Via dei Fori Imperiali is the road stretching from the large white Vittoriano Monument in the upper left to down along the north side of the Colosseum.  Note how it goes right through the Imperial Fora of the four mentioned emperors.

Gettysburg

A month ago the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg was celebrated, and reader Peter Reilly was there.  I certainly enjoy his style of writing which is exemplified by the following snippet:

We were carrying at most small back packs with bottles of water.  We were going at a slow pace with several breaks for interpretation and hydration.  We were not wearing wool uniforms or carrying muskets.  None of us were marching to our deaths.  Other than that, it was just like marching with the Iron Brigade exactly 150 years before.

Note the links to his other 150th anniversary articles in the left column of the link.

I've been to Gettysburg twice.  It's one of the prettiest places you can visit (if you like serene, pastoral settings), and what happened there over those three July days 150 years ago was--well, impressive.

Picture From The Past

I don't know where it came from, but this evening my mother gave me this picture of my cousin Kathy and me--taken when we were in 8th grade.  I didn't see her again until last November, and we recognized each other immediately :-)

I Now Own My First...

...set of electric beaters.

I got a call from my uncle last night.  They're clearing out grandpa's house (he's 101 and in an assisted living facility now) and he asked me if I wanted some things.  I didn't want the hutch he called about but I told him that since my son will be 18 in a year, I'd like to get some kitchen things for him.  I already have pots and pans for him, and today I went and gathered up dishes, flatware, a microwave, a toaster oven, and a small blender.

I've always used old-school hand crank beaters. All I've ever made with them are pudding, jello, cornbread, things like that; clearly I'm not much of a cook.  But there in the drawer was grandma's set of electric beaters.  So now, for the first time in my life I own a set of electric beaters.

I wonder how long it will take me to use them!

I'll still keep my hand beaters, and since grandma had a set of those, too, I took hers for my son.

Tangent:

The house was built up in the foothills in the 1930's.  It was probably never in good shape, but it's in pretty bad shape now.  A cousin and her husband are going to gut it or knock it down and build a new house for themselves in its place.  Grandma and grandpa bought it in 1976 or '77 and I've always loved going there.  Even when I was old enough to see how decrepit the place was, it always felt "cozy".

There's stuff all over the floors now, and what's left will soon get cleared out and sent to a thrift store (or worse).  I took my phone in and got some video of the house itself, just so I'll have it.

*sigh*

A Voice Against Common Core

My good friend Diane Ravitch doesn't like Common Core:

That is because standardized testing guru David Coleman, lead architect of Common Core, decreed upon becoming College Board CEO in 2012 that college-entrance tests would be tightly aligned with the one-size-fits-all national K-12 standards. 

That means even home educators cannot steer clear of the nationalized curriculum if they want their kids to score high enough on the SAT to gain university admission. 

Education historian Diane Ravitch, who has supported voluntary national standards, has blogged that Coleman “is now the de facto controller of American education,” a man with no teaching experience who has decided what all grade-schoolers should know, how they should be relentlessly tested and what they must show they know to go to college.

It's interesting to me that people who squealed against federal mandates during NCLB are now so supportive of Common Core.  Should I wonder what helped this change along, or do I already know?

Piano and Keyboard

Let's have some fun identifying (pop) songs with absolutely beautiful keyboard or piano components.  I hereby offer these:
Music Box Dancer
Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire
I'm Seventeen (you can hear an obvious Bruce Hornsby)

What about Fireflies?

Which Elton John song(s) should make the list?

The Dutch and the Deutsch

Of the few foreign films I have, it seems a plurality are Dutch films about World War II.  In fact, I have three of them.

The first is actually an English film from 1941 called One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing.  It's about an RAF crew that is smuggled out of the Netherlands thanks to the efforts of the Dutch Underground.  A note at the beginning of the movie tells us:

Produced with the full co-operation of the Royal Air Force and the Air Ministry and, above all, of the Royal Netherlands Government, London.

The next two are in Dutch with English subtitles.  The first is the Paul Verhoeven film Black Book.  The dvd case reads:

In the darkest days of World War II, Jewish fugitives attempt to escape occupied Holland--only to face a Nazi ambush.  Rachel Stein alone survives the attack and joins the Dutch Resistance to avenge her family.  She soon confronts the ultimate test: she must infiltrate German headquarters by tempting Captain Ludwig Muentze.  In the heat of passion, he uncovers her duplicity...but keeps her secret.  Then Rachel's espionage reveals that a murderous traitor lurks within Resistance rangks.  Unable to fully trust anyone, Rachel navigates a minefield of deception and becomes an enemy to both sides.  Epic, passionate, and breathtaking, Black Book relates an untold story of World War II where the distinctions between good and evil become blurred by the complexities of human nature.

The opening of the film tells us the story is "inspired by true events".

The third movie I bought just yesterday on blu-ray, the 2008 movie Winter In Wartime.  The case tells us it's the winner of the 2009 Golden Calf at the Netherlands Film Festival, as well as the plot:

Nazi-occupied Holland, 1945.  In a snow-covered village, thirteen-year-old Michiel is drawn into the Resistance when he aids a wounded British paratrooper.  Michiel's boyish sense of defiance and adventure soon turns to danger and desperation, as Michiel is forced to act without knowing whom to trust among the adults and townspeople around him.  Wartime's harsh reality encroaches on childhood innocence as Michiel confronts good and evil, courage and duplicity, and his own burden of responsibility. 

All three of these films tell eternal stories of heroism in the face of the darkest evil.  The latter two show humanity in individual Germans, the duality creating conflict for the viewer.

These are great stories.

Update:  You know what I find interesting about listening to spoken Dutch?  It sounds to me like pidgin German.

Lemons

Last night I started down the 90-day road to making limoncello--inspired to do so, of course, by last summer's trip to Italy.  I needed only the "zest" of the lemons, so what to do with the rest of 17 lemons?

This!

When The Grim Reaper Calls....

A pregnant Maine woman and her friend visiting from Pennsylvania got lost hiking and were rescued but died later that evening, authorities said, when they accidentally drove their car into the ocean in the nighttime fog.  link

Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

NEA Members, Where Does Your Dues Money Go?

Over $1 million was given to the AFL-CIO.
$70,000 was given to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
$55,000 was given to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.
$30,000 was given to Daily Kos.
$125,000 was given to Health Care For America Now!
$150,000 was given to the Ohio Democratic Party.
$250,000 was given to the University of Colorado Boulder Sponsored Project.
Over $4.5 million was given to We Are Ohio.

And there are so many more listed here.

Private organizations can give their money to whomever they want.  But since I'm legally required to give money to this organization, they should be equally required to spend it only on work related directly to teacher pay, benefits, and working conditions.

Getting My Master's Degree

I've been very up front about saying that the only reason I'm pursuing a master's degree is because I'm "topped out on my pay scale" and won't see another pay raise until I get one.  I chose to get one in math education (8 math classes, 2 education classes) through the University of Idaho Engineering Outreach Program instead of at a diploma mill, though, because I want to learn something that will make me a better classroom teacher.  This has already occurred--some things I learned in my Statistical Analysis class will make me a better statistics teacher.

I'd reconsider spending all this money, though, if I lived in North Carolina:

North Carolina took the first step to change their education system and make it better for the children. Governor Pat McCrory (R) signed a bill that eliminates teacher tenure and eliminates automatic pay increases for any teacher who earns a master’s degree.

I'm sure those on the left will say, "See, Darren?  Is this what you want when Republicans are in charge?"  Of course I would not like to see this, although some reining in of bogus master's degrees should take place.  My response, though, is "What do you expect Republicans to do, treat teachers like their best friends?"  Perhaps teachers and their unions should stop putting all their eggs in the Democratic basket.

True, But...

I'll say up front that Anthony Weiner is all the bad things people say he is.  I certainly wouldn't want him in government because he's a horrible person, but I would not bar him from government except by my vote.  That's one difference between being a politician and being a teacher:

At least one Staten Island resident doesn't agree with Anthony Weiner's assertion his mayoral bid is representative of the middle class in spite of the new sexting revelations.

Weiner was confronted by the voter right after telling reporters he would likely soon stop answering questions about his previous online relationships.

Identifying herself as a Democrat and retired New York City Department of Education employee, Peg Brunda told Weiner she spent 21 years as a teacher and then nine as an assistant principal. As a city employee, "had I conducted myself in the manner in which you conducted yours, my job would have been gone," Brunda said.

Brunda continued, "I don't quite understand how you would feel you have the moral authority as the head administrator in the city to oversee employees when your standard of conduct is so much lower than the standard of conduct that's expected of us."

Why would such personal and completely-legal behavior, that has nothing to do with kids at school, result in a teacher's being fired?  Would a teacher be fired if he/she were caught smoking marijuana (if so, one of those mythical teacher shortages you hear about every year or two would definitely take place)?  The teacher probably would not be.

For the 8 zillionth time, I assert that what teachers do on their own time is no one's business but their own (unless, of course, it relates to kids or school somehow).  Ms. Brunda is correct that she'd be fired, but she shouldn't be.