Sculpture

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Venice

Athens

Olympia

Rome

Ostia Antica

Media Bias

Say it isn't so!

Go read the list, and then argue (if you can) with the conclusion:

Is it just me, or is it odd that the media's go-to suspect in these things is always, always on the conservative side of the political spectrum. It's almost like they have an agenda or something.

Mosaics

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On the balcony of St. Mark's Basilica, Venice

On the Grand Canal

In the Capitoline Museum, Rome

a close-up

At the Baths of Caracalla

This establishment in Ostia Antica sold ivory

conservation

This shop sold fish

This shop sold grain, or was perhaps a bakery

Not just sidewalks, but even the floors were decorated

CTA Protects Teacher-Perverts

If you're surprised, raise your hand.  Not seeing any hands, let's quote from the story:

State Sen. Alex Padilla of Los Angeles had every reason to hope that the 11 members of the obscure but powerful state Assembly Education Committee in Sacramento would back his new legislation, Senate Bill 1530, designed to let public schools more easily fire teachers who commit sexual, physically abusive or drug-related acts with their students...

But in late June, Democratic legislators from six Southern and Northern California communities killed Padilla's bill. Two Democrats voted no on SB 1530 — Tom Ammiano of San Francisco and Joan Buchanan of Alamo. And four Democrats, including Betsy Butler of Los Angeles and Mike Eng of Monterey Park, refused to vote at all, knowing their abstentions would assure that SB 1530 failed by a single vote — and that their non-votes would go largely under the radar. (The other two abstaining Democrats were Wilmer Amina Carter of Rialto and Das Williams of Santa Barbara)...

Education reformers say that Butler, Eng and the other abstainers were motivated by their fear of the California Teachers Association, an extremely wealthy, aggressive union that has launched — and ruined — numerous Democrats' careers in California.

CTA president Dean Vogel insisted to L.A. Weekly that SB 1530 wasn't about keeping children safe but was merely a "highly charged political reaction" to the Berndt scandal — and nothing less than a "recipe for disaster" for the due-process rights of teachers.

"The bill changed the way we go about teacher dismissal, and it takes away an independent panel," Vogel insists, referring to the controversial Commission on Professional Competence. He repeated CTA's decades-long view that existing law is sufficient to remove a sexually or physically abusive teacher.

Echoing Vogel, Butler said Padilla's bill made the teacher-firing process "more political" and "jeopardized due process."

But ex-state Sen. Gloria Romero, a Democrat who was the Legislature's expert on education during her years in Sacramento and now is state director of Democrats for Education Reform in California, says the Berndt scandal "should have been the final wake-up call" for Democratic legislators to support Padilla's bill, which she describes as "very moderate."

Explains Romero, "It was a narrowly crafted bill. There's always a concern about due process, but those things could have been worked out."

Sick and disgusting--brought to you by the special interest that holds the California legislature in its fist.

CTA always likes to say that "children are our special interest"--which I've always thought was wrong on several levels, but it's what they say.  So I ask you CTA u-bots out there:  how are children served by killing this bill?  I await your pretzel-twisting.

Get Rid of Summer Vacation?

I agree with this author:

Did anybody else read this anti-summer break piece by Peter Orszag and feel the urge to give the author a tremendous wedgie...

Recall that Orszag was director of President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget who touted the long-term effects of the government taking control of even more of America’s healthcare system. He argued that Obamacare could “bend the cost curve” of health care down...

The problem with American healthcare, from my point of view, was not a lack of government meddling but a surplus of it. About half of all funds spent on healthcare in this country come from federal, state and local governments and those funds come with some pretty crazy strings attached.

U.S. governments arguably underpay for medical services and so those people with private and employer provided insurance have to make up the difference through increased premiums and fees and — let’s not forget — lower wages...

Orszag took in this true cornucopia of problems and said, You know, the real issue is that there is not enough government control. All of the parties should be forced to behave in certain ways and voila! the costs will come down.

So now Orszag turns to K-12 education, a field much more thoroughly dominated by government than even healthcare. He finds that the kids are getting “dumber and fatter during the vacation.” Though he says he has no intention to “declare war on summer,” he really would like to extend the school year and all but eliminate summer breaks.

Let’s grant that there is some evidence of summer slippage. But to look at the vast wasteland that is American public education — the poor teaching, the awful curriculum, the low standards, the anemic achievement, the institutional resistance to needed reform — and say that the real problem is summer vacation takes a special sort of mind.

Yeah, what he said. Those who look for a silver bullet are like the blind man looking for a black cat in a dark alley.

Gen X "Unconcerned" About Climate Change

The author of this article seems so disappointed that this would be so:

As the nation suffers through a summer of record-shattering heat, a University of Michigan report finds that Generation X is lukewarm about climate change—uninformed about the causes and unconcerned about the potential dangers.

Is the author perhaps implying that weather=climate?  The zealots always argue against that belief in the cold, snowy winters, but let's continue:

"Most Generation Xers are surprisingly disengaged, dismissive or doubtful about whether global climate change is happening and they don't spend much time worrying about it," said Jon D. Miller, author of "The Generation X Report."

The new report, the fourth in a continuing series, compares Gen X attitudes about climate change in 2009 and 2011, and describes the levels of concern Gen Xers have about different aspects of climate change, as well as their sources of information on the subject.

"We found a small but statistically significant decline between 2009 and 2011 in the level of attention and concern Generation X adults expressed about climate change," Miller said. "In 2009, about 22 percent said they followed the issue of climate change very or moderately closely. In 2011, only 16 percent said they did so."

Miller directs the Longitudinal Study of American Youth at the U-M Institute for Social Research. The study, funded by the National Science Foundation since 1986, now includes responses from approximately 4,000 Gen Xers—those born between 1961 and 1981, and now between 32 and 52 years of age.

Only about 5 percent of those surveyed in 2011 were alarmed about climate change, and another 18 percent said they were concerned about it. But 66 percent said they aren't sure that global warming is happening, and about 10 percent said they don't believe global warming is actually happening.

"This is an interesting and unexpected profile," Miller said. "Few issues engage a solid majority of adults in our busy and pluralistic society, but the climate issue appears to attract fewer committed activists—on either side—than I would have expected."

Maybe it's because people like you, Mr. Author, have lied about, exaggerated about, and politicized this issue so much that people can't take you seriously anymore.  Just a thought.

Finding a Husband at College

I've been focusing on travel-related posts for quite some time now, but when I saw this article on how to snag a husband at college I just had to comment:

On your first date, STAY CLASSY. A man won’t get down on one knee for a woman who is overly willing to get down on both of hers.

I think the "a man won't buy the milk if the cow is giving it away" canard to be *way* overhyped, but that's just my opinion.  I don't think women understand how much guys think about things besides sex when choosing a mate, and that ignorance is part of the problem.

And that goes whether this article was meant to be serious, humorous, or something else entirely.

A Letter from Titus to the Jews

Dear Jews:

It's not enough that we sacked your city.  It's not enough that we destroyed your temple.  It's not enough that we carted off your riches to Rome as spoils.  It's not enough that we brought thousands of you back to Rome as slaves.  It's not enough that we built a triumphal arch celebrating all this.

No, it's enough that we had you Jewish slaves build the triumphal arch that celebrates the fact that we sacked your city, destroyed your temple, carted off your riches to Rome as spoils, and brought thousands of you back to Rome as slaves.

Love, Titus

Those Romans really knew how to rub salt into wounds.  Today it's traditional that Jews refuse to walk under the Arch of Titus in the Forum, of which this picture shows a small part:

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A Day at the Capitoline Museum

There was a special exhibit at the Capitoline the day we went--documents from the Vatican Secret Archives.  So in addition to seeing the statue of Venus, and the remains of the statue of Constantine, and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, and the bronze of the she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus, and Dying Gaul, and Boy Removing A Thorn, I saw the following documents from the Vatican in the Lux in Arcana exhibit:

• the order for Galileo's interrogation
• Edict of Worms by Charles V, banning Luther
• a letter written and signed by Michelangelo
• letters to the pope from both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis
• Alexander VI's Inter Cetera bull concerning the New World
• request from Parliament to Clement VII to annul Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, 1530
• Concordat of Worms, 1122
• Napoleon's signature on a concordat recognizing Catholic freedom of worship
• a note from Marie Antoinette
• Leo X's bull excommunicating Luther
• letter to the pope written and signed by Voltaire
• letter from Erasmus
• John XXII's bull recognizing Cambridge University, 1318
• the 1582 Lunario Novo eliminating October 5-14 from the calendar to create the Gregorian calendar (printed copy)

Colors

As usual, click to enlarge:

A public phone in Venice

Tourists and pigeons in St. Mark's Square

Burano

The pool deck of Norwegian Jade

Public phone in Athens

Scooters in Rome

"Seafood" on my pizza

The flags of Rome, Italy, and the European Union

A small dome in St. Peter's Basilica

Swiss Guard at the Vatican

Wisteria on the Palatine Hill

Subway in Rome

Old blends with new at the Theater of Marcellus

Ruins

At the Acropolis in Athens

At the Temple of Zeus at Olympia; here was where the ivory Zeus statue, one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, stood

The Colosseum in Rome

The Theater of Marcellus in Rome, with modern apartments built into it

Trajan's Market and Forum, Rome

Public toilets at Ostia Antica, Ancient Rome's port city