Unworthy

In both June and October of this year I wrote posts about the rape of US Merchant Marine cadets while aboard merchant ships for "practical exercise" training.  On October 9th I wrote my congressman about this issue, saying in part:

As a West Point graduate I’m sensitive to any mistreatment of our cadets, midshipmen, and military members.  As a man I’m sensitive to the mistreatment of women.  As a human I’m sickened by the mistreatment of some of our Merchant Marine cadets while they’re at sea and, for the most part, unable to protect themselves.  My hope is that you will be as angry and disgusted as I am when you read about what some of them have allegedly suffered.

It seems clear that the Merchant Marine Academy needs to do a better job of vetting the placement of cadets, especially women cadets, on sea voyages.  It seems equally clear that the US Coast Guard needs to be more aggressive when investigating such allegations.  And the only way these two events will happen is if Congress exercises a bit more painful oversight.

Thus, I’m asking you to consider if and how Congress might influence the Merchant Marine Academy to do a better job of preventing the types of attacks I’ve described, and how Congress might influence the Coast Guard to be more pugnacious when investigating these types of attacks.  Lastly, I’m asking you to lead this fight.  

Our Merchant Marine cadets deserve better than the treatment they’re currently receiving.

It's now been two months since I sent this letter to Washington, with no response.  So, Congressman Ami Bera, I'm calling you out publicly.  You send franked letters to your constituents a few times a year asking what you can do for them; I bring you a serious problem and don't even get a response.  To say I'm disappointed in you would be an understatement.  To be honest, I expected better from you.

When my grandfather died 25 years ago, the Veterans Administration was in turmoil and told my grandmother it would be 6 months until grandpa would get a headstone for his grave.  I wrote my congressman at the time, Vic Fazio, and asked for his assistance.  His local office responded to me, agreeing that 6 months was a ridiculous time to wait for a headstone.  They got some information from me and a few weeks later called me to let me know a headstone would be in place in a couple weeks.  After I wrote a thank-you note to the congressman and his staff, I got another call from the local office--no one ever thanks the congressman (or his staff) for their work, they said; rather, people get what they want then go about their lives, and mine was the first thank-you note they could remember receiving.  Vic Fazio is not someone my grandfather or I would ever have voted for, but the congressman and I didn't see a need to treat each other as enemies--we just had different political views, is all.   We treated each other with respect and decency, my situation was resolved, and both of us came out better for it.  Whenever I see signs for the Vic Fazio Yolo Wildlife Area, I can spare a kind thought for the congressman and what he did for my family.

Ami Bera, on the other hand, from whom I've received more franked letters than all the other congressmen I've had in my lifetime combined, can't share a letter or a phone call regarding the rape of Merchant Marine cadets.  What are your priorities, congressman?

It Can't Start Any More Even Than This

 

Beat Navy!

Update:  I don't know that I've ever seen a worse half of Army football, at least as far as offense goes.  Only 33 total yards, one first down, and less than 8 minutes of possession.  Remarkably, defense has held Navy to 3 points, and a blocked punt by special teams resulted in an Army touchdown.  So, defense and special teams showed up for this game, where is the offense?  At halftime it's Army 7, Navy 3.

Update #2:  It was a squeaker.  Army tied it 10-10 in regulation inside of 2 minutes, taking the game to overtime.  Army's first play from scrimmage was a touchdown, and Navy answered with their first completed pass of the game for a touchdown.  Navy got the ball first in 2OT and the Army defense caused a fumble at the goal line.  Army played it safe for their possession and won with a field goal.

Army didn't score an offensive touchdown in regulation but still won the game 20-17 in 2OT.  I'd rather win ugly than lose pretty, and that was as ugly as I can recall seeing Army's offense play.

Here's what ESPN shows, and take my word for it, as bad as it looks, it looked a lot worse for Army at the end of the first half.

Beat Navy!

Not A Fan of Digital Currency

I like cold, hard cash.  I don't want government to be able to "shut off my money", which they'll be able to do in an entirely cashless society.  I don't want government to limit how much money I can get from the bank, either:

Nigeria will soon begin restricting ATM withdrawals to just $45 per day as part of a push to move the country toward a cashless economy. 

The policy – which will also apply to banks and cashback from purchases – follows the launch of the West African nation's newly designed currency notes to control the money supply.

Don't forget what Castreau did up north last winter.

This Is What You Get When Everybody Gets A Participation Trophy

We've discussed credit scores in my Financial Math class, and today my students got a little chuckle as I made fun of this man's stupidity and whininess:

The first Gen-Z member of Congress is heading to DC — if he can find somewhere to live.

Maxwell Alejandro Frost had his apartment rental application denied by a Washington, DC, landlord, the representative-elect said in a tweet. Frost, who is set to make $174,000 a year as a freshman Congress member, said he applied to an apartment after he gave a prospective landlord notice that his credit score was “really bad.” 

Frost said the landlord told him that the application should get approved despite his poor credit score. However, Frost’s application was still denied and he subsequently lost the apartment and the application fee.

I'm going to guess Maxwell's political party based on his whining:

 "In an interview, Frost said that even with a letter from the House showing his congressional salary it did not matter because “in this country we allow numbers like credit scores to completely define a human.” “It just shows how much of a problem we have,” he said. His initial plan was to couch surf while he was getting his bearings in DC, but the apartment he had applied for was within his budget. “We’ll see what ends up happening,” Frost said."

Oh boo hoo.  No one has said that your credit scores defines the totality of your being human, it merely says that you have a history of not paying your bills.  Quit being so dramatic.  You might think you have a good reason for not paying your bills, but the fact remains that you have a (recent) history of not paying your bills.  Buck up, deal with it, fix your credit score like us mere mortals have to, and then you can rent the apartment.  Until then, stay at a hotel--where you'll even have a mommy figure make your bed for you each day.

I was right.  The source of all knowledge and wisdom says he's a Democrat.  Shocking, I know.

No Sympathy

A full-time college student will take a minimum of 12 units a semester.  Back in the olden days, when college students were expected to work to earn a grade, it was considered reasonable to expect 2 hours of work outside of class for every hour in class.  Accordingly, a student taking 12 hours of classes a week should expect to work 24 hours for a total of 36 hours—less than a full-time job, and they still have weekends off.

I’m tired of my tax money supporting these whiners:

While 87 percent of students said that college is “too difficult,” the same percentage are studying less than 10 hours per week, a new survey found.

Intelligent.com, which regularly surveys college students, gathered data from 1,000 respondents, all of whom attend four-year colleges.

“The vast majority of students (87%) say they have felt at least one of their college classes was too challenging and should have been made easier by the professor,” the survey found.

Buck up, get to work, and learn something.  College isn’t supposed to be the equivalent of 4 years at a resort.

Update, 12/10/22:  But what, there's more! 

As long as college students are considered entitled customers, their complaints about their professors will be taken seriously by administrators...

There was a time when college administrators paid little attention to student dissatisfaction. Their opinions were largely written off as a sign of their immaturity. But things have changed because of the high stakes involved. Students believe that they are entitled to all A’s while putting in little effort because they are paying soaring tuition. Not surprisingly, professors who have not yet achieved tenure are reluctant to disappoint students out of fear that poor ratings will be used against them. In contrast, tenured professors simply dig in their heels, citing lowering standards...

The long-term effects of corporatization are disheartening. Colleges and universities are supposed to be centers of research and learning. The farther they move away from their primary mission by trying to please students, the more they undermine it. The transformation is part of a larger cultural shift that views higher education as a private good benefiting individual students rather than a public good helping the nation prosper by turning out educated citizens.

First, students are not customers, they're product.  A school, like a corporation, that puts out poor product will eventually find itself in a bad place.  And second, a "public good" should benefit everyone; if public education is seen as a private good, which it is becoming more and more, then the public should not support it financially.

What Is News?

This morning when I woke up I checked the news on my phone.  Two of the sites I went to were CNN and Fox.  Given CNN's political slant, it's not surprising that the top 3 stories (and several related "sub-stories") on their (mobile) web site all related to politics--the Georgia Senate run-off, President Trump, and a Supreme Court case.  This is to be expected.

What I could not find anywhere on the front page of their site was this story:

https://www.foxnews.com/us/loudoun-county-superintendent-scott-ziegler-fired-after-grand-jury-report-handling-sexual-assaults

How is this not news?  I guess they don't consider it so if it doesn't support their viewpoint. 

Those of us on the left and right live in two different worlds, watch two different movies.

Update, 12/10/22:  link didn't work before, fixed now! 

Update, 12/13/22:  Merrick Garland, who clearly doesn't have the temperament to sit on the Supreme Court, referred to these parents as domestic terrorists. 

Thesis Defense

We didn't have graduate students at my undergraduate school.  And when I got my own master's degree, I opted for a cumulative test rather than a thesis.  As such, I've never seen an actual thesis defense.  Until today.

A former student, with whom I've stayed in contact, invited me to attend his thesis defense on Zoom, and as my schedule allowed it, I did so.  It wasn't adversarial at all, which is different from what I had always imagined about these activities.  And it was quite interesting.

I admit that I had a little bit of an insider track on this one.  A week or so ago, this student shared some of his work with me and we discussed the statistics in it.  It's been a long time since I've taken even an advanced class in stats, but his work was good and I was able to make one suggestion about a test he could perform.

Mission Creep

Before I was born, California's Master Plan for Higher Education delineated three levels of post-secondary schools:  junior/community colleges, the California State University system, and the University of California system:

According to the Plan, the top one-eighth (12.5%) of graduating high school seniors would be guaranteed a place at a campus of the University of California tuition-free. The top one-third (33.3%) would be able to enter the California State University system. Junior colleges (later renamed "community colleges" in 1967) would accept any students "capable of benefiting from instruction."^[8] These percentages are now enforced by sliding scales equating grade point average and scores on the SAT or ACT, which are recalculated every year. No actual ranking of students in high schools is used as many schools do not rank students.

Graduates of the junior colleges would be guaranteed the right to transfer to the UC or CSU systems in order to complete bachelor's degrees. This practice was carried over from previous years before the Plan was enacted; graduates from the junior colleges had traditionally been accepted as upper-division transfer students at the state colleges or UC campuses by virtue of their prior coursework. Finally, the Plan established that the University of California would be the sole portion of the system charged with performing research, and would award master's and doctoral degrees in support of that mission. The Cal State system, in addition to awarding master's degrees, would be able to award joint doctorates with the UC.^[8]

The "California Idea"—California's tripartite system of public research universities, comprehensive 4-year undergraduate campuses, and open-access community colleges—has been highly influential, and many other states and even nations have imitated this structure.^[11] However, California higher education has had a poor record of college completion and four-year baccalaureate degree attainment. Subgroups such as Latinos and African Americans (whose demographics are large and growing) show even worsening statistics of degree attainment.

One can argue that the Master Plan hasn't lived up to the promises of its most ardent proponents, but what government plan has?  Even if it hasn't been implemented very well, the idea behind it is still strong. 

You think the system is screwed up?  I know what let's do, let's screw it up some more:

Three California community colleges are fighting to start new baccalaureate programs, which their leaders insist would fill critical local workforce needs and help students who couldn’t otherwise afford to pursue a four-year degree. But their plans have faced repeated roadblocks from the California State University system. Cal State faculty members argue these programs, and future programs like them, shouldn’t proceed without their go-ahead...

Half of states now allow community college baccalaureate degrees. California launched its first community college baccalaureate programs on a pilot basis seven years ago.

Community colleges should focus on their own mission.  Additionally, unprepared students shouldn't be admitted to universities.  Implementing those two common sense points would allow plenty of room in the universities for students to take the classes they need, and also give the community colleges all the work they can handle getting the unprepared students ready for university-level work.  You know what the problem is with my idea?  Not enough opportunities for graft and fiefdom-enlargement.

To use the parlance of today, the community colleges should "stay in their own lane".

When Will They Realize They're The Bad Guys?

If you think you know better what's good for kids than their parents, strictly because their parents disagree with you on a controversial topic, you're the bad guy.  If you have to have policies in place to keep information from parents, you're the bad guy:

An email unearthed by parents at an Indiana high school has revealed a districtwide support plan for students undergoing gender transition and a policy to withhold and hide information from students’ parents.

An Aug. 16 email sent by a counselor at Pendleton Heights High School in Pendleton, Indiana, informed teachers that a student had changed genders, provided new pronouns, and said teachers should not inform the student’s parents because they were “not supportive of the decision"...

Jason Payne, a parent with a child in that school district, South Madison Community School Corporation, told The Daily Signal in a text: “If staff at South Madison are willing to lie to parents about this—what else are they willing to lie about? How can I be assured my kid is safe while he’s at Pendleton if they can’t be trusted to be honest with me?”

In my district, too, we're under gag orders in some cases.  I remember a case several years ago in which two students were suspended for some serious making out at school.  In the conference with the parents, participants were not allowed even to indicate the sex of the other person (including using sex-based pronouns) because doing so would have "outed" the students involved.

Criminalizing Dissent

We're fast becoming a banana republic, if we aren't there already:

In a National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin issued on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced portentously that “the United States remains in a heightened threat environment.” It seems that “lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances continue to pose a persistent and lethal threat to the Homeland.” Yet while the DHS claims to be tracking terror threats from people with a “range of ideological beliefs,” it is especially concerned “threat actors could exploit several upcoming events to justify or commit acts of violence, including certifications related to the midterm elections” and “the marking of two years since the breach of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.” The message is clear: DHS is going to devote its resources to the alleged terror threat coming from those who dissent from the Leftist establishment line. Meanwhile, the agency plans to release Afghan Muslim criminals into the United States. The priorities of Biden’s handlers’ “counterterror” apparatus are all too clear...

Clearly, DHS is playing political games with the safety and security of the American people. Instead of focusing on actual threats, such as the continuing one of jihad terrorism and the completely ignored 800-pound gorilla in the room, violence from Antifa and Black Lives Matter, DHS is devoting the lion’s share of its time and attention to fabricating a right-wing terror threat and using it to silence opponents of the regime. The ultimate goal is to criminalize political dissent. That’s the real message of the latest National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin. What we need now is a counterterror apparatus to protect us from the counterterror “experts.”

We're Losing Our Enlightenment Values

What's worse, I never thought we'd lose them so quickly:

[W]hich came first, the corruption of science or the censoring of speech? 

It appears they’ve walked hand-in-hand for quite some time, becoming all the more apparent with the consolidation of social media power and the collective efforts of federal bureaucrats who wish to control not only what you think but especially what you say. During no time in human history was this more obvious than during the COVID-19 crisis where social engineering tactics were used against the American public, not to limit your exposure to a virus, but to limit your exposure to information that did not fit within a government sanctioned narrative. 

Throughout the pandemic, doctors, scientists, patients, and families were censored, shadow-banned, blocked, and punished for having views, opinions, and research findings disfavored by the government and their chosen gatekeepers. Hard fast truths that have become indisputable over time, ranging from the effectiveness of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine to the potential dangers of Remdesivir and the failures of the vaccine were labeled as "disinformation" and "misinformation."

I remember when believing that the coronavirus had nothing to do with a wet market, that it was a human-manufactured virus that escaped from the lab in Wuhan, got you laughed at and called a conspiracy theorist.  Today that same belief gets you a "well, duh, of course".

Just Give Up Already

How many times already has the requirement to show a "RealID" for domestic air travel been postponed?  Why do they keep postponing it, it's literally been known for years.  Of course they blame the 'rona for the backlog, but the 'rona hasn't been causing backlogs for two years, and this latest delay is two more years:

Air travelers will now have two more years to upgrade their licenses and other forms of identification to be Real ID-compliant .

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Monday the new deadline will be May 7, 2025, allowing Americans more time following delays caused by the COVID pandemic. The old cutoff was slated for May 3, 2023.

Americans wishing to trade their license or ID in for a compliant Real ID, which has a star symbol at the top of the card, must undergo a more stringent ID check during application. According to DHS, security features on Real IDs are designed to prevent counterfeiting and fraud, using documentary evidence and record checks to confirm travelers are who they claim to be. The Real ID will be required by travelers 18 or older to board a plane, enter a federal building or a military base. Passports, military IDs or Global Entry cards also will qualify to pass through airport security. 

Stringent, you say?  I know of a former student who has openly bragged for over a year about having a RealID showing he/she is old enough to drink.  He/she is not.  Good job, California! 

Anyway, this RealID requirement sounds like an ineffective parent:  "Stop now or you're going to be in trouble...One more time and you're in a timeout...Don't make me say it again...One, two, three, if I get to four...."  Just give up already.  You're incompetent.  I'm talking to you, California DMV and US Dept of Homeland Security.

You Can Expect This When Government Is In The Suicide Business

Combine government-run health care with "medical assistance in dying", as they do up north in Canada, and this is what you get:

Canada's Veterans Affairs office offered to assist a Paralympian and veteran to commit suicide when she sought to have a wheelchair lift installed in her home, the woman told lawmakers last week.

Christine Gauthier, a 52-year-old retired corporal who competed in the 2016 Paralympics at Rio De Janeiro, testified to lawmakers that a VA official had offered — in writing — to provide her with a medically-assisted suicide kit. The case officer remains unnamed but reportedly made similar offers to at least three other veterans, according to the Independent.

"I have a letter saying that if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying," Gauthier said in a hearing before the House of Commons veterans affairs committee.

The rot up there has grown so much, so fast.  What happened to those people?

When I Retire

The current timeline is 4 1/2 years, and then I'll pack up and move somewhere cheaper and less crazy.  I haven't yet found that Goldilocks location that is perfect in every way, but I think I can rule out these 10 cities worldwide:  Copenhagen, Paris, San Francisco, Geneva, Zurich, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Tel Aviv, New York, and Singapore.

These are the world's most expensive cities to live in 2022

It's Legal To Break The Law?

As I've said before, I don't care if marijuana is legalized or not, I just want state laws to jibe with federal law.  So what happens when federal law doesn't jibe with federal law?

Rather than granting illegal marijuana "dispensaries" access to the US banking system, why not just make pot legal?  Then the banking part is moot:

A bipartisan group of senators is working to attach marijuana legislation to "must-pass" bills at the end of the year, according to a new report.

Led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the group, according to Axios, has received the Department of Justice's blessing to implement legislation that would allow cannabis companies access to banking institutions and create grants for state expungement of past marijuana convictions.

The outlet reported that the "targeted legislation" stems from the pairing of two bills — the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act and the Harnessing Opportunities by Pursuing Expungement (HOPE) Act.

The SAFE Banking Act, which has passed through the House six times, allows federally-insured banks to work with cannabis shops and related companies in states that have legalized marijuana.

I guess doing it my way would make too much sense.

Why Do My Taxes Support This Anymore?

College is kinda becoming a joke:

Declining knowledge and academic rigor has not only been observed by Campus Reform, however. This trend has been observed by academics and policy analysts alike.

Most recently, Senior Fellow and Director of Education Policy Studies Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute asked, “Are College Classes too Hard for Today’s Students?”

According to Hess, an “Alarming [Number] Say ‘Yes.’” Pointing to a survey by Intelligent.com, Hess argues that college students want classes to be easier. 

Of 1,000 college students surveyed, the majority expressed that at least one class in their schedule was too difficult and that the university should force professors to make classes easier...

Professors Philip Babcock of the University of California Santa Barbara, and Mindy Marks of the University of California Riverside, found in their November 2022 study that today’s students “hit the books for just 14 hours” a week compared to 24 hours in 1961, as reported by stateuniversity.com. 

Yet, while students read significantly less and admit to coming to class unprepared, many of them still receive “A’s.”

Hess referred to college as a vacation, writing that “[w]hether or not students have other interests or responsibilities, treating college as an expensive multiyear holiday isn’t good for students, colleges or the taxpayers who subsidize much of this activity. And it’s insulting to all those young people who routinely put in 10-hour days waitressing, driving trucks, working construction and otherwise keeping us fed, clothed and housed.” 

It’s a multi-year holiday that they want the rest of us to pay for.  No, thank you.

9 Months Is An Eternity In Hypocrisy-land

At least, Justin Castreau up north must think so:

Being Offended

I'm not saying that people should go around intentionally offending others--we have words for such people.  But neither should we walk on eggshells in fear of offending someone.  Somewhere between those two extremes is a reasonable middle:

“Words are violence.” 

That’s a common refrain among far-left campus protestors, like the ones who show up at Matt Walsh’s events or those who recently shut down Ann Coulter’s speech at Cornell University, as reported by Campus Reform.   

Of course, words are not literal violence. At best, what the protestors mean is that words they dislike or disagree with are analogous to violence. Such words are “hurtful,” which is to say their hurt some people’s feelings.   

Simply put, the protesting students are offended. And they seem to believe they not only have a right not to be offended but that right somehow supersedes the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.  

This is abject nonsense. There is no such right, and the sooner young people recognize and accept that fact, the sooner they will grow up and develop the ability to cope and ultimately thrive in this often-unfriendly world...

First, keep in mind that being offended is a choice. Others can say what they want; you have no control over that. What you can control, however, is how you respond.  

As in other parts of life:  the problem isn't usually the problem, the problem is how you react to the problem.

Another Sad Day For Me

When I was young and a celebrity died, I often wondered why people got so upset.  After all, they didn't really know this person, why get bent out of shape over their passing?

When Tom Petty died five years ago I understood, writing this in my memorial blog post, "Petty's music brought me a lot of joy in life, and did so over several decades.  I'm sorry to see him go." 

I followed two groups religiously when I was in high school, Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac, and today I got word that Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac has died.  I "believe in the five", but the five are no more.

You Make Lovin' Fun was my favorite song of hers.  I got to see her at the end of my freshman year at West Point, when she performed at Eisenhower Hall on a tour promoting her solo album, and again when I saw Fleetwood Mac in 2014.  Her music brought me a lot of joy in life, and did so over several decades.  I'm sorry to see her go.

All Roads Lead To Calculus

I'm not a believer that AP Calculus is the end-all, be-all of high school math.  Neither do I believe the recent fad of badmouthing calculus and redirecting students into statistics classes (full disclosure:  I teach statistics).  I think we should offer a variety of courses and let students choose what they want.

I'm not a fan of AP classes and their tests.  In theory they sound good--I'm all about external evaluations to maintain standards--but I don't like how much taxpayer money goes into the pockets of the College Board.  Just to give you an idea, we at the schools get kids to register for the tests, we used to collect the money but now I think the students pay online, we order the tests, we set up and administer the tests (several different tests over the course of a couple weeks), we box up the materials and return them to the College Board--and they score them.  A lot of school employee time is spent so that the College Board can keep all that money.  Public education shouldn't be that way.

This is my 20th year at my current school, and most (all?) of those years I taught pre-calculus.  We're supposed to be getting new textbooks/curriculum for the course next year, and then we'll no doubt need even newer books and curriculum for, wait for it, AP Precalculus!  A new course for the 2023-24 school year:

In AP Precalculus, students explore everyday situations and phenomena using mathematical tools and lenses. The framework focuses on four key units of study that colleges expect students to demonstrate to qualify for credit or placement. 

Great, just great. 

And AP Calculus isn't necessarily all that and a bag of chips, either, because of its reliance on graphing calculators.

Cheech and Chong Were Not Self-Medicating

Not being someone who partakes of the devil's lettuce, I have no dog in the "should marijuana be legalized" fight.  I don't care if it's legalized at the federal level or not, what I do care about is that several states (California included) openly flout federal law.  Marijuana is not "legal" in these states; rather, use or possession is not a state crime, while it still absolutely is a federal crime.

You'd think California would have gone all in on legalizing marijuana, but you'd be wrong.  Its state-level decriminalization was sold to the public as "medical marijuana", so people with cancer and glaucoma can have their suffering eased.  You want to ease suffering, right?

I never bought into the "medical marijuana" argument.  If you "believe the science", you wouldn't buy into it, either:

Cannabis is one of the most widely used drugs in the world. While there are only a few countries where cannabis is legal for recreational use, many more countries have legalized the use of cannabis for medical reasons.

Reducing pain is one of the most common reasons people report using medical cannabis. According to a US national survey, 17 percent of respondents who had reported using cannabis in the past year had been prescribed medical cannabis.

When it comes to self-medication, the numbers are even higher – with estimates that between 17-30 percent of adults in North America, Europe and Australia reporting they use it to manage pain.

Although cannabis (and cannabis-derived products, such as CBD) may be widely used for reducing pain, how effective it really is in doing this is still unclear. This is what our recent systematic review and meta-analysis sought to uncover.

Our study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests cannabis is no better at relieving pain than a placebo.

Shocking, I know.

The Rot Up North Intensifies

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is something very sick and sinister beyond our northern border:

In a prestigious medical journal, doctors from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children have laid out policies and procedures for administering medically assisted death to children, including scenarios where the parents would not be informed until after the child dies.

The article appears just three months before the Canadian Council of Academies is due to report to Parliament on the medical consensus about extending voluntary euthanasia in circumstances currently forbidden by law. The Canadian Council of Academies is specifically looking at extending so-called assisted dying to patients under 18, psychiatric patients and patients who have expressed a preference for euthanasia before they were rendered incapable by Alzheimer's or some other disease.

The Sept. 21 paper written by Sick Kids doctors, administrators and ethicists was published in the British Medical Journal's J Med Ethics and backed by the University of Toronto's Joint Centre for Bioethics.

In a flowchart that outlines how a medically induced death would occur at Sick Kids, authors Carey DeMichelis, Randi Zlotnik Shaul and Adam Rapoport do not mention conversation with family or parents about how the child dies until after the death occurs in the "reflection period."

Patient confidentiality governs the decision about whether or not to include parents in a decision about an assisted death, the authors said. If capable minors under the age of 18 stipulate they don't want their parents involved, doctors and nurses must respect the patients' wishes.

Have they crossed the boundary into Lebensunwertes Leben?

After School Satan Club

From the major Sacramento newspaper:

An elementary school has approved an “After School Satan Club” in California, and parents are upset, according to news outlets. 

The club meets “at select public schools where Good News Clubs and other religious clubs meet,” according to the program’s website. The classes are “designed to promote intellectual and emotional development.” 

Golden Hills Elementary School in Kern County’s Tehachapi approved the Satanic Temple and Reason Alliance sponsored program to begin on Dec. 5, and parents are sharing their opinions on Facebook, according to Tehachapi News.

Yes, the Satan Club is a swipe at Christians and their clubs.  So what?  If you don’t want your kids to attend, then don't allow them to attend.  Seems pretty simple to me.  I fear some will take the leftie route of trying to ban what they don't like, and lose a First Amendment case whilst emboldening despicable people.

How Did We Get Here?

Remember when schools weren't insane asylums? There have always been problems with martinet teachers and administrators, but tell me you ever envisioned this back when you were in high school:

We now return for the third time to the saga of Randolph Union High School in Vermont, a place where apparently you are not allowed to state the simple biological fact that a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl. Worse, you must allow boys to enter a girls’ dressing room and ogle them freely, and if you dare challenge this absurdity, you will be fired or suspended.

This craziness began in late September, when a boy claiming to be a girl (because he wanted to play on the girls volleyball team) entered the girls dressing room and watched the girls change, much to their discomfort. When the girls complained to school officials, the officials immediately banned those girls from using their own dressing room, reserving it now solely to this one boy.

The story became even more insane when the local television station, WCAX, decided to censor itself. It had covered this story with reasonable accuracy when the story broke. In mid-October however it decided that its job was publishing the agenda of the queer community, not reporting the news, and it censored its own story, removing it from the internet. (You can still watch it here however.)

Meanwhile, school officials have continued their track record of insanity. These officials not only locked the girls from their own locker room, they suspended one girl, Blake Allen, because she had been the most outspoken of all, appearing in that censored WCAX story. As part of her punishment, school officials demanded she admit 2+2=5 in a “reflective essay.”

There's so much more at the link.

The Most Sensitive of Data

I probably shouldn't be surprised. Disgusted, yes, but not surprised.

The annual tax season looms large for Americans just after the holidays, and millions will soon turn to the $11 billion third-party filing industry to help make sense of their most recent finances—but a damning new exposé has revealed that some of the most popular tax sites routinely offered customers’ most private financial and personal data to Facebook without their knowledge thanks to a tiny, nearly ubiquitous surveillance code.  link

I've lauded TaxAct on this blog.  I regret that.

Happy (Early) Thanksgiving!

I'm already having one--I picked my son up at the airport early this afternoon :-)

Cracker Barrel

I went with family to a nearby Cracker Barrel last night.  Just to give you a sense of the crowd, I was the 2nd youngest at our table of 8.

Unbeknownst to me, two of our party are vegetarians.  I'm just going to put this out there:  Cracker Barrel is not a restaurant for vegetarians.  I first learned of the vegetarians when the side salads were delivered--and had bacon crumbles on them.  Who doesn't like bacon crumbles on a salad?! Vegetarians, apparently, and a salad was sent back to be brought back kosher.

The other vegetarian ordered a vegetable plate consisting of 4 small bowls of rabbit food.  Upon delivery we learned that two of these bowls had meat in them--the pinto beans and I think the turnip greens.  Yes, the meat was all spelled out in the menu, but who would think to look for meat in a vegetable dish?  Turns out, you should expect to do so at Cracker Barrel.

Our poor waitress was cool about replacing those dishes with true vegetable dishes, I could tell it wasn't her first time.  She didn't have to take back my roast beef and gravy with mashed potatoes and corn--mmm mmm good.

Made It!

Gave most of my weekly quizzes yesterday as opposed to today, but there weren't as many absent students today as I anticipated.

Our PTSA brought in "sandwich bar" fixin's, which made for a nice lunch.  The leftovers from yesterday's potluck certainly didn't hurt.

Assignments I gave in class today are not due the Monday we get back, but on Tuesday--students can refresh their brains on the material during class on Monday.

Study guides for final exams are already posted in Google Classroom, and have been for about 2 months.

We have about 2 weeks of instruction after Thanksgiving break, a week of review, and then a week of final exams.  We're off Friday, December 23rd.

We've made it to Thanksgiving break :-)

Thanksgiving Vacation!

When I was a kid, we went to school Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week and got the rest of the time off.  Too many parents took their kids out of school those days for family trips, meaning the kids missed instruction and the schools missed "average daily attendance" money, so nowadays our district just takes the whole week off school.  That's part of why we start school in early August, to make up for all the extra days off we now get throughout the school year that we didn't used to get (and yes, there are more school days than when I was a kid, too).

School is now out--I'm off for 9 days!

It's Near The End of the Semester

How can I tell?  Because I'm getting replies to my "your student is in danger of failing math" emails I was required to send out this week.

Sadly, I get very few responses to such emails, but those I do get are often frustrating.  They boil down to, what will you do to help my kid get a higher grade?  There's no mention at all of learning, just a higher grade.

No, I won't assign extra credit.  I already give bonus questions on each quiz and test, and once in awhile allow a small project for students to demonstrate more advanced learning.  Any other  extra credit is mere hoop-jumping, and I don't hand out points like cookies just to artificially inflate a grade.

No, I won't allow your student to retake a test on which he/she did poorly.  We don't do "test reconnaissance" in our department.

Yes, we can meet in person, but I won't tell you anything at such a meeting that I wouldn't tell you in an email in a few sentences.

Yes, I'm available to help your student outside of class.  I'm in my classroom a half hour before school starts each morning.  Other teachers offer tutoring during lunch and after school.

There's such a stark difference between how parents and students on the one hand, and teachers on the other, view grades.  The former view "points" as commodities to be hoarded and maximized, like gold, to be gathered however they can be gathered.  The latter view grades as a proxy for achievement towards a predefined set of standards.  I don't see how these competing views can ever be reconciled.

So I'll just keep getting frustrated, and replying with as much cheerfulness and professionalism as I can muster.

An America I Recognize

What was I — a lifelong Democrat — doing at an election watch party in rural Virginia, surrounded by Republicans? As Ron DeSantis, 800 miles away, filled a huge TV screen with a post-landslide victory speech, he provided part of the answer: “We chose education over indoctrination!” He got a raucous round of applause from the crowd at the Marriott Ranch, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Even I joined in.

I have come to realise that party affiliation is far less important to me than fealty to the values that made it possible for me, a Muslim immigrant from India, to prosper in America. In the summer of 1969, I arrived at JFK International Airport as a four-year-old with no English, destined for a new home in New Jersey and then Morgantown, West Virginia. My parents had made a keen study of US history. They knew it was a nation that had its flaws, but they were encouraged by some pivotal developments, particularly the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which banned racial segregation in public schools and declared unequivocally that race cannot play a role in school admissions. This, they thought, was a fair place to raise their kids.

When I came to learn my adopted nation’s history myself, at Martin Luther King Elementary School, I understood that the painful legacy of slavery was part of it. But I also knew that good and thoughtful people in the present had made honest attempts to address these issues — by passing laws banning racial discrimination, for instance. I hardly thought the US perfect but, as a native of India, I understood that societies that dwell forever on historical grievances tend not to be happy, free or prosperous places. America was fundamentally — and wonderfully — different.

But, in recent years, something very disturbing has happened. That is why, on the night of the midterm elections, I drove west after sundown on Route 66 with my friend Harry Jackson, the first black PTSA president at my son’s alma mater. We were driving to a party of kindred spirits, most of whom didn’t look anything like us.

Why? Because the Democratic Party, which once valued fairness and justice, has, alas, been torching the American Dream. Democratic politicians, school boards, governors and even US Supreme Court justices are pushing “equity” over equality, “anti-racist” bigotry over colour-blindness, and mediocrity over merit. Literacy and maths scores are plummeting nationwide, while black and Hispanic kids are falling further and further behind — and yet progressive Democrats are far more interested in bringing crackpot racialist theories into our classrooms. In other words: they choose indoctrination over education.

Read the whole thing.

Still Need Rest

I got home from work yesterday, had some tomato soup, and got in bed at 5:30.  I'd planned just to rest for awhile, but when I woke up at midnight, well, it was too late to do anything other than turn over and go back to sleep!

So 12 hrs in bed before the alarm went off this morning.  We'll see how well I make it through the day.

Biggest Fear

Most teachers' biggest fear is returning to the classroom after being out for a day.  What will we see when we first open that door?  What note will the substitute have left?  What did and didn't get accomplished?  Is the place a mess, is there anything missing?

Fortunately, the substitute I had last Wednesday was seemingly competent.  Students did what they needed to do without too much trouble, and everything was pretty much where I left it on Tuesday afternoon.

I've got some remaining tests to grade from Tuesday, but otherwise I got all caught up today.  Just have to get through this week--and take next week off!

Venturing Out

I've been locked in my house since returning home from work Tuesday afternoon.  Tuesday and Wednesday were very bad, and I've spent the last couple days recovering from them.  

A lady at work is having a potluck today and I'm going.  It's a booze and food potluck; I'll have to stop somewhere for food, as I truly have nothing to take, but I have plenty of booze I can share!

I'm looking forward to seeing something besides "these 4 walls".

Here We Go Again

Is there anything that isn't systemic racism to people who think this way?

A CNN piece on Wednesday spoke with critics knocking the lottery system as a form of systemic racism that targets poor Black and Brown communities across America. 

No one is compelled to buy a ticket.

Not As Bad As It Sounds

It's pretty bad, but at least there was no hostile intent in the message:

KFC has apologised after sending a promotional message to customers in Germany, urging them to commemorate Kristallnacht with cheesy chicken.

The fast food chain sent an app alert on Wednesday, saying: "It's memorial day for Kristallnacht! Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!" 

How could they possibly do this?  The answer seems reasonable enough to me, especially if the tech is run by Americans:

In a statement issued to Newsweek magazine, KFC Germany blamed the message on a bot.

The fast food chain said the "automated push notification" was "linked to calendars that include national observances".

It added that it "sincerely" apologised for the "unplanned, insensitive and unacceptable message" and said app communications had been suspended while an examination of them takes place.

That's a pretty big oopsie, though, and another reason why people should learn history.

Math Myths

17 1/2 years ago, in my first year of publishing this blog, I linked to Ten Myths About Mathematics Education and Why You Shouldn't Believe Them.  Those myths are:

1. Only what students discover for themselves is truly learned.
2. Children develop a deeper understanding of mathematics and a greater sense of ownership when they are expected to invent and use their own methods for performing the basic arithmetical operations, rather than study, understand and practice the standard algorithms.
3. There are two separate and distinct ways to teach mathematics. The NCTM backed approach deepens conceptual understanding through a problem solving approach. The other teaches only arithmetic skills through drill and kill. Children don't need to spend long hours practicing and reviewing basic arithmetical operations. It's the concept that's important.
4. The math programs based on NCTM standards are better for children with learning disabilities than other approaches.
5. Urban teachers like using math programs based on NCTM standards. 
6. "Calculator use has been shown to enhance cognitive gains in areas that include number sense, conceptual development, and visualization. Such gains can empower and motivate all teachers and students to engage in richer problem-solving activities." (NCTM Position Statement)
7. The reason other countries do better on international math tests like TIMSS and PISA is that those countries select test takers only from a group of the top performers.
8. Math concepts are best understood and mastered when presented "in context"; in that way, the underlying math concept will follow automatically.
9. NCTM math reform reflects the programs and practices in higher performing nations.
10. Research shows NCTM programs are effective.

How far have we come since then?  Not far at all:

In this paper, leading education researchers Sarah Powell, Elizabeth Hughes and Corey Peltier debunk seven commonly-held myths about teaching maths – (1) conceptual then procedural understanding, (2) teaching algorithms is harmful, (3) inquiry learning is the best approach, (4) productive struggle is important, (5) growth mindset increases achievement, (6) executive function training is important, and (7) timed assessments cause mathematics anxiety.

Myths That Undermine Maths Teaching

I don't want to ascribe hostile ulterior motives to teachers who believe any of those 17 myths listed above, but they're teaching other people's children with those views.  At some point you have to wonder.

White Supremacy and Hate Crimes

We know there is so little white supremacy in the U.S that Biden allegedly asked the FBI to manufacture some good old hatred. FakeHateCrimes.org has 472 examples of false bigotry, almost all of which are minorities pretending to be victims of racial hatred. Imagine living in a country so lacking in hate crimes that people and the FBI have to fake it. I thought the goal was NO HATE CRIMES–but when the supply exceeds the demand, FAKE IT.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2022/11/07/the-top-five-excuses-democrats-will-use-when-they-get-annihilated-on-election-day-n1643734

Death, Maybe Not Even Warmed Over

I got home from Texas Sunday evening, and felt fine at work on Monday. This morning, however, I didn't feel so great.  As the day wore on, I felt worse and worse, until by quitting time I was in total agony.

I drove home and got in bed immediately.  I just got up and requested a substitute for tomorrow, as there's no way I'll feel well enough to go to work tomorrow.  I have a home covid test but I can't use it right now, perhaps in the morning I'll feel well enough to give it a try.

Now I'm going back to bed.  I had hoped to watch the news reports of today's red wave, but that's not going to happen.

A Good Weekend

Except for the last Army drive, with less than 2 minutes to go, ending in an interception--and the subsequent 13-7 loss--it was a great 35th class reunion.  I got to see people I knew and share fun memories, that's always nice.  One classmate shared a flattering memory of me--it's good that he remembered it because I sure don't!  Of all the roommates I had at West Point over 4 years, more than half of them were there.

I was able to get decent video of the national anthem followed by the fly-over, and the pilots and crews of the aircraft were introduced inside the stadium in the 3rd quarter and thus got to see the rest of the game from ground level :-)  I saw my former student up on the Jumbotron when all the pilots were welcomed into the stadium during the 3rd quarter, but there's no way I could've gotten over there to say hello before he'd have moved to a seat.  I'm sure his mother told him I was there.

I'm very not happy with the Army Athletics ticket office.  My class had a section in the stadium reserved for us and I paid over $100 for the game ticket, and we were stuck behind the north end zone.  Geez, after 35 years and a lot of money you'd think we'd get better seats than that!  There was an upper deck overhang above my seat such that I couldn't see the open dome from my seat, and neither could I see if a kick was any good unless the ball barely inched over the cross bar of the goal post--I went and sat closer to the front of the section, with friends, so that I would have a somewhat better view of things.

My classmates who organized and planned the reunion did a spectacular job.  I'm very impressed with how smoothly the reunion went.  I don't know if I'll go to another one any time soon, but I'm glad I went to this one.

Our Country We Strengthen.  '87.

Voter Suppression

 

Go Army, Beat Air Force!

You can follow the stats here.  I'm at the game, having posted this in advance :-)

Last year members of my class had such a good time at the game that we voted to center our 35th reunion around the game this year.

35 years.  Holy crap.

Veterans Day Offers

The VA offers this list of offers, free meals, and other goodies for active duty military and veterans next Friday, Veterans Day.

Some People Still Belive In Freedom of Speech

It's an English Enlightenment value, so perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised that this is coming from an English university:

Cambridge University students are to get free speech training, as part of a new project aimed at countering “cancel culture” on campus.

The sessions – which are aimed at educating undergraduates about the importance of tolerating views they disagree with – will be rolled out at universities across the country if successful.

It comes amid warnings from the university watchdog that free speech is at risk of being stifled on campuses after a record number of speakers and events were rejected last year.

And there have been a string of high-profile incidents where university chiefs have censured or no-platformed speakers following intense pressure from students who deemed their views “offensive”.

I'm disappointed that it isn't coming from an American university.

It'll Be An Early Day Tomorrow and Saturday

This morning I received a text message from the mother of a former student.  This student graduated from our school in 2011 and four years later from the Air Force Academy.  He is currently a fighter pilot.  Anyway, here's the text of the message:

Hi Darren!  Wanted to let you know--this Saturday is the AF/Army game (televised on CBS).  <name redacted!> will be flying the F-35 for the flyover.

My reply was simple:

I'll wave from inside the stadium :-)

Yes, I'm taking tomorrow off work to fly to Texas for the Army-Air Force game.  My class is having our 35th reunion this weekend, centering on the game.  Sadly, I'm not as confident in our chances of victory this year as I was last year, but I still expect to have plenty of opportunities to hear the two sweetest words in the English language:  TOUCHDOWN, ARMY!

Kickoff is at 11:30 Eastern, 8:30 Pacific.  Physically I'll be in the Central Time Zone but my body will still be on Pacific Time.  At least I'll get an extra hour of sleep Saturday night when we change the clocks back.

Not A Fan of Communism

Over 15 years ago I wrote a post with the same title as this one, it only came to mind because that post received its first comment today!  The thrust of that post was that people who lived through communism don't have any rose-colored glasses through which to view the experience.

So here we are again, over 15 years later, and I'll link to this video that makes the same argument:

Ilan Sinelnikov: What the Soviet Union Taught Me about Freedom

“I know that the truth is on my side.” 

Ilan Sinelnikov was the first in his family to be born in a free country—the first to grow up with freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Those liberties didn’t exist in the Soviet Union, where his family was persecuted for being Jewish. Ilan attended college in the United States, where he aspired to hold a student leadership position. Because of his outspoken support of Israel, he was smeared, silenced, and blocked from that role. Ilan fought back and now encourages all Americans to speak up, tell the truth, and protect our country’s founding freedoms.

Why Are They So Interested In Continuing To Practice Racial Discrimination?

They've spent a lot of money just to keep the Asians out, and they may have to spend more:

Harvard University has already exhausted $25 million in insurance coverage defending its affirmative action admissions program and is in court trying to force another of its insurers to cover up to $15 million more.

While the $25 million costs to date have been covered under an AIG subsidiary’s (National Union Fire Insurance Co.) primary liability policy, the university wants its $15 million excess insurance policy issued by Zurich Insurance to cover costs above that amount. But Zurich maintains Harvard missed the deadline for notifying it of its claim.

Why are they haggling over a mere $15 million dollars when their endowment is worth over $50 billion?  Sure, much of the endowment is earmarked for academic programs and research, but certainly they could find 3/100 of 1% that could be used to defend racial discrimination, couldn't they???

Since Yesterday Was Halloween...

Starburst and I both began in the 1960's:

Starburst, which was originally called Opal Fruits, was released in the U.K. in 1960 and came to the U.S. in 1967, according to Delish. 

Haribo gummy bears, too.  Mmmmm.

Will Affirmative Action Survive Yesterday's Latest Supreme Court Appearance?

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Harvard and North Carolina cases regarding the future of affirmative action. Here are articles representing each side of the argument:

Going back to Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978, the court has said there is a compelling state interest in taking race into account in university admissions processes — seeing a need to remedy past de jure and de facto discrimination against certain groups. Some Supreme Court affirmative action cases have also recognized the educational benefits of having a racially- and ethnically-diverse student body.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/31/supreme-court-affirmative-action-ban-00064058

The same year the SFFA sued the University of North Carolina, it filed a separate lawsuit against Harvard, challenging Harvard’s use of race in the admissions process under Title VI, alleging that “the university discriminates against Asian American applicants,” and “arguing that they are less likely to be admitted than similarly qualified white, Black, or Hispanic applicants.”

https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/31/dear-scotus-theres-no-equal-protection-if-universities-can-rate-skin-color-in-admissions/

You can probably guess where my sympathies lie.

The Very Definition of Fascism

When government “politely asks” businesses to do its dirty work for them, whether the businesses do so gleefully or reluctantly, isn’t that kinda sorta the very definition of fascism?

The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents — obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents — illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.

The work, much of which remains unknown to the American public, came into clearer view earlier this year when DHS announced a new “Disinformation Governance Board”: a panel designed to police misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) that allegedly threatens U.S. interests. While the board was widely ridiculed, immediately scaled back, and then shut down within a few months, other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate — the war on terror — has been wound down.

Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.

This next sentence ought to send shivers down the spine of anyone who loves freedom: 

“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.

It's Halloween, so you know you want to be scared.  Go read the whole thing. 

Update, 11/2/22:  Even the ACLU, which has lost its way in recent years, is right on this one:

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) went back to its roots Monday, condemning the government for working with Big Tech to censor certain topics and calling it a betrayal of constitutional rights.

"The First Amendment bars the government from deciding for us what is true or false, online or anywhere. Our government can’t use private pressure to get around our constitutional rights," the ACLU tweeted from its official account.

Plastic Recycling--Or Lack Thereof

Even the wackadoos at Greenpeace are admitting the reality:

Even Greenpeace has finally acknowledged the truth: recycling plastic makes no sense.

This has been obvious for decades to anyone who crunched the numbers, but the fantasy of recycling plastic proved irresistible to generations of environmentalists and politicians. They preached it to children, mandated it for adults, and bludgeoned municipalities and virtue-signaling corporations into wasting vast sums—probably hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide—on an enterprise that has been harmful to the environment as well as to humanity.

Now Greenpeace has seen the light, or at least a glimmer of rationality. The group has issued a report accompanied by a press release headlined, “Plastic Recycling Is A Dead-End Street—Year After Year, Plastic Recycling Declines Even as Plastic Waste Increases.” The group’s overall policy remains delusional—the report proposes a far more harmful alternative to recycling—but it’s nonetheless encouraging to see environmentalists put aside their obsessions long enough to contemplate reality.

The Greenpeace report offers a wealth of statistics and an admirably succinct diagnosis: “Mechanical and chemical recycling of plastic waste has largely failed and will always fail because plastic waste is: (1) extremely difficult to collect, (2) virtually impossible to sort for recycling, (3) environmentally harmful to reprocess, (4) often made of and contaminated by toxic materials, and (5) not economical to recycle.” Greenpeace could have added a sixth reason: forcing people to sort and rinse their plastic garbage is a waste of everyone’s time. But then, making life more pleasant for humans has never been high on the green agenda.

These fatal flaws have been clear since the start of the recycling movement...

Environmentalists’ zeal to ban plastic is far more destructive than their former passion to recycle it; it’s also harder to explain. Recycling, while impractical, at least offered emotional rewards to hoarders reluctant to put anything in the trash and to the many people who perform garbage-sorting as a ritual of atonement—a sacrament of the green religion. But why demonize plastic? Why ban products that are cheaper, sturdier, lighter, cleaner, healthier, and better for the environment? One reason: the plastic scare helps Greenpeace activists raise money and keep their jobs. Environmentalists need something to replace their failed recycling campaign.

The BBC Knows Not What It Writes About

They totally don't get it. Our governmental system is designed to ensure that passions are moderated, not enshrined into law:

It's notoriously hard to get new laws passed in the US and few believe the looming election reshaping Congress will solve that. Could the Swiss "people power" model help?

The US political system seems designed to create gridlock. The two chambers of Congress are frequently controlled by different parties.

The Senate has longstanding procedures that allow the minority party there to block most major legislation that doesn't have the support of at least 60 of the 100 senators.

And anything passed by Congress can be vetoed by a president (overriding that requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate).

All this means that the political stars have to align for the federal government to get things done - even overwhelmingly popular laws will wither on the congressional vine.

Policies like raising the minimum wage, enacting gun control legislation or immigration reform have substantial support but go nowhere in Washington.

Leave it to the BBC to suggest that minimum wage laws and gun control have substantial public support in this country.  They don't.

One wonders if they, like the NYT or MSNBC, even recognize what a leftie outlet they are.

Let the Swiss have their system, if they like it.  I prefer ours, thankyouverymuch.

"Even Liberals Should Be Skeptical of Racial Preferences in Higher Education"

Do racial preferences in higher education help black Americans?  This liberal emphatically says no:

Let’s begin by being clear on terminology. “Affirmative action” in higher education embraces many activities that the plaintiffs in the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases are not challenging. Investing in educational pipelines to improve under-performing high schools, improving outreach to underrepresented students, improving admissions practices to better capture student ability—these all reflect the traditional meaning of “affirmative action,” and no one is questioning their legality.

The practices used by Harvard and UNC, and challenged by Students for Fair Admissions, are racial preferences—admitting some students with weak credentials, and rejecting other students with strong credentials, strictly based on which racial “box” they check...

This policy is carried out in a variety of ways, including giving negative weight to Asian applicant performance and having admissions officers give dramatically lower interview ratings to Asian-American applicants than Harvard’s own alumni give the same students in interviews. By Harvard’s own internal analysis, it’s clear that Asian-Americans would make up around 30 percent of the student body in a race-neutral process, but they are limited to around 18-20 percent of the student body. This is every bit as appalling and illiberal as the old Jewish quota.

Meanwhile, the corresponding racial preferences favoring Black applicants, if perhaps appealing to many liberals in principle, produce a cascade of terrible results.

At most elite universities and professional schools, preferences are so large as to produce huge gaps in student performance. Half of Black law students in American law schools have first-year GPAs that put them in the bottom 10 percent of the class—and their poor performance, it can be clearly shown, is entirely due to the large preferences the students receive.

Black students who receive no preference perform just as well as whites or Asian-Americans. But when a racial group is performing poorly by design, it has many awful effects. Black students will feel demoralized, stigmatized, and even discriminated-against (which of course they are, in a sense). Other students will form negative stereotypes about the poor-performing group—just the opposite of the intended beneficial effect of a “diverse” class...

Large preferences (racial or otherwise), we show, produce massive and heartbreaking declines in bar passage rates. Tens of thousands of Black law students have failed to become lawyers over the years because of misguided preference policies.

There are signs that these facts are starting to sink into the liberal establishment.

The Supreme Court will hear the Harvard/UNC case(s) tomorrow.

A Long Day of Football

In my district we're required to perform unpaid duty at 6 extracurricular events per year.  The district's view is that these unpaid events (supervising at dances or at sports, for example) are part of what we get paid to do, and while they're technically correct since that's what our contract says, the local teachers union could do a lot worse than ensuring such supervision is paid.  So much time and effort goes into planning, scheduling, and supervising such unpaid supervision, most of which would go away if you paid teachers even a modicum to supervise.

At my school we get away with doing only 4 events per year.  Usually I sign up for two Friday nights of football, both JV and varsity, and that completes my non-instructional duties for the year.  We don't have stadium lights on our school's football field, so we play our home games at a school that's only about 3 miles from my house.  These football games last from about 4:30 to 10:15, and then I go home.

After we signed up for this year's unpaid non-instructional duties, a friend invited me to her Friday night wedding--on one of the Fridays I'd signed up for football duty.  Since I wanted to go to her wedding I traded duties with a teacher at my school.

He'd signed up for JV and varsity games held at our own school--on a Saturday (yesterday).  I got up, cleaned up, left home around 10, and was at school by 10:30, and the games ended around 4:15 or so. So I spent most of yesterday's daylight hours at sparsely attended football games, sitting in my lawn chair and ensuring nobody jumped the fence in order to get in without paying.  Exciting stuff.

When the game ended, the same friend I'd traded with met me at school.  He and I attended the Oregon State @ Stanford game a few weeks ago, and last night we went to the Idaho @ Sacramento State football game.

I attended both schools.  I got my masters degree online at Idaho, but I've never stepped foot on the campus.  I took 4 classes at Sac State early in my education career--not a great experience, but Sac State is my hometown school.  No matter which team won, I could be happy.  I just hoped for a well-played, close game with lots of lead changes.

We sat on the Sac State side and cheered for Sac State, which was 7-0 going into the game vs Idaho's 5-2 record.  The line was Sac State by 13.5 at kickoff, with the over/under at 62.5 points.  Throughout the first half it was easy to cheer for Sac State, and in the 3rd Quarter they were leading 24-7.

I could actually feel the momentum shift after that, as Idaho eventually pulled ahead 28-24 late in the 4th Quarter.  Sac State moved methodically down the field and scored, winning 31-28.  Idaho had missed a field goal early in the game. 

I got home shortly after 10 pm.  That was enough football for one day.

Imagine Universities Populated By Capable Students

It's easy if you try....

As I’ve said for years, students who don’t possess the requisite skills and knowledge shouldn’t be in universities, they should be at Community College.  Imagine, no more impacted programs (as in nursing) as schools admit only the qualified.

The crisis in US K-12 public education continues to deepen, and decisions by many colleges and universities to abandon SAT and ACT scores are making it worse. Instead of demanding more accountability from high schools, colleges are expecting less.

In the latest dismal signs for students, scores on the ACT college entrance exam have fallen to the lowest level in 30 years, while fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (often called the nation’s report card) show devastating declines. Taken together, these results underscore the urgency of K-12 interventions and the necessity of reinstating testing standards for college applicants.  link

Update, 10/31/22:  Here's how universities make make higher education more affordable, if they had any incentive to do so:

If colleges and universities got back to basics -- teaching and worthwhile research -- they could serve students without saddling them with massive debt, writes Richard Vedder, an emeritus economics professor at Ohio University.

Should, But Won't

Being a leftie means never having to admit you were wrong:

Editorial: Achievement data should discourage future school closures

Just-released data confirms some of the public’s worst fears: COVID and remote learning took an enormous toll on many students. In Pennsylvania, two decades of academic gains have been wiped out, as students are at their lowest proficiency levels in nearly two decades. 

It’s now painfully obvious that snap closures that morph into long-term lockouts, while understandable during the early uncertainty of the pandemic, were wrong. They set back an entire generation of students, and it will take years to catch up. The nation must do better during the next public health emergency. But the immediate challenge is helping students set back by the pandemic to catch up. If they don’t, the nation will pay a huge price in jails, prisons and lost human potential.

For the first time, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, showed across-the-board declines, from 2019 to 2022, in proficiency for U.S. students in reading and math at the 4th and 8th grade levels. The worst declines were in math, with proficiency levels decreasing from 41% to 36% for 4th graders, and 34% to 26% for 8th graders.

The research shows that remote learning worked well for some students. Overall, however, the COVID experiment in universal education-by-screens was a failure. 

Zoom school was remote teaching, not remote learning.