Thursday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
He popularized the phrase “rock and roll” to characterize the genre of music now called thusly.

Today's question is:
Who hosted the Howdy Doody Time television show?

Why Posting Might Be Light on Thursday

The ski report for Boreal:

Current Base: 82" - 125"
New Snow: 1" - 3"
Storm Snowfall: 1" - 3"
Snow Making: no
Current Weather: LIGHT SNOW

The weather report for Truckee, CA:

Tonight: Mostly cloudy skies. Low 17F. Winds light and variable.
Tomorrow: Mostly cloudy. High 39F. Winds light and variable.

Road conditions on Interstate 80, according to CalTrans:

[IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA & THE SIERRA NEVADA]
NO TRAFFIC RESTRICTIONS ARE REPORTED FOR THIS AREA.

Need I say more?

Education Buzz

This week's is here and includes two of my posts--one about a foreign exchange student, and the other about the last day of school before Christmas break.

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Axis Sally. (William Joyce was the male Lord Haw-Haw, broadcasting from Hamburg.)

Today's question is:
With what is Alan Freed credited?

Candy Canes A Weapon At School

When candy canes are outlawed, only outlaws will have candy canes.

It's hard to get people to take educators seriously when we in the field do stupid things like this:

They call themselves the "Christmas Sweater Club" because they wear the craziest ones they can find. They also sing Christmas songs at school and try their best to spread Christmas cheer.

Now all 10 of them are in trouble because of what they did at their school.

"They said, 'maliciously maim students with the intent to injure.' And I don't think any of us here intentionally meant to injure anyone, or did," said Zakk Rhine, a junior at Battlefield High School.

The boys say they were just tossing small two-inch candy canes to fellow students as they entered school. The ones in plastic wrap that are so small they often break apart.

Skylar Torbett, also a junior, said administrators told him, "They said the candy canes are weapons because you can sharpen them with your mouth and stab people with them." He said neither he nor any of their friend did that.

Next thing they knew, they were all being punished with detention and at least two hours of cleaning. Their disciplinary notices say nothing about malicious wounding but about littering and creating a disturbance.

"It was at 7 in the morning, before school even starts, so I don't what we'd be really disrupting," said Cameron Gleason, also a junior.

Principal Amy Etheridge-Conti says she can't comment on the students' discipline but did say there was a lot more to it than handing out candy and that the discipline was warranted...

Patti Gleason, the mother of Cameron Gleason says, "I am 100 percent sure they did nothing wrong. We've gotten so many different stories. It went from maiming kids with candy canes, to littering. And then when received the referral (disciplinary notice) it said 'disruption.' So nobody really knew what they were getting in trouble for, they were just making up a whole bunch of different things.

Yes, this is how we adults think and act in public schools.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Is No Longer The Law of the Land

From the Boston Globe:

No move is imminent, as there are remaining logistical issues that the university has to work out with the military. But (Harvard President) Faust’s show of receptiveness, which looks to be replicated at other universities with historically tense relations with the military, is a positive step. Bringing ROTC back would prove that the universities’ steadfast stances had been the product of honest and open concerns about discrimination, rather than an expression of reflexive anti-military sentiments. Students would have a better chance to serve their country, and the Pentagon would find itself with a new source of highly educated recruits at a time when its need for men and women with special training is at an all-time high. Whether in foreign languages or science, the skills learned at top universities are increasingly applicable to the military.

I can see no harm to either the military or to the Ivies from having ROTC on campuses. I'm adopting a wait-and-see approach, though, before I laud the Ivies.

I was with the editorial authors until I got to this part:

The universities’ anti-ROTC policies were justified during the long period when the military discriminated against gay and lesbian service members.

The military discriminates against all sorts of people--as it must, by federal law. It's not the military's policy that was against gays, it's the law. It's not the military's policy that keeps women out of direct combat roles, it's the law. It's not the military's policy that keeps all sorts of people out, it's the law. These schools should protest against the Congress, not the military.

My favorite funny example: when I was in the army, and I kid you not on this, all males had to have a penis. No winkage, no service. What possible legitimate reason did that rule have? I can't think of one, except for an inability to participate in the "this is my rifle, this is my gun" chants. If we kept out people with no balls, our current president and the vast majority of the Congress couldn't have served. Of course, most of them didn't.

My point in all this is, do we "justify" keeping ROTC off of campus until every social goal is accommodated in the military? Of course not. So why do we focus on DADT? To ask the question is pretty much to answer it.

I Know They're Hurting, But...

Is this really the way to deal with the pain? Was Rutgers really at fault, at all, in this case, or are the parents just lashing out because they want someone, anyone, everyone, to pay for the loss of their son?

The parents of a Rutgers University student who killed himself after his roommate allegedly used a webcam to spy on him during a tryst with another man have filed notice that they intend to sue the school.

Joseph and Jane Clementi, parents of Tyler Clementi, filed the notice on Friday. They have to wait six months to file the lawsuit over their son's death, which became a symbol in a national outcry over the bullying of young gays.

In the notice, the couple said "it appears Rutgers University failed to act, failed to put in place and/or failed to implement, and enforce policies and practices that would have prevented or deterred such acts, and that Rutgers failed to act timely and appropriately".

Basic Economics

That people respond to incentives (and to disincentives) is one of the basic principles of economics. The following comes as a surprise only to people who are such ideologues that they refuse to believe in economics.

From International Liberty:

Politicians approved a big tax hike on those bad, evil rich people in 2009, and Oregon’s spite-filled voters approved that measure earlier this year.

So how’s is Oregon’s class-warfare approach working? Not surprisingly, the politics of hate and envy is generating poor results. Revenues are much lower than forecast, as anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the Laffer Curve could have explained. The most noteworthy result is that about one-fourth of rich taxpayers have disappeared.

Again, the only people who are surprised by this are the ones who believe that the purpose of taxes is to be "fair", not ones who believe that the purpose of taxes is to fund the legitimate activities of government.

And in a related story from the Washington Examiner, regarding state income taxes:

Altogether, 35 percent of the nation's total population growth (since the last census) occurred in these nine non-taxing states, which accounted for just 19 percent of total population at the beginning of the decade.

Tuesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
The Aeneid.

Today's question is:
Who was the World War II European Theater equivalent of Tokyo Rose?

Bailing Out of Race To The Top

In this post I quoted an author who suggested California should stop trying to get Race to the Top money from the feds, keep our own state standards (which are for the most part excellent standards), and save the money that would have to be spent on new standards, textbooks, teacher training, etc. Now we can read the same suggestion in a local Los Angeles paper:

Gov.-elect Jerry Brown announced to a stunned audience last week that he will have to cut California's education budget by 20 percent to 25 percent, and that this will involve unprecedented and painful cuts to our schools. His message was that services once considered essential will now be subject to elimination. It is in this context that we need to take a hard look at the costs we incurred under the Schwarzenegger administration when we accepted provisions of President Barack Obama's education initiative, Race to the Top, an unfunded mandate of the first order, costing millions and not at all essential.

The state's actions to date on Race to the Top have not involved Brown, but he can and should act to extricate us from the mess we've been handed...

If Brown is going to cut schools to the bone, he needs to cut the fat first. He should move quickly to pull out from our agreement to drop the standards, and he should present a tough negotiating stance, notably lacking in the last administration, regarding any further expensive ideas from Washington.

Sounds eminently reasonable to me.

Education a "National Security Issue"?

I worry that this line of reasoning could be abused, cheapening the idea of what is and is not a national security idea. It's like calling solitary confinement "torture" or disagreeing with the president "racism". Still, it might merit at least some concern:

Nearly one-fourth of the students who try to join the U.S. Army fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can't answer basic math, science and reading questions, according to a new study released Tuesday.

The report by The Education Trust bolsters a growing worry among military and education leaders that the pool of young people qualified for military service will grow too small.

"Too many of our high school students are not graduating ready to begin college or a career — and many are not eligible to serve in our armed forces," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the AP. "I am deeply troubled by the national security burden created by America's underperforming education system"...

The report by The Education Trust found that 23 percent of recent high school graduates don't get the minimum score needed on the enlistment test to join any branch of the military. Questions are often basic, such as: "If 2 plus x equals 4, what is the value of x?"

The military exam results are also worrisome because the test is given to a limited pool of people: Pentagon data shows that 75 percent of those aged 17 to 24 don't even qualify to take the test because they are physically unfit, have a criminal record or didn't graduate high school.

Educators expressed dismay that so many high school graduates are unable to pass a test of basic skills.

I still maintain that a lot of the problem is culture--for too many people in our country, school is just a no-out-of-pocket-expense babysitter.

Where To Begin With This One?

It's Spain, not the US, but it's still ridiculous:

It’s hard to keep track these days of what ¨shows disregard to the feelings of Muslims.” Consider the case of the student at the Menéndez Tolosa school in Cadiz who this week asked his geography teacher to stop discussing ham in class because it was disrespectful to him as a Muslim. It should be noted that the teacher, José Reyes Fernández, was not mocking the Koran’s prohibition against eating ham. What was so offensive to the student was Fernández’s use of the Granada town of Trevélez as an example of a cold moutain climate conducive to the curings of hams.

Fortunately the local prosecutor does not seem interested in pursuing this.

Muslims aren't supposed to eat pigs. I haven't yet read that they're not supposed to hear about pigs. This is just an issue of seeing how far someone can push his views.

Nevertheless, the story, which verges on parody, made headlines across Spain. Javier Jordán, a political science professor at the University of Granada, told PJM: “This incident is an absurd example of how the Islamist ideology attempts to impose an ‘Islamic exception’ to Europe’s customs and laws. The Muslim student and his parents who denounced the teacher have hurt the image of Islam in Spain and contributed to social polarization. These types of episodes do damage to the idea of Muslim integration into Spain’s pluralistic society.”

To show how far Europe has slipped, I'm relieved at this result. How hard would it be to believe in some alternate ending, with the teacher being fined or "reeducated"?

FIRE Defends To-be-expelled Syracuse Student

Stories like this cause me to marvel--do they really think they can get away with this? They must think so, and I sincerely hope they lose and face not only public scorn, but public recriminations:

A Law student at Syracuse University is facing possible expulsion for "harassment," but he doesn't know who his accusers are or even why he's in trouble.

The source of all the trouble is a fake news blog called SUCOLitis. It's like The Onion, but it focuses on making fun of life in law school. In one post, the "Faculty Committee on Aesthetic Standards" names the Class of 2013 "Most Attractive in History." In another, a beer bong is elected class president...

Nobody has taken responsibility for the anonymous blog. But one student, Len Audaer, appears to be facing prosecution anyway.

Law professor Gregory Germain (the "prosecutor" of this case in the school's judicial system) began investigating Len two months ago, and has kept Len completely in the dark for the whole two months. Who are the accusers? Which blog post was harassing? Len doesn't know. How could he even start to defend himself?

Knowing that universities can't defend in public what they try to do in private, Len sought to draw attention to these abuses. But Germain is now seeking a gag order that would severely hurt Len's efforts to publicize his situation. Germain wants to require any journalist reporting on the case to sign away the right to publish any case document unless the document is published whole. No excerpts, no quotations.

Germain knows full well that this would essentially prevent Audaer from appealing to the court of public opinion, leaving him no choice but to silently accept the findings of a campus judiciary that seems determined to get him...

It's fundamentally unfair to threaten a student with expulsion for his protected speech for months while refusing to give him any of the evidence or name his accusers. We've asked Syracuse's chancellor, Nancy Cantor, to honor Syracuse's promises -- but thus far she has done nothing.

The mind-blowing part is that this is happening at the Syracuse law school.

Echinacea

Someone who used to love me also used to swear by echinacea during cold season. Oh-for-two, I guess:

In a new study of more than 700 people who came down with colds, echinacea pills were not measurably better than placebo at speeding recovery time or reducing the severity of runny nose, sore throat, cough, and other symptoms.

Echinacea has flunked similar tests before. Over the past eight years, several high-quality studies in which cold sufferers were randomly assigned to receive echinacea or placebo have arrived at the same conclusion: The herb has no discernible impact on colds. (This type of study is considered the gold standard for medical research.)

Eclipse

No, not the movie, the celestial event.

I remember the partial solar eclipse when I was in 8th grade; the sky didn't appear any darker, but through welding goggles I could see a sizable chuck being taken out of the sun. I've seen partial lunar eclipses before, too; don't know if I've ever seen a total lunar eclipse. Before tonight, that is.

It's pretty cool. The rainclouds broke, and the moon seemed directly over my house in a completely clear section of sky. Slowly it turned darker and darker, until there was only a sliver of white along the upper right edge. Then, that too disappeared, and the moon appeared a dark rust color, and even that got darker.

So now that I've definitely seen a total lunar eclipse, I can go to bed!

Tron Legacy

Screw the reviews, I thought it was excellent.

Monday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
The Trojan War, fought between the Greeks and the Trojans. The Greeks, after tricking the Trojans with a Trojan Horse gift, were able to enter and unlock the gates of the city and burn it to the ground. I guess that means the Greeks won.

Follow-up question for today:
Which Roman epic involved the survivors of Troy founding Rome?

One Task Down

I usually don't bring work home with me, especially over a long break such as this, but the Statistics Survey reports and the short-answer section of the stats test need to be graded, and though I'll probably wait until the Sunday night before we go back to school to grade them, I do need to grade them before we get back. I also need to plan out the next chapter in stats.

You might wonder why I didn't bring home any grading or planning for my other classes. Well, that's easy--there's no planning because I've taught them before and have previous lesson plans to use, and no grading because I got it all done before break.

So lots of grading and a moderate amount of planning--and one other task. As mentioned here, I received a goodly number of gifts from students; as mentioned here, I write thank-you notes after receiving such gifts. All my thank-you notes are now written.

Of course I tackled the easiest and most pleasant task first!

A Bit Too Much Ego?

Honey, it's not all about you--especially when it's the weather:

The weather led authorities to ban big trucks from driving through the Ile de France region that includes Paris. Lady Gaga's trucks couldn't get to the venue on time, concert venue Bercy stadium said on its Web site...

The diva vented on Twitter, writing that "all 28" of the trucks carrying sets for her elaborate show had been detained. She said had wanted to do a show without the sets, but even sound and power equipment was blocked.

"I am furious and devastated," she wrote, adding that it was "unfair to my fans and to me."

Some people.

"Weather Isn't Climate"...

...but you have to wonder how the global warming alarmists can say that with a straight face year after year, event after event, Gore Effect after Gore Effect, mild hurricane season after mild hurricane season (with each predicted to be the "big one"), and not just go home sobbing at how silly they look:

Britain may experience its coldest December on record, weather service forecaster Mark Seltzer said.

"Temperatures will struggle to get over freezing and although the snow should ease off tonight, it will return to eastern areas on Sunday," he said.

A third of a world away, California is set to post record snowfall for the months of November and December :-)