Over the last 20 years, the US has been awarded 126 Nobel Prizes compared to Britain's nine.

noun:
1. Circuit or compass.
2. The boundaries or limits of a district or place.
3. An area in which something acts, operates, or has power or control; extent; sphere; scope.

Increasing our vocabulary one day at a time.

Central Asia Institute

Send two girls to school

Pay a teacher's salary in Afganistan

In THREE CUPS OF TEA: One Man’s Mission to Promote . . . One School at a Time (Viking/On-sale date: March 6, 2006) Greg Mortenson, and acclaimed journalist David Oliver Relin, recount the unlikely journey that led Mortenson from a failed attempt to climb Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain, to successfully building schools in some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. By replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading, Mortenson combines his unique background with his intimate knowledge of the third-world to fight terrorism with books, not bombs, and successfully bring education and hope to remote villages in central Asia. THREE CUPS OF TEA is at once an unforgettable adventure and the inspiring true story of how one man really is changing the world—one school at a time.

In 1993 Mortenson was descending from his failed attempt to reach the peak of K2. Exhausted and disoriented, he wandered away from his group into the most desolate reaches of northern Pakistan. Alone, without food, water, or shelter he eventually stumbled into an impoverished Pakistani village where he was nursed back to health.

While recovering he observed the village’s 84 children sitting outdoors, scratching their lessons in the dirt with sticks. The village was so poor that it could not afford the $1-a-day salary to hire a teacher. When he left the village, he promised that he would return to build them a school.

From that rash, heartfelt promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time: Greg Mortenson’s one-man mission to counteract extremism and terrorism by building schools—especially for girls—throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban.

Mortenson had no reason to believe he could fulfill his promise. In an early effort to raise money he wrote letters to 580 celebrities, businessmen, and other prominent Americans. His only reply was a $100 check from NBC’s Tom Brokaw. Selling everything he owned, he still only raised $2,000. But his luck began to change when a group of elementary school children in River Falls, Wisconsin, donated $623 in pennies, thereby inspiring adults to take his cause more seriously. Twelve years later he’s built fifty-five schools.

Mortenson and award-winning journalist David Oliver Relin have written a spellbinding account of his incredible accomplishments in a region where Americans are feared and hated. In pursuit of his goal, Mortenson has survived an armed kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, repeated death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. Yet his success speaks for itself. This year the schools will educate 24,000 children.

source:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jQ0qyV1Z9XPXS6FFO5p2k9rV6HmwD90NH0180

Not surprisingly, many people chose at least one or two books related to their own disciplines, and I'd guess that those books helped guide them into their chosen fields. Adminstrators listed books about leadership. An art professor chose a book about painting and one about drawing. Business professors listed books about business strategies. Coaches named John Wooden and other coaches. A biology professor and a psychology professor both cited Darwin, and a philosophy professor named Plato and Augustine.

Some choices that might have been more surprising, especially to those unfamiliar with liberal arts institutions. The Brothers Karamazov made four lists, while The Brothers K and Moby Dick each made two. A wide range of literary and inspirational works appeared, demonstrating what I once read elsewhere (sorry, I can't remember the source): that two modern students could each gain a thorough and satisfying liberal arts education without having read any two books in common. That range is great in terms of diversity of ideas, but does mean that we have fewer cultural touchstones in common. Instead of great literary works, of course, what we now share are here-and-gone television shows.

Incidentally, the titles of my own list--which I found difficult to whittle to four choices--make it look like I teach geography. Most are misleading in that sense, of course, and have far more to do with my views of journalism. My choices were:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I actually had never managed to get around to reading this until after I read Neil Postman's 1985 Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Postman noted that though we feared a world like that presented in George Orwell's 1984, Huxley's nightmare vision was much closer to our reality.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. A wonderful critic of American journalism, Sinclair's 1906 classic about the meatpacking industry in Chicago prompted changes in food laws and horrified millions--including me, many years later when I was in high school. It also showed me what passionate writing could sometimes do for society as a whole.

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, better known for his comic novel The Monkey Wrench Gang. Perhaps better than anyone else, Abbey showed us what is beautiful and worth saving of the American Southwest. And he did so in a way that was simultaneously cranky and funny.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. A fable that was the former journalist's simplest and (in my opinion) best work. And the older I get, the better it gets. Which reminds me of a favorite, unrelated expression: "The older I get, the better I used to be."

No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income.

This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government."

Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America.

Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things -- we're never "for" anything.

Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

I think we're for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we're against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound .......

Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the -- or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property?

Watch, listen to or read this speech in it's entirety here.

This speech is well worth listening to. It seems as relevant today as it was in 1964. None of the major parties or candidates has any interest in changing the things pointed out by Ronald Reagan. It is already past time for the American people to stand up and force a change.

]]> http://kandylini.wordpress.com/?p=496 Sat, 17 May 2008 18:30:36 +0000 kandylini http://kandylini.wordpress.com/?p=496 Source: Heidi Stevenson, NaturalNews.

As Mike Adams' wonderful analysis of the current state of the world shows in "The Biofuels Scam, Food Shortages and the Coming Collapse of the Human Population", something is deeply wrong in America and the world. It's as if the vast majority of people have given up. Given up caring. Given up thinking. Given up common sense. Given up everything but gluttony.

But why? What has brought us to such a state? Could it have just "happened"? Or was it intentional? To call it intentional, it's necessary to demonstrate planning. Fortunately, John Taylor Gatto, who was once named Teacher of the Year in both New York City and New York State, has explained what happened, when it started, and why.

Perhaps you were like me as a child. You loved learning. You'd spend hours and hours studying something of interest. Yet, you hated school. It was unutterably boring. It was rigid. It stifled original thought, even punished for it. Give any answer other than the prescribed one, even if you had clearly demonstrated a full understanding of the subject, and you were given a bad grade. Disrupt the class - - meaning that you questioned the teacher - - and you could expect time in detention, even more grinding boredom. Standing out from your classmates made you "different". You'd be ostracized by the other kids. The school itself supported such behavior. It sponsored things like cheerleading, another term for a popularity contest, where the kids from the right families were nearly always elected.

To survive through it all, you either had to get out - - a daunting prospect for a child - - or stuff your creativity, your spark. You probably thought of yourself as an oddball. After all, it was you who was different from all the others. It probably never dawned on you that most of the other kids were just as miserable - - and just as fearful of speaking out. It probably never dawned on you that many of your teachers felt much the same way. That is, they did if they really wanted to teach.

What Created This Monstrous "Education" System?

We think of our school system as something that has always existed. The reality is quite different. In the U.S. expecting all children to go to school a certain amount of time every day for a certain number of months and a certain number of years didn't come into being until the early twentieth century, 1905-1915.

Hardly any of the greats of American history went through much formal schooling. That includes Thomas Jefferson. George Washington. Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Edison. Herbert Melville. Mark Twain. Margaret Mead. Admiral Farragut. And so many more.

Obviously, formal secondary schooling, at least of the type we now have, is not a requisite for learning, creativity, or greatness.

Let's ask who benefits when the great mass of people becomes complaisant, unable to think, unable to entertain themselves, and interested only in possessions. The answer is simple: corporations. When the mass of children are forced to go through a system that destroys creativity and rewards group-think, they are prepared to fill their predestined roles in a lockstep workforce and unthinking consumption corps.

What are Americans good at? Buying, of course. Having the latest and greatest of... well, of anything and everything, as long as the media tells them they should have it. It's how Americans measure themselves, how they determine their success. Who cares if someone can carry on a good conversation about the state of the world? Who even wants to listen? It's so depressing. Let's talk about the cool super-fast car that Joe just bought or the fancy house Jim and Mary are getting for no money down!

Go into any supermarket and look at what's surrounding the checkout aisles. Publications -- if you can call them that -- telling about the clothing of some super model or the antics of an actor or actress, anything but factors that will affect them, like how the planet is heating up because of overuse of natural resources, overpopulation, over-consumption, burning fossil fuels, and all the myriad of other things that really matter. Pseudo-food, filled with petroleum products, sugar, sweeteners as bad as or worse than sugar, colorings to make them appealing, hydrolyzed this and phosphorylated that -- virtually nothing that nourishes. And the junk sells!

The only beneficiaries of this purchasing rampage are those who own and run corporations. The masses of people work in them at soul-numbing, mind and health destroying jobs. Running on treadmills at just the proper, accepted speed. Wearing just the right fashion and makeup. Commuting in latest style vehicles, purchased for that reason. Returning to the overpriced homes that they'll never have the time to enjoy just so they can say they live in them, since they'll almost never actually own them. Doing jobs that promote the destruction of their environment and their health for these dubious benefits. Unable to think that there might be another way.

As John Gatto wrote in Harper's, "There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and unwise to buy things they didn't actually need."

A Brief History of Modern Schools in the U.S.

To achieve the needed unthinking production workers and consumers, the major corporatists of the late 1800's, such as Carnegie and Rockefeller, pushed for compulsory schooling of the masses. It was, of course, sold as being for the benefit of the people.

Prussian culture, the predecessor of 20th century Germany, created a system of schooling designed to produce nonthinking masses. It was this system that supplied the concepts for America's compulsive pseudo-education of the masses.

The Prussian system was first introduced in the United States during the 1840's. In 1918, Alexander Inglis, for whom a Harvard lecture hall was named, published the definitive book, Principles of Secondary Education, which defines modern schooling. He specifically stated that its purpose is to support a command economy and society. This book describes modern "education's" design.

James Bryant Conant, president of Harvard from 1933 through 1953, wrote The Child, the Parent, and the State in 1959. In it, he delineates and approves of Alexander Inglis's ideas to inform other members of his class that following this system of training is the best possible way to keep the masses in their place. He stated that the creation of the American school system was a "coup de main", a surprise action against the enemy, in this case, the general American populace. He further stated that not continuing with the same type of training of the American public would result in, "A successful counterrevolution."

Before 1910, there were almost no high schools in the United States. A seemingly grassroots movement to open public high schools resulted in massive production of them between 1910 and 1940, at which point it became routine, and even compulsory, to attend high school.

One should always be cautious at the concept of a grassroots movement. As we often see nowadays in patient support groups, an apparent groundswell of support for something, as often as not, is the result of an influx of money and propaganda from a wealthy, usually corporate, source. In the case of public eduction, it was manufacturers in need of two things: Dumbed-down masses as cogs in their production facilities and sponges to soak up the message that they needed to buy the dross pouring out of them.

How Compulsory Schooling Is Designed to Work

According to Inglis, there are six functions filled by the new mandatory "education" system:

1. Adjustive: Creating reflexive, fixed responses, as opposed to creative thinking.

2. Integrative: Making children conform, making them be predictable and easy to manipulate in a large labor force.

3. Diagnosis and Direction: Schools are intended to identify and enforce each child's role in society and the labor force.

4. Differentiation: Once diagnosed, children are trained as far as their role in labor has been determined.

5. Selection: Children are tagged with punishments, poor grades, poor classroom placement, and any other humiliation that can be thought of. The purpose is to separate out those the system determines to be unfit and allow them to be treated as inferiors by the rest.

6. Preparation (called propaedeutic by Inglis): Those few deemed to be leaders, often only by their birth, are taught to be the controllers of the masses described in the other five functions.

In the 1922 edition of Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P. Cubberley, a textbook editor at Houghton Miflin, wrote:

Our schools are... factories in the raw products are to be shaped and fashioned... And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down.

There you have it, from one of the major textbook editors during the buildup of secondary schools in the United States -- a clear, concise statement of the purpose of those schools.

As John Gatto wrote:

We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has seen to it.

What it All Means

Today, there is so little critical thinking that almost anything can be sold. In the arena of health, it's now possible for purported research to make claims that vitamins are unhealthy. And people believe it! Immunization programs that cause death for diseases that carry little harm to healthy people, such as RotaTeq for gastroenteritis in children. And parents rush out to have their children inoculated! Agrobusiness pig growers destroy entire watersheds, even to the point of creating dead zones in the ocean. And hardly anyone cares.

This is what has been wrought by our anti-education school system. We are seeing what happens when a populace has been so dumbed-down and made complaisant that the only thing they're capable of doing is shop.

"Shop 'til you drop" has another, far more sinister meaning than usually intended. We're in the early stages of a rapidly accelerating collapse of civilization - - all brought on by a population so blind and complaisant it couldn't see the obvious: What can't continue won't continue.

Reference:

Harper's Magazine, September 2003, "Against School", by John Taylor Gatto.

The LINK, Homeschool News Network, Vol 5, Issue 6, "A Conspiracy Against Ourselves", by John Taylor Gatto.

About the author
Fellow, British Institute of Homeopathy
Gaia Therapy
The author is a homeopath who became concerned with medically-induced harm as a result of her own experiences and those of family members. She says that allopathic medicine is the arena that best describes the motto, "Buyer beware."
Iatrogenic disease is illness, disability, and death caused by medical practice. It is common, resulting in huge costs to society and individuals. It's possible - even common - to suffer an iatrogenic illness without realizing its source. Heidi Stevenson provides information about medically-induced disease and disability so members of the public can protect themselves.

So far I have made my way through watching:

A talk from Malcolm Gladwell on hiring and the issues with mismatches in the way we filter and assess people for new work. As always he shared ideas which really altered my way of thinking by questioning some fundamental assumptions we all make about how we discern the best candidates for jobs.

A talk from Eric Haseltine the former chief technology officer of the U.S. intelligence community. His was a really cogent talk on how we need to change our current processes and methods for dealing with the new security situations we face and how we need to focus on ideas as the new battlefield and not on being a bigger, badder elephant. I really enjoyed this talk as it showed to me that some people in our defense establishment may actually understand the nature of the opponents we face.

There were many other good talks and interviews. Check it out.

http://paulinege.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/on-academic-awards/

This blog is posted with permission from the original blogger.

I'm going back to school!  Wait... did I ever leave school?  Um, not really.  I graduated from high school in 1999, finished my B.S. in Biology and Secondary Education in 2003, immediately got a job teaching high school science, took a bunch of online courses and teacher-enrichment courses in physics, went to the teacher's conference on place-based and experiential learning at the Island School, and completed my M.S. in Science Education with a concentration in Biology in summer 2007.  You would think that all of that education coupled with 5 years of teaching experience would be enough.  However, it is not!

Why? Many reasons.  The biggest reason for me is that I love to learn and challenge myself.  I originally chose Biology to as a major because it was interesting, not easy.  I loved taking all different courses about anatomy, physiology, genetics, and botany.  However, I have to say that my favorite undergraduate course was Entomology.  We spent a large amount of time outsdoors each week, collecting bugs and adding them to our museum-style collections.  Do I like bugs? No, although they are interesting.  However, I loved being outdoors and learning in the environment.  That experience shaped my teaching style, leading me to develop a field botany course, which has become my absolute favorite class to teach.  My other favorite course to teach is AP Environmental Science, and I spend the last month of school with my students outdoors examining our environmental quality through a lichen study and a river study.  I love to take kids outside and watch them learn.  Often, I'll have a student who teaches me something, too, from a boy scout with a neat rhyme to help identify plants to a fisherman who can tell me about his or her own experiences, to a student who (eek!) survived being struck by lightning.  I love to both teach and learn by experience.

Another reason to continue my education? Partial reimbursement from my district and a salary increase when I'm finished.  You mean, I can learn more, you'll help me pay for it, and then when I'm done I'll get paid even more? Deal!  But what shall I study? Here were my options:

• A second M.S. in Environmental Education
• A 6th Year Diploma in Educational Leadership
• An Educational Doctorate in Educational Leadership

Each of the programs has its own ups and downs.  For example, there's the prestige of the Ed.D.  People would actually call me Dr. (although I still prefer Abbie).  There's the possiblity that I might want to become a Science Coordinator someday, so the Leadership degrees would prepare me for that, but I'm not sure if that's even the path I want to take.  And it just sounds so boring.  Then there's the second M.S. in Environmental Education, which lacks the prestige of the other degrees (but then again, two Master's is not too shabby), but I love Environmental Education.  So after a lot of consideration, research, and advice from family, colleagues, and my former advisor for my M.S., I've decided on a second M.S. in Environmental Education.  "Follow your passion" is what many of these folks said.  That's how I got where I am today!  Sounds like a good plan to me!

So I'm starting in September, and while going to school at night and working full time can be tough, I've already done it for 5 years, so what's a couple more?  And I have to say that I absolutely love the Environmental Education department, since I got to know most of them while working on my first M.S. in Science Education.  They even do some research on Outer Island, in the Thimble Islands off Branford.  I  just can't wait to get outdoors and keep learning.  I'm so excited to see where this path takes me.

"So what are you going to do with an English major? Are you going to teach?" You bet your ass I am.

This is the woman who came on the talk shows in the 1970's declaring that, if the ERA passed, our sons would die by the truckload because the women in combat with them would be more worried about breaking their nails than rushing out to save them. This is also the woman who said there's no such thing as marital rape because a woman agrees to sex when she takes vows. I don't recall that particular vow. I wonder what church she attends. No man has ever hated women more, and yet Washington University will honor her because she's a "leader of the conservative movement." (Washington University Tells Its Female Grads They Are Second Class Citizens)

Now, my brother's a voice (not so public) for the conservative movement, as well as a long-serving, high-ranking member of the armed forces, and he would never say such things. What Schafley stands for isn't conservatism, but hatred of women. I wonder if her husband ever raped her.

Women Have All the 'Burdens'

Katha Pollitt's recent litany of women's losses in Backlash Spectacular is depressing. The promise of liberal feminism (as opposed to radical feminism) was that jobs were supposed to lead to economic freedom which was supposed to lead to women's empowerment and eventual equality of opportunity with men. Believing that greed is blind, women with money were supposed to gain political power because they gained economic power. 

Didn't happen.

Maybe that's because greed isn't gender blind. While women have gained economic power, they have not gained autonomy because in a patriarchy, the deck is stacked to privilege men. Men are traditionally supposed to retain the economic burdens which is the rationale for privileging them with greater economic power. But women have actually retained the greater economic obligations -- from rearing children to paying more for services -- all while getting paid less.

But liberal feminists know this, which is why they also focus on birth control, abortion rights, child care, increasing preschool options, afterschool programs, and various co-ops, etc. -- things which will help women ease their burdens. But in focusing on these issues, feminists are also running into resistance from many women. And not always anti-feminist women. Sometimes women like me.  

• I homeschool. Iowa just cut its funding to homeschool assistance programs while at the same time the state is making noise about mandatory preschools. I pay for public school salaries through taxes and pay for my homeschooling through fees and out-of-pocket. I fear one day the state may come penalize me even more financially or outright say I must send my kids to public school.
• I'm a stay-at-home mom. Tax breaks are given for working moms who have other people caring for their children but not for stay-at-home moms who make no money and care for their own. Wanting to be a traditional mom gains me a great deal personally but nothing economically, socially, or politically. A few pats-on-the-back from the likes of Schafley and nothing else.
• I have two children. I oppose abortion, and would like to see it restricted to first trimester (as a necessary evil for a situation with no truly good solution). I know the emotional scars as women are left to decide whose rights matter more, theirs or their child's, while they're manipulated by prochoice forces, who insist the decision is about empowerment not life, and by prolife forces, who batter them with guilt and terror.  
• I'm a feminist. I feel women and men should have equal voice to work out their relationships and lives in the way that suits them both, with the expectation that they will be helped in those choices through equal economic and social opportunity.

Patriarchy Hates Families, Not Just Women

What patriarchy values it assigns to men and what it devalues it assigns to women. Playing within this system means adopting its values of aggression and competition over nurturing and service. Patriarchy values punishment and vengeance rather than negotiation and reconciliation. Men are identified with all qualities that are valued, and they acquire power and success by association with, if not actual expression of, those qualities. If women wish to be valued, they must express those same qualities. (And if you do it too well like Hillary Clinton, you get mainstream media writing epithets about you like "nutcracker" and "scolding mom" and comparing you to the villain in "Fatal Attraction")

But many women don't agree with those values, and refuse to live them. These women come under fire from liberal feminists, who think such women are giving in, giving up, or remaining ignorant. What liberal feminists don't seem to realize is that they are buying into the patriarchy's values. I mean, many women don't want to lose the "burdens" of motherhood by making money so we can pay others to raise our children for us. And women like me, who try to resist the values of patriarchy, are not only criticized by feminists for remaining dependent, but we're courted by anti-feminists. I can't tell you the assumptions from neighbors, parishioners, and online visitors thinking I agree with their woman-hating agendas because I'm a stay-at-home, homeschooling, Catholic mom. As if.

Because Women Love More

Have you ever wondered why it's so easy to drive this wedge between women -- the so-called "mommy wars" -- when you couldn't do so with men? Maybe it's because women have split loyalties and men don't. When women consider how to raise children, they know the child's success may not be dependent on their own success. That is, women will sacrifice for their children in many ways men will not.

Men assume their success will automatically translate into their family's success, or maybe they just care more about their success regardless of how it affects others. After all, patriarchy teaches that success is its own justification. I've known men without a smidgeon of regret for the worldly success they achieved, despite the emotional damage to, or even loss of, their families that such success required.

The system is rarely suspect. A woman's failure to thrive in it is believed to be because she doesn't embrace and engage well enough. She isn't enough like a man. But maybe you're a woman out there who is: 

• uncomfortable with the thought that a "family-friendly" workplace means a workplace daycare open longer to keep you working longer while your children are in the hands of strangers for all but the half-hour lunch when you visit them
• disturbed by the argument that the baby moving inside you isn't a person
• distrustful of a public institution with no accountability for your child's learning but demanding more-and-more time with them while giving you less-and-less control of them

You don't have to hate women, like Schafley does, to want something other than a life of "empowerment" as defined by the liberal feminist agenda. Like it or not, a full-time working mother spends less time with her children than strangers do. The choice I've made is to be home with my children, and I've sacrificed a lot for that, not least my security, which relies a great deal on the good will of my husband. I wish feminists would focus on how to "empower" women like me, without just telling me to give up the thing I value most.

Working fathers likewise spend little time at home, but so few of them seem to care. I think if fathers did, their voices would be heard in a way mothers' are not. Fathers could effect a change in the way the very issue is seen. It's not that we need to get mothers good jobs and parents more child care. We need to get parents home with their children.

En cette Journée internationale contre l'homophobie, je ne serai pas bien bien original, car je fais partie du 70% des Canadiens qui se sentent à l'aise avec cette question. Il est donc très difficile pour moi d'écrire là-dessus, puisque je ne voudrais pas tomber dans la moralisation plate...

Des homosexuels, surtout hommes, j'en ai beaucoup plus côtoyé voilà une dizaine d'années quand je frayais avec la scène électronique, pour ne pas dire « rave », mais le fait que j'en ai moins autour de moi aujourd'hui ne me pose pas non plus de problème... C'est hautement circonstanciel et normal.

Je connais des gens homophobes (quand même assez légèrement en majorité...) et, pour en avoir parlé avec eux, cela semble être plus physique que réfléchi... Question d'éducation ç'a l'air, et j'ai même l'impression que ça leur semble honteux. Quand quelqu'un est capable d'en parler sans fermer les portes, c'est déjà bon signe. Pour les boomers homophobes, c'est une autre paire de manches, mais ils sont déjà de toute façon en voie d'extinction... cela écrit avec un clin d'oeil du côté le plus visible!

Autre chose qui ne me pose pas de problème, ce sont les blagues là-dessus, car il est extrêmement rare qu'elles soient carrément méchantes, donc homophobes, enfin celles que j'entends autour de moi, dans mon milieu fortement hétérosexuel, et surtout adulte. Je pense que tout le monde mérite une petite blague de temps en temps, qui aime bien châtie bien, non?

Je suis certain que dans le Village de Nathalie (expression que j'ai entendu de la bouche d'un ancien collègue DJ homosexuel), les blagues sur l'hétérosexualité fusent et ça ne me dérange pas du tout!

Mais je suis d'accord pour dire qu'à l'enfance et à l'adolescence, le sujet des blagues, qui prennent plus souvent un ton discriminatoire, est un gros problème. La tendance culturelle mondiale, très axée sur le hip-hop/R&B gangstérilisant, met de l'avant un culte de l'hétérosexualité qui se mélange parfois et souvent au culte de Dieu, ce qui est incompatible avec l'homosexualité, surtout mâle... Et donc, où le lesbianisme est instrumentalisé à outrance.

Vivement pour que cette journée disparaisse, mais malheureusement, nous sommes loin du compte. Cette journée n'est vraiment pas une fête...

(Photo : new-ars - ce billet est inspiré en grande partie d'une initiative de Zed Blog, qui regroupe une multitude de billets sur le sujet de l'homophobie.)

Le refus de la gauche d'y participer prouve leur peu d'intérêt pour les mères de familles qui élèvent seules leur enfant avec peu de moyen, pour qui une journée de travail de moins pèse lourd en fin de mois.

Moi, je suis pour le droit de grève, mais le droit des uns ne doit pas être au détriment de celui des autres.

Allez sur le site de la présidence de la république voir la vidéo de l'allocution du président sur le service minimum de l'éducation, qui à mon gout n'a pas été assez diffusée.

This is not strictly an "education blog", although there is at least one of those out there, written (rather occasionally) by the estimable Brian Micklethwait, (that is a link to his mainblog only, from which you can find the other one) and there may be many more such: I do not know: I have not time to scratch my bum right now, and this post has to be done in five minutes...

But, at this seasonal time, when all the British State Property known as "the kids", which is to say nearly all teenagers, face the first real stress offered to them in their lovely easy modern lives full of nearly-worthless Wireless Tele Vision and other nugatory distractions, I want to point out the sheer vastness of the gulf between real "education" and what they are actually receiving.

Time after time, teaching these poor individuals, I get the enquiry: "do I have to know that?" ... or ... "is that in the syllabus?" ... or worse: "is this an C-grade-question?" (that means "hard", for those who are condemned as being not very smart, and have to do what is erroneously-termed "foundation".) This is in response to my attempt to tell someone something fairly interesting - and also quite instructive and useful for deducing other facts about anything - about some aspect of how the Cosmos operates. I could be referring of course to cosmology or physics or biology (classical-, paleo- or the biophysics sort) or even some aspect of history, or why humans and their societies behave in the ways that they do, or why the Earth has no settled climate, and why therefore it's a lie that "The Science is Settled!" Whatever.

Those who are clearly destined for one of the Two Universities (or perhaps the 8 or 9 others) engage with this direction. Some argue. Some are astounded. Others experience fright or sadness at the ways in which truth can be perverted by governments, or, better, at the realisation that they have been robbed of the opportunity to gain proper knowledge earlier "way down the school". (Most of these are State school pupils.) Some, it is terrible to relate, ask why their school lessons are so boring and inconsequential, and contain material which many of them suspect (at least) is based on spurious or unprovable information.

Those who are not, which is to say they might perhaps go to places like "The University of SouthEast Working-Towards-Shire", or perhaps not, are scandalised at being told stuff which they learn (from me) is outside the remit of what they are told to be allowed to know.

It is a tragedy that, we had and have a State government whose "dear leader" made his priority (apart from "24 hours to save the NHS") "education, education, education". I think he meant it in truth at the time, although if the only tool you have is a hammer, then the only solution to every problem must be a nail. It's also tragic that the notion of "free" education, provided by the State, is so ingrained. The State therefore treats "the people" as a sort of "Human Resource", to be force-fed the stuff that will inculcate the right attitudes to the State, and maximise the likely tax-generation powers for the next Five-Year-Plan.

And to end on a sad note:

Today, I tried a multiple choice GCSE question about testing of thalidomide for use in treating AIDS, on an intelligent 11-year-old who is about to move from a "bog-standard" State primary to a middling private secondary. The first question was "the trials will be conducted by..........?" and the choice of words to insert was "pregnant women: or, volunteers: or, research scientists: or, the government".

The student chose ..... "the government". Libertarians, we have a long and thankless battle ahead of us, in which we will all have to do our more-than-heroic duty, unsung, all functionally anonymous, and it will have to carry on very very long, long after our own deaths. But there is All the Time in the World.

Obama’s call for “TRUTH” is a simplified statement that calls into question the manner in which information is collected, the way it is presented and the manner in which it is disseminated to the public. 

Underlying this simple call for integrity is his assessment that information flow is fundamentally flawed and that a much needed correction will result in smarter policies that people will give credence to and lend their active support; and that the self-fulfilling negative prophecy we are all living can be turned into a positive climb in quality of life. If you already believe this and understand it, there is no need for you to read this article. If you think his statement is mere lofty rhetoric, you might want to consider my presentation here. For those who want further information, look for books by Von MIses and Rothbard.

The tools of power are all based in information. If the information seems reliable, then the policies foisted on us seem reasonable and even “right.” The basic tool in use today is the statistical index. There is something about an index that when published gains the credulity of the public and even those who know better. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

American political and economic history can be viewed from many perspectives and themes. One of them is the ebb and flow of our collective perception of people, regarded sometimes as labor, sometimes as capital and sometimes not at all. 

The current business, economic and political environment has failed to advance or evolve very much for most of the people of the United States, even though women received the right to vote some 80 years ago, and blacks received the right to vote some 40 years ago. 

The tendency of certain people to accumulate great wealth and power in any society of any nature inevitably produces an inequality not only of results, but of opportunity. American voters, deprived of the education and information they need to know to make informed decisions, are easily manipulated into voting against their own interests.  An educated voter is a nightmare to any power broker, economic cartel, or political cartel.

When adults cannot find states, cities or even continents on a map displaying all the information with proper labeling, it is not hard to see how such people can be easily deceived. And those with power and wealth are eager to deceive them, gaming the electoral process into a utility to maintain and expand their wealth and their power.

The tools of power are all based in information. If the information seems reliable, then the policies foisted on us seem reasonable and even “right.” The basic tool in use today is the statistical index. There is something about an index that when published gains the credulity of the public and even those who know better. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Whether it is Libor, the inter-bank lending rate index, the CPI, which supposedly measures inflation for consumers, or the indexes used to measure market dominance, we have drawn artificial lines in the sand which allow those in power to continue on their merry way while the rest of us wonder what hit us. 

• The reality is that Libor, bond ratings, measurements of consumer prices, measurements of those employed, measurements of those unemployed, measurements of those underemployed, productivity, and unfair trade practices are all at substantial variance with reality. Thus the mortgage meltdown, the recession, and another opening of Walmart that kills thousands of jobs, hundreds of companies, thousands of opportunities for innovation, and diminishes our choices to dangerous or inferior products with virtually no service inside the store and no assurances of fair treatment once a sale has been completed. 
• Walmart is able to achieve this feat and become one of the largest companies in the world by converting labor back into capital despite the 13th Amendment. As with all companies of great wealth they were able to purchase the rights to make their activities legal. In reality, those of us who live in the world created by this cash carry government policy making, we see that there is complete 100% market dominance by Walmart in each town it hits. 
• But statisticians for Walmart just like the statisticians for the drug companies, look for a sampling that gives them the arguable position that what we see right in front of us, just isn’t there. We are deceived, or so they say. We are not looking at the “big picture.” True, nor should we look at THEIR big picture if we want OUR lives improved. There should be a healthy competition between accumulation of wealth and quality of life. In truth, we are at the bottom of the barrel on the level of that all-important competitive “index.”
• By expanding and contracting the area “affected” by a Walmart store one can present a plausible argument that there is no significant effect on competition. We know different but there it is right there in black and white, by the numbers. 
• By contracting the sampling on a drug study to a specific period of time where nothing adverse happened to patients taking the experimental drug, the drug is pronounced safe and then tens of thousands of people die because it wasn’t safe, as the REST of the data clearly showed. Management of disinformation is the way we are manipulated into voting against ourselves. Political slogans emanate from false statements from apparently reliable sources. And we are all deceived.
• By hiring all graduates of regulatory agencies when they retire, a retailer or drug or oil company guarantees that the regulators will not look too deeply into the manner in which such an index is presented. Plausible deniability is the name of the game. The result is you and I get screwed. That is the story of antitrust, the FDA, and dozens of other agencies serving the business sector  to the nearly complete exclusion of the safety and welfare of the taxpayers in whose name they operate. It is the equivalent of a hostile takeover of government where the cash and carry system of legislation perpetuates not merely inequality but threats to the safety and welfare of our citizens.

“Inequality” (regardless of how you define the word “equal”) does and will exist in the most despotic regimes following ideology from Marx to Plato’s progeny producing the likes of John Locke and the scholars of the American Revolution. No regime can provide or assure a specific outcome for the life of one or any of its citizens. This article takes no issue with the inevitability of inequality.

Yet we have an innate sense of right and wrong even when we do wrong. We know that “all men are created equal” has a meaning even if we can’t all agree precisely what that means. We know that the U.S. Constitution was written to provide a framework for liberty and freedom but not for women, native Americans and slaves. Women and native Americans counted as zero and black slaves pulled slightly ahead of women at 3/5 of a person, as stated in our constitution. 

When the American Slaves were freed about 160 years ago it was, in an economic sense, a conversion of capital into labor. 

Slaves had been purchased and traded like bales of cotton or rice or tobacco; they were property, they were allowed no education, no free will, and of course no bargaining power. How would anyone go about “educating” a bale of cotton? It makes no sense. While mystics ascribe a soul to everything, whether we think it is alive or not not, most of us are quite tolerant at denying rights to a bale of cotton, even if it is burned, torn apart are thrown under a bus. In a word, if the cotton “feels” anything, we don’t care and it isn’t likely that we will care anytime soon or that we should. Something in most of us “knows” that the cotton is not worthy of our sympathy, nor do we sense any obligation to it.

The system made perfect economic sense: the cost of production was reduced to the absolute minimum, repairs of equipment and “other capital” (like slaves) were repaired until they were of no further use at which point they were discarded. And unlike other forms of capital, slaves reproduced, thus continually expanding the potential for production without further capital expenditures. 

Society organized around this system in such a way that no actual person worked, without being regarded as disgraced. Plantations were worked by slaves, managed by slaves and the wealth generated went exclusively to the Plantation owner. The threat of removing this system, depriving the owners of their possession of slave capital was a threat to the entire way of life that had evolved over 200 years. 

It makes sense only if you look at some data and not look at other information. The slave capital system was missing a key ingredient --- a prospering rising middle class. The non-slave states had it and they did far better in the long run than any of the slave states many of which are still, 160 years alter, at the bottom of the barrel economically and in quality of life. Their resistance to allowing education to a significant population of former slaves was the equivalent of shooting themselves in the head.  It was an all or nothing mentality. Either the slaves would provide free production or we won’t help them do anything. 

The “information” Southerners were working with was that blacks were less than human. They thus deprived themselves of the single greatest resource they had to compete in a national economy and eventually internationally. Politicians looking for power found it easy pickings to tease voters into anger and resentment about the Civil War, about slavery, and about Jim Crow segregation. The politicians objectives were simple: maintain power. The rest of the people be damned. (which at the risk of political incorrectness, makes the Reverend Wright’s comment plausible, even if ill-constructed. He wasn’t wrong in what he said. Yet he missed an important point: 40-160 years ago he would have been tortured and hung for making a statement that passed only as a news story now).

The importing of tens of millions of Mexican laborers who had “illegal” status is an inevitable result of big business’ realization that the lock on the poor white and poor black populations was loosening. The grip of fear of discovery gave the leverage needed to convert these workers from labor to something as close to slave capital as would be tolerated in our society.

The mortgaging of America’s future, with all the inevitable taxes that implies, the culture of debt rather than savings, and the withholding and diminishment of education through all walks of life in America is the policy behind the tools of our re-enslavement. The risk now is higher and more widespread than in the 1790’s when women, slaves and native Americans were already discounted capital. Now the government and the business sector have us all targeted as potential “capital” instead of unhappy black men caught like animals and transported like capital with acceptable losses at 1/3 of the cargo. 

And the only thing that can stop them is a reversal of the institutionalization of ignorance. We have accepted too long the notion that we don’t know anything but that’s OK nobody else does either. We should all know more than we do, We should all treat life as an opportunity to educate, train and better ourselves. If we do, then everyone wins, including the business sector which needs the rising prosperous middle class to do business, whether it is here or abroad. Why don’t they know that? Because like you, they are just people trying to get the most they can right now. That’s human nature. That is the American way.

Treat every index with suspicion. Test all information against your own anecdotal experience. And don’t let anyone tell you they know more about your life than you do.

 
And here's Kendall working on her grammar and complaining that she's hot (but refusing to come indoors).

And here are both of them after I'd heard so many complaints that I gave in and let them put away their books and do what they really wanted to do in the first place.

I am truly tired of people throwing legislation regarding religion around in an attempt to make us a better place. They do it in America with their "Freedom of Religion" in the first amendment, and now here in the UK the Cross-Party Joint Committee on Human Rights has told the government that by 'forcing' children to take part in Religious Studies they may be breaching Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Let me first quote in full this article:

ARTICLE 9

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
2. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Now let me give a rough hint as to where I believe the Cross-Party Joint Committee on Human Rights can insert their idea for new legislation. It is the same part of their body that they appear to be thinking with.

The story appears on the Telegraph's website and I can honestly say that I had a good laugh at some of the things said, well, I would have had I not found the words utterly appalling. The report reads:

"We recommend that the Government reconsiders its objection to permitting a child of sufficient maturity, intelligence and understanding to withdraw from religious education."

And states that they believe in constitutes Article 9 by removing choice. I see that particular statement as slightly ironic, and also slightly discriminatory. I'm not sure whether I should start with the irony or the discrimination, but I think to best blow the argument out of the water the European Convention should be quoted first.

Reaffirming their profound belief in those Fundamental Freedoms which are the foundation of justice and peace in the world and are best maintained on the one hand by an effective political democracy and on the other by a common understanding and observance of the Human Rights upon which they depend;

...

ARTICLE 1

The High Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in Section I of this Convention.

So these articles are the 'foundation of justice' and apply to everyone. So when the nice people at the cross-party committee say that they are protecting this convention, they are lying. They are simply protecting the rights of those who are considered 'intelligent'. And whose job will it be to decide on the intelligence of those pupils who wish to withdraw from lessons? I once held a discussion at school (Yet again, all these philosophical debates in school...) with a child who believed he was a Christian simply because when he was young he was Christened. He doesn't believe in God, or Jesus, or any of the supernatural things Christians tend to believe in. Surely, somewhere here the education system is failing him. Is the fact he is attending these lessons on religious education simply confusing him more? Is this boy one of the people this new legislation should be protecting? The answers here are probably yes, however there is one problem. He will most likely not be considered 'intelligent' and 'mature' enough under this ruling as he suffers from dyslexia. But even if he were given the choice to miss these lessons, and I were given the chance to advise him I would probably urge him to keep up with these lessons.

As I mentioned in the Christmas story I was against the parents for withdrawing the children from lessons, and I gave some form of explanation here as well. I am a great believer in religious studies lessons as they actually help kids learn about more than just the religion of their parents, as some will. Mr. Keith Porteous Wood, the executive director of the NSS (National Secular Society) is, rather unsurprisingly, all in favour of this bid to get the government to legislate. He says "School children are a captive audience for both collective worship and religious education. For those of sufficient maturity to make up their own minds that they do not want to take part, as the law currently requires them to do, their human rights are clearly being violated." He is, in my opinion, on the wrong end of a very distinctive stick with a large arrow saying "THIS IS THE END YOU WANT". Why take children who are, by his own admission, mature enough to make their own decisions out of a lesson that will teach them facts about other religions and leave those who will be susceptible to things in? If anything you would wish to protect those who are more easily manipulated? Or perhaps he fears that children, if given an option, will change religion. Or am I just being too cynical?

Now, before I am accused of focusing on one small part of the bill, I will mention something that is also in there, and something that I agree with. The forcing of children to attend 'collective worship' or 'religious assemblies'. When I was young, well younger, I went to a C of E primary school, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, and I would not trade in that education, and I did indeed attend religious assemblies, which may well have assisted by 'Christian faith'.

Should a "Muslim child" (or more accurately a child of Muslim parents?) be forced to take part in a Christian assembly. Should a "Christian child" (Child of Christian parents?) be forced to sit in a Jewish collective worship? The answer is no, but similarly should any child, of any faith be in an assembly with religious intent? Should the assembly perhaps be about them, and what is affecting them as they are growing up?

One thing that struck me when I moved from my C of E primary school to a non-religious secondary was the difference in assemblies. I wasn't against them, in fact I may well have learnt more from them than I would from seven years of singing hymns and praising a sky fairy God.

"The best situation would be the replacement of the law requiring religious worship with a law requiring inclusive assemblies that would be suitable for all children." That from Andrew Copson, the British Humanist Association's Director of Education and Public Affairs, That is what I want to hear, but why did it not come from the NSS or the Cross-Party Committee?

Parents should not be withdrawing their children from Religious Education Lessons, Children themselves should not either. Equally schools should not be forcing children down a certain religious path. Here is my non-expert advice to the government.

Keep religion in school, but in a purely educational, not participatory way. Let a child chose their own religion, give them the facts about other religions so that they may make their own decisions. But above all, do not listen to the recomendations of a committee who simply wish to protect the rights of 'mature and intelligent' people, because they clearly have no concept of the term 'human rights'.

MTFBWY

Lots of the teachers (from my interaction with them) complaint about Government's policy that set a standard of graduation for UAN (a student must pass a certain grade to be considered graduated). They said that the standard only applicable if all schools in Indonesia got the same facilities. The situation now is, only schools located in cities (mostly) got good facilities.

In my opinion, UAN is good, because the students can measure themselves, whether they've acquired a decent knowledge or not. But, the result of UAN shouldn't be used to determine students' graduation. I agree that the graduation of students is determined only by the schools, since they're the one who has guided the students from the early stage of their education.

If the students decided to continue their study, let the next-level institution determine whether a student fulfill their requirements or not. For example, a high school can set a standard of SMP UAN's grade of 5.5 to enter their school.

Of course several things need to be considered more thoroughly, like if all of SMA set their standard of SMP UAN's grade of 5 then there must be left some students who can't enter SMA.

Illegal immigration is still a serious problem whether the major candidates recognize it or not. Racist separatist groups such as La Raza are intent on overthrowing the United States, at least the western portion, and even into the southern regions of Canada in some places. How will they do it? As much as many would love for them to try a direct assault, which would doom them to oblivion, they will, and are using fifth column methodology's, including using our strength (kindness) against ourselves. One method? Read below...

Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas is a fairly
famous institution and for a variety of reasons:

1. John F. Kennedy died there in
1963.
2. Lee Harvey Oswald died there shortly
after.
3. Jack Ruby-who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, died there a few
years later..by coincidence.

'On the flip side, Parkland is also home to the second
busiest maternity ward in the country with almost 16,000 new babies arriving
each year. (That's almost 44 per day---every day)

A recent patient survey indicated that 70 percent of the women who gave
birth at Parkland in the first three months of 2006 were illegal
immigrants. That's 11,200 anchor babies
born every year just in Dallas .

According to the article, the hospital spent $70.7
million delivering 15,938 babies in 2004 but managed to end up with almost $8
million dollars in surplus funding. Medicaid kicked in $34.5 million, Dallas
County taxpayers kicked in $31.3 million and the feds tossed in another $9.5
million.

The average patient in Parkland in maternity wards is
25 years old, married and giving birth to her second
child.

She is also an illegal
immigrant.

By law, pregnant women cannot be denied medical care
based on their immigration status or ability to pay. OK, fine. That
doesn't mean they should receive better care than everyday, middle-class
American citizens. But at Parkland Hospital , they do. ' Parkland Memorial
Hospital has nine prenatal clinics'.

That's right !!!!
NINE.

The Dallas Morning News article followed a Hispanic woman who was a
patient at one of the clinics and pregnant with her third child---her previous
two were also born at Parkland . Her first two deliveries were free and the
Mexican native was grateful because it would have cost
$200 to have them in Mexico
This time, the hospital wants her to pay $10 per visit and $100 for the
delivery but she was unsure if she could come up with the money. Not that it
matters, the hospital won't turn her away. (I wonder why they even bother asking
at this point.)

'How long has this been going on? What are the long-term
affects?
Well, another subject of the article was born at
Parkland in 1986 shortly after her mother entered the US illegally - now she is
having her own child there as well. (That's right, she's technically a US
citizen.)

These women receive free prenatal care including
medication, nutrition, birthing classes and child care classes. They also get
freebies such as car seats, bottles, diapers and
formula.

Most of these things are available to American
citizens as well but only for low-income applicants and even then, the red tape
involved is almost insurmountable.

Because these women are illegal immigrants, they do
not have to provide any sort of legitimate identification - no proof of income.
An American citizen would have to provide a social security number which would
reveal their annual income - an illegal immigrant need only claim to be poor and
the hospital must take them at their word.

Parkland Hospital offers indigent care to Dallas County residents who earn less
than $40,000 per year. (They also have to prove that they did not refuse health
coverage at their current job. Yeah, the 'free' care is not so easy for
Americans.)

There are about 140 patients who received roughly $4 million dollars for
un-reimbursed medical care. As it turns out, they did not qualify for free
treatment because they resided outside of Dallas County so the hospital
is going to sue them! Illegals get it all free! But U. S citizens who live outside of Dallas County get sued! How
stupid
is this?

As if that isn't annoying enough,
the illegal immigrant patients are actually complaining about hospital staff
not speaking Spanish . In this AP story, the author speaks with a
woman who is upset that she had to translate comments from the hospital staff
into Spanish for her husband. The doctor was trying to explain the situation to
the family and the mother was forced to translate for her husband who only spoke
Spanish. This was apparently a great injustice to
her.

In an attempt to create a Spanish-speaking staff,
Parkland Hospital is now providing incentives in the form of extra pay for
applicants who speak Spanish. Additionally, medical students at the University
of Texas Southwestern for which Parkland Hospital is the training facility will
now have a Spanish language requirement added to their already jammed-packed
curriculum. No other school in the country boasts such a ridiculous
multi-semester (multicultural) requirement.

( Sorry for the length, but this needs wide circulation
particularly to our'employees' in Congress.)

Remember that this is only ONE
hospital in Dallas , Texas There are many more hospitals across our
country that also have to deal with this.

If
you want to verify accuracy:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/parkland.asp

The Pentagon announced yesterday that it was going to build a 40 Acre Prison in Afghanistan next to the existing Bagram Detention Center.

The Pentagon is planning to use $60 million in emergency construction funds this fiscal year to build a complex of 6 to 10 semi-permanent structures resembling Quonset huts, each the size of a football field, a Defense Department official said.

We already have spent more than $50 million maintaining our existing prisons in the war zones. Now we've got to build more of them. Never mind that this is just one more effort to avoid the Post-Guantanamo Supreme Court decisions, as Professor David Cole of Georgetown notes.

The administration chose Guantánamo in the first place because it thought it was a law-free zone. Now that the Supreme Court has said that the administration is actually accountable to legal limits at Guantánamo, it is turning to other avenues to avoid accountability.

What struck me was the irony of this story juxtaposed with Bob Herbert's column about the sorry state of our American High Schools.

At a time when the nation is faced with tough economic challenges at home and ever-increasing competition from abroad, it’s incredible that more is not being done about the poor performance of so many American high schools.

We can’t even keep the kids in school. A third of them drop out. Half of those who remain go on to graduate without the skills for college or a decent job. Someone please tell me how this is a good thing.

America’s high schools are for the most part obsolete, inherently ill equipped to meet the needs of 21st-century students. The system needs to be remade, reinvented.

So while we are busy spending hundreds of millions building prisons in Afghanistan, we can't figure out how to build a state of the art high school for the 21st Century?

…What we should do now? I think people have started realizing that self help is the most important for us, and education is the base. Unfortunately we haven’t paid attention to getting quality education as much as we should have done. We have degrees but no qualification. Times are changing and the importance of quality education is getting the priority world over. This is no hidden truth that all nations who are developed are because of education….

Email- soomro_munwar@yahoo.com

Source: Mehran e-group

Anyone seeing anything offensive here? Anyone seeing an endorsement of one religion over another? I'm not.

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