text:
Random Trip Pic
Rooftops of Rome
Labels: pictures, travel
My Personal Message From Joe Biden, The Intellect of the Democratic Party
Darren --
If we win this election, it will be because of what you did in moments like this to help close the spending gap.
Because this is real: Just last week alone, Mitt Romney's campaign and his allies outspent our side by at least three to one in North Carolina, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, all states we need to win.
That could swing the election -- but it doesn't have to.
Tomorrow is our biggest fundraising deadline so far. Will you make a donation of $5 or more today and help this campaign hang in there for the final two months?
Tonight Mitt Romney will deliver a speech that millions of Americans will hear.
He's going to say a lot of things about Barack Obama, and belittle what we stand for.
When he does, remember the important role you play in the political process. Remember the kind of man our president is, and the tough choices he's had to make from that Oval Office.
Voters in some very important states are hearing distortions and lies from people who've invested a lot to see Barack Obama removed from the White House.
Fight back. Donate $5 or more and make sure your voice is heard just as loud:
https://donate.barackobama.com/August-Deadline
We wouldn't be here without you. Thank you.
P.S. -- Deciding that the stakes are high enough to do our part isn't a November 6th decision. It's one I'm asking you to make right now, before tomorrow's big fundraising deadline.
Joe --
They'll Stop At Nothing
Can you believe the audacity?
On Thursday, in the shadow of the hurricane barreling down on the region, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, a large teachers' union, launched an attack on the state's chapter of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, a nonprofit organization working to improve black educational achievement through education reform and school choice. On its official Twitter account, the teachers' union ludicrously alleged that BAEO supports a "pro KKK curriculum," and sent out the statement to various followers.
The mind boggles. Seriously.
Labels: discrimination/race, teachers unions
Why I'm Blogging Today
California's budget is in a shambles, and the faucet of money that funds education is slowing to a trickle. If the tax increase on the November ballot doesn't pass, and it probably won't (I'm certainly not going to vote for it), then that trickle will become a persistent drip.
Today is a furlough day in my district. There's no school, I'm home, and I'm not getting paid.
Labels: economy/economics/budget, election, K-12 issues
Hypocrisy, Thy Party Is Democrat
I'll just quote the Instapundit post in full:
IT'S LIKE ALL THOSE WAR-CRIMES COMPLAINTS AND "HAVE YOU NO DECENCY" TROLLS DURING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WERE JUST POLITICAL BULLSHIT: The Reckoning: CIA Interrogation Investigation Closed Without Further Charges. "In the meantime, the Obama administration that once savaged President Bush for surveilling American citizens who abet the enemy tells us that there is no problem killing American citizens — with a straight face and without the slightest hint that some apology might be in order." Including from some Obama-loving bloggers who have changed their tune since the White House became theirs.
Where is the anti-war left and their mass marches while this president kills American citizens by missile without giving them due process rights???
It's not that I have a problem with doing that; my problem is people who decry lesser activities when the president has an (R) after his name and sit silently by when a president with a (D) after his name goes even further.
Labels: hypocrisy, liberals/lefties, War on Terror
A Reason To Go To Manhattan
From the June 2012 Smithsonian magazine:
Click to read about the Museum of Mathematics.
Labels: math/science
Random Rantings
I need to make dinner and then get to my linear algebra course, so here are some topics I'd love to spend more time on but can't today!
Have you heard about the deaf 3-yr-old whose school said he has to change the way he signs his name because part of the gesture looks like the "bang-bang" gesture that all boys make with their hands? Incidentally, the boy's name is Hunter:
A Nebraska school district wants a 3-year-old deaf boy to change the way he signs his name because they say the gesture makes his hands look like weapons, the boy's family claims.
The district, in Grand Island, about three hours west of Omaha, has a policy that forbids kids bringing to school "any instrument ... that looks like a weapon," local station KOLN reported.
According to the report, Hunter Spanjer signs his name by crossing his index finger and middle finger and then wagging his hands, which the school says is not appropriate. link
The school district denies this:
Grand Island Public Schools officials declined to discuss the case, but issued a statement to FoxNews.com in which they denied requiring any student to change how his or her name is signed...
Jack Sheard, a spokesman for the district, said district officials — who have reportedly received hundreds of angry phone calls, emails and even death threats — are working with Spanjer's family. link
Exactly how are they working with the family, if there's no problem? If he can sign his given name, what problem is there to "work with"?
A few of us were talking about this at lunch today, and the consensus is that the school district will buckle by Friday.
Next topic:
Remember a few years ago when Eric Holder said that we as a nation were afraid to hold discussions of race? Well, it's certainly not hard for certain people in a certain political party to talk about race, as they bring up every chance they get, but this is pretty much how we discuss race in a school environment:
Teachers can't discuss intelligence or racial differences in "behavior, focus or drive," Morrison writes. If black or Hispanic students score below average, it must be due to "racism, oppression, cultural differences and textbooks." White or Asian students who don't learn must be victims of "poor teaching methods, run-down school buildings, or lazy and uncaring teachers." Above all, "students are never to blame if they misbehave, fail to study, or can't understand the curriculum."
Poor performance is never caused by culture...or perhaps I'm judging poor performance from a white middle-class perspective. Damn me.
And while we're on the subject of race, Instapundit first quotes Roger L. Simon:
Racism is stalking the Republican Convention in Tampa. But it's not from the Republicans. It's from the mainstream media.
First it was MSNBC treating convention speakers Artur Davis, Mia Love, and Ted Cruz like nonpersons. And now it's Yahoo! Washington Bureau Chief David Chalian getting caught on an ABC webcast saying Mitt Romney would be "happy to have a party when black people drown."
Chalian, not surprisingly, was fired almost immediately when the word got out, but the climate in which he would make such an insane statement is very much alive and well. Why would anyone dream of saying such a thing in a semi-public situation if he didn't feel safe and among friends?
The left/liberal need to think Republicans and conservatives racists is more than just projection. At this point, it is nothing short of a mental illness. It is so far divorced from reality, it has to be pathological. No longer are these people able to observe reality with anything close to impartiality. We are not in the world of politics, ladies and gentlemen. We are in the world Freud, Jung, Adler, and people bouncing off walls.
Then Instapundit quotes from a reader who emailed him:
The sheer pathology that Roger Simon highlights may well be one of the biggest stories of this election season. It's becoming hard to ignore it and becoming more apparent to a larger number of people. At the same time, intended victims are less likely to be cowed.
Democrats and the left have lazily relied on the power of ad hominem coupled with race for the better part of 40 years now. The power of that was bound to diminish with passing time and generations. We're seeing it now and also seeing that Democrats, and the left generally, have done nothing to prepare for that day. They are desperate, because they have nothing else to offer as rebuttal in policy disputes. Nothing.
This is the price to paid for 40 years of intellectual stasis on the left.
When he jokes that NBC must stand for "No Black Conservatives", the days of playing the race card are indeed numbered for our friends on the left. They've been shouting "fire" in that crowded theater for 40 years now, it's time to make them stop.
Update, 8/31/12: Hunter Spanjer's school district buckled sooner than we expected. Good!
Labels: discrimination/race, K-12 issues, liberals/lefties
The Republican Convention
A friend posted the following on the Facebook:
Great quote from Twitter
You can judge how effective the convention is by how angry the anchors are on MSNBC. So it was a good night.
I just smile :)
Labels: election, media/press
My First Small Victory
#31.
My instructor assigned problem #31, which happened to be the first problem on page 34. There were no problems like it in that section of the text. None. And I had absolutely no idea how to solve it.
In the textbooks out of which I teach, it would have been labeled a "critical thinking" problem.
So on Sunday I started thinking about it. I had a brief idea and gave "part a" a shot--and when I checked the answer in the back of the book, it was right! OK, on to part b.
Buoyed by my success in part a, I thought long and hard about how I might tackle part b. Then I went on to the next section of the book because I can't spend the rest of the semester on page 34 without moving on. But I kept coming back to #31b, just to see what intuition would buy me. Last night (Monday) before going to bed I actually came up with an idea I thought I'd try today. It was based on logic, but it was a complete and total guess. I had no idea if I was anywhere near the right path or not.
So when I got home from school today I set to work on 31b. I checked the section again, but no, no example problem had magically appeared in there. I was going to have to give my idea a try. So as I'm turning from pages 30 and 31 (the lesson) to page 34, on which resides problem 31, I passed page 33, which contained problems 29 and 30--both of which introduced concepts needed in #31. As I said, #31 was the first problem on the page; I hadn't thought to look at previous problems, only the lesson itself, and besides, 29 and 30 weren't assigned.
So I spent a few minutes studying #29 and 30--and I'll be darned, all that thinking and intuition I'd done on parts a and b were definitely on the right track! Armed with my new-found information in problems 29 and 30, though, I tackled #31, and I got the right answer!
My goal is to have many more such feelings of victory in the weeks and months ahead.
Labels: higher education, math/science
Voter ID Requirements
Could he be any more correct? (said in best Chandler voice, from Friends)
Current voter-registration systems are flawed, with huge numbers of dead or disqualified voters still on the rolls. And, since voter-ID enforcement is poor, in many places a person can simply claim to be one of those people and vote in their name with no one the wiser.
(Sometimes it's worse than that — one voting-rights activist, a twentysomething white guy with a pony tail in Washington, DC, managed to get a ballot in Attorney General Eric Holder's name.)
You might call our system "Third World," but that would be an insult to the Third World. As Fund and von Spakovsky note, to register to vote in Mexico a voter must provide a photo, a signature and a thumbprint. The Mexican voter-registration card includes holographic security, a magnetic code and a serial number. Before voting, voters have to show the card and have the thumbprints matched by a scanner.
Similar safeguards apply in many other countries, along with simple precautions to prevent repeat voting (remember those Iraqis with purple thumbs?) that America lacks.
In the United States, meanwhile, only 17 states even require identification in order to vote. Holder & Co., claim that requiring photo ID would be racist, because getting a driver's license, etc., costs money. This claim has consistently been rejected by courts, and with good reason: If requiring photo ID to vote is racist, then what about requiring photo ID to exercise other constitutional rights, like buying a gun?
Of course, the real objection to requiring voter ID isn't based in civil rights, but in civil wrongs.
To make such observations is probably raaaaaaacist to some people, but to those of us who love liberty, you can't flinch in the face of the truth.
Come On, ABC News, You Can Do Better
A second staffer, a school resource officer, was outside the cafeteria and rushed in to help the teacher subdue the suspect until cops arrived, police said. link
"Cops"? Really? ABC News is supposed to be a serious news outlet. Let's cut down on the use of slang and refer to them as "police" or "law enforcement".
And no, that's not the most important thing I got out of a story in which a student was shot at school by another student, but since I don't really have any commentary to add to that story, I'll just write about something else that jumped out at me.
Sometimes we bite off more than we can chew. I did that, so now I have to eat some humble pie.
I thought that I could work, be a dad, have a life, and take 2 master's level courses at the same time. After one week, in which some of the work was review and there was very little new material, I've found that that's just not so. The time commitment is just too great. I might be able to make it through the semester, but I think I'd be a very unhappy, unpleasant person by December.
So I made a decision. I contacted my advisor--who a couple months ago warned me against taking 2 classes at once--and she concurs with my decision to drop one of the classes. This morning I dropped statistical analysis.
My remaining class (linear algebra) will still take about 10 hrs a week, but I should still have time left over for the rest of what life has to offer. I've confirmed with my statistical analysis professor that he'll offer that course again next semester so I'll take it then.
I'm a little embarrassed about being knocked down to size in an academic environment, but, as they say, "it is what it is." Now I just need to do well in my remaining course so I can salvage some dignity out of this.
The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
President Bush popularized that phrase, and it's been enshrined in Virginia's new educational standards:
Virginia's new achievement standards have raised eyebrows.
Part of the state's new standards dictate a specific percentage of racial group that should pass school exams, a move that has angered the Virginia Black Caucus. The caucus' chairwoman, Democratic state Sen. Mamie Locke, says the new standards marginalize students by creating different goals for students of various backgrounds...
The standards do not pose different pass rates for different groups: regardless of race, each student has to correctly answer the same number of test questions in order to pass. The difference lies in the expectation of passing from groups of different backgrounds. The new rules were designed as part of Virginia's waiver from No Child Left Behind, along with 31 other states and Washington, D.C.
For instance, only 45 percent of black students are required to pass the math state test while 82 percent for Asian Americans, 68 percent for whites and 52 percent for Hispanics are required to pass. In reading, 92 percent of Asian students, 90 percent of white students, 80 percent of hispanic students, 76 percent of black students, and 59 percent of students with disabilities are required to pass the state exam.
Can this possibly be correct? I mean, who could possibly believe this is the right thing to do?
Labels: discrimination/race, K-12 issues, testing/assessment
When You Can't Run On Your Record...
It's clear that the president can't campaign on his accomplishments, of which there have been none, so this is what he and his party are reduced to:
To win the "war on women," the party's general staff are planning their own Normandy invasion, adding to their convention line-up a host of stellar "pro-choice" speakers, including Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria, Planned Parenthood's head honchette Cecile Richards, NARAL Pro-Choice America abortion supremo Nancy Keenan, and Georgetown Law's contraceptive coed Sandra Fluke. President Obama's lavishly remunerated strategists have presumably run the focus groups and crunched the numbers, but, if I were a moderate, centrist, eternally indecisive swing-voter in a critical state and I switched on the Democrat convention to find a bunch of speakers warning about the threat to your abortion rights I would find it a very curious priority in the summer of 2012.
None of us can know what the world will be like four years from now, but one thing can be said for certain: An American woman will still enjoy her "right to choose." Whether one supports or opposes abortion, the practical reality is that the biggest "threat" to your "right" to one is that you might have to drive a little bit further for it. Still, one should never underestimate the peculiar lens through which "progressives" view reality: The "war" on women boils down to Sandra Fluke, a 30-year-old schoolgirl, demanding Georgetown Law should pay for its students' contraceptives — notwithstanding that the entire cost of that four-year contraceptive bill works out to less than the first week's paycheck of a Georgetown Law graduate's first job (average starting salary: $160 grand per year). War is hell.
If you think Barbara Boxer's right about General Romney's war on woman, feel free to waste your vote. But what else is likely to happen between now and the next time you cast a presidential ballot? We've rehearsed the fiscal stuff in this space before: China becoming the world's biggest economy, another American downgrade, total U.S. liabilities equivalent to about three times the entire planet's GDP. A "non-partisan" Pew Research study says the American middle class faces its "worst decade in modern history" — and the first bump down starts on January 1: The equally "non-partisan" Congressional Budget Office now says that the tax and budget changes due to take effect at the beginning of 2013 will put the country back in recession and increase unemployment. This is a revision of their prediction earlier this year that in 2013 the economy would contract by 1.3 percent. Now they say 2.9 percent. These days, CBO revisions only go one way — down. They're gonna need steeper graph paper. In a global economy, atrophy goes around like syphilis in the Gay Nineties: A moribund U.S. economy further mires Europe, and both slow growth in China, which means fewer orders for resource-rich nations. . . . Four wheels spinning in the mud, and none with a firm-enough grip to pull the vehicle back on to solid ground.
This president has never even signed a federal budget. Would you want to put your signature on the mound of debt he's racked up? You don't hear the president or his party addressing any of these topics on the campaign trail, and for that reason if no other he deserves to be fired in November.
Labels: Barack Obama, economy/economics/budget, election
RIP, Neil
I just saw that Neil Armstrong has died. He was my first hero.
The do-gooders thought they were saving Mother Gaia by banning DDT, and now many areas of our country are inundated with bedbugs and poor people throughout the world die from malaria.
I remember when grocery stores switched from offering paper bags to plastic bags because--wait for it--plastic was better for the earth because we didn't have to cut down trees! Now in some jurisdictions they're not supposed to offer you any bag at all; you're supposed to bring your own, with entirely foreseeable (and foreseen) consequences:
Researchers examined these reusable totes and found significant amounts of dangerous bacteria, including, among others, E-coli. And there seems to be a correlation between plastic bag bans and increased illness, as bacteria-related deaths spiked immediately after San Francisco's bag measure began.
Liberals sometimes like to mockingly pray, "Lord, please save me from your followers." I might paraphrase their prayer to, "Lord, please save me from those who try to save me from myself."
Labels: global warming/environmentalism, liberals/lefties
Tonight while looking for something else I found a picture I've been looking for for months:
Sadly, in my scan, because it's black ink on a black section of the picture, you can't see the part that says "To Darren". Darn it, there's got to be a way to scan it such that my name is visible!!!
Last year one of my students interned in the Capitol and got me a new autographed picture of the current, older Governor Brown. No, I'm no Democrat--and I wasn't in 1982, either--but this is still kinda cool, so I'm going to scan both of them and hang them up in my classroom.
Update, 8/26/12: That was then, this is now:
Labels: liberals/lefties, pictures
Last night I spent close to an hour studying 2 sections of the book, then spent another hour watching the video lesson covering those two sections. Today I spent about an hour on the homework on those two sections.
And that was just Linear Algebra. Statistical Analysis is another animal entirely!
Yes, I brought this upon myself--I could be done with this degree in 10 months if I just wanted to jump through hoops at National or Phoenix, but that isn't the point of this post.
As an undergrad I took linear algebra while an exchange cadet at the Air Force Academy. A recent retiree from my school was the course director for linear algebra at USAFA for a couple of years immediately before I got there--talk about a coincidence! Anyway, I once talked to him about what a horrible course it was, how the book was horrible, and he was horrified. He said it was a wonderful book, then pulled it out of his closet (!!!) and asked what was wrong with it. "This isn't the book we used," I said. The next day I brought in the book we had used, he glanced through it and said, "It's no wonder you didn't learn anything. This is way above the head of anyone taking an introductory linear algebra course. This is at least master's level."
I got the highest score in the class and there's an A on my transcript, but if I remember correctly, that score was maybe a 60% or something. I could go through some motions but I didn't learn a thing. Last night and today I learned Gaussian Elimination, how to manipulate matrices into reduced row-echelon form and solve systems of equations.
I've learned more in 3 hours of this course than I learned in a semester in my previous Linear Algebra course.
Now I need to tackle some of the other course.
I Thought Getting A Master's Degree Was Supposed To Be Easy :-)
2 courses.
3 hrs of video lecture per course per week.
Plus homework.
Plus tests.
For an entire semester.
For 5 semesters.
What have I done???
Students Who Exercise Their Rights
Some people just don't like our Constitution. Would this physics professor cancel class if he found out that people were going to exercise their 1st Amendment rights?
University of Colorado Chancellor Phil DiStefano notified the Boulder campus faculty Tuesday afternoon that professors "do not have the right to shut down a class or refuse to teach" should they learn that one of their students is lawfully carrying a gun under a concealed-carry permit.
And, DiStefano added, any faculty members who do so will be in violation of their contracts and face disciplinary action.
DiStefano's message comes a day after Professor Jerry Peterson, chairman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly, told the Daily Camera that, under his own "personal policy," he plans to cancel class if he ever learns any of his students are carrying firearms. A Colorado Supreme Court ruling this spring overturned CU's Boulder campus gun ban, and university officials say that students with conceal-carry permits are allowed to bring guns into classrooms and labs. ..
"On this issue, there can be no ambiguity: all CU-Boulder faculty, as CU and state employees, are expected to teach their assigned courses and to hold classes for all enrolled students," DiStefano wrote.
I'm impressed that Chancellor DiStefano's comments are as strong as they are. The ball is now in Professor Peterson's court.
Classes Have Started
Now that I have access to the first online courses of my master's program I feel so overwhelmed! If I were in high school I'd go to my counselor and get my classes changed. Holy crap!
Blogging's Going To Be A Lot Lighter For The Next Couple Years
Today begins my 2+ year odyssey of obtaining my master's degree. I signed up for two courses this semester--and holy crap, at first glance I'm overwhelmed! It's definitely not a program that will allow me hour upon hour of internet reading and blogging!
I've toyed with just stopping blogging altogether--it's been almost 8 years. But instead I'll keep it up, writing much more infrequently but just as passionately, and make a decision later as to whether or not to keep it going. I could always use this space to complain about how difficult my classes are!
I'll keep you posted....
California Dysfunction
I'm not naive enough to believe that this occurs only in California, or even only in liberal states, but combine this story with California's "Marianas Trench" budget issues and ask yourself how this could happen:
The state Department of Parks and Recreation routinely searched for ways to spend extra money each June despite facing the threat of park closures and forgoing upkeep at its 278 properties, based on newly released transcripts from an internal investigation.
Testimony from 30 interviews with state employees portrays parks administrators who appeared to have the opposite problem from one long described by Gov. Jerry Brown – excess cash left over and not enough ways to spend it...
Brown's administration revealed last month that the parks department had long hidden $54 million without reporting it to the Department of Finance and state lawmakers, who have constitutional authority over spending in California. In the past year, private donors and other government agencies have contributed under the impression the parks department did not have a dime to spare. Longtime state parks director Ruth Coleman and other top officials resigned last month.
There's much more at the link. Make sure you have Kleenex on hand, because it's just sad.
So yes, I think we do need less government, and especially less bureaucracy. You want to eliminate "waste, fraud, and abuse" in government? I got your "waste, fraud, and abuse" right here. What are you going to do about it?
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/19/4738279/california-parks-officials-were.html#storylink=cpy
Labels: economy/economics/budget
Sacramento Area Looks Good!
Check it out, Sacramento junior colleges avoid the list of colleges facing sanctions, a rare bit of good news (or merely the absence of bad news) for the capitol region:
The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges can issue three levels of sanctions if it does not reaffirm a college's accreditation. This year it has sanctioned the following California community colleges:
SHOW CAUSE (strongest sanction)
College of the Redwoods
Cuesta College
PROBATION (midlevel sanction)
Los Angeles Harbor College
Modesto Junior College
Moorpark College
Oxnard College
Palo Verde College
San Jose City College
Shasta College
Ventura College
Victor Valley College
WARNING (low-level sanction)
Barstow College
Berkeley City College
College of Alameda
College of Marin
Evergreen Valley College
Fresno City College
Merritt College
Reedley College
San Diego Miramar College
Solano Community College
West Los Angeles College
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/15/4726349/colleges-sanctioned.html#storylink=cpy
No Double Standard This Time
Colleps is married and has three children. She turned herself in after a cellphone video of one encounter that involved multiple students emerged. That video was shown a(t) trial.
Three former students who testified Thursday said that they did not consider themselves victims and did not want to see their former English teacher prosecuted. The three were football and track athletes. link
Feisty lady, no? Still, she broke the law.
It took the jury less than an hour to conclude that Brittni Nicole Colleps, 28, of Arlington, was guilty of 16 counts of having an inappropriate relationship between a student and teacher. The second-degree felony is punishable by two to 20 years in prison per count.
Her husband, who was deployed overseas while the missus was doing the nasty with the boys, wants to stay married. He says he firmly believes in "till death do us part", so you might believe he has a strong grasp on the sanctity of marriage, but I think that grasp is rather tenuous:
He said he was very angry and hurt by his wife's actions, but admitted the two of them have had group sex with other consenting adults in the past.
No one comes out a winner in this story, except maybe for the judge and jury.
Labels: teachers
Biden and the Press' Double Standards
Kudos to the Boston Globe editorial staff for recognizing the double standard being applied to Joe Biden by their compatriots in the press:
When Vice President Joe Biden warned a Virginia rally of hundreds of African Americans that Republican efforts to loosen bank regulations meant "They're going to put y'all back in chains," Stephanie Cutter, Team Obama's deputy campaign manager, said the president would have "no problem with those comments."
But imagine if Republican Paul Ryan uttered comments like that. Mitt Romney's pick for vice president would be pilloried for racial insensitivity — and so would Romney. In the fight for civility and substance over pointless hyperbole, Biden may not be the worst offender. But he's an offender nonetheless, and he should apologize.
Biden has a history of making remarks that would rile up liberals if they were spoken by a conservative politician. Back in 2008, when Biden was running against Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, he had to apologize for saying, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
I'll be honest, there's a perfectly reasonable, complimentary, non-racist interpretation of the "articulate/clean" comment, and I choose to believe that is what Biden meant. In other words, that was a fake controversy ginned up by the usual race hustlers and their ilk.
But the chains comment? How much longer can the White House stand by that comment? Come on, the man was making a slavery reference to a black crowd. Get real.
Labels: discrimination/race, election, liberals/lefties, media/press
The Poster Child For "Too Much Government"
Conservatives believe in community, charity, and decency. This is the poster child for too much government--and note how it eliminates all three:
Lunch lady Angela Prattis thought she was just doing God's work, handing out free lunches to hungry children in a Pennsylvania neighborhood. But even acts of altruism, it seems, must bow to red tape.
National outrage has erupted after Prattis found herself running afoul of Chester Township zoning laws and threatened with a $600 fine if she continued, according to NBC10 Philadelphia.
Moreover, she faces a $1,000 fee if she wants to continue performing her good deeds, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The lunch lady, who is also a youth pastor at her church, was told that she needed a township zoning permit continue to hand out lunches outside her home. And the approval process requires an official hearing. And that hearing would cost her $1,000, the Inquirer reported.
Government pays for the food. Government inspectors had already OK'd her operation.
Get'cher bumper sticker here.
Labels: election, math/science
Vintage Trailer Rally
Took the Egg-terprise camping this weekend at a Vintage Trailer Rally. Just so happened to be co-located with a vintage car rally, so enjoy a few pictures:
Darned Brits Don't Know English!
I've often wondered why we in the US say "math" whereas the Brits and assorted Commonwealth types say "maths". A small skirmish over the final 's' was fought in the Twitterverse; I'm not sure who won, but I agree with this sentiment:
"Physics" is just a word with an "s" at the end, not an abbreviation. "Econ" is an abbreviation for a singular concept, and doesn't get an "s." "Stats" is an abbreviation for a plural concept, and gets an "s." Because "mathematics" is not the plural of "mathematic," there's no reason for its abbreviation to retain the vestigal "s."
Darned Brits, learn some English!
Have I ever addressed on this blog why I assert that "data" (in English, not in Latin) is singular, or why I think it's entirely reasonable to split infinitives sometimes, or to end a sentence with a preposition? If not, I'm armored up and prepared to do battle with the VLL's! (that's Victorian Luddite Linguists)
It went off pretty much without a hitch--how cool is that?
It's All About The Kids (Except When It Isn't)
I've written about this before, but since it's that time of year again, I get to do an updated post on the subject.
My district and local union have agreed on a stupid policy regarding substitute teachers. Because we had to lay off many teachers, those teachers get first dibs on any substitute assignment that occurs. At first thought this sounds like a good idea--these laid-off teachers get some income as we determine if more full-time openings come available--but upon closer inspection it's the most anti-education plan that could be devised.
From what I understand, there are no math teachers among the laid-off teachers. So if a math teacher calls in sick, he or she cannot request a math teacher (or, in my case, cannot contact an awesome retired math teacher) as a substitute. Instead we get whatever laid off teacher is next "on the list". If I were to call in sick, I'd get a laid off third grade teacher--who probably isn't capable of teaching trigonometry or statistics. In other words, I'd get a babysitter, and my students wouldn't get any instruction that day.
And my district and local union agreed to this.
I can kinda see why the local union would want this, as their job is to "protect" teachers. On the other hand, though, a union that always claims "education first" and "children are our special interest"--how can they justify a policy that clearly deprives children of instruction, for the benefit of teachers? And why would the district, whose job it is to educate students, agree to this? Why would they not stipulate an entirely reasonable condition about credential area?
As someone who cares deeply about the education of the students in his charge (and who averages 3 missed days of school a year, except for the big ski accident), I am both mystified and mortified by this substitute teacher policy. My students deserve better, and in fact we could do better--but neither the union nor the district wants to.
And that's sad.
Labels: K-12 issues, teachers, teachers unions
Summer Vacation's Over
When I wake up tomorrow morning, it'll be because I have to go back to work. Students show up the next day (Thursday).
From Instapundit:
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY: Ryan's Budget Is Radical? Far From It.
What's radical is jacking up federal spending to near-World-War-II levels, and funneling much of the money into the pockets of cronies.
But even Obama didn't think the Ryan budget was radical when it came out: FLASHBACK: Obama in 2010 on Ryan Roadmap: 'This is an entirely legitimate proposal.'
UPDATE: Reader Kenneth Nachbar writes:
Great work on the video of Obama legitimizing Ryan's plan. But you buried the lede! At about 4 minutes in, he concedes that Medicare is the real problem, and that we must not attack opponents' plans as "irresponsible" or trying to "hurt senior citizens."
So I guess ads like this are off the table, right?
Only for those possessed of a conscience.
As Jim Geraghty noted, everything Obama says comes with an expiration date. Every single thing.
Labels: Barack Obama, economy/economics/budget
Oh Yeah, Baby. I Entered.
Dinner With Barack
I'd give him something to chew on besides just chateaubriand, that's for sure.
Update, 8/14/12: Today I started getting the junk mail from the Obama campaign....
Labels: Barack Obama
Radical Left-Wing Activism At UCLA? No Way!
UCLA continues to back away from National Dream University, the partnership announced last week by the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education and the National Labor College that will offer college courses to illegal aliens around the country.
The partnership is the brain child of two left wing activists, Kent Wong, Director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, and his superior, Professor Chris Tilly, Director of the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE). Together, Wong and Tilly have turned the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education into a virtually independent rogue operation that engages in partisan political advocacy with little institutional control provided by UCLA...
This independence appears to have been abused with National Dream University, which has set commitment to a left wing pro-union political ideology as a condition for acceptance to its program, as its website specifies:
To be considered for admission to National Dream University you must ... demonstrate commitment to immigrant/labor rights and social justice; (emphasis added)
Reacting to the negative public response brought on by National Dream University's announced mission of offering subsidized college education to illegal aliens while imposing a political litmus test as a standard for acceptance to the program, officials at UCLA have tried to distance the school from the project. "The [National Dream University] initiative between the UCLA Center for Labor Research and the National Labor College was negotiated directly and independently by those two organizations," said Ricardo Vasquez, Senior Public Information Representative in the UCLA Media Relations Department.
So they're not stopping it, they're just trying to separate themselves from the public firestorm that would occur if Californians found out the universities they're funding were doing this. Brave leaders, those in the UCLA administration.
As for so-called social justice, I demonstrate a commitment to it--but I think that what I consider social justice is a little different than what Wong and Tilly consider to be social justice.
Labels: higher education, liberals/lefties, social justice
CTEN's YouTube Channel
Not only does the California Teachers Empowerment Network now have a YouTube channel, but yours truly is the star of the only two videos currently posted (yes, more are on the way) :-)
Labels: CTEN, video
It's Close Enough To The TSA For A 2-Minute Hate :-)
#TSAFAIL: Stranded jet-skier saunters through JFK safeguards. "A stranded jet-skier seeking help effortlessly overcame the Port Authority's $100 million, supposedly state-of-the-art security system at JFK Airport — walking undetected across two runways and into a terminal, The Post has learned. Motion sensors and closed-circuit cameras of the Perimeter Intrusion Detection System, or PIDS, were no match for Daniel Casillo, 31, of Howard Beach, who easily breached the system meant to safeguard against terrorists. . . . Dripping wet and in a bright-yellow life jacket, Casillo climbed the perimeter fence, which is eight feet high, and walked across that runway and intersecting Runway 31L — and made it all the way to Terminal 3 without anyone noticing." He's been charged with criminal trespass — no, really — while the officials involved should be charged with criminal negligence. But it's doubtful that anyone will even lose their job over this.
UPDATE: Reader Brian Medcalf says I'm wrong to blame the TSA, which isn't responsible for airport perimeter security. That's a fair point, I suppose.
When liberals/socialists and other assorted statists want to argue with me about the good government can do, they always start with "roads and bridges". I agree with them. Government can build static things well. Dams. Airports. Military bases :-) What government doesn't do all that well is run things: social security, farm subsidies, drug war, border security, airport security. Given this, why would you want to turn your health care over to the government? What evidence do you have, seriously and honestly, that it would be an improvement?
Labels: liberals/lefties, socialism
Some time in the past few weeks, the midpoint of the living graduates of West Point went through me. I'm now in the older half!
Update, 8/22/12: Sir, may I make a correction? When last I checked, the midpoint was a woman graduate of my class whose last name begins with U, meaning the midpoint had passed me and I was in the upper half of all living graduates. However, when she was a cadet her last name began with an H, so the midpoint hadn't gotten to me yet--and still hasn't! As of today the midpoint is still in the H's in the Class of '87 so I'm still in the younger half of living West Point graduates.
Hadrian's Mausoleum/Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome
Corporate Welfare/Giving Money To The Rich
If you say you're against "corporate welfare", what do you say about this form of it?
The Assembly Appropriations Committee unanimously supported a bill that would extend funding for California's film and television tax credit program. Funding for the program is due to expire next year.
California sets aside $100 million annually for dozens of projects applying for credits between 20% and 25% of qualified production expenses for movies and TV shows.
Talk about people making "too much" money.... You know, I might could enjoy this line of socialist thought :)
Teaching Math Correctly
There's nothing new in this piece, but it certainly gathers all the right ideas and puts them in one place:
In the never-ending dialogue about math education that has come to be known as the "math wars", proponents of reform-based math tend to characterize math as it was taught in the 60's (and prior) as "skills-based". The term connotes a teaching of math that focused almost exclusively on procedures and facts in isolation to the conceptual underpinning that holds math together. The "skills-based" appellation also suggests that those students who may have mastered their math courses in K-12 were missing the conceptual basis of mathematics and were taught the subject as a means to do computation, rather than explore the wonders of mathematics for its own sake.
Without delving too far into the math wars, I and others have written that while traditional math may sometimes have been taught poorly, it also was taught properly. In fact, a view of the textbooks in use at that time reveal that they provided both procedures and concept. Missing perhaps were more challenging problems, but also missing from the reformers' arguments is the fact that not only are procedures and concepts taught in tandem but that computational fluency leads to conceptual understanding.
I'm beginning to believe less and less in the "math for its own sake" mentality. I don't know that that can be taught, and to be quite honest, I'm not sure there are enough people out there who are willing to put in enough effort to get to the point where they can see the beauty, wonder, and interconnectedness of the mathematical mosaic. I now lean towards the "teach to fluency" mode, which is "necessary but not sufficient" to get to the "beauty and wonder" mode. Oh, I'll take my students to "beauty and wonder" if they want to go there, and plenty do, but that's not where I focus my classes.
Too much "beauty and wonder" and not enough "fluency" puts the cart before the horse.
Do They Think This Will Make Them More Money?
Do they think there's some vast, homosexual train-riding demographic to be tapped?
Amtrak is joining the recent trend of companies taking sides in the fight over gay rights with a new marketing campaign dubbed "Ride With Pride."
The campaign features a website, www.amtrakridewithpride.com, and advertisements showing same-sex couples aboard trains. It includes discounts to destinations like Martha's Vineyard in Cape Cod, Mass., which Amtrak says is "extremely gay-friendly," and a section called "out and about" that lists pride events.
Maybe they think that more people will ride Amtrak now that it's shown its true (rainbow) colors?
I'm all for gay-friendly, but in my humble opinion, Amtrak should spend less time on this political correctness and more on, oh, I don't know, how about turning a profit (see chart, p. 9).
Labels: diversity, economy/economics/budget
Time For A Random Trip Pic
Condom dispenser outside a pharmacy in Venice. It seems the Catholic Church is not as strong in Italy as it once was--saw a similar machine in Rome!
National Board Certification
Remember, half a dozen years ago or more, when National Board Certification was the end-all, be-all for teachers? Well, Diane Ravitch has some concerns about what's become of National Board certification--which indicates to me that I was probably correct in dismissing it.
Notice how nobody pursued it once the stipends for it went away? There's a reason for that. No one thought it valuable enough, as a professional, to pursue unless they got paid for it.
Now I know that some reader will point me to some report somewhere that showed that National Board certified teachers are better, stronger, and faster than the rest of us. I've read several of them, and my biggest concern with each of them was that they seemed to get things backward: it's not National Board-certified teachers that cause students to do well, rather it's just as likely that teachers who were good already (or who were willing to jump through the hoops and do the required dog-and-pony show) sought out National Board certification as another feather in their caps. I haven't seen any definitive links between pursuing NB certification and improvements in student performance.
How's That "Content of Their Character" vs "The Color of Their Skin" Dream Coming Along?
From the San Francisco Chronicle (even though you'd think it actually came from The Onion):
State leaders should revise school testing and funding, extend health care coverage for those aging out of foster care, and make it harder for schools to suspend and expel - all to improve the odds of success for boys and young men of color in California.
Those are among dozens of recommendations from a state legislative committee that spent the past year and a half looking into why the state's minority youth are less healthy, have lower test scores and are more likely to be incarcerated than other young people.
Don't look at culture. Don't look at communities. Nope. Look at watering down testing and letting kids act out in school more. Because obviously that has a proven track record of success.
Who's Surprised? Not Me.
"If [then-Obama communications director] Robert Gibbs started running a [independent political expenditure group] and I called Robert Gibbs and said, 'Stop running ads on my behalf,' are you suggesting I would have no influence over Robert Gibbs?"
-- Then Sen. Barack Obama, as quoted by Politico, in West Des Moines, Iowa in December of 2007 attacking opponent John Edwards for negative ads being run by an outside group run by a former Edwards aide.
President Obama is now starting to pay the price for his intensely negative, very personal campaign against soon-to-be Republican nominee Mitt Romney. link
So, is he going to disavow that "Romney killed the guy's wife" ad that has been so thoroughly discredited? I doubt it.
Now, Obama finds himself with his campaign having been caught feigning ignorance about an unsavory ad produced by an organization he supports. For a sitting president whose pitch is so tied to reforming politics that he forgot to take a lamentation of "super PACs" out of his stump speech amid the controversy on Wednesday, this is not a good situation.
Update: Now they admit everything but still try to blame Romney somehow. They get maximum points for being brazen.
One day after claiming the Obama campaign had no knowledge of the story of the man included in a pro-Obama super PAC ad, spokeswoman Jen Psaki admitted the campaign had worked with him before...
"The Obama campaign acknowledged today that it ran a television ad and hosted a conference call that promoted the same despicable attack that was used in a discredited ad run by President Obama's Super PAC," Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said. "The Obama campaign has now admitted that it lied to the media and the American people in a disgraceful attempt to conceal their connection to this shameful smear. Americans deserve better – they deserve a president who's willing to run an honest campaign and be honest about his own record."
Labels: Barack Obama, hypocrisy
Fighting Fire With Fire?
An Indianapolis school fights cussing by having kids write on the board all such words they know. Video here.
Labels: K-12 issues, video
The Damage He's Wrought
Plenty of good reasons not to vote for Obama:
Unlike Carter, Obama is not incompetent in promoting his hatred for America's traditional values and in embedding it into our institutions, e.g., the ruinous Obamacare, the rapid expansion of the federal dole, the insistence on apologizing for our successes, the disastrous "stimulus" spending, the glorification of the "victim" culture, promotion of envy and cynicism, and denigration of individual effort and success ("You didn't build that!") That is the real threat posed by what Obama represents. Overcoming that threat will take years of sustained effort. It begins, of course, with voting Obama out of the White House next November, but does not end there.
I can't think of a good reason to vote for Obama. Seriously and objectively, I cannot think of one.
UC and the First Amendment
Even when dealing with anti-Semitism, bans on certain types of speech are wrong:
In a letter sent today, FIRE warns University of California System (UC) President Mark Yudof against enacting unconstitutional "hate speech" policies on UC's campuses. FIRE's letter responds to a recent recommendation from members of an official advisory body that, in response to alleged anti-Semitism on campus, UC "accept the challenge" of First Amendment litigation. FIRE urges President Yudof to reject the recommendation, reminding him that decades of legal precedent make clear that broad, content-based bans on student speech violate the First Amendment.
"Many people on campus see speech codes as a noble solution that will eradicate ideas and thoughts we disdain. But censorship has never changed hearts or minds," said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. "While the speech codes recommended here would not hold up in court, this belief that censorship is not just acceptable, but what 'wise and enlightened' people should do, is a long-term threat to our freedom."
Of course there's much more at the link.
Labels: FIRE, free speech, higher education
No Surprises In Hypocrisy
Will people vote for him agreeing with this, or in spite of this?
It seems ages ago that President Obama delivered a speech in the early days of his presidency, suffused with self-righteousness and moral demagoguery, announcing he was closing the Guantanamo Bay prison. Unable to resist the temptation to smear his predecessor's name with distortions and half-truths, the former law professor summoned all his reckless certainty to educate the American people: "Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al-Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law."
So Obama, who supported the Supreme Court's precedent-gutting Boumediene decision, which granted non-citizen enemy combatants habeas corpus rights, ordered the facility closed. Because that was an obviously empty promise, Obama added another executive order two years later establishing periodic review for detainees at the prison. And then the wheels came off the Moral Authority Express. It turned out instead of bringing enemy combatants to Guantanamo, where detainees are well-fed and have access to attorneys, Obama has been sending them to a disease-ridden hell-on-earth in Somalia. And the Obama administration began urging the Supreme Court to ignore the detainees' appeals. And now it seems those periodic review boards were–what would the president call them? Just words....
Obama clearly didn't understand the complexities of foreign relations, war, or anything else, really--and still doesn't.
He's been nothing but a failure all around.
Labels: Barack Obama, hypocrisy, War on Terror
9th Circuit Approves Warrantless Wiretapping
What was evil under Bush is applauded under Obama:
The federal government may spy on Americans' communications without warrants and without fear of being sued, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a decision reversing the first and only case that successfully challenged President George W. Bush's once-secret Terrorist Surveillance Program.
"This case effectively brings to an end the plaintiffs' ongoing attempts to hold the executive branch responsible for intercepting telephone conversations without judicial authorization," a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote.
I didn't have a problem with eavesdropping on calls coming into or going out of the United States, but this ruling seems to allow any type of wiretapping the feds want. Granted, the source is Wired so it may not be entirely accurate with regards to constitutional law, but on the face of it this seems mighty worrisome.
Labels: War on Terror
Now Don't Go Throwing Logic At Us!
Joanne reports:
Public policy always has determined spending, class size, subject matter and teacher qualifications. People notice it more now because there's "substantial dissatisfaction with how schools are doing and with the effects of these older rules and regs."
If you were an elected official and were responsible for elementary schools where only half of kids are reading at grade level and high schools where only fifty percent of students are graduating, it'd be pretty understandable (and laudable, even) to think you can't simply trust the educators to do the right thing.
If you think educators should run public schools as they see fit, you have to believe that generals should set national security policy, police should write criminal law, doctors and pharmaceutical companies make health policy and bankers to regulate banking, Hess concludes.
Now This Is How You Burn Bridges
From TaxProf Blog:
After only one year as Dean at St. Louis University School of Law, Annette Clark resigned today and released two remarkable letters.
The excerpts from the letters are brutal.
Spacedock
In the shop for a few minor repairs before the (not quite 5 year) mission to TowerFest.
Update, 8/10/12: The power drain was found! I'd be out there painting right now if it weren't pushing 100 degrees....
Only Time Will Tell If This Is A Big Deal Or Not
From The Heritage Foundation:
When the fight for control over what is taught in American schools is won, Utah will be remembered for having fired the shot heard 'round the country's classrooms and statehouses.
In a move that should inspire other state leaders concerned with the Obama Administration's push to nationalize standards and tests through the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the Utah State Board of Education voted 12–3 to withdraw from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), the national testing consortium the state joined as part of the its agreement to adopt national standards.
While Utah still plans to implement the standards in the coming academic year, it will now choose from among various testing companies to measure the academic achievement of students, divesting the state from the federally funded testing consortium. As Washington's overreach creeps further into the nation's classrooms, Utah has wisely taken a step away from further federal intervention into its schools.
Dictating things from Washington seldom turns out as well as its supporters claim will be the case.
Hat tip to reader MikeAT.
Labels: Common Core, K-12 issues, testing/assessment
Spending More On Pensions Than On Education
Uh oh:
The state of Illinois faces at least $83 billion in unfunded liability between its five pension systems, and is on track to spend more on its government pensions than on education by 2016, a new study released by Governor Pat Quinn's office says.
The state budget office conducted the study based on a "district-by-district analysis" if the state does not enact comprehensive pension reform, the governor said in a statement. Governor Quinn released the study a few days after calling a special session dedicated to pension reform on August 17.
This is my concern about California and the underfunded retirement system into which I'm required to pay. And lest you think I'm just jumping on some bandwagon here, notice that I've been writing about this topic since the very first year of this blog and now have several posts on the subject.
Labels: economy/economics/budget, teachers
Interesting Story
Great story for a lazy Monday, huh?
A Lyon County brothel is the latest to try its luck offering male prostitutes alongside the working women...
Sheila Caramella tells the Reno-Gazette Journal her men will charge a minimum of $100 and negotiate prices with customers of either sex.
I was going to make a crack about furlough days, pay cuts, and the need for me to find a job next year, but then thought better of it :)
Cool Mathematician
I should be half so creative:
Kevin Short's career does not exactly sum up what you would think of when you hear "mathematics."
The University of New Hampshire professor and Durham father of four is a Grammy Award winner, could be responsible for the country's first smartphone app, is responsible for the first startup company to come out of UNH, and is now using math to improve hearing aids so that people actually want to use them.
The perspective and creativity with which Short applies math to real-life problems also appeals to his students, whether it is an 8 a.m. calculus class, or a late-night seminar with graduate students.
Labels: calculators/computers/tech, higher education, math/science
By His Own Definition, This Guy Could Be A Teacher
He's Australia's education minister? Really?
TEACHERS don't need to be smart or gifted as long as they are passionate, federal School Education Minister Peter Garrett says.
I hope his kids get the dumb, passionate teachers.
I don't even need to write about all the ways this guy is wrong. I just post this so that others see what a maroon he is.
Hat tip to Joanne Jacobs.
Coming Down From A High
This is my last full week without work. But I don't get another paycheck until September 30th.
How Those Of Us In Steerage Would Be Saved In The Event Of An At-Sea Disaster
You've seen the nice, fancy lifeboats on those cruise ships. Notice them here, with their nice orange tops, just a couple decks above the water:
(click to enlarge, because they're hard to see on the port side)
You might also notice that there aren't very many of those lifeboats. What would the rest of us do, those of us in the 143 square foot cabins? This:
No, none of that being lowered off the ship in a lifeboat for us po' folk. We get to jump!
Students Say High School Is Too Easy
So again we have a report that students think high school is too easy:
This is the kind of report that makes teachers everywhere scratch their heads and wonder if the makers of the survey actually realize that people they are talking to are teenagers. These are the same people that often hum "Call Me Maybe" while texting naked photos to each other before downing a 750 Grey Goose from their parents liqueur cabinet. These are people that like Snooki and believe that Lebron James is one of the best basketball players ever to pick up the rock.
Why the skepticism of the report? It's probably the twelve years of teaching experience or something to that effect. And while I'd agree that students want to be challenged to think, they want to do so on their own terms that are set up by their own work ethic built around their own values. Basically they want to think like an adult while still acting like a teenager.
Coach Brown does a good job in his post discussing why we should take such reports with a bin of salt.
Let's Raise Taxes
Glenn Reynolds, who blogs as the Instapundit, has some proposals for tax increases that Republicans should all-out support:
For the past few years, there has been a drumbeat in favor of increased taxes from Democrats of all stripes. Make the rich pay their "fair share." Get rid of "loopholes." Make the fat cats "chip in a little more." Then Democrats hold up budgets and bills in an effort to extract some tax increases from Republicans.
It's no coincidence that much of the Democrats' base doesn't have to worry about taxes much, either because they work for nonprofits and public entities that don't pay taxes, or because they live off government benefits, or because they work in industries -- like the motion picture and recording industries -- with a long history of shady accounting and favorable tax treatment. Republicans, if they're smart, can nonetheless teach them that tax increases do, in fact, hurt.
They should head into the next budget battle with a list of proposals for tax increases that will sting Democratic constituency groups, but which will seem eminently fair to voters.
The first such proposal would be to restore the 20 percent excise tax on motion picture theater gross revenues that existed between the end of World War II and its repeal in the mid-1950s. The campaign to end the excise tax had studio executives and movie stars talking like Art Laffer (watch the video!), as they noted that high taxes reduced business income, hurt investment and cost jobs.
The movie excise tax was imposed in response to the high deficits after World War Two. Deficits are high again, and there's already historical precedent. Of course, to keep up with technology, the tax should now apply to DVDs, downloadable movies, pay-per-view and the like. But in these financially perilous times, why should movie stars and studio moguls, with their yachts, swimming pools and private jets, not at least shoulder the burden they carried back in Harry Truman's day -- when, to be honest, movies were better anyway.
For extra fun, they could show pictures of David Geffen's yacht and John Travolta's personal Boeing 707 on the Senate floor. You want to tax fat cats? I gotcher "fat cats" right here! Repeal the Hollywood Tax Cuts!
He has other suggestions in the article.
Labels: economy/economics/budget, liberals/lefties
He'll Be A Racist Again Tomorrow
My congressman, that is, because all Republicans are racist when the liberals need them to be:
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration, introduced a bill yesterday joining forces with Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) to have D.C.'s Frederick Douglass statue moved into the Capitol's Emancipation Hall.
Labels: conservatism, discrimination/race
Remember When Democrats Weren't Batcrap Insane?
There was a time--in my lifetime--when Democrats and Republicans disagreed, but neither side was extreme. And before my lifetime, Kennedy cut taxes and FDR was against public sector unions. Until very recently, Democrats had been fans of businesses.
Let's see what Martin Peretz thinks of them today:
The 1972 election and the domestic drama surrounding the Vietnam War caused a major schism between Democrats. On one side were supporters of Mr. McGovern, the U.S. senator and presidential candidate who preached engagement and accommodation with communism. On the other were those who thought the rise of the McGovernites spelled disaster for Democrats and the nation, and who were determined to return the party to a responsible center on foreign policy.
Mr. Peretz, then a Harvard University lecturer and a veteran of the antiwar movement, was in the latter camp. Two years after Richard Nixon thumped Mr. McGovern in the election, he purchased the New Republic, the flagship liberal magazine founded in 1914. Under Mr. Peretz's ownership the magazine promoted a set of foreign-policy ideas that gradually reconquered the Democratic mainstream. Chief among these were a willingness to deploy military power to advance national interests and values, plus an abiding commitment to Israel as a mirror of American ideals in an unfree Middle East.
Since selling the New Republic to Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes in 2011, however, Mr. Peretz, now 73, has emerged as a vociferous critic of Barack Obama and much of the Democratic foreign-policy establishment. His break with the president he campaigned for in 2008 has been sharp and painful. The Obama administration's worldview, he now thinks, represents a radical departure from the "healthily hard-ass" foreign policy he has long championed on the left. Mr. Peretz is especially disturbed by Mr. Obama's failure to support Israel at a time when the Jewish state faces an unprecedented combination of threats.
There's plenty of detail at the link.
Labels: Barack Obama, liberals/lefties
Government Gives Greens Gazillions
It's not just Solyndra, there are plenty of other solar companies that have gone belly-up after having their offices wallpapered with taxpayer dollars. I'm not going to be so hyperbolic as to wonder if there's a single so-called green company out there that's the recipient of federal largesse that's actually doing something valuable because the probability that there's 1 is definitely non-zero. What I would like to know, though, is, on balance, have we taxpayers gained or lost more money in "green give-aways" under this president?
Another green subsidy, another green scandal. The Wall Street Journal reports that a governent program meant to aid businesses that turn cooking oils into fuel may be guilty of serious fraud. The federal government now alleges that two of these businesses have been abusing the system, casting a pall over the entire program....
The federal program that tried to subsidize this effort seems to have attracted some of the wrong types of people: the Tony Soprano kind of waste management company rather than an idealistic green recycling coop.
There are, of course, scandals in many areas of government. But greens seem to make unusually bad managers. Or maybe they just come up with policy ideas that are easily manipulated by less than honest people. link
The list of these failed companies should be a constant reminder that government isn't as good as the market at picking winners and losers, and that government should stick to its enumerated powers and maybe even do them well before trying to branch out into other areas. Then there's that whole Constitution thing....
Update, 8/10/12: Carbon trading schemes are also doomed to failure--note they're created by bureaucrats, no matter what the level:
Behold a green failure so colossal even Via Meadia is surprised: a UN carbon-credit trading program intended to reduce global concentrations of greenhouse gases has instead led a handful of factories in the developing world to massively increase them.
The NYT explains....
Sometimes I'm forced to wonder if governments can do anything right. I know they do, but their failures are so humongous....
Random Trip Photos
Venice (off color)
Showing that the knee works, in Dubrovnik
Vatican City and Rome
Jobs Reports
I just made my first "political" video on the Obama Administration's jobs reports--take a look on YouTube.
Labels: economy/economics/budget, video
The Seriousness of College Entrance Exams
Like the Koreans and the Japanese, the Uzbekis take their college entrance exams seriously:
Uzbek authorities August 1 blocked text messaging and mobile internet use nationwide during nationwide university entrance exams from 8.30am to 1.30 pm, Uzmetronom reported...
Fergana News reported that the blockage is a routine Uzbek anti-cheating measure.
Hat tip to Joanne Jacobs for the story.
Labels: higher education, testing/assessment
Public Education Headquarters
Washington DC, June 2010
Rome, July 2012
Labels: K-12 issues, pictures
Costly Union Junkets--to Las Vegas, Of Course
One of the largest unions in the state has once again taken its annual conference Las Vegas.
The California School Employees Association's annual conference is taking place this week at the Paris Hotel, taking 1,900 attendees, and their money, out of California. link and link
In my district, this union represents secretarial, custodial, and similar employees.
Might one argue that by taking all this money out of California, these union members are depriving the state of the very revenue it needs in order to better fund education and keep us from having furlough days? I'm just saying....
Funky University Classes
Every time I read an article like this, my gut impression is, "Colleges aren't teaching anymore, they're doing crap like this!" Of course, that's exactly the kind of kneejerk reaction the newspeople want to get out of readers with such a story!
So I think about it a little more, and then I come around to, "Are these classes absolutely worthless? Is there nothing to be learned by studying these particular perspectives?" After all, I doubt there's anyone taking all the classes on the list, what's wrong with one bohemian little class?
But then I read about this class and I think, "absolutely worthless":
WST 394, Desperate Housewives: Gender, Family & Pop Culture
A women's studies class that examines the fictional lives of the wealthy homemakers of Wisteria Lane ... anybody else thinking "easy A?"
My School District
According to EIA, since 2005 my school district's enrollment has gone down over 5%, the number of teachers has gone down over 6%, and while our per-pupil spending has gone up over 16%, we're still way below the state and national averages.
Labels: economy/economics/budget, K-12 issues
Starting Early on That Whole "Stealing The Election" Thing
Obama campaign sues to restrict military voting
Defense contractors told by Obama administration to skip pre-election pink slips
Chipping away at democracy, one election at a time....
Update, 8/5/12: A little pushback:
Fifteen Ohio military groups have gone to court to oppose an "offensive" lawsuit filed by President Obama's campaign that challenges a law allowing military members to vote on days when the rest of the state cannot.
"The Obama campaign's and Democratic National Committee's argument that it is arbitrary and unconstitutional to afford special consideration, flexibility, and accommodations to military voters to make it easier for them to vote in person is not only offensive, but flatly wrong as a matter of law," the military groups — which include the Marine Corps League, the Association of the U.S. Army, and the Association of the U.S. Navy — argued in their filing.
Who Gave This Quintessentially American September 11th Quote?
"But when you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until it has struck before you crush him."
Do The Headline and the Story Match?
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what's meant by the phrase "media bias":
New Law in North Carolina Bans Latest Scientific Predictions of Sea-Level Rise
ABC News By ALON HARISH | ABC News – 7 hrs ago
A new law in North Carolina will ban the state from basing coastal policies on the latest scientific predictions of how much the sea level will rise, prompting environmentalists to accuse the state of disrespecting climate science.
The law has put the state in the spotlight for what critics have called nearsightedness and climate change denial, but its proponents said the state needed to put a moratorium on predictions of sea level rise until scientific techniques improve.
Just in case you're not sure, the answer is no, the headline and the story don't match.
Labels: global warming/environmentalism, media/press
My Personal Message From Joe Biden, The Intellect ...
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Discrimination in Higher Education
Went to Chick-fil-A Today
Too Much Government
Random Trip Pictures
Freedom of Religion in Canada

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Finding Bracketed Elements in a String following Tokens Given a StringBuilder of a text file with formatting A [1, 2, 3, 4] B [5, 6, 7, 8] C [9, 10]
I need to create a method so that when given the text file's name, and a token to search
i.e. "StringBuilder ex.txt" and "A", respectively,it will return a list with elements
1, 2, 3, and 4.
Regex is unfamiliar to me, so I'd like to use scanner if possible.
To do this, I learned that it's necessary to first use .toString on the Stringbuilder file.
So what I have so far is
Scanner sc = new Scanner(fileContent.toString())

I understand the use of split to take out commas.  I don't need a full solution, but any help in what I should do first (would it be wise to use an array, then look for the index of tokens, or is there a simpler method of which I am unaware?) would help.
new code (for strings instad of numbers in brackets):
    public List<String> getPhrases(StringBuilder fileContent, String token) {
      StreamTokenizer tokenizer = new StreamTokenizer(new StringReader(fileContent.toString()));
      List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
      while (tokenizer.nextToken() != StreamTokenizer.TT_EOF) {
        if (tokenizer.sval.equals(token)) {
          tokenizer.nextToken();  // '['
          do {
            tokenizer.nextToken();  // go to the number
            list.append(String.valueOf(tokenizer.nval));
          } while (tokenizer.nextToken() == ',');
          break;
        }
      }
      return list;
    }

I have an error of incompatibility between types with append.  Can someone mend this problem?

A: Use StreamTokenizer.
static List<Double> getElements(String fileContent, String token) {
  StreamTokenizer tokenizer = new StreamTokenizer(new StringReader(fileContent));
  List<Double> list = new ArrayList<Double>();
  while (tokenizer.nextToken() != StreamTokenizer.TT_EOF) {
    if (tokenizer.sval.equals(token)) {
      tokenizer.nextToken();  // '['
      do {
        tokenizer.nextToken();  // go to the number
        list.append(tokenizer.nval);
      } while (tokenizer.nextToken() == ',');
      break;
    }
  }
  return list;
}

A: static List<Double> getList(String content, String name) {
    int namePos = content.indexOf(name);

    // return null if name not found
    if(namePos < 0) return null;

    // starting from namePos, find start and end of array
    int start = content.indexOf("[", namePos),
          end = content.indexOf("]", namePos);

    // get substring between "[" and "]", and split data by ","
    String[] strArray = content.substring(start + 1, end).split(",")

    List<Double> l = new ArrayList<Double>(strArray.length);

    // convert to Double
    for(String str : strArray)
        l.add(Double.parseDouble(str));

    return l;
}

public static void main(String...strings){
    // returns [1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0]
    System.out.print(getList("A [1, 2, 3, 4] B [5, 6, 7, 8] C [9, 10]", "A"));
}

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Home / Mesothelioma / Giving Back to the Mesothelioma Community
Last Modified September 28, 2021
Giving Back to the Mesothelioma Community
The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com is the nation's most trusted mesothelioma resource. We are proud to contribute to members of the mesothelioma community who need more recognition and help to find a cure for this aggressive cancer.
Page Topics
Jump to a Topic
Fisher House
Pacific Heart, Lung & Blood Institute
Critical Research Studies
Prelude to a Cure
Ochsner Cancer Institute
Treatment and Travel Expenses
Cycling for Cancer
Asbestos.com Scholarship
Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization
Other Ways We Give Back
Contributions to the Fisher House
Across the street from the Boston VA Hospital, the Fisher House provides no-cost lodging for family members of veterans with mesothelioma. The Fisher House is just one special part of Boston VA, at which Dr. Abraham "Avi" Lebenthal takes pride in his care of veterans.
Donate to the Fisher House
The Pacific Heart, Lung & Blood Institute (PHLBI) is a nonprofit research facility that is dedicated to developing more effective treatment methods and early detection programs for mesothelioma and other conditions of the lungs, blood and heart. In addition, the PHLBI works with the VA to raise funds for veterans combatting asbestos-related diseases. Dr. Robert B. Cameron and the rest of the staff at PHLBI hope to one day provide a cure for mesothelioma through their ongoing research efforts.
Donate to PHLBI
Ongoing Contributions to Critical Research Studies
Asbestos.com is funding a critical, ongoing research study about optimizing therapeutic options for mesothelioma patients at a prominent mesothelioma hospital. We made our initial donation in 2013, and since then, we've provided researchers at the hospital with annual contributions totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. We hope our continued support will bring us closer to finding a cure. As always, we strongly support all mesothelioma research fundraising.
iPads for Moffitt Cancer Center
The Mesothelioma Center provides iPads for Moffitt's Lung and Thoracic Tumor Education (LATTE) Program, for patients and families affected by lung cancer or an asbestos-related condition. The iPads are loaded with a patient portal, allowing patients to schedule appointments. Patients can also use them to stay in touch with family members while getting treatment. Your donations go to the Moffitt Thoracic Research Fund for competitive peer-reviewed projects.
Donate to Moffitt
We donate to events for Prelude to a Cure, a Tampa-based nonprofit that is focused on developing innovative strategies for the prevention, improved treatments, enhanced screening, and ultimate cure of all lung cancers worldwide.
Donate to Prelude to a Cure
Mesothelioma Patient Assistance Fund at Ochsner Cancer Institute
The Ochsner Cancer Institute in New Orleans started its Mesothelioma Patient Assistance Fund in 2015 with a charitable donation from Asbestos.com. The fund is available now to patients and families at Ochsner who need help covering the costs of travel, housing, meals, medication and other emergency needs related to care. It is the first mesothelioma-specific assistance fund at a major cancer center in the Southeast. Asbestos.com was honored with membership in Ochsner's Benefactor and Heritage Foundation.
Read More About the Fund
As part of our mission, we facilitate the connection between patients and mesothelioma specialists nationwide. At times this requires long-distance travel.
Learn About the Doctor Match Program
The Mesothelioma Center sponsors a cycling team that raises awareness for mesothelioma by competing in road races throughout the year. Patient Advocate Karen Selby, a registered nurse, champions this team as one of its riders.
Read More About Karen and the Team
The Asbestos.com Scholarship provides $5,000 in annual scholarships to students who submit the best essays about asbestos or mesothelioma. Each essay is judged by staffers who are looking for quality, research and accuracy.
Learn More About Our Scholarship
Team members participate in an annual charity event during the month of November. The money raised goes to Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading awareness of the dangers of asbestos exposure.
Donate to Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization Today
American Cancer Society Relay for Life
The Mesothelioma Center believes in advancing cancer research funding, which is a priority at the American Cancer Society. That's why in April 2016 we donated $1,000 to the organization's Relay for Life of Murrieta in California. As part of the Relay for Life event, teams of people raised mesothelioma awareness and handed out information on the incurable, asbestos-related disease. It's our effort to fund the research seeking a cure for mesothelioma.
Donate to the American Cancer Society Today
The Mesothelioma Center supported the Florida Society of Oncology Social Workers at its recent 30th annual conference.
Mesothelioma Case Value Webinar
Immunotherapy & Mesothelioma Clinical Trials
Mesothelioma Information
Find a Top Mesothelioma Specialist Near You
Doctor Match Program


text:
Post Malone might be aiming to release a new album before 2019
The rapper said he's "trying to put out a new body of work" this year.
Post Malone arrives at the 2018 American Music Awards. October 9, 2018. VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images
Post Malone was one of the biggest artists in popular music this year thanks to his chart-topping album Beerbongs & Bentleys and its No. 1 singles "Psycho" and "Rockstar." But that not might be all the rapper has planned in 2018: early Wednesday morning, Post Malone tweeted that he hopes to release "a new body of work" this year.
"Trying to put out a new body of work before the end of the year," the rapper tweeted before joking about the delays that beset his previous projects Stoney and Beerbongs & Bentleys. See the tweet below via NME:
Trying to put out a new body of work before the end of the year but we all know how that goes wish me luck k
— Beerbongs & Bentleys (@PostMalone) November 21, 2018
Post Malone was recently announced as part of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in music. He'll tour Europe and the United Kingdom next year.


Mondelez International is a global manufacturer of food products operating in 165 countries. It is the leading manufacturer of chocolate, biscuits, sweets, coffee and drink mixes whose brands include Milka chocolates, Jacobs coffee, LU biscuits, Tang drink mixes and Trident gum.
In the food processing industry, hygienic workwear is vitally important. The laundry quality must be good and the transport and storage must ensure that no contaminants find their way onto the workwear. The process related to workwear management must be smooth and efficient.
Previously, Mondelez spent a lot of time in clothing administration, laundry quality varied and there were great losses. The employees often had to queue for clean workwear for a long time and the size was not always right.
Mondelez decided to use Lindström's Workwear Services at all of its five food processing plants in different parts of India: Mumbai, Gwalior, Baddi, Bangalore and Pune. Lindström's Workwear Services have improved the hygiene level of the plants. The laundry quality is good and the clothing is delivered directly to lockers so that no contaminants get transferred from the employees' own clothing.
The service has also made the everyday life of the employees easier since shift changes are more efficient. Clean clothing in the right size waits in the locker and, at the end of the shift, it is very convenient to put in the laundry box. The clothing is washed according to requirements and damage is repaired.
"The secret of our success is that we offer comprehensive services for the management of workwear. It corresponds to the modern plant's quality and service level requirements," says Business Unit Manager Manish Lodha of Lindström India.


text:
Schloss Heretsham ist ein abgegangenes Schloss in Heretsham in  der Gemeinde Kienberg im oberbayerischen Landkreis Traunstein.

Geschichte

In dem Weiler hatte wohl ab dem frühen 14. Jahrhundert das Rittergeschlecht der Heroltsheimer (Herzhaimer) seinen Sitz. Das im frühen 16. Jahrhundert erbaute Schloss wurde 1883 abgebrochen. An der Stelle befindet sich ein schlossartiges Wohnhaus mit Halbwalmdach, erbaut zwischen 1926 und 1930, mit einer Rotmarmor-Inschriftplatte aus der Zeit um 1520 über dem Eingang sowie einer weiteren Wappentafel von 1511 im Eingangsvorbau.

Baudenkmäler
Siehe: Liste der Baudenkmäler in Heretsham

Weblinks

Einzelnachweise

Kienberg (Oberbayern)
Abgegangenes Bauwerk im Landkreis Traunstein
Heretsham
Bauwerk in Kienberg (Oberbayern)
Erbaut im 13. oder 14. Jahrhundert
Zerstört im 19. Jahrhundert
Bodendenkmal in Kienberg (Oberbayern)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


On March 23, 2013, at 6:00pm, there will the brightest 5k I've ever seen in Houston. It's like the Color in Motion Run, but at night time and with neon paint!
The good folks from the Neon Splash Dash tell me it's the wildest & brightest night time running event around! You'll run (or dance!) through different Glow Zones, where you will be sprayed with a different color of our Super Intense U.V. Glow Water. They'll also be blasting pumped up music at each Zone to keep the energy going!
As you cross the finish line, you'll be lit up at the HUGE After Glow Party filled with Jammin' Music, tons of Blacklight, Performers and thousands of runners sprayed with Glow Water- all dancing the night away!
Go HERE to register or to learn more.
Registration is $50, but BigKidSmallCity is giving away a free entry to the Houston Race on March 23, 2013.
1. Go to FACEBOOK and "Like" us.
On February 26, 2013 I will randomly select 1 winner using RANDOM.com.
Leaving a post so I can win — I hope!
How fast do you think I can run?


text:
Email: info@cascadepolicy.org
Children's Scholarship Fund
No More Failed Rail
School Choice for Oregon
Time to Sell Off the University System?
john a. charles jr. March 7, 2006 0
Kirby Dyess, vice president of the State Board of Higher Education, stunned her colleagues last week by suggesting that the board sell or close one of Oregon's seven state universities. The proposal was made in response to ongoing financial problems with the higher education system, caused largely by the skyrocketing cost of employee health insurance and retirement benefits.
None of her fellow board members voted to support the idea, which would also require legislative approval. But they didn't offer any alternative proposals about how to keep costs in line with revenues. In fact, like most public officials, they continue to think this is just a revenue problem, when in fact it's a spending problem. There is no way public support can keep up with the cost of employee benefits in Oregon, for either higher education or K-12. Selling one or several state universities to the private sector would clearly address this problem by moving employees out of the public employee benefits system.
Privatization would not necessarily mean an end to public support. The state could actually privatize all Oregon universities but still subsidize students by converting public financial aid to a system of vouchers, redeemable at any Oregon school. This would maintain a public collegiate system, while imposing much-needed market discipline on expenditures.
Ms. Dyess, a retired Intel executive, deserves credit for shaking up the establishment. We need more such ideas if we have any hope of solving Oregon's school finance crisis.
John A. Charles, Jr. is president and CEO at Cascade Policy Institute, a Portland, Oregon based think tank.
© 2006, Cascade Policy Institute. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided the author and Cascade Policy Institute are cited. Contact Cascade at (503) 242-0900 to arrange print or broadcast interviews on this topic. For more topics visit the QuickPoint! archive.
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Board of Directors 2019
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The Home Improvement Blog | Eby Exteriors, Inc.
Do You like Your Home Improvement Contractor?
Infographic: Did You Know Water Kills Houses?
A Great Way to Spend Your Tax Refund – A New Front Door!
As an experienced home remodeling contractor, we see many homes damaged by water leaking into structures.
Could Your Windows Be Leaking?
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text:
In London, Step out of One Bubble and into Another
Alexis Lipsitz Flippin April 24, 2018
British artist Michael Pinsky created a temporary exhibition called "Pollution Pods," — five geodesic domes connected by passages. The atmosphere in each dome replicates the air quality in five cities around the world. (Photo by Thor Nielsen / Norweigan University of Science and Technology)
Breathing in polluted air may not be on your bucket list, but brief encounters with some of the world's most toxic atmospheres are proving irresistible to visitors entering the "Pollution Pods," a new installation that opened April 18 in the courtyard at London's historic Somerset House, the Guardian reports.
Philadelphia's Biggest Source of Greenhouse Gas Is Closing Down. What's Next?
London Mayor Announces Car-Free Day to Combat City's Pollution
Bringing Climate to the Classroom in Queens
A North Miami Lot Shows How Small Cities Can Manage Stormwater
Each of artist Michael Pinsky's five linked geodesic domes contains a carefully replicated "artist's approximation" of the polluted air in cities such as London itself, Beijing, São Paulo and New Delhi. In this work, the British artist attempts to "raise awareness of the problem of pollution around the world."
Visitors follow their noses from pod to pod, comparing the relatively pristine island air of rural Tautra, Norway, for example, with the humid smog of New Delhi or the eye-watering air in São Paulo, acrid from millions of cars spewing ethanol fumes.
Pinsky developed the air in each pod with the help of scientific research and a London "scent expert." The air in the "Pollution Pods" installation is so realistic that it comes with an advisory for visitors with respiratory conditions.
The "Pollution Pods" were commissioned for Climart, a multidisciplinary research project based in Norway that is studying ways in which climate-related visual art can affect people's perceptions of climate change. It's one innovative approach to the issue of polluted air, which is being addressed by cities around the world in myriad ways.
In Salt Lake City, Utah, for example, temperature inversions (layers of higher-elevation warm air trapping colder air below, along with pollutants from car and factory emissions) create unhealthy smog conditions. So in January, a government partnership funded a free fare day on all public transit. The idea — to get greenhouse-gas-spewing cars off the road during smoggy conditions — was a success, with officials reporting a significant bump in public-transit use. Similar policies have been used to positive effect in both Seoul and Brussels. And last year the mayors of 12 large cities around the world — including Paris, Vancouver, Mexico City and Quito — announced plans for pedestrianized "emissions-free" zones to combat localized air pollution and wrestle with the ramifications of climate change.
Alexis Lipsitz Flippin is a writer and editor living in New York City.
Tags: arts and culture, climate change, london, pollution
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Hope everyone's long weekend was safe and spent with family, remembering those who have served.
Hudson's staying strong and getting noticed. The rest of the dogs worked hard and unfortunately that 'hometown' edge didn't kick in. Overall, a beautiful weekend to be outside and enjoy it with fellow competitors.


Allied Staffing Network is a healthcare recruitment firm offering permanent placement and travelers positions for nursing and allied health professionals.
We are a division of THMED, LLC, a complete healthcare staffing solutions company. ASN assists advanced practice nurses, registered nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, CRNAs, occupational and physical therapists, and a myriad of other allied health professionals in securing practice opportunities throughout the country. ASN understands the needs of healthcare professionals like you. As a company with experience in healthcare recruitment, we are confident we can help you find your next opportunity.
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I love ASN! They are great people and so helpful when looking for a travelers position! Brenda my recruiter was a joy to work with.
Best travel company I have ever worked with!


text:
Home / Networked Reenactments
Networked Reenactments
Stories Transdisciplinary Knowledges Tell
Book Pages: 392 Illustrations: 19 illustrations Published: January 2012
Author: Katie King
Contributor: Donna J. Haraway
Cultural Studies, Media Studies > Film, Theory and Philosophy > Feminist Theory
Since the 1990s, the knowledge, culture, and entertainment industries have found themselves experimenting, not altogether voluntarily, with communicating complex information across multiple media platforms. Against a backdrop of competing national priorities, changing technologies, globalization, and academic capitalism, these industries have sought to reach increasingly differentiated local audiences, even as distributed production practices have made the lack of authorial control increasingly obvious. As Katie King describes in Networked Reenactments, science-styled television—such as the Secrets of Lost Empires series shown on the PBS program Nova—demonstrates how new technical and collaborative skills are honed by television producers, curators, hobbyists, fans, and even scholars. Examining how transmedia storytelling is produced across platforms such as television and the web, she analyzes what this all means for the humanities. What sort of knowledge projects take up these skills, attending to grain of detail, evoking affective intensities, and zooming in and out, representing multiple scales, as well as many different perspectives? And what might this mean for feminist transdisciplinary work, or something sometimes called the posthumanities?
"King... here offers a challenging, meandering take on feminist transdisciplinary posthumanities through the lens of networked reenactment--what one could think of as transmedia storytelling, experiments in communication, and/or epistemological melodramas.... Recommended." — S.E. Vie, Choice
"It is often the case that I read a book that inspires me to rethink a particular phenomenon. However, it is rare that a book challenges me to think differently about what it means to think. Katie King's Networked Reenactments accomplishes both things. It is, in significant ways, a very tough act to follow." — Joy V. Fuqua, Women's Studies Quarterly
"A well-researched and convincing series of arguments reminding us that our own esoteric expertise can connect us to many conversations that help us remain relevant in the creation and dissemination of knowledges." — Jeanne L. Gillespie, Journal of American Culture
"Theoretically rigorous, these books are also highly pragmatic in recommending activism for social justice…. King bases her argument on factually dense case studies organized in loose chronological order… [T]he organization works well to support historical analysis of a specific period… it is rewarding because her analysis is so trenchant." — Carol Colatrella, Postmodern Culture
"In this lively, thoughtful, and provocative book, Katie King traces the multiple layers and complex intertwined 'communities of practice' that assemble around such diverse discursive sites as television programs, academic classes and conferences, museum exhibitions, and other public spectacles. Networked Reenactments leaves the reader with a heightened sense of the possibilities, as well as the limits and dangers, of contemporary knowledge production, of the ways that we collectively make meanings and understand the heritage of the past in the present." — Steven Shaviro, author of Connected, or What It Means to Live in the Network Society
Apple iBooks
Katie King is Associate Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of Theory in Its Feminist Travels: Conversations in U.S. Women's Movements.
Foreword / Donna Haraway ix
Preface. What Are Reenactments in This Book? xv
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction. A Thick Description amid Authorships, Audiences, and Agencies in the Nineties 1
1. Nationalities, Sexualities, and Global TV: Highlander, Xena, and Meanings of European Union 21
2. Science in American Life: Among the Culture Warriors 59
3. TV and the Web Come Together 129
4. Scholars and Intellectual Entrepreneurs 203
Conclusion. Toward a Feminist Transdisciplinary Posthumanities 273
Bk Cover Image Full
Vibrant Matter
Living a Feminist Life
Cruel Optimism
TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly
The Queer Art of Failure
In the Wake