text:
THERE ARE NONE SO BLIND AS THOSE WHO WILL NOT SEE
Affirmative action causes less able blacks to pass through the educational system at all levels. So when they finally get to be teachers, it is reasonable to expect that they will be less able as teachers. And that is exactly what students report. They evaluate black faculty less favourably. PREJUDICE! Or so the authors below seem to think. They suggest that the evaluations of black faculty by students be "adjusted" upwards. Inconvenient truths must be suppressed! This is Soviet Russia, you know. Abstract follows:
Leveling the Playing Field: Should Student Evaluation Scores be Adjusted?
By Michael A. McPherson & R. Todd Jewell
Objectives. Colleges and universities routinely use evaluation scores to assess the quality of an instructor's teaching for purposes of promotion and tenure and for merit-raise allocations. This article attempts to identify the determinants of these scores, and to suggest ways that departments' numerical rankings of instructors might be adjusted.
Method. This article applies a feasible generalized least squares model to a panel of data from master's-level classes.
Results. We find that instructors can "buy" better evaluation scores by inflating students' grade expectations. Also, the teaching experience of instructors has an impact on evaluation scores, but this effect is largely seen as an increase after tenure is granted. In addition, we find evidence of a bias against nonwhite faculty.
Conclusion. Our results suggest that an adjustment to the usual departmental rankings may be in order.
Social Science Quarterly. Volume 88 Issue 3 Page 868-881, September 2007
Age differences in grade-school classes
Some reflections by Prof. Brignell below on the latest British panic. In any given class some kids will be younger than others. How awful!
Long ago in the dim dawn of pre-history, your bending author experienced the first day at grammar school. At the end of the day he was taken aside by the form master, who explained the special problems he would experience as the youngest boy in the class, born (like Number Watch) on July 13th. That advice came from the accumulated wisdom that can only accrue from a century of existence as an institute of learning. That school was wantonly destroyed for ideological reasons and, when the demolition ball crashed through the elegant gothic arches, not only the fabric was destroyed but also that priceless store of wisdom. Now instead of wisdom we have what Kingsley Amis called "pseudo-research into non-problems" as illustrated by this heading in The Telegraph:
Pupils born in summer more likely to struggle
How things have changed! Now schools no longer run themselves, but are subject to endless interference and targetry by Government ministers and underemployed bureaucrats. Pupils are repeatedly tested into a state of coma. Expensive research is commissioned to replace what was once common knowledge. Stupid interventions and "urgent action" are thought up at the drop of a hat. "Equity" and "efficiency" are the watchwords, while teachers and parents are deemed too stupid to be able to make the allowances that they once made without instruction from above.
Furthermore, changes are suggested that are self-evidently nonsense. However many children are "held back" there is always going to be one who is the youngest in the class, while those held back now become the eldest, so there is always a difference of one year between them. Even common sense is no longer common.
Good teachers make a big difference
But why would any capable person want to go into teaching these days? There are a lot more attractive things for an able person to do than stand up in front of an undisciplined rabble every day. As more money has been spent on education, discipline has eroded -- thus neutralizing any advantage the better funding might have given. Money cannot replace discipline
THE British government, says Sir Michael Barber, once an adviser to the former prime minister, Tony Blair, has changed pretty much every aspect of education policy in England and Wales, often more than once. "The funding of schools, the governance of schools, curriculum standards, assessment and testing, the role of local government, the role of national government, the range and nature of national agencies, schools admissions"-you name it, it's been changed and sometimes changed back. The only thing that hasn't changed has been the outcome. According to the National Foundation for Education Research, there had been (until recently) no measurable improvement in the standards of literacy and numeracy in primary schools for 50 years.
England and Wales are not alone. Australia has almost tripled education spending per student since 1970. No improvement. American spending has almost doubled since 1980 and class sizes are the lowest ever. Again, nothing. No matter what you do, it seems, standards refuse to budge (see chart). To misquote Woody Allen, those who can't do, teach; those who can't teach, run the schools.
Why bother, you might wonder. Nothing seems to matter. Yet something must. There are big variations in educational standards between countries. These have been measured and re-measured by the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which has established, first, that the best performing countries do much better than the worst and, second, that the same countries head such league tables again and again: Canada, Finland, Japan, Singapore, South Korea.
Those findings raise what ought to be a fruitful question: what do the successful lot have in common? Yet the answer to that has proved surprisingly elusive. Not more money. Singapore spends less per student than most. Nor more study time. Finnish students begin school later, and study fewer hours, than in other rich countries.
Now, an organisation from outside the teaching fold-McKinsey, a consultancy that advises companies and governments-has boldly gone where educationalists have mostly never gone: into policy recommendations based on the PISA findings. Schools, it says, need to do three things: get the best teachers; get the best out of teachers; and step in when pupils start to lag behind. That may not sound exactly "first-of-its-kind" (which is how Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's head of education research, describes McKinsey's approach): schools surely do all this already? Actually, they don't. If these ideas were really taken seriously, they would change education radically.
Begin with hiring the best. There is no question that, as one South Korean official put it, "the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers." Studies in Tennessee and Dallas have shown that, if you take pupils of average ability and give them to teachers deemed in the top fifth of the profession, they end up in the top 10% of student performers; if you give them to teachers from the bottom fifth, they end up at the bottom. The quality of teachers affects student performance more than anything else.
Yet most school systems do not go all out to get the best. The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, a non-profit organisation, says America typically recruits teachers from the bottom third of college graduates. Washington, DC recently hired as chancellor for its public schools an alumna of an organisation called Teach for America, which seeks out top graduates and hires them to teach for two years. Both her appointment and the organisation caused a storm.
A bias against the brightest happens partly because of lack of money (governments fear they cannot afford them), and partly because other aims get in the way. Almost every rich country has sought to reduce class size lately. Yet all other things being equal, smaller classes mean more teachers for the same pot of money, producing lower salaries and lower professional status. That may explain the paradox that, after primary school, there seems little or no relationship between class size and educational achievement.
McKinsey argues that the best performing education systems nevertheless manage to attract the best. In Finland all new teachers must have a master's degree. South Korea recruits primary-school teachers from the top 5% of graduates, Singapore and Hong Kong from the top 30%.
They do this in a surprising way. You might think that schools should offer as much money as possible, seek to attract a large pool of applicants into teacher training and then pick the best. Not so, says McKinsey. If money were so important, then countries with the highest teacher salaries-Germany, Spain and Switzerland-would presumably be among the best. They aren't. In practice, the top performers pay no more than average salaries.
Nor do they try to encourage a big pool of trainees and select the most successful. Almost the opposite. Singapore screens candidates with a fine mesh before teacher training and accepts only the number for which there are places. Once in, candidates are employed by the education ministry and more or less guaranteed a job. Finland also limits the supply of teacher-training places to demand. In both countries, teaching is a high-status profession (because it is fiercely competitive) and there are generous funds for each trainee teacher (because there are few of them).
South Korea shows how the two systems produce different results. Its primary-school teachers have to pass a four-year undergraduate degree from one of only a dozen universities. Getting in requires top grades; places are rationed to match vacancies. In contrast, secondary-school teachers can get a diploma from any one of 350 colleges, with laxer selection criteria. This has produced an enormous glut of newly qualified secondary-school teachers-11 for each job at last count. As a result, secondary-school teaching is the lower status job in South Korea; everyone wants to be a primary-school teacher. The lesson seems to be that teacher training needs to be hard to get into, not easy.
Having got good people, there is a temptation to shove them into classrooms and let them get on with it. For understandable reasons, teachers rarely get much training in their own classrooms (in contrast, doctors do a lot of training in hospital wards). But successful countries can still do much to overcome the difficulty.
Singapore provides teachers with 100 hours of training a year and appoints senior teachers to oversee professional development in each school. In Japan and Finland, groups of teachers visit each others' classrooms and plan lessons together. In Finland, they get an afternoon off a week for this. In Boston, which has one of America's most improved public-school systems, schedules are arranged so that those who teach the same subject have free classes together for common planning. This helps spread good ideas around. As one educator remarked, "when a brilliant American teacher retires, almost all of the lesson plans and practices that she has developed also retire. When a Japanese teacher retires, she leaves a legacy."
Lastly, the most successful countries are distinctive not just in whom they employ so things go right but in what they do when things go wrong, as they always do. For the past few years, almost all countries have begun to focus more attention on testing, the commonest way to check if standards are falling. McKinsey's research is neutral on the usefulness of this, pointing out that while Boston tests every student every year, Finland has largely dispensed with national examinations. Similarly, schools in New Zealand and England and Wales are tested every three or four years and the results published, whereas top-of-the-class Finland has no formal review and keeps the results of informal audits confidential.
But there is a pattern in what countries do once pupils and schools start to fail. The top performers intervene early and often. Finland has more special-education teachers devoted to laggards than anyone else-as many as one teacher in seven in some schools. In any given year, a third of pupils get one-on-one remedial lessons. Singapore provides extra classes for the bottom 20% of students and teachers are expected to stay behind-often for hours-after school to help students.
None of this is rocket science. Yet it goes against some of the unspoken assumptions of education policy. Scratch a teacher or an administrator (or a parent), and you often hear that it is impossible to get the best teachers without paying big salaries; that teachers in, say, Singapore have high status because of Confucian values; or that Asian pupils are well behaved and attentive for cultural reasons. McKinsey's conclusions seem more optimistic: getting good teachers depends on how you select and train them; teaching can become a career choice for top graduates without paying a fortune; and that, with the right policies, schools and pupils are not doomed to lag behind.
The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history
The article below is by Mark Morford, who is Leftist and generally rather excitable, but I think he is not far wrong this time. The only thing that I think he overlooks is that society has always depended for its progress and for its management on a small and generally gifted elite and that elite undoubtedly still exists and is mostly being privately educated to a reasonable standard. So the general dumbing down may not be all that influential on anything other than the life-satisfaction of the less-gifted students who have been deprived of much culture and understanding of the world about them
I have this ongoing discussion with a longtime reader who also just so happens to be a longtime Oakland high school teacher, a wonderful guy who's seen generations of teens come and generations go and who has a delightful poetic sensibility and quirky outlook on his life and his family and his beloved teaching career. And he often writes to me in response to something I might've written about the youth of today, anything where I comment on the various nefarious factors shaping their minds and their perspectives and whether or not, say, EMFs and junk food and cell phones are melting their brains and what can be done and just how bad it might all be. His response: It is not bad at all. It's absolutely horrifying.
My friend often summarizes for me what he sees, firsthand, every day and every month, year in and year out, in his classroom. He speaks not merely of the sad decline in overall intellectual acumen among students over the years, not merely of the astonishing spread of lazy slackerhood, or the fact that cell phones and iPods and excess TV exposure are, absolutely and without reservation, short-circuiting the minds of the upcoming generations. Of this, he says, there is zero doubt.
Nor does he speak merely of the notion that kids these days are overprotected and wussified and don't spend enough time outdoors and don't get any real exercise and therefore can't, say, identify basic plants, or handle a tool, or build, well, anything at all. Again, these things are a given. Widely reported, tragically ignored, nothing new. No, my friend takes it all a full step - or rather, leap - further. It is not merely a sad slide. It is not just a general dumbing down. It is far uglier than that. We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait.
It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking - and nearly hopeless - dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.
Now, you may think he's merely a curmudgeon, a tired old teacher who stopped caring long ago. Not true. Teaching is his life. He says he loves his students, loves education and learning and watching young minds awaken. Problem is, he is seeing much less of it. It's a bit like the melting of the polar ice caps. Sure, there's been alarmist data about it for years, but until you see it for yourself, the deep visceral dread doesn't really hit home.
He cites studies, reports, hard data, from the appalling effects of television on child brain development (i.e.; any TV exposure before 6 years old and your kid's basic cognitive wiring and spatial perceptions are pretty much scrambled for life), to the fact that, because of all the insidious mandatory testing teachers are now forced to incorporate into the curriculum, of the 182 school days in a year, there are 110 when such testing is going on somewhere at Oakland High. As one of his colleagues put it, "It's like weighing a calf twice a day, but never feeding it."
But most of all, he simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens' decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." Not a single student could do it.
It gets worse. My friend cites the fact that, of the 6,000 high school students he estimates he's taught over the span of his career, only a small fraction now make it to his grade with a functioning understanding of written English. They do not know how to form a sentence. They cannot write an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after giving an assignment that required drawing lines, he realized that not a single student actually knew how to use a ruler.
It is, in short, nothing less than a tidal wave of dumb, with once-passionate, increasingly exasperated teachers like my friend nearly powerless to stop it. The worst part: It's not the kids' fault. They're merely the victims of a horribly failed educational system.
Then our discussion often turns to the meat of it, the bigger picture, the ugly and unavoidable truism about the lack of need among the government and the power elite in this nation to create a truly effective educational system, one that actually generates intelligent, thoughtful, articulate citizens. Hell, why should they? After all, the dumber the populace, the easier it is to rule and control and launch unwinnable wars and pass laws telling them that sex is bad and TV is good and God knows all, so just pipe down and eat your Taco Bell Double-Supremo Burrito and be glad we don't arrest you for posting dirty pictures on your cute little blog.
This is about when I try to offer counterevidence, a bit of optimism. For one thing, I've argued generational relativity in this space before, suggesting maybe kids are no scarier or dumber or more dangerous than they've ever been, and that maybe some of the problem is merely the same old awkward generation gap, with every current generation absolutely convinced the subsequent one is terrifically stupid and malicious and will be the end of society as a whole. Just the way it always seems.
I also point out how, despite all the evidence of total public-education meltdown, I keep being surprised, keep hearing from/about teens and youth movements and actions that impress the hell out of me. Damn kids made the Internet what it is today, fer chrissakes. Revolutionized media. Broke all the rules. Still are.
Hell, some of the best designers, writers, artists, poets, chefs, and so on that I meet are in their early to mid-20s. And the nation's top universities are still managing, despite a factory-churning mentality, to crank out young minds of astonishing ability and acumen. How did these kids do it? How did they escape the horrible public school system? How did they avoid the great dumbing down of America? Did they never see a TV show until they hit puberty? Were they all born and raised elsewhere, in India and Asia and Russia? Did they all go to Waldorf or Montessori and eat whole-grain breads and play with firecrackers and take long walks in wild nature? Are these kids flukes? Exceptions? Just lucky?
My friend would say, well, yes, that's precisely what most of them are. Lucky, wealthy, foreign-born, private-schooled ... and increasingly rare. Most affluent parents in America - and many more who aren't - now put their kids in private schools from day one, and the smart ones give their kids no TV and minimal junk food and no video games. (Of course, this in no way guarantees a smart, attuned kid, but compared to the odds of success in the public school system, it sure seems to help). This covers about, what, 3 percent of the populace?
As for the rest, well, the dystopian evidence seems overwhelming indeed, to the point where it might be no stretch at all to say the biggest threat facing America is perhaps not global warming, not perpetual warmongering, not garbage food or low-level radiation or way too much Lindsay Lohan, but a populace far too ignorant to know how to properly manage any of it, much less change it all for the better. What, too fatalistic? Don't worry. Soon enough, no one will know what the word even means
S. Carolina: Another insane school
Freaked by butter-knife possession but happy to make murderous gunmen feel safe by declaring the school a "gun-free zone"
A Berkeley County student is kicked out of school for bringing a butter knife to campus. "I know I made a really stupid decision but I don't think I should be expelled for it," Amber Dauge said. Amber says that stupid decision was taking a butter knife to school. She ran out of the house to meet the bus while making a sandwich, when she realized she had the knife. She put it in her bookbag, then she put it in her locker at Goose Creek High school. She forgot it was there until a few weeks later when the knife fell out of her overstuffed locker.
"A kid behind me yelled out a comment that I was going to stab someone with the knife and everyone started laughing and the teacher saw it," Amber told us. The teacher told the principal. Amber was suspended and recommended for expulsion. She attended an expulsion hearing last Thursday and it was made official.
"We got the paperwork for the expulsion in the mail on Friday. They had sent the paperwork out before they had even done the hearing saying she was expelled," Amber's mother, Kristi Heinz said. The Berkeley County school district has a zero tolerance policy. But is it too harsh? "I don't think zero tolerance is the right thing. I really don't. Every situation has its own circumstances," said Steven Heinz, Amber's father.
Amber realizes she could have made a better choice, like leaving the knife on the porch at home or actually giving it to a teacher. "I knew I was gonna get in trouble but I didn't think I was was gonna get expelled," Amber said. Amber can appeal the school board's decision. Her parents will write a letter to the superintendent and will attend the next school board meeting on Tuesday.
Maryland: Colleges report dismal results
Wishy-washy approach to High School standards bears the inevitable fruit: Kids who are rarely ready for further study
Baltimore school board meetings have been ending on a somber note lately, as schools chief Andres Alonso is capping the evenings with presentations of student data that thus far have been dismal. Last night was no exception, as the new chief executive officer turned to the subject of city students' college enrollment and graduation rates.
According to the data presented at the meeting, only 14 percent of students who graduated from Baltimore's public high schools in 2001 had earned a college degree five years later. And among students who graduated from high school in the spring of 2006, just 44 percent enrolled in a two- or four-year college that fall, compared with a national college enrollment rate of 66 percent.
Alonso was quick to acknowledge the information's shortcomings: The data were gathered by the National Student Clearinghouse, which collects student enrollment and graduation information from the majority of the nation's colleges and universities. But Morgan State University did not provide statistics to the clearinghouse, nor did Allegany College or Sojourner-Douglass College. Still, even if those schools had been included, Alonso said the data show that the city is clearly not doing its job to prepare students for college. "If there are still people out there who argue that the children should be graduated, this is what happens," said Alonso in an interview before the meeting. He added that college graduation rates for students from other urban school systems are comparably low.
The report adds fuel to the debate on the state's High School Assessments, which would require students starting in the Class of 2009 to pass exams in English, Algebra 1, biology and government to graduate. Faced with the prospect of denying diplomas to thousands of students, many in Baltimore, state officials are weighing whether to back down. State Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick has proposed allowing students who fail the tests to instead complete a senior project.
But Grasmick, too, said in an interview that the city's college enrollment and graduation rate data show why schools must still prepare their students for the tests. "If we don't create a meaningful and accountable foundation for these students, we're never going to be able to build on that to make students work-ready and college-ready," she said. Grasmick pointed to the city's low pass rate on the Algebra 1 test: Only 35.6 percent of students in the Class of 2009 have passed so far. To do well on the SAT college entrance exam, she said, students must have mastery not only of Algebra 1, but also Algebra 2.
Like Grasmick, Alonso has backed the senior project option, but he says he also wants to make sure that students are earning a diploma that means something. He supports keeping students in school for as long as they want up to age 21 to get a diploma with value. At the same time, he must find a way to curb the high school dropout rate. In the Class of 2009, about 6,300 students started out as ninth-graders two years ago. Today, the class has about 4,500 students, meaning 1,800 have dropped out or moved.
Since taking the helm of the city school system in July, Alonso has been fixated on measuring the baseline from which he is starting. He says it is important for him, and the public, to understand the magnitude of the task at hand to reform education in Baltimore. Skeptics question whether he might be trying to paint an overly negative picture now so he can take credit for improvements later.
The statistics presented last night called into question even the value of diplomas from the city's prestigious citywide magnet schools: Polytechnic Institute, City College, Western High, Dunbar High and School for the Arts. Only 33 percent of students from those schools' Class of 2001 who enrolled in college that fall had earned a bachelor's or associate's degree five years later, the data show. At the city's career and technology high schools - Carver, Mergenthaler and Edmondson - 6 percent of students in the Class of 2001 had a degree within five years. At the city's neighborhood high schools, the figure was just 4 percent.....
Schoolyards are just full of 'Charlie Browns'
The problem described below is an old one and the Leftist response is to eradicate as far as possible all distinctions between the achievements of different children. This is however to found a policy on a lie. That comes easily to Leftists but a healthier response is clearly needed. I thought therefore that I might mention that I am rather clumsy physically and was therefore spectacularly bad at all school sporting activities in my youth. As a consequence I was rather socially isolated (though not unhappy) at school. But "nerds" often do well in later life (look at Bill Gates) and I have certainly done so. The clear strategy for genuinely kind people therefore is not to ignore differences in ability but to stress to all that sometimes in the long run "the last shall be first" (Mark 10:31). Just the thought that the jock might one day be asking the nerd for a job should have considerable effect
Charlie Brown, the sad and loveable loser, is a real character in many school playgrounds, psychologists say. In the American comic strip Peanuts, sensitive Charlie is never able to kick a football, fly a kite or win at baseball. He is of often ridiculed by his classmates, made the butt of jokes and called "blockhead". Now a Canadian study has found that Charlie Brown's problems are true to life. Children appear to place a great deal of value on athletic ability, and those with a reputation for lacking such skills often experience sadness, isolation and social rejection.
Dr Janice Causgrove Dunn, of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, said: "For both boys and girls, we found that popular children reported less loneliness and received higher athletic ability ratings from their peers than rejected children. "Conversely, the kids who reported higher levels of loneliness tended to receive lower athletic ability ratings and lower social acceptance ratings from their peers."
The findings are published in the latest issue of the Journal of Sport Behaviour. Previous research has shown that loneliness in childhood and adolescence is often associated with psychosocial and emotional problems. Prolonged loneliness has the potential to undermine seriously an individual's psychological, emotional and physical wellbeing.
Hypocrite or realist?
Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has taken full control over his city's long suffering public schools. But he sends his own twin girls to a private school. Does that make him a hypocrite? A bad mayor? Or, perhaps, just a good father?
Fenty is not alone. Many big city mayors educate their kids privately. A far greater percentage of public school teachers -- especially in urban areas -- send their own kids to private schools than does the general public. And a 2003 survey of members of Congress found that 41 percent of U.S. representatives and 46 percent of U.S. senators now send or have sent at least one of their children to a private school.
Granted, there is hypocrisy at work. Many of these folks stump for public schooling, opposing systems of private school choice. And yet, they choose to opt out of the system they allegedly shore up . . . from competition. The kind they themselves rely upon.
Years ago, during a campaign, Fenty pledged to send his kids to public schools. So, if voters want to hold that against him, they have every right to do so. My point is only that had Fenty -- or any politician or educator -- made the opposite decision, wouldn't that be even worse? Mayor Fenty's choice boils down to this: Should he put the public schools ahead of his own children? Or should he put his children ahead of the public schools? Which would you put first?
Brits fleeing disastrous government schools
If they are lucky enough to be able to afford to do so. The cost is a considerable burden for many families but keeping their children safe and in an environment where they can learn is a huge priority. Would YOU want your kid to go to a school where some of the black kids are armed with machine pistols?
The middle-class exodus from state schools in London is speeding up, with nearly half of children in some parts of the capital now privately educated. An analysis of government figures suggested a widening of the social class divide in education since the turn of the century. Some of the highest levels of child poverty, as measured by the proportion of children eligible for free school meals (FSM), were found in areas with the greatest proportion of children in independent schools. The figures followed concern from Christine Gilbert, the Chief Inspector of Schools, who said that the school system was dividing children along social and economic lines.
The finding was most striking in [largely black] inner-London boroughs. In Kensington and Chelsea, 45.3 per cent of children are educated in independent schools, yet the borough has the sixth-highest rate in the country for FSM [poor] children, at 37.7 per cent. [What a coincidence!] The national average for FSM is 12 per cent.
In Hammersmith & Fulham, which has the third-highest rate of FSM children in the country at 42.2 per cent, a quarter of children are independently educated. In Westminster, 26.4 per cent go to independent schools, and yet the borough has the eighth-highest rate in the country for FSM children, at 35.8 per cent. Greg Hands, the Conservative MP for Hammersmith and Fulham, obtained the figures from the House of Commons, amid concern about the flight of middle-class families from state schools in his borough. In 2000 22.6 per cent of children in the borough were educated independently. Now the figure is 25.6 per cent. Other inner-London boroughs have seen similar shifts. In Wandsworth, the proportion in independent schools has risen from 15.1 to 18.7 per cent.
These figures come against a nation-wide long-term demographic decline in the number of young people and steady increases in independent school fees to an average of about 11,000 pounds a year.
Mr Hands said: "In Hammersmith & Fulham, we have one of the fastest-rising rates of private school attendance in the country and one of the highest rates of surplus places in [state] secondary schools. "Part of that can be explained by changing demographics in that we now have more parents who can afford to go private. But there is more to it than that. Middle-class parents concerned about standards are opting out of the state system and it's my objective to get them to opt back in. Our local state schools are making themselves better, but the missing element in their bid for improvement is the professional classes."
Sam Friedman, head of the education unit at the Policy Exchange think-tank, said the social divide in education was particularly acute in London [which is now 50% black]. The phenomenon could be attributed in part to its population, which is extremely socially mixed. "In more rural areas, populations tend to segregate naturally. In London, there are pockets of advantage and disadvantage right next to each other and one way they segregate themselves is through school choice."
ARCHAEOLOGISTS CHALLENGE BARNARD PROFESSOR'S CLAIMS
On Monday night, Columbia University's pro-Israel student group played host to the latest installment in a lecture series aimed, at least partially, at rebutting Nadia Abu El-Haj, whose work has been critical of the traditional narratives of Israeli archeology. Abu El-Haj, an assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard since 2002, first gained notice with her 2001 book "Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society," in which she argued that Israeli archaeologists use their research to validate a national origin myth. The book was praised in some quarters - it won the top award from the Middle East Studies Association - but was slammed by others as poor scholarship motivated by ideology. Columbia is currently deliberating whether Abu El-Haj should be given tenure, and the university has received petitions from her opponents and supporters.
"If you get real live archaeologists on campus who know the material, they're naturally going to contradict her," said Alan Segal, a professor in Barnard's religion department who delivered the first lecture in the series. The bottom line, Segal said, is that Abu El-Haj "hates Israelis." Abu El-Haj could not be reached for comment.
On the academic level, the debate about Abu El-Haj has drawn out a conflict between those scholars who believe archaeology has the potential for objectivity, and others - particularly younger scholars in disciplines such as anthropology - who see archaeological practice as inextricably tied to ideology.
On Monday night, the featured speaker was William Dever, a retired professor of Near Eastern archaeology at the University of Arizona who is a critic of Abu El-Haj. Although he never referred explicitly to Abu El-Haj in his lecture, Dever challenged notions advanced by some academics about archaeology's inherent biases. "Archaeology has never been edited," he said. "When we dig these things up, they are pristine."
Judith Jacobson, a member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, made the opening remarks at Dever's lecture. She said that the lecture series, titled "Underground: What Archaeology Tells Us about Ancient Israel," was conceived partly to remind the community that good Israel archaeology exists in abundance. Asked if she thought the series served a political purpose, Jacobson answered carefully. "Only to inform the community," she said. "It's all we can do."
One school fits all
Do you have the right to take my earnings by force and spend them on football gear, school buses or teaching Greek to your kid? Maybe I needed tires for the car, removal of an infected tooth or food. Can you decide that for me? What gives you the right? Are people unique? Can one system fit them all? Would you like to have a simplified life where government agents design THE car that we all get to drive, and THE clothes that we all get to wear, and THE store where we buy the selection of foods government planners put there. I assure you it would be a drab world bereft of choices, absent innovation and backward in the extreme.
Why, when it comes to something as important as education, do we abandon choice, control, innovation, variety and the individual prioritization that comes from paying as you go for what you want?
I wouldn't care if the school system down the road was the best or the worst possible. As long as I didn't have to use it. As long as I didn't have to pay for it. There would be plenty of choices, just as there are for electronics, food, clothing and trombones. What if the government made two models of trombone, tenor and bass. What more could you ask for? Got both bases covered. Quality - Bah! Tone - Bah! This model is all you NEED. You want better sound, learn to play better.
So we have a kid who should be working on a ranch, learning animal husbandry, veterinary science, living and working in the outdoors. But our ONE SYSTEM puts him in a classroom doped up on Ritalin so he won't disrupt the teacher who is boring him to distraction. Another is writing symphonies in her head while a small fraction of her brain multi-tasks to keep up with the snail's-pace the rest of the room is on. She should be at music academy, but our single-model school system isn't set up that way.
One of my daughters escaped in the 10th grade with an academic scholarship to a challenging private school to the wealthy. She was atrophying in public school, while getting A's. The buildings were old and cheap, but the teachers earned university-level pay and had the freedom to make their subjects come alive.
Another daughter was being age-channeled along, testing at the 4.5-grade-level as she entered the 8th grade. A had many hours in helping her with her work, talking with teachers, resource specialists, psychologists. She spent 8th grade in a Waldorf school. She studied and homeworked until midnight-to-3:00am. She worked her butt off for that teacher and the class - to exit 8th grade AT GRADE LEVEL.
My middle girl left in her high-school Jr year. They weren't reaching her or teaching her. She got her GED. Graduated from North American Firefighter's academy. Worked there a bit. Started putting herself through a University Nursing program, getting A's in the weeder courses where 40 enter and a dozen survive.
So the one-size-fits-all school system only failed to serve 3 out of 3 for me. Do you wonder why I resent paying for it? I resent far more the educational opportunities that IT DISPLACES. There is next to nothing that should be taught at an age-specific level. I have just as much right to learn calculus on my dollar as my next-door neighbor's kid does. more, in fact. . and I would love to be teaching trombone to a dozen kids between 8 and 80 years old. This town would have a great trombone choir. But no, here you learn trombone in government school when you are 12 and play it for 1/2 hour a day until you are 17. Then put it away forever.
In case I didn't make it clear: I do not want to design THE ONE school system, teaching or learning environment for this community. I don't want anybody else to do that either.
Australia's education wars
Education unions and left-wing education academics cling to proven failures in education theory, despite years of evidence demonstrating the errors of their thinking. They reject, for instance, the research-based evidence showing that "whole language" dominated reading programs do not work for a large proportion of children.
The power of sensible thinking by political leaders in holding off barbarian ideologues can be seen in the influence of the former NSW premier Bob Carr, who saved NSW from the worst educational excesses suffered elsewhere, particularly in Western Australia, where a decade-long experiment in outcomes-based education has just been abandoned.
But while governments control the purse strings they have little effect on deep-rooted cultural prejudices in organisations such as the ABC and teacher unions. In the battles for hearts and minds, they are outclassed by ideological guerillas, who can only be vanquished from within. At last, however, there are encouraging signs from teachers that the civil war may have begun.
Take the English Teachers Association, which claims to speak for all English teachers. Its most honoured operative is former president Wayne Sawyer, an associate professor at the University of Western Sydney, who has helped develop the NSW English curriculum and is editor of the journal English in Australia. It was his editorial that blamed the Howard Government's 2004 re-election on the failure of English teachers to properly educate their charges in critical theory.
And in the last edition of the International Journal of Progressive Education, Sawyer tackled the discredited "whole language" theory of teaching reading in an article entitled Whole language and moral panic in Australia. He claimed "moral panic" was behind a "media campaign . to demonise whole-language methods" of teaching reading, despite the fact the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (which I served on) spent a year examining the worldwide evidence about the best way to teach children reading and came down on the side of systematic, direct instruction in phonics.
If you ever wondered how the teaching of reading could be politicised, the journal is instructive, having devoted its entire June edition to whole language, including "the multilayered dimensions of social justice activism involved in whole language teaching". The articles read like a long confession from the stubborn practitioners of a movement which has condemned so many underprivileged children to illiteracy, while professing to care about injustice.
In an article about teaching sixth graders in Grover Cleveland Middle School, New Jersey, the authors "search for ways to disrupt the pre-service [trainee] teachers' traditional notions of teaching, learning, and curriculum . We strive to help our pre-service teachers understand that their roles as teachers include a political dimension . "Too often," they complain, the teachers "fall back into the direct instruction model with which they feel comfortable."
Naughty teachers, trying to teach rather than indoctrinate their students. But Sawyer and his acolytes at the association have so provoked those they purport to represent they have sparked a grassroots protest movement of teachers across the country. In Western Australia, one group of teachers became so fed up at having to implement outcomes-based education, a favourite of the English Teachers Association, that they managed to have it overturned this year. Their lobby group PLATO, People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes, persuaded the West Australian Government to reinstate the traditional syllabus, concentrating on literacy and numeracy.
Now a group of secondary English teachers from Catholic, government and independent schools in Western Australia have formed the English Teachers Forum, the ETFWA, in direct opposition to the English Teachers Association, because they are "concerned about the misrepresentation of English teachers and their views regarding the implementation and the efficacy of the English Course of Study". In a letter to the association, the breakaway group wrote: "The ETAWA must realise that the collective voice of the majority of English teachers simply cannot be ignored any longer. It is not just a matter of numbers. It is also a matter of fairness." The English Teachers Forum has also managed to have Western Australia's year 11 and 12 curriculum reviewed by a "jury" of impartial classroom teachers, with the result the West Australian Government agreed to rewrite the courses by 2010.
In NSW, there is similar grassroots unhappiness with the English Teachers Association, judging by a letter I have received from an anonymous secondary English teacher of 30 years. "The problem in NSW English teaching is not the syllabus. It is the way the syllabus has been interpreted by the English Teachers Association of NSW and its transformation from a wonderfully principled, supportive professional association to a site of left-wing political activism and ideological posturing .. "My dismay comes from a jettisoning of our literary heritage for an obsession with critical literacy and an approach to English based on overt critical theory. "I look through my past issues of [the association's journal mETAphor] and ask myself what has happened to the aim of fostering a love of literature in our children? What has happened to the great works of literature?"
That journal is full of articles about postmodernism and such literary gems as: "Power Struggles in the Big Brother House" and "Earnestly Queer: Responding to Oscar Wilde's The Importance of being Earnest Through the Critical Lens of Queer Theory" by Mark Howie, the president of the English Teachers Association. It is no good for Australian students that a body promoting extremist ideology should have come to represent their English teachers. But it seems their teachers have finally had enough. Hoorah for them.
BIG BROTHER AT SCHOOL
By Jeff Jacoby
"Freedom of education, being an essential of civil and religious liberty . . . must not be interfered with under any pretext whatever," the party's national platform declared. "We are opposed to state interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of the fundamental . . . doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government."
Now which political party said that? The Libertarians? The Barry Goldwater Republicans of 1964? Some minor party on the right-wing fringe? Actually, that ringing endorsement of parental supremacy in education was adopted by the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1892, which just goes to show what was possible before the Democratic Party was taken hostage by the teachers unions. (The same platform also warned that "the tendency to centralize all power at the federal capital has become a menace," blasted barriers to free trade as "robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few," and pledged "relentless opposition to the Republican policy of profligate expenditure.")
Today, on education as on so much else, the Democrats sing from a different hymnal. When the party's presidential candidates debated at Dartmouth College recently, they were asked about a controversial incident in Lexington, Mass., where a second-grade teacher, to the dismay of several parents, had read her young students a story celebrating same-sex marriage. Were the candidates "comfortable" with that? "Yes, absolutely," former senator John Edwards promptly replied. "I want my children . . . to be exposed to all the information . . . even in second grade . . . because I don't want to impose my view. Nobody made me God. I don't get to decide on behalf of my family or my children. . . . I don't get to impose on them what it is that I believe is right." None of the other candidates disagreed, even though most of them say they oppose same-sex marriage.
Thus in a little over 100 years, the Democratic Party -- and, for that matter, much of the Republican Party -- has been transformed from a champion of "parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children" to a party whose leaders believe that parents "don't get to impose" their views and values on what their kids are taught in school. Do American parents see anything wrong with that? Apparently not: The overwhelming majority of them dutifully enroll their children in government-operated schools, where the only views and values permitted are the ones prescribed by the state.
But controversies like the one in Lexington are reminders that Big Brother's ideas about what and how children should be taught are not always those of mom and dad.
Americans differ on same-sex marriage and evolution, on the importance of sports and the value of phonics, on the right to bear arms and the reverence due the Confederate flag. Some parents are committed secularists; others are devout believers. Some place great emphasis on math and science; others stress history and foreign languages. Americans hold disparate opinions on everything from the truth of the Bible to the meaning of the First Amendment, from the usefulness of rote memorization to the significance of music and art. With parents so often in boisterous disagreement, why should children be locked into a one-size-fits-all, government-knows-best model of education?
Nobody would want the government to run 90 percent of the nation's entertainment industry. Nobody thinks that 90 percent of all housing should be owned by the state. Nobody believes that health care would be improved if the government operated 90 percent of all hospitals, pharmacies, and doctors' offices. Yet the government's control of 90 percent of the nation's schools leaves most Americans strangely unconcerned.
But we should be concerned. Not just because the quality of government schooling is frequently so poor or its costs so high. Not just because public schools are constantly roiled by political storms. Not just because schools backed by the power of the state are not accountable to parents and can ride roughshod over their concerns. And not just because the public-school monopoly, like virtually all monopolies, resists change, innovation, and excellence.
All of that is true, but a more fundamental truth is this: In a society founded on political and economic liberty, government schools should have no place. Free men and women do not entrust to the state the molding of their children's minds and character. As we wouldn't trust the state to feed our kids, or to clothe them, or to get them to bed on time, neither should we trust the state to teach them. What Americans in an earlier era knew in their bones, many in the 21st century need to relearn: Education is too important to be left to the government.
Hope for the innumerate from Australia
A teaching program that helps students "trust their heads" to recall basic mathematical facts has turned students failing maths into some of the best performers. The QuickSmart program, developed at the University of New England at Armidale in northern NSW, targets students failing national numeracy benchmarks who enter high school struggling with basic arithmetic and who often still count on their fingers.
John Pegg, who developed the program with Lorraine Graham, said QuickSmart was a last chance for students who needed to be proficient in basic maths before the end of primary school to develop the skills and proficiency required in high school. "These students use inefficient and error-prone approaches to learning and recalling information," he said. Professor Pegg, director of the National Centre of Science, ICT and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia, said students likened the improvement to "trusting their heads", meaning the answer to a sum like 7x5 came immediately.
The program received funding last week worth $200,000 from the federal Government and is being used with 800 students in 60 schools in NSW and the Northern Territory, including remote indigenous communities, where the rise in test scores is more than double the improvement in the average student.
At Orara High School in Coffs Harbour on the NSW north coast, about 70 students in Year 7, with about one in three having failed to meet minimal national numeracy benchmarks, were then taught using QuickSmart. Learning support teacher Lyn Alder said the school had a large proportion of students from low socio-economic backgrounds and about 11 per cent were indigenous. When they sat the NSW numeracy test earlier this year, the improvement in their results had almost doubled compared with the rest of the state, while the indigenous students' marks more than doubled compared with other indigenous students.
Ms Alder said about 40 per cent of the students jumped two levels in the four-level assessment system, from low to proficient or elementary to high. "It's given students the confidence to put up their hands and answer questions in class," she said. "They may not always be correct but they're prepared to have a go, and when you're dealing with students in a low socio-economic school, that's not always the norm."
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BIG BROTHER AT SCHOOL By Jeff Jacoby "Freedom of...


Drop-Box v1.0 is a vertical navigation menu.
Pic-Matic v1.0 is an easy-to-use and completely customizable photo slideshow.
Cara-Pic v1.0 is an easy-to-use and customizable photo carousel.
Box-Over v1.0 is an easy-to-use horizontal navigation menu.
SD-Bar v1.0 is an easy-to-use vertical navigation menu.
SD-Tabs v1.0 is an easy-to-use and completely customizable animated tabbed menu.
Sidebar-Buddy v1.0 is an easy-to-use and completely customizable sidebar menu.
Thumb-View v1.0 is an easy-to-use menu system.
Nav-U v1.0 is an easy-to-use vertical navigation menu.
NewsKaster v1.0 is an easy-to-use vertical news scroller.


Almost each one of us has heard about the game bingo. Since this game is so popular and has been on the scene for centuries now, most of us have either come across the name or played the game in some form. Gaming enthusiasts are well aware of the thrill and excitement involved in being able to tick off all the numbers on the card and call "bingo" for the prize. This game is quite a hit at churches as well as various NGOs. These institutions have understood the potential of this game in the area of raising funds.
One thing you must always remember is that bingo is a game of chance. The numbers are stricken off as they are called and the one to mark all of them off is considered to be the winner. By the rules, each player can buy either one or more tickets with numbers 1-75 or 1-90 depending on what kind of game they are playing. The caller then calls out all the numbers. If a player spots these numbers o his/her ticket, then it can be marked off. The primary goal of the game is to be able to mark off all the numbers on each ticket.
According to the rules of these games, a player playing this game at a land-based hall can mark off the numbers using a marker or a pen. However, in the case of online bingo, players can just sit back and enjoy or even engage in some chatting games or take their chance at slot games since the numbers are marked off by the computer automatically. So if a number called appears on your ticket, it will be marked off immediately.
Though you will find many variants of bingo, there are a few bingo rules that are common to all these variants. This is what every player must pick up before beginning any game. The 80 Ball, the American 75 Ball and the British 90 Ball are some of the most common variants. The 90 ball variant is quite popular in bingo halls in UK.
Many online bingo websites provide players with a lot of other variants. Take Speed Bingo for example. In this variant, the game moves really fast. On the other hand, in Pattern Bingo, players are required to acquire certain fixed patterns on their bingo cards. Players can also participate in progressive jackpots in these bingo games. Jackpotjoy's Bingo 20 and various other similar games such as Bingo 50 and Tombola Bingo's Bubble Bingo offer some great jackpots.
When speaking of the 90 Ball variant, the game has three kinds of prizes. Players who are able to complete a horizontal line are entitled to the one line prize. Similarly, a player that is able to complete two horizontal lines in the similar manner are entitled to the two line prize. On the other hand, players that are able to mark off all the appearing digits on the ticket are entitled to the full-house which, most naturally, is the biggest prize.
If you are looking for Pattern Bingo type games, these ones are usually available in the 75 ball variant. These tickets have a variety of patters including letters and objects apart from the numbers ranging from one to 75. The first player to complete these patterns wins the prize. This variant also features full-house prizes plus cover-all prizes.
Though Bingo is predominantly a game of chance and luck, there are several techniques that can be used in order to increase your odds of winning.


My provider, ig, currently only offers currencies in mt4. How can I get stock quotes in mt4 from another provider? Any one to recommend?
You can check the brokers by yourself, or you can look at the images below.
I think - if your account is connected with some stock exchange so it may be the real stock.
@sergey golubev how are you using some many brokers accounts at once? is it possible in mt4 ? will it receive all the data feeds from all brokers at once ?
basically i am trying to get data feed for nyse nasdaq dax and bse and use my indicators , is it possible to have multiple feeds and accounts at once ?
I am not using them at once.
I am just using one Metatrader instance for many accounts with many brokers. Yes, I am swithing between accounts.
Because some brokers are providing the forex data only, the other brokers are providing the forex data + nyse and nasdaq, some other brokers are providing the forex + cryptocurrencies, and so on.


Vincenzo Nibali snatched the maglia rosa with a resurgent final weekend at the Giro d'Italia, to claim his second overall victory in the race.
Nibali was the eighth different rider to pull on the pink jersey in the race, doing so just in time to wear it to Turin for the finale.
In an enthralling race, Steven Kruijswijk had looked to set to pull off a surprise win until he crashed on stage 19 and lost the race lead.
Nibali then ousted Johan Esteban Chaves on the final day, ensuring he has now won four career Grand Tours – placing him joint-tenth on the all-time list.
Relive all the best bits of the race in the gallery below, courtesy of Stefano Sirotti.


ANGGYBISEX . pandorasweett. MRHANCOCKGYM. StevenHugeCock.
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Mophie has always made great looking products made with quality materials and great internals. You can definitely be assured of a quality product under their brand. With so many other options to choose from, it's usually much easier to just choose the cheaper one. Because of this, Mophie hasn't been earning as much as they would like.
Deviating from their past pricing techniques, Mophie starts their new Powerstation line at $30. The Powerstation mini is their 3,000mAh universal powerbank with one USB port for charging your devices. Although high-capacity powerbanks are also available under their Powerstation Plus and Charge Force Powerstation lines offering over 10,000mAh of battery. But these high-capacity batteries will reach $100. The Charge Force Powerstation can also charge Qi-enabled devices such as the Galaxy line and iPhones with the compatible wireless receiver.
The Powerstation USB-C is also available which offers USB type C and A ports and charging cables. This will also be encased in aluminium with 10,000mAh of power. Learn more about Mophie's new products on their website.


text:
'No wee-fee, no telefoné' ... and no PEOPLE at the campsite the world forgot
Columnist Martin Wells learns to appreciate being 'off the grid' during his two-year European tour
Toby BradfordAssistant Digital Editor
At the age of 16, while waiting for my O-level results to come out, I went hiking with some friends in a very remote corner of north-west Scotland.
The trek began when we were dropped off by Land Rover at a point where the road met the base of a cliff and it was impossible to go any further.
"We'll give you a ring in four days and let you know where we are so you can come and pick us up," we said to our driver.
He laughed the kind of laugh that those with specialist survival knowledge reserve for the most foolish of utterances from those they're paid to protect.
Martin and Jane Wells have left everything behind to go on a two-year European adventure
"There are no phones where you're going," he said. "I'll meet you at this point on the map at noon in four days time … and make sure you're there."
If he'd have added, "And watch out for the werewolves when the moon is full," we couldn't have been more fearful of what lay ahead.
Those four days have stayed with me ever since. We climbed crags and mountains, took shelter in rough bivouacs and drank water from crystal clear streams but, while we caught sight of golden eagles, stags – and clouds of infernal midges – we didn't see another human being for the entire time.
The Derby couple who left EVERYTHING behind to start an adventure abroad in their 50s
In the age of the internet and the mobile phone, it's almost impossible to replicate those conditions but, at a campsite deep in the heart of a national park in southern Spain, we came as close as we're ever likely to.
We found it on the recommendation of someone we bumped into while still in civilisation. "Oh, you'll have the place to yourselves," he said. "It's open but no one tends to go there until July at the earliest."
Feeling we could use a little peace and quiet after the hurly-burly of the Algarve and the cultural overload of Seville and Jerez, we followed his advice and directions and set off.
Essentials for our two-year European tour: an electric fly swatter and GHD hair-straighteners!
The first part of the journey went well but, when the satnav inexplicably conked out, we were forced to follow his hand-written instructions.
Eventually, we found it, 10 miles from the nearest village and a further five miles down a dirt road. Turning off by a fading sign to "Campismo", we arrived at the site, passed through a peeling white stuccoed portico and found the owner happily snoozing in an armchair, his feet up on what could have been a wooden bar once used to tether horses.
"Holà!" he said, once we'd gently shaken him awake. "Ingles?"
"Si, seno r… dos noches por favor."
Brexit rears its ugly head with our hilarious German neighbours - but we settle our differences over beer
There was no request for our passports, no polite chit-chat, no welcoming leaflet outlining the location of services, nothing. Just a perfunctory wave in the general direction of the two or three unoccupied and semi-derelict caravans we could see in the middle distance.
"The wifi password, senor?" I asked.
He looked confused.
"Er, wee-fee?" The continentals pronounce it differently, we've learnt.
Then it came again, that laugh, as if we'd asked a tribesman in Papua New Guinea where he'd hidden the TV remote.
The naked truth about sunbathing … and here's a titillating glimpse of me and Mrs Wells in the buff
"No wee-fee, no telefoné," he said, before he pointed to the surrounding cauldron of hills and the dense canopy of trees and adding a little too gleefully, "no television, no radio … ees very quiet."
Martin and Jane Wells had to rely on good old-fashioned conversation at this remote campsite in southern Spain
For two days, it certainly was. We felt like we had woken up in some weird reality show, our every move filmed by hidden cameras to study our disintegration as the modern world is replaced by a quasi-medieval society and we regress into semi-sentient beings deprived of every modern communication device.
After two hours, we'd run out of comments concerning the weather. After another hour debating the election, or what we knew of it, we retired to opposite ends of the van, me in a post-Brexit Remainers' huff, she clinging to her hard Brexit defiance and still claiming Theresa May was the right person to lead the country.
The new Grand Tour: from art and syphilis to a continental pub crawl
"I bet she's gone by now," I said. "If only we could check on the internet."
For light relief, we made up possible Facebook posts, like:
"Does being unable to access the internet mean I've got nothing on my mind?"
"There is no such word as 'friendversary' and if there was I wouldn't bloody celebrate it."
"If my wife's brother hasn't updated his status at 6.20pm every day to say 'Just finished work, enjoying a beer' should I call the police and tell them he's missing?"
With no news via the BBC radio app, no PPI texts pinging the phone every half-hour and no temptation to call home, we finally agreed that being "off the grid" wasn't such a bad thing after all and was something we could quite get used to.
Why 'economic basket case' Portugal reminds me of Breaking Bad - and I like it
"Hang on, though," said my wife, with that stunning clarity I've come to expect, "just exactly how are you going to submit your column to the Telegraph?"
DON'T MISS THE NEXT INSTALMENT: Ikea calling … getting some much-needed retail therapy

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The MuTriCs project will be presented at the Polish Conference for Grant Leaders, held 30.11-4.12 2011 in Zakopane, Poland. The slides are available in Presentations.
Project realized at The Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, under grant nr 2011/01/N/ST6/07202 of the Polish National Science Centre.


Staring at the Berlin Wall mural of Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev kissing East German leader Erich Honecker on the mouth, Yevhenii Kalashnyk knew it was time to come out as gay. The 20-year-old Ukrainian kissed a friend in front of the graffiti painting in September and posted the photo on Instagram. The decision changed his life. "I was emotionally full," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview. He said he had only kissed another man for the first time a few months earlier and had arrived in the German capital about 60-days into his first trip to western Europe where he hoped to find some peace of mind after a difficult period.


text:
Q: Relative imports outside of src/ are not supported I created a new React JS app using the Visual Studio 2022 Project Template "Standalone JavaScript React Template"
When I run the project I see the react logo just like when you use "create-react-app" (I'm assuming that Visual Studio 2022 creates the project in the same way)
I want to use Bootstrap in my project so I installed the module by going to the root directory of the project and typing "npm install bootstrap" I can see that the module is installed in the package.json
When I try and import bootstrap in my index.js using this line:
import "/bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css";

Then run the app I get this error:
Module not found: Error: You attempted to import /bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css which falls outside of the project src/ directory. Relative imports outside of src/ are not supported.
    You can either move it inside src/, or add a symlink to it from project's node_modules/

My question is what is the correct way to import and use bootstrap in my project, did I install it in the right way or is there a diffrent method?
This is my full index.js file for clarity:
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import './index.css';
import App from './App';
import reportWebVitals from './reportWebVitals';
import "/bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css";

ReactDOM.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <App />
  </React.StrictMode>,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

// If you want to start measuring performance in your app, pass a function
// to log results (for example: reportWebVitals(console.log))
// or send to an analytics endpoint.
reportWebVitals();

UPDATE: See sctructure of project

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: Finding the elliptic function that maps a triangle to the unit circle This is a task that my professor give me! I am thinking about finding the function by using the Christoffel-Weierstrass transformation. But he said that it's completely correct. We need to use the elliptic function constructed by Eisenstein and Kronecker with periods! I really do not know how to find its periods here!
I have difficulty with the problem follows:

Find the elliptic function $\zeta(z)$ which maps the triangle $ABC$ (illustrated in the figure) to the circle, such that
$$\begin{cases}
\zeta(0)=1^+,\\
\zeta(b)=1^-,\\
\zeta(z_0)=0.
\end{cases}$$

Finding the inverse function $z(\zeta)$ of that $\zeta(z)$.

Thanks a lot to you for watching!


"My Larrivée plays like a dream, and gives me a rich, natural, and warm tone that I absolutely love"
Based in Asheville, NC, Tim McWilliams is an accomplished flat-picking and finger-style guitarist, embodying the diverse roots music traditions of Western North Carolina. Currently, Tim performs with Redleg Husky, a group quickly becoming known as one of the hardest working bands in the business. With 223 shows logged in 2016 alone, Redleg Husky blends Americana, bluegrass and country music with dueling vocals to create a unique sound that harkens to another place and time.


text:
Bioavailability of selenium from raw and cooked ground beef assessed in selenium-deficient fischer rats
Bing Shi, Julian E. Spallholz
The literature on the bioavailability of selenium (Se) from meats, especially beef, is meager, and that which existed when this research began suggested that Se was not highly bioavailable. In addition, much of the analytical values for Se in beef predated the Food and Drug Administrations 1973 approval of Se as an additive to feeds and mineral premixes of livestock. One hundred and thirty-six weanling female Fischer 344 rats were divided into two dietary groups: The selenium deficient group in which animals were fed a torula yeast (TY) basal diet which contained 0.008 mg/kg Se and the control group in which animals were fed the TY diet to which was added 0.10 mg/kg Se as sodium selenite. After 6 weeks of dietary treatment liver glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx) activity had fallen in the Se-deficient rats to 2.4% of that of control rats. At this time (week 6) rats from the Se-deficient TY diet were refed diets containing 0.10 mg/kg Se as selenite, selenate, raw or cooked ground beef that had been freeze-dried. During the Se-repletion period rats were sacrificed at weeks 1, 3, 5 and 8. Liver GSHPx activity and total Se levels in liver and muscle tissue were the criteria of Se bioavailability. After 8 weeks of Se resupplementation the recovery of liver GSHPx activity compared to the control animals (set at 100%) were selenite (98%, p 0.05), selenate (117%, p 0.05), raw beef (127%, p 0.05) and cooked ground beef (139%, p 0.05). Total Se in both fiver and muscle tissue reflected the liver GSHPx activity with the total Se concentration in tissues being highest for cooked beef. The data suggest that bioavailability of Se from ground beef is greater than that from either selenite or selenate.
Journal of the American College of Nutrition
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Red Meat Medicine & Life Sciences 100%
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Shi, B., & Spallholz, J. E. (1994). Bioavailability of selenium from raw and cooked ground beef assessed in selenium-deficient fischer rats. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 13(1), 95-101. https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.1994.10718378
Shi, Bing ; Spallholz, Julian E. / Bioavailability of selenium from raw and cooked ground beef assessed in selenium-deficient fischer rats. In: Journal of the American College of Nutrition. 1994 ; Vol. 13, No. 1. pp. 95-101.
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title = "Bioavailability of selenium from raw and cooked ground beef assessed in selenium-deficient fischer rats",
abstract = "The literature on the bioavailability of selenium (Se) from meats, especially beef, is meager, and that which existed when this research began suggested that Se was not highly bioavailable. In addition, much of the analytical values for Se in beef predated the Food and Drug Administrations 1973 approval of Se as an additive to feeds and mineral premixes of livestock. One hundred and thirty-six weanling female Fischer 344 rats were divided into two dietary groups: The selenium deficient group in which animals were fed a torula yeast (TY) basal diet which contained 0.008 mg/kg Se and the control group in which animals were fed the TY diet to which was added 0.10 mg/kg Se as sodium selenite. After 6 weeks of dietary treatment liver glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx) activity had fallen in the Se-deficient rats to 2.4% of that of control rats. At this time (week 6) rats from the Se-deficient TY diet were refed diets containing 0.10 mg/kg Se as selenite, selenate, raw or cooked ground beef that had been freeze-dried. During the Se-repletion period rats were sacrificed at weeks 1, 3, 5 and 8. Liver GSHPx activity and total Se levels in liver and muscle tissue were the criteria of Se bioavailability. After 8 weeks of Se resupplementation the recovery of liver GSHPx activity compared to the control animals (set at 100%) were selenite (98%, p 0.05), selenate (117%, p 0.05), raw beef (127%, p 0.05) and cooked ground beef (139%, p 0.05). Total Se in both fiver and muscle tissue reflected the liver GSHPx activity with the total Se concentration in tissues being highest for cooked beef. The data suggest that bioavailability of Se from ground beef is greater than that from either selenite or selenate.",
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author = "Bing Shi and Spallholz, {Julian E.}",
journal = "Journal of the American College of Nutrition",
Shi, B & Spallholz, JE 1994, 'Bioavailability of selenium from raw and cooked ground beef assessed in selenium-deficient fischer rats', Journal of the American College of Nutrition, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 95-101. https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.1994.10718378
Bioavailability of selenium from raw and cooked ground beef assessed in selenium-deficient fischer rats. / Shi, Bing; Spallholz, Julian E.
In: Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 13, No. 1, 01.02.1994, p. 95-101.
T1 - Bioavailability of selenium from raw and cooked ground beef assessed in selenium-deficient fischer rats
AU - Shi, Bing
AU - Spallholz, Julian E.
N2 - The literature on the bioavailability of selenium (Se) from meats, especially beef, is meager, and that which existed when this research began suggested that Se was not highly bioavailable. In addition, much of the analytical values for Se in beef predated the Food and Drug Administrations 1973 approval of Se as an additive to feeds and mineral premixes of livestock. One hundred and thirty-six weanling female Fischer 344 rats were divided into two dietary groups: The selenium deficient group in which animals were fed a torula yeast (TY) basal diet which contained 0.008 mg/kg Se and the control group in which animals were fed the TY diet to which was added 0.10 mg/kg Se as sodium selenite. After 6 weeks of dietary treatment liver glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx) activity had fallen in the Se-deficient rats to 2.4% of that of control rats. At this time (week 6) rats from the Se-deficient TY diet were refed diets containing 0.10 mg/kg Se as selenite, selenate, raw or cooked ground beef that had been freeze-dried. During the Se-repletion period rats were sacrificed at weeks 1, 3, 5 and 8. Liver GSHPx activity and total Se levels in liver and muscle tissue were the criteria of Se bioavailability. After 8 weeks of Se resupplementation the recovery of liver GSHPx activity compared to the control animals (set at 100%) were selenite (98%, p 0.05), selenate (117%, p 0.05), raw beef (127%, p 0.05) and cooked ground beef (139%, p 0.05). Total Se in both fiver and muscle tissue reflected the liver GSHPx activity with the total Se concentration in tissues being highest for cooked beef. The data suggest that bioavailability of Se from ground beef is greater than that from either selenite or selenate.
AB - The literature on the bioavailability of selenium (Se) from meats, especially beef, is meager, and that which existed when this research began suggested that Se was not highly bioavailable. In addition, much of the analytical values for Se in beef predated the Food and Drug Administrations 1973 approval of Se as an additive to feeds and mineral premixes of livestock. One hundred and thirty-six weanling female Fischer 344 rats were divided into two dietary groups: The selenium deficient group in which animals were fed a torula yeast (TY) basal diet which contained 0.008 mg/kg Se and the control group in which animals were fed the TY diet to which was added 0.10 mg/kg Se as sodium selenite. After 6 weeks of dietary treatment liver glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx) activity had fallen in the Se-deficient rats to 2.4% of that of control rats. At this time (week 6) rats from the Se-deficient TY diet were refed diets containing 0.10 mg/kg Se as selenite, selenate, raw or cooked ground beef that had been freeze-dried. During the Se-repletion period rats were sacrificed at weeks 1, 3, 5 and 8. Liver GSHPx activity and total Se levels in liver and muscle tissue were the criteria of Se bioavailability. After 8 weeks of Se resupplementation the recovery of liver GSHPx activity compared to the control animals (set at 100%) were selenite (98%, p 0.05), selenate (117%, p 0.05), raw beef (127%, p 0.05) and cooked ground beef (139%, p 0.05). Total Se in both fiver and muscle tissue reflected the liver GSHPx activity with the total Se concentration in tissues being highest for cooked beef. The data suggest that bioavailability of Se from ground beef is greater than that from either selenite or selenate.
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KW - Selenium
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JF - Journal of the American College of Nutrition
Shi B, Spallholz JE. Bioavailability of selenium from raw and cooked ground beef assessed in selenium-deficient fischer rats. Journal of the American College of Nutrition. 1994 Feb 1;13(1):95-101. doi: 10.1080/07315724.1994.10718378


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ESA /	Applications /	Telecommunications & Integrated Applications
ESA began developing communications satellites in 1968. Ten years later, the Agency launched an Orbital Test Satellite (OTS-2). ESA, Eutelsat (Europe's organisation for satellite telecommunications) and European national telecommunications companies used OTS-2 for over 13 years. It demonstrated new services, such as broadcasting to cable feeds and direct-to-home television. The success of OTS-2 inspired the design of many subsequent satellites in Europe.
Following this pioneering work, ESA developed and launched four European Communications Satellites (ECS) between 1983 and 1988, for use by Eutelsat. Each ECS allowed coverage of the whole European continent for cable television, telephone communications, specialised services and Eurovision transmissions. Two of those satellites are still in commercial service.
For communications with mobile stations, especially ships at sea, ESA developed two MARECS satellites. Launched in 1981 and 1984, they were later leased for operations to Inmarsat, the international maritime satellite organisation. Their L-band payloads, with global coverage, could handle around 50 telephone circuits.
Olympus launch preparations
ESA also developed Olympus, which was the largest civilian telecommunications satellite in the world at the time of its launch in 1989. Its design incorporated many key technologies that have later been incorporated in commercial satellites, including high-power transmitters, multi-spot beam Ka-band technology and on-board switching.
Its direct-to-home TV broadcasting payload allowed national network programmes to be captured with dish antennas as small as 30 cm in diameter. Control of Olympus was accidentally lost in May 1991 but a major recovery action enabled it to resume full service by the following August. Two years later, the ambitious experimental mission ended when the spacecraft's fuel ran out.
Artemis and SPOT 4 communicating via the SILEX system - Artist's impression.
In 2001, a new telecommunications satellite called Artemis was launched to continue the technological development of Europe's space infrastructure.
Artemis is a technological demonstration satellite that incorporates pioneering Data Relay Satellite technology at both optical frequencies (SILEX payload) and in the Ka-band. It also incorporated a navigation payload, which is part of the EGNOS system, and a mobile services payload.
In addition, Artemis pioneered a number of new technologies – one of the most important being ion propulsion – a system able to convert the solar energy received from the Sun into propulsive force to move the satellite.
This was very serendipitous, since a failure on the upper stage of the launcher left Artemis well below its target orbit. By using a combination of its chemical and ion propulsion systems, Artemis was able to reach its orbital position at 21.5° east in geostationary orbit, where it has remained operational ever since.
ESA Euronews: 50 years Via satellite
For telecom professionals


"Haute Tech Couture" was the second unconventional challenge of the season and, I must say, much more interesting than "Shut Up and Sew". As soon as I saw that dumpster full of VHS tapes, keyboards, wires...oh, that was just heaven for a crafting hoarder geek.
I wasn't really that surprised Joseph was sent home, although I also don't think his was THAT bad. I guess when they're equally bad, the judges also use past work to decide who goes home....and Joseph Matronly...wait that's NOT his last name? Well, whatever it was he was having a tough time on Project Runway with the judges. I feel this is also going to be happening with Lindsey. This was another episode which was difficult to place stars on the Smile side of my scorecard.
SHOULD Joseph have been the one to go home? Was it his time or should another designer (read: Lindsey) have been toldto hit the road?
0 comments on "Project Runway Scorecard - Season 14 Episode 7: Haute Tech Couture"


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Posted on June 24, 2021 by Dr. John A. Dick - Leuven
Catholic Bishops Dysfunctional and Polarized
In what many observers see as a growing episcopal polarization, the US Catholic bishops, the USCCB, in their 2021 spring meeting, voted to advance their "Communion document." The draft document passed by 75% of the bishops' conference advances a push by conservative US bishops to deny President Biden communion because of his support for abortion rights.
The action was both expected and problematic. The USCCB approved on June 18, 2021 plans to draft a document addressing communion for pro-choice Catholic politicians, delivering an extraordinary rebuke to the Vatican's attempts to slow the process and avoid attempts to adjust the church's sacraments for partisan aims.
The promised document marks the culmination of efforts that began in November 2020, days after the election of President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the second Catholic US president, who also, like the first, John F. Kennedy, supports abortion rights. Biden has strongly asserted that he is personally opposed to abortion. US Catholic bishops appear blind to that reality.
The USCCB decision drew immediate criticism from 60 Catholic Democrats in Congress, who urged the bishops "to not move forward and deny this most holy of all sacraments" and who challenged the bishops by outlining their own commitment to "making real the basic principles that are at the heart of Catholic social teaching."
The US bishops are expected to vote on the forthcoming statement in November 2021, ahead of the midterm elections, giving conservatives a tool to criticize Democratic politicians throughout the campaign cycle. Abortion has long been one of the most mobilizing political forces for the religious right. That subtext was made plain as the bishops debated the topic for more than two hours on Thursday, June 17, 2021. "I can't help but wonder if the years 2022 and 2024 might be part of the rush," observed Bishop Robert M. Coerver of Lubbock, Texas. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the Archbishop of Washington and the nation's first African-American cardinal, has made it abundantly clear that he does not support denying communion to President Biden.
The USCCB's move to target the current US president, who regularly attends Mass and has spent a lifetime steeped in Catholic religious practices, is striking coming from leaders of the president's own faith. It is particularly striking considering that a great many conservative bishops had turned a blind eye to the sexual improprieties of former President Donald J. Trump because they supported his political agenda. It reveals an American Catholicism highly politically polarized . In the 2020 US presidential election, according to AP VoteCast, 50% of US Catholics backed Donald Trump and 49% favored Joseph Biden. Interestingly, when it comes to abortion, more than half of US Catholics (56%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
The former US President was rhetorically anti-abortion but hardly pro-life. "Certainly, we know President Trump was a deeply amoral individual whose personal and political stances flew in the face of virtually everything the Catholic Church teaches," said Maggie Siddiqi, senior director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress. In the Trumpian days, I often found Catholic episcopal support for him from bishops like Cardinal Timothy Dolan in New York, very strange and disconcerting. Well-documented allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape, were repeatedly denied by Trump; but those charges did not bring any move against him from conservative Catholic bishops.
"There is a special obligation of those who are in leadership because of their public visibility" observed Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend last week. Bishop Rhoades was speaking about Mr. Biden not Mr.Trump. In 2016 in fact he strongly criticized the decision by the University of Notre Dame to honor Mr. Biden, then Vice President, for his "outstanding service to church and society." Rhoades criticized Biden for his support for abortion rights and gay marriage in violation of church teaching.
Despite an intervention from the Vatican's doctrinal office in May 2021, urging the US bishops to exercise "extensive and serene dialogue" on the matter and follow a process of consultation with Catholic politicians who disagree on matters of church teaching, the US bishops voted to advance the drafting of a document after two hours of virtual debate where more than 40 bishops spoke for and against the measure. The debate over the document underlines the level of division among the US bishops. The document, which the Vatican has already cautioned needed more time for dialogue and episcopal unity, will now require the support of two-thirds majority of bishops and the Vatican's approval.
Over the past seven months, when it comes to their approach to President Joseph R. Biden, the US Catholic bishops have been in a state of open discord, among themselves as well as with the Vatican. They expressed no such criticism about the person and policies of the former US president Donald Trump. In fact, the President of the USCCB, Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, issued an unprecedented 1,200-word statement on President Joseph Biden's Inauguration Day that warned "our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils."
The Vatican, however, marked President Biden's inauguration with a customary telegram congratulating him and urging him to pursue policies "marked by authentic justice and freedom." While some bishops praised Gomez's narrow focus on abortion in his statement, other bishops, like Chicago's Cardinal Blase Cupich, labeled the statement as "ill-considered."
Throughout the USCCB's June 2021 three-day meeting, a few bishops insisted the proposed Communion document was directed toward neither a particular person nor a particular political party. Those claims, however, were repeatedly contradicted and undermined by several bishops who stressed that both President Biden's and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's kind of Catholicism was why they believed the document was greatly needed right now.
Among those who strongly oppose the proposed USCCB document as well as who oppose denial of Communion to President Biden is Bishop John Stowe, of Lexington, Kentucky. Bishop Stowe summarized his position in a recent tweet: "There's a reason the longstanding pastoral practice of the church is to presume people present themselves for Communion in good conscience. Jesus is at work in their lives in ways we will never know. We should reverence the mystery of God's grace at work in every person and the gift of faith present in every heart that seeks him in the sacraments. Jesus is not a legalist. He never ceases to draw people to himself. His arms outstretched, on the cross and in the sacraments, are where the saving occurs."
As a US Catholic and a Catholic historical theologian, it seems clear to me that President Biden has shown himself to be a man of deep faith. Unlike his presidential predecessor, he is indeed totally pro-life. I find the USCCB's targeting of a US president who is a devout Catholic a very sad reality. Clearly the US Catholic bishops appear to have decided to hold President Biden responsible for his nuanced and precise abortion stance. In the process they further distance themselves from open-minded Catholics and further promote the growth of far-right Catholic fundamentalism.
It is not the same thing but the current US bishops' action reminds me of the historically wrong choices made by the Spanish bishops during the 1936 to 1939 Spanish Civil War. Then the bishops backed the wrong national leader because of his supposed anti-Communism. In reality the Spanish bishops tolerated horrible crimes against humanity by their cruel national leader Generalisimo Francisco Franco. A cruel dictator supported by the bishops' dysfunctional leadership.
This current USCCB story is hardly over. Socio-political polarization and narrow theological vision will be the key themes. Only attentive listening and compassionate conversation can bring ecclesiastical health.
Whether the bishops realize it or not, the winds of change are blowing for sure. As Sister Sister Joan Chittister, a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, said in a recent talk, everything has changed and "everything must grow up, religion too. It must be much more than obeying rules."
Jack, back at his Another Voice computer. Warmest regards to all.
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17 thoughts on "Catholic Bishops Dysfunctional and Polarized"
Donald M. Hanson says:
Mise au point!
Merci beaucoup mon ami!
Sr. Joan's talk blew me away. Don't know if Frank sent you the YouTube link but, that is really worth listening to. I stand in awe of her as her spiritual church is exactly what I long for.
Thanks for writing this, Jack. Long live Francis as he advised against this move from the USCCB.
Many thanks Patti!
Dan Pierson says:
Please post link to Sr. Joan's talk.
Dan, I just sent you an email with what I have.
John Dubord says:
I can imagine old Jesus, as one of us in the pews, listening to the U.S. bishops and saying "My god, why have you abandoned me"
Yes indeed…..
Jack, well said. I wrote a similar letter to our local diocesan paper and, true to form, they neglected to publish it.
The US Bishops are becoming more and more irrelevant.
Irrelevant us indeed the word.
Where are we going? The true voices of leadership in our church seem to be coming from elsewhere and not from our bishops. May the Jack Dicks and Sr. Joans of our church continue to be heard. I was touched by Bishop Stowe's observation: " Jesus is not a legalist. He never ceases to draw people to himself." It is obvious through whom He is speaking!
Pax Amice!
Janet Parisian says:
It's always politics, isn't it. Kudos to Cardinal; Stowe. His head and heart are in the right place. Yes, Jesus was not a legalist. Well written, Jack.
Many thanks Jan!
Thank you, Dr. Jack, for your summary and historical perspective, as always a monitum against the status quo, fatalistic resignation, or acedia.
As a church musician genetically steeped in Gregorian chant during the '50's, I say "Let the discord resound!" Musically speaking, there is never only one way to resolve discord. In the West there are twenty-four different keys, major and minor, not just one. There are always alternate harmonies to any melody, which the human ear accepts and appreciates. The reverberation of tension and discord does not find a new center or home key without episodes or conversations about related elements, exploring the musical DNA in relative major and minor keys and modes of a fertile if simple theme. The human mind relishes and responds to such adventures. The "key" is conversation among the many over time, not an abrupt discussion or percussive diatribe concluded by an elite few. Conversation, whether musical, rhetorical, or philosophical, needs silence for disciplined listening, so that thinking has interior space of its own, without force or violence or the intrusion of exterior influence: in other words, where conscience can freely roost in the tree of knowledge.
I wonder if the evolution of humanity has erred, strayed onto a slim twig too far: the trunk of sentient life has many branches of which we yet unaware in a quest for ancestry and our origins in the universe. Homo sapiens is not alone in the tree of knowledge, to further that metaphor. It is not merely sentimental to expect that our genetic cousins like Neanderthal and Floresiensis entertained angels unaware in their own time and with their own sensory experiences and memories, as we have too. My sense is that philosophically and theologically we may have "bred out" an eternal presence in this part of the universe, on this blue planet, "this fragile Earth our island home," a Presence that accompanies all Life, not just that of sapiens. This is not the basis of an argument about ensoulment at a material blip of conception with an egg's acceptance of a single sperm, but rather a spiritual accession to la longue duree that eludes most of us most of the time in the midst of life, but deserves even so a sabbatical to contemplate. That is the human way, worthy enough for Et verbum caro factum est. Some scientists are leading better than bishops, as Frank Skeltis suggests, and in that I would include Teilhard. [ I'm not a blogger, but you would find me listening at myrgns2@gmail.com. ]
Oddly enough, if I were asked, I would have to side with the romanitas of the Vatican on this point, eschewing the ancient episcopal male prejudice of the US's episcopate, who as a cadre are not uncomfortable now as influencers among untrustworthy politicians. It is a hasty tactical retrojection from impending elections that pertain to the perquisites of political power for its own sake. Gravitas is lacking among the episcopacy: too narrow in its -scope, as you say, too far above ["epi-"] living the life of the 98%, of the hyper-stressed, of the under-privileged, of the poor, where most likely we would find the Jesus from Nazareth, of all places.
Choosing Life is not a single event, it is a constant struggle, Sisyphean and eternal, universal even. Sisyphus sees his efforts tumble down, but what does he expect? He does not shrug, he shoulders the boulders, returning to the task, because he is human. If that classic reference resounds in me, I can thank my Catholic liberal arts education from the "days of the giants" as our vice-rector Kenneth J. Povish used to say.
Dan, Many sincere thanks for your very thoughtful reflection. I like the "alternate harmonies" perspective but confess it could take great attention and openness from many people. We know so very little….but think we are hot stuff. Thanks again! – Jack
GB says:
http://dontwantyourcivilwar.com/2021/04/30/swanns-model-of-radicalization/