Measuring school performance
It's an enduring topic, how to assess the performance of education. At least two ways that might make sense are improvement in performance on standardized tests per tuition dollar, and improvement in lifetime earnings per tuition dollar. By both measures, these authors claim charter schools leave public schools in the dust in eight U.S. cities.
Racism and the minimum wage
Thomas Sowell is always worth reading.
In the United States, as the minimum wage rate specified in the law began to be raised, beginning in the 1950s, so as to catch up with inflation and then keep up with inflation, the minimum wage law became effective in practice once again — and a racial gap in unemployment rates opened up and expanded.
As a black teenager, I was lucky enough to be looking for jobs when the minimum wage law was rendered ineffective by inflation. I was also lucky enough to have gone through New York schools at a time when they still had high educational standards.
Bibi
Echoes:
Pundits are already declaring that [Netanyahu's] government will fall sooner rather than later. Perhaps. But in the meantime, consider: Decisiveness, security-mindedness, bluntness, and economic well-being trumped political correctness, character assassination, and hand-outs in Israel. The Democratic Party should take note.
Now THAT"S how to Honor a Hero
This is an old story, but it's new to me, and since I don't recall seeing it here before, I'm going to go ahead and assume it'll be new to you too.
If you recall the London Bridge knife attack terrorists of a few years ago, you probably remember Roy Larner. He's the fellow who famously stood up, walked toward the attackers when they broke into the restaurant, and yelled at them to draw attention away from the other patrons, and then engaged them, deterring them but sustaining several wounds in the process.
Well, when Frequency Beer Works heard this story, they thought he deserved to be honored, and so they didn't just offer to buy him a beer (or several), but created a brew just to honor his actions that day. Here's the label:
I think they did a nice job with the graphics- particularly the nicked up St. George's Cross.
So kudos to Frequency Beer Works for doing this. It was a great idea.
If you recall the London Bridge knife attack terrorists of a few years ago, you probably remember Roy Larner. He's the fellow who famously stood up, walked toward the attackers when they broke into the restaurant, and yelled at them to draw attention away from the other patrons, and then engaged them, deterring them but sustaining several wounds in the process.
Well, when Frequency Beer Works heard this story, they thought he deserved to be honored, and so they didn't just offer to buy him a beer (or several), but created a brew just to honor his actions that day. Here's the label:
I think they did a nice job with the graphics- particularly the nicked up St. George's Cross.
So kudos to Frequency Beer Works for doing this. It was a great idea.
Honesty Abroad
It's interesting to me what Democratic establishment figures like Obama and Clinton say about immigration when they go to Europe.
Obama made the comments during a two-hour town hall meeting in Berlin, which hundreds of young leaders from across Europe attended.Ms. Clinton said something similar a while back.
"Immigration issues are driving a lot of the political turmoil here in Europe and in my own country," Obama said in a shared video of the talk.
Urging those in the crowd to view those who expressed opposition to immigration with empathy, Obama said: "We can't label everyone who is disturbed by migration as racist.
"If you're going to have a coherent, cohesive society, then everybody has to have some agreed-upon rules. And there are going to have to be some accommodations that everybody makes. And that includes the people who are newcomers. The question is, are those fair?" Obama said.
"Should we want to encourage newcomers to learn the language of the country that they're moving to? Of course," he continued. "Does that mean that they can never use their own language? No, of course it doesn't mean that, but it's not racist to say, 'Ah, if you're going to be here then you should learn the language of the country that you just arrived at because we need to have some sort of common language in which all of us can work, and learn and understand each other."
“I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton said, speaking as part of a series of interviews with senior centrist political figures about the rise of populists, particularly on the right, in Europe and the Americas.Yet somehow when they talk here, even the simple enforcement of existing law is nothing but racist and evil.
“I admire the very generous and compassionate approaches that were taken particularly by leaders like Angela Merkel, but I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part, and must send a very clear message – ‘we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support’ – because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will continue to roil the body politic.”
Alive, But Ready for Rebirth
The Western as a genre. I think I may have posted this one before, but I can't recall. Rather than going back and trying to figure it out, well, it's a good piece. If you missed it the first time, if there was a first time, here it is again.
Hate Music
...featuring Johnny Cash.
My favorite thing about this is the "Disney" logo on the bottom corner.
UPDATE: If you like Cash with puppets, this one's good too.
My favorite thing about this is the "Disney" logo on the bottom corner.
UPDATE: If you like Cash with puppets, this one's good too.
"Border Hardliners"
We are on track for a million violators being caught this year, but sure, only "hardliners" would have a problem with the performance of the outgoing Homeland Security Secretary.
Lest We Forget
I, like probably most of you, am well past the median age for American citizens, which was 38 in 2017. Thus, the median American was born in 1981, and was too young to have political awareness in 1991 when the USSR collapsed. More and more, I notice that those who came aware after the Cold War do not remember the truth about Communism.
The Wall Street Journal in 2016 asked: “Is Communism Cool? Ask a Millennial.” Last year MIT Press published Communism for Kids and Teen Vogue ran an excited apologia for Communism. Tablet announced, with some concern, a “Cool Kid Communist Comeback.” On Twitter, there is new trend of people giving themselves communist-themed names: “Gothicommunist,” “Trans-Communist,” “Commie-Bitch,” “Eco-Communist.” The hammer and sickle flag has been re-appearing on campuses, at protests and on social media.Wretchard today is warning about the Cultural Revolution, which our own young left seems to be trying its best to kick off here. If they haven't heard of Mao, they haven't heard of the Cultural Revolution either; and they don't know where this process leads. Which makes them, of course, easily led there.
How could we have forgotten?
A poll in the UK by The New Culture Forum from 2015 showed that 70 percent of British people under the age of 24 had never heard of Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-Tung, while out of the 30 percent who had heard of him, 10 percent did not associate him with crimes against humanity. Chairman Mao’s communist regime was responsible for the deaths of between 30 to 70 million Chinese, making him the biggest genocidal killer of the 20th century, above Stalin and Hitler.
One of the reasons Mao’s genocides are not widely known about is because they are complex... it is precisely the ambiguity over whether Mao’s Communist Party was responsible for 30, 50 or 70 million deaths that leads to internet users giving up on the subject.
National Tartan Day
It was this day in the year of our Lord 1320 that the Declaration of Arbroath was signed.
[Robert the Bruce, and not Edward like the Pope thought], too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand.Long live that ideal of freedom.
Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
Deep Calls to Deep
The title of this review, of a period of time after WWII when religious conversions were running high, is "Shallow Calls to Shallow." It's a reference to an old Latin phrase, which literally translated is as it appears in the title of this post.
But as often is true, you have to go to the original to grasp what is really being said. It isn't "deep," not in the sense that we use the word now if we should say that a man or a woman is "deep."
The original Latin is this: Abyssus Abyssum Invocat.
In the Proverbs, it refers to the depths of the oceans, unimaginable and impenetrable. In later Latin use, it refers as you would expect to Hell. The word "invocation" has come to us with powerful, magical connotations.
By contrast, maybe the shallow isn't so bad. It's weak, but weakness means that it lacks power. Power is not an unalloyed good.
But as often is true, you have to go to the original to grasp what is really being said. It isn't "deep," not in the sense that we use the word now if we should say that a man or a woman is "deep."
The original Latin is this: Abyssus Abyssum Invocat.
In the Proverbs, it refers to the depths of the oceans, unimaginable and impenetrable. In later Latin use, it refers as you would expect to Hell. The word "invocation" has come to us with powerful, magical connotations.
By contrast, maybe the shallow isn't so bad. It's weak, but weakness means that it lacks power. Power is not an unalloyed good.
Whistleblower reward
A Duke lab assistant (or perhaps his lawyers) stands to receive more than $30MM for taking on a powerful university researcher's federally financed research fraud. He says he tried to get federal prosecutors to handle the matter, but when they refused, he filed a qui tam action in the name of taxpayers. Under the applicable statute, that means he gets to keep a third of the settlement Duke just agreed to pay.
Makes you wonder how much other research fraud whistleblower money is lying around on the ground. The hotcoldwetdry money alone, let alone the dietary research slush funds, must be mind-boggling.
A Vulgar Dignity
Looking back at Quillette again this morning to re-read the book review, I noticed also this woman's expression of a very different sort of experience with sexual banter.
What I learned that summer was that the adult world was often about sex. I learned that I didn’t need to be afraid of it. I learned that I had a lot more power over men than I originally thought—not simply because, as a cute young thing, I was awakening to my own feminine sexuality and realized how keenly the guys wanted me to like them, but because I had more power than I realized to reject their advances, to assert my sense of sexual agency not because it was a private and protected part of me, but precisely because it was so openly commented upon.There's a lot to what she says, and no reason to dismiss her experience from the fact that others may not share it.
What I realized, too, is that these exchanges weren’t offensive, they were playful; that they weren’t demeaning, but led to mutual respect. It was the very indecency of the back of house culture that made working at that 24-hour restaurant a tolerable job, and it was all the vulgar insults of the workplace that gave a kind of gritty dignity to our work there. Working there one became part of family. Flouting the rules that govern social niceties, which had to be observed carefully in the restaurant dining room, was the initiation into the clan. What I’ve learned since that summer is that the culture of that greasy spoon kitchen has a rich anthropology; it’s the type of community that populates the taverns of Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, and it functions in direct opposition to officialdom.
Moral instincts all figured out
Duffle Blog makes easier going of the problem "The Goodness Paradox" wrestles with:
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — Gesturing the “peace” sign and telling fellow fighters that he was “totally done with this insurgent stuff, man,” hippie Taliban defector Ahmad Khan got incredibly stoned, sources confirmed today.
“Bro, did you ever just think, like, what are we doing it all for?” asked the totally lit former IED maker seconds before being stoned to death by his compatriots. “Like, did you ever think, what if we’re the bad guys and the Americans are the good guys? Or what if we’re actually both the good guys but we just don’t understand each other? Like, whoa. Damn, I’m so high.”
* * *
Khan’s parents attempted to convince the Taliban that he was going through a phase, and that within a few months they would make sure he finishes his classes at Berkeley and gets a job at his father’s law firm.
Murphy's Law
It's not every day you meet a Vietnamese Murphy, but the lady has a good point.
"I am offended by this whole conversation about socialism," Murphy said, according to the Washington Examiner. "The idea that in the greatest democracy, the greatest capitalist system in the world, we're having casual conversation about socialism, offends me."
Murphy also called herself a "proud capitalist."
"It is the system that built us the greatest nation and the greatest economy in the world. Sure, we have to fix the inequities that exist in our system. We have to make sure everybody, no matter what zip code they're born in, has a fair shot," Murphy continued. "But it is not the moment to undo the whole system and embrace something that Americans have spent blood and treasure fighting to save other countries from."
Murphy, who is of Vietnamese heritage, cited her experience growing up in a socialist country as her reason for opposing socialism.
A Fair Wager
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has reportedly led a chant of "death to America" and recently called for a separate state for black Americans, has made more controversial comment.....I wouldn't call for violence against a man like "Calypso Gene," so don't misunderstand me. I just want to point out that that's the kind of wager that the House tends to win.
"God does not love this world. God never sent Jesus to die for this world. Jesus died because he was 2,000 years too soon to bring about the end of the civilization of the Jews. He never was on a cross, there was no Calvary for that Jesus," Farrakhan said.
Instead, he said, Jesus's name would live until the one that came that he was prefigured for.
"The real story is what I tried to tell you from the beginning. It didn’t happen back there. It’s happening right while you’re alive looking at it," Farrakhan told the audience. "I represent the Messiah. I represent the Jesus and I am that Jesus. If I am not, take my life."
Quillette Reviews The Goodness Paradox
It's a dangerous publication reviewing a book with "a dangerous idea." Some of you will want to see what they think.
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