Mar 31, 2014 | Education
From Raising Children with Exalted Ambition and Depth of Soul:
I am appalled by the state of American education. I am appalled not primarily by the crowded classrooms, decrepit buildings, unmotivated, unionized teachers, severed arts programs, drugs, violence, or many-children-left-behind, but by that which should be the central, fundamental, defining element of any school – the education. Even those schools with richly appointed, sprawling campuses, dedicated faculty with PhD’s, and reputations for academic excellence backed by test scores to prove them still suffer from the same basic pedagogical problem. Education, the actual “learning” that goes on within the walls of our schools, has come to consist primarily, almost exclusively, of mindlessmemorization.From the causes of WWI, to Newton’s laws of motion, to types of literary devices, to the formulas for area, etc., etc. etc., we are asked to memorize, and regurgitate, and study, and memorize, and regurgitate…and forget. Today’s schools are failing utterly to provide children with a real, functional, life-enhancing, lasting education. That is why I sympathize with the widely popular rallying cry well captured in this viral video, of people who “love education” but “hate school,” and the message, “We will not let exam results decide our fate.” They recognize that their education is bankrupt, and they refuse to define themselves by the schools’ standards of success.But sadly, this rallying cry and most of those like it are not a rejection of education in its current, empty, memorization-driven state – they reject education as such. The idea that school must “change with the times,” that education is fundamentally for “getting a job” or “satisfying society’s needs,” that our “different genes” mean we must be educated by “different means,” that Google, Twitter, and Facebook are as legitimate means of personal development and self expression as any schooling, betray a basic hostility to the very concept of education. This should not be surprising, given that those sounding the call are victims of the very educational system they decry. How could they know any better?What a real education actually looks like, what basic purpose it serves, what it does to enhance the life of an individual, why it is essential to life as a mature and thriving adult – these are enormously complex issues. But for my own peace of mind, I want at least to offer some food for thought, and a rallying cry of my own: Protest the “education” in today’s schools, but not education in and of itself.What does a real education provide?
Discover Miss Van Damme's answer at her excellent blog Pygmalion of the Soul.
Mar 31, 2014 | Education
By having central government bureaucrats dictate how, what and why students learn, the innovation, entrepreneurship, and diversity of a "grass roots" education (i.e., Montessori, i.e., Home Schooling) -- where education is tailored to the needs of the student as directed by the parent -- will be eliminated. This is the key political argument against the so-called "common core" initiative.In "Building the Machine" viewers receive a "big picture" overview of the Common Core States Standards Initiative (CCSSI) and its effects on their children's education. "Building the Machine" compiles interviews from leading educational experts, including members of the Common Core Validation Committee. Find out more about the Common Core: http://www.hslda.org/CommonCore
Mar 31, 2014 | Education
By having central government bureaucrats dictate how and what students learn -- by treating them as mere cogs in a wheel -- the innovation, entrepreneurship, and diversity of a "grass roots" education (i.e., Montessori, i.e., Home Schooling) where education is tailored to the needs of the student as directed by the parent will be eliminated. This is the key political argument against the so-called "common core" initiative.In "Building the Machine" viewers receive a "big picture" overview of the Common Core States Standards Initiative (CCSSI) and its effects on their children's education. "Building the Machine" compiles interviews from leading educational experts, including members of the Common Core Validation Committee. Find out more about the Common Core: http://www.hslda.org/CommonCore
Mar 30, 2014 | Culture
Pulling data from Mason Currey's book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, RJ Andrews at Info We Trust designed some epic charts of how some of history's most creative and influential figures organized their days.
Daily Rituals: Life-hacking tips from novelists, painters, and filmmakers.
Given how much time I've spent reading and thinking about artists' schedules and working habits, you might expect that I would have some insight into what makes for an ideal daily routine. Is there some combination of sleep, work, exercise, coffee, and focused head-scratching or brow-furrowing that is most likely to lead to creative breakthroughs? Or, at the very least, are there some basic guidelines that will stave off blocks and guarantee a minimum level of intellectual output?
Short answer: no, not really. The one lesson of the book is that there is no one way—the rituals and habits that helped Artist A create a masterpiece would never work for Artist B; and, actually, they might not even work for Artist A for very long.
One’s daily routine is a highly idiosyncratic collection of compromises, neuroses, and superstitions, built up through trial and error and subject to a variety of external conditions.
That said, there are certain behaviors that cropped up over and over again in my research. A large number of novelists and poets, for instance, wake up early in the morning and try to get some words on the page before other obligations kick in. Composers, I've found, almost invariably take a long daily walk. And if you suspect that caffeine is the real engine of a good deal of creative activity, well, you may be on to something.
Mar 25, 2014 | Politics
Writes Randy Vollrath on Set the Bar Low for Immigration but High for Citizenship:
Questions about immigration and citizenship are front and center now that immigration legislation is being actively debated by Congress. The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S.744), which has passed the Senate and is currently pending in the House, contains a controversial provision which would allow undocumented immigrants currently residing in the US to legalize their immigration status and eventually to obtain U.S. Citizenship after 13 years of residency. This bill raises a question: what should be required to be a United States citizen?Public debate often ties the issues of immigration and citizenship together, with one used as a bargaining chip for the other. While there is some overlap, the two issues need to be viewed separately. To put a common misconception to rest: one can vote in favor of an open immigration policy without supporting citizenship for all immigrants. Indeed, in order to preserve American values, citizenship standards need to be high.Some argue that people should have the right to move and have legal residence wherever they can manage to travel and make a living. If that is so, does moving to a country entitle people to citizenship? What is citizenship, and who should have it?
Read the rest at The Undercurrent.
Mar 21, 2014 | Business, Politics
From Larry Page Lays Out His Plan for Your Future | Wired Business | Wired.com
Running through [Larry] Page’s plans for Google was theme picked up on by Rose: a faith that business is the best way to build his version of a better future. Rose asked him about a sentiment that Page had apparently voiced before that rather than leave his fortune to a cause, that he might just give it to Elon Musk [founder of Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City]. Page agreed, calling Musk’s aspiration to send humans to Mars “to back up humanity” a worthy goal. “That’s a company, and that’s philanthropical,” he said.
Mar 19, 2014 | Politics
Tim Draper insists 'Six Californias' ballot measure is for real - San Jose Mercury News:
"What I'm proposing here is to bring us closer to our government," he said. "We are all better off with more local government -- local government is more efficient, it's more effective, it represents us better."In areas from schools to prisons to public infrastructure, "we spend the most and we get the least" in California, said Draper, 55, of Atherton. "Leaving California the way it is, the status quo, is a crime."His proposed measure would split California into six states, each with its own government; much of the Bay Area, plus Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, would become the state of Silicon Valley.The northernmost parts of the state would become the state of Jefferson, as some counties up there have wanted for years; some North Bay counties would become part of North California; Stockton, Fresno and Bakersfield would be among Central California's largest cities; Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara would wind up in West California; and San Diego would anchor South California.Each new state would determine its own type of government; dividing California's existing debt either would be negotiated among them or divided among them according to population. (Sorry, L.A.)If California voters approve the measure, splitting the state still would require action by Congress. "But once it gets passed, I believe there will be some strong momentum," Draper said Monday, adding perhaps New York, Florida and Illinois might decide to split, too."I have worked on this for years," he said, adding he has taken time off from his global venture capital firm, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, to make a contribution to society -- and this is it. "This is something I just have to do, I just feel it."
Writes Joe Mathews in Steal Tim Draper’s Initiative :: Fox&Hounds:
California is, as Draper and other would-be splitters and secessionists have pointed out, far too big, both in number of people and size. Government is at once too big and too small. Too much power (albeit badly hamstrung power) is centralized in the state government in Sacramento. Other power is scattered among thousands of local governments – there are far too many – that don’t have enough power and scope to do much of anything at all except spend money (and, in too many cases, steal from the public).But California life is actually lived at the regional level. Our major regions have the size and character of U.S. states – far more than California itself, which is more like a country than a state. But we don’t have all that much in the way of regional government – and we should. Indeed, we need to strip power from the state government and devolve it to the regions – while at the same time consolidating local governments into broader, more powerful regional bodies.This isn’t on the agenda of any powerful player in California. But it should be. So why not take Draper’s measure and build a Draper-less campaign around it along the following lines: We don’t want to split the state, but we want you to vote for this as a way of saying that we need regional government – and need less centralized state government, and less spending-heavy, corrupt local government. A vote for this measure would be a vote for regional power.Hijack Mr. Draper’s initiative. It’s the right thing to do.
Mar 13, 2014 | Politics
Writes Mark Zuckerberg:[...] at Facebook we spend a lot of our energy making our services and the whole internet safer and more secure. We encrypt communications, we use secure protocols for traffic, we encourage people to use multiple factors for authentication and we go out of our way to help fix issues we find in other people's services.[...]This is why I've been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the US government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government. The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst.I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.
Mar 7, 2014 | Business, Politics, Sci-Tech
From Wired Business:
Steve Perlman is ready to give you a personal cell phone signal that follows you from place to place, a signal that’s about 1,000 times faster than what you have today because you needn’t share it with anyone else.Perlman — the iconic Silicon Valley inventor best known for selling his web TV company to Microsoft for half a billion dollars — started work on this new-age cellular technology a decade ago, and on Wednesday morning, he’ll give the first public demonstration at Columbia University in New York, his alma mater. Previously known as DIDO, the technology is now called pCell — short for “personal cell” — and judging from the demo Perlman gave us at his lab in San Francisco last week, it works as advertised, streaming video and other data to phones with a speed and a smoothness you’re unlikely to achieve over current cell networks.“It’s a complete rewrite of the wireless rulebook,” says Perlman, who also helped Apple create QuickTime, the technology that brought video to the Macintosh. “Since the invention of wireless, people have moved around the coverage area. Now, the coverage area follows you.”
[...]One thing’s for sure: the idea is a complete departure from the current way of doing things, the sort of invention Perlman is known for. His San Francisco lab is called Rearden — a nod to Hank Rearden, the fictional magnate in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged who invents an alloy that’s stronger than steel — and this tiny tech incubator is always looking for ways of overturning the status quo. It has already given rise to OnLive, a service that lets you streams game and other software over the internet rather than installing it on local devices, and Mova, which helped transform movie and game effects by providing a means of digitally capturing facial expressions, and now, it hopes to turn the wireless industry on its head.With today’s networks, each antenna — perched atop a building or tower — creates a massive “cell” of wireless signal. This is essentially an enormous cone of radio waves that spans several city blocks, and it’s shared by all phones in the area. But Perlman’s invention discards the arrangement, giving each phone its own tiny cell, a bubble of signal that goes wherever the phone goes. This “personal cell” provides just as much network bandwidth as today’s cells, Perlman says, but you needn’t share the bandwidth with anyone else. The result is a significantly faster signal. [This Man Says He Can Speed Cell Data 1,000-Fold. Will Carriers Listen?]
Mar 5, 2014 | Politics
Washington, DC – March 5, 2014 – If you’re wondering who the hundreds of young people wearing bright green at the upcoming CPAC are, look carefully at the front of their shirts—they don’t say “Greenpeace,” they say “I Love Fossil Fuels.”
“I Love Fossil Fuels” is a project of the Center for Industrial Progress (CIP), a for-profit think-tank seeking to bring about a new industrial revolution. Alex Epstein, President of CIP, will be participating in the “Can America Survive Obama’s War on Fossil Fuel?” on Friday, March 7 at 3:30 pm.
Epstein, author of the forthcoming The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (Portfolio/Penguin), is known for debating all comers—from Greenpeace to Sierra Club to 350.org—on the big-picture benefits of fossil fuels. His unique moral and environmental arguments have created thousands of impassioned fossil fuel “champions”—and he aims to create a few thousand more at CPAC.
In a recent Forbes column on CPAC, Epstein wrote of fossil fuels:
"No other fuel has been able to match them in producing cheap, reliable energy for billions around the world"; "Overall life expectancy is up 7 years largely thanks to fossil-fuel-powered industrial progress"; "their industry is fundamentally good for human life—including for a healthier, safer environment."
Before and after the panel, CIP invites you to its suite, “The Power Lounge,” to come learn more about fossil fuels—and enjoy the fruits of fossil fuels, including free food and drink (which we would not be able to afford if we had to depend on sunlight and wind gusts!). Whether you want a signed copy of Epstein’s Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet, a free CIP “Power Pack” of energy wisdom, a free “I Love Fossil Fuels” t-shirt, or some espresso to power you through the afternoon, come join us between 2 pm and 7 pm on March 7.For more info about the event, including media inquiries, contact Lyda Loudon at lyda.loudon@gmail.com or 314-540-1191.
Mar 4, 2014 | Politics
From TIME.com:
Russia’s escalating intervention in Ukraine once again confronts Barack Obama with a foreign policy crisis over which his options are painfully limited, forcing him into a reactive posture that relies on tough, but largely hollow rhetoric.Appearing on short notice in the White House briefing room yesterday, Obama warned Russian president Vladimir Putin that “there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.” Within hours, Putin had requested and received from Russia’s parliament the authority to use force in its western neighbor, whose capital city Kiev saw an uprising against Moscow last month.Putin appears to have calculated that the benefits of maintaining control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, home to a large ethnic Russian population and a major naval base, would outweigh any costs that Obama and the West can impose.He’s probably right.
Mar 3, 2014 | Politics
Matthew McConaughey - GQ Men of the Year 2013 - Leading Man
But a few years ago—about the time Ghosts of Girlfriends Past came out, in which the then 39-year-old deploys his considerable talents to persuade the chick from Party of Five to embrace love—McConaughey checked in with himself and decided it was time for a change. He doesn't want to denigrate the movies that made him rich and famous. “I was enjoying myself,” he says. “My relationship with acting was fine. But like in any relationship, you need to shake things up. It didn't mean what we'd been doing was less than. I just wanted a charge. Like, ‘Let's throw a spark into this.’” There is a note on a crumpled piece of paper on the table here in his Airstream, something he scribbled down and only recently pulled out of some old pants, that speaks to his dissatisfaction. I wish, it says, I enjoyed watching my movies as much as I enjoyed making them.He decided to “go in the shadows” for a while, saying no to things that wouldn't “evolve” him as an actor. “I got much more selfish,” he says. “I'm a fan of the word selfish. Self. Ish,” he repeats, drawing it out. “When I say I have gotten a lot more self-ish, I mean I am less concerned with what people think of me. I'm not worried about how I'm perceived. Selfish has always gotten a bad rap. You should do for you. I wanted new experiences.”
And in Details:
"I'm just as thankful now as I ever was, but I'm choosing to be more selfish. I remember feeling not sure about what I wanted to do and feeling -- I'm not sure despondent is the right word, but a feeling like things are plateauing. I wanted more evolution. I want to feel ascension in the grade. Because I was feeling a lot of ascension in my personal life, qualitative evolution. I wanted to close the gap between who I am and the life I'm living and my work life. So I think I got really selfish."
Matthew McConaughey: 'I have more of a selfish desire now' - Features - Films - The Independent
"Part of it is just growing up and part of it is I'm very turned on and excited about all kind of things. Probably more things now than I used to be. I work hard to maintain the good things in my life that I've built - friendships, work, family, my own time. Sometimes you've got to go,'ah man, I haven't seen my brother in three months'. But it feels really great when you can think:'Boy, all my relationships are good, people that I love are good, and my relationship with them is good. My career, I'm dialled, it feels good. Health is good.' But to maintain that, when things change, you've got to be nimble at times."[...]
If his earliest career plan was to be a criminal defence lawyer, fighting for others, his eventual plan has come full circle to fighting for himself. "I'd say I have more of a selfish desire now when it comes to work," he admits. It has been a long time coming.
Feb 27, 2014 | Business, Politics
James Piereson: The Truth About the 'One Percent' - WSJ.com:
This crusade is based on three questionable claims. One is that the wealthy are mostly Wall Street bankers benefitting from rising stock and real estate prices, or executives who pay themselves extravagant salaries. Another claim is that such people unfairly benefit from a system that taxes capital gains at half the highest marginal rate paid by those who earn salaries and wages. Then there is the assertion that the "super rich" have abundant funds that can be taxed to improve the living standards of everyone else.All of these claims are false.[...]Emanuel Saez of the University of California ( Berkeley ) has shown in a series of papers that, as he writes, "The top income earners today are not 'rentiers' deriving their incomes from past wealth but rather are the 'working rich,' highly paid employees or new entrepreneurs who have not yet accumulated fortunes comparable to those accumulated during the Gilded Age."The typical "rich" person today is someone who works for a salary and accumulates stocks and bonds through savings, retirement plans and (for business executives) stock options.From 1980 to 2010, as the top 1% increased their share of total before-tax income to 15% from 9%, their share of the individual income tax soared to 39% of the total paid, up from 17%. Most were paying federal taxes at the highest marginal rate: In 1980 that rate was 70% and in 2010 it was 35.5%—but it has now climbed back to 39.6%. The share of federal taxes paid climbed dramatically in those 30 years even as marginal rates were cut almost in half.According to the White House budget office, in 2010 the federal government raised approximately $900 billion from the individual income tax, of which about $350 billion (39%) was paid by the top 1% of income earners. The remainder of total federal tax collections (nearly $2.2 trillion in total) was paid through corporate, payroll, estate and excise taxes.Those who want to "tax the rich" to redistribute income to the poor and middle class usually propose to raise the marginal rates on incomes or the capital-gains rate, or both. Yet as Scott Hodge recently documented in these pages , it will not be easy to raise vast sums this way.The individual income tax accounts for slightly less than half of federal revenue and the top 1% already pays a substantial share of that total. Most of the wealth owned by the top 1%, and especially by the "super rich" in the top 0.1%, is also held in stocks, bonds and real estate that are not subject to income taxes until sold. It is a fool's errand to try to raise the living standards of the bottom 60% through higher income taxes on the top 1% or 0.1%.
Feb 27, 2014 | Politics, Sci-Tech
The unsettling truth about "settled science": Charles Krauthammer | OregonLive.comIf climate science is settled, why do its predictions keep changing? And how is it that the great physicist Freeman Dyson, who did some climate research in the late 1970s, thinks today's climate-change Cassandras are hopelessly mistaken?They deal with the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans, argues Dyson, ignoring the effect of biology, i.e., vegetation and topsoil. Further, their predictions rest on models they fall in love with: "You sit in front of a computer screen for 10 years and you start to think of your model as being real." Not surprisingly, these models have been "consistently and spectacularly wrong" in their predictions, write atmospheric scientists Richard McNider and John Christy -- and always, amazingly, in the same direction.Settled? Even the U.K.'s national weather service concedes there's been no change -- delicately called a "pause" -- in global temperature in 15 years. If even the raw data is recalcitrant, let alone the assumptions and underlying models, how settled is the science?Last Friday, Obama ostentatiously visited drought-stricken California. Surprise! He blamed climate change. Here even The New York Times gagged, pointing out that far from being supported by the evidence, "the most recent computer projections suggest that as the world warms, California should get wetter, not drier, in the winter."
Feb 26, 2014 | Politics
From Muslims charge Katy Perry with blasphemy:For some Muslims, the silly pop video is deeply offensive to their fragile religious sensibilities. A petition at change.org demanding YouTube remove the video has already received over 48,000 signatures.
The petition hopes to win major support to show “that people from different walks of life, different religions and from different parts of the world, agree that the video promotes blasphemy, using the name of God in an irrelevant and distasteful manner would be considered inappropriate by any religion.”
[....]The attempt to censor any artistic expression is always a morally dubious activity. The fact that Muslims would attempt to censor Perry’s video is a ridiculous and juvenile response to what is quite frankly a harmless pop video. To think these imbeciles believe their imaginary god would take offence to a Katy Perry video of all things staggers the imagination. It would be a shame if YouTube caved to pressure coming from some silly religious extremists, and removed the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSOMA3QBU0Dark Horse is Perry’s third single off her new album “Prism” and is currently sitting at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 list.The supposed “blasphemy,” the episode with the Allah pendant, can be seen at 1:15 of the video.
