Chaos Manor View, Friday, November 13, 2015
Friday the Thirteenth Falls on Friday This Month
Everyone with an interest in education – and that is about everyone who reads – should read Eva Moskowitz
Why Students Need to Sit Up and Pay Attention
Our charters are guided by what I learned from a great public-school teacher: Distracted, misbehaving children aren’t learning.
By
Eva Moskowitz
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-students-need-to-sit-up-and-pay-attention-1447373122
I doubt it says anything that would surprise you, but it is important, because a lot of public school teachers would be horrified by it.
I propose that school boards should have the right and obligation to fire for incompetence teachers who cannot keep good order and discipline in their classrooms. Teaching civility and self-control is one of the major purposes of public education, and if it isn’t being taught, what is the justification for tax support of the schools?
It may be necessary in some school districts to have classrooms where civility and self-control are the only important things taught, and those who refuse to be orderly in regular classrooms should be sent to them; distracting all the other students, talking back to the teacher, disrupting the class, and generally being a public nuisance in an institution supported by money collected by compulsion – taxes – is not a constitutional right in any state or nation I know of, nor should it be. Tolerating disruption – letting some express themselves at will – is depriving everyone in the class. And yes: if what is being taught is boring, as much of what I heard the second year in my two-grades-to-the-classroom grade schools was, there is still no right to disruption and incivility; and learning self-control is valuable even for bored kids. Teachers who keep good order and discipline are not necessarily competent; but those who don’t at least try are certainly incompetent, and firing them will improve the school.
There’s a lot wrong with the content of what is taught in our public schools; but failure to teach civility and self-control is intolerable.
‘He walked out of a building, got in the car… we took the shot’: Pentagon chiefs reveal how Jihadi John was ‘evaporated’ in the street in midnight drone strike
For once, some good news.
I would not think that an all-out negative attack on Dr. Carson would be Donald Trump’s best approach to demonstrating he has the gravitas to be President.
On the same theme:
Republicans Are Ready to Rumble
Substantive arguments are healthy, but personal attacks aren’t. And unity gives Democrats an edge.
By
Peggy Noonan
Nov. 12, 2015 7:34 p.m. ET
http://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-are-ready-to-rumble-1447374852
Subject: Perhaps a New Record for Government Waste
If we thought HealthCare.gov was wasteful…how about $1 Billion to put one form online? What happened to that US Digital Services that was supposed to roam Washington and make these things work?
—
Dwayne Phillips
Just shaking my head.
Heaving under mountains of paperwork, the government has spent more than $1 billion trying to replace its antiquated approach to managing immigration with a system of digitized records, online applications and a full suite of nearly 100 electronic forms.
A decade in, all that officials have to show for the effort is a single form that’s now available for online applications and a single type of fee that immigrants pay electronically. The 94 other forms can be filed only with paper.
John Harlow
Of the candidates for President, Mrs. Fiorina seems the only one seriously interested in government incompetence, and certainly one of the best qualified to deal with it. See also
https://www.aei.org/publication/the-regulators-yoke/
Another Big War
Could the U.S. mobilize for a major war today? In Parameters, Steven Metz suggests our greatest limitation might be logistical, stemming from the lack of excess industrial capacity (which differs starkly from pre-WWII). Another could be the fact that so many young people today do not meet the standards for military service. Large formations formed in the lead up to a major war would most probably have inferior equipment and men, and may not be able to carry out the mission. Thanks in advance for your response,Nathan Jaco
There’s not much response to make; despite government hoopla, we remain in close to a depression, and have since 2008. We do not have surplus industrial capacity, and our schools aren’t turning out work-ready graduates. In 1941 we converted to a war economy and overwhelmed both Germany and Japan; it may not be so easy this time. Robots may help.
But our high tech advantages are not so great as they once were either.
How Free Speech Died on Campus
In a 2012 interview, Greg Lukianoff describes how universities became the most authoritarian institutions in America.
By
Sohrab Ahmari
Nov. 16, 2012 7:11 p.m. ET
New York
At Yale University, you can be prevented from putting an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on your T-shirt. At Tufts, you can be censured for quoting certain passages from the Quran. Welcome to the most authoritarian institution in America: the modern university—”a bizarre, parallel dimension,” as Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, calls it.
Mr. Lukianoff, a 38-year-old Stanford Law grad, has spent the past decade fighting free-speech battles on college campuses. The latest was last week at Fordham University, where President Joseph McShane scolded College Republicans for the sin of inviting Ann Coulter to speak. [snip]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323894704578115440209134854
To be decided: why should taxpayers support this sort of thing? Harvard and Yale can do as they wish; but the state universities and colleges were established to aid qualified students not able to go to private institutions. Should taxes pay for intolerance of this kind? Certainly those who accept public largess are subject to stricter rules than those who do not. Universities supported by taxes are public, not private, institutions. But surely being subject to a diversity of views is part of a good education?
The Death of College Sports
The University of Missouri football team has just killed college sports. They have showed that if the football team threatens to not play a game ($1 million fine to the university) the university President and Chancellor will resign. Taken to its logical conclusion — an idea fraught with peril — a football team can demand that admission policies and everything else be changed at a university or they will strike. Imagine A BIG BIG BIG time football program like at U of Alabama or Ohio State U threatening strike.
Another logical conclusion is that those who operate state universities, a.k.a. state legislatures, cannot allow a situation where 40 students, who happen to be on the football team, dictate policy. They have inadvertently given economic power to those students. Hence, they will remove the football program from the university.
It will be interesting to see what happens at the University of Missouri.
Alumina smelting
Smelting Bauxite into Aluminum uses huge amounts or electricity. To meet military needs (and other) The Bonneville Dams on the Columbia were built to supply this power cheaply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_in_the_Columbia_River_watershed
In the eighties and nineties increased demand found Kaiser and others selling their power south at a profit higher than making aluminum. No good idea is safe from government and they changed the rules and started charging market clearing rates for the power.
Pricing US aluminum smelters out of market.
The results of increased recycling of cans and waste aluminum has also reduced US price points further.Tom Weaver
As everyone used to know —I believe I learned it in 6th grade – aluminum is made where electricity is cheap, not where bauxite is found; it’s cheaper to ship bauxite. Energy is ultimately the governing price of most everything. The pipeline from Canada would have been important, and perhaps will be after the election.
We are not building power plants. Nuclear fission plants are “green” and emit no CO2, but it is impossible to build them because of regulation upon regulation. Coal works but is messy and creates waste. Natural gas would be reasonable but creates CO2. None of this discourages China or India who are building all three, and will become economically much stronger.
Make of this what you will
FBI expands probe of Clinton emails, launches independent classification review
By Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
The FBI has expanded its probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails, with agents exploring whether multiple statements violate a federal false statements statute, according to intelligence sources familiar with the ongoing case.
Fox News is told agents are looking at U.S. Code 18, Section 1001, which pertains to “materially false” statements given either in writing, orally or through a third party. Violations also include pressuring a third party to conspire in a cover-up. Each felony violation is subject to five years in prison.
This phase represents an expansion of the FBI probe, which is also exploring potential violations of an Espionage Act provision relating to “gross negligence” in the handling of national defense information. [snip]
Does this affect the election?
In Case you missed this
Miranda Devine: Perth electrical engineer’s discovery will change climate change debate
I have seen no refutation.
Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.
