One Dude, Underwhelmed

I heard the Pledge of Allegiance for the first time in a long time a couple of weekends ago, when my brother graduated from high school. (There was an invocation, too. I semi-bowed my head and looked around during it, and saw a couple in front of me not even doing that. Could have hugged them.) I don’t say the Pledge—partly, that has to do with this whole “under God” thing, but it’s also partly because there’s something really off-putting about teaching kids as young as four or five to say a daily affirmation to a nation and embedding things like “liberty and justice for all” in their brains as truisms and not truths.

You don’t say truths. You see truths.

In any case, I’m glad Michael Newdow (who gets “atheist” as his title, laughably, as if Fox would slap “Christian” up under Rick Warren or something; I suppose “doctor/lawyer” might have scared some viewers, though) argues well, and calmly, and with facts and logic. I’m also glad he’s not the one trying to justify America’s creep of religion by pointing to a picture of Moses in a government building or saying that the small minority should just deal with what the majority says, or trying to say that 95% of the country is some sort of Christian.

I wonder what will happen when some smart, non-Christian religious person (or his/her son/daughter) substitutes Allah, or Jehovah, or Buddha, or Vishnu, or Jah, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster in the Pledge. Are we going to have a debate about how slanted towards a Christian God our culture is, and how intolerant of other depictions of God we really are? Are we even equipped to have that debate?

I liked this one mostly for the complete inability to grasp sarcasm, and this immortal line: “If you don’t stand up and fight for it, it might just disappear!”

It is Christianity in that context. But how often was that said for slavery?

Rage

I cut someone off today.

I Can Smell the Entitlement From Here

That's totally the school's fault.

From here.

Note to parents: Your child and/or teen “hanging around the wrong people and making bad choices” is not entirely a reflection on where he or she goes to school. And if you had read the article, you might understand that part of the reason for keeping certain numbers of free and reduced school lunch-eligible students at schools is to maintain eligibility for federal funding, otherwise known as a good deal of the money that made that “great elementary school” possible.

Living in the “right” school’s zone does nothing in and of itself; there’s no magic school that can make your child successful.

And there’s no “right side of the line” because there are no public schools in Brevard County where a student with dedicated parents or adult figures, a little bit of gumption, and a bit of extra work cannot get an excellent K-12 education. I have friends who have been there and I’ve been there myself. It just doesn’t happen that students fall into black holes of education in Brevard County, because there is enough good done by the district to keep good teachers around and good facilities in place for students to do well.

The tools are there for you, noleygirly. If you really feel strongly about this, instead of commenting on a website, go to the school board meeting and voice your opinion. If not, please read this with your child and consider the content.

Any November a school board seat is on the ballot, bigjohn1. That’s when.

South Africa: Weekend Update

Not much happening this weekend.

Cash Rules Education Around Me

America’s best-performing school districts may succeed for all kinds of reasons you can’t replicate in other districts: parents who have the initiative and resources to move to good districts for their children, better environments, teachers with extraordinary talent choosing to teach in the best schools.

I peel this comment from here to note that there is one answer to all of the above: Money.

The parents who have the “initiative and resources” to find good schools for their kids have it; the “better environments” are funded by it; the “teachers with extraordinary talent” are wooed by it. Money can buy you excellent education in the United States, and will in the private sector whether or not the public sector is providing one.

The argument that is made to redirect money from public education to private education carries with it the addled logic that the private sector, by virtue of not being an arm of the government alone, will be better. I charge that the mismanagement of funding to this point that has created this problem is not endemic to the public sector because of the public sector’s innate qualities, but because the public sector must fight the private sector on how money should be divvied up between the two sides rather than how it should be best spent to enhance a good/service, public education, that lifts all tides.

Oh, and go ahead and replace “education” with “health care” and see what you think.

In Response to a Report by Matthew Robson, Teenage Morgan Stanley Intern

This bit of hysterical reporting is something you’ll see around the Internet today if you read technology sites. (I don’t mean to single out Bloomberg; it was the handiest link I had.) It details a 15-year-old Morgan Stanley intern’s report on all things at the intersection of youth and technology, and will no doubt cause some hand-wringing: The intern apparently says that teens don’t use Twitter, and that newspapers are “irrelevant.”

But there are fundamental misunderstandings and oversights of a few things at play here that make that anxiety at least premature.

An Open Letter to Hailey Mac Arthur

From Ms. Mac Arthur's blog.

Dear Ms. Hailey Laine Isadora Mac Arthur,

I don’t know you. But I know you’re wrong.

South Africa: How to Eat Charred Worms, The Last Hurrah, Home Sweet Home

At the end of our trip, as at the beginning, meals take far too long.

South Africa: On Ownership

Let me tell this story in three parts.

South Africa: Blinded by Political Science, Alexandra and Sandton, and Caged Cheetahs

I have now learned more about politics in South Africa than I thought possible.