Back when I listened to Limbaugh and Boortz, I would hear references to the "dumbing down" of schools' curricula, with the implication (sometimes ill-concealed) that curriculum dilution was to enable African-American students to attain reasonable grades and achievement test scores. The claims were that this was done to mollify the ever-vocal Perennially Indignant panderers who infest this country.
I won't argue re the infestation by the Perennially Indignant, but I will argue the claim re dumbing down. Please note the shots of the dry-erase board in Mrs. Stab's classroom. Note the requirements. Among them are to draw a symetrical figure; to use a graph to differentiate between what is a solid, a liquid, or a gas.
In the second pic, students are instructed that they will need to learn to connect and summarize what they read. They will need to identify expository text. I knew nothing of expository text in the 2nd grade. Or the 6th.Huntsman sets himself apart
Former Ambassador and UT Governor Jon Huntsman appeared yesterday on ABC's "This Week." He did his best to distinguish himself from his competiton, continuing from his comments re his believing the science of evolution and global warming. The ABC write-up is here:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jon-huntsman-swinging-gop-rivals/story?id=14349989
From the interview:
"The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party -- the anti-science party, we have a huge problem," Huntsman told ABC News Senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper. "We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012." I think Huntsman got his tense wrong: he probably should have said "The minute the R Party became . . . "
The above quote from Huntsman was a dig at Rick Perry, who continued to be Huntsman's target: "I don't know if that's pre-secession Texas or post-secession Texas," Huntsman quipped, referring to past comments by Perry saying Texas may secede from the U.S. "But in any event, I'm not sure that the average voter out there is going to hear that treasonous remark and say that sounds like a presidential candidate, that sounds like someone who is serious on the issues."
"Right now, this country is crying out for a sensible middle ground," Huntsman said. "This is a center right country. I am a center right candidate." Whether the country is center right is debatable, but I agree with him re a general wish for a middle ground.
"Right now, we've got people on the fringes," Huntsman added. "President Obama is too far to the left. We've got people on the Republican side who are too far to the right and we have zero substance. We have no good ideas that are being circulated or talked about that will allow this country to get back on its feet economically so that we can begin creating jobs."
The ABC report says that Huntsman was the only Republican candidate to support the debt deal in Congress. About that Huntsman is quoted: "I wouldn't necessarily trust any of my opponents right now, who were on a recent debate stage with me, when every single one of them would have allowed this country to default," Huntsman said. "So I have to say that there was zero leadership on display in terms of my opponents." I agree.
LTE1: Tea Party people would have sent us into default. Cutting one's nose off to spite one's face is very poor plastic surgery.
ReplyDeleteLTE2: I'm not so sure that the Dem Party has moved that much, as it was a creature of organized labor during both Truman's and Kennedy's Presidencies, as it is now. However, the Republican Party is definitely not the party of my younger days. In the main, both parties ignore the American political center.
LTE 3: There are hostage-takers on both left and right. Refer to LTE1.
LTE4: This LTE is correct, but lacks suggestions re possible leaders.
LTE5: The chief of staff is no doubt involved with campaign matters, but Foxx' office is noted for excellent constituent services, so the LTE writer is off the mark. As for the COS' pay, DC is an expensive town, and the COS' duties would probably warrant higher pay in the private sector. And cutting the pay of Congressional staff would not go a long way to resolving budget problems. It would put more True Believers in Congressional offices however, with less effective constituent services.
All of these LTEs but the last one have to do with the fact that our nation is at the end of an era. This era was from WW2 until about 2007. We are too high in debt on the public sector side and still too high in the private sector side. Any series of solutions will be painful. Any series of solutions will threaten many career politicians. In turn, this threatens the Governing Class in DC. Anyone who focuses on this debt problem(s) to the degree it becomes fixed in the mind of the electorate is automatically attacked as an extremist. We as a nation will either begin to fix this problem ourselves-witness the private sector paying off debt and refusing new debt- or eventually the buyers of our government's debt will refuse to participate anymore. Solutions will be forced on us and it will be ugly.
ReplyDeleteHmm....there be aliens let loose in my computer?
ReplyDeleteOr in this blog, perhaps. I could have sworn I posted my comments re LTE's on the LTE page. I have pasted tham there, now.
ReplyDeleteI read that "Huntsman sets himself apart". He is struggling to be different, a pop culture mainstreamer, but a small government Republican, even a TEA Party sound alike at times. But he is dead wrong on one point: that "Obama is out of ideas". No he isn't. He is out of ideas that can be spoken in public. I have no complaint with Huntsman or anyone else in the primary. Therefore I don't invest much time with it. Ultimately, my enemies are not on my side. They reside in the White House and within the Governing Class of DC.
ReplyDeleteI think that Obama's political philosophy does constitute a bundle of ideas that he has but cannot implement, except for insidious nibbling, as with the NLRB. Circumstances do not lend themselves to imposing his more collectivist notions, for the most part.
ReplyDeleteFocusing on HCR, which turned into a political quagmire for a while, diluted his political capital along, costing him the House majority. At least that much of HCR is a silver lining.
as guess this should have gone here as a leftover:
ReplyDeleteO.T. to be fair, Bucky didn't assert that Buchanan was the worst president, I did. Harding, Hoover, Pierce, Fillmore, A. Johnson and Bush all are in the bottom 8 and probably interchangeable. In 2000, a c-span survey of historians ranked A. Johnson as worst, in 2009, Buchanan and Johnson switched places in c-span second survey. I could go with Harding as easily as Buchanan.
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ReplyDeleteThis forum is pretty easy about what comment goes where.
ReplyDeleteww has aliens in his computer? What a coincidence, I have an Alienware computer at home :)
ReplyDeleteYou have expensive taste in computers my friend. But then I'm an Apple snob, so I can't criticize too much.
ReplyDeletedotnet...you are way ahead of the curve! I have a wifi box with blinking lights. I don't know why but I expect it to lift off any minute.
ReplyDeletewell, I am a nerd both personally as well as professionally so I guess it comes with the territory. I have noticed that Sheldon on Big Bang Theory also uses an Alienware.
ReplyDelete