In a parallel universe, Howard Dean wins the general election in November. Grin.
January 14, 2004
January 13, 2004
The Ornery American
I check this web site from time to time, and am always rewarded with cogent insight. This latest article by Orson Scott Card addresses many of my feelings about the news media in a way I wish I could have done. I was also a Bill O’Reilly watcher, and only occasionally do so now, for precisely the same reasons. In fact, I once wrote Bill and told him he was in danger of becoming the new Geraldo. He has.
Check this site. Worth your time, as are the ones he cites.
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Reading
This weekend there was an article in the local paper about the literacy rate in our county. Based on the 2000 Census, one quarter of the adults here cannot read, or are considered “functionally illiterate.” The secondary headline for the article claims this costs the state of Texas $20 billion a year.
The writer interviewed a 27-year-old high school graduate “who can’t fill out a job application, read a brief news article, or take a driver’s written exam.” He graduated in 1996 from a local high school, which means he was probably 19 at the time.
I did a quick Google search on “functional literacy” and found no definitive explanation of the term. Drawing conclusions from the article and census numbers, the best I can come up with is that anyone who cannot “total a deposit slip, locate a meeting time on a form, [or] identify specific information in a brief news article” is functionally illiterate.
I could do this before I entered the first grade. I was fortunate to have a mother who gave me the gift of reading. One of the first things I’ve always done when moving to a new town is locate the public library. I can learn just about anything on my own by using the library. One thing I can’t learn to do on my own at the library is read.
The ability to read is the basis for all future learning. Yes, you can learn some skills in the monkey-see monkey-do fashion, but you cannot develop those skills for practical use without being literate; 100 years ago you could, but not today. Jobs require more than simple hand work.
Texas adults with reading deficiencies report median weekly earnings of $204 to $219, reports the Texas Adult Literacy Survey. Seventy-five percent of the 21 million U.S. adults on welfare are illiterate and 34 percent of applicants looking for employment lack the basic skills necessary to perform the jobs they sought in 2000.
As Gomer Pyle would say, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” Earning potential is directly related to education. Who’da thunk it?
Teachers today have some real issues to deal with. First, they have children in their classrooms who have parents who do nothing, or very little, to prepare or encourage children to learn. Teachers must also deal with administrators who view standardized test scores and graduation rates as the only measures of quality. If a student looks like he has no chance to pass a standardized test, put him in special education so he doesn’t count against your totals. Then they must deal with state education boards which determine the textbooks they must use. Along with all this, they have parents, administrators, and interest groups telling them that the most important thing they can teach is self-esteem.
The “literacy advocates” (I don’t know what else to call them) believe employers should be doing more to help their employees learn to read. Remember that $20 billion I mentioned earlier? I’m sure that was cited in hopes that people would insist the government increase spending on literacy programs. That’s the [il]logic that gets all social programs started, and why none ever go away. $20 billion would line a lot of pockets in the name of non-standard education programs.
No. What we need to do is give teachers in the first, second, and third grade the freedom to teach the three Rs. All the rest of the education system is worth nothing if that isn’t done. Liberate these teachers from requirements to teach self-esteem, gender equity, environmental science, and race relations. Let them teach the core knowledge necessary to get by in this world and learn those other things along the way. The man in the article was placed in special education classes where he was taught “life skills.” I can’t think of a more important life skill than reading, so what were they teaching him?
Computer literacy is an important issue in education these days. Educators are insistent that all students be taught computer skills. I wish they were only this enthusiastic about reading skills which would make the computer skills valuable. But reading education doesn’t merit spending because it doesn’t cost money, it costs effort and time. And, yes, there are some teachers out there who like computers in the classroom because they can use them as baby-sitters to get a break during the day.
Money will not eliminate illiteracy. It takes teachers and parents and students working together to accomplish it. You can take teachers or parents out of the equation, but the student must still take a share of the responsibility. This man didn’t, and has now, at age 27, realized he must. He is now learning along with his daughter. Had he been encouraged by his parents, given a solid foundation of reading in the first three years of school, and built on that himself, he could be teaching his own daughter to read, rather than trying to learn with her.
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January 12, 2004
Media
One more quick swipe at “mainline news” organizations.
On the way home from work today, I listened to the ABC Radio news. The reporter in Iraq mentioned that the Baghdad Hotel was targeted with mortars, although nobody was injured.
All well and good. But the reporter couldn’t stand to have such an inconsequential report with her byline, so she added, “This is the same hotel which was hit several weeks ago when eight people were killed and thirty others injured.”
Okay. So what does that have to do with this report? Nothing…but we can’t have a report coming out of Iraq that doesn’t mention casualties, can we?
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Fences
MSNBC believes strongly in mending fences. Just today they had a report on President Bush meeting with Vincente Fox to do just that.
Of course, the obvious implication is that our President broke the fence, so he must repair it. Is there nobody else ever responsible? Is everyone else in the world right?
Not in an election year. Any leader in any other country can say anything outrageous, or do anything contrary to the best interests of this country, and our President will be held responsible. He is the one who much “reach out.”
The one basic truth is that America does not need to reach out. And everyone in the world knows this. And everyone in the world is envious. We reach out because we want to, not because we have to. And we are the only country that does.
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O’Neill
Let’s get this straight…An employee disagrees with management regarding core policy. His disagreement is such that he will never reconcile his beliefs with those of his boss. In fact, his major function in the organization is to implement those goals following the boss’s program. He wants to stay on the job, however, and doesn’t leave. His boss decides it’s best not to have this employee as part of the team because the employee has made it clear he doesn’t believe in the team’s goals, nor the route to achieving them.
This is the Paul O’Neill scenario.
Now O’Neill has contributed to a book seeking to disparage the President and the Administration. The major news outlets love it. 60 Minutes got the brass ring by having O’Neill on last night. He has all kinds of allegations. In particular, he got his talking points from Ted Kennedy.
Surprise! The Administration had plans for invading Iraq from the very beginning. My question is one which “intelligent” reporters don’t ask: Do you think that maybe Bush 41 and Clinton had plans for invading Iraq?
O’Neill also claims to have transcripts of National Security Council meetings. My first thought was that the Treasury Secretary isn’t a part of that group. Where did he get the transcripts? My understanding is that they are classified, at a minimum, as For Official Use Only. If he divulges information, will he initiate the kind of investigation called for regarding Valerie Plame?
The American people are so terribly misserved by the primary sources for news in this country. Fox News will have the only folks asking questions like this, and will be accused of right-wing association for doing so.
(Update at BlogsForBush)
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Free-State Nukes
Walter Williams is one of my favorites. He is an economics professor at George Mason University who manages to cut through the BS on many topics. One issue, in particular, catches my eye. That is the Free State Project.
Their plan, as stated on their website is: “20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to New Hampshire, where they may work within the political system to reduce the size and scope of government. The success of the Free State Project would likely entail reductions in burdensome taxation and regulation, reforms in state and local law, an end to federal mandates and a restoration of constitutional federalism.”
The concept is sound, but I’m sure there would be many lawsuits before any of this got implemented. This concept is already in place, however, and shows some signs of success. It is happening in France and England, and the free-staters aren’t American Constitutionalists, they are Muslim.
Both France and England have growing Muslim populations, and the governments have shown little desire to restrain “bad” behavior. The fundamentalists in Islam have show they can be patient. They’ve learned the major lesson of the Vietnam war, among other low-intensity conflicts, that the West has a very short attention span. Small setbacks are simply that–an inconvenience. As long as they can grow their following in the UK, they will eventually be able to elect Imams to Parliament. Once it is no longer a novelty, more and more can be elected until there is a majority, or a coalition can be built. With that, their man becomes PM.
In France, they can elect a President with support of various extremist from both left and right. They simply need to build a majority.
Russia has a problem with separatists, but doesn’t see a huge influx of radical muslims who have the potential for takeover of the government through the ballot box.
Why are these three countries an issue? The nations of Europe which have nuclear capability are France, England, and Russia.
The rift between the US and France is an issue in more ways than simply diplomacy. France, since the days of DeGaulle, has had an inferiority complex regarding the US. They have not been a major world power since Napoleon, yet still view themselves as “big time.” And they are, if only in the nuclear armament realm.
To maintain their status, they have played the US against the USSR during the Cold War, the US versus Vietnam in that war, various countries in Africa against US interests, and relations with Iraq in the recent past. They have been consistent in their animosity toward the US. I think part of it stems from the adoption of English as the language of diplomacy to replace French!
As their population continues to grow due to the influx of Muslim immigrants, and these new immigrants gain more and more power through numbers, the danger becomes much greater. France, with nuclear weapons, is a prime target for the free-state concept. They don’t realize it, which makes the issue even more important.
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