Burro:
Burro
Burrow:
If you can click to this site, you should know the difference. Do you?
What’s the difference between a burro and a burrow?
August 30, 2008
8 Comments | 
Education, Education assessment, Humor, Politics, Science, Words | Tagged: Education, Education Policy, Humor, Lexicography, Politics, school boards, Science, Words | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Top 10 reasons McCain chose Sarah Palin as a running-mate
August 30, 2008We old-line campaigners and politicos watched with great interest the news of Sen. John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his vice president ticket-mate. McCain’s choice offers glimpses of what is going on inside McCain’s campaign, and McCain’s head.
Python's Michael Palin and friend
Here are the top 10 reasons McCain chose Sarah Palin, in count-down order:
10. Michael Palin is not a U.S. citizen, it turns out.
9. Those pesky science fans will shut up and stop clamoring for a science debate, just to avoid hearing one more fool claim that intelligent design deserves time in classes.
8. Thought she was Nana Mouskouri.
Nana Mouskouri
7. Hillary already pledged to support Obama.
Buy your mukluks at MuklukStore.com
6. Two words: Mukluk.
5. Didn’t want to risk getting a religious nut, so Mitt Romney was out.
4. Harriett Myers was unavailable.
3. Impressed by the education plank in her campaign for mayor of Wassila, Alaska.
"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" - Michael Palin models the robe Sarah Palin will be asked to wear, with Terry Jones, Carol Cleveland and Terry Gilliam - Monty Python publicity image
2. She didn’t object to wearing Michael Palin’s gown during government investigations of non-fundamentalist Christians.
. . . and the number one reason . . .
1. Britney Spears turned him down.
Britney Spears in 2003. U.S. Navy photo (no kidding)
Your turn: Surely there are other, better reasons. Tell us what they are in comments.
________
Update: Serious commentary on Gov. Palin’s qualifications, here.
33 Comments | Elections, Humor, McCain 2008, Politics | Tagged: Britney Spears, Humor, McCain 2008, Michael Palin, Politics, Sarah Palin, Spanish Inquisition | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ready for Banned Books Week?
August 30, 2008We celebrate Banned Books Week September 27 through October 4 this year. Well, maybe it’s more accurate to say we celebrate the books that get banned, and the idea that freedom and liberty require that we not ban books.
Banned Books Week image from Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver
Banned Books Week has been noted every year since 1982 in a long-running campaign from the American Library Association. Why?
Because ideas matter. The right to express ideas, and the right to be able to read ideas, are at the foundation of our liberties.
Again in 2007, books most frequently targeted for banning include And Tango Makes Three, a delightful children’s story about two penguins taking care of an orphaned egg (too much like homosexuality), and Mark Twain’s powerful, essentially-American novel that makes the case against racism, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (ironically, because complainants claim to find the book racist).
People who ask that these books be pulled from the shelves often fail to recognize the irony — why should we ban a book about caring for orphans, or the book that makes the case against racism?
The Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver sponsors an annual Banned Books Week essay contest for Colorado teens, in conjunction with the Colorado Freedom of Expression Foundation.
How will your school and local public library commemorate Banned Books Week? Which banned books will you read, and urge others to read?
Which banned books are on your reading lists for classroom use? Does that strike a little too close to home? Then you need to get informed, and get active.
3 Comments | Bill of Rights, Books, Censorship, Education, First Amendment, Free press, Free speech, Freedom of the Press, History, Libraries, Literature, Politics, Racism | Tagged: And Tango Makes Three, Banned Books Week, Books, First Amendment, Libraries, Mark Twain, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Jesus and the lamp unto my porch
August 29, 2008Bug Girl has the story — and go see it at her site, and look at the photograph.
Friend, do you see Jesus? (I didn’t.)
Oh, sure. It’s from Texas. Maybe a trailer park.
On the plus side, there’s a poll you can crash: Do you see Jesus, someone else, or nothing at all? (“Moth” is not one of the choices.) The poll is by KLTV Channel 7 out in the Longview-Tyler area.
“I immediately thought it looked like Jesus and that was what was so cool cause you’ve seen His face in grilled cheese sandwiches and windows and things but on a moth’s back…we thought that was pretty neat.”
As if the moth weren’t cool enough. Feynman was right: The scientist appreciates this stuff better.
6 Comments | Humor, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science | Tagged: Humor, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
McCain sticks it to the PUMAs
August 29, 2008Ya gotta feel for the die-hard PUMAs, the people who were so much for Hillary Clinton that they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Obama, so they defected to George Bush’s party and hope to sign on with John McCain. (PUMA is an acronym: “Party Unity My [mild profanity dealing with gluteal muscles]”)
“That will show Obama he can’t trample a good woman in an election race,” they were muttering until about 11:00 a.m. Central Time today.
Then, John McCain picked one of those classic Republican women office holders, one who is female in gender only, who looks at the good politics and wisdom of genuine feminism and instead does her best to act like Attila the Hun with a streak of intolerance, though occasionally acting rational enough to hold on to the few rational conservatives who vote. John McCain is so certain of their support that he can spit on their issues and kick dust in their faces. Or worse.
McCain's boys and former supporter of Hillary Clinton?
McCain must figure the PUMAs will only love him more for it.
Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska. That’s about as far from Hillary Clinton as Vladimir Putin is from Harry Truman.
What will the PUMAs do? Maybe they should follow Hillary’s example, and endorse Obama.
What do you think?
11 Comments | Barack Obama, Elections, Ethics, McCain 2008, Obama 2008, Politics, Women's rights | Tagged: Election 2008, Ethics, McCain, Obama, Politics, PUMAs, Sarah Palin | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Texas AG rules: Bible classes not required
August 29, 2008Texas school districts are not compelled to offer classes studying the Bible under a new law, according to a ruling from the Texas State Attorney General, Greg Abbott.
State Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, proposed a bill to require the classes, in the 2007 legislative session. Though the bill passed, it was amended several times and in the final form the language was ambiguous as to whether districts would be required to offer the class.
Earlier this year the State Board of Education refused to issue standards for a Bible class, and so the AG’s ruling took on additional urgency: School districts are left to their own devices on creating a Bible class that would pass scrutiny under the 1st Amendment. Several districts in Texas have offered such classes, but when challenged on constitutional grounds, the classes have been modified to avoid advocacy of religion. Most of Texas’s more than 200 school districts are anxious to avoid going to court over courses that they are required to offer.
Now we know the Bible classes are not required.
But if a district does offer the classes, neither the SBOE nor the Attorney General has provided guidance to school districts on how to keep the classes legal. In the absence of clear guidance, individual districts offer Bible classes at their own peril. The districts would bear all litigation costs.
“Local school boards can now breathe a sigh of relief,” Miller said. “The State Board of Education threw them under the bus last month by refusing to adopt the clear, specific standards schools need to give the Bible the respect it deserves and help them stay out of court. Now, schools won’t be required to maneuver through a legal minefield without a map.”
After reading Abbott’s opinion, however, Jonathan Saenz of the Free Market Foundation said it was clear “Texas schools are required to have some type of instruction in the Bible, which is the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament.”
“Schools are not required to offer a particular type of course in order to meet the requirement of having some type of instruction in the Bible, but they have to offer something,” Saenz said.
The Free Market Foundation promotes families, churches and freedom.
Abbott’s office referred inquires to the last sentence in the opinion summary:
“If a school district or charter school chooses to offer a course authorized by section 28.011 and fewer than fifteen students at a campus register to enroll in the course, the district or charter school is not required to provide the course at that campus for that semester, but that does not mean that the school is not required to comply with the curriculum requirements in subsection 28.002 (a)(2).”
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Bible classes are not popular among Texas teenagers anyway. Maybe the students have more common sense and a greater drive to achieve in education than do the state legislators.
Most Texas high schools offer studies on parts of the Bible, in either in Advanced Placement literature and history courses, or in regular academic English courses. Rep. Warren Chisum and the state legislature appear to have ignored this offering.
Controversy is expected to continue.
Resources:
3 Comments | Education, Politics, Public education, Religion, Texas, Texas Lege | Tagged: Bible Study, Compulsory Education, public schools, Religion, Schools, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Lost expedition? Where’s the photos of the “new” Peruvian waterfall?
August 28, 2008You’d think someone like National Geographic Society would hustle down there to find it.
Whatever happened to the expedition that took off on the trek to photograph what was rumored to be a world-class waterfall newly discovered in Peru? The cataract was rumored to be among the world’s tallest.
Perhaps a reader who reads Spanish might find some news in the South American newspapers. Has anyone seen any news?
1 Comment | Adventure, Conservation, Environmental protection, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Natural history, Natural resources, Science, Travel | Tagged: Adventure, geography, Peru, South America, Travel, Waterfalls | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
“Do you believe in me?” 5th grader Dalton Sherman inspires Dallas teachers
August 26, 2008Update, September 19, 2008: Dalton was scheduled to appear on Ellen Degeneres’s program on Thursday, September 18; did you see it? What do you think?
Taylor Mali is one of my usual suspects for inspiring teachers. He does a great job, with just a tinge of profanity (appropriately placed, many teachers argue – if they ask for it, you have to give it to them).
This year’s inspiration for Dallas teachers comes from Dalton Sherman, a fifth grader at Charles Rice Learning Center. Here’s a YouTube video of the presentation about 20,000 of us watched last Wednesday, a small point that redeemed the annual “convocation” exercise, for 2008:
Sherman’s presentation rescued what had been shaping up as another day of rah-rah imprecations to teachers who badly wanted, and in my case needed, to be spending time putting classrooms together.
(By the way, at the start of his presentation, you can see several people leap to their feet in the first row — Mom, Dad, and older brother. Nice built-in cheering section.)
Staff at DISD headquarters put the speech together for Dalton to memorize, and he worked over the summer to get it down. This background is wonderfully encouraging.
First, it makes a statement that DISD officials learn from mistakes. Last year the keynote was given by a speaker out of central casting’s “classic motivational speaker” reserves. As one teacher described it to me before the fete last Wednesday, “It was a real beating.”
Second, DISD’s planning ahead to pull this off suggests someone is looking a little bit down the road. This was a four or five month exercise for a less-than-10 minute presentation. It’s nice to know someone’s looking ahead at all.
Third, the cynical teachers gave Dalton Sherman a warm standing ovation. That it was delivered by a 10-year-old kids from DISD made a strong symbol. But the content was what hooked the teachers. Superintendent Michael Hinojosa provided a death-by-PowerPoint presentation leading up to the speech, one that was probably not designed solely as contrasting lead in. In other words, Dalton Sherman’s speech demonstrated as nothing else the district has done lately that someone downtown understands that the teachers count, the foot soldiers in our war on ignorance and jihad for progress.
The kids came back Monday, bless ’em. School’s in session, to anyone paying attention.
Resources:
27 Comments | Education, Education success, First day, Politics, Public education, Teaching, Texas | Tagged: Dallas, Dallas ISD, Education, Entertainment, First Day of School, Politics, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
China-Olympics-sized stakes in science education
August 25, 2008Frank Rich, in Sunday’s New York Times:
We don’t have the time or resources to go off on more quixotic military missions or to indulge in culture wars. (In China, they’re too busy exploiting scientific advances for competitive advantage to reopen settled debates about Darwin.) Americans must band together for change before the new century leaves us completely behind.
It’s an aside in a longer piece of advice to Obama on issues for the rest of the campaign. It’s a Sputnik statement for this century, for anyone with the brains to pay attention.
Leave a Comment » | China, Creationism, Darwin, Economics, Education, Science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Economics, Education, Evolution, Foreigh Affairs, Science, Trade | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Typewriter of the moment: Will Rogers
August 25, 2008
Will Rogers and his Remington typewriter, Will Rogers Memorial Museums, Claremore-Oolagah, Oklahoma
Caption from the Will Rogers Museums:
Daily writing
It didn’t matter where Will Rogers was when it was time to type his daily telegram. He just pulled out his trusty typewriter — in the car, on the movie set or in his home office overlooking the mountains of his Santa Monica ranch.
Rogers’ newspaper columns were carried by newspapers across America — 500 of them. His influence as an observer of the American condition was wide and deep.
See also this previous post about Will Rogers, for more resources.
Leave a Comment » | History, Museums, Newspapers, Technology, Travel, Typewriters | Tagged: History, Media, Newspapers, Technology, Travel, Typewriters, Will Rogers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Dangers of failing to teach evolution, part I
August 24, 2008From comments at the website of the New York Times today, on the story, “A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash”:
I teach biology and I would like to add a story in encouragement to other biology teachers. About 15 years ago I was teaching a botany course to college sophomores and started discussing the evolution of land plants. Expressions began to harden. Students stopped taking notes. So I stopped and asked if my discussion of evolution was bothering them. Many nodded and one said, “Why do teachers act like evolution is a fact?” At the time I had little experience and had assumed they had a working knowledge of evolution from previous classes at college as well as from high school biology. They did not. I didn’t have much time left that day, but I did explain some of the lines of evidence that support evolution.
The next day, one of my students came in and slammed a stack of books onto her table. She said, “I am so mad! I am so angry!” She looked near tears. She said, “My parents never let me even hear the word, evolution! They said it was all lies! I went to the library last night and got out books about it!” (and here she held up Origin of Species) Then she said, “It makes so much SENSE! I am so angry I never got to learn about it before!”
Now I teach a class entirely about evolution and I think of her often. She still gives me inspiration to keep on trying to open up minds.— Bio prof, Ohio
Related resources:
14 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Dissent, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Newspapers, Religion, Science, Teaching | Tagged: Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Dissent, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Honesty, Newspapers, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Read this: Teaching science is hard, made harder by religious claptrap
August 24, 2008Read it, and consider these questions:
- Would your local paper have the guts to report on this issue, for your local schools? (The Times went to Florida; heaven knows few Florida papers could cover the issue in Florida so well.)
- What is your local school board doing to support science education, especially for evolution, in your town? Or is your local school board making it harder for teachers to do their jobs?
- What is your state education authority doing to support science education, especially in evolution, in your state? Or is your state school board working to make it harder for teachers to do their jobs, and working to dumb down America’s kids?
- Do your school authorities know that they bet against your students when they short evolution, because knowledge about evolution is required for 25% of the AP biology test, and is useful for boosting scores on the SAT and ACT?
- Does your state science test test evolution?
- Do your school authorities understand they are throwing away taxpayer dollars when they encourage the teaching of voodoo science, like intelligent design?
It takes a good paper like the Times to lay it on the line:
The Dover decision in December of that year [2005] dealt a blow to “intelligent design,” which posits that life is too complex to be explained by evolution alone, and has been widely promoted by religious advocates since the Supreme Court’s 1987 ban on creationism in public schools. The federal judge in the case called the doctrine “creationism re-labeled,” and found the Dover school board had violated the constitutional separation of church and state by requiring teachers to mention it. The school district paid $1 million in legal costs.
That hasn’t slowed the Texas State Board of Education’s rush to get the state entangled in litigation over putting religious dogma in place of science. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is already embroiled in one suit, brought by the science-promoting science curriculum expert they fired for noting in an e-mail that science historian Barbara Forrest was speaking in a public event in Austin. TEA may well lose this case, and their side is not helped when State Board Chairman Don McLeroy cavorts with creationists in a session teaching illegal classroom tactics to teachers. Clearly Texas education officials are not reading the newspapers, the court decisions, or the science books.
Here’s one of the charts accompanied the article. While you read it, consider these items: The top 10% of science students in China outnumber all the science students in the U.S.; the U.S. last year graduated more engineers from foreign countries than from the U.S.; the largest portion were from China. China graduated several times the number of engineers the U.S. did, and almost all of them were from China.
Copyright 2008 by the New York Times
Can we afford to dumb down any part of our science curriculum, for any reason? Is it unfair to consider creationism advocates, including intelligent design advocates, as “surrender monkeys in the trade and education wars with China?”
Update: 10:00 p.m. Central, this story is the most e-mailed from the New York Times site today; list below the fold.
5 Comments | Biology, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Education quality, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Politics, Public education, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state, State school boards, Teaching, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Education Agency (TEA), Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Don McLeroy, Education, Evolution, Politics, Religion, Science, Texas, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Yo! History and geography teachers: Free state maps!
August 23, 2008In the summer of my 8th year, after my uncle, Roland Christian*, sent me his collection of “official” state maps from his latest cross-country drive, several of us kids tried to collect maps of all 50 states. Considering we were in Burley, Idaho, it’s amazing that we could accumulate 36 different states, just by our badgering local gasoline stations for the free ones. We got on our bicycles and visited the stations, one after the other.
Free educational materials: A memory from a distant past.
I haven’t seen a free map from a gas station in years, maybe two decades. My love of geography, my love of chasing odd city names, strange routes, great sights, and history, was spurred by that map collection, I’m sure.
Today, though oil companies have gotten out of the tourism and driving promotion business, state tourism offices, or state road departments typically issue free maps. How to find them all?
To the rescue comes Less Than a Shoestring, with a list of the places to ask in each state, to get a free road map of the state. These maps are great helps for students doing a “project” on a different state. For the history class on your own state, if your school offers such a course, I think such maps are indispensable.
We teach Texas state history and geography in 7th grade. When I taught that course, one of the best classroom aids I had was a collection of the official map of Texas — a year old, but I got a couple dozen copies from the state’s tourism promotion group. They were anxious to get rid of the old maps, and I was very happy to have them.
Here’s something curious: The site, Less Than a Shoestring, doesn’t list a place to get a map from the District of Columbia — Washington, D.C. You’d think that a town that depends so much on tourism would have an office to promote tourism that would pass out maps to make tourists’ trips easier. Is this just an indication of the great dysfunction of the D.C. government, or did we miss finding the site? Let me know in comments.
Tip of the old scrub brush to the Business Blog @ Capital Active.
____________________________
* Uncle Roland was a minister for the 7th-Day Adventists, and he traveled to preach around the country. Stuck in a small Idaho town for my first nine years, I thought Roland was a great world traveler. He always stopped to spend a night when he was within a state or two — he was a minister trying to travel on a shoestring, after all — and with his wonderful, deep, preacher’s voice, he had wonderful stories to tell. I miss him still, more than two decades after his death. Which of your nieces and nephews can you influence as Roland did?
1 Comment | Education, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Landmarks, Manipulables (i.e., Maps, Toys, Travel | Tagged: Education, geography, History, Maps, Teaching, Tourism, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Biden, aye!
August 23, 2008Joe Biden it is. I’ve known Biden and watched him since my first turn staffing the Senate, 34 years ago. Day in and day out, he’s a good man. More, he will make a great vice president.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iraq (September 11, 2007) - Wikimedia photo
One of the things that has always distinguished Biden to me is his dedication to his family. Shortly after he was elected to the Senate, his wife and infant daughter were killed in a car-train accident, which also injured is two sons, Beau and Hunt. Biden informed Senate leaders he would not leave his children at such a time, and that he’d resign his election. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and several others worked to persuade Biden to find some way to serve. By the time I joined Mansfield’s office in 1974, Mansfield was glad to have persuaded Biden, since his expertise and cool judgment were needed in the latter days of the Watergate Constitutional crises.
Bill Bradley tells the story, touchingly, in his book Time Present, Time Past, about how Arkansas Sen. John L. McClellan told Biden the best thing he could do would be to serve in the Senate and work hard — McClellan having lost his wife to spinal meningitis while driving back to Arkansas on business, and then one son to the same disease (in Africa, a few years later), and two more sons in an auto crash and an airplane crash.
Biden resolved the problem by commuting every day, from Wilmington, Delaware, to Washington, D.C. Not moving to the capital kept Biden grounded, in a way most senators cannot be.
Beau Briden today is Delaware’s attorney general, and a Captain in the National Guard, deploying to Iraq in October 2008. Hunt is an attorney working in Washington, D.C. Biden remarried in 1977. He and his wife, Jill, have a daughter, Ashley.
Ear worm: For several years while I staffed the Senate, Biden led off the roll call votes. I cannot hear his name without hearing in my head the Clerk of the Senate calling the roll for votes, “Sen. Biden,” and when Biden offered his assent the clerk would quickly intone, “Biden, ‘aye.'” When my phone beeped and I saw it was Biden, I still heard the Clerk’s voice, “Biden, aye.”
Great pick on Obama’s part.
You should check out:
- Teri Gross’s interview of Sen. Biden on “Fresh Air” from WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, broadcast February 7, 2006. Check out other interviews and stories linked from, there.
- “3 reasons Biden is good for Obama,” from In One Ear, and Out the Other (August 22, 2008 – a prescient post, no?)
- Watch Blue Ollie — he’s off to Springfield with his camera. Update: Blue Ollie’s report from Springfield – lots of pictures (not his own, drat).
1 Comment | Barack Obama, Campaigns, Government, History, Obama 2008, Politics, Presidents, U.S. Senate | Tagged: Elections 2008, Joe Biden, Obama 2008, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The pencil with which science is writ
August 22, 2008Did the cartoonist specifically have Texas and State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy in mind?
Cartoon from Thomas Kondenkandeth; was he thinking specifically of Texas?
Found it at the German language version of the Seed Magazine science blogs, Hintern Mond gleich links, “Bissige Wissenschafts-Cartoons.”
Leave a Comment » | Cartoons, Political cartoons, Politics, Science, Texas | Tagged: Cartoons, Political cartoons, Politics, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 