Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Why I Don’t Trust the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, #2,386,562

N.B,–not providing links. If you can’t manage to get to the Drudge Report on your own then there’s no hope for you. 🙂

Drudge headliner:

Expand the graphic (just CLICK on it) to also view the link text in the upper left hand corner that reads, “SOLDIERS STRIP, STOMP WOMEN…”

Now, Matt Drudge is pretty much THE editor for internet news conglomeration and generally shows the most balanced, eclectic offering from all points of view. As such, he’s several orders of magnitude more “fair and balanced” than FoxABCNBCCBSMSNCCNN, etc. But I still think he misses the boat on this one.

First, look carefully at the picture, or better yet, this larger version (again, CLICK to expand):

Now, I’m not disagreeing with the characterization offered by the widely-proffered terms, “brutal” and even perhaps “vicious” but the “reports” offer mostly editorializing and downplay the context to the point that no one reading the linked articles can have any way of telling what the women featured in the photos were really doing prior to the sob sister photos. One report has women “beaten” with “poles” when all I could see were standard (for many police and security forces in that part of the world) batons. And the primary Drudge link to the story “Brave women of the Middle east… ” etc., has its lede culminate with, “a man kicks her with full force in her exposed chest.”

I look at that picture and don’t see a man kicking the woman “with full force in her exposed chest.” Indeed, the person preparing the kick/stomp in that photo appears could actually be a woman wearing non-standard garb that shares only the headgear with the men in uniform dragging the woman (from where, why?–we don’t know because the story doesn’t provide that context). Since every other person in every photo I’ve seen of the events (this and other) who is supposedly a member of the military is obviously a man and in uniform, I honestly do not know what to make of what appears to be a woman out of uniform (but in an odd combination of lilac tennies, non-standard cammo and some sort of vest that doesn’t match the other uniformed persons standing around), wearing only one piece of gear that looks similar to the soldiers’ gear… being labeled as one of the soldiers and as a man.

There were other photos that were less ambiguous (though still presented out of context with inflammatory language captions), which is one reason the anomalies are so glaring in this one.

Why use this photo and caption and comment on it with such inflammatory language, while completely ignoring the anomalies and glossing over or completely eliminating the context? Because it fits the narrative the Hivemind wants to present.

Was army response brutal? Well, duh. Armies are for breaking things and killing people. Was it inappropriate? From the information provided (and yes, I watched the video at the end of the main link from Drudge), there’s no way for any honest, thinking person to be able to tell. At least the “horrors” *cough* shown in the photos and video were extremely mild for an Islamic culture.

Skepticism whenever exposed to the Hivemind is not just healthy, it’s become an essential survival response, IMO.

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Exceedingly Fair* Fare

Those of you familiar with the tune (Holst’s CRANHAM) will automatically hear the words it’s usually associated with**. For those who don’t *sigh*, well, there’s always Google… or, here ya go.

The tune always reminds me that it really needs an artist (no, not what passes for an “artist” with the typical recording industry exec, a real one) to make it work for me with Christina Rossetti’s words, especially since singing the tune with the last verse of Rossetti’s poem is problematic. The meter of the tune and the meter of that last verse do not marry well, you see. But, Tine Thing Helseth makes me forget all that.

An absolutely beautiful performance. It’s from her Christmas album, My Heart Is Ever Present. It’s a strong argument of the presence of imago dei in real art.

I could listen to this all day long.

* Continue reading “Exceedingly Fair* Fare”

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An Improvement to Look Forward To?

Clearly, if we had people like this in Congress and the White House, it’d be a massive improvement in talent, intelligence and wholesome contribution to our society–especially if this were how they spent their time instead of engaging in plots to convert citizens into subjects.

Unfortunately, a less-talented outlaw mariachi version of this is what we may have to look forward to as the highest standard of “feddle gummint” rulers within a couple of decades.

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It Seems Obvious, Now That It’s Mentioned…

Jerry Pournelle has frequently said (in various ways),

As to the role of the federal government in education, the proper role is for the Congress to set up, in the District of Columbia, the best system of education it can devise, and let that be a beacon to the world. And if it cannot do that, it ought to abandon the pretense that it knows how to run schools In Kansas City, Missouri, or Mineral Well, Mississippi, or anywhere else.

The feds have no legitimate business whatsoever meddling in local schools, tinkering with the education process. Period. As Pournelle says, until they can operate ONE school district well–the only one they have a clear mandate to supervise–the feds don’t even have a reasonable excuse for messing about in our local schools. As it is, the D.C. pubschools are THE clearest example demonstrating the failure of the feds to have anything worth contributing to local schools.

BTW, the link above is to a post that meanders through several topics, all of current interest and all cogently reasoned. Worth reading.

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It Ain’t Exactly the Hokey Pokey ;-)–Updated

Take three steps back; take one step forward…

I think we’ve finally found the paint colors we want to use on the walls and cabinets. Oh, and the two shelves on the former “coffee shrine” have eight hours dry time before the next three paints can be applied, then a few more past that before the first top coat of sealer. Looks to be the end of the week, at least, before the walnut shelf supports can be reinstalled and my Wonder Woman’s baskets (which we picked up Saturday) can all be put in place. But by that time, the walls, at least, should be painted. Not promising the cabinets by then. Nuh-uh. I know better than that. 🙂

N.B. This post was really just an excuse to use the new drag ‘n’ drop file upload capabilities of WordPress 3.3. Didn’t work. Oh, well.

OK, now the new paint color for the walls is on one section that can be seen in the pic below. It’s also “sampled” on a cabinet door. Nope. Not painting the cabinets that color. Under-cabinet lighting: almost finished. Shelves on former “coffee shrine” (to the left of the microwave): finished (a piece of trim still needs to be reattached to the left side of that semi-open cabinet). The window area is still a mess, and where I had built a desk attached to the counter area (from long ago days of yore when my Wonder Woman needed a dedicated but open area for a desktop computer–long story) is awaiting removal so a plate rack and new, small (about same size as the former one) “coffee shrine” can go in on the dining side of the counter top.

Fun.

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At Least It Wasn’t On “Black Friday”

Aside from the “reporter’s” lack of ability to write plain English*, this is, well, I’ll let y’all decide just what it is:

Woman Caught Making Meth Inside S. Tulsa Walmart

* “…lack of ability to write plain English”? Well, the whole thing is written on about a sixth grader’s prose level, but “Police say surveillance video shows Halfmoon had been in the store since noon. Six hours later security noticed she was acting suspicious [sic], so they called Tulsa Police.” *gag*

Laying aside the other content (SIX HOURS LATER “security” noticed something wonky?), “security noticed she was acting suspicious” indicates, as parsed in standard English, that SHE was suspicious of something. What the subliterate moron who penned the line means, though, is that “she was acting suspiciousLY” (“was acting” modified by the adverb “suspiciously” not the adjective, “suspicious”).

And then there’s that whole “time out of joint” thing with tenses in the lede. “Tulsa police arrest a woman for mixing chemicals to make meth inside a south Tulsa Walmart on Thursday.” No, dumbass, past tense: arrested.

So, we have a report of someone attempting to manufacture meth IN a WallyWorld written by an unethical subliterate who is apparently paid to write prose that negatively influences the literacy of others. A _professional_ taking money for doing substandard work like this is, IMO, a thief. Both persons should be jailed. Maybe they could share a cell. And some drugs.

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In Answer to Overwhelming Demand…

(Well, Nicole did ask *heh*)

The back splash and countertop are essentially finished. The things left on that part of a long list of kitchen projects are minuscule tiny lil nanobits (redundancy> I can do that!).

Note lil things left (not back splash or countertop) in the pic below. The former “coffee shrine” (new one being built off camera) next to dishwasher is undergoing rehab. Reworked the shelves, which now need only more sanding and then treatment like the countertop, while the rest simply needs painting… which is awaiting the purchase of new paint. The color on the wall above the former “coffee shrine” is almost right, just not quite, and the new color will carry throughout the kitchen. Yeh, I know I just5 repainted the cabinets, but so? *heh*

Other things like finishing the window treatment and suchlike will also get a touch of my hand as things progress–and they are.

I do like the massive “trivets” made from marble left over from the backsplash. They total 1′ X 3′ area when slid together. Will make for nice holiday buffet serving and other hot stuff placement.

Of course, I ought to have cleaned up the messy sink, shut the “sponge drawer” and at least cleared out the mess in the former “coffee shrine” area, but, eh, had the camera handy, hot iron, striking and all that.

*sigh* Had the table saw in use yesterday and forgot to cut some trim. It’s cold out there where the saw is today, and time? Notsomuch. Oh, well. Lots still to do in the kitchen… before I can finish some projects in the living room, the master bedroom area and other things, so I’ll have my downtime hours pretty well full for the next bit and a piece.

Better to wear out than to rust out, right? 😉

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Tar Him, Feather Him and Give Him a Box of Matches to Play With

Read:

When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids

and

Revealed: School board member who took standardized test

And get back with me. I’ll be playing the Jeopardy Theme…

Back now?

I got hold of a pdf of the “test” this moron with 2 masters degrees (in education, of course) took. His carping (from a summation by his interviewer), “The math section, he said, tests information that most people don’t need when they get out of school,” is typical. Of COURSE most people will never NEED to have at their fingertips the information that there are 360 degrees in a circle and that the hours of a clock face (obviously–duh: 360/12) divide those degrees up into 30-degree chunks. (see pic below) That’s just ONE way to get the correct answer, without guessing, to one of the easy-peasy questions on the maths test. But, as Lovely Daughter pointed out to me in email, such problems as that particular question posed ARE easily answered with very simple reasoning, no math needed.

*sigh*

And so it proved for the entire math test. Indeed, most of those questions that weren’t simple addition, subtraction, multiplication or division (4th grade stuff, at best) HAD THE FORMULAS PROVIDED TO SOLVE THEM! The rest? Any formulas or processes were blatantly obvious to anyone competent in sixth to eighth grade math.

All the unthinking test taker needed to do with such fare would be to plug the data into their (provided) calculator.

Simple, basic reasoning ability and the ability to read simple text and follow directions: that’s ALL the test measured.

His gripe about the math test is that no one he knows needs to know any of that information, so kids shouldn’t be tested on it? Well, they’re not. The test is a math test like a “driver’s test” at a kiddie bumper-car ride is Le Mans. The test is simply a test of whether those taking it can think their way out of a wet paper bag.

And the guy’s gripe about the reading test?

“On the FCAT, they are reading material they didn’t choose. They are given four possible answers and three out of the four are pretty good. One is the best answer but kids don’t get points for only a pretty good answer. They get zero points, the same for the absolute wrong answer…”

Well, duh. It’s a TEST, dumbass! Do employees choose all their reading material at work, or do they have to follow directions? Do people really WANT to read the directions for taking a prescription medication? Is “reading” but not comprehending such material really a Good Thing? OF COURSE reading COMPREHENSION is a survival and success attribute, but this guy thinks kids should only be quizzed on whatever they WANT to read, and that getting wrong answers is just as good as actually understanding the printed word and being able to use information thus transmitted to get correct answers.

This guy’s a perfect example of those things that are wrong with education in America. We’d all be better of if he and his ilk were placed on chain gangs making little rocks out of big ones. For life.

Note: while I am absolutely convinced that there is ample evidence to assert that “education departments” of colleges and universities are intellectual wastelands largely populated by the least intellectually gifted attending college or university, I also know a number of standout exceptions to that rule. There are good teachers who are bright, capable and hard-working. Unfortunately, I think the evidence is strong that those who combine those characteristics are not the norm in education.

My hat’s off to good teachers everywhere. Sadly, I don’t feel I need tip it all that often.

Continue reading “Tar Him, Feather Him and Give Him a Box of Matches to Play With”