Day: July 18, 2006

See that cute lil graphic in my left sidebar? The one with the waggledy tail purty flars n says “Blogs of Summer”? Yeh, that one. Well, Lyn @ Bloggin’ Outloud has this thing about “Blogs of this, that and t’other” and thought something along the lines of, “If I have this really cool idea I can flog as ‘promoting other blogs” maybe I can boost my TTLB ranking and traffic” or something like that.

Yeh, I know he didn’t SAY that, but I’m half-a-mind reader (and I have half a mind to use doing things like that, too). Check the blogroll out. Check out Lyn’s promo posts for The Blogs of Summer, and start nominating blogs tomorrow (at least, that’s what I understand the process is). The categories for (Best?) Blogs of Summer are (so far, maybe for sure, even):

1) Chick & Mommy Blogs
2) Humor & Satire Blogs
3) Milblogs and Military Support Blogs
4) Random Blogs That Don’t Fit a Category
5) Kitty Kat Blogs (And Other Assorted Pets)
6) Political Blogs

So, head on over and make your nominations for “best of” the Blogs of Summer.

Lyn’s strongarmed a few of us weak reeds into hosting various categories, and I just sent an “OK, OK! Quit twisting my arm!” (*VBG*) email about hosting the political Blogs of Summer category. We’ll see how that goes, won’t we, campers?

This is Tuesday’s Open Post and Rant. Link to this post and track back. And read the *&^%$# post! *heh* More below the body of the real post…

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While this video is still available on Youtube, I’ll link to it. It’s really that important that folks who missed this John Stossel 20/20 episode see it. Keep in mind, Stossel touches on just a small portion of the problem with so-called public education in America today. He posits “choice” as a solution to the problem he notes. That’s excessively simplistic, but a good start.

CLICK HERE to view the John Stossel 20/20 episode, “Stupid in America”

Important takeaway: most people in America think their own local schools are good schools. The problem is that most people just don’t know what they don’t know…

See also Fred Reed here, here and here. A sample,

Now a combination of the enstupidation of the schools, the inflation of grades, and the threat of class-action suits by the parents of failing students means that an adolescent can graduate without assuming any burden whatsoever. Indeed escaping schooling is easier than finding it. Countless colleges will accept almost anyone and graduate almost anyone.

That last observed phenomenon is probably part of the reason for this.

While more Americans are graduating from college, and more than ever are applying for admission, far fewer are leaving higher education with the skills needed to comprehend routine data, such as reading a table about the relationship between blood pressure and physical activity, according to the federal study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Or, another example cited in the WaPo article, read a prescription bottle label (kinda important being able to decode and understand how to take one’s meds, eh?). In fact,

The test measures how well adults comprehend basic instructions and tasks through reading — such as computing costs per ounce of food items, comparing viewpoints on two editorials and reading prescription labels. Only 41 percent of graduate students tested in 2003 could be classified as “proficient” in prose — reading and understanding information in short texts — down 10 percentage points since 1992. Of college graduates, only 31 percent were classified as proficient — compared with 40 percent in 1992. Schneider said the results do not separate recent graduates from those who have been out of school several years or more.

Rather puts the lie to a recent commenter to a post I made elsewhere who fatuously claimed that the literacy rate in the U.S. was on the rise, eh? Of course, that kids who aren’t qualified for college now attend may be skewing the test cited in the waPo article, right? But, but… they are at least high school grads, right? Heck, if they graduate from high school unable to read and understand food or drug labels (food ingredients/instructions for taking meds), then that’s an indictment of public education, no?

Kids today are dumber than a bag of hammers. And while it’s easy to blame public schools (because, well, public education in the U.S. today is crap) and even mass media (another bag of worms), the real fault lies with complacent, selfish, stupid adults who are parents and other supposedly responsible people who do not really give (enough of) a damn about the children to learn what their own education lacked and refuse to allow their children to suffer the same abuse.

So, the adults who should be making sure their children recieve a good education continue to simply wallow in their own ignorance, despite how that ignorance harms their children. How can parents demand a good education for their children when they simply resign their children to the abuse of the system, when they don’t bother to learn WHAT their children are (or aren’t) being taught and why? Instead, as long as the sports teams (or whatever personal interest the parent elects to make their means of living vicariously through their children) is doing well, folks tend to think their school’s juuuuust fine, thanks.

Well, stupid adults who are not actually handicapped with physical brain damage have no excuse. Their only reasons are laziness, selfishness and complacency.

And it’s the fault of every lazy, selfish, complacent adult who does not

a.) learn what they don’t know about the lacks in both their
schooling and their children’s schooling and
b.) learn what really needs to be done to remedy the situation

…who are to blame for the crap schools that pass for public sducation in these Unite States and for the fact that dumbass educrats, politicians, professors of education, pubschool administrators and their ilk are lobotomizing yet another generation of Americans.

Fine. Let the feddle gummint, schools of education, and all the educationist apparatus ruin another generation of American minds. After all, it’s for the children, ya know, and who’d really want them to have to grow up to be citizens who can think well and have a knowledge base broad enough to be able to vote intelligently, become productive workers and generally grow up to have at least a little common sense?

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As i said, this is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. If you want to host your own linkfests, check out

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.