New Year's resolutions

     If I resolve not to make any New Year's resolutions, have I failed from the start, or succeeded ?

a day without shopping

     Try choosing one day of the week to "not shop". It may be good for your finances. It may slow down or correct any bad shopping habits you may be developing, on the internet or elsewhere. And it may improve your resourcefulness--you will learn to get along or make do without running back out to the store every time you want something. Your ancestors survived the weekly closing of the shops, and so can you.

edubabble

     The phrase "teaching to test" is repeated as if it were a bad thing to test students on what has been taught. Wrong. It would be a bad thing to test students on what has not been taught--for instance, to spend weeks talking about what everyone did on vacation, and then test students on material that should have been covered during the vacation discussions.
     As for teaching just to improve scores on standardized tests ( achievement tests ), this is probably not possible. The teacher might drill students all day in vocabulary and basic math skills, and that might, or should, improve standardized test scores. But since the teacher doesn't know what the questions on the standardized test are going to be, this could not really be "teaching to test". Drilling in vocabulary and math would be a vast improvement, anyway, on drilling in "imagination and creativity"--which are not covered on standardized tests.
    The emphasis a teacher places on "imagination and creativity" may be meant to hide the teacher's own lack of basic skills--especially when "imagination and creativity" seem to be taking the place of education.

has anyone read "The Autobigraphy of Benvenuto Cellini"?

     Many people are familiar with The Autobigraphy of Benvenuto Cellini--it is republished every time there is a new set of the classics of western literature. My parents had a copy of it, but I didn't read it. I read some of the other "classics", but not that one. As a young woman, I bought a copy of it--but I didn't read it. I eventually gave it away. When my daughter, now grown, was in school, I bought a copy of it again, in case she wanted to read it--she didn't. I have recently come into possession of yet another copy,  but I haven't read it--yet.
    Considering how often the book has been published, it is surely very little read, despite the good intentions of those who mean to read it--some day. We might form an un-book club, and perhaps even read the thing one day. Or we might save The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini to challenge those who claim the ability to read through osmosis, psychic power, or other forms of mystic divination. If no one has read it, no one could give them the answers--through the ectoplasm, or with cell phone vibrations, or the like.

generic holiday greetings

     Generic holiday greetings aren't new. Many cards simply said "Happy Holidays" years ago. Everyone who gets days off with pay gets a day off with pay. Anyone who works gets extra pay. That will have to do for a generic, all-purpose, garden variety holiday. May yours be merry.

a TV childhood

   TV is so violent and gory these days. When I was a child, we watched more wholesome fare. There was a western nearly every night, with cowboys out in the fresh air ( this was before the movies felt a need to impress upon us with everything but smell-o-rama that cowboys didn't bathe regularly--the "bad guys" just needed a shave ). The cowboys came to town and visited the saloon, where the good guys were always polite to the dance-hall girls, and never, ever cheated at poker. The good guys were always good shots, and won the weekly gun fight every time.
     

my grand theory of history and some other things

Stuff doesn't happen--people do stuff. 

imagine

       "Imagine a world where there isn't any work" may be the longest-playing commercial for crime. I can't imagine a world where there isn't any work--and neither can anyone else, because such a world cannot exist. We all eat the food others worked to grow, process, transport, sell, and perhaps prepare. We wear the clothing others worked to make. We drive cars others worked to manufacture. We drive them on roads others worked to pave. We live in houses others worked to build, lit by electricity others worked to produce. Other people work to bring our mail and take away our trash. There can't be a world without any work. We live in a world made of work--no one can live in a pipe dream. The only place where no one works is jail.
     If you'd like to imagine an earthly paradise, why not imagine a world where everyone works?

in the name of freedom

     Too many young people--one would be too many--have a very strange concept of freedom--particularly freedom of expression, but the attitude covers more than one kind of "freedom". For example, some of these young people have learned that it is unacceptable to use government property for a religious display. So far, so good. But some have decided that this means that all religious displays are "bad", and that no one may put one on the front lawn. This is a new, and growing concept of "freedom" that we all need to notice when we see it. The new intolerance is clothed in robes of righteousness.

what to say to holiday visions---

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato".

scriptural authority

     People who cite scripture at others--meaning that it applies to the victim of this verbal barrage, but not to the speaker--can be maddening. There are worse things, however--people who cite pop songs, giving them the same scriptural authority. I originally thought they were just being clever--but I have since learned that they believe that many pop song lyrics are from the Bible. You know, "imagine there's no heaven"-- "only love can break a heart"-- "I can't give you anything but love.." -- and many more. This, too, is actually being taught to students at a school, somewhere--perhaps a religious school, or a set of schools. Any pop song that actually takes its lyrics from the Bible ( remember Turn, Turn, Turn? ) only seems to produce consternation.

too much of a good thing

     It's encouraging to know that someone is out there teaching people not to be superstitious--but some of their students take it too far. No one can mention: the moon; King Tut; Henry VIII; a rainbow; farms; magnets; lead,  and perhaps dozens of other things or ideas--without being consigned to the hopelessly superstitious file. No argument, no discussion, no intake of information--just a complete mental block protecting the erstwhile students from the superstitions to which school might expose them. Nothing penetrates this block. King Tut is something fortune tellers dreamed up. There is no such thing as a rainbow--it's just  a myth from the Bible, or something little children like to paint. Food doesn't come from farms--that's ignorant and old-fashioned. Lead protects Superman from kryptonite--so it must be pretend. Only an idiot would believe that pencils have lead in them. These students know that "lodestone" means magnet, so there is probably no such thing, since it is connected to medieval philosophy on some level--in their minds. A demonstration using magnets causes silent consternation, and is then dismissed as a "trick".
     Movies don't teach these students anything--someone got there first, and taught them that everything in the movies is pretend. Every time Hollywood makes a new historical epic, these students think even less of history and history teachers. If a teacher tries to tell them that a historical movie depicts real persons or events, the same blank wall goes up.  If anyone has ever succeeded in moving the minds of these students, I would like to hear about it. I would have students move in the other direction, by refusing to impute superstition to any idea without thinking about it rationally first. We have all been told that ancient and medieval people believed in sea monsters, for instance, and are agreed that this was hopelessly superstitious of them--unless--they were actually talking about whales--in which case we have only ourselves to reproach.

flim flam

     One type of fraud made easier by modern technology is the good old-fashioned flim flam. You have probably noticed that a modern cash register quickly shows the amount of change to be given. Older cash registers displayed only the amount of sale, and the cashier made the change while looking at that amount. The flim flam artist counts on being able to confuse the clerk or cashier as to which is the amount of the sale or purchase, and which is the correct amount of change. If a flim flam artist spends thirteen or fourteen dollars, for instance, the amount of change should be five or six dollars and change. The flim flam artist wants the clerk to give him or her the amount of purchase instead--thirteen or fourteen dollars and change--so the flim flammer makes a profit, including what he or she has bought, of about eight to ten dollars--every time, in all kinds of stores, all over the country. That's a lot of money.

it took me forty years

     More than forty years ago I first tried to explain to a fellow-student that America had never been at war with Russia. I patiently explained that Russia, or the USSR, was our ally in both WWI and WWII.  My adversary remained unconvinced. I further explained that the United States had fought two wars with England, but none with Russia. Still nothing.
     Forty years later, while arguing on the same subject, the opponent finally gave up the source of her misunderstanding --she had decided, on the strength of two words, that America had fought a war with Russia, and that it was called the Cold War.
    If you're reading this and wondering how it could happen that I didn't know about the Cold War, I did--but it wasn't a war. Teacher told you to pay attention, didn't she? The "Cold War" is the name given to the years after WWII, during which the United States refused to speak to the Russians--or the Chinese. It was a description of diplomacy, or the lack of it--not the name of a war.
     There are probably other misunderstandings that I don't understand. I hope they don't take forty years to solve.

school lotteries

     Instead of having an annual lottery to decide which public school students get to attend a charter school and which will have to remain in a troubled public school , why not just give each child a lottery ticket, and the winner, if any, can attend private school?

fraud that doesn't make the front page

     When someone steals millions of dollars, it makes headlines all over the country. I think most fraud, if you add it up, is done by hundreds of thousands of people who regularly steal hundreds or thousands of dollars. Take something as simple as employee paychecks, for example. Tens of millions of paychecks, every week of the year, every year. What if some of those paychecks are actually in the name of "dummy" or "ghost" employees? Employees who don't really exist. This could be done using the identity of anyone who doesn't actually work for the corporation involved in the fraud. Perhaps people are being paid every week without ever having been employed by the firm signing the paycheck.

the purpose of bail

     This is your social studies teacher speaking. Unreasonable ( excessive ) bail is unconstitutional, and subverts the entire system of awaiting trial while released on bail. The purpose of requiring bail is to assure the appearance of the accused at his or her trial. There is no other reason to set any amount of bail. If protecting the public from a potentially dangerous criminal is the excuse for multi-million dollar bail, it's worse than ridiculous. A person presumed to be dangerous can be denied bail, and should be. Even though innocent until proved guilty, he or she may await trial behind bars. That is the law, and the reason behind the law. Setting bail at millions of dollars does not alter it. If the voting public decides that the law is unjust, they can petition their representatives to change the law.

good fences make good neighbors

    "Good fences make good neighbors", or so the saying goes. Some would have all fences and boundaries removed, now, in the interests of friendship and "sharing". These may be the same people who occasioned the building of the fences to begin with. People may have erected "fences" to remind the thoughtless of limits they failed to recognize. 
    Popular wisdom now has it that fences cause conflicts--instead of conflicts causing fences. Remember the story of the first murder among humankind, from the Book of Genesis? Cain slew his brother Abel because Abel's cattle had been eating his grain. This started a conflict that ended in murder. A fence would have been a better solution.

print or digital?

     Is it surprising that there are still paper clipping services? I'm not sure. Not everything that is published is online--some of it is still printed on paper only. Many online publications are not printed on paper at all, and never were. Some publications are both online and in print ( paper ). If you really wanted to follow a news story or a set of stories, you would need to subscribe to a paper clipping service and an online clipping service, if you wanted to make sure that you had the news from all of the relevant publications. The other option would be checking social media, as people who read the paper-only publications might mention them on social media sites. In the opposite direction, print media often report on what is available online. Confused?  It seems like a hall of mirrors sometimes, each reflecting the other reflection.

inside jobs

     Fraud--I believe we are all surrounded by so much of it that we can't detect it any more. To notice all of the fraud around us would be like noticing the air--we can see the effects of the wind, but not the air itself. Every time I read about a lawsuit or court case I suspect fraud. I suspect that most fraud is an "inside job"-- that there is a willing participant employed by the corporation being sued. Someone who works for the defendant  gets part of the money when someone wins a fraudulent lawsuit, in plain terms. The accidents are real--and real people are injured--but most of the people who sue just have someone else's medical records, and a willing accomplice "inside"--one who can decide to pay a claim, and how much to pay.
     These aren't "victimless" crimes. Fraudulent lawsuits make everything more expensive, particularly insurance.

mumbo jumbo

     At the somewhat advanced age of 54, I am encountering people so ignorant that they imagine mumbo-jumbo will work on me. Mumbo-jumbo is a useful expression. It means using a long word, after which other people are supposed to back away bowing, or do a great salaam on their knees as an act of worship in front of such other-worldly erudition. Well, antidisestablishmentarianism* to you. When I was about 10 years old, I was told that "antidisestablishmentarianism" is the longest word in the English language. If you mean to use mumbo-jumbo on me, you are 40-some years too late.  Like all good con artists, those who would practice mumbo-jumbo should get to know the "mark" before starting on the con. Maybe I'm brighter than I look. Or mumbo-jumbo practitioners have a poor grasp of reality. Lots of people know long words. Some of us are not ignorant enough to imagine that they can be used to work magic spells.

* Yes, I do know what this means, and if you ask, I'll gladly explain it to you.