We read the following by David Lawrence Jr. in the Miami Herald of December 25: “We’ll never make it work for children unless we start much earlier. Based on the latest FCAT 57,701 children, that’s 30 percent of Florida’s fourth grade public school students, cannot even meet minimum reading proficiency standards. As the school years [...]
Archive for December 2008
Readers of us all
December 31, 2008Plus il lisait…
December 31, 2008« Plus il lisait, plus Thomas s’effarait de s’apercevoir qu’il n’avait fait qu’effleurer le sujet jusqu’à présent. Alors quadruplait sa vitesse de lecture, accumulait les articles les plus passionnants dans ses tiroirs, dans des mallettes soigneusement étiquetées, sous son lit ; et quand ses yeux accrochaient un titre extraordinaire, il interrompait ses découpes, lisant en [...]
Israel’s response to Hamas
December 30, 2008I read the following in today’s Huffington Post, by Lorelei Kelly: “Killing lots of people on the other side is not only ineffective, it is counterproductive. It hurts your cause. It gets more of your own people killed in the long run. Like Israel — whose overwhelmingly violent response to Hamas rocket attacks seems to [...]
to help create wise citizens of a free community
December 28, 2008“Let me return to one of Dewey’s central themes, that the ultimate aim of production is not production of goods but the production of free human beings associated with one another on terms of equality. That includes, of course, education, which was a prime concern of his. The goal of education, to shift over to [...]
Factory Girls in China
December 27, 2008“I think Americans — and many urban Chinese, too — tend to see the factory workers as passive victims, motivated by poverty and desperation. Spending time with these young women taught me the opposite: They are resourceful and ambitious, full of plans to improve their lot and change their fates, willing to challenge their bosses [...]
Charles Murray and the teaching of virtue
December 26, 2008Charles Murray, in a series of op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal of last September, makes it clear that America is run by an elite, perhaps 10% or so of the population, and that for the most part the members of this elite, politicians, university professors, financial wizards, lawyers, doctors, scientists et al., have [...]
Freedom and Equality
December 24, 2008In a column, from May of 2007, George Will makes the not unreasonable observation that conservatives and liberals are on opposite sides of the tension that exists between freedom and equality, in particular equality of opportunity. The implication being that by promoting freedom, and freedoms, equalities of opportunities will inevitably be diminished. For when people [...]
Oportunidades
December 21, 2008If Heather Mac Donald is correct about government not being able to create personal responsibility and drive in individuals what can government do to 1) overcome poverty, and 2) overcome illiteracy? Can anyone, can any one program, help individuals without personal responsibility and drive to acquire them? Oportunidades is saying that cash payments will make [...]
‘unpredictability… a reason for hope’
December 20, 2008“Historically, Russia has often demonstrated an ability to take unexpected turns, whether for good or ill. Few people foresaw the collapse of the Soviet empire. Russia today has a glass-like quality to it: rigid and fragile at the same time, and liable to develop cracks in unforeseen places. The danger lies in its unpredictability. Yet [...]
Conor Cruise O’Brien Is Dead at 91
December 19, 2008“I think the intellectual in relation to politics is something like the Greek chorus, he’s outside the action, but he tells you quite a bit about it.” (Conor Cruise O’Brien, he told an interviewer in 2000.)
