Searching the shelves for kittens and rainbows this morning, I was only able to find one frisky little kitten left, this one carrying the news that “effective altruist’ crypto-con billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was out $12 million and didn’t have a congressional candidate to show for the money.
First things first. Idaho: “the state where you can’t tell the Mormons from the Nazis.” Had me rolling on the floor! Mencken would be jealous. So true.
Regarding the press (reporters, print editors, and broadcast producers), since I am anonymous here I can say that you are too kind to call them over educated. My experience (which may be influenced by my elitist post-grad degree) is that they are not the brightest of the bunch. Most seem to graduate from the middle ranks of lesser state colleges. (Embarrassed at my own snobbery.) But really they don’t think too deeply. They are, of course, under increasingly tight deadlines in the social media environment, and staff has been cut everywhere, and they are covering more than one beat. It’s not easy to keep focus. I guess the biggest influence might be that they think of themselves as part of the upper middle class, at least culturally, and unlike the beat reporters of the mid 20th century, they do not feel a kinship with the more economically modest members of society. Thus, news about rapidly rebuilding the economy after a sharp recession, growing employment numbers, and attempts to buttress the incomes of poor folk with tax credits, just don’t fascinate them. As for why they don’t sing Biden’s praises for helping to whip Putin’s ass without risking American blood, I haven’t a clue. I guess they are conditioned to look for failure and if they don’t see it, they move on.
Final thought: Fetterman is onto something. It’s the posturing that attracts a great many voters. Trump, Schwarzenegger (second best Republican governor in California, save Jerry Brown 🤦🏻♂️), Jesse Ventura, etc. Maybe we need Democratic candidates who say we need child tax credits, and infrastructure spending, while snarling and cursing.
I agree with you about California governors. I only ever voted for Jer' once, in 1974, when I didn't know what a @@#$#@#@!!! he was. As to Ahhhnuld, he was the smartest guy I ever met in Hollywood.
That’s because people putting shit in place at schools miss the whole point of reform. Predominantly the thinking is reform will change kids… especially the ones the adults are having a hard time reaching. Whereas reform’s aim is supposed to be the learning and teaching culture of a school to increase relevancy.
I know this is unpopular, but rote memorization gets an undeservedly bad rap. knowing stuff by rote is vastly superior to knowing nothing, and my many years working in schools has given me the distinct impression that, in many cases, THOSE are the choices. of course, you're right about the humanities getting fucked over and the whole critical thinking thing is very real, but my point is that (as E.D. Hirsch, who is NOT remotely a right-wing guy, as many accuse him of being, has been telling us--and I LOVE the Core Knowledge curriculum he pioneered) you have to know a little something BEFORE you can think critically about ANYTHING. sorry to sound picky, and I'm certain we're in agreement. but I always LIKED memorizing stuff...I don't think you can deal properly with, say, a lyric poem until you've memorized it and possess it SPACIALLY.
Rote memorization does form the base of knowledge - the "archives" one consults when *thinking critically* about a topic. But rote memorization without being used in critical thinking, without critical thinking being taught, is virtually the same as no education. Because it doesn't involve *thinking*.
That’s where rubber hits the road. Rote learning, as Dave says, is crucial and can be taught in a way that leads seamlessly to critical thinking skills. Rote is the who, what, when…a schema of info. Critical thinking is the how and why.
I spent a lot of hours getting teachers up to speed on this.
yes, exactly.and as to the whole "critical thinking" thing: I noticed that as soon as any school system starts to push something (anything), you can be sure that it's at least mostly because people have been bitching and moaning about it for ten years or so. I was still working when "critical thinking" (which, at least in NYC, seems to have no fixed meaning) became a catch phrase for everything that wasn't being taught, meaning that a lot of people had been bemoaning its absence for a long time. the thing is, of course, that the kind of people who were MY teachers were a very different bunch of people from most of the people who are entering the field now. in those days, two teachers who lived together could manage a pretty decent life in NYC. now, to say "not so much" should come with a laugh track. my point being that, while there are still some really excellent teachers still out there, for the most part, the field doesn't tend to attract the brilliant people who used to enter the field. I remember encountering a lot of, say, Teach for America kids working in schools, but most of THOSE do their two years and go back to graduate school for something else. the ones who stay, many of whom are great, don't stay in the classroom very long, but become administrators as quickly as they can. so, cutting to the proverbial chase, I think that there is almost certainly a dearth of critical thinkers in the teaching pool itself. then, on top of THAT situation, you have all the new "technologies." when I hear the words "new technologies," I (echoing, god help me, Goebbels) I reach for my revolver...that shit gets really crazy. there was one "technology" in which the size and type of rug required for the "reading room" was mandated. yes...the size and type of RUG was MANDATED. and the response to this of ANY person who thought critically about this was a completely non-critical "just do it." I don't think it worked. the rug thing, I mean.
In 12 years of public education, I can remember three teachers - two for being of some use to me, and one for being particularly "in the way." Most of them were intellectual roadblocks of one sort or another. When I went to Colorado State College ("the nation's number two teacher training school in America!") I finally took an Educational Psychology class that was rote memorization of the professor's book and fill-in-the-blanks tests, With that and having seen what they made teachers out of and now how they did it (I did some work in the campus PR office where I saw a survey that four 80% of the student body, the school wasn't in their top three choices to go to - hey, you can always be a teacher if you're too stupid to do anything else), I now understood why I had spent most of those 12 wasted years counting the days till I could get the hell out. HS graduation is still the only graduation ceremony I ever attended, because it was mandatory or you wouldn't get your graduation certificate.
two things: it's funny that you worked in your school's PR office...my father ran the CCNY PR office for 32 years (all my friends worked in that office at one point or other, and loved it), until the "professional featherbedders" (as we both called them) got him disgusted enough to leave. it had been a huge school with a "brain trust" of about six or seven people, tops. in 1970, the top-heavy administration thing took over and my dad left in '77. the other thing, which sounds like a joke, but isn't, is my own HS graduation story. we graduated in Forest Park, much too early in the morning and, as soon as it was over, I was carrying my diploma in its small manila envelope, spotted a girl I knew, and we ran together for a hug. I dropped the diploma and (IMMEDIATELY) a parks dept. guy with one of those long sticks with a nail (for spearing errant pieces of paper) stuck his nail through my diploma. both of us collapsed with laughter. the story of my trying--unsuccessfully, of course...it was 1966--to parlay the thing into a sexual opportunity is one I can easily leave out....
Hooray!!! Madison Cawthorn lost!!! Awesome!!! That was excellent news; he is just little twerp. The person who won is more similar to an establishment Republican, but he was supported by the loathsome Thom Tillis, who beat Cal Cunningham, who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Cunningham was running as a squeaky clean family guy. People thought he was a liar because he was!
It does piss me off to see Biden’s poll numbers so low. I don’t know how much people thought he could do with only a 50/50 Senate. There were and still are so many problems to tackle. I have given up cable news almost entirely. I watch highlights of shows I like. I can’t stand to watch MSM news. Besides I just end up yelling at the tv.
This is the best $7/mo I spend reading. Thank you for everything expressed in today’s TAFM. EVERYTHING. I’ve been following Fetterman since whenever, and my heart sank when I heard about the stroke and hospitalization, etc. But, his victory made my heart soar. I want to see him in the Senate. He reminds me of the politicians in Spielberg’s Lincoln. (If you have time to answer this…do you subscribe to The Cook Report? Or follow Dave Wasserman elsewhere? While I have turned away from pundits, I am really interested in the people who crunch the numbers, so DW is sort of up there, but TCR is too costly for my interest.) If I find out that any of my Republican relatives voted for that terrifying gubernatorial candidate in PA, I’m through with them. ❤️🤍💙
I, too, have been following Fetterman since whenever, and donating to his campaign. I am so happy to see he won; more importantly, that he is on the mend to continue what he set out to do. I read early on that he has made it a point to personally visit virtually all corners of PA. I can't wait to see what "dress code" he will follow as he wanders around the halls of Congress!
TC, are you the person who said the Dems’ message should be, “ The Republicans will raise your taxes and take away your Medicare, your Social Security, and your vote. That’s in their plan.”?
Back in the cold war days, when Communists were the supposed anti-Christ, I was far less afraid of them than the "Southern Baptists" into which I lumped all the far right religious groups for lack of better words. If any ideology was going to hang my grandchildren on meat hooks and watch them take three days to die it was those whom we now call evangelicals. Fifty years later, it seems I may have been right. TC, you are just full of good news today.
Tom - just a note, and you may already have done this - read today's letter from Heather Cox Richardson, especially the last subject - we are at the gates.....and the barbarians are here.
If the SC gets the chance to disarm the administrative state with the (non-existent) non-delegation "clause" that isn't in the Constitution, but they are making up as they go along, we are well and truly fucked. The country comes apart, with the intelligent states getting into the lifeboats and seceding before the idiots run the ship of state onto the rocks.
Yes, I see the blue and maybe most of the purple states realizing the country will become ungovernable, and either legally (or illegally) seceding, or simply declaring their financial independence and refusing to send any tax money to Washington. It would not take long for the red states to run out of money..... As you know, the 14% of US counties that Hillary won in 2016 produced 65% of the US GDP in 2015..... The really sad thing is, the whole world is going through a massive realignment, and the US, with Canada and Mexico, is the country best prepared to weather the coming "fluid situation" with the least disruption and damage. But if the Republicans are running the show here, we will not be able to survive that, and since we are projected by some analysts to be the leaders in fighting climate change, the Republicans do not have the vision or the belief system to make that happen in time..... So, 2022 and 2024 are for ALL the marbles, it turns out. There are already places in the world that very soon will not be survivable for human habitation - and that can only get worse, much worse. Only the center and left have what is needed for us to prosper in the future. Actually, we are so close.....
I've said it many times before, I'll probably say it more times than that again: "May you live in *interesting* times" may not be an "ancient Chinese curse," but it is indeed a curse.
Ummmm. I’ll take that frisky kitten on the shelf. Oh wait…. I see some others sort of pressed to back of shelf and all squished. But looks like, oh good, they are grooming themselves back to friskiness and moving to front of shelf! Just in time!
another great one, Tom, and thanks for it. a really funny thing: some weeks ago, when Cawthorn's craziness was becoming manifest, I posted on FB that I could see myself pushing him down a staircase and watching him "bounce like Mildred Dunnock in "Kiss of Death." " old movies are very possibly the best source of metaphors. or WERE, for people of a certain age. how many millennials (or whatever you call people who weren't brought up on endless old Hollywood fare) would get the reference? I spend a LOT of time introducing the young folks I encounter to all of those metaphor-sources I have access to.
as to your analysis of the primaries... I think you're probably dead-on, and it gives me a sickening feeling; the same sickening feeling most of us have, I'm afraid. I told a friend a few months ago that 1)the Democrats obviously have a "messaging problem" and 2) it is horrifying that we need to be concerned with "messaging," but the second concern speaks directly to your Churchill quote. the same friend told me about his attending a meeting of "Community Land Trust" people and walking away with the realization that the people in the meeting were careful to use the right words, but were finally pretty much the same as a meeting of private real estate developers. and I like Fetterman a LOT, not least because his two dogs feature prominently in his bio and have their own Twitter accounts. for me, the Twitter account thing is a bridge too far, but then again, I'm not a public figure, so my dogs have very little to tweet about.
Another salient feature of Doug Mastriano’s campaign: at his rallies there is a guy all decked out in circa-1776, self-styled patriot garb, topped by a tri-corner hat, that blocks the press from getting in. They have pictures of the reporters they intend to block pasted up at the reception desk.
This is so infuriating, Jeff. I don't understand how the voting public can countenance blocking the press. Didn't DeSantis do the same thing not too long ago?
Tom, I know this is a bit late for this thread, but this you've gotta see.....people have NO idea what is coming down the pike if TFG ever gets back into the White House - which he could, because the MSM is not doing the job they are tasked with, and too many voters are low-information and often vote without considering the consequences (cf. 2016)..... Read this article from Newsweek - https://www.newsweek.com/dark-maga-donald-trump-supporters-attempt-rebrand-2024-1697855
First things first. Idaho: “the state where you can’t tell the Mormons from the Nazis.” Had me rolling on the floor! Mencken would be jealous. So true.
Regarding the press (reporters, print editors, and broadcast producers), since I am anonymous here I can say that you are too kind to call them over educated. My experience (which may be influenced by my elitist post-grad degree) is that they are not the brightest of the bunch. Most seem to graduate from the middle ranks of lesser state colleges. (Embarrassed at my own snobbery.) But really they don’t think too deeply. They are, of course, under increasingly tight deadlines in the social media environment, and staff has been cut everywhere, and they are covering more than one beat. It’s not easy to keep focus. I guess the biggest influence might be that they think of themselves as part of the upper middle class, at least culturally, and unlike the beat reporters of the mid 20th century, they do not feel a kinship with the more economically modest members of society. Thus, news about rapidly rebuilding the economy after a sharp recession, growing employment numbers, and attempts to buttress the incomes of poor folk with tax credits, just don’t fascinate them. As for why they don’t sing Biden’s praises for helping to whip Putin’s ass without risking American blood, I haven’t a clue. I guess they are conditioned to look for failure and if they don’t see it, they move on.
Final thought: Fetterman is onto something. It’s the posturing that attracts a great many voters. Trump, Schwarzenegger (second best Republican governor in California, save Jerry Brown 🤦🏻♂️), Jesse Ventura, etc. Maybe we need Democratic candidates who say we need child tax credits, and infrastructure spending, while snarling and cursing.
I agree with you about California governors. I only ever voted for Jer' once, in 1974, when I didn't know what a @@#$#@#@!!! he was. As to Ahhhnuld, he was the smartest guy I ever met in Hollywood.
1) We have a generation educated on a STEM focus that seems to prioritize rote memorization, rather than teaching critical thinking.
2) "El Blobbo Del Mar A Lardo"....I couldn't stop laughing, shame on me!
Point 1 is the biggest crime of the latest education "reform." I cannot remember one education reform I experienced that didn't make things worse.
That’s because people putting shit in place at schools miss the whole point of reform. Predominantly the thinking is reform will change kids… especially the ones the adults are having a hard time reaching. Whereas reform’s aim is supposed to be the learning and teaching culture of a school to increase relevancy.
I know this is unpopular, but rote memorization gets an undeservedly bad rap. knowing stuff by rote is vastly superior to knowing nothing, and my many years working in schools has given me the distinct impression that, in many cases, THOSE are the choices. of course, you're right about the humanities getting fucked over and the whole critical thinking thing is very real, but my point is that (as E.D. Hirsch, who is NOT remotely a right-wing guy, as many accuse him of being, has been telling us--and I LOVE the Core Knowledge curriculum he pioneered) you have to know a little something BEFORE you can think critically about ANYTHING. sorry to sound picky, and I'm certain we're in agreement. but I always LIKED memorizing stuff...I don't think you can deal properly with, say, a lyric poem until you've memorized it and possess it SPACIALLY.
Rote memorization does form the base of knowledge - the "archives" one consults when *thinking critically* about a topic. But rote memorization without being used in critical thinking, without critical thinking being taught, is virtually the same as no education. Because it doesn't involve *thinking*.
That’s where rubber hits the road. Rote learning, as Dave says, is crucial and can be taught in a way that leads seamlessly to critical thinking skills. Rote is the who, what, when…a schema of info. Critical thinking is the how and why.
I spent a lot of hours getting teachers up to speed on this.
yes, exactly.and as to the whole "critical thinking" thing: I noticed that as soon as any school system starts to push something (anything), you can be sure that it's at least mostly because people have been bitching and moaning about it for ten years or so. I was still working when "critical thinking" (which, at least in NYC, seems to have no fixed meaning) became a catch phrase for everything that wasn't being taught, meaning that a lot of people had been bemoaning its absence for a long time. the thing is, of course, that the kind of people who were MY teachers were a very different bunch of people from most of the people who are entering the field now. in those days, two teachers who lived together could manage a pretty decent life in NYC. now, to say "not so much" should come with a laugh track. my point being that, while there are still some really excellent teachers still out there, for the most part, the field doesn't tend to attract the brilliant people who used to enter the field. I remember encountering a lot of, say, Teach for America kids working in schools, but most of THOSE do their two years and go back to graduate school for something else. the ones who stay, many of whom are great, don't stay in the classroom very long, but become administrators as quickly as they can. so, cutting to the proverbial chase, I think that there is almost certainly a dearth of critical thinkers in the teaching pool itself. then, on top of THAT situation, you have all the new "technologies." when I hear the words "new technologies," I (echoing, god help me, Goebbels) I reach for my revolver...that shit gets really crazy. there was one "technology" in which the size and type of rug required for the "reading room" was mandated. yes...the size and type of RUG was MANDATED. and the response to this of ANY person who thought critically about this was a completely non-critical "just do it." I don't think it worked. the rug thing, I mean.
In 12 years of public education, I can remember three teachers - two for being of some use to me, and one for being particularly "in the way." Most of them were intellectual roadblocks of one sort or another. When I went to Colorado State College ("the nation's number two teacher training school in America!") I finally took an Educational Psychology class that was rote memorization of the professor's book and fill-in-the-blanks tests, With that and having seen what they made teachers out of and now how they did it (I did some work in the campus PR office where I saw a survey that four 80% of the student body, the school wasn't in their top three choices to go to - hey, you can always be a teacher if you're too stupid to do anything else), I now understood why I had spent most of those 12 wasted years counting the days till I could get the hell out. HS graduation is still the only graduation ceremony I ever attended, because it was mandatory or you wouldn't get your graduation certificate.
two things: it's funny that you worked in your school's PR office...my father ran the CCNY PR office for 32 years (all my friends worked in that office at one point or other, and loved it), until the "professional featherbedders" (as we both called them) got him disgusted enough to leave. it had been a huge school with a "brain trust" of about six or seven people, tops. in 1970, the top-heavy administration thing took over and my dad left in '77. the other thing, which sounds like a joke, but isn't, is my own HS graduation story. we graduated in Forest Park, much too early in the morning and, as soon as it was over, I was carrying my diploma in its small manila envelope, spotted a girl I knew, and we ran together for a hug. I dropped the diploma and (IMMEDIATELY) a parks dept. guy with one of those long sticks with a nail (for spearing errant pieces of paper) stuck his nail through my diploma. both of us collapsed with laughter. the story of my trying--unsuccessfully, of course...it was 1966--to parlay the thing into a sexual opportunity is one I can easily leave out....
Hooray!!! Madison Cawthorn lost!!! Awesome!!! That was excellent news; he is just little twerp. The person who won is more similar to an establishment Republican, but he was supported by the loathsome Thom Tillis, who beat Cal Cunningham, who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Cunningham was running as a squeaky clean family guy. People thought he was a liar because he was!
It does piss me off to see Biden’s poll numbers so low. I don’t know how much people thought he could do with only a 50/50 Senate. There were and still are so many problems to tackle. I have given up cable news almost entirely. I watch highlights of shows I like. I can’t stand to watch MSM news. Besides I just end up yelling at the tv.
This is the best $7/mo I spend reading. Thank you for everything expressed in today’s TAFM. EVERYTHING. I’ve been following Fetterman since whenever, and my heart sank when I heard about the stroke and hospitalization, etc. But, his victory made my heart soar. I want to see him in the Senate. He reminds me of the politicians in Spielberg’s Lincoln. (If you have time to answer this…do you subscribe to The Cook Report? Or follow Dave Wasserman elsewhere? While I have turned away from pundits, I am really interested in the people who crunch the numbers, so DW is sort of up there, but TCR is too costly for my interest.) If I find out that any of my Republican relatives voted for that terrifying gubernatorial candidate in PA, I’m through with them. ❤️🤍💙
Watch out - family: the gift that keeps on *living*! :-)
I, too, have been following Fetterman since whenever, and donating to his campaign. I am so happy to see he won; more importantly, that he is on the mend to continue what he set out to do. I read early on that he has made it a point to personally visit virtually all corners of PA. I can't wait to see what "dress code" he will follow as he wanders around the halls of Congress!
Yes, I, too, would love to know how to access Dave Wasserman's writing for less than $350/year.
So would I. :-)
TC, are you the person who said the Dems’ message should be, “ The Republicans will raise your taxes and take away your Medicare, your Social Security, and your vote. That’s in their plan.”?
Well it certainly is their plan. I must have said that at some point.
Back in the cold war days, when Communists were the supposed anti-Christ, I was far less afraid of them than the "Southern Baptists" into which I lumped all the far right religious groups for lack of better words. If any ideology was going to hang my grandchildren on meat hooks and watch them take three days to die it was those whom we now call evangelicals. Fifty years later, it seems I may have been right. TC, you are just full of good news today.
Tom - just a note, and you may already have done this - read today's letter from Heather Cox Richardson, especially the last subject - we are at the gates.....and the barbarians are here.
If the SC gets the chance to disarm the administrative state with the (non-existent) non-delegation "clause" that isn't in the Constitution, but they are making up as they go along, we are well and truly fucked. The country comes apart, with the intelligent states getting into the lifeboats and seceding before the idiots run the ship of state onto the rocks.
Yes, I see the blue and maybe most of the purple states realizing the country will become ungovernable, and either legally (or illegally) seceding, or simply declaring their financial independence and refusing to send any tax money to Washington. It would not take long for the red states to run out of money..... As you know, the 14% of US counties that Hillary won in 2016 produced 65% of the US GDP in 2015..... The really sad thing is, the whole world is going through a massive realignment, and the US, with Canada and Mexico, is the country best prepared to weather the coming "fluid situation" with the least disruption and damage. But if the Republicans are running the show here, we will not be able to survive that, and since we are projected by some analysts to be the leaders in fighting climate change, the Republicans do not have the vision or the belief system to make that happen in time..... So, 2022 and 2024 are for ALL the marbles, it turns out. There are already places in the world that very soon will not be survivable for human habitation - and that can only get worse, much worse. Only the center and left have what is needed for us to prosper in the future. Actually, we are so close.....
I've said it many times before, I'll probably say it more times than that again: "May you live in *interesting* times" may not be an "ancient Chinese curse," but it is indeed a curse.
True dat.....
Ummmm. I’ll take that frisky kitten on the shelf. Oh wait…. I see some others sort of pressed to back of shelf and all squished. But looks like, oh good, they are grooming themselves back to friskiness and moving to front of shelf! Just in time!
another great one, Tom, and thanks for it. a really funny thing: some weeks ago, when Cawthorn's craziness was becoming manifest, I posted on FB that I could see myself pushing him down a staircase and watching him "bounce like Mildred Dunnock in "Kiss of Death." " old movies are very possibly the best source of metaphors. or WERE, for people of a certain age. how many millennials (or whatever you call people who weren't brought up on endless old Hollywood fare) would get the reference? I spend a LOT of time introducing the young folks I encounter to all of those metaphor-sources I have access to.
as to your analysis of the primaries... I think you're probably dead-on, and it gives me a sickening feeling; the same sickening feeling most of us have, I'm afraid. I told a friend a few months ago that 1)the Democrats obviously have a "messaging problem" and 2) it is horrifying that we need to be concerned with "messaging," but the second concern speaks directly to your Churchill quote. the same friend told me about his attending a meeting of "Community Land Trust" people and walking away with the realization that the people in the meeting were careful to use the right words, but were finally pretty much the same as a meeting of private real estate developers. and I like Fetterman a LOT, not least because his two dogs feature prominently in his bio and have their own Twitter accounts. for me, the Twitter account thing is a bridge too far, but then again, I'm not a public figure, so my dogs have very little to tweet about.
My cats have told me I should breathe a sigh of relief they don't have Twitter accounts. They're right.
Hahahahahahahahaha.
Another salient feature of Doug Mastriano’s campaign: at his rallies there is a guy all decked out in circa-1776, self-styled patriot garb, topped by a tri-corner hat, that blocks the press from getting in. They have pictures of the reporters they intend to block pasted up at the reception desk.
Will Bunch wrote this about it: https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/republican-attacks-press-freedom-mastriano-20220515.html
This is so infuriating, Jeff. I don't understand how the voting public can countenance blocking the press. Didn't DeSantis do the same thing not too long ago?
Yes.
Tom, I know this is a bit late for this thread, but this you've gotta see.....people have NO idea what is coming down the pike if TFG ever gets back into the White House - which he could, because the MSM is not doing the job they are tasked with, and too many voters are low-information and often vote without considering the consequences (cf. 2016)..... Read this article from Newsweek - https://www.newsweek.com/dark-maga-donald-trump-supporters-attempt-rebrand-2024-1697855
Ray Bradbury was right - something wicked this way comes.....
Old Fumble Fingers strikes again. Fixed. It. :-)