What is the reaction when NPR tweets the “Declaration of Independence”?

You will have to read “NPR’s tweets expose a thin grasp of American history?”  See “NewsCut: MPR News Reflections and observations on the news”: http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2017/07/self-evident-truths-our-thin-grasp-of-history/2017-07-01.

It does make me proud to be an MPR member.

Politics as game show

Maybe our problem is that the "debates" are not real debates like Lincoln-Douglas but game shows. And Trump understands this, but serious politicians don't.

My comment to Frank Bruni's "Trump's Ideology of Applause".

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/opinion/sunday/donald-trumps-ideology-of-applause.html?comments&_r=0#permid=19756890

Quote of the day: Sex education

"There is a pawnish settlement in the south in which they do not teach their children anything of sex.  It is kept a great mystery.  The belief of this sect is that this ignorance will keep their children from harm.  As a result, they value virginity highly and it is virtually unknown among them."
- The True Game, Sheri S. Tepper

Pawns are those used by the big players in the Game.

I wonder if Tepper had some real-life places in mind when writing this.  Most of us are certainly pawns of many in Washington and on corporate boards.

Qur'an burning - Questions for Muslim protesters

Several burnings or other destruction of copies of the Qur'an have been reported recently.  Some, like the burning of the Qur'an at a Florida church were done in stupidity and malice.  Others were done thoughtlessly, sometimes ironically by those who would be very upset by a burning of the U.S. flag.

Whenever one of these thoughtless incidents occur, a story is sure to follow of a riot somewhere protesting these incidents.  What end do these protests accomplish?  They only reinforce the prejudices of those who destroyed Qu'rans.

To Muslim protesters:

Is your faith so weak that it can't take the insults of the ignorant?

How many Muslims are killed when you riot?  How much property owned by Muslims is destroyed?

Have you considered that your riots also reflect on those Muslims who are trying to lead peaceful lives among non-Muslims?  Many of these Muslims state that Islam is a religion of peace.  Are you undermining them when you protest in a non-peaceful way?

I assume every mosque has several copies of the Qur'an.

When a mosque is bombed by Muslims, often killing other Muslims, do you protest that bombing and the destruction of copies of the Qur'an?

There is enough stupidity, intolerance, and violence in this world.  Please don't add to it.

“...and you should forgive And overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And Allah is The Merciful Forgiving.”
— Qur’an (Surah 24, "The Light," v. 22)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule#Islam

See also "Muslims do speak out; anyone listening?"

A couple of interesting quotes

The first is from the panel, appointed by and funded by Toyota to look into its safety problems.  The Star Tribune, 2011-05-24, Business quoted the panel that Toyota noted its success in saving over $100 million by negotiating a limited recall of all-weather floor mats".  The Strib wrote this as "an example of what the independent panel called the automaker's view of regulation as an 'adversarial process' that considers blocked regulations to be 'wins.'"

Gosh, too bad more complainers of government overregulation aren't caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

The second is some words of wisdom in Sheri S. Tepper's "The Visitor", a post apocalypse science-fantasy: "You asked for wisdom?  Hear these words.  Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality."

The problem is what is reality: we are spending too much or we are not investing enough?

The End of Ignorance

I've long thought that all of us, myself included, don't learn all that we could as well as we could. Today I did have the importance of one learning tool reinforced - serendipity!

I was wandering around the web and decided to visit The Huffington Post, and I stumbled on a sidebar item, "Math is not hard: A Simple Method…" whose full title is "Math Is Not Hard: A Simple Method That is Changing The World", by Julia Moulden.

It is about John Mighton, a man who had his own struggles with learning. Mighton was a playwright who supplemented his income as a tutor. That led to his deciding to be a mathematician. But his struggles with the subject almost made him give up. Remembering some of his tutoring experiences, he broke things down into small increments and went on to get a Ph.D.

He started a not-for-profit organization to promote a different way of teaching math - http://jumpmath.org.

He has written two books whose title alone should lead us to rethink teaching and our own learning - "The End of Ignorance" and "The Myth of Ability".

If you read Julia Moulden's article, be sure to follow as many links as you can, including the one to Thomas Friedman's article, "The New Untouchables", New York Times, 2009-10-21. I was going to write a blog about Friedman's article but as usual didn't find a round tuit. Ah, that's the secret of learning, finding round tuits:)

Math Is Not Hard: A Simple Method That Is Changing The World

The following is my comment to Julia Moulden's column of the same title. The above picture was added by the Huffington Post when I checked that I wanted my comment posted on my blog.

I've long thought that most of us can learn more than we do. Years ago I heard a radio interview where the speaker had a boy tell him, "I'm dumb" and the man replied, "Who told you that." Most of us have had people tell us that they were never any good in math, foreign languages, music, or whatever. The true answer is that they didn't have enough interest to invest some time in the subject.

I have proven it with my own increased singing ability. I once was told that I was hopeless. After years of my taking voice lessons, that same person is delighted with my ability. No, nobody is going to pay me to sing, but I have been asked back to sing solos.

I wrote about some of this experience in "Men Can Sing", http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/men_can_sing_2005-02-03.html

If you are interested in a subject, start somewhere. Read about it, get lessons on it, just do something. And be willing to change and correct yourself.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Assumptions and presumptions about President Obama's speech to schoolchildren

I coulda tole ya so! If Obama plans to give a major speech, there will be thousands who "know" that he is going to promote some "evil ideology" in it. Now "everybody knows" he is going to promote "socialism" to "vulnerable" school children.

Never mind that he plans to encourage students in their education. Given the above, we certainly need many more educated citizens.

However, no matter how innocuous or how important a Presidential speech is, is it fair to presume that large numbers of schools are going to change their schedules, turn on their radios and TVs in every classroom at the same time and listen to a speech by the President of the United States.

Wouldn't it be far better to desseminate it on YouTube? If word gets out among kids that it is a great speech, it will be viral. There will probably be far more kids watching it with undivided attention than were told by their teachers to listen.