Tagged: education
Reading Log 8.6.25
I used to have a several t-shirts which had authors’ faces on them. James Fenimore Cooper was one of them. I just like his books. They feel historical, even though I know they are fiction. If you are open to testing the waters, I’d start with Last of the Mohicans, but eventually Afloat and Ashore should be read.
I will write a proper book review of Suleyman’s The Coming Wave soon. (It’s about AI.) Just know that he opens by expressly saying that he means to call to mind Noah with the word “wave”. Oooo. Scary.
Poems are what they are. Some are fun. Some are painful to get through. Holmes obviously wrote with great ability. But that didn’t mean his poems are all tier one.
Volume 1 of Reporting Vietnam (and what I have read of Vol 2) will change your life. These should be required reading for all American highschoolers. In short, Ho Chi Minh first entered the political scene in a big way in WWII by insisting Vietnam should be independent. Then in an interview in 1962 he said it will take maybe 10 years for America to give up. In 1973, before a full 10 years, America withdrew. Consider these facts. Ask: Why did America oppose Ho? I am of the firm opinion that in the future, it will be common knowledge among American History buffs that Vietnam was the true turning point in American History. Everything occurring today (in politics) goes back to that war. To be clear: The lesson I will distill to my own progeny is the following. “Ho wanted something and achieved it. Why did America even try to stop him? Oh, I know. Communism. Well, ‘F$&* Communism’. Communism makes people lose their minds. Why? It’s not to be feared. No idea is. And hug any Vietnam veterans that you meet. Also, America has no duty to help any country out of some sort of compassion. We now have Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan (hopefully not Ukraine) as proof that the task of “helping” is impossible. People have to help themselves. America should do what we want precisely because we want to do it. Period.”
Aeschylus’ poems are fantastic. They are timeless too. Read and re-read.
Those essays in Volume 10 (final volume) of Gateway to the Great Books are exceedingly worthy. Of special note is JS Mill and Voltaire. Emerson is a great contrast to Mill. John Dewey is a must-read for anyone in Education—but unfortunately he will never be read by the uneducated. Sad.
Finally, the Vicar of Wakefield. This is a book that “moralizes”. Do you even know what that means? It means to use a story to teach how to act. Our culture, nearly every member, regardless of gender ;), does not believe in teaching morality. So you will not likely see the value of this book. I even doubt that my kids will understand it. But we’ll find out together when they’re old enough. Not the best book. But a good one on how to find happiness during unhappy circumstances.
The Answer to, “What ‘Gender’ means?” A Question Posed by My PhD Candidate Friend
For posterity.
I have to tell a story because I cannot see how the plain didactic situation will help given that you haven’t seen it yet.
I had a friend who was a math professor and he was adamant about Free Market economics. Once he gave me a link to his “behind paywall”guru—a link to one of those YouTube clips that can only be viewed if you have the link, which follows the overall belief he held that humans should pay for valuable things/ideas.
In the clip, the guru/astrophysicist-teacher-dude said, “Every word should have one and only one meaning.” That caught my attention because it is so asinine. The idea that words should be like numbers or math symbols is just ludicrous. To set that as a goal is ludicrous. Immediately questions like, “Which language would these ‘one meaning only’ words be in?” came to mind.
With me?
This relates to gender because language is where gender starts. There are languages (Hebrew and Greek among myriad others) which, when spoken, seem to add or subtract little suffix sounds (like ee or ish) to what we would call pretty much any non-verbs—so nouns, adjectives, prepositions etc. If I were to do this in English, it might sound like, “Hey, Matt! Throw her the ball-ee. And then, Jill, throw Matt the ball. Then, Matt, when you get the ball back, see those girls over there? Throw the ball-ee–ish to them.” (In this example, ee is female and ish is plural).
Why did these sounds develop? Who knows.
But anyone, including you, who would have been looking at or listening to the language(s) would be inclined to recognize (or be taught) that the “ball” part of the sound is the same concrete item and word, but the suffix sound (or lack thereof) changes depending on whether a female is involved.
The catch, of course, is that the method isn’t 1-to-1; in other words, there are exceptions to the rule. But the rule still comes to our minds. So words (aloud and written—many of earliest languages were merely copying the sounds, no such thing as proper spelling existed) became known as the idea…drumroll…GENDER!!
What should humans have done? Is the idea/object behind the word “ball” and “ball-ee” the same thing? Or not? I suppose you could argue that they are two different things. But that seems overly complex. In the end, there is one ball. But for some reason, when it is thrown to a human with boobs and a va-jay-jay, it is called “ball-ee” (in my example).
Next, fast forward through history until the last century and (I am very earnest and serious here; I have come across other folks who admit the following too) we come to the point where this concept of math symbols (think x and y and π), with their one and only one meaning, are thought of as superior to all the often unclear complications of ordinary language. In short, instead of written language copying sounds, people wanted language to represent ideas and with exactness.
HERE IS THE JUMP/CONNECTION: One day someone suggests the idea that biological sex (penis vs vagina) is irrelevant. But they immediately confuse everyone listening because the honest response is, “How can I not be a woman/man?” So these people borrow the grammar category (abstract label) “gender” and apply it to their (NEW) idea. (The idea being that the concrete reality of your biological sex is ultimately irrelevant.)
I offer for your consideration, that even you, friend, must be able to use the word gender when you communicate, both to show you understand grammar, AND to show you understand what time you are living in. There is an idea, however incorrect, called gender now. This is no different than, say, how the ideas psychology and communism are relatively new to the passing scene.
Put in dictionary style, gender (in the context of “ethnicity, class, and gender”) is the IDEA that biological sex is ultimately irrelevant.
Education Cannot Result In Less Education
I have two HS Freshman and two more kids that will soon be entering kindergarten in sequence (this fall and fall 2027). Faithful readers already knew as much. Likewise, you know that I read, for pleasure, as much as any human. The substance of what I read, with only limited deviations—mostly enacted to prove I am not AI—includes great books, great essays, and great articles.
Consequently, education is always on my mind—whether my own education, my kids’ education, or your education.
Education.
What is education?
One of the great articles I recently read was from, “Reporting Vietnam: Part One”. It was written by Susan Sheehan, and entitled, “A Viet Cong: A Defector Tells His Story 1965”.
This defector, this poor soul, this (Victor) Charlie was recruited and had to sit through, and later lead other Charlies in, “political studies”.
I doubt any of us would consider what the VC were doing was “education”.
If you read any current news on the subject of education, you’ll come upon articles and propaganda about school choice. How long has it been? Since GW Bush, right? Maybe earlier.
The anti-school-choice folks run an argument that insists that because available money will be directed to White Christian Nationalist Schools (my understanding of their latent fear), the already poor blacks will receive a worse education.
But this simply is not true. I know, because I am educated. And education cannot lead to less education anymore than there is only one everlasting total of wealth to be divided among Earth’s occupants. Less education is possible. But it is never the result of education.
People who are educated, to a man, know that the poor blacks find themselves in one of the most fortunate positions fate has ever given humans. It is theirs to either exploit or abuse.
The available money that these anti-school-choice folks seem to believe will be siphoned to the White Christian Nationalist Schools in some manner of a deviously rich-get-richer, power helps power, or even plain ol’, unpunished theft, believe it either A. will be spent on indoctrination or “political studies” (NOT education) or B. will be spent on education in its true sense. (The truth, of course, is even in the best educational institution, it will be some mix, as purity is hard won.)
If A., then the fight isn’t about money, but about the definition of education. If B., then the folks arguing against school choice aren’t making an argument. Instead, they are manifesting envy in their wish to sabotage the education of others—an immature, “I can’t have a good life, so you don’t get one either” attitude.
I know this to be true because I believe education cannot result in less education.
So, to my anti-school-choice readers: if what you fear is White Christian Nationalist Schools are not conducting education, then say so. But be ready to be asked to explain just what exactly you wish to do with the poor blacks if you had enough political clout to direct the available money to them.
As for me, I say that the most natural thing in the world is to deregulate education. It should be completely pay-to-play, every parent for themselves. Public schools must be abolished. The educated rich will more than happily subsidize earnest poor black families who agree to attending institutions which conduct education. (Yes, I am suggesting written plans/agreements, which could be broken/dissolved, that include formal declaration of what the education will include and how the student and their family will perform.)
How do I know? Because education cannot result in less education. There are many ways to be confident that education is occurring. For today, I’ll simply say that one certain, though incomplete, way to discern that the so-called “educational” experience is not education is that accountability is never agreed upon or assessed.
Public schools must be abolished. Always supporting “school choice” seems the most natural first step. On the other hand, supporting “public schools”, or what is the same, supporting “the perfectly even or fair expenditure of money per student”, seems the most natural expression of “doing the same thing and expecting different results”.
No matter how you frame it, education cannot result in less education.
Irritants of the Past Few Days
My daughter got a singing Moana doll as a gift. The doll says absolutely stupid things. To start, Moana suggests that her people have been ocean explorers (“We must sail to the far seas”). Yeah, exploring oceans in a canoe which never left sight of land. Then she has a line which says, “The stars lead us to where we want to go.” Again, the Moana’s of the world have never navigated their tiny islands or narrow coastlines via the stars. Gimme a break. Finally, she says something about “We’re all part of the land and sea. It’s who we are; it’s who we’re meant to be.” I’d already passed boiling point, but with this the folks at Disney seem to lose all distinction between bringing classic European fairy tales to life, a la Cinderella, Snow White, and Beauty and the Beast among many others (Pinocchio), and inventing fairy tales whole cloth for tribes who never wrote any down—and likely didn’t have any to begin with. In other words, folks, if you think all the peoples of Planet Earth are composing compelling music, telling remarkable stories, and relentlessly exploring the planet, then you are a fool.
****
People do not “forget” the truth they were once taught. I have this hardbound collection of early Berenstain Bears stories and one of them is, “He Bear She Bear.” It is remarkable in its simple and inoffensive presentation of the facts of life. No alphabet mafia folk had been read this book as a child and then concluded at a later date, “No. No, that’s not right.” Instead, Berenstain Bears became tired, lost their en vogue status, and then went the way of the dodo. This is the way all truth is “forgotten”—boredom and displaced proportionality.
****
You cannot grasp the “bully” nature of illiterate people until you live with them. They bully because they have no other recourse. It’s sad, but true.
****
My mother shared with me that my immediate family members and likely their spouses are tired of me portending to be the only one with ideas. I share with you that my immediate family members and their spouses never read books. I believe it was Booker Washington who pointed out that those who can’t read and those who don’t read are one and the same. My brother and his wife tour the world to see the historical locations of everyone whose ideas I read about and would love to chat about. These two come back and report what tour guides told them. In my opinion, it’s worse than tribes who lived only with oral tradition because they think they are living it up. All they are really doing is anarchy.
****
Books, for me, are a map, no different than a VFR Sectional or Low IFR Chart. I can’t tell you where you are on the map, indeed that is not my job (or anyone else’s). But given that I have a map and you do not, I can discern quite simply that you’re lost. It is your job as a literate person to determine where you are.
If Only The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg Owned Slaves, Then He Might Have Acted Civilly.
Even slave owners of old knew of things like this rule of civility.
Read no Letters, Books, or Papers in Company but when there is a Necessity for the doing of it you must ask leave. Come not near the Books or Writings of Another so as to read them, unless desired, or give your opinion of them unask’d; also look not nigh when another is writing a Letter.
In sum: it is always possible to read things you shouldn’t. The error is the reader’s, not the writer’s.
Why I Want the Department of Education Gone
I want the government to dismantle the Department of Education because I love debating “happiness” or “flourishing” or “eudaimonia”.
There is a thing called “learning”. There is a status called “educated”. Most of the literate people (and some illiterate people) of the planet believe learning and education promote this happiness in the fullness of the word.
But the question remains.
Does education lead to happiness?
So dismantle the Department of Education. I’d even go so far as to support the end of formal schooling for a year or two.
What would “we” do? No school? Ahhh! How would life go on? Our precious daycares! Who would watch the kids screw around all day? Who would not teach them? Where would they eat? What would they wear?
Big questions, folks. And I don’t think for a second that any of them are anywhere near settled. So, Federal Government, proceed, sir!
The Game of Telephone: Why You Need To Read More
The game of “Telephone” among famous scientists does not start and stop with Newton and the apple that he never wrote about.
Check this out.
Bertrand Russell was born in 1872. In 1897 he would have been 25 years old. In 1897 he published a fellowship-winning thesis. It was entitled, “An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry.”
Read this.
Those words were published in 1897 (same year as Russell’s first book) by William James. (See highlighted parts.)
Now read this.
Those words were published by Stephen Hawking in 1988. (91 years after Russell was 25 years old and published his thesis; 91 years after James’ words were published.)
Sure. I grant you that it is possible that Russell gave lectures to little old ladies in 1897, despite his being 25 years old and having only published a thesis on geometry that no little old lady would ever be interested in (or aware of). But that only solves the lesser problem. How does “rock” become “turtle”?
Seriously.
Obviously the nature of the situation is Hawking placed the importance of “truth” well below standards when deciding how to open his best-ever-selling book (that is seriously flawed for more than this reason).
****
This is why you need to read, and read, and read, and read, and read. The solution is more reading.
Listing Benefits of Security Guarantees
The only question that we ought to ask ourselves is, “Why give Zelensky what he wants?”
For ease of thought, modify it slightly to, “Why allow Ukraine into NATO?”
- We believe Ukrainian lives are worth protecting at immense cost to our own lives.
- We believe there is some moral benefit, ie “the gods will be pleased” if we help those who cannot help themselves.
- We believe there is some practical long term benefit, such as “preventing future problems” as Zelensky seemed to have in mind when he uttered the “nice ocean” bit.
- We believe the wealth generated by the “get rich off minerals” idea actually does outweigh the cost of war or ongoing difficulties with Russia.
- We simply believe that we must not let the man Putin achieve his desires.
That’s what I can come up with. What about you?
****
To be clear, Ukraine does not satisfy the clearly established requirements for joining NATO. So no one needs to spend any brain cells on “Why not allow Ukraine into NATO?” Instead, the issue is literally, “What’s in it for me?”
I am very excited to see how this plays out. For time capsule purposes, my gut today says, “Zelensky is out. Trump gets deal done afterwards (no new security guarantees, definitely no NATO)—which amounts to ‘can kicked down the road’. And this is fine. No need to solve every problem immediately.”
Lastly, a longstanding talking point for my entire life (and yours) has been “Russia/communists educate/train/propagandize whatever group they are trying to defeat.” It’s generally been used as the explanation of the degradation of American universities. But today I heard the claim in reference to Ukrainian students.
Does anyone actually believe this is how life works? That you just kidnap/lure people and put them in classrooms and then in the long game you win? What a joke. It’s past time to stop indulging in that joke/conspiracy theory. People have minds and can reason for themselves. If they reason poorly, that is because they are poor reasoners, not because they are victims of some boogie man’s “long game.”
“…Hold Short of Runway Three One Center”
Way back in Iraq, our squadron commander told us (as crews of a helicopter that would nightly fly America’s special operations forces to their nighttime raids), “If any of you were to crash, it’d headline international news.”
I took his meaning to be, “I know this seems routine, and that routine can seem insignificant, but it’s not. You’re doing good work for America.” In short, he was keeping the troops motivated.
Naturally, it was also a true claim. If 30+ special operations troops crashed and died, that would be international news. This is true to this day.
But today, even aviation events where no one has died are making the news cycle.
For you, the non-pilot, I want to offer two pieces of perspective. Firstly, how would you like it if every single mistake you made on the job went viral? That’s right. And that’s why you’re not a pilot. And you shouldn’t be one.
Secondly, this near-miss at Midway has the same feature as the mid-air in DC. The pilot said he would do the right thing but he did not. How should this be accounted for?
For me it is simple. I have to maintain a hyper-sensitive honesty.
In the case of the DC mid-air, after I (in role of BH pilot) had said, “Traffic in Sight” the first time, if I found myself queried a second time (which is what happened), I’d have to trust that my well-honed honesty would have pricked my snowflakely-sensitive conscience as usual and then I would have said to tower, “Ahh, actually I am not sure what traffic you’re referring to. Can you point him out?” (I mean to bring to bear that I would intentionally use those non-standard phrases to call to Tower’s attention that the situation is abnormal and needing renewed attention, even as the words also suggest as much.)
In this case, at Midway, given the extreme situation of the news hyping every single aviation procedural aberration they catch wind of, the minute my clearance had changed (to be sure, there was some totally normal, but not strictly necessary, back-and-forth clarification between the pilot and Ground Control), I would have made the decision to stop prior to every runway and double-check if I was cleared across. This would be totally unnecessary and actually annoying and that is the point. The Ground guy would, then, display his hatred of me as he cleared me individually like I was a child (but apparently capable of being a pilot), but it would have pricked his conscience that I thought something was needing extra attention—the something being either 1. a weak pilot, 2. a weak controller, or 3. some as of yet uncommunicated circumstance.
Generally, aviation communication requires extreme eloquence and purpose—which amounts to an exceedingly small and standard vocabulary. Because of this fact, simply using plain language is a tool the pilot and ATC can employ without blatantly calling each other names when the situation arises. I’m not kidding. Believe you, me, when life and death are at stake, the desire to jump to full throttle on some moron, who is sitting in an air conditioned room totally free from danger, at the slightest unnecessary increase of risk with, “Go eff yourself!”, or conversely, the desire to put a supposed demi-god who believes himself to be the spiritual offspring of Maverick in place with, “I used English and you speak English!” or similar, is very real. (And I would argue appropriate and inescapable given the stakes.) The point here is demi-gods who are, in fact, the spiritual offspring of Maverick know how to use subtle and nuanced methods to get the attention they most assuredly deserve. And as you groundlings highlight to the world every day, we deserve a lot of your attention.
****
The last thing that you need to know is while parts of the media coverage emphasize the fact that the two planes were not on the same channel, this is fake news. Don’t be stupid people. Ground handles traffic on the ground, and Tower handles traffic in the air, and other channels handle other parts of the airspace system.
The problem of radio communication is it requires “one at a time”. To imply that everyone needs to be on one channel is completely without forethought.
Reading Log 2.21
Seems like I’ve been saying it for so long that everyone should know, but ICYMI, Last of the Mohicans is actually one of five (5) books Cooper wrote starring Natty Bumpoo/Hawkeye/Deerslayer/Pathfinder, or more commonly, Daniel Day-Lewis. The Pathfinder is 3 of 5, taking place after LOTM events—and without reference to them.
It is just great. I have read three now and plan to pace the remaining two Leatherstocking Tales so that I don’t peak too soon before death. Nothing makes me want to go camp and hike and scout and track like Cooper’s tales.
The Aliens epic collection was alright. Nothing great. But it did have some interesting storylines and the art was beautiful. One thing that that volume unexpectedly contained was a sort of short story, written in prose. And that story was graphic as anything I have come across. I have previously been made acquainted with the works of an author named Neil Gaiman and these cause one to blush. This story was along those lines. Most Alien stories have the lead as female, and this time she is only able to perform her heroine duties because of the abuse she suffered as a little girl. Bluntly, parallels are made in the story between her waiting on the monsters, and her waiting on the monster. Sick stuff.
Oh. And like the comment I made about how reading too many comics in a row kinda highlights the undeveloped-ness/infantile-ness of these stories, I now more clearly see that every Alien story ends with the main character learning that despite the recent total victory (extermination), one xenomorph embryo still exists and is poised to makes its way to another human settlement. I hadn’t really noticed that just from the movies. Oh well.
Relativity.
Here’s what I’ll do. These are the few summative statements Eddington offers. Comment below if you find them useful.
“A gravitational field of force is precisely equivalent to an artificial field of force, so that in any small region, it is impossible by any conceivable experiment to distinguish between them. In other words, force is relative.”
Actually, that is the only one that makes sense for a blog post. The big analogy that Einstein developed was the elevator (or “lift” if you’re reading in the mother country). Newton, you’ll recall, realized that if “bodies in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted upon etc”, then the Moon would have long ago kept going right past Earth, as Earth would have kept right on going past the Sun etc. The force that keeps the orbits is called gravity. Einstein, then, realized that artificial “gravity”, literally the kind you feel at the beginning of an elevator ride, is experimentally no different than “real” gravity.
Okay. Relativity is interesting but I prefer the universe stuff. (And am scheduled to read more on that next.)
Lastly, I want to conclude with probably the most fun takeaway from the book. It is from the chapter “Weighing Light”.
“It is legitimate to speak of a pound of light as we speak of a pound of any other substance. The mass of ordinary qualities of light is however extremely small, and I have calculated that at the low charge of 3d. a unit, an Electric Light Company would have to sell light at the rate of £140 million a pound. All the sunlight falling on the Earth amounts to 160 tons daily.”
Captain’s Log 