American Taliban

This most recent move by Komen to defund Planned Parenthood is disturbing. How is it different from the Taliban who show no respect for women. To me this is just a symbolic burka for American women. Those old white men in congress who think they know best are no better than those Afghan butchers killing women in a stadium for entertainment. I'm getting rid of all my pink tennis balls!

Confused

I found myself in a Unitarian Universalist service this morning as a result of my new granddaughter's dedication. The minister's offering was on the value of a religious left. It was actually wonderful to hear someone in public pronounce unapologetically liberal ideas. It became obvious over time that these Unitarians must be ever vigilant to not allow any creed to slip into their covenant. It is the only way to keep a diverse universalist body glued together without creating exclusionary rules to define the borders between them and the rest of the world. It seems to be something that requires constant vigilance.

Vaguely related to this is the religious right that seems to abound in exclusionary rules for membership. On thing I can't resolve is the need for those waiting for the rapture to have the Jews return to Israel as a condition for the rapture. What motivated that? Is it because the Jews are the chosen people only to not be chosen at the rapture itself? Did the biblical writer not see how the later Christians would place the Jews outside their rapture even though they share a major part of their holy scriptures? Why would god require the Jews to be back home only to reject them during the rapture? Very confusing?

Dave

Some Solutions

I wrote earlier that I think the best way to stop outsourcing is to unionize the Chinese.

So now we need a pushback on the voter restriction efforts of the retropublicans. My solution there is equally simple.

Start by making the reception of any government subsidy due in November only available after they vote in November at the voting booth.

In its full implementation, any receipt of any government assistance requires voting. Implementation left to those who screw up most everything else.

So all the wrong people (from the repubs viewpoint) would be voting. The result might very well be my desire for a mild anarchy.

Dave

Get in Front of the Inevitable

I have now rationed my TV time. The political cable shows just regurgitate the same fodder hour by hour, show by show. It is of no value. The reason to support a candidate is reduced to the smallest and ugliest of sound bites.

Who would vote for the "most conservative" candidate? I mean, really? Isn't the conservative mission to preserve what was and resist change? How can that be of any value in a world of change? The conservatives are using the digital media and that was not here to which the world conservatives want to return.

I have long ago given up resistance as a plan of attack. I believe that one must get "in front of the inevitable". If something is going to take place, why fight it? Shouldn't we just try to shape it?

I saw that online education was inevitable in 1994. I jumped on board and started developing online courses for my own teaching and to offer quality courses to others. It was a success.

As much as the powerful interests in government and the corporate world want to ignore the inevitable move to alternative energy, it cannot be stopped. Eventually, we will be "forced" to face the issue.

Also, inevitable is the need to educate those who have no resources. I would love to spend more money on the uneducated and less on the privileged. Why should be offer educational monies to those who have the financial ability to go to private school?

The government should fund only what it needs. If we need engineers and scientists then we should fund "public" institutions to provide the best of the best. Let the rich go to the private schools with no funding from the government.

As a musician I am willing to say that the government should not fund musicians, historians, psychologists, visual artists, etc. They will find their education in the private sector. Let the government fund what we need. (My fellow artists will be sending me hate mail.) If the private sector runs out of artists, they will start a training program focused on their needs just like the government should do now.

So let's "get in front of the inevitable". Let's stop messing around. In 1958 the government was behind when Sputnik was launched by the Soviets. The educational changes limited the arts to the degree we had the 60's. This was one of those pendulum swings in the extreme. We need an education think tank to help make the moves less radical.

Do you want to be part of this think tank?

Don Megill

Response of a political junkie

Grrrrrrr...... I find I am now paying too much attention to all of this. Whenever a life or death event passes it so often proves to be of little consequence in the long run. When I was young and busy like most of Americans and only casually aware of the traumas going on in politics I might have been in a healthier relationship to all of this. But for some reason now it seems that it is imperative that more folk know what is going on as they constantly lose economic leverage with a gamed political (driven by economic forces) system. I think I am finally understanding what it took to bring out the guillotines. Suddenly a mass awakening of what has been going on. You can boil a live frog if you raise the temperature slowing enough. But.. there just might be one that sees what is going on and decides to do something about it. OCCUPY SOMETHING SOMEWHERE!

Dave

Ethics and Music Education

I am taking a course right now through Boston University for my Masters in Music Education. The course I'm taking is Foundations of Music Education: History and Philosophy. For some reason, I preferred the Foundations of Music Education: Psychology and Sociology course I previously took. Oh well, that's besides the point.

For my course, this week we're addressing ethics in music education. Quite an interesting topic, I do have to say. I'm about half way through the reading for the week.

Friday evening I have to take part in a live online debate with other classmates. As part of this debate, I have to argue AGAINST the following statement:

"Music educators have a professional and ethic obligation to teach for social justice, including teaching for equal treatment based on class, race, gender, and sexuality. Teaching music is not enough."

This is going to be a difficult assignment as I personally AGREE with this statement.

As this group is comprised of other arts educators, what are your thoughts?

Kristin

Confounded spelling

I have an admission. 

I am forgetting how to spell. Seriously. I think it is a real problem.  I write (pen to paper) so seldom that I have lost my ability to correct my own spelling.   I am dependent on spell check and that wonderfully informative dotted red line that appears to alert me of my spelling foibles.

Interesting also that i know how to spell foible but just yesterday had the darndest time spelling "editing".  Here are my retrospective attempts.  edditing, editting, edditting.  Yes, I went through them all before I finally typed editing and that damn red line finally disappeared.  There is another one disappeared. I am so irritated by double consonants. I expect them to be everywhere they aren't and forget them everywhere they should be. 

But that is with the help of a computer.  When I hand write I am absolutely hopeless. This is particularly embarrassing when writing on the board in my classes.  I realized that being a visual learner (spatial more than verbal), I have come to rely on the typed appearance of a word to know if its spelling is correct.  For instance when I type embarased I realize that the 'shape' of the word is wrong, too short. And therefore, I recall that it should be embarrassed.  It looks right from a design perspective.  But, I have so long ago given up hand writing on a daily (large scale) level that I can't remember how the design of my hand written words look. 

Also, the rhythm of a word.  Hand writing slows me down to the point that I can't imagine there being THAT many letters in a given word. it just takes TOO LONG to get it down on the paper.  Commencement, for instance, when written long hand fills up half a line! I have trained my brain out of spelling.  Instead I use the physical, spatial and rhythmic memory of typing, which I can't seem to recreate with a pen in my hand. 

I don't want to think I need to practice my spelling just to write a hand written note off the cuff.  But it seems, I do. Or, I could just give up on hand writing all together because using my smart phone to look up words mid-sentence just sucks. And, I won't do it.


Sigh. 

PS If address is spelled with two d's, then I think "addmission" should as well.   Just sayin'.