The White House, in 2004 and 2008, has said that any presidential administration has every right to adjust or shape information flowing through the government agencies it manages. A central defender of the Bush administration’s vetting of last fall’s testimony on climate and health was John H. Marburger III, the president’s science adviser. In my 2004 story, displaying his usual candor, Dr. Marburger justified administration actions of this sort this way:“So there’s always going to be a tilt in an administration like this one to a certain set of actions that you take to achieve some policy objective,” he said. “In general, science may give you some limits and tell you some boundary conditions on that set of actions, but it really doesn’t tell you what to do.”
I decided to dedicate this post to the code words typically attributed to feminists. Of course you cannot point out social injustice without being angry, irrational, and hysterical. All logical people naturally exist as automatons, going through their days parroting the status quo. Only an unbalanced person would even begin to think that the system we live under could possibly be unfair. What do you mean all men operate with gender privilege? In fact even pointing out that calling a feminist angry, irrational, and hysterical is sexist, is enough to further entrench the views of some.Read more
3) On Thursday I have to teach a lesson in front of a class, a principal and the school director. It’s, my second interview for a full time teaching position at a charter school and I am terrified. At the moment, I still have yet to hear what I need to teach and how long it should be. I have major planning, studying and practicing to do and so far have less then 2 days to do it. I’m trying to not get so stressed about it, but I really want this position. What ultimately sold me was that there is tons of open space and the director told me that if wanted, I could turn some of it into a garden. Holy Shit, a dream come true. Wish me luck.
4) Here are two op-ed articles I found that I just could not resist posting. In fact, I think they go hand in hand.
We don’t hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It’s much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball.
The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.
An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.
With political discourse reduced to screaming contests and actual news eclipsed by exclusive and shocking footage of celebrities without makeup, we've become not only impatient with but downright opposed to the kinds of ideas that can't be reduced to a line on a screen crawl or a two-sentence blog entry.
What's more, a lot of people who harbor an intolerance for complexity see it not as a character flaw but a cognitive virtue. That's because they've fallen into the trap of believing that complicated ideas ("complicated" now constituting anything that requires reading, watching or listening to in its entirety) are the purview of the "elite."
I find it very difficult to post when Im in the library. I don’t really know why. I guess maybe because I don’t want anyone to see what Im writing, or since I can only sit so long on that hard wood chair, Id rather spend my time reading. So, Ive decided to write my post at home, using Word, and then when I go to the library, ill paste it onto my blog. Lame? Maybe, then again, I may post more this way.
1) 1) Last week I went to go hear a lecture given by Stephen Hawkings. It started at 8 pm, but since seating was based on first come, first serve, I got there at 5. At that time there was already a huge line. I guess when you’re a famous scientist talking at CalTech, one should assume there will be a lot of geeks around. Anyways, even after waiting 3 hrs in line, I barely made the cut off to be in the auditorium he was speaking in. Everyone after, at least another 500 more, was sent to another place, and watch him on a screen. The lecture kicked ass. It felt so good to be there. My happy place is a college campus. Then to be around so many people interested in science. And to top it off, since CalTech is a prestigious school, there were lots of cute (SMART) guys with accents : ) I just wish I understood more about cosmology, a lot of it was hard for my brain to process, but it was still pretty amazing. I have a new crush : )
2) 2) While subbing last week I suffered a bout of depression. It was at a high school, and for the most part it was easy (middle school kids are a handful), but I just couldn’t get past how undervalued I was. I was reading an article in National Geographic about biomimetrics (they were taking a test), I had just seen Stephen Hawkings the night before, had a degree in Molecular Biology and day after day, I have to babysit kids that could give a rats ass about their education and love to just be a pain in the ass. I realized why it is so hard to recruit science and math teachers. We work our asses off and for the most part the kids HATE science, HATE school, and HATE taking responsibility for their own actions ( every time I catch some kid doing something, he/she would blame someone eles). They never have paper or pens, but have ipods and cellphones. And in one instance, when they find my pen case, they steal my favorite Sharpie. I know its hard because I don’t know these kids, that the classes I sub for are not mine and that they may have a boring/bad teacher. I have good days and bad days, and things may get better when I get my own class, and I am teaching in East LA so it was expected that these kids would test me, but I still worry.
3) 3) Funny subbing story: I was getting frustrated because of all the trash on the floor. I don’t know about middle school kids, but when they leave a class room, there is trash everywhere. For students who say they never have any paper, they find it somewhere and turn it into airplanes and paper balls. ( You should see my backpack at the end of the day, its full of stuff I confiscate!) Anyways, I walked to a particularly messy area and said “You guys need to pick up all this shi…” I caught myself before I finished, but the kids new exactly what I ment. I thought they were going to jump all over me for it, but the reaction I got was interesting.
Students: You cussed Ms.!! (that’s what they call me)
Me: Almost, I caught myself (huge grin on my face )
Students: You cussed! You’re cool Ms.!!
