March 2002

Happy birthday to me
Anna, a charter school student I'm tutoring, was doing a timeline of her life for history class, starting with her birth. I mentioned that I was celebrating a major birthday on Sunday. She looked at me. "Fifty?'' she said.

"Yes," I said. "But it would have been more polite for you to guess 40.''

Anna laughed. She can afford to laugh. She's 14.

As of today, I've spent half a century on the planet. I like to say it in the most portentous possible way. It seems to help. Half a century. Well, the Queen Mum made it to 101. I'm good for a few more years. I do wish AARP would get off my case. -- 3/31

Tough isn't enough
Ariel Sharon is tough. But is he smart? Or even shrewd? The LA Times quotes Bush officials questioning whether Sharon has a strategy. He seems to be trying to fight a conventional war against a population of teen-age suicide bombers. -- 3/30

A barracks with room service
National Guardsmen protecting Bay Area bridges are staying in hotels -- including the four-star San Francisco Marriott -- instead of armories or barracks. Since November, the Guard has run up $750,000 in hotel bills. Maj. Kim Oliver claims there's no military housing available. Another Guard spokesman said to the Contra Costa Times, "Would you want to sleep on a cot for six months?''

Heavens, no. The Magic Fingers never work. Actually, there's a 47-unit barracks available at the Presidio, a former Army base. And Guardsmen are willing to rough it.

The hotel accommodations are controversial among the soldiers. ``Throw me a cot, give me a sleeping bag, let me sleep on the floor, I don't care,'' said one soldier, who requested anonymity because he feared retaliation. ``Being at the Marriott? Come on. I think we could find better ways to spend the money.'' -- 3/30

Blogging on Fox
Highlights of this week's weblog are on FoxNews.com And welcome to any Fox readers who've found their way here.

The computer is losing the video again, so it's hard to for me to see what I'm typing. . I'm hoping the new board will be installed Monday. And I'm really hoping that's the problem. -- 3/30

Still here
I just came across PejmanPundit's Seder post. Turns out he's an Iranian-American Jew. Here he's talking to Hamas and friends.

We . . . are . . . still . . . here. Pharaoh tried to break us, the Roman Caesars made savage war upon us, the Russian Cossacks rampaged through our villages and inflicted unspeakable barbarities upon us, and a failed Viennese artist turned bitter housepainter killed six million of us. And yet, we are still here. Do you understand what that means, you poor, stupid bastards? It means that we are not going to bend. We are not going to break. We are not going to let you hunt us down, chase us away, and exterminate us. We will fight back. We will prevail.

Martyrdom has no appeal for the Jews. As Martin Devon writes, in another Passover post, we want to live.

I don't want to take life. But there are bad men that want to kill me. Worse, they want to kill my daughters. . . . If they force me to choose, I will choose. I choose my children. I choose my family. I choose life.

I'm not likely to be attacked by terrorists in Palo Alto. But they do want to kill me and my daughter. They want to kill you too. -- 3/29

Gettysburg agenda
If Abraham Lincoln had used PowerPoint at Gettysburg . . . Peter Norvig (via Sophismata) shows how it might have turned out. -- 3/29

Plunging
Israel attacked Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound, "plunging the region into violence and shattering hopes for a Mideast truce,'' declares .ABCNews.com on its message board.

Gee, it was all so peaceful till then. -- 3/29

Exodus
Palestinians aren't the only ones who became exiles after the creation of Israel in 1948. Almost all the Jews in the Arab world were forced out; they now make up more than half the population of Israel. Others fled to the U.S., Europe and South America. Here's a story about Jewish exiles from Egypt celebrating Passover in the U.S. One woman says:

``Every year, I look at it as my life: The Jews left Egypt to go to the land of the free.''

JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and Africa) has organized in San Francisco to "to call attention to the experiences of Jewish refugees from Arab nations after Israel's foundation in 1948." JIMENA wants to show Palestinians how to "move on,'' so to speak.

Of course, Jewish refugees fled to countries that allowed them to become citizens; Palestinians have lived for half a century in Arab countries without gaining any rights. Steven Den Beste notes that the Arab League wants to keep it that way. In endorsing the "Saudi peace proposal,'' Arab leaders called for Israel, and only Israel, to take in Palestinians. The text specifically rejects

all forms of Palestinian "patriation'' which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.

Den Beste predicts Arafat's imminent death, which he thinks will be good for Israel. I can't see anything good coming of the recent carnage, nor do I think Arafat's death will make much difference. -- 3/29

Still barefoot and pregnant
Patriarchy rules and kitchen-bound women are strictly second class, to read Women's Studies textbooks and syllabi. Christine Stolba did for a Independent Women's Forum study, "Lying in a Room of One’s Own: How Women’s Studies Textbooks Miseducate Students.'' The five most popular textbooks used in Women's Studies' intro courses "transform knowledge'' to nonsense, Stolba concludes. Facts are male, and therefore unworthy of respect. Heterosexuality is imposed by society. Fathers are the "foreign male element.''

I just finished reading Andrea Dworkin's "Heartbreak,'' billed as a political memoir, and "Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century,'' edited by Wendy McElroy. I've got a book review on both coming out in the San Jose Merc in May. Dworkin peddles anecdotes, anger and egomania; the "Liberty'' writers espouse a self-confident individualist feminism for women who don't need the patriarchal state -- or the matriarchal Dworkin -- to protect them. (Remember, Medea was a mother.)

There's a great chapter by Janis Cortese, a "third WWWave feminist,'' in "Liberty'' that tells the first and second wavers where to get off. I just don't see this generation of young women buying in to poor-little-me feminism.

According to Bjorn Staerk, Norway's gender equality czarina wants to ban toy ads that refer to boys as "tough.'' -- 3/29

Woe is he
Unremitting Verse turns Gray Davis' energy whine into a villanelle, before taking on Jonathan Franzen's Midwestern wind of doom. -- 3/29

Flunking math
Temple has fired a tenured math professor who flunked too many students. A faculty committee called Martin Eisen harsh, rude and unhelpful to introductory math students. He says that Temple lowered its standards to attract students; he kept his standards the same.

Jatinder S. Mehta, who also arrived in Temple's math department in 1968, believes he, too, has high standards. Yet unlike Mr. Eisen, he has eased up on his grading and often cannot finish the syllabus in his beginning courses for nonmath majors. He is too busy helping students who don't grasp the basics. That ultimately means that students get credit for a course they have not completed.

"I am dealing with students who are not prepared, but I have done the best I can," says Mr. Mehta. "That is the only way I can live with myself."

Temple mathematicians don't like to talk about the problems Mr. Eisen cites. "The prince has no clothes, but nobody wants to stand up and say that," says one math professor, asking to remain anonymous. "I have noticed that if somebody flunks a lot of people, then the administration doesn't like that. I am not stupid. I observe what's going on, and I do what I think will not put me out on the street without a job." -- 3/29

Learning about teaching
It sounds like an obvious idea: Create a data base of videotaped lessons that teachers can watch and analyze. It's just getting started. In an interview with Educational Leadership, UCLA Professor James Stigler, creator of LessonLab, talks about creating a knowledge base for teachers.

Most students are taught by an average teacher, implementing the average method. If we can find a way to make that average method a little bit better, that's going to have a big effect. . . .

If you look at medicine over the past 100 years, it's changed greatly—not because smarter people have become doctors, but because we've found a way to accumulate and share knowledge in the profession and to keep updating it over time. The lack of a knowledge base is exactly why teaching has not changed much over the past 100 years. . . .

Is a violinist who's playing a Mozart concerto really tied down by playing the same old piece that everybody else plays? In education, we've expected too much from teachers. We've expected them not only to play the violin but also to write the concerto, and if they don't do that, we imply that they're not exercising their creativity. But in fact, we've got our definition of creativity wrong. -- 3/28

Bad bargaining
In the San Francisco Chronicle, Debra Saunders explains why the California Teachers Association bill to make curriculum a bargaining chip threatens reading instruction. All the newspapers in the state are coming out against this clunker idea.

Maryland teachers also are pushing a bill to expand the scope of collective bargaining, but I can't get the Baltimore Sun link to work.

Pacific Research Institute's study of the impact of collective bargaining on education is titled "Contract for Failure," which gives an idea of the conclusion.

Of the 460 districts examined, 337 – almost 75 percent – yield the teacher union too much power over curriculum, professional development, the scope of academic freedom, accountability, rewards based on performance, and teacher self-governance.

Why are California school districts laying off counselors, teachers, librarians, etc.? Because they gave in to union pressure and put too much money into pay increases for teachers during the surplus years, writes Peter Schrag. And they're losing money on the inflexible class-size reduction program, which is not fully funded by the state.-- 3/28

Goldilocks thought she had problems
Once again, I've got my computer back from the shop. And the screen no longer is too dark to read. This time, the screen shifted from just right to too light. The guys at the shop have ordered a new board. I'm hoping this one lasts till the new one arrives.

Update: Now, the screen is going dark again. I'm in trouble. -- 3/28

Passover massacre
As I write, CNN's Bill Hemmer is interviewing a Palestinian spokesman about the Passover massacre in Netanya. The suicide bomber attacked a seder at a hotel. There are 16 reported death; 15 critically injured.

What's striking is Hemmer's attitude. He's giving the terrorist apologist a very hard time, asking him if the goal is the elimination of Israel from the Mideast. The apologist keeps saying they want to talk about Israeli "terrorism.'' Hemmer wants to talk about Palestinian terrorists killing Jewish civilians and torpedoing any chance of peace talks. -- 3/27

Readers write
Why should I do all the work? Here are some letters from readers in response to previous posts.

Geoff Barto of TurkeyBlog writes:

In undergrad, I roomed with an education major one year. He was going to be a math teacher. Which meant that I spent a good share of the year tutoring him in math. Unfortunately, this does not mean that I explained enough differential calculus for him to see how to make a meaningful pre-calc lesson. More typical was the night that he was making a chart for a fourth grade class and he couldn't get his long division examples to come out right. Or the night that he wanted to know how to figure a percentage.

My roommate learned to make pretty posterboards, learned how to select outfits that were semi-formal but rough and tumble for the playground. Along the way, he did a little math. Though never enough statistics to know if he was writing valid tests.

By contrast, my one-semester methodology course to become a graduate instructor in French emphasized the importance of tests as a means of making sure that we were teaching and our students were learning. Approaches to instruction were based explicitly on what research showed to be the most effective ways of explaining concepts - based on testing. At every turn, we found ourselves
looking at another set of tests that showed what worked and what didn't and how to apply the information. But that was the French department. Maybe education departments aren't quite so preoccupied with whether students are learning.

Robert Wright, a middle-school teacher:

I had a child in my class who had the bad habit of calling girls "bitch." And sometimes he called them "fucking bitches" and told them how he'd rape them. It wasn't Tourette's Syndrome. He was just really a poorly reared child. Well, this bad behavior certainly got in the way of learning so it was mentioned in his IEP. Because he was labeled Special Ed and this was his disability, I could not remove him from class. I was mandated by law to mainstream him. He'd say these terrible, terrible things to the most innocent girls in class and they looked like they wanted to die and there was nothing I could do about it. I bounced him out of class the first time but the office bounced right back saying I did that again we all could get sued. I had him for three weeks and then his family moved. -- 3/27

Aaaaiiiieeee
See that "Back to blogging" post below. The one that says my computer is working. Well, it worked for about 20 minutes. Then the screen started to get dark. I adjusted the brightness. It got darker and darker. I turned off the computer and restarted. The computer was on but the screen was black. So now the computer is back in the shop and I'm back at my brother's house. I might add that my lower back went out on Sunday, in sympathy with the computer, making it painful to stand and walk. The chiropractor wants me to relax. Oh, right. -- 3/27

Back to blogging
My computer, with a brand-new analog board, no longer turns itself off every five seconds. I can blog again! My unbacked-up files are still there! I can read my e-mail! I am happy. -- 3/26

Meltdown
Last night, I heard a sinister crackling sound. Then my computer turned off. I turned it back on. After a few seconds, it turned itself off. I tried again. It turned itself off again. The upshot is that the computer is in the shop for repair . If I can get the wireless set-up set up again, and get the laptop working, you'll see new blog items in the next few days. Otherwise, it will be three to five "working days'' before I'm back and blogging. Unless, I want to move in with my brother, who fortunately has my back-up Dreamweaver files. (Is all the work on my book backed up? Don't be silly. Only wimps back up their data.) -- 3/22

Strategically stupid white man
Michael Moore -- talk about a big, fat target -- is the subject of a Lileks' screed.

Pushy jerk is Moore's shtick. It's made him a multimillionaire. So he'll keep doing it till consumers get bored with it. He understands market economics just fine. He chooses to be stupid when other people's livelihoods are at stake, but is quite canny about his own. -- 3/21

Good news, bad news
Before California limited bilingual education in 1998, about four percent of "English Learners'' achieved English proficiency each year; now the rate is up to nine percent. And the first statewide test of English proficiency suggests 25 percent of English Learners are fluent in English. That's the good news. The bad news is that schools lose extra funding when students achieve English proficiency. That's why they want to keep the bar very high. -- 3/21

Taking down the Supremes
In oral arguments on school drug tests, several U.S. Supreme Court justices suggested there are no civil rights in a drug war. Gary Farber at Amygdala performs a blogger take-down.

When Mr. Boyd said that the Pottawatomie district adopted the policy in the absence of any demonstrable disciplinary problem, Justice Scalia said: "So long as you have a bunch of druggies who are orderly in class, the school can take no action. That's what you want us to rule?"

Farber responds:

In other words, if no one has any visible problems, the school shouldn't invade their privacy involuntarily. Yes. -- 3/21

Out of control
Jacksonville, Florida hired 70 professionals with math and science backgrounds as teachers, placing them in the city's most troubled inner-city schools. They got no training in classroom management. Not surprisingly, 20 percent of the new teachers quit in the first six months of the school year.

Steve Waln, a former chiropractor and systems analyst, tried to teach science to 7th and 8th graders.

During one class, three girls sat together in the back of the room and gossiped. They sang songs, smacking their hands on the table to replicate the beat. Sometimes they got up and danced.

Waln tried separating them before, but they would yell across the room to one another or throw notes back and forth. Now that they're back together, they no longer distract the rest of the class.

"We have things we need to talk about. I mean, we need to know what's going on," said Antionette General, justifying the behavior of herself and friends. "My friends mean more to me than this class."

Waln has been banned from his classroom, accused of cursing at unruly students. He denies the charges. -- 3/21

Cyber-school under attack
John Lott writes about a charter school Catch 22 in Pennsylvania.

For months, a new public school receives none of the money it is supposed to. Teachers work without pay. Textbooks, computers and other supplies can't be purchased. Complaints arise from disgruntled students and parents. Finally, the money is briefly provided, only to be suspended again because of allegations that the school is not providing enough books, computers or Internet access.

Three of his children are students of Einstein Academy Charter School, which is under attack because it's a "cyber-school'' delivering classes over the Internet. Only it's hard to do that when there's no money to pay the phone bill.

Charter schools are supposed to be freed from regulation to be innovative; they're supposed to be judged by results. That's the idea, anyhow. -- 3/21

Digital baloney
Remember the "digital divide'' between the techno-rich and the low-tech poor? Well, forget about it, says Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post.

As you will recall, the argument went well beyond the unsurprising notion that the rich would own more computers than the poor. The disturbing part of the theory was that society was dividing itself into groups of technology "haves" and "have nots" and that this segregation would, in turn, worsen already large economic inequalities. It's this argument that's either untrue or wildly exaggerated.

Samuelson cites a new study showing that wage inequality -- often blamed on computer use -- hasn't worsened since 1986. -- 3/20

Zero tolerance for asthmatic students
Zero tolerance is threatening the health of children with asthma, reports Reason. Many schools require students to leave asthma inhalers at the office, so they're not quickly available in an emergency. Writer Catherine Seipp's daughter had an attack in fifth grade; the teacher yelled at her for using the inhaler in class.

I spoke to Ivanhoe’s then-principal, Kevin Baker. He said I’d been "breaking the law" for five years by keeping the inhaler in the backpack instead of in the office, and that he would "confiscate" it if he found it there in the future. If the school had allowed this before, he said, it was an oversight. "So now what we need to do," he explained, in a sing-songy, Romper Room voice, "is set up a series of intervention meetings to help you understand our concerns about you breaking the law." My arguments about doctor’s orders went nowhere. "When your daughter is at school," Principal Baker said, "I am the ultimate authority concerning her health."

Seipp got the school district to tell the principal he was out of line. But kids with less aggressive parents just do without their inhalers, missing school after untreated attacks and sometimes risking their lives. -- 3/20

Mr. Maid?
Men are narrowing the housework gap with women, says a University of Michigan study. Men are up to 16 hours a week of cleaning and cooking, according to their time diaries; women are down to 27 hours. In 1965, men claimed 12 hours, women 40.

Surely, these people are wildly exaggerating their household labors. Who really spends that much time cleaning and cooking in these deli take-out days? -- 3/20

Testing, testing
Testing drives all the new education reforms, and Kimberly Swygert, a psychometrician, has started a a very useful blog, Number 2 Pencil, to analyze school testing issues. -- 3/20

Trendy, mediocre
Most teachers' colleges "major in mediocrity,'' says USA Today. One of the problems is a penchant for trendy theories not backed by research. The op-ed indirectly hints at another issue: Teacher ed is profitable; universities don't want to kill the cash cow by setting high standards for would-be teachers. -- 3/20

Censorship zone
West Virginia University (WVU) has designated two small areas of its campus as "Free Speech Zones," reports FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education). University police have stopped students from handing out leaflets outside the zones. -- 3/20

Why Homer hates Ned
If you haven't already, check out Juan Gato's Simpsons' analogy explaining why the Muslim world hates the U.S. And don't forget to read the comments, which debate who's the U.N. (Lisa? Chief Wiggum? Marge?), France (Lisa? Maggie?) and Zimbabwe (Moe?). Virtual Sanity also takes off on the analogy. -- 3/19

Grief isn't funny
Writing in Salon, A.R. Torres, who was seven months pregnant when her husband was killed at the World Trade Center, responds to Ted Rall, who mocked "terror widows'' in a cartoon as cold, greedy phonies.

Those of us who were wounded to the core by this tragedy are sad and angry and frequently lost. But we are not ungrateful opportunists who have welcomed the death of loved ones as an opportunity to get rich. That person is Ted Rall, and I pity him, more than anything else.

I found Torres through cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, who writes movingly of his grief at the death of his mother, killed by a drunk driver. My 42-year-old brother died unexpectedly (heart attack) three years ago, so I have some understanding of what he's talking about.

And I found Tomorrow via Ken Layne, who's taken a vow to ignore Rall, since he seems to thrive on others' anger.

Bloggers are talking about Rall once again because Alan Keyes is fulminating about revoking Rall's right to free speech. Keyes shouldn't be taken seriously. He's a sideshow barker. Rall is not going to be arrested for drawing stupid, cruel cartoons. He may find fewer editors want to run his work. That's what happens when you do bad work.

Elsewhere on the unfunny humor front, Best of the Web notes The Observer's "Absolute Atrocity Special.'' Here's an example of The Observer's wit.

New figures reveal that the number of people who perished in the attacks on 11 September may be as low as three. Counsellors are on standby to help New Yorkers deal with the trauma of being more upset than they needed to be. Pressure mounts on Mayor Giuliani - already criticised for his insistence that Ground Zero be kept shrouded in smoke - after the dust cleared briefly last week to reveal that the South Tower was still standing.

It may be possible to find black humor in the tragedy of 9-11, but that will require insight. This isn't satire. It's just stupid. And cruel to the real people mourning their loved ones. -- 3/19

They have a dream
Courtesy of Support Israel, via ChicagoBoyz, here's Palestine National Authority's map of Palestine. -- 3/19

School days
Charter schools are supposed to be freed from unnecessary regulation, but it doesn't always work that way. California bureaucrats are withholding 20 percent of the budget of Indio Charter School because it operates four days a week.

Teresa Pina, a parent volunteer, explained it to me at the CANEC (California Network of Educational Charters) conference. Indio public schools have very high absentee rates on Friday. Some parents leave early for weekends in Mexico; in other families, children cut school to work tourist jobs in Palm Springs. So the charter lengthened the school day Mondays through Thursdays; charter students are in school for 32 hours a week, compared to 29 hours in the traditional public schools. The charter is the top-scoring school in Indio on the Academic Performance Index, and posts the highest reading scores.

Indio Charter has hired a lawyer, and almost certainly will win the right to set its own days and hours. But it will take money and energy to keep the regulators away.

Charter schools will be no more than one county away from charter granters, under a bill proposed in the California Legislature. In the past, a district at one end of the state could grant a charter for a school at the other end, making supervision difficult. The bill allows charters in adjacent counties, but no farther. Legitimate charter operators can live with this bill, which is a response to abuses by a chain of charters and by Fresno Unified, which took a percentage of the revenues for granting the charter but never checked to see if the schools were functioning as promised. -- 3/18

Cover girl
In 1984, a green-eyed Afghan refugee was cover girl for National Geographic. Thirteen-year-old Sharbat Gula was soon married, her face veiled. The magazine found Sharbat Gula, now a weathered 30-year-old, and will feature her on a 2002 cover wearing her burqa and holding the 1984 photo. The story (via Bjorn Staerk) includes an unveiled photo of Gula. She has aged. -- 3/18

Ban the burger shops
Tim Blair compares the anti-globos protesting European capitalism to the 1967 protesters.

What do they want? Over-regulated and burdensome taxation regimes, run by hidebound bureaucracies!When do they want it? NOW! . . .

1967: Give peace a chance
2002: Give police states a chance

1967: LSD is good
2002: Genetically modified food is bad

1967: Ban the bomb!
2002: Ban the burger shops, shoe makers, crop scientists, coffee stores, trade, business, and commerce! --3/18

A demand for dead women
Why were no women firefighters killed at the World Trade Center, asks an AP story. Because 99.7 percent of New York City firefighters are male. The department's first woman complains that the eulogies for the fallen are all about the "brothers" and the "men.'' Because, they were men.

I just saw a tape of the Naudet brothers' 9-11 film, which shows firefighters, laden with heavy gear and carrying hoses, set off to climb 80 stories in search of a fire they can battle. There are times when symbolism doesn't matter; it's about upper-body strength.

That said, where are the non-white firefighters? There are plenty of blacks and Hispanics with the strength and courage to do the job; apparently, it's hard to navigate the application process unless you have a father, brother, cousin or friend on the force. -- 3/18

Paperwork of terror
Behind every Al Qaeda gunman is a paper-bushing bureaucrat, according to this New York Times story on the paperwork of terror.

There were forms to keep track of ammunition, spending and more. Al Qaeda commanders, like middle managers everywhere, griped about the bosses. In one letter, a commander commiserated with another about their boss's lack of support, and tried to bolster his friend's flagging morale, reminding him, "Jihad is, by definition, surrounded by difficulties."

In response to a request for comments on a new movie, "The Destruction of the American Destroyer Cole," Amygdala writes:

I think there should be larger holders for our beverage containers. And the seats need more cushioning to recline in. As for the film, the plot was moving, but the characterization was poor; the characters needed greater depth if we were to truly enjoy gloating over their deaths. -- 3/17

Gilbert, Sullivan and Verse
Unremitting Verse pokes fun at "Making the Vulgar Mourn As They Ought" and, with help from Gilbert and Sullivan, the career of Sulayman Walker Lindh

I was filled with such love for my fellow man
That I ended up a soldier of the Taliban. -- 3/17

Foxed
Despite jet lag, I managed to do a weekend weblog for FoxNews.com. -- 3/17

"Religious tension" in Pakistan
There's been another attack on Christians in Pakistan. This time, an attacker threw a grenade into a Protestant church, killing five worshippers and wounding 45. AP writes:

Religious tension had been expected to rise with the start this weekend of the Islamic month of Moharram, marking the beginning of the Muslim year. -- 3/17

Playing soldier
The military exists to make war, not to make people better, writes Sgt. Stryker, shooting down a bill to draft high school graduates for six months of calisthenics and character building. The average cost of training a recruit is $12,000, says the sarge, an Air Force mechanic. The goal is not to let more Americans claim military experience

Well, there are few members of Congress who've ever held down a real job, yet I don't see any bills calling for mandatory service in the automotive maintenance and short-order cook fields. Hell, maybe we can just draft a bill calling for more housewives, then at least we'll have some people in Congress who know how to budget and manage money effectively.

Stryker also takes apart a New York Times letter writer, who's saddened that American soldiers back from fighting in the Afghan mountains are "jubilant.'' -- 3/16

Googleblog
Moira Breen has inspired me. If I link Herold civilian deaths and Afghan civilian deaths and Marc Herold study plus Herold bombing deaths, Afghanistan collateral damage and Afghan casualties, then I can be part of the great regoogling of information on how many civilians were killed by the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan. -- 3/16

Cooked poll
When a Phi Beta Kappa poll showed half of parents supporting vouchers, the education group cooked the question, charges Terry Moe, a Stanford political scientist, via Mickey Kaus. Support was cut in half when the question was changed:

"Do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose a private school to attend at public expense?" Moe asserts that the phrases "private school" and "at public expense" portray "vouchers, in effect, as a special-interest program for an exclusive group of private school parents." The question it replaced was first asked in the mid-1970s: "In some nations, the government allots a certain amount of money for each child's education. The parents can then send the child to any public, parochial or private school they choose. This is called a 'voucher system.' Would you like to see such an idea adopted in this country?"

Moe said Gallup on its own tested an improved version of the PDK question last year. The new question noted that vouchers could be used to pay for tuition "at the public, private or religious school of their choice." When asked this way, support for vouchers topped 62 percent -- nearly double the finding of the 2001 PDK/Gallup poll that used the "loaded and poorly framed" question, Moe wrote. -- 3/16

Charter schools help needy students
California charter schools are outperforming traditional public schools when it comes to educating low-income students, according to a Cal State-LA study. Yet the charters receive 15 to 20 percent less state funding.

The Los Angeles Daily News reports:

The three-year study found that charter schools with a majority of low-income students improved their academic scores more quickly than traditional campuses with comparable demographics.

"They are catching up faster in charter schools than in regular schools," said Simeon Slovacek, the study's lead author and education professor at California State University, Los Angeles, which released the report.

The study also found that charter schools serve proportionately more low-income students than traditional schools.

A separate study by Los Angeles Unified also found greater gains for students enrolled in charter schools. -- 3/15

Independent schools
On my vacation, I stayed with an old friend who's now a school psychologist in London. It was very hard to explain my charter school book to her, because Britain has had what we call charters -- independently run, state-funded schools -- for years. Alicia works at a Catholic girls' school run by nuns, which is nonetheless supported by tax money. The school teaches religion; it discriminates in favor of Catholic girls in admissions. That's fine, as long as the school demonstrates to the school inspector that students are learning.

While 30 percent of England's primary schools are Anglican and Catholic, "faith schools'' make up 60 percent of the top-scoring schools on national curriculum tests. (Link requires registration.)

There was a flap about an independent school that teaches creationism as well as evolution, while I was there. Prime Minister Tony Blair defended diversity in education. He also observed that the school's students do well on tests.

The former chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, came out for total privatization of the nation's schools; parents would get a voucher to pay for the school of their choice. -- 3/15

Back
Some jet-lagged observations after 11 days in Old Blighty:

The British newspapers don't write much about the war on terrorism, even with their own troops fighting in Afghanistan. On the other hand, they have lots of coverage of the Zimbabwe elections, which have been ignored by the U.S. press. (Well, maybe I missed the coverage, but I doubt it.)

There was a brief flurry of hysteria about U.S. plans to nuke seven countries. I read about it in a fellow Tube rider's paper, so I don't know which seven we're going to incinerate. Not France, I believe.

And here's a BBC story on Saudi religious police stopping girls from escaping a burning school because they weren't wearing black robes and head scarves.

Saudi Arabia's religious police stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress, according to Saudi newspapers.

In a rare criticism of the kingdom's powerful "mutaween" police, the Saudi media has accused them of hindering attempts to save 15 girls who died in the fire on Monday.

March is a lot colder in England than it is in California.

English people don't eat a lot of vegetables, except for fried mushrooms and fried tomato at breakfast.

While I missed the various California blogger bashes, I had the pleasure of lunching in Chelsea with the English Samizdatans, plus Natalie Solent and her husband. I had to promise numerous Samizdata links to suppress a truly hideous photo. Here's a link to one that makes me look grim, but not actually deranged.

Otherwise, I was almost completely offline for the trip. It was an odd sensation to be unlinked from the community of linkers, not to know what everyone was talking about.

I did manage to do a little surfing the day I arrived, using my daughter's account, and stumbled across a Mark Steyn column which starts with the words: "Joanne Jacobs . . . '' Steyn was taking off on the Mercury News headline I mentioned, "Religious tensions kill 57 in India.''

I was stunned, flattered -- and irritated that any Steyn readers who looked for me online wouldn't see any updates. On the other hand, I was busy vacating. -- 3/15

Gone
I'm leaving today for England, where I'll be visiting readJacobs.com's foreign bureau, hobnobbing with the British bloggerati and looking for a British diner who represents the world view of all Europeans. I plan to report on this diner's knowledge of the pronouncements of Tom Daschle, and analyze EU foreign policy based on the quality of the cuisine at mid-priced restaurants.

I may post from England. I may not. But I'll be back on March 15, filled with tax-deductible opinions and observations. -- 3/4

The face of death
Should graphic footage of World Trade Center deaths be broadcast? John Derbyshire says looking death in the face inspires pity for human frailty. Years ago, he helped cut down the body of a neighbor who'd committed suicide. I'm not a Derbyshire fan, normally, but this is exceptional.

Let us know what was done to us, in more detail than we have so far been shown. Then, when we set out to do what we need to do to our enemies, let's do it not in a spirit of whooping blood lust, but coldly and grimly, in full knowledge, full understanding, of what it means to cut short a human life, to turn smiles and kisses and laughter into the stiff pale grimace of death.

Yet, I wonder about the murderous mobs in India, burning and bludgeoning their neighbors. Perhaps too many corpses kills compassion. Remember Joe Stalin's line: "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.'' -- 3/4

Monty Python and the Koran
MuslimPundit's "Koran and Country'' isn't light reading. But it does start with a great bit from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." -- 3/4

Refugees' view
Over on Libertarian Samizdata, Natalija Radic gives the Croatian perspective on the fight for Krajina, a predominantly Serb enclave of Croatia. It's also a personal perspective; Natalija and her family fled their home to save their lives; when Croatia retook Krajina, they were able to go home.

Natalija says the U.N. did no good in Krajina. I don't think my friend Susan, a U.N. worker there, would argue. Susan told me she felt angry for her Serb friends who had to flee Krajina when it was retaken by the Croats. Then she was sent to Bosnia, where her translator was a Muslim from Tuzla. The Serbs had murdered his family. Susan felt less sorry for the Serbs of Krajina, who she saw again when she was reassigned to Belgrade.

Last I heard from Susan was during the fighting in Kosovo. She was being shifted from Pakistan to Macedonia to help with Kosovar refugees. Where ever she is now, it's either a hellhole or about to become one. -- 3/3

A victim of the 20th century
How did Larry King ask Monica Lewinsky about her, um, relationship with, um, The Big He? Read excerpts of the interview on Blogs of War, the site for "the sensitive warmonger.''

Larry: And finally, do you ever, uh, well, do you have the thought, I am history. I'm part of history? You know, like, um, I mean, ask an astronaut when you, I mean, when you, uh, look at the moon. If you walked on the moon? What did it, um, what does that feel like?

Monica: I don't, I don't know. I don't . . .

Lewinsky appeared on King to plug the HBO documentary that rehashes her claim to infamy. The Washington Post's Paul Farhi writes:

Lewinsky keeps mewling for vindication, and she apparently won't stop nipping our ankles until she gets it.

In the meantime, we get a vanity project: Lewinsky's self-described naivete. Lewinsky's finger-pointing. Lewinsky's self-pity. "I didn't choose to become a public person," she says at one point. Well, no. But the gal sure is milking it -- HBO reportedly paid her $150,000 to self-exploit again. -- 3/3

Googlewhacking
Do you need a new way to waste time? Are you insufficiently obsessive? Discover googlewhacking! The purpose of the game is to google two words for which there's one and only one web site on Google. I scored with "phantasmagoric hellions.'' Also in the Whack Stack are Ray Jacoby's "quoit imperturbable," Naomi Davidson's (Monica inspired?) "spermicidal shirtwaist,'' and "barfing dipsomaniac'' and others from Gerald Gunther, an emeritus Stanford law professor.

The Enron section includes:

ambidextrous scallywags (What do you call Enron corporate officers who contributed money to senators on both the left and the right?)

squirreling dervishes (How did an SEC spokesman privately describe Enron executives who had busily packed away their ill-gotten gains?)

What's frightening is to google some incredibly bizarrre combo -- "philandering walrus'' for example -- and get 17 hits. -- 3/3

Bunkered bureaucrats
I agree with Ken Layne that the "shadow government'' flap is silly.

Shadow Government? Is that what you call putting some people aside just in case Washington is attacked ... like it was less than six months ago?

. . . This is a naked attempt to portray a sane policy as some weirdo X-Files deal. A shadow government would, as we've learned from the teevee and movies, involve a secret power running the world. Having various civilian and elected officials hidden away because the center of U.S. government was attacked doesn't quite fit the conspiracy scenario.

Look, I've seen "Mars Attacks." I thought it was funny. But D.C. was destroyed in that movie, and an old lady and a hippy boy and the president's daughter and some Mexican musicians had to rebuild the nation. Maybe they'd do fine, but I'd rather have some people hidden away who knew how to send out the Social Security checks.

Didn't "The Postman'' depict a post-apocalyptic world where U.S. officialdom was represented only by mailman Kevin Costner? Do we want to risk living in a bad Costner movie?

If Bush tells Congress where Cheney and his band of bureaucrats are hanging out, the locations will be leaked in about two seconds. Already, Congress members are clamoring for cots in the bunker, which will take space from the useful guys. -- 3/2

Quick blogged Fox
Once again, it's the weekend, and time for QuickReading on FoxNews.com. That is, my recycled bloggage is now posted in the Views section. For Fox readers who've come here from there, welcome. -- 3/2

Bi-nasty
Texans Tony Sanchez and Dan Morales, competing for the Democratic nomination for governor, faced off in a bilingual debate -- one hour of English, then one hour of Spanish. Mi casa no es su casa.

Morales agreed to debate in Spanish, then attacked Sanchez for giving Spanish "equal status with English.''

(Morales) said it would drive a wedge between Texans based on language.
"This is Texas, and in Texas, we speak English as our primary language," Mr. Morales said.

He said that he was proud of his ethnic background but that using English is a key for success.

In a stinging retort, Mr. Sanchez said that it is a "slap in the face to 7 million Latinos that live in Texas when you tell them that you do not want to communicate with them in the language that they prefer."

Later Sanchez said Morales had gotten into Harvard due to affirmative action. Morales denied it, though I don't know how he'd know. -- 3/2

News from the warblog front
Michael Wells likes my "freeblog'' suggestion as a vague, non-bellicose name for commentary weblogs. He also notes that Matt Welch's wife, Emmanuelle Richards, has a list of links to French sites under the heading "froglogs.'' I suggested Irish bloggers could write broguelogs; Wells responded that cloglog would work for the Dutch. Political correctness stifled my final idea along these lines.

Isaac Meyers votes for Thomas Manning's "tablog."

This is the term that packs the most punch. It has the "blog" signifying bloggerdom; "tabl" from "tabloid," signifying a quick, colloquial, intrepid style; "log" emphasizing the importance of logic and good language usage; and "tab" indicating that the format is sort of tabular, or alternatively, that it's quickly changeable like a tablet.

Kevin Deenihan, who admits openly that he's a Cal weenie, writes:

The whole error with trying to rename warblogging is that 'blog' is such a horrible word. Repeat it several times: Blog blog blog blog blog. Ick.

I say go with the ultra-trendy futurist terms. . . . I suggest 'Civilsphere,' cool-sounding and politically-oriented.

"Civilsphere" makes me lisp.

Bjorn Staerk started The World After WTC 11 days after Sept. 11, and considers himself a warblogger.

Even better, calling it warblogs signifies opposition to the political tradition that has its center in the 60's peace movement, a dislike of which is perhaps the only thing every friend-of-Glenn has in common.

(The only thing that worries me about all of this is the size of this weblog network. How are we supposed to organize, elect leaders, and eliminate dissent within our ranks when we haven't even begun to map the movement? And why haven't anyone volunteered to draft some rules of conduct? Why, it's anarchy!)

Fred Pruitt says Rantburg will remain a warblog.

It started out the evening of 9-11 as I obsessively started collecting things to try and make some sense of what had happened. I put it on Blogger at the beginning of November because it had some neato features that I didn't have the time to write into my own software, only to end up taking it off because of its reliability problems. I occasionally veer off-topic, usually because something is so laughably stoopid it deserves to be noted, but my primary focus is and will remain terror networks and their mechanics.

Justin Slotman at Insolvent Republic of Blogistan also remains in the ranks of warbloggers. And I'm guessing Dr. Frank's Blogs of War will too.

I enjoy being part of an anti-idiotarian community of bloggers who share certain values, such as the idea that freedom, democracy and dynamism are good things and that self-respecting people and nations fight to defend themselves when attacked. For me, the warblog label is too restrictive. But I respect the right of Bjorn, Blogistan, Rantburg and others to define themselves as Bellicose Bloggers.

And I hereby declare that all future posts on the war vs. free vs. tablog issue will be forwarded to a competent international judicial body -- should one be discovered. -- 3/2

Very tense
San Jose Mercury News 2/28: "Religious tensions kill 57 in India''
San Jose Mercury News 3/1: "Vengeful mobs burn, kill in India"

I'll bet Indian engineers in Silicon Valley complained that a Muslim mob -- not "tensions'' -- murdered Hindus on a train. And I'll bet they're complaining that vengeful Hindu mobs were not described as "more religious tensions.'' -- 3/1

Crazy Yates
Moira Breen is right: Andrea Yates wasn't the average mom with a case of postpartum depression, as NOW stupidly suggested. But there's plenty of evidence that she's insane.

Thorny questions of the nature of sanity and moral culpability were addressed as if they hinged on NOW's making egregious statements and Anna Quindlen's being a jackass. Any suggestion that the woman might be full-bore out of her mind was greeted with derision as soppy liberal moral relativism, an appeal to corrupt legalistic "insanity" pleas, and the denial of human moral agency.

Andrea Yates was too crazy to know she should stop having children, writes Robin Wallace. What's her husband's excuse?

If Andrea Yates was flying aboard a crashing airplane with her kids, she would have been instructed to secure her own oxygen mask before her children's. She would not be able to save them if she did not first save herself. The Yates family seemed to think that their children could survive the nosedive their family was in with their mother dysfunctional. -- 3/1

Intelligent George
George W. Bush is smart in a way the intelligentsia doesn't get, writes David Brooks in the Standard. Brooks thinks Bush has faith-based judgment.

Since September 11, a lot of intelligent and learned people have said a lot of idiotic things. Meanwhile, George W. Bush, lacking both deep learning and wide experience, has made a series of smart decisions. Maybe it's time we reconsidered what it means to be intelligent. -- 3/1

Saint Bill
"Clinton to dedicate life to redistributing world's wealth'' says the Age in Australia, where our former president is giving speeches.

Clinton is taking in millions of dollars on the speakers' circuit. I wonder how much of it he's redistributed to the poor.

Update: Floyd McWilliams makes an excellent point: "It doesn't say "Clinton to dedicate life to redistributing world's wealth TO THE POOR", now does it? -- 3/1