This is spot on. We’ve been told that men and women communicate differently….so that makes it harder to understand one another. Women have been promoted as a group instead of a collection of individuals with independent thought.
News Flash: we don’t all think alike! As the cartoon illustrates…if you want to know what a woman is thinking, ASK HER.
(hat tip Lisa Wade at sociological images)
Here’s a great post on what is happening to the kids. You know….those kids that the reformers say they are concerned about??
G2 put a comment linking to this post. I found this passage especially poignant:
It is imperative, therefore, that we make school a supportive environment free of the extreme stress that can harm healthy development. Some stress is productive and promotes growth. However, especially for children living in poverty, creating an unnecessarily stressful environment has long-term damaging effects.
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To label schools as “just” a place to get an education is a short-sighted, narrow view. Children in poverty are already stressed out by worrying that they won’t have enough to eat that day…that Mom will be crying again because she doesn’t know how she’s going to pay the bills…
…and the one thing that can make that child feel worth something? Knowing the answer to a question the teacher asks. Getting an “A” or even a “B” on a test. Having a teacher provide a treat on his/her birthday….which he/she might not get at home because there just isn’t any extra.
School can be the difference between a poor kid seeing beyond their environment and reaching beyond their little world.
More here:
Child-development experts have decried the age-inappropriateness of the Common Core. In 2010, more than 500 people signed a statement stating that the “standards conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades.”
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A reminder of the nonsensical approach of Common Core.
This just says it all:
The U.S. Department of Education hyped the Common Core as creating a “national market” for “educational entrepreneurs.”
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Makes you sick, doesn’t it??
One of the commenters said that homeschooling is the next step. Yes and No. If you’re wealthy enough that one parent can stay home, you can do that. And we would lose so much of the connectedness that school encourages. We would be further isolated from each other. I just can’t wrap my brain around that–our children and grandchildren will be living in the same neighborhood, but regarding the others as strangers. I see kids out playing in the neighborhood and it makes my heart sing. If this continues, there won’t be the shared experience of discovering new things together, of sharing their personal stories in class discussions (finding common ground or discovering other cultures), of class plays, of singing together, of inspiration…
Bring it on, Arne. She’s referring to this by Duncan. Oh.My.God. Did he really say that?? Did he really just insult a group of women who know their children and know their schools and know their teachers? Is he really that condescending and arrogant? And racist? I mean, really, if it was stated that a group of “angry, black women” were not accepting their failing schools, it would be seen as the racist statement that it is.
There’s another link here, to a report on Common Core playbook, from the Perdido site.
There’s more but this is making me so depressed I need to step away for the moment.
Karen Silkwood died on this day nearly forty years ago. Her death was ruled an accident, but there was controversy surrounding her. I didn’t want to let this day go by without putting her story out there. Her story highlighted another aspect of the nuclear industry–manufacturing. As always, when there is a profit to be made, corners are cut to obtain the biggest profit.
Karen was asking questions and that is never a popular with manufacturers who cut corners on safety.
I hope she is at peace.
I saw recently where James Taylor was supposed to sing the Star Spangled Banner, and started singing “America, the Beautiful”…God Bless him. I want to put a vote in for America, the Beautiful for our national anthem. The Star Spangled Banner sings of war and bombs but America the Beautiful sings of the beauty of our country, the abundance, and the brotherhood (as yet to be realized, but a worthy goal).
A beautiful, crisp morning as the sun rises….now moved across the horizon for the winter sleep…
I saw six deer this morning. Sometimes they will stop and just observe me, but mostly they just run off, with white tails bobbing up…it never ceases to amaze me how they can be standing still in front of a four foot tall fence and leap over it with such athletic grace. They like apples, by the way. A momma deer and baby were seen nibbling apples one morning while they hung from the tree. You’ll see a half-eaten apple on the ground and know that it was lunch for a deer.
I went out the other morning, and the birds were singing as if it were a Spring day. It caught me off guard….this is Fall, right…? :p
There were cardinals singing, Blue Jays sounding the warning, and another bird I couldn’t identify singing its little heart out. Funny.
I’ve seen a bird that is mostly grayish black that at first I thought was a junco, but it’s tail looked like a sparrow’s and it was too big to be a junco.
The hummingbirds have long since sought warmer climates. I miss their antics. They spend more energy fighting over the food, when there is plenty there, rather than conserving the energy they used fighting so they wouldn’t need so much food….I know there is a lesson for mankind in there, somewhere….
You remember the hornet’s nest I mentioned? Something happened to it–we had about three days of rain (no chemtrails to interfere), and then we had really windy days….so it may have been the combination that caused the nest to lose its outer wrap (for want of a better word). It literally had torn off the wrap down to the honeycomb-like inner chambers. I guess birds could have gotten to it, too, but I’ve never seen that. Not that I’ve seen that many hornets’ nest….in my youth, when I lived around the woods, but not since moving to the city.
Here’s an informative blog on hornet’s nests. I learned something today–I saw the honeycombs of the torn hornet’s nest but I did not realize they actually made honey! It makes perfect sense, though, because they need something for the pupae. However, I wanted to double check this, and another site said they did not make honey.
Continuing the search, I found this:
I also learned that the Maya believe hornets/wasps learn the hut owner’s scent and leave them alone….but may go after visitors. Interesting. Hornets generally do leave people alone….unless they mess with them. There was one story of my childhood where one of the neighborhood kids thought it would be funny to poke a hornet’s nest. Um-hmm….you can guess what happened…hornets mad as hell swarmed him. They had to get a hose to get them off. Yep, he never did that again…
I found this interesting blog on hornet nest destruction. Apparently, bears will tackle anything. This site is pretty interesting with discussions on biodiversity. Someone posted a video on biodiversity but it advocates eco-tourism, and setting aside small tracts of land for preservation. I think both of these ideas send the wrong message. Tourism is tourism and the more people that trample the ground, disturbing the wildlife, the more stress they bring to resources and the life forms there–not to mention more pollution by using motorized vehicles. I shake my head at folks who drive up in SUV’s to the parks….the irony seems lost on them on the damage their vehicles cause by consuming gas and polluting with exhaust, which are destroying the nature that they seek.
And the setting aside tracts of land is a noble idea–but in my view, it absolves the rest of the occupants of the land their responsibility to take care of the land they’re on. In other words, it’s like they’re saying “we have this land over here that is being preserved, therefore, you can pollute the hell out of the other land that isn’t in the preserve.” It’s still missing the HUGE point that we cannot separate the land by lines….as much as we have been brainwashed into thinking that it is possible to do just that.
Water runoff polluted with pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified forms, mercury, etc., will migrate from the unprotected land to the protected land. Toxic air will flow over the protected land. There is no way to keep a tract of land pristine while the land surrounding it is poisoned. Just like we see with the nuclear accident in Japan–what happens in one area affects another that has nothing to do with it. We have to see that everything we do affects another–to take care.
Another link someone posted is something near and dear to my heart–natural water filtration a la natural swimming pools. Pretty cool, eh? Last one in is a rotten egg! 🙂
Also, there is a thread on endangered invertebrates. Interesting read.
Have a great Sunday. 🙂
Germans observed the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht (night of broken glass) when the assault against the Jews began in earnest.
It’s hard to watch the video of it. The pure hatred of the dark ones sends chills down my spine.
(kind of like the war on the poor, children (public ed.), and the elderly (Social Security) and the overreach of the NSA in the U.S. now, eh?)
Seriously?? They’re charging fees to the homeless for shelter….unbelievable….meanwhile, Canadians using food banks are at record highs…
(blog title is reference to the song “Dialogue, Parts 1 and 2 by Chicago)
**edited because no matter how many times I’ve listened to the song…somehow still messed up the lyrics….<sigh>
Global News has this up on the poisoning of Yassar Arafat. You might recall my post on that a year ago.
A report on what polonium is here.
Not stuff to mess with, eh?
And speaking of radiation….howz about some radiated water…? Oh, I know the report states it’s not from the radiated side of the plants, but you know, I’m having a hard time trusting nuclear plant operators to tell the truth when that truth could be politically and financially damaging to their interests. Canadians, be on the lookout for three-eyed fish sprouting feet….
First, the bad news. Blessings to you, Diane, for healing. Take care of yourself–your body is telling you to take it easy. Believe me, I understand better than most. Having said that, your contributions to fighting the good fight are truly inspiring…you are needed as never before….but it can wait until you are rested.
This from Seattle Education. Pretty depressing that Wall $t. has turned its eye$ toward$ the school$….how much can we wring out of them?
The sidebar says it all:
This is a pretty good report of the events surrounding the recent clash with the armed forces and the First Nations of Canada.
From the post:
It is of particular importance to note that – according to Augustine – the Warrior Society and the RCMP had even negotiated for the possibility that an ISL security guard would want to come and pray at the sacred fire. The guards could come and pray any time they wanted, but neither they, nor anyone else, was permitted to bring weapons of any kind to the sacred fire.
“[ISL] already knew,” says Augustine. “When we negotiated the first time, when an ISL worker comes out to the sacred fire – because they were welcome, anytime they were welcome – as long as they don’t have any weapons. [But] they could come and pray with us anytime they want. And that was part of the negotiations. They could come out at any time and pray with us, or go out the back way and shift change then.”
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I think it’s important, too, to note the First Nations people welcoming the guards into camp–as long as they were not armed. And praying together? What a wonderful way to seek spiritual guidance together—to seek that which feeds the Light. I don’t believe that God would sanction polluting the Earth….and causing all the misery to humans, animals, plants, the soil, and the water that fracking does.
If you recall the previous videos on the confrontation, the female Warrior was clearly upset at them offering tobacco. Now we see the story behind that–they offered tobacco the night before as a symbol of wanting peace for everyone. Then the very next morning,they show up with guns drawn–even when they knew the indigenous were unarmed and seeking a peaceful way to get SWN off their land.
Here is a look at Chief Arren Sock presenting their demands to the public/press:
I think what is hard for white folks to understand is that the indigenous society is not based on hierarchical status. Until recently, I didn’t understand all of what that means, myself, because it’s so ingrained that *somebody* MUST be in charge. The Chief system was something imposed upon the indigenous by the Europeans–they required someone to be spokesperson and to call all the shots. The people were offended by this because their society was not set up that way. As Chief Sock states in this video, he does not speak for the others. He doesn’t tell the other indigenous what to do —they act on their own autonomy. They see this as each person acting according to what the Creator wishes for them to do, as far as my understanding.
A couple of tweets here and here on it. The last pic with the story behind the brave Warrior standing between a pregnant woman and this armed guard…who’s the terrorist, again…?
Another tweet here on once again labeling environmentalists as terrorists. If you recall, when I worked for the state health dept., one of the training sessions I had included Dept. of Hysterical Security. They did an exercise where environmentalists were going to use bio warfare by injecting food borne pathogens into food at a fair booth. The whole scenario was outlandish and reminded me of the story of Chicken Little who ran around crazy exclaiming that the sky was falling because an acorn dropped on his head. It makes a broad sweeping generalization about a group that is generally peaceful with a few idiots who resort to violence as a means to an end. Unfortunately, they not only achieve their goal, but they also persuade others NOT to join the movement because they don’t condone that behavior and because, as said previously, they don’t want to be labeled as troublemakers. **not to mention that some of those causing trouble could be agent provocateurs who are not actually environmentalists, but paid disruptors from the outside posing as environmentalists.
Some good news here. Glad to see someone has some sense and vision to look beyond today and the $$$ short term gain. Just say NO to the money, honey.
Eagle 
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