I had to consider how I had lasted through my 12 years of servitude and continual higher ed since then. The secret is that I never took it seriously. I was so busy educating myself that I had too little time to question my enjoyment of my environment. Never in my scholastic career did I see myself as not being self-owned, not being self-directed.
Author: Kilgore Forelle
Don’t You Know What Socialism Is?
Economists may insist on a strict definition saying that socialism is where the state controls the means of production. I would respond, what could be more of a means of production than the labor force, 99% of which comes from public schools in modern, industrial states?
Words Poorly Used #131 — Rich
Apparently, many in the media, referring to Manafort, for instance, as “rich,” confuse lifestyle with net worth. They would likewise have described Madoff as “rich” without recognizing he was spending illicit credit.
Words Poorly Used #130 — Militia
The emotionally driven “we can’t just do nothing” crowd is dragging out the very ambiguous “militia” wording in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, 2nd Amendment. The Amendment reads, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” There is, to my knowledge, no definition of “Militia” in the Constitution. Furthermore, the addition of the dependent preambulatory clause, and the last comma render the passage ungrammatical.
Tone Deaf in a Bubble
Maybe POTUS isn’t metaphorically tone deaf, but I doubt it. He gets an idea, ignores significant negative feedback, reiterates the idea, does not retreat from the idea. Then he assembles a group of traumatized students and does a focus group on his ideas, doing all the talking, not listening. He is not interested in feedback, he is interested in appearing as though he is seeking feedback. Actually, he’s in a bubble, and no one else knows what movie is showing on the screen inside the bubble.
Book Lists
When you task a dozen people over 50 with the idea of each picking her or his favorite novel, you need to get ready to get dozens of titles added to your reading list. Most of us, between 60 and 90, come from some of the last reading generations.
A Vanishing Point
I worry about the degree to which we let things get out of control, plunging to a vanishing point. In Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, we built an optimum security detention center for more than 3000 inmates. What could go wrong? Well, if a number equal to 1% of the day detainees of the school were of a bent similar to that of Nikolas Cruz, that means at least 30 potential perturbers are related to the school at a given moment.
Random Ideas
Can we say yet that neither direct gun control nor background checks have made any difference? Isn’t the definition of madness to keep doing the same things, while expecting different results?
Distortion
Mark Twain once opined, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.” One can only imagine what he might have said about cable news. There are vast numbers of the public, however, who form their convictions from headlines and teasers. Those few who stick around long enough to get the proffered stories are regaled with inaccuracies.
We Interrupt This Tragedy…
Killing the messenger will never grow old. It is because there are far too many who are desperately seeking ways to shut out the tsunami of data. I don’t know how many times I have heard the phrase, “Cartoon News Network” used because someone did not like the import of a story. To be sure, CNN has done everything in its power to destroy its own credibility, but when a story contains a verifiable fact, CNN’s lack of credibility is incapable of changing that fact to “fake news.”