So what 2009 won’t be like 1984?
by tdaxp ~ September 30th, 2009
We have created, for the first time in all history, the ultimate pure experience.
Talk about the totalitarian tendency of UXR!
tdaxp, Ph.D.
High-minded, fanatically malthusian perspectives
RSS
Recent Comments
- Being Lovingly Kind by Letting the House Burn (18)
- > Larry Dunbar: “I’ve always wanted to see someone write a book on Jesus as an analytical genius” After my,...
- Educational Equality: The Civil Rights Struggle of Our Day (2)
- > tdaxp: Negative, unfortunately. The American Civil Rights Era was a lot of storm and thunder that took some political...
- > FredR: Any books you’d recommend about the Civil Rights era?
- Review of “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China” by Ezra F. Vogel (14)
- > tdaxp: Larry, This is an interesting discussion! Agreed that the Tea Party wanted less democracy. Vogel implies the...
- > Larry Dunbar: “Vogel criticizes the notion that the protestors were primarily interested in democracy as a form of...
- > tdaxp: Hey Larry, A number of good points. Let me quick address them: “As all war is about economic considerations,...
- > Larry Dunbar: “Party and government workers, state enterprise employees, and others with fixed salaries were furious...
- > Larry Dunbar: And of course they were all armed, by organizations such as the NRA that lobbied to keep the forces armed,...
- > Larry Dunbar: “Sun Yatsen was the first President of China and the founder of the KMT.” So, doctor, lawyer;...
- > tdaxp: What’s interesting is that what CKS said he was doing, CCK actually did. Sun Yatsen was the first President...
- > Larry Dunbar: I am thinking Reagan was like me, more of an engineer than a tactician. He understood structure, not...
- > Larry Dunbar: Reagan was a King, not a statesman. He was simply not a tyrant, which people of the USA don’t...
- > Larry Dunbar: A “Cheap Trick” doesn’t work if you’re brain-dead.
- > Larry Dunbar: “Moreover, by early 1981 China had already established working relationships with Y.K. Pao and other Hong...
- > Larry Dunbar: “Two years later, in 1987, Chiang Ching-kuo, on his deathbed, abolished the long-standing martial law...
- > Larry Dunbar: “Deng, who for more than a year had behaved like a stern, truculent soldier lecturing American officials,...
- > Larry Dunbar: “When he was informed of Deng’s proposal, however, Chiang Ching-kuo was defiant: he repeated his...
- How Science Works (31)
- > tdaxp: Richard, You have a good & reasonable concern re: privacy. Certainly there’s a balance to be bad between...
- > Richard: Biggest issue would be privacy. I could have got some bad reports on such a system because in some classes I was...
- > tdaxp: Very true, Michael. Teachers are facing a fork between being professionals [1] and being drones [2]. Both cases...
- > Michael: About half-way through that essay I mentioned in my last comment on the testing thread. Had this quote from an...
- The Low Quality of the US Education System Destroys Jobs (2)
- > tdaxp: The question of evolution v. revolution is an important one — as I understand the problem, there are three...
- > Bruno Behrend: Parents and Employers only think they are stakeholders, but they aren’t. The system is designed to...
- Where Did All the Jobs Go? (3)
- > tdaxp: Bruno, Excellent comment! Thanks for sharing! I agree that the cost of transforming teachers into professionals is...
- > Bruno Behrend: What if we don’t need anywhere near the amount of brick and mortar schools, administrators, or...
- Why Are Teachers So Rich? (7)
- > tdaxp: Hey Cosmic Tinker, Thanks so much for your comment. I agree that it seems unlikely many teachers are making...
- > Cosmic Tinker: The NYT article clearly states, “School teachers don’t earn enough to make the top 1 percent on...
- > tdaxp: Yeah, the legend is a bit confusing.
The New York Times uses top 1% of income, not wealth. From the legend:... - > Tyler: Okay, so I just read the figure caption more closely. It explains that teachers become the 1% primarily through...
- > Tyler: I think one of us may be misinterpreting this figure-chart-table. The way I understand it is that very few (0.9%;...
- > tdaxp: Hey Tyler, Thanks for the awesome comment. There’s far fewer retail sales clerks than teachers in the top 1%,...
- > Tyler: More than 99% of teachers are not rich. In fact, in terms of percentage in the 1%, retail sales clerks are better...
- What Good Tests Look Like, and Why We Don’t Have Them (8)
- > tdaxp: Michael, Interesting article! The benefit of the national exam system is that you can objective measure everyone in...
- > Michael: The anecdote at the beginning of this essay suggests a rough-and-read test for secondary and tertiary schools:...
- > Michael: I would imagine it depends on the skill of the teacher and the concern of the parents. Teachers who don’t...
- > tdaxp: Interest link, thanks! This actually does a good job of showing the difficulty of the discussion — the...
- > Michael: Not directly related to the subject, but with links to other articles on the site that are....
- How Professional Teachers Should Be Evaluated (8)
- > tdaxp: Kim, Thanks for sharing your essay with me! I look forward to reading it. Here’s the paragraph where tdaxp is...
- > Kim Krostue: OK, education primer: US public schools – the crisis that never ends available via my blog. may be...
- > tdaxp: Kim, Awesome! Glad for the press, of course. What will be the publication outlet for your paper. I can’t...
- > Kim Krostue: will attempt to read in the next few days. you are now a reference in my paper: US public schools: the crisis...
- > Kim Krostue: I will attempt to read over the next few days. You are now added as a reference in my 9000 word paper. thanks...
- > tdaxp: Hey Kim, Thanks for linking to the op-ed! I look forward to reading more of what you have to say! I think I broadly...
- > Kim Krostue: Have spent the last 6 months studying us public schools. here is letter to editor published last week....
- What is the best biography of Deng Xiaoping? (8)
- > tdaxp: Spehro, Great minds think a like! I am reading Vogel’s work now!
- > Spehro Pefhany: There is a definitive biography now (C) 2011:- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F....
- The Encirclement of a United Front (8)
- > tdaxp: Kim, thanks. I can’t wait to read your thoughts!
- > Kim Krostue: Many of the points you make show up in my paper.
- The Political Economy of Education Reform (6)
- > tdaxp: Kim, You’re absolutely correct that parents should be on the list. I think we’re on the same...
- > Kim Krostue: I would add to parents as stakeholders taxpayers. Not all taxpayers are parents but taxpayers have a vested...
- They Want Money (9)
- > tdaxp: Hey Stephen, Excellent comment! I agree with your first point — my verbiage was ambiguous and inartful. I...
- > Stephen Pampinella: Two main critiques. “middle and high class parents fear that it will be their child who does not...
- Global Guerrillaism or Idiocy? (17)
- Review of “The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger,” by Marc Levinson (4)
- > tdaxp: Interesting! No, I hadn’t heard of Aerotropolis – thanks for the rec! Right now I’m working my...
- > Michael: Have you read Aerotropolis yet? It covers similar conceptual territory only the agent of change studied is the...
- > tdaxp: Fascinating! All I know about the A&P is from Jim Collins [1,2], so it’s great that it’s getting...
- > Eddie: A great review! Levinson’s most recent contribution is also well-worth readers’ time. Its flawed only...
- The Lobotomy of Low Wages (6)
- > tdaxp: Jack, Great comment! I would imagine you are right. In my experience pre-service high-school teachers tend to be...
- > Jack Brown: How much of the lower pay for teachers is due to the number of people getting education degrees? I have a...
- Steve Jobs: Teachers Unions Cripple American Education (15)
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Well.
Someone should make a new video that starts this way. Then, the giant screen of The Speaker should be shown to break into a thousand smaller screens which make it (in this new video). Then, those smaller screens should be dispersed to living rooms around the country. Finally, The Speaker should be altered in the different televisions to different speakers — but all saying the same thing, in different styles of speaking but nonetheless the same message. Finally, pan out to the people watching their televisions, who are not at all identical in appearance like the marchers in the above video, but who are all nodding their heads or clapping or whatnot identically.
October 3rd, 2009 at 5:10 am
Today was the first day I purposefully went out of my way to buy my online music from Amazon’s MP3 service, instead of iTunes.
With Microsoft pushing their subscription idea, and Apple demanding you have an AAC player, I’ve become increasingly skeptical of these locked in mini-ecosystems. The iPod Touch is not just a toy, but a brilliantly designed small computer. Apple preventing users from loading Chrome, Firefox, Google Voice, etc., is very disturbing.