“We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”  – page 20, Republican Party of Texas, 2012, […]

I’m writing this from exile.  Banishment.  I have been forced from my home and now travel about, trying to post from whatever café I can find.  If you are reading this, you are part of the network that keeps me connected to the world I once knew.  Yes, I am a tragic figure around whom […]

Today’s post will be quite brief – I’m a little short on time, in terms of internet access, for reasons I will elaborate on tomorrow.  The short version is that I am in exile.  Driven from my home my powerful forces making demands I can not possibly hope to fulfill. Intriguing, isn’t it?  Kind of […]

As many of you know, I used to be – once upon a time – a full-time stand up comedian.  The end of that is summarized briefly on my Let’s Meet The Author page (perhaps a more detailed recollection will be here one of these days).  But for some reason I was just thinking about […]

More and more communities are privatizing services traditionally considered public, including emergency services such as 911. – AP Newswire item Dispatch: Toyota Mountain-Dew 911, what’s your emergency? Caller: Someone’s broken in to our house.  Oh my God, we just got, uh, got back from vacation and there’s broken glass and – Dispatch: Ma’am? Ma’am?  Calm […]

Brainstorm list for post to put up on my birthday: Have a contest.  Note: be sure you plan ahead, because if you’re trying to think of a contest the night before your birthday that won’t work out. Make a list of great birthday parties throughout history.  Don’t scientists think it was a birthday party gone […]

The Olympic trials are wrapping up (Go Ashton Eaton!), and we’re all set for another year of the games. We are all set, right London?  Nothing you need to tell us?  Great. The Olympics, of course, have changed a lot since their noble beginnings. Initially, the idea was to take warfare and place it in […]

I’ve decided that I may be what’s wrong with America.  It’s selecting finalists for these ‘Weekly Questions of the Week’ that have done it.  “Oh, I’ll have these little questions of the week, and pick a couple finalists, and it’ll be fun and a way to feature bloggers!” I thought naively.  Little did I know […]