Monday

Collective Bargaining and Student Performance

ganked from Edudemic.com
Right now, only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on SAT scores are as follows: (source)
  • South Carolina – 49th
  • North Carolina – 38th
  • Georgia – 48th
  • Texas – 45th
  • Virginia – 34th   

This is just one reading of the data . . . many factors affect scores. I offer it as fuel for debate.

Sunday

No Child Left Outside

Most optimistic forward-thinking people agree that in order to save this planet, we need to rediscover our connection to it.  A school founded in 1981 with the express intent of educating children through principles of living in the natural world -- playing in the mud, stacking rocks, swinging from trees, having pets -- is on the brink of closing.  In order to comply with safety regulations, the stream has been fenced off, the logs removed, the cat banished, and now the limbs of every tree must be removed below seven feet.  Sounds like a blast.

Full Story from Free Range Kids.

Tuesday

Paul Haggis Humbly but Heroically Stands up to Scientology

I've met the guy several times, I assisted in designing his loft here in NYC.  He's a passionate, thoughtful, thorough guy.  He wrote Crash, In the Valley of Elah, Million Dollar Baby, and others.  After having lived in LA for seven years, I'm still not sure quite what the "Hollywood Type" is --  I've heard so much false testimony and seen various and met many glorious -- but I don't think you could give him any of the derogatory aspects of that title.   He has, recently proven his thoughtfulness, compassion, and bravery by breaking with his church of many years over it's treatment of gays.  His story is chronicled finally and wonderfully in the New Yorker and here is the LINK.  Enjoy.

Terry Gross interviewed the article's author on NPR's Fresh Air and that interview is shorter and HERE.

Thursday

Same-Sex Marriage vs. First Cousin Marriage in America

I'm just sayin' . . .
From the NYTimes . . . an incorrect with regards to New Jersey, where same-sex marriage is not currently legal.

Bill O'Reilly and an Athiest Talk at One Another

So, let's see. This is great. The outrageously bigoted, routinely offensive man who fancies himself the voice of conservative America can't tell you how tides work, and is offended when his religion is questioned. Are we a nation of big babies (With guns)? Now this Atheist isn't exactly a whizz-bang either, so it's kind of a car wreck, but at least he's trying to use his gray matter.


And then this happened:


Tuesday

Please post this to as wide and varied an audience as possible! This kid is terriffic.

Take the Z,E,N Trains to Tunestown.


Here's a little rainy-day brilliance plucked (literally) from the geometry of the NYC subway system. The artist/musician Alexander Chen has made an "interactive string instrument" out of the MTA's actual schedule, operating in "realtime by spawning trains which departed in the last minute."

For those of you who are sticklers, or can't quite follow your line, the visuals are based on Massimo Vignelli's 1972 diagram (as above) which is fun and arty and easy to read, but does not represent the geography of the actual city as faithfully.


Conductor: www.mta.me from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.

I likey.