Category: education

David Foster Wallace – THIS IS WATER

On By Rick McIn books, education, philosophy2 Comments

Brilliant.

In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College.

However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

We made this video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested. However, we encourage everyone to seek out the full speech (because, in this case, the book is definitely better than the movie).

-The Glossary

It’s no finger wagging Dr Laura sermon. 🙂

Here’s the full speech.

David Foster Wallace committed suicide September 12, 2008. He had suffered depression for over 20 years.

climate change – SOLVED

On By Rick McIn economics, education, food, good news, government, things getting betterLeave a comment

I’m a “global warming” skeptic.

The climate is changing as it always has. Ice ages come and go.

I’m skeptical that the Earth is warming mainly due to fossil fuels. And I hope I’m right. Because there is almost NO chance that the world is going to reduce the use of fossil fuels anytime soon.

Here’s the best solution I’ve yet heard. Allan Savory’s explains how we can improve the world’s climate in a cost efficient way. AND feed millions of the poorest of the poor at the same time.

Click PLAY or watch it on TED.

“Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And it’s happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it.

He now believes — and his work so far shows — that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.

Allan Savory: Grassland ecosystem pioneer

Thanks for the link, Ron.

my gun stance

On By Rick McIn bad news, education, ethics, firearms, government, happiness2 Comments

In Yemen.

Rick gun

Guns are tools. Tools that can be used for right or wrong.

The nations with the most guns / capita:

United States 88.8
Serbia 58.2
Yemen 54.8
Switzerland
Cyprus
Saudi Arabia
Iraq
Finland

More guns = more accidents. More gun murders.

Everyone mourned the 20 children of Newton. Know that 260 school children were killed in Chicago over a 3yr span. It happens all the time.

But doesn’t hit the mainstream media each time.

Still, the U.S.A. is only 10th on the list of firearm-related deaths. Switzerland is 5th. Mexico is 9th.

It’s not an exact correlation. Guns in the U.S.A. prevent some killings.

Dana and Fred recently moved from Vegas to Regina, Canada. There’s far less chance for their son to be hurt by guns in Regina than Vegas. I really believe that.

… If I could wave a magic wand and render all the hand guns in the world ineffective, I would. There would be a net calming effect, I predict.

Perhaps I’m wrong.

In any case, there is no magic wand. We must deal with the cards on the table now.

Actually, I don’t believe the pro gun nuts and the anti gun zealots are all that far apart.

Aside from the worst extremists, the majority would agree that it should be legal for hunters to own hunting guns. That it should be legal for people to defend their families and homes.

Most would agree there’s no need for an assault weapon for hunting nor home defense.

Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee:

“An AK-47 is a Russian-made weapon that is made for war. An AR-15, which is an answer to the AK-47 . . . these high-capacity [guns] . . . you can shoot 50 to 60 rounds within a minute. Within a minute you can literally shoot through brick, shoot through steel.”

Speaking at a news conference with Rep. John Conyers and myself, Chief Godbee expressed dismay that there has been no action to revive the assault-weapons ban that was allowed to expire in 2004 when George W. Bush was president. …

Police chiefs are right: Ban assault weapons

That ban should be put in place. And enforced.

Penalties should be very strict.

Release the marijuana smokers from U.S. prisons to free up space for those carrying illegal weapons.

Bring the troops home. Use the money for Home Defence. Especially defending Americans from assault weapon attack.

Use the money to take better care of the mentally ill.

Use the money to improve the lives of the poorest of the poor in the U.S.A. 

Not family handouts. But improved schools.

We’ll still have mass shootings, but hopefully fewer.

Personally, I feel it’s time for the N.R.A. to moderate their positions.

Critics of the N.R.A. have some very good points.

I admire George H. W. Bush for resigning from the N.R.A. in 1996.

He was right.

In fact, looking back with 20/20 vision, George H was more often right than wrong. His son, just the opposite.

anti-Socialist Americans

On By Rick McIn economics, education, government, happinessLeave a comment

There are many like Susan in the USA.

Susan Clark of Santa Monica, California, who opposes health care reform, stands with a red hand painted over her mouth to represent what she said is socialism taking away her choices and rights, in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on March 28, 2012, on the final day of arguments regarding the health care law signed by President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Screenshot 2012-12-06 2:18 PM

Yet many nations she’d call “Socialist” are successful in 2012. And happy.

Norway
Denmark
Finland
Australia
New Zealand
Sweden
Canada
Switzerland
Netherlands

You’d be hard pressed to convince any of those nations that the American model is “better”.

Turns out that spending money on a social welfare safety net is a better investment longterm than military and prisons.

It’s time to rethink priorities, America.

That’s one of the best photos of the year 2012 as chosen by The Atlantic.

the myth of Career Success

On By Rick McIn education, happiness, philosophyLeave a comment

A few lucky people find the career that makes them happiest. Mark and Delia Owens, Lion researchers, for example. They plan to continue studying lions for the rest of their lives.

But that’s not what happens to the majority.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Follow Your Bliss.

Thanks Andy.

understanding China …

On By Rick McIn books, education, travel1 Comment

I’ve spent at least 6 months in China, Hong Kong and Macao … bewildered much of the time.

But after reading this book, I’m finally starting to understand the culture.

In 1996, 26-year-old Peter Hessler arrived in Fuling, a town on China’s Yangtze River, to begin a two-year Peace Corps stint as a teacher at the local teacher’s college. The first foreigner to live there in 50yrs.

… Hessler’s writing is lovely. His observations are evocative, insightful, and often poignant–and just as often, funny. It’s a pleasure to read of his (mis)adventures. …

Amazon

This was the era when Hong Kong was returned. When the Three Gorges Dam controversy was in the western media.

China itself, I visited Aug-Oct 1998. (travelogues)

Hessler debunks many of the stereotypes we have of modern China. He couldn’t find anyone on the Yangtze strongly opposed to the dams. Even those who were to be relocated.

Despite what we assume about “arranged marriages” being successful, most were not in Hessler’s small rural town.

If you’re planning a trip to China, these are MUST READING:

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (2001) is a Kiriyama Prize-winning book about his experiences in two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in China.

Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present (2006) features a series of parallel episodes featuring his former students, a Uighur dissident who fled to the U.S., and the archaeologist Chen Mengjia who committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution.

His third book, Country Driving: A Journey from Farm to Factory (2010), is a record of Hessler’s journeys driving a rented car from rural northern Chinese counties to the factory towns of southern China, and the significant economic and industrial growth taking place there.

His wife, Leslie T. Chang, is an American journalist and the author of Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China (2008). A former China correspondent for the Wall Street Journal …

The couple has recently moved to Cairo. And are learning Arabic.

bringing manufacturing back …

On By Rick McIn Apple, education, government, product endorsements, robotsLeave a comment

Apple once manufactured in the USA.

Almost everything, in 2012, is now made overseas.

Steve Jobs famously told Obama, “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

Even at that time, I thought Steve was wrong. Sooner or later the difference in wages will diminish enough to start bringing manufacturing plants back to the richest nations.

Trade embargoes could speed that up. But better would be using technology like Baxter …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

… Affordably priced ($22,000), versatile and safe enough to work shoulder-to-shoulder with people, Baxter robots redefine how small, mid-size and large domestic manufacturers use automation to compete with manufacturers in low-cost regions of the world.

Baxter can’t build an iPhone yet, but it won’t be long.

(via Mashable)

Committee member on U.S. Science, Space and Technology says Earth Is 9,000 Years Old

On By Rick McIn education, GOP USA, government, things getting worseLeave a comment

The earth is about 9,000 years old, according to U.S. House Representative Paul Broun, who is also a physician and member of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology of the House of Representatives.

“There are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young earth, ” Broun said in a videotape of the Sportsmen’s Banquet held on September 27 at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Georgia. “I don’t believe that the earth is but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them.”

via Scientific American

Paul Collins Broun, Jr. (born May 14, 1946) is the U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 10th congressional district, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Republican Party and the Tea Party Caucus. …

Broun has been married four times. He has a son with his fourth wife, Nikki, and two daughters from previous marriages …

Seems to me a guy married 4 times is doomed to the “Pit of Hell”.

Young Earth creationism (YEC) is the religious belief that the Universe, Earth, and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of the Abrahamic God during a relatively short period, sometime between 5,700 and 10,000 years ago. Its primary adherents are those Christians and Jews who believe that God created the Earth in six 24-hour days, using a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a basis.

The scientific consensus, supported by a 2006 statement by 68 national and international science academies, is that it is evidence-based fact derived from observations and experiments in multiple scientific disciplines that the universe has existed for around 13 billion years, that the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago with life first appearing at least 2.5 billion years ago. …

I stand with the vast majority of scientists. It makes no sense to me that an eternal God would have created the world with millions of years of fossil records.

You can see evolution with your own eyes at the Burgess Shale in the Rockies.

Of course, Scientific American magazine considers Young Earth creationism nonsense.

That’s the same magazine that reports uncomfortable truths like this: Free Birth Control Access Can Reduce Abortion Rate By More than Half

I respect Paul Broun’s right to his own opinion. But how did he get on Science, Space and Technology?

Who’s fault was that?