Roger Phillips: Why mandatory testing is ruining our schools (lasvegasweekly.com)
The purpose of this letter is to inform you that I no longer have time during my teaching day to educate children. Mandatory testing has replaced learning.
Currently, I teach middle-school accelerated English classes, but I have more than 30 years of experience at the secondary, community college and university levels in Michigan where I retired.
FROMA HARROP: The Specter of McCain Democrats (creators.com)
A significant slice of Hillary Clinton's supporters - that is, moderate Democrats - might prefer McCain over Obama, or so I speculated a few weeks back. It was a hunch based on conversations and some suggestive but hardly definitive poll numbers.
Andrew Motion: The quarrel within ourselves (books.guardian.co.uk)
In the last part of his life Philip Larkin (1922-1985) became the best-loved poet in the country. In spite, and because, of his reputation as "the hermit of Hull", he was almost universally admired for the formal elegance of his constructions, the memorable beauty of his phrasing, and the candour of his gaze.
Geoff Kelly: With New Film Project, Professor Griff Takes on African-American Media Stereotypes (Artvoice.com)
Griff's most famous role in that long career is minister of communications for Public Enemy, but Griff (born Richard Griffin) has made his own name in the world as well, separate from but always in pursuit of the same agenda that drove Public Enemy: empowering black people, countering media dissembling, fighting the powers that be.
What would his mother say? (film.guardian.co.uk)
Ryan Gosling has an Oscar-nominated talent for playing killers, sociopaths and other damaged people. He tells Matt Mueller why he is very happy to be a Hollywood misfit.
Who said "If two men think alike then one of them is not thinking"?
A: Ben Franklin
B: Leif Erikson
C: Malcolm Forbes
D: Andrew Jackson
E: Harry Truman
Source
mj was first, but wrong with:
Sounds like him
A.
Leif (the Viking) would have said "I'm the captain, I'll do all the thinking."
The actor would have said "What does the script say I' m thinking about."
Malcom might go with "A penny for your thoughts, and a nickle if you'll agree with me."
O'l' Hickory might have said "No thinking in the ranks."
Harry could have said it, or "The thought stops here."
It's spring. Tomorrow is St. Pats day. March maddness is in the air. I'm just playing along.
Charlie was second, and correct, writing:
Attributed to
B: Leif Erikson
So says this.
DanD responded:
Is this just another way of saying that there isn't a whole lot of
difference between an thinking man and a comatose idiot? Or maybe an
unthinking man and a comatose idiot ... anyway, how similiar would the
thinking have to be before it is "alike?" And what if it's two women who
are (allegedly) thinking alike? Is that even possible? After all, women
don't think, because -- unlike men who really know nothing -- they
already know everything.
Of course, this leads us to a mysogenistic corollary to the turd-bacteria
theory of Terran ownership; if a hermaphrodite dies, how does his/her
demise statistically affect the mortality prognostications published by
the New York Times?
This sounds kinda' like something which had been said by somebody with
way too much time (and not enough books to pass that time with) on his
hands, like a Norse sailor. Let's guess Leif Erikson (B).
Marian the Teacher replied:
Leif Erikson
Sally said:
Leif Erikson (B) Uttered the famous expression: "If two men think alike then one of them is not thinking."
I happened to live right next-door to a, "Sons of Norway Lodge" in Colorado for the last 12 years I was there. Who doesn't know that the 9th Day of October is Leif Erikson Day? On or around that date, the, "Sons" and their spouses (neither one under age 60) sing, dance, eat, and drink until all hours (10 PM) celebrating the great explorer who is credited with discovering Greenland AND America (Massachusetts) between 970 - 1020. Oh, to finance their frolic, the Lodge was overflowing with Norwegian goodies for sale, along with all things Leif, including plaques with this saying on them. Damn, if I lived there now, I'd be old enough to party the night away with those wild Norwegians!!
And, Joe S ("They found, like many explorers before them, that somehow, in their absence, they had got into trouble at home."
~ Arthur Ransome) answered:
That would be Leif Erikson, or so we are lead to believe. My old business partner always said, "When two partners always agree, one of them is unnecessary." He always said that after a big argument.
Marian the Teacher sent this link regarding yesterday's question.
CBS opens the night with a FRESH'Big Bang Theory', followed by a FRESH'How I Met Your Mother', then a FRESH'2½ Men', followed by a FRESH'Old Christine', then a RERUN'CSI: The 2nd One'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Rainn Wilson, sportscasters Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg, and Bell X1.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Ray Romano, Kate Flannery, and Jeff Caldwell.
NBC begins the night with a FRESH'My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad', followed by a FRESH'Deal Or No Deal', then a FRESH'Medium'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Kate Beckinsale, Carlos Mencia, and the Bravery.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Martha Stewart, Lance Krall, and Billy Bragg.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson 'The Scab' Daly are Harland Williams and Sheryl Crow.
ABC starts the night with the SEASON PREMIERE'Dancing With The Stars', followed by a FRESH'The Bachelor'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 2/28/08) are Martin Lawrence, Judy Greer.
The CW offers a RERUN'Gossip Girl', followed by a FRESH'Pussycat Dolls Present'.
Faux has a FRESH'Canterbury's Law', followed by a FRESH'New Amsterdam'.
MY has 'Celebrity Expose', followed by a FRESH'Paradise Ho-Tell'.
A&E has 'CSI: The 2nd One', 'Intervention', another 'Intervention', 'Paranormal', and another 'Paranormal'.
AMC offers the movie 'Wild Bill', followed by the movie 'Witness', then the movie 'Insomnia'.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 2 The Fenwick Arms;
[1:00 PM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 8;
[2:00 PM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 19 Shepton 20;
[2:30 PM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 20 Lichfield;
[3:00 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 6;
[3:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 7;
[4:00 PM] You Are What You Eat - Episode 10;
[4:30 PM] You Are What You Eat - Episode 11;
[5:00 PM] My Family - Ep. 6 Second Greatest Story;
[5:30 PM] Coupling - Ep 9 The End of the Line;
[6:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 4 The Fish and Anchor;
[7:00 PM] BBC World News America;
[8:00 PM] Top Gear - Ep 4 Botswana Special;
[9:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 3;
[10:00 PM] BBC World News America;
[11:00 PM] Top Gear - Ep 4 Botswana Special;
[12:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 3;
[1:00 AM] Top Gear - Ep 4 Botswana Special;
[2:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 3;
[3:00 AM] Changing Rooms - Ep. 19 Basildon;
[3:30 AM] Changing Rooms - Ep. 20 St. Leonards;
[4:00 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 19 Shepton 20;
[4:30 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 20 Lichfield;
[5:00 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 32 Hinchcliffe;
[5:30 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 33 Hamilton;
[6:00 AM] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Project Runway', another 'Project Runway', still another 'Project Runway', and 'Top Chef'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Futurama', 'South Park', 'Scrubs', and another 'Scrubs'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Brian Fagan.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Samantha Power.
FX has the movie 'Tears Of The Sun', followed by the movie 'XXX: State Of The Union', then the movie 'Hollywood Homicide'.
History has 'Modern Marvels', another 'Modern Marvels', 'Cities Of The Underworld', and 'Ancient Discoveries'.
IFC -
[07:35 AM] Stardom;
[09:25 AM] IFC News: 2008, Uncut;
[09:30 AM] Festival Express;
[11:05 AM] A Decade Under The Influence: Part 2;
[12:05 PM] Stardom;
[01:55 PM] IFC News: 2008, Uncut;
[02:00 PM] Festival Express;
[03:35 PM] A Decade Under The Influence: Part 2;
[04:35 PM] Stardom;
[06:20 PM] IFC News Special: 2008 Elections;
[06:45 PM] Dallas 362;
[08:30 PM] Speed Grapher #2;
[09:00 PM] My Left Foot;
[10:45 PM] Murmur of the Heart;
[12:45 AM] Speed Grapher #2;
[01:15 AM] My Left Foot;
[03:00 AM] Murmur of the Heart;
[05:10 AM] Festival Express. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has the movie 'Leprechaun 3', 'Ghost Hunters', another 'Ghost Hunters', and 'Star Trek: Enterprise'.
Sundance -
[05:00 AM] Red Lights;
[07:00 AM] Loggerheads;
[09:00 AM] Episode 7;
[09:30 AM] Episode 7;
[10:00 AM] Grey Gardens;
[11:40 AM] Crossing Arizona;
[01:00 PM] Saving Jazz;
[02:00 PM] Combover: The Movie;
[03:00 PM] The Making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid;
[04:00 PM] Grey Gardens;
[05:40 PM] Trudell;
[07:00 PM] The War Room;
[09:00 PM] Manufacturing Dissent;
[11:00 PM] Episode 1;
[11:30 PM] Episode 3;
[12:00 AM] Mario Batali on Michael Stipe;
[01:00 AM] The Dead Girl;
[02:45 AM] Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project;
[04:00 AM] Episode 5;
[05:00 AM] Kike Like Me. (ALL TIMES EST)
Anti-war demonstrators shout during a rally in Hollywood, California March 15, 2008. Protesters rallied on the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq.
Photo by Mario Anzuoni
Danilo Perez stood before a blackboard at Loyola University in New Orleans in November. As a visiting instructor for the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, the pianist addressed seven masters students.
He implored them to search within themselves, not just as musicians but as people. It is the same challenge laid down, he said, by the legendary musicians he has played with: most recently, saxophonist Wayne Shorter.
Scrawled on the blackboard were complex diagrams of Afro-Caribbean rhythms: Perez was also drawing these students outward, into his world. Little did they know how far that process would extend. In January, the Monk students participated as both performers and guest instructors in the Panama Jazz Festival, which Perez founded five years ago in his native land.
It was the latest stop in a journey of transformation for these seven musicians that began in fall 2007, when the Monk Institute's masters program relocated to New Orleans from its previous home at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. At an announcement of the move in April, trumpeter Terence Blanchard, the program's artistic director, invited the students to his native city -- to an environment that has nurtured so many important jazz musicians and is now a city in need.
Halle Berry doesn't just play a mom in movies anymore.
The 41-year-old actress had a baby girl Sunday, and "is doing great," her publicist Meredith O'Sullivan told People.com, the Web site of People magazine. It is her first child.
The father is 32-year-old model Gabriel Aubry. The two met while shooting a Versace ad in Los Angeles two years ago.
President Bill Clinton, left, hosting his Clinton Global Initiative University, and actor Brad Pitt, right, founder of the Make It Right Foundation, pose with DeeCarla Rogers while they greet volunteers and break ground for new homes in the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans, Sunday, March 16, 2008.
Photo by Cheryl Gerber
Horst Rippert, an 88-year old former pilot of Germany's Luftwaffe, has said in a forthcoming book that he may have killed French writer and war pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupery in 1944.
Saint-Exupery, who achieved worldwide fame with his fairy-tale-like book "The Little Prince," died in mysterious circumstances when his plane came down near Marseilles while on a reconnaissance mission. His body has never been found.
Extracts of the book "Saint-Exupery: The Final Secret" were published in Le Figaro magazine over the weekend, and Le Figaro quoted Rippert as saying: "It's me, I shot down Saint-Exupery."
The question isn't entirely facetious. The war has nearly vanished from TV screens over the past few months, replaced by stories about the fascinating presidential campaign and faltering economy.
Statistics clearly illustrate the diminished attention. For the first 10 weeks of the year, the war accounted for 3 percent of television, newspaper and Internet stories in the Project for Excellence in Journalism's survey of news coverage. During the same period in 2007, Iraq filled 23 percent of the news hole.
The difference is even more stark on cable news networks: 24 percent of the time spent on Iraq last year, just 1 percent this year.
Iran has banned nine lifestyle and cinema magazines for publishing pictures of "corrupt" foreign film stars and details about their "decadent" private lives, the student ISNA news agency said Sunday.
The most significant magazines banned are Donya-ye Tasvir (World of the Image), Sobh-e Zendegi (Morning of Life), Talash (Effort) and Haft (Seven). The commission also gave warnings to 13 other publications.
Such magazines regularly print articles and pictures of foreign film stars, as well as of Iranian actresses in the kinds of loose headscarves and tight-fitting clothes that are frowned upon by the Islamic authorities.
Actress Pamela Anderson and Dutch magician and illusionist Hans Klok perform during the television show "Willkommen bei Carmen Nebel" in Berlin March 15, 2008.
Photo by Tobias Schwarz
The Internet has profoundly changed journalism, but not necessarily in ways that were predicted even a few years ago, a study on the industry released Sunday found.
It was believed at one point that the Net would democratize the media, offering many new voices, stories and perspectives. Yet the news agenda actually seems to be narrowing, with many Web sites primarily packaging news that is produced elsewhere, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual State of the News Media report.
Two stories - the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential election campaign - represented more than a quarter of the stories in newspapers, on television and online last year, the project found.
Take away Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, and news from all of the other countries in the world combined filled up less than 6 percent of the American news hole, the project said.
Despite ordering improvements more than two years ago, resident Bush has barely made a dent in the huge backlog of unanswered requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
At the same time, an audit by the National Security Archive found that Bush has provided citizens someone to talk to about how long it is going to take to get the government records they want or to be turned down.
The archive, a private research group at The George Washington University, released its seventh audit Sunday of the 1967 law that gives people the power to request information from federal government files. The audit of 90 government agencies found mixed results from Bush's executive order on Dec. 14, 2005, to agencies to clear the backlog and be more responsive to requesters.
The archive sent FOIA requests to all 90 agencies. At 51 of 53 agencies that did not respond in the required 20 days, the archive was able by calling service centers or public liaisons to confirm its requests had been received and sometimes learn where they were in processing. Most FOIA officers they reached "were courteous and helpful."
But not at the CIA and Transportation Department. Multiple calls to the service centers and public liaisons at those two agencies went unanswered. The CIA had no voicemail to take a message; voicemail messages left at the Transportation Department were not returned.
A newborn baby zebra, who is 3- day-old and yet to be named, stands with its mother Yoko at a zoo in Lima, Friday, March 14, 2008. The baby zebra, born on March 11, is the second zebra born in captivity in Peru.
Photo by Martin Mejia
U.S. radio operator Clear Channel Communications Inc said on Friday it completed the sale of its television assets to Newport Television LLC, a company set up by Providence Equity Partners to make the acquisition, for $1.1 billion.
Clear Channel agreed to sell the 56 television stations to Providence in April 2007 for $1.2 billion but the deal faltered amid the market turmoil and was renegotiated to a lower price.
The deal hit turmoil when Clear Channel filed a lawsuit February 15 in Delaware to force Providence to complete the deal. Providence called the suit "baseless." To settle the dispute, Clear Channel agreed to cut its asking price by $100 million to $1.1 billion.
More than a thousand people turned out Sunday to remember the victims of one of the most notorious chapters of the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1968, members of Charlie Company killed as many as 504 villagers, nearly all of them unarmed children, women and elderly.
When the unprovoked attack was uncovered, it horrified Americans, prompted military investigations and badly undermined support for the war.
Sunday's memorial drew the families of the victims, returning U.S. war veterans, peace activists and a delegation of atomic bombing survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"We are not harboring hatred," said Nguyen Hoang Son, vice governor of Quang Ngai, the central Vietnamese province where the incident occurred. "We are calling for solidarity to defend peace, to defend life and to remind the world that it must never forget the massacre at My Lai."
People observe a sculpture at the "Fallas" festival in Valencia March 15, 2008. The festival welcomes spring and honours Saint Joseph's Day with the burning of giant elaborate sculptures and effigies of wood and plastic in the early hours on March 20, 2008.
Photo by Heino Kalis
California resident Nancy Fiddler has put for sale on eBay a mastodon skeleton that takes up most of her garage. The minimum bid -- $115,000 (57,000 pounds).
Fiddler said they need the money an online auction could bring, and her son would prefer to build hot rod cars in the space the creature now occupies.
A ranch hand discovered a mastodon tooth on the Fiddler ranch in northeastern California in 1997. Excavation revealed a rare, nearly complete mastodon skeleton that included everything but the tusks.
Climbers are being told by Nepalese officials that Mount Everest's summit will be put off-limits to the public from all sides during the first 10 days of May, so the Chinese can carry an Olympic torch to the summit without risking a high-altitude confrontation over Tibet's future.
China hopes to put climbers on the 29,035-foot summit of Everest, the world's highest peak, by May 10 possibly using live television to broadcast it and doesn't want Tibetan activists to ruin that Olympic spectacle.
Everest straddles the border of Chinese-controlled Tibet and Nepal, home to many Tibetan exiles and activists. May is considered the best time to climb Everest, but climbers have to be on the mountain weeks before to acclimatize to the harsh weather and high altitude.
A woman wears make-up in the colours of the Republic of Ireland's flag during St Patrick day's celebrations in central London March 16, 2008.
Photo by Luke MacGregor
A small greenish bird that has been playing hide-and-seek with ornithologists on a remote Indonesian island since 1996 was declared a newly discovered species on Friday and promptly recommended for endangered lists.
The new species is called the Togian white-eye, or Zosterops somadikartai.
Dr. Pamela Rasmussen, a taxonomist at Michigan State University, completed the identification, reported in the March edition of The Wilson Journal of Ornithology.
The new Togian white-eye has been seen only near the coasts of three small islands of the Togian Islands in central Sulawesi. Rasmussen said it likely falls into the International Union for Conservation of Nature's category of endangered.
Horton hears a hit. Family audiences boosted 20th Century Fox's animated tale "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" to a $45.1 million debut, the best opening so far this year, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, the Warner Bros. action yarn "10,000 B.C.," slipped to second place with $16.4 million, raising its 10-day total to $61.2 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!", $45.1 million.
2. "10,000 B.C.," $16.4 million.
3. "Never Back Down," $8.6 million.
4. "College Road Trip," $7.9 million.
5. "Vantage Point," $5.4 million.
6. "The Bank Job," $4.9 million.
7. "Doomsday," $4.7 million.
8. "Semi-Pro," $3 million.
9. "The Other Boleyn Girl," $2.9 million.
10. "The Spiderwick Chronicles," $2.4 million.
In this photo provided by the San Francisco Zoo, a 9-day-old Sumatran tiger cub sits on a weigh scale during his first health exam, Saturday, March 15, 2008 at the zoo in San Francisco. The cub, weighing about four pounds, is one of three male cubs born at the San Francisco Zoo to Leanne, a 230-pound Sumatran tiger. This is the first litter for the 5-year-old mom and 10-year-old dad, named George.
Photo by George Nikitin,
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
The idea is to have fun.
Do you have something to say?
Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better,
amused or entertained?
Do you have a great album no one's heard?
How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
A popular artist that just plain pisses you off?
A box set the whole world should own?
Vile, filthy rumors about Republican musicians?
Just plain vile, filthy rumors?
This is your place.
