The actual hatred was primarily directed at Zionists, and from there spilled onto other Jews. Wrong entirely. The actual hatred was of Jews generally from the beginning. The first Zionists met a warm welcome from the Arabs/Muslims, because they terraformed the land (ex: draining malarial swamps) and brought their money with them from Europe. Then 1947 happens, the Jews get a state by accepting the partition plan that the Arabs rejected, and suddenly nobody likes the comparatively-wealthy Zionists any longer. Then, over decades, the older prejudice against Jews mixed with the newer despising for the State of Israel to form the ammonia-smelling poison broth some have called "the new anti-Semitism".
Zionist's policies, as that of any supremacist cult before them, are to antagonize the whole world (minus the US) against every Jew via Zionist excesses, with the express goal of making sure that all Jews become violent Zionists and live either in the permanently besieged us-vs-them fortress Israel, constantly at war with everybody, and thus "justified" in taking any-and-all extreme measures against all of its neighbors, or the USA, the place from which Israel is financed. Perhaps you might understand the seeming antagonism from both sides a bit better if you understood their cultural backgrounds. The Arab concept of manners does not include watering down or sugar-coating things for people. When an Arab wants you to drop dead, he tells you to drop dead. Since 50% of Israeli Jewry comes from Arab nations in the Middle East (the Arabs booted them out after Israel's birth and the fledging state had to integrate them), their own culture contains a strong infusion of its source that combines with the no-nonsense pioneering spirit of earlier Israeli days to make the heady broth we call Zionist antagonism.
There is a simple test, you know, to determine if this is true: compare the Arab population of what is now Israel, as of today, with what that population figure was in, say, 1945. Then examine the means by which it was changed. Then lookup the definition of "ethnic cleansing". The Israeli Arab population is actually growing. The Palestinian Arab population is at least one order of magnitude higher than in 1945, probably several. Tell me about this ethnic cleansing.
Good to know that one can still become an expert on the Israeli/Palestinian issue by watching a thirteen-minute video put out by an obviously biased (in this case anti-Israel) propaganda group!
If a "general studies" track were available, it would indeed help. But right now, we're forcing students _not_ to specialize, and that also leads to bitterness and regret. I don't think we'll get away from that completely as long as we live an uber-safe world where nothing is allowed to happen to you until you turn 18. (This is one way that the modern world is _more_ primitive that medieval Europe: apprenticeships would do more for our society that having teens wonder when their lives will start.) Hey, I like this Florida thing. I see adding a general studies track as more of a minor tweak to a good program than a revolution.
And we have apprenticeships. We call them internships, and we just need to arrange for them to pay something.
The only way to get political traction on this idea (in the US anyway) would be to offer public service (volunteer firefighting, for example) as the default, with national service (military) requiring a parental signature. Which is how it should be, anyway. That sounds like a really good idea, actually. How good for society would it be if a man starts choking in a Burger King and 1/4 of the teenagers and 20-somethings in the room know the Heimlich maneuver? It would really help adult society deal better with young people.
But I actually think service should remain optional, even for civilian public service. You should lose out on loads of state benefits for declining, but you should have that option.
I agree; but if the parents fail and the kids fail (and failure occurs in that order), then it's either the public school system or Life that will choose the kids' careers; i.e., a rock and a hard place. But if we're going to forcefeed pre-adults a state-sponsored education anyway, the kids might as well have a chance to specialize before they graduate. A chance for specialization, yes, but not someone forcing them into it! That only leads to bitterness and regrets.
I'm not claiming it's the best approach. I'd rather have HS graduation occur at the end of 10th grade and have two years' mandatory national or public service. But the above is more feasible in the eyes of bureaucrats than a real fix. I'm with you there. I don't know about other countries, but here in the United States we waste three years on middle school, during which we "learn" nothing that we didn't already learn in elementary school or won't learn again in greater depth in high school. We could cut that out and have kids heading off to college or national service at 15! Hell, we could use national service to teach kids non-academic job skills.
On the other hand, I don't want to let the current government and "national service" (ie: military) infrastructure anywhere near kids.
If I have sour grapes, it's because I needed direction in HS and never got it. It's taken me 18 years since HS to make up for it. That's a long time to pay a price because of a broken educational system. Specialization would have at least helped pave the way toward a living wage. True, there's nothing you can do about a spoiled kid, but it's the directionless kid that concerns me. And even so: if someone you are responsible for (sibling, child, students, whatever) fails despite your best efforts, you can sleep well that night. I don't know about you, but I think of direction and drive as matters of personal development better left to the kid and their parents than to (shudder!) public schools. If you disagree, I'd like to hear why.
Yes you can. Someone with no direction almost by definition doesn't know their own strengths or weaknesses. Putting them in a program that emphasizes their strengths might just be the catalyst toward real change. I'm not claiming this is guaranteed, but it's better than saying "it's too late -- they're a loser, so let them lose." Actually, by definition a directionless person lacks serious, long-term desires and goals. You can lead these horses to water certainly, but I still contend that you can't make them drink against their will. You could, however, show them how good a particular drink tastes, perhaps repeatedly with different drinks, and hope that something catches their senses.
I work at university sponsored school for students with ADD, ADHD, and Asperger's kids and I can personally attest to the amount of money that needs to make sure these students grow up to become normal functioning members of our society. Thank you for identifying the three most likely groups of kids to be "special needs" and gifted at the same time.
Eh. Truly a lot of people who think they have so much more brains than everyone else really just need to take the chip off their shoulder, but in my experience some time in a more positive environment of smarter kids helps them do it.
We, on the other hand, do not. Culturally, Americans view intellectualism with suspicion. We love the captain of the football team; big, handsome, and dumb. You have only to look at the debates on science to understand that. There is societal pressure to not appear too smart, or you'll have a number of unflattering stereotypes applied to you. The last two losing presidential candidates both had their intelligence used against them in an unflattering way; they were know-it-alls, dorks, geeks, namby pamby sissy faggot intellectuals, whereas the guy everyone regards as the dumber candidate is trustworthy and strong. I call bullshit, because you have oversimplified the reality. What we actually venerate most is the charismatic genius who can get along extremely well with both people and equations. However, you don't see too many of those, so people tend to venerate the simply charismatic, who don't necessarily have any non-social intelligence.
* There are four main ways to improve an economy; specialization is one of them. That's what we're discussing here. Have you noticed that we haven't seen any Mozart's or Chaplin's lately? Given any thought as to why? They essentially _majored_ in their field at an early age and stayed with it! Where in the US will you find an educational system that will allow specialization at an early age? Home school. That's it. Until this plan came along. I'm not claiming it's perfect, but specialization isn't the Big Bad Wolf.
Quite so. I was homeschooled for the last two years of high school, and taught myself computer programming (continually and progressively) since grade 5. Now I have a $10/hr summer job with a local university's EE department moving emails around and getting VPNs working. In fall I'll enter a BSU majoring in Computer Science.
My experience with specialization has brought my nothing but good fortune. However, I will still fight tooth and nail for the right to map my university's General Education requirements (30 credits of them) onto foreign language, music, and business classes. I will need the language I'm taking later on, music classes will help me meet girls, and business classes will give me some minimum preparation for the for-profit world.
But you can't force even a measly 60-credit major of specialization on someone who really has no direction in life. That's a personal problem they have to work out, even if it means that they lose the financial race to the top.
*I suspect that most of you how have responded negatively haven't taught high school or college, ever. We have high schools that turn out students who need Basic and Intermediate Algebra and sometimes Remedial Composition I _and_ II in college. Something must change in public school systems. At least if an older student can pursue something s/he finds relevent, there would be initiative to pursue quality work. That might help a the students who recognize that public school is a jail from which they can't escape until they turn 18.
Very, very true. I was a C-B student until I started homeschooling. Over two years, my averages rose to As. I will enter school this fall a member of the honors college. Sometimes people just need to be allowed to do what they're good at.
*As for the 'let the kids be kids!' argument: crap. They demand to be treated like adults when it comes to sex, alcohol, drugs, and the use of a parent's car. But when they enter the school, they want Mommy and Daddy to threaten a lawsuit if their homework becomes "too hard". As others have posted, we're facing fierce competition in India and Asia from hyper-educated grads who are willing to work for $1/hour. It's time to throw out the idea of a leisurely stroll through K-12 or K-BS.
You didn't get laid in high school, did you? Because this paragraph reads a lot like sour grapes. If some kid lacks direction and wants to laze around, leave their idiocy to them. After all, that leaves more money and more jobs for those of us with drive and talent, and it's not like you can force a talented but spoiled kid to immediately grow up and turn into a good professional.
*Re: 'They don't know what they want to do yet!' Do they want to eat? Do they want to be able to move out of Mommy and Daddy's house and live on their own? If so, they need money. If they can't inherit it, they'll have to work for it. That requires a job. A job requires training. They may not like it, but I won't pay for their Welfare checks just because they couldn't find the inspiration to be a fill-in-the-blank.
You damn well will pay for their welfare checks, minimal as they are. Someone needs to bag groceries, and I for one think it much better to penalize people for their own lack of planning by making them take crap jobs than to force them into lucrative fields they don't want to enter, especially given the investment involved in doi
So I stick Ubuntu on them and give them away for free. Wait a minute. What about selling them on the cheap? After all, anything you got out a dumpster was damn near free, so you can charge low prices and still make a huge profit margin!
3) If you're worried about losing the conspicuous consumption 'status' of having white earbuds, then ignore rule 2), and go listen to Brian Eno on a street corner in Compton. And what about those of us who come Straight Outta Compton?
Yes, but FLAC uses up 18 MB for a 2 minute, 45 second song. I know you can't wring an endless amount of compression out of an audio file without destroying data, but I can't detect much difference between a high-quality OGG and FLAC.
I almost didn't catch the good point you made about our collapsing populations and horrendously overextended childhoods under the mountain of sexist bullshit and outright racism you dumped on top. Good job, troll.
In fact, Islam encourages science, and does in fact also encourage questioning and re-evaluating your beliefs; just ignore when any crazy fundie tells you otherwise. Actually, most religions encourage questioning and finding out how God's (or the gods') world works. Christianity just fools people into thinking it is religion by having so many nominal followers.
Nationalist Islam (ie: fundamentalist attempts to create a Muslim Nation) likewise only worries people because of the sheer depths to which it will sink to murder people.
Slashdot Mirror
Good to know that one can still become an expert on the Israeli/Palestinian issue by watching a thirteen-minute video put out by an obviously biased (in this case anti-Israel) propaganda group!
Actually, I think the Israelis go about it far more thoroughly than the TSA plans to.
And we have apprenticeships. We call them internships, and we just need to arrange for them to pay something. The only way to get political traction on this idea (in the US anyway) would be to offer public service (volunteer firefighting, for example) as the default, with national service (military) requiring a parental signature. Which is how it should be, anyway. That sounds like a really good idea, actually. How good for society would it be if a man starts choking in a Burger King and 1/4 of the teenagers and 20-somethings in the room know the Heimlich maneuver? It would really help adult society deal better with young people.
But I actually think service should remain optional, even for civilian public service. You should lose out on loads of state benefits for declining, but you should have that option.
On the other hand, I don't want to let the current government and "national service" (ie: military) infrastructure anywhere near kids.
Fuck tha police!
Eh. Truly a lot of people who think they have so much more brains than everyone else really just need to take the chip off their shoulder, but in my experience some time in a more positive environment of smarter kids helps them do it.
What, no credit for the Jewish yeshivot (which survive to this day) or the Islamic schools of the Muslim Golden Age?
People in ghettos? Poor immigrants? College kids? Grandmas who prefer a human salesman and repair guy to a Dell catalog?
* There are four main ways to improve an economy; specialization is one of them. That's what we're discussing here. Have you noticed that we haven't seen any Mozart's or Chaplin's lately? Given any thought as to why? They essentially _majored_ in their field at an early age and stayed with it! Where in the US will you find an educational system that will allow specialization at an early age? Home school. That's it. Until this plan came along. I'm not claiming it's perfect, but specialization isn't the Big Bad Wolf.
Quite so. I was homeschooled for the last two years of high school, and taught myself computer programming (continually and progressively) since grade 5. Now I have a $10/hr summer job with a local university's EE department moving emails around and getting VPNs working. In fall I'll enter a BSU majoring in Computer Science.
My experience with specialization has brought my nothing but good fortune. However, I will still fight tooth and nail for the right to map my university's General Education requirements (30 credits of them) onto foreign language, music, and business classes. I will need the language I'm taking later on, music classes will help me meet girls, and business classes will give me some minimum preparation for the for-profit world.
But you can't force even a measly 60-credit major of specialization on someone who really has no direction in life. That's a personal problem they have to work out, even if it means that they lose the financial race to the top.
*I suspect that most of you how have responded negatively haven't taught high school or college, ever. We have high schools that turn out students who need Basic and Intermediate Algebra and sometimes Remedial Composition I _and_ II in college. Something must change in public school systems. At least if an older student can pursue something s/he finds relevent, there would be initiative to pursue quality work. That might help a the students who recognize that public school is a jail from which they can't escape until they turn 18.
Very, very true. I was a C-B student until I started homeschooling. Over two years, my averages rose to As. I will enter school this fall a member of the honors college. Sometimes people just need to be allowed to do what they're good at.
*As for the 'let the kids be kids!' argument: crap. They demand to be treated like adults when it comes to sex, alcohol, drugs, and the use of a parent's car. But when they enter the school, they want Mommy and Daddy to threaten a lawsuit if their homework becomes "too hard". As others have posted, we're facing fierce competition in India and Asia from hyper-educated grads who are willing to work for $1/hour. It's time to throw out the idea of a leisurely stroll through K-12 or K-BS.
You didn't get laid in high school, did you? Because this paragraph reads a lot like sour grapes. If some kid lacks direction and wants to laze around, leave their idiocy to them. After all, that leaves more money and more jobs for those of us with drive and talent, and it's not like you can force a talented but spoiled kid to immediately grow up and turn into a good professional.
*Re: 'They don't know what they want to do yet!' Do they want to eat? Do they want to be able to move out of Mommy and Daddy's house and live on their own? If so, they need money. If they can't inherit it, they'll have to work for it. That requires a job. A job requires training. They may not like it, but I won't pay for their Welfare checks just because they couldn't find the inspiration to be a fill-in-the-blank.
You damn well will pay for their welfare checks, minimal as they are. Someone needs to bag groceries, and I for one think it much better to penalize people for their own lack of planning by making them take crap jobs than to force them into lucrative fields they don't want to enter, especially given the investment involved in doi
And you've never knocked on wood for good luck?
Nah, RPI's the one with the smelly foreign chicks.
Yes, but FLAC uses up 18 MB for a 2 minute, 45 second song. I know you can't wring an endless amount of compression out of an audio file without destroying data, but I can't detect much difference between a high-quality OGG and FLAC.
I almost didn't catch the good point you made about our collapsing populations and horrendously overextended childhoods under the mountain of sexist bullshit and outright racism you dumped on top. Good job, troll.
It's not like they can't fall back on the Red Star of David, Red Crescent or Red Crystal if they lose their right to the Red Cross.
But it would still be the last thing he sees...
Moishe, get the nails! He's loose again!
Why should the Machines use committees? It's more of a dining-philosophers multi-threading decision-making program.
Nationalist Islam (ie: fundamentalist attempts to create a Muslim Nation) likewise only worries people because of the sheer depths to which it will sink to murder people.