Hey TX, Tell It Like It Really Is! [via Nina Reznick]
Texas GOP Declares: "No More Teaching of 'Critical Thinking Skills' in Texas Public Schools"
Textbooks, which are assigned and shared, in a classroom at Hutto High School in Hutto, Texas, April 5, 2012. (Photo: Ben Sklar / The New York Times)
The Republican Party of Texas has issued their 2012 political platform and has come out and blatantly opposed critical thinking in public schools throughout the state. If you wonder what took them so long to actually state that publicly, it is really a matter of timing. With irrationality now the norm and an election hovering over the 2012 horizon, the timing of the Republican GOP announcement against "critical thinking" instruction couldn't be better. It helps gin up their anti-intellectual base.
The Texas GOP's declarative position against critical thinking in public schools, or any schools, for that matter, is now an official part of their political platform. It is public record in the Republican Party of Texas 2012 platform. With regard to critical thinking, the Republican Party of Texas document states: "Knowledge-Based Education - We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (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).
Yes, challenging beliefs or claims is considered insubordinate, immoral and could lead to rebellion, disobedience or perhaps worse: revolution.
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Structural engineer in action [via Nina Reznick]
Whether you're a bird person or not, this is stunning!!!
Not to detract from the sheer magic of it, but in practical terms, how M A NY trips would a bird have to make with that tiny little quantity of mud/clay it could carry? (and how far from the nest is the source?)
If you take the construction of a circular bowl in your stride as instinctive how the heck does the bird come up with the windbreak/entrance design that shields the eggs/chicks from the elements and at what point in fashioning the bowl do they start to construct it?
Recycling [via Nina Reznick}
A fish sculpture constructed
from discarded plastic bottles rises out of the sand at Botafogo beach in Rio
de Janeiro. The city is host to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development,
or Rio+20, which runs through June 22.
Reading Rainbow App Brings Books to a New Generation [via Oscar Castro-Neves]
A generation of children grew up learning to love reading by watching LeVar Burton's PBS show Reading Rainbow. The show was cancelled in 2009 after a 26-year run, but has been resurrected as a new iPad app.
WHO SAID DRAGONS DIDN’T EXIST? [via David Adashek]
 ******************************************************************* 22-FOOT, 2500 POUNDS!!!! |
Voyager 1 leaves the heliosphere [via Nina Reznick]
Humanity escapes the solar system: Voyager 1 signals that it has reached the edge of interstellar space - 11 billion miles away
By Eddie Wrenn
With absolutely no attempt at hyperbole at all, it is fair to say that this is one of - if not the - biggest achievement of the human race.
For, as we speak, an object conceived in the human mind, and built by our tools, and launched from our planet, is sailing out of the further depths of our solar system - and will be the first object made by man to sail out into interstellar space.
The Voyager 1, built by Nasa and launched in 1977 has spent the last 35 years steadily increasing its distance from Earth, and is now now 17,970,000,000km - or 11,100,000,000miles - away, travelling at 10km a second.
Indications over the last week implies that Voyager 1 is now leaving the heliosphere - the last vestige of this solar system.
The probe is still detecting 'spikes' in the
intensity of cosmic ray electrons - which lead scientists to think it's
still within the 'heliosheath', the very outer edge of our solar system.
The Voyager probe has been travelling towards
the outer reaches of the solar system since 1977 - it has enough
batteries to last until 2020, scientists estimate
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HACKING THE VOTE
Will new state actions requiring photo IDs for voters, purging voter rolls and restricting voter registration drives hurt their candidates?
And here’s one almost no one wants to think about: Will the private
companies who build and handle voting machines steal the election?
Read More
For more from Dave Granlund, visit www.davegranlund.com.
REGISTER TO JOIN Yoga Gives Back's 2nd Annual Day of Global Support Saturday, September 29th, 2012
2012
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For the cost of one yoga class, you can change a life.
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 Yoga Gives Back's 2nd Annual Day of Global Support Saturday, September 29th, 2012
Let's unite again to express our
gratitude to Mother India for the gift of YOGA. On this special day, we call
upon the karma yoga of all studios and teachers from every discipline of
yoga, from every city and country, to join us in supporting women and children
in India.
Yoga Gives Back’s programs now directly
fund 103 women and children in India with micro loans and educational funds.
Together, we can make a difference to positively impact even more lives.
This year, our goal is to raise $50,000! Join
us.
There are two ways to get
involved:
1. Host a special donation class/event
on Saturday, September 29th, 2012. If you cannot host one on this date,
please pick a date and let us know.
2. Pledge your donation level and
become a "Thank You Mother India" sponsor. Platinum
- $2500, Gold - $1000, Silver - $500.
Fundraise to your pledged level by inviting your community to your Online
Fundraising page, such as Firstgiving, pre-sell
tickets to your event, raffle or in many other creative ways.
Level Sponsors will be featured in our
press articles, all promotional materials and post TYMI 2012 video!!!
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THE MELTING POT ALIVE AND WELL [via John Reid]
Wrap him up in black skin
Add a touch of blue blood
And a little bitty bit of red Indian boy
Curly Latin kinkies
Mixed with yellow Chinkees, yeah
You know you lump it all together
And you got a recipe for a get along scene
Oh what a beautiful dream
If it could only come true, you know, you know
What we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough enough enough to take
The world and all its got And keep it stirring for a hundred years or more
And turn out coffee coloured people by the score
Rabbis and the friars
Vishnus and the gurus
We got the Beatles or the Sun God
Well it really doesn't matter what religion you choose
And be thankful little Mrs. Graceful
You know that livin' could be tasteful
We should all get together in a lovin machine
I think I'll call up the queen
It' s only fair that she knows, you know, you know
What we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough enough enough to take
The world and all its got And keep it stirring for a hundred years or more
And turn out coffee coloured people by the score
Songwriters: COOK, ROGER FREDERICK / GREENAWAY, ROGER JOHN
REGINALD
END OF THE WORLD! NOT! [via Nina Reznick}
By Erik Vance
It's a bright summer day at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Outside, in the sprawling front plaza rimmed by palm and willow trees, young couples cuddle by the steps, vendors sell wrestling masks and tacos, and five men dressed in traditional Totonac garb slowly spin upside down in the death defying "Dance of the Flyers" for the tourists.
Inside the museum is a wonder of culture and history. Each wing is dedicated to a separate civilization in Mesoamerican culture—one for the Toltecs, another for Teotihuacan. But the largest spaces are reserved for the Aztecs and Maya. And in the center of the building is the stunning Aztec Stone of the Sun—often erroneously called the "Aztec Calendar"—perhaps the most recognizable symbol in Latin America. Diana Magaloni Kerpel, the museum director, peers at the stone.
"It is not a calendar. It's really the image of space and time. It's an image of how the Aztecs conceived themselves as in the center of time and space," she says. "Look at that. There is face in the middle—that is the cosmos. The Maya wouldn't do that—ever."
If you have not been paying attention to doomsayers or John Cusack movies, December 21, 2012, is the day that many say the Maya predicted the world would end. Internet stories regularly detail the Maya calendars although displaying the Aztec Stone of the Sun (including one, we regret, that was published on Scientific American Online). Looking at the reality of ancient Mesoamerica, it quickly becomes clear that much of the uproar rose out of a confusion of two distinct cultures that lived 500 years apart.
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Wild Elephants mourn death of “Elephant Whisperer” [via Nina Reznick]
For 12 hours, two herds of wild South African elephants slowly made their way through the Zululand bush until they reached the house of late author Lawrence Anthony, the conservationist who saved their lives.The formerly violent, rogue elephants, destined to be shot a few years ago as pests, were rescued and rehabilitated by Anthony, who had grown up in the bush and was known as the “Elephant Whisperer.”
For two days the herds loitered at Anthony’s rural compound on the vast Thula Thula game reserve in the South African KwaZulu – to say good-bye to the man they loved. But how did they know he had died? Known for his unique ability to calm traumatized elephants, Anthony had become a legend. He is the author of three books, Babylon Ark, detailing his efforts to rescue the animals at Baghdad Zoo during the Iraqi war, the forthcoming The Last Rhinos, and his bestselling The Elephant Whisperer.
There are two elephant herds at Thula Thula. According to his son Dylan, both arrived at the Anthony family compound shortly after Anthony’s death.“They had not visited the house for a year and a half and it must have taken them about 12 hours to make the journey,” Dylan is quoted in various local news accounts. “The first herd arrived on Sunday and the second herd, a day later. They all hung around for about two days before making their way back into the bush.”Elephants have long been known to mourn their dead. In India, baby elephants often are raised with a boy who will be their lifelong “mahout.” The pair develop legendary bonds – and it is not uncommon for one to waste away without a will to live after the death of the other.
A line of elephants approaching the Anthony house, but these are wild elephants in the 21st century, not some Rudyard Kipling novel
Read More Here
FORMIDALE FUNGHI [via Nina Reznick]
The largest living organism ever found has been discovered in an ancient American forest.
The Armillaria ostoyae, popularly known as the honey mushroom,
started from a single spore too small to see without a microscope. It
has been spreading its black shoestring filaments, called rhizomorphs,
through the forest for an estimated 2,400 years, killing trees as it
grows. It now covers 2,200 acres (880 hectares) of the Malheur National
Forest, in eastern Oregon.
The outline of the giant fungus stretches 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometres)
across, and it extends an average of three feet (one metre) into the
ground. It covers an area as big as 1,665 football fields.
The discovery came after Catherine Parks, a scientist at the Pacific
Northwest Research Station in La Grande, Oregon, in 1998 heard about a
big tree die-off from root rot in the forest east of Prairie City.
BEFORE AND AFTER
My nightstand has undergone a transformation, from a
clutter of books to a single electronic reading device. I'm happy to say I've
come of age. Plus the next thing to go may the reading lamp, since the IPad is
backlit!
Yoga Buzz Features Yoga Gives Back
Yoga Gives Back
Yoga is big business in the West. In the
U.S., more than $6 billion is spent each year on yoga classes,
trainings, apparel and accessories. With yoga pants costing close to
$100 and drop-in classes up to $20, the economic contrast is stark when
compared to India, the land where yoga originated, where around 70
percent of the population lives on under $2 a day, according to the World Bank.
Recognizing an opportunity to mobilize the global yoga community in
humble gratitude to India and its people, Kayoko Mitsumatsu, a yogini in
Los Angeles, founded Yoga Gives Back (YGB) in 2007. Inspired by the
Nobel Peace Prize winning works of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, whose highly
successful micro-financing model encourages sustainable financial
independence by giving loans to entrepreneurial men and women living in
poverty, YGB, supports micro-credit programs in India which lend small
loans to women in particular, who have no access to capital. Its motto?
“For the cost of one yoga class, you can change a life.”
“As a yoga practitioner, I felt strong sense of blessing to my good
health and peace. I wanted to give back to today’s India,” Mitsumatsu
explains. “If [a fraction of the money spent on yoga in the US] is
redirected to help the poor in India, we can make a difference.”
YGB is currently sponsors 103 mothers and their children with
microloans, according to Mitsumatsu, who has witnessed firsthand how
this kind of support truly helps people change their lives. She mentions
one woman, Jayashree, a mother of two who she met in 2007 when she
received her first loan. “Every year, she has paid back the loan fully,
and finally sent her elder son to a medical school.
YGB is now funding
his education until he graduates and becomes a dentist,” she says.
In order to raise funds, YGB created the annual “Thank You Mother India” campaign,
which in 2011 raised $27,000. In addition, there are donation-based
classes and “yoga relays” in studios around the country, including a
special event tomorrow at the Stella McCartney store in West Hollywood
taught by the intrepid YJ.com Challenge Pose blogger Kathryn Budig. To
find out more about this class and other Yoga Gives Back events and how
you can get involved, go to the website.
PARAPROSDOKIANS [via Mary Calhoun]
PARAPROSDOKIANS: (Winston Churchill loved them.) Here is the definition:
"Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation."
"Where there's a will, I want to be in it," is a type of paraprosdokian.
1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.
3. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.
5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left..
7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
8. Evening news is where they begin with 'Good Evening,' and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.
9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
10. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.
11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.
12. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.'
13. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.
16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.
17. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
18. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.
19. There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.
20. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.
21. You're never too old to learn something stupid.
22. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
23. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
24. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
25. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
26. Where there's a will, there's relatives.
27. I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.
28. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.
29. How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
30. Some people are like Slinkies ... not really good for anything, but you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.
31. Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.
32. I saw a woman wearing a sweat shirt with "Guess" on it...so I said "Implants?"
33. Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America ?
34. Hospitality: making your guests feel like they're at home, even if you wish they were.
35. I always take life with a grain of salt, plus a slice of lemon, and a shot of tequila.
36. I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it
37. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes, that way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes
38. The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
39. I blew a speaker in my car the other day. Yeah, I think he was a... motivational speaker. It left a bad taste in my mouth but I feel a lot more positive.
40. On the other hand, we have different fingers.
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