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Pearce Sets a New Bar for Offensiveness Among Arizona Politicians
July 23, 2012
By Michael Bryan Pearce and his friend the mass murderer Russell Pearce is a terrible human being. He should be condemned, and then shunned and ignored in our political life. If only he would shut the hell up, I would pleased to never have to mention him again. In response to the horrific slaughter of … Read more
Penn State sanctions: a fate worse than death?
July 23, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The NCAA announced sanctions on Monday morning in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal and the cover-up by Penn State officials.
NCAA president Mark Emmert revealed that a multi-year "death penalty" (suspension of play) was seriously considered by the NCAA, but the NCAA decided upon sanctions that were not just punitive but corrective of the sports culture at Penn State. Some argue that the penalties imposed are a fate worse than the death penalty because the sanctions affect the past legacy of Joe Paterno, the current football program, and the future ability of Penn State to put a competitive football program on the field for years to come.
The NCAA revealed the sanctions as NCAA president Mark Emmert and Ed Ray, the chairman of the NCAA's executive committee and Oregon State's president, spoke at a news conference in Indianapolis at the organization's headquarters. Penn State Nittany Lions hit with $60 million fine, 4-year bowl ban, wins dating to 1998 – ESPN:
"In the Penn State case, the results were perverse and unconscionable," Emmert said.
"No price the NCAA can levy with repair the damage inflicted by Jerry Sandusky on his victims," he said, referring to the former Penn State defensive coordinator convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse last month.
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The NCAA has hit Penn State with a $60 million sanction, a four-year football postseason ban and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998, the organization said Monday morning.
The career record of Joe Paterno will reflect these vacated records, the NCAA said.
Penn State must also reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period.
This week in GOP voter suppression
July 22, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Joan McCarter at Daily Kos has some posts about voting rights and voter suppression that I highly recommend. The first is Support for voter ID laws linked to 'racial resentment':
So maybe it is all about disenfranchising minorities, just maybe?
A new National Agenda Opinion Poll by the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication reveals support for voter identification laws is strongest among Americans who harbor negative sentiments toward African Americans.
The study finds that racial resentment trumps party affiliation and political attitudes. While they found Republicans and conservatives overwhelmingly support voter suppression (because that's what they do), they found that Democrats and liberals "with the highest 'racial resentment'" also express strong support for the laws.
The second post is Brennan Center: 500,000 won't be able to get 'free' voter IDs:
The Brennan Center, NYU Law School's public policy institute that focuses on democracy and justice issues, has a new report detailing the challenges faced by voters in 10 states with new, restrictive voter ID laws. Those laws ultimately mean that as many as 500,000 eligible voters won't cast ballots because of the insurmountable barriers these laws erect, particularly for rural voters. In other words, yes, these new laws are basically poll taxes.
The cost of the IDs aside, most of these voters don't have access to transportation to obtain the ID. To complicate matters more, in many of these states, the offices that are designated to issue IDs are open infrequently for short periods of time.
Even if someone seeking photo ID manages to travel to an ID-issuing office, there is no guarantee it will be open during regular business hours. In Wisconsin, Alabama, and Mississippi, fewer than half of all ID-issuing offices are open five days a week. None are open on weekends. And some offices maintain truly unusual hours: the office in Woodville, Mississippi is open only on the second Thursday of each month.
The report also provides an extensive look at the scarcity of ID-issuing offices in areas heavily populated by people of color and those in poverty — the exact population that most lack government-issued photo ID.
The mythical ‘independent’ voter
July 22, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The media villagers regularly portray our political system as "broken," blaming the two major political parties. The rise in "no party preference" voters, the media villagers tell us, is evidence that our political system is broken. The media villagers — most of whom register as independent/no party preference to maintain the illusion … Read more
Have We Completely Lost Our Way?
July 22, 2012
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Posted by Bob Lord We all know about the huge disparity in wealth and income. Unfortunately, we've actually been underestimating, badly it seems, that disparity. Check out these two pieces: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/us-poverty-level-1960s_n_1692744.html?ir=Politics&ref=topbar http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/offshore-wealth-global-economy-tax-havens The first is a post in today's Huffington Post, which describes how poverty in America is at a level not seen since the … Read more
The strengths and weaknesses of online education
July 22, 2012
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by David Safier
I've written often about the problems with online charter schools, the largest and most problematic being K12 Inc. But I'm no Luddite. I was an early computer/internet adopter when I was a teacher, and I know the spread of online education is inevitable and has a number of things going for it. But those who push it as equal to or better than brick-and-mortar, face-to-face education — the for-profit CMOs and conservative "education reform" advocates — are wrong. Online education is in its early, clunky stages and will take awhile before it should be adopted as a mainstream alternative to face-to-face education, if it ever gets to that point.
In today's Star, there's an article about a new startup by some Stanford profs, Coursera, which is trying to take online coursework from top universities — Stanford, Princeton, Caltech, Duke, etc. — to the next level. (Most often, when you read research about online education's successes, it's about college level work. That's not surprising, since it's more likely a motivated college-level student will succeed without supervision than a semi-motivated or unmotivated K-12 student.)
Let's compare online education to early digital cameras. Remember those things? Ridiculously bad images that pixellated when you blew them up bigger than 4"x5". No one advertised them as "Better than film cameras!" Their appeal was, they might take crummy pictures, but they add convenience. You can see the photos you take instantly, put them on your computer, print them out — and you never have to spend a penny on film! Everyone knew they were substituting convenience for quality. Gradually, of course, the cameras got better, and now they're so good, film has become the province of people who are in love with old photo techniques.
Like all comparisons, this one isn't absolute — I don't think online schools will replace more traditional schooling, not by a long shot — but it's fair to say, today's online education is like the early stages of digital photography.
Not so Happy Valley: Joe Pa removed, ‘death penalty’ possible for PSU football
July 22, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The statue of Joe Paterno was taken down from outside the Penn State football stadium Sunday as the NCAA announced it would be issuing sanctions against the university whose top officials were accused in a scathing report of burying child sex abuse allegations against a now-convicted retired assistant. Statue of Hall of Fame Penn State coach Joe Paterno taken down; NCAA to announce sanctions:
Construction vehicles and police arrived shortly after dawn Sunday, barricading the street and sidewalks near the statue, erecting a chain-link fence then concealing the statue with a blue tarp. Workers then used jackhammers to free the statue and a forklift to lower it onto a flat-bed truck that rolled into stadium garage bay about 100 feet away. . . as 100 to 150 students watched, some chanting, “We are Penn State.”
Many of those watching the removal stared in disbelief and at least one woman wept, while others expressed anger at the decision.
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Dozens later gathered to watch workers remove Paterno’s name and various plaques from the concrete walls behind the statue. Much of the work was hidden by blue tarps strung across temporary chain link fences while barricades kept observers on the other side of the street. Few watching said they understood the decision and feared what kind of punishment the NCAA would pile on.
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Penn State President Rod Erickson said he decided to have the statue removed and put into storage because it “has become a source of division and an obstacle to healing.”
“I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse,” Erickson said in a statement released at 7 a.m. Sunday.
He said Paterno’s name will remain on the campus library because it “symbolizes the substantial and lasting contributions to the academic life and educational excellence that the Paterno family has made to Penn State University.”
Meanwhile, the NCAA said that that it would levy “corrective and punitive measures” against Penn State in the wake of the child sex-abuse scandal involving former football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. The organization announced Sunday that it would spell out the sanctions on Monday but disclosed no details. See Penn State to face NCAA penalities.
NCAA President Mark Emmert hasn’t ruled out the possibility of shutting down the Penn State football program in the wake of the scandal, adding that he had “never seen anything as egregious.” [The last time the NCAA shut down a football program with the so-called “death penalty” was in the 1980s, when SMU was forced to drop the sport because of extra benefits violations.]
Petition to restore the Assault Weapons Ban
July 22, 2012
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by David Safier Dino Kadich has started a petition on whitehouse.gov's "We the People" section: WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:restore the Assault Weapons Ban immediately. Dino asked me to mention it on the blog, which I am happy to do. He's a high school student — he'll be a junior when school starts — … Read more
