Clipmarks | missmartini's Pops

One Teacher’s Cry: Why I Hate No Child Left Behind

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:28:35 GMT

clipped by: dewitte

I’m a teacher. I’ve taught elementary school for eleven years. I’ve always told people, “I have the best job in the world.” I crafted curriculum that made students think, and they had fun while learning. At the end of the day, I felt energized. Today, more often than not, I feel demoralized.

While I still connect my lesson plans to students’ lives and work to make it real, this no longer is my sole focus. Today I have a new nickname: testbuster. Singing to the tune of “Ghostbusters,” I teach test-taking strategies similar to those taught in Stanley Kaplan prep courses for the SAT. I spend an inordinate amount of time showing students how to “bubble up,” the term for darkening those little circles that accompany multiple choice questions on standardized tests.

Tags: teachers, teaching, tests, sol

Michelle Obama Speech

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:03:12 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: my.barackobama.com

Michelle Obama gave a blockbuster speech at the convention in Denver.

It was heartfelt and deeply personal -- and many are saying she rivaled Barack's famous 2004 convention speech in the way she moved the crowd.

[Video]

Criminals dumping weak US dollar for euro

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:50:25 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

The weakened US dollar has fallen out of favor with organized crime groups to pay for drug shipments or to settle scores, a Canadian government report said Friday.

And if the greenback continues its slide in 2008, as expected, more and more criminals are likely to exchange euros for illicit goods, said Criminal Intelligence Service Canada in its annual report.

"The US dollar weakened significantly against other major currencies in 2007 and according to some economists, is expected to depreciate further in 2008," said the report.

"As a consequence, other currencies -- particularly the euro -- are poised to weaken the US dollar's dominance as the currency of choice for international remittances and payments," it said.

"This trend could also drive an increase in observed instances of bulk-cash transfers denominated in currencies other than Canadian and US dollars," the report added.

Tunnel becomes Banksy art exhibit

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:54:09 GMT

clipped by: reimers
clipper's remarks: Follow the links for bigger pictures

Clip Source: pinewooddesign.co.uk

THE public is making its mark on graffiti artist Banksy’s first British exhibition in three years as a whole street has been transformed into an art exhibition.

The Cans Festival, a three-day street party of stencil art, kicks off yesterday in an old tunnel formerly used by taxis, which was vacated when Eurostar left its Waterloo terminal in London.

Artists from as far afield as Brazil, Canada and Australia are also taking part.

Huge installations include smashed up cars, a CCTV camera-laden tree, an ice cream van, a cut-out of the Queen, and statues as well as artwork on the walls.

Boris Johnson also features in murals by a Dutch artist named Hugo Kaagman.

In one piece - We Need Change - the politician’s face appears by a picture of a Smurf.

From today the public can add to the exhibition with their own stencilling.

Banksy said: “Graffiti doesn’t always spoil buildings, in fact it’s the only way to improve a lot of them.

The exhibition takes place in Leake Street, near Waterloo Station.

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Also Know As The Trash Vortex

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:42:35 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: Sad Picture: No one to blame for this but ourselves. Four fifths of the plastic detritus floating over 2.5 million square miles of ocean surface arrives there from land-based run off: from stormwater, in other words: litter.

Sadly - many people take the "out of sight, out of mind" approach.

Plastic contamination in the world's oceans is worse than previously imagined and no amount of technology can clean it up.

We are damned to a future of pollution by plastic. All succeeding generations will only see an ocean filled with trash.

Net a piece of plastic, and you’ll find barnacles and small crabs clinging to it. Not a good thing for fish, birds, and mammals that mistake it for its natural food, such as eggs, jellyfish, or other sea creatures.

Most of the plastic will eventually photo-degrade into small, dust-like particles to the point that it will be non-detectable to the human eye, but ingestible by sea mammals, birds, and fish—many of which we then consume ourselves.

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

The carcass of an albatross on the beach; birds and sea mammals mistake plastics for food then inevitably starve to death. This is the bird’s actual gut sample.

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," or "trash vortex" - essentially a floating expanse of waste and debris in the Pacific Ocean now covering an area twice the size of the continental U.S. Believed to hold almost 100m tons of flotsam, this vast "plastic soup" stretches 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan

"trash vortex" aren't just limited to the marine ecosystem

"What goes into the ocean goes into these animals and onto your dinner plate. It's that simple."

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

It’s everywhere. Multiple paths of Ziploc baggies, bottle caps, balloons, pretzel bags, and other debris lead you to the swirling trash vortex like a trail of bread crumbs

In the most polluted areas, the plastic-to-plankton ratio is 48 to 1. It’s become part of the oceanic landscape

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

Tags: ocean, plastic, what will happen, litter, trash, dirty, ignorance

Baby with 2 faces born in north India

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:48:05 GMT

clipped by: k9riley99

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

AP Photo: Mother Sushma holds her daughter Lali at their residence in Saini Sunpura, 50 kilometers (31...

SAINI SUNPURA, India - A baby with two faces was born in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said Tuesday.

The baby, Lali, apparently has an extremely rare condition known as craniofacial duplication, where a single head has two faces. Except for her ears, all of Lali's facial features are duplicated — she has two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes.

Lali has caused a sensation in the dusty village of Saini Sunpura, 25 miles east of New Delhi. When she left the hospital, eight hours after a normal delivery on March 11, she was swarmed by villagers, said Sabir Ali, the director of Saifi Hospital.

Rural India is deeply superstitious and the little girl is being hailed as a return of the Hindu goddess of valor, Durga, a fiery deity traditionally depicted with three eyes and many arms.

The Anasazi mystery

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:32:01 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

about 30 miles east of Tucson, the ancient stone ruin archaeologists call the Davis Ranch Site doesn’t seem to fit in. Staring back from the opposite bank, the tumbled walls of Reeve Ruin are just as surprising

Some 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi, driven by God knows what, wandered from the north to form settlements like these, stamping the land with their own unique style

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

These Anasazi newcomers

were distinctive in other ways. They liked to build with stone

Why, in the late 13th century, did thousands of Anasazi abandon Kayenta, Mesa Verde and the other magnificent settlements of the Colorado Plateau and move south into Arizona and New Mexico?

Looking beyond climate change, some archaeologists are studying the effects of warfare and the increasing complexity of Anasazi society. They are looking deeper into ancient artifacts and finding hints of an ideological struggle, clues to what was going through the Anasazi mind.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Grains Gone Wild

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:44:22 GMT

clipped by: ericskiff
clipper's remarks: With food prices rising quickly and a grain crisis looming, the end of cheap food may indeed be here.

From a personal point of view, I know several people near the poverty line who are really feeling the pinch now between oil prices (gas, heating oil, etc) and rising food prices.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there’s another world crisis under way — and it’s hurting a lot more people.

How did this happen? The answer is a combination of long-term trends, bad luck — and bad policy.

meat-eating Chinese

it takes about 700 calories’ worth of animal feed to produce a 100-calorie piece of beef

price of oil

energy costs have become a major factor driving up agricultural costs.

bad weather in key growing areas. In particular, Australia, normally the world’s second-largest wheat exporter, has been suffering from an epic drought.

Where the effects of bad policy are clearest, however, is in the rise of demon ethanol and other biofuels.

We also need a pushback against biofuels, which turn out to have been a terrible mistake.

But it’s not clear how much can be done. Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past.

When Rape is OK: Female Contractors in Iraq

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:23:57 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks: Women like -- as you may remember -- Jamie Leigh Jones, 23, a former employee of military contractor KBR who has been unable to get her charges of gang rape heard in court; women like Mary Beth Kineston, who was fired after complained about harassment and groping incidents. "I felt safer on the convoys with the Army than I ever did working for KBR," Kineston told the Times. "At least if you got in trouble on a convoy, you could radio the Army and they would come and help you out. But when I complained to KBR, they didn't do anything. I still have nightmares. They changed my life forever, and they got away with it."
Jones testified in Congress in December -- and yesterday -- in order to draw attention to such cases and urge lawmakers to change regulations governing private arbitration. Emboldened by Jones, more women have begun to step forward, talking about mysteriously disappearing complaints and about being given, for their grievances, an 800 number and a pat on the head.

Clip Source: www.salon.com

Can't work for them, can't sue them

It's bordering on cliché by now, dismayingly enough, to observe that women deployed to Iraq face (at least) "two kinds of assault," are "fighting on two fronts," or that some say the worst part of being at war was not being ambushed by insurgents. Indeed, as today's New York Times reports, "a number of women who have reported that they were sexually assaulted by co-workers while working as contractors in Iraq ... now find themselves in legal limbo, unable to seek justice or even significant compensation."

Tags: rape, female contractors, iraq

Another Gay Teen Dies At Hands Of A Schoolmate

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:34:52 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: A student thought to be gay was five times as likely to be threatened or injured by a weapon, a 2002 California Department of Education study said.

Clip Source: dailykos.com

Yesterday Lawrence King, a 15-year old student at E.O. Green Junior High in Ventura County, California was shot by a fellow student with whom he'd had an ealier "altercation" over the fact that other students perceived him to be gay.

Today Lawrence King was declared brain-dead and placed on a ventilator awaiting the possible donation of his organs. His assailant, another student who was 14-years old, was caught minutes after the shooting and is now in custody.

The teenager sometimes wore feminine clothing and makeup, and proclaimed he was gay, students said.

"He would come to school in high-heeled boots, makeup, jewelry and painted nails -- the whole thing," said Michael Sweeney, 13, an eighth-grader. "That was freaking the guys out."

"Freaking the guys out." And the acceptable response to any perceived threat to a man's masculinity is violence, and not only violence but deadly violence.

And again we're reminded of the dangers gay students and youth face in America's schools:

The Illustrated London News

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:26:28 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: The magazine was published weekly until 1971, when it became a monthly. From 1989, it was published bi-monthly, then quarterly. The magazine is no longer being published, but the Illustrated London News Group still exists.

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

First page of the first edition

The Illustrated London News is a magazine founded by Herbert Ingram and his friend Mark Lemon, the editor of the magazine Punch. With Lemon as his chief adviser, the first edition of the Illustrated London News appeared on 14 May 1842. Costing sixpence, the magazine had sixteen pages and thirty-two woodcuts. The first edition included pictures of the war in Afghanistan, a train crash in France, a steamboat explosion in Canada and a fancy dress ball at Buckingham Palace.

Clip Source: commons.wikimedia.org

The Daily Telegraph's new offices and printing premises in Fleet Street

Clip Source: commons.wikimedia.org

"A Street Railway in New York" - 1876 engraving

Clip Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Clip Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

July 17, 1869

Clip Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Illustrated London News - page 12 of the first edition

Clip Source: commons.wikimedia.org

English: Steam locomotive exiting the Thames Tunnel and arriving at what is now Wapping tube station, London

Clip Source: commons.wikimedia.org

"The [Franco-Prussian] War: Fall of Strasbourg - Departure of French Prisoners"

Clip Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Qajar Shah in on front page of Illustrated London News.

6 - July - 1889

Tags: news magazine

Bullying a Student for Reading "The Golden Compass"

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:05:44 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: atheism.about.com

Christians are supposedly the ones being persecuted in America, but when was the last time you heard about a Christian in public school having to endure organized bullying from multiple kids simply for reading one of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books? That doesn't sound like the sort of thing that is likely to happen, but it is possible for a student to endure such treatment for reading The Golden Compass; in fact, it's already happened.

Possum Mama relates what happened to her son when he was seen reading The Golden Compass in school

One boy saw the book and flipped out. He stood in front of P2 and demanded to know if he believed in god. When P2 didn't answer, he escalated things by saying, "You're totally an atheist. Do you love Satan?" At which point, another boy started asking intrusive and silly questions. To his credit, P2 kept saying, "This isn't the time or place to talk about this."

Can you imagine the outcry if atheists had done this to a Christian reading a Narnia book?

100+ Free Online Learning Sites Linked On One Page

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:40:07 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Way too much text to make sense of it without visiting the page.

Clip Source: blog.missiontolearn.com

Online Tutorials and How-to Sites

“Big Idea” and Debate Sites

Higher Education and Open Education Initiatives

Free CE,CME, and CEU

Topical Areas

At Home

Business and Professional Skills

Dance

Economics

Handy Things to Know

Health

Human Resources

International Development

Language, Spelling, and Grammar Skills

Law

Math

Music and Art

Sports, Recreation, and Hobbies

Theological

Web and Computer Skills

Finally, the main point to all of this is simply that there is so much available out there for free—even things that offer credit—and given how easy it is for non-technical subject matter experts to contribute content, it will only keep growing. Quality is all over the place right now, but I suspect competition among aggregators and the growing influence of the open education movement will drive higher quality over time. All of this suggests at least a couple of things, in my opinion:

Clinton Lashes Out At Obama Supporter

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:39:18 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: firstread.msnbc.msn.com

Robert Holeman came to Timken High School here today with a message to deliver to Bill Clinton. He did -- and he said the former president wasn’t happy about it.

Clinton spoke to a capacity crowd in this Northeast Ohio town, the third of five events today in the Buckeye State. He told voters that the contest was “the power of speeches against the promise of solutions by a world-class change maker.”

Throughout the event, as Clinton made his case for his wife, Holeman’s dissenting voice could be heard. At times he simply shouted Obama’s name. When Clinton would set up a sure applause line, Holeman could be heard heckling. As soon as Clinton finished speaking, the Canton native made a beeline to the ropeline to give Clinton a piece of his mind.

Holeman said that Clinton responded by saying Obama came after him first. Holeman also described Clinton’s reaction to him as “irate.”

“I think he even hit me in the face with his hand,” he said.

The HiJacking Of Jesus

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:54:58 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "A very large church in New York where I've spoken before did not want me to come and talk about this book. They said that after several guest ministers spoke against the Iraq War, people had left the congregation and threatened to resign their membership. These issues have become really matters of keeping your job."

The religious right feels threatened by the Social Gospel of Jesus for a number of reasons. One, IMO, is that they are more concerned with an afterlife than they are with practicing what Jesus said. What could be more Christ-like than universal health care?

Clip Source: www.thenation.com

How is it that so many in the ranks of the Christian right are missing the message of love in the New Testament?

They've missed the words of Jesus

If you were to do that, then there would be a much greater focus on the Sermon on the Mount, treating your neighbor as yourself, helping the Samaritans and everything else that was in Jesus' message.

What do you think is so attractive about the theology of the religious right? Is it simply the "sophisticated marketing" and plethora of services and activities that you found at the mega-churches, or is it something in their message?

I think also that it's the belief factor. While I'm not sure what it is now that they believe in--since they don't believe in a lot of the messages of Jesus--they do have a strong belief in whatever they conceive of as Jesus and his resurrection.