For posterity–Christian visits Kelly for the Fourth of July weekend after Kelly finishes her PhD comprehensive exams. They participate with friends in “trivia night” at the local coffee shop where Kelly often studies.
Month: July 2016
Maybe the Scandinavian countries are not so hot after all. There are a couple of articles that came onto my radar six or seven months ago that made credible something that I have wondered about for a long time. I am just getting around to writing them up. For years, we have heard about the wonders of living in Scandinavia and that the quality of life there is better than in the United States by just about every measure. It turns out that is just not true. Articles have trickled out saying there is trouble in paradise (see here and here), but the idea that the emperor has no clothes at all is a subject that has only started to receive traction in the last year or so.
An article titled Debunking the Myth of Socialist “Success” in Scandinavia reviews a book on the subject. It is a great article and definitely worth a read. Amazingly, the book it reviews, Scandinavian Unexceptionalism: Culture, Markets and the Failure of Third-Way Socialism, is available online for free at the time of the writing of this article. I had followed this subject some because of my interest in Sweden’s horrible record with respect to persecution of homeschoolers and their failed attempt to catch up with Finland in public education. In addition to all the schooling problems, it turns out that socialism continues to fail everywhere it is tried, too, Scandinavia included.
Saw this amazing site on my walk to What-A-Burger this morning. Right in the middle of the city beside the freeway. It made my day.
Scott McNealy is one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and a big proponent of something called open source education. I am on board with what he says. His public education philosophy tracks closely with mine. He explains the whole concept of open source education materials and what he has done about it here:
Here is a link to the Curriki, the free K-12 curricula and resource website he describes in the video.
What brought this back to my radar was a link my friend Andrew sent me to an online video interview of McNealy. He said, “Discussion of education starts around 28:50. Right at 31:55, he says a few words that I thought would really ring true for you.” Boy howdy was he right. I transcribed just a little bit of it here to give you the flavor McNealy’s remarks on education, part of which is about his ideas on education. I could not embed the video, but you can get to it by clicking here. I might note that he starts talking about education well before 28:50 and that is certainly worth a listen, too.
Interviewer: What is the state of the art right now? What’s going on in classes these days?
…
Scott McNealy: Monopoly is the wart.
Interviewer: In this case, the teachers union monopoly?
Scott McNealy: Who is the biggest monopolist out there? The government. So now we have the government sector union teachers driving the architecture, the process, all the rest of it. Meanwhile technology is going up, up and away.
There is much more in the video. McNealy talks about the concept of going to school, not to live one’s dream, but to get a job. The thing I really like about McNealy is that he put his money where his mouth was and did something about the whole educational mess in America. Our little family did it on a micro level by pulling our kids out of the traditional/government school morass while McNealy did it on an über-macro level and set up a system whereby every kid in America and around the world can benefit. Kudos to him!
Lorena went to a family reunion in her trip to Mexico to visit her mother. The above picture is a small subset of her aunts, great aunts, and cousins on her mother’s side of the family. They met at what I can only describe as an event facility at the very impressive ranch of her Aunt Berta (in blue, fifth from the right) and recently passed Uncle Ishmael. They had a great time. She is enjoying herself greatly. There is lots of stuff going on, carnes asadas, visits with family, lots of cleaning and organizing (of Grandpa Lauro’s stuff) and the installation of a new bathroom. I leave you with a couple of photos of the fruit growing and grown on the small urban lot where Grandma Conchita lives. The one on the left is her papaya tree. The one on the right is two passion fruits.
Lorena is visiting her family in Mexico and the kids are getting together for the Fourth of July weekend in Seattle. Kiwi the remaining cat sister and I are holding down the fort here in Texas. That has given me time to read and reflect. Writers on the websites and blogs I read are writing about what it means to be American and live in America as we approach the Independence Day celebration. The current state of our country and the world has helpfully reminded me that it is God how is great, not America. Any greatness that can be attributed to any country, America included, is nothing more nor less than the extent to which the people in that country reflect God’s glory through their relationship with him.
The state of the nation and world had me in a state of despair and confusion until I read the book of Esther in the Bible a couple of weeks back. The whole book was a great encouragement as is the book of Job where I am reading now. The Jewish people in captivity in Esther had every reason to despair as did Job when he lost everything, not due to disobedience, but to the gift God gave them to be used by Him in a way that accrued to good and continues to have a positive influence, even to this day. Mordecai’s admonishment to Ruth when the situation was grave and there was little hope seemed especially appropriate for Christians in America and around the world at this time of unrest.
Esther 4:14 – For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
Steve Berman is an excellent writer who captures this feeling very well in a post titled The Proper Response When All Outcomes Lead to Ruin*. I used to read his personal blog, SGBerman, but it appears he has upped his game and now writes for, Erick Erickson’s The Resurgent website. He says:
We’ve put too much faith in our own leaders and not nearly enough in God for far too long. The Republican Party is not a church, and it’s not God’s party. The political leaders we choose are not God’s anointed, as we would like to think. We are not Samuel pouring oil over Saul’s head or choosing David from among the sons of Jesse.
I think that statement is equally true for all of America, not just the Republican party. I would also like to add that I love America, unequivoaclly. I believe America, while not perfect, has done great good in her role in the world and the governance of her citizens. Nevertheless, it is not trite to say that we tread very dangerous ground when we, as a country turn from God. Lots of people who loved and served God went into captivity in Babylon. Lots of Christians died for their service to God–our Bible study last Wednesday was Acts 12:1 where it says “And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.” It seemed like just a passing note in the prose. There had to be a much bigger story behind it all. Our allegiance to God might cost us our lives. For most of my life time, a strong argument could have been made that allegiance to God was not incompatible with allegiance to America. That seems to be becoming less true daily.
*I especially liked his mixed, Star Wars-LOTR metaphor.
We, along with a gazillion other people on the Internet, have enjoyed mocking Neil deGrasse Tyson for his buffoonery. His self aggrandizing ways have turned him into such a caricature that thoughtful people pretty much just tune him out these days. Beside that, many people have realized that, all along, he is mostly just boring. Still, it is kind of fun to watch the mockery when he says something particularly boorish and inane. That happened again a couple days ago and the good people everywhere had fun with it. The links here, here and here speak for themselves. Enjoy.