FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE(YASNY @ Nov 10, 2007 -> 11:06 AM) Referencing your elephant in the room. I still think that people who pay the freight, ie the taxpayers, should have some say on what is actually loaded on to the truck. I don't disagree, and there are procedures in place to insure that this can happen.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Nov 10, 2007 -> 10:25 AM) I absolutely completely disagree with you. When a class is taught in a public school, supported by the taxpayers of that community, then that community should absolutely have input into what is being presented to their children, elective or not. Of course, the input should be expressed through the proper channels, like the elected school board officials, and if the community doesn't agree with the decisions of the board they replace it come the next election. I essentially side with Rex here, but more than anything it is that public input needs to go through the proper channels which is whet you're saying as well. The thing is, the notion that the public school teachers - even in AP classes – are lone wolf rebels assigning the most extreme material they can is a fallacy, and a lot of the perceived controversy stems from there. Counties and school boards have approved text and book lists, and teachers have to jump through major hoops to stray from those lists. As mush as you want to support the public right to input, you also have to have some faith in the system that is already in place. And you do, of course. Within a few degrees we all agree that lone parents with no broad support should not hold much sway no matter how bent out of shape they are about course programming. Likewise, you have to have some faith that the system has hired competent AP instructors who are better equipped to select level-appropriate, context-appropriate, and content-appropriate reading for their classes than the average parent. I'll finish by introducing everybody to the elephant in the room. Embarking on a crusade to protect your public school child from a couple of pages of dark, unglamorized human brutality within a literary work is screaming into the wind when you consider the reality of what is discussed on the bus, in the halls, lunchroom, and scholyard at every public high school in the country every day. If a parent has made the decision to toss their kids into a system that would rate an NC-17 for the everyday language and themes discussed, I think efforts to ban a book because a few pages of it descend to that level are misguided and unproductive.

:cheers

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Nov 10, 2007 -> 04:28 AM) Is this possible, or is someone reaching? http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/09...e.ap/index.html I've heard the bit about the apostles hands possibly substituting for notes of a Gregorian chant, and the harmonic spacing of the painting is an interesting observation. But, yeah, this guys interpretations seem arbitrary to me. What dictated where and how he placed his staff and what objective criteria did he use to assign tempo instructions to various elements of the painting? Pretty neat that people are still pouring over a 500-year old painting and finding new things though.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 9, 2007 -> 09:59 AM) I thought Lomax was that car theft deterrent system the advertise during the Sox games. Oh wait, that's Lojack. I thought Lojack was the bald detective who sucked lollypops and hustled Players Club cards on tv. . .

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Nov 9, 2007 -> 09:49 AM) But now you are turning it back onto yourself. I never said you were crappy at parenting, but you basically said it about those that do use them. My wife and I used them for OUR PEACE OF MIND. There was no intent to dehumanize our children. Did we use them in the malls? Yes. I know my kids, I know how they can just run off if I look away for a second, no matter how close of an eye I keep on them. I thought it was the best choice FOR US. Not YOU. For MY CHILDREN AND MY FAMILY. I'm standing down, Kid. My intent was not to attack anybody’s personal parenting skills and I apologize. I avoided the pet peeve thread for several days and should have continued to do so.

Old news by now, and not surprising, but Yea Congress for overriding the presidential veto of the Water Resources Development Act! :headbang

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Nov 9, 2007 -> 09:33 AM) Wasn't Lomax also the guy from Death of a Salesman? That was Loman I believe, not Lomax. Not to be confused with Lo mein, which I had the other night for dinner and enjoyed quite a bit.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 9, 2007 -> 09:31 AM) Again... the book is not about anal sex. This is what I was getting at earlier. High school students in advanced, elective classes should be exposed to challenging material. That material may contain plot devices covering matters that happen in real life but which are not pretty - war, murder, hate, violence, etc. That doesn't mean the books are about those things. It means the books use real life situations to more effective get their points across. You're spot on here. Literary works that reflect societal realities are quickly singled out in the little censorship wars, but the best of these can be immensely powerful. And we are talking about mature upperclass highschoolers here, not secondf graders or fifth graders.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 9, 2007 -> 09:09 AM) These are public schools, and there needs to be public involvement. There should be mechanisms and procedures to make certain what is being taught is what the masses want, not one teacher. Likewise, one citizen, without broad support should not make the decision. From your own personal experience, as you have posted here, your better educational experiences seem to often involve non-traditional teachers and non-traditional class structure. It's an odd contrast that you're advocating a cookie-cutter, teach-what-the-public-wants position here. These are literary works, not pornography or gratuitous snuff, and I don't see why parental consent to let their kids read the material in an elective class doesn't satisfy all parties. We both agree that one citizen without broad support shouldn't be able to effect broad change, and that at least is good common ground. As a tangent, haven't you in previous threads supported the idea of elective, non-denominational high school classes on the Bible as literature? (I support that as well, btw.) Well, certainly there's a whole lot more discussion of sodomy. . . as well as rape, incest, adultery, murder, beastiality, etc., in that work than in anything Pat Conroy ever penned. On the principle of preserving the innocent minds of students, you've apparently rethought the appropriateness of bteaching that literary work as well, yes?

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 9, 2007 -> 09:18 AM) My daughter's 18 months old tomorrow... and we just decided to get her one because at that age, you can't keep them from darting out, and they are not old enough to understand to not go into the street. I DO think that if you use them in a mall, etc, that's a little excessive, but outside when walking, I now understand the need. I used to think like Flaxx... but I get it now. See, that's just it. I had two kids. . . just in case. Odds say at least one of them is bound to survive my cr@ppy parenting.

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Nov 9, 2007 -> 07:16 AM) Huh, odd, both of my kids wore those and they both love the heck out of me. I can only hope your kids choose to do something evil to you in the future also just for caring about their own safety. I'll kill this post here, because your post pissed me off enough to want to write for days. Sorry I care about my childs safety. Yeah, I'm not saying kid leashes should be outlawed, just that they rub me the wrong way. As do mostof the parents that use them. I don't expect everybody to share the opinion. . . that's what a pet peeve is, right?

Little kids dragged around on leashes in public. So dehumanizing. I bet when those kids grow up they can't wait to chuck mom and dad into the old folks' home at the earliest opportunity as payback.

QUOTE(Soxy @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 11:08 PM) I keep trying to remind myself why I am doing this, and honest to god, the only answer I can think of is because I've come too far in the program to quit. The moral of the story children: don't go to grad school. Friggin'-A Right!! I'm actually pretty sure everybody gets to the 'why the hell am I bothering?' stage. I sure did, and it became a completely personal, Joe Vs. the Volcano kind of thing for me. Hey you erudite em-effers. . . you may not want me in that Ivory Tower, but I'm getting in like it or not! And now, as Otto would say. . . I'm Driving The Bus!! Seriously though, you are a scary smart person, and you'll get past this bump in the road and every other one they throw your way. Of that I have no doubt. Once you get inside the Tower though, you gotta' remember it's at least 5 more years until we give you a key to nice bathrooms.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 04:43 PM) The public should have some input in what is taught in public high schools. Anybody who wants to have input can join the PTA, get on the school board, vote on various referendums that come up. etc. An uppity mother who feels the need to go beyond policing her own kid and decides to be the arbiter of artistic merit and social value for everybody else's kid is overstepping. The elective, college-level class should be beyond the reach of some lone parent on a crusade. Make your kid drop the class, banish im to his plastic bubble for a month, and leave everybody else alone.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 05:06 PM) If you can't expect that, how do you expect to even read Dr. Seuss? I mean the Lomax was about pollution and the Butter Battle Book was about nuclear war. That would be Lorax. Lomax was the guy that recorded George Harrison's song Sour Milk Sea.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 03:11 PM) 2. I completely agree on the use of "literally". One of the most misused words in American English. Literally?

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 03:03 PM) Then why elect a school board of you are just going to allow teachers to do whatever they want? In Texas, and I suspect every where else in the United States, kids are free to read whatever they want. They can go to the library, they can go buy the books. No one is telling them they cannot read the book or deprive them. What is in question is who should expose them to "controversial topics". Perhaps every High School English teacher is better equiped than you, but I doubt it. Not about concepts? Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, poetic forms, autobiography, historical, biogra[hies, etc. None of these are taught in High School anymore? Is this class called Prince of Tides? or AP English? LCR mentioned the controversial topics. Who would say "I want my kids exposed to these topics, and a High School English teacher is the best person to do it"? This is also about age appropriate readings. A teacher made a conscious decision about what book to teach and to what level. There should be some oversight. This is public education, and should be available to all and should be as inclusive as possible. There certainly should be room for compromise and an alternate book selected. You may not be concerned about what people teach your children, but I am. And the sooner parents start caring what is fed to their children the better we all will be. Sure, there are literary forms that the works can be compartmentalized into, but the literature itself transcends its mechanics in a way that math and physics, etc., don't. I might be able to find another Elizabethan sonnet that alternates metrically between lines in iambic tetrameter and lines in iambic pentameter, a 4-5 stress pattern ending with two pentameter lines at the end of each stanza, but would that alone justify teaching some other poem instead of John Donne's The Flea? Yes, yes, I know that Donne's metaphysical love poems were just the author's attempt to get into someone's pants (er. . . chastity belt), and as such they have no place in the classroom. I think Mplssoxfan had it right, and I think that is the approach that can satisfy everybody without the need to talk about banning books. Study the "controversial" literature in elective classes and require the parents to sign a permission form stating that they have read the syllabus and know what works will be assigned and grant permission for their highschooler to participate. The parents that don't want the teachers filling their poor impressionable childrens' heads with language and smut and everything else that they think must reside in the evil literature can keep their kids from particpating while leaving open the possibility for other students to take the course.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 02:48 PM) As for the 'classics' like Huck Fin and Catcher in the Rye, i thought they sucked anyway. Who decided they were 'classics' anyway? Why are they worthy of teaching instead of something else? That sort of eye-of-the-beholder subjectivity is always going to be a part of any humanities coursework. Math is math and Chemistry is chemistry and physics is physics, etc., and the subject matter is pretty mush set. That's not so with art, literature, film, etc., where an instructor has to his/her best call as to what sampling of works to tackle in a finite amount of time. Oh yeah, Catcher in the Rye thinks YOU suck too.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 01:01 PM) Seriously? You honestly believe that American car companies are in cahoots together to sell less cars? At a time when their profits are in the toilet, that makes no sense. It makes more sense that their outdates platforms, factories, and unions don't allow them the nimbleness to adjust on the fly like their counterparts. They need sales volume now, worse than anytime in their history, selling a few cars at a high margin isn't going to make up for the lost sales by their Japanese counterparts and their taking of a bigger chunk of the overall car market. I see the inability to meet demand for hot hybrids as being a way to sell traditional inventory. I personally know three different people who have gone into dealerships in the last year intent on buying a hybrid vehicle, but ending up buying a traditional car because they couldn't wait the 9-12 months for the hybrid. That said, I agree with you that there are scale-up issues that keep the companies from putting out an unlimited number of new technology vehicles.

Yeah, I agree, the shortage of these vehicles is artificial and unnecessary - a way to spike demand and price them at a premium.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 11:19 AM) Tell me this, what literary concepts cannot be taught using less offensive works. It seems the goal here is to expose them to controversial topics? Why? How does exposing them to these controversial topics fit the mission statement of the school? Why is it the school's business? Amazing that you have time. Perhaps there should be a course Controversial Topics 101 and allow parents and students to make that choice? Literature is not about teaching concepts. Literature is about the literature. What book are you going to substitute for Catcher in the Rye to teach Catcher in the Rye? What book are you going to substitute for Huckleberry Finn to teach Huckleberry Finn? QUOTE(Mplssoxfan @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 11:21 AM) It was a voluntary elective. If the parents don't like the books, withdraw the kids from the class. If the parents want to ban the books from the class, and therefore deprive the other students the opportunity to read those books, that's not their prerogative. ^^^

QUOTE(YASNY @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 11:29 AM) NSS ... you're analysis is the first one I've ever seen that shows it make sense to go the hybrid route finacially. Maybe, just maybe, things are changing for the better in this area. The $3.00-$3.50/gallon gas is the tipping point and that makes all the difference. I wish the wait to buy hybrids wasn't as long as it is, because that will cost the industry a lot of motivated buyers.

NorthSideSox72

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 10:59 AM) So like this would piss ya guys off then?? Holy moley, it's like Fifi the Poodle and a box of Trix Cereal had a bastard love child.