Readers

Approximately one quarter of US adults have not read a book in the last year, 1 in 3 men, and 1 in 5 women.  For people with a high school education or less, 44% have not read a book in the last year.  By contrast, only 8% of college graduates haven't read a book in the last year.  People who earn under $30K per year are about a third as likely to have read a book as someone who earns more than $75K a year.  Reading corelates with success.

Many people cease reading once they are not obligated to do so in school.  That means we have a narrow window in which to provide reading material to a large chunk of students.  Do we offer them books that paint the country in a negative light, a positive light, or a neutral light?  I'm for positive.  Why have someone graduate high school viewing their country as an imperialistic, racist, colonial power?  I could provide a curriculum - all true - that exposed all the worst of the United States and have every student who didn't take it upon themselves to read other accounts to hate America and wish for its destruction.  Such students would be bad citizens.  Why do that?  On the other hand, I could also assemble a curriculum that would paint America as the greatest and most selfless country that has ever existing, a shining beacon of freedom for the world.  Again, all of it true.  Students who went through this curriculum would be proud of their country but ignorant of its flaws.  They would be patriotic citizens who might parrot Decatur: "...our country, right or wrong!"  I could also compose a curriculum that would provide both the good and the bad, which would be the best choice.  However, there's a lot to read for that final version and elementary and secondary civics courses are poor place for them.  This is the format I would choose for those who want to know, who will checkout books on history and read from David McCullough and Stephen Ambrose to William Appleman Williams and Howard Zinn.

Considering that nearly half of high school graduates will read very little once they are released from their brief stint of scholarship, what kind of citizens do you want wandering the streets?  Those who go on to college will read vastly more.  Those interested in knowing more about their country will have all the resources they want.  No need to worry about them, high school was just a primer.  I would choose the pro-American curriculum.

As it happens, that does not appear to be the one selected.  Considering how many young people have mostly negative views of their country, it sure seems as though the anti-American curriculum has been chosen.  From the 1619 Project to the tearing down of statues of historical figures, the United States is swarming with people more interested in tearing it down.  There are few enough people defending the country that politicians think it safer to cave to the demands of anti-American youth.

Texas Book Ban

Considering how I rail against censorship, I must surely be opposed to removing books from school libraries.  Not so much.  I went through the list of books that NBC detailed.  Most of them are about sexuality and race.  Mostly sexuality.  Now, I would be absolutely opposed to these books being delisted from Amazon, but I don't know that they are appropriate for primary and secondary education.  What is it we want from K-12 education?  

ThoughtCo proposes the following 7 goals:

1. Knowledge to Get By.  This is the core reading, writing, and arithmetic.

2. Knowledge of Subject Matter Being Taught: I have no idea what the person is talking about here.  This seems like advice for the teacher not to get hyper-focused on one subject.  Studetns should be well-rounded.

3. Creating Thoughtful Citizens: Though the paragraph detailing this is vague to the extreme, this is about critical thinking, knowing how to reason.

4. Self-Esteem and Confidence: Self-explanatory and would resolve itself if points 1 and 2 were successful.

5. Learn How to Learn: I forget where I heard it, but the sign of an education person is that they know where to look up information.  Google has made this much easier.

6. Lifelong Habits for Work: This is the socialization aspect.  Dress and behave appropriately, be on time, and so forth.

7. Teach Students How to Live: Another aspect of socialization, such as proper work ettiquette, cooperation, teamwork, etc.

Will the listed books help in any of these areas?  Maybe self-esteem, which really ought not be on the list.  Self-esteem or confidence without actual knowledge or accomplishment is just delusion.  Little Billy has no ability in math, but let's not damage his self-esteem by giving him grades that show his inability.  Huh?  I am concerned about the ability to communicate this person provided.  Let's try a different site.

The Educator's Room also has 7 goals:

1. To have the basic skills needed to build upon to accomplish whatever task or job is assigned in the future:  Sigh.  Neither brief nor clear.  However, the description is math and language arts are needed for workers of the future.

2. To be a critical thinker: That's better.  Yes, we want people who think rather than feel.  Someone who can analyze information.

3. To be able to troubleshoot or strategize: This is more critical thinking and specifies logical steps to solve problems.  She calls it horse sense.

4. To be a moral person: Ooh, here is a dangerous one.  This fits into socialization.  Kids learn what constitutes good behavior vs. bad behavior.  I would have stated the goal with more secular language.

5. To be a good citizen: Another facet of socialization, this is learning civics, understanding law, and so forth.

6. To have enough interests to be able to have not only a job but outside passions as well: This is about making a person well-rounded.  This is why we have music, art, dance, sports, and other electives in school.

7. To be happy: Self-explanatory and questionable.  This looks like a version of the self-esteem goal from the last one.

A lot of these look repetitive and unclear.  Who writes this stuff?  Let's see what Forbes has to say on the topic:

1. To prepare children for citizenship

2. To cultivate a skilled workforce

3. To teach cultural literacy

4. To help students become critical thinkers

5. To help students compete in a global marketplace

I like this list.  All the goals are so self-explanatory that no detailed description is provided.  I also appreciate that there is no talk of self-esteem or happiness.  If we could teach happiness, we wouldn't have school shooters.  If we could instill self-esteem, we wouldn't have teen suicide.  Dump these nonsense unattainable 'goals' and stick to the concrete stuff.

Back to the books that are proposed for banning: do they help any of the goals?  Are the sex exploits of a gay 17-year-old student a worthwhile book?  Books with rape and pedophilia may provide cultural literacy, but shouldn't that be something for outside of school?  Many of these books might be okay for high school, but I fear they are populating elementary shelves, where they do not belong.

Royal Flash (1975)

Royal Flash follows the adventures of a scoundrel.  While fleeing the London police in 1842, Captain Harry Paget Flashman (Malcolm McDowell) has a chance encounter with Lola Montez (Florinda Bolkan) and Otto Von Bismark (Oliver Reed).  While Bismark tries to expose him to the police, Lola protects him.  Soon, Harry is having an affair with Lola and has made an enemy of Bismark.  The affair with Lola is short-lived and ends poorly.  In 1847, Harry receives a summons from Lola.  She is now the Countess of Landsfeld and the mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria.  She has a lucrative offer for him.  Greed and another chance to bed Lola prove an irresistible lure for Harry.  No sooner does he arrive than he is forced to flee with Rudi Von Sternberg (Alan Bates).  He soon finds himself in the hands of Bismark, who has great plans for German unification.  Flashman bears an uncanny resemblance to Prince Carl Magnus and Bismark proposes that he stand in for the absent Prince, who is supposed to marry Duchess Irma (Britt Ekland) of Strackenz.  This is, in fact, a Prisoner of Zenda movie.  There is constant plotting and backstabbing.

The film has the same campy feel as Richard Lester's The Three Musketeer (1973) and The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974).  Sadly, it doesn't work this time around.  Much as I like Malcolm McDowell, he is terribly cast.  Flashman is 6'2" and broad-shouldered.  He looks the hero but acts the coward and bully.  Imagine John Wayne taking a role as a cad, coward, and thief; yeah, that's Flashman.  McDowell is only 5'8" and stick thin.  He fits the sniveling coward too well, especially in the wake of his most famous role as Alex in A Clockwork Orange.  He doesn't have the charisma to pull off a roll like Flashman.  Likewise, Florinda Bolkan is wrong for Lola.  When we first meet Lola in 1842, she should be 21 years old, whereas Bolkan is 34.  Lola was Anglo-Irish and had merely adopted a Spanish stage name, but Bolkan is Brazilian and has a dark Mediterranean complexion.  Oliver Reed makes for an excellent Bismark and Alan Bates is entertaining as Rudi.  Britt Ekland is bland as Irma, but it is a tiny and bland role.  It was funny to see Bob Hoskins as a London Constable before he was a big name.

Though planned as the first of a series, it did not do well at the box office.  The author of Flashman, George MacDonald Fraser, wrote the screenplay.  He had also done the screenplays for Lester's Musketeer movies.  Heroic campiness is more charming than cowardly campiness.  Bob Hope was great at playing the horny coward who was still likeable; McDowell doesn't have that talent.

Mediocre.

GoFundMe Double Standard

When BLM set up a GoFundMe account, all was well with the world.  Sure, there were riots and some of the money was used to bail rioters out of jail.  No big deal.  That's fine.  However, when a GoFundMe was setup for Kyle Rittenhouse, that was too much.  Denied.  They didn't want to associate with a man who shot three people, killing two of them.  Okay, I suppose.  It thus came as a bit of a surprise when a GoFundMe for Darrell Brooks was allowed.  He's the guy who ran over all the people at a Kenosha parade, killing 6 and injuring 62.  Huh.  Now GoFundMe has shut down the Freedom Truckers account because they....  didn't kill anyone.  Aren't burning down cities and needing bail money.  What exactly is the problem with them?  Not just a 'mostly' peaceful protest, but an entirely peaceful one.

GoFundMe is obviously political.  If you are black and killed a bunch of people, funding approved.  If you are white and killed people, funding denied.  If you burn down cities and ransack stores to protest the police and/or Trump, funding approved.  If you drive your trucks across Canada to protest vaccine mandates, funding denied.

I am reminded of how Patreon became political, booting various right or libertarian leaning people from its service.  What of all those platforms that almost simultaneously banned Alex Jones.  He broke the rules on all of them at the same time?  Unlikely.  There was coordination there.  The continued efforts to silence people is getting more extreme all the time.  First, it was just protesting and shouting down.  Then it was banning from platforms.  Now it is starving them of funds.  This trend will lead to tyranny or revolution, neither a desired outcome.  We value freedom of speech for a reason and efforts to quash it are playing with fire.

Government-Approved Censorship

In the modern view of the word, censorship can only be practiced by government.  If Time Magazine refused to publish a particular article, that isn't censorship, it's an editorial decision.  The owners of the magazine are not obligated to publish all submissions, nor could they as there are only so many pages available.  However, if the magazine did choose to publish an article and the FBI showed up to get it removed from the magazine, that would be a clear case of censorship.

In this digital age, magazines are being supplanted by websites, articles replaced by podcasts, TV news is being challenged by online news channels.  The interesting thing about these new platforms compared to the old ones is space limitations.  Where there were only so many pages in the newspaper or a magazine, the size online is virtually limitless.  Only so many frequencies for radio or channels on TV?  Again, essentially limitless with the internet.  With capacity no longer a factor, the editorial decisions are more likely to be questioned.  Nonetheless, if Facebook decides that certain people can't use its site, it is a private platform.  Right?  How does that work for brick & mortar businesses that want to exclude people?  A lot less 'editorial' decision there.

With regard to Joe Rogan, would it be censorship if Spotify acquiesced to demands by Neil Young to take down his podcast?  It is a private platform.  Spotify can choose who is on the site and who isn't.  Nothing censorious about that.  However, what if the government announced a preference?  Even if it doesn't send the FBI, government preferences are often enough to nudge business to adopt the preference.  Does the government have a preference regarding Joe Rogan?  Let's see what Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said recently when replying to a question on the topic:

“Sure. Well, last July, as you probably know, but the surgeon general also took the unprecedented step to issue an adviser on the risk of misinformation and public health, which is a very significant step and admitted that he talked about the role social media platforms have. So our hope is that all major tech platforms and all major news sources for that matter be responsible and be vigilant to ensure the American people have access to accurate information on something as significant as Covid-19. That certainly includes Spotify. So this disclaimer, it’s a positive step, but we want every platform to continue doing more to call out misinformation while also uplifting accurate information. I mean look at the facts right?”

Spotify has taken the step of putting disclaimers on some of Rogan's videos, but the White House is encouraging "every platform to continue doing more..."  Sure, those disclaimers are nice and all, but we think you should be doing more.  If platforms take down content after being encouraged by government, would that qualify as censorship?  I think it would.

The Coming Chinese Famine?

When the good times were rolling in the real estate market in China, the government often displaced farmers in order to give the land to developers.  Many of the ghost cities have been built upon once arable land.  The amount of arable land in China has shrunk dramatically in recent years.  For a country with 1.4 billion people to feed, maintaining farmland seems like a sensible idea.  With approximately 4x the population of the United States, it has less arable land.  China is a food importer and has been stock piling food recently.  China has almost 70% of the world's corn reserves, 60% of the rice, and 51% of the wheat.  China has ad campaigns about cleaning your plate and has banned food channels on social media that waste food.  Recent massive flooding has not been good for the harvest.  Well, government numbers show it is great, but who trusts such news from China?

ADVChina discussed this topic recently as well.  In their travels throughout China, Winston and Matthew went to some rice fields and found reckless use of pesticides.  In the upcoming Olympics, athletes have been warned not to eat local food as it could result in a failed drug test.  Ground water contamination is extremely bad (80 to 90%, depending on rural or urban).  Those with money have their food imported.

China has suffered a disastrous famine in living memory.  The Great Chinese Famine (1959-61) saw anywhere from 15 million to 55 million die of starvation.  This was not a matter of bad weather.  It was Mao Zedong's implementation of the Great Leap Forward, which included a variety of destructive policies.  One of the most noteworthy was the successful effort to kill birds, presuming that birds had a large impact on grain harvest.  Indeed they did, but in the opposite way predicted.  When the birds were exterminated, the locust populations - which birds eat - thrived and devoured the harvests.  Many Chinese were told to make iron and steel rather than farm.  And then there were the farming techniques imported from Russia, which only a couple decades earlier had starved 4 to 7 million Ukrainians in the Holodomor.

That the Chinese government might once again inflict a famine on its population through bad policies is not hard to believe.

Bizarre Gender Bias

I came across an unusual article today about pareidolia, which is a tendency to perceive images in random patterns.  One might see a face on the electrical outlet or in a vague pattern of stucco on a wall.  The reports of patterns of Jesus or the Virgin Mary are legion.  The article in question specifically addressed face pareidolia.  The funny thing was that the vast majority of the faces were identified as male.  The researchers could not determine why that was.  However, there was also a tendency to see young faces rather than old ones.  As far as the emotion of the face, it was more often happy than anything else.

Quick read and most entertaining.  Check it out.