On Chinese plan goes before school board Tuesday
Posted on October 16 at 7:25 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
I suppose if I didn't have anything worth saying, I'd just give up too.
On Complaint on caricature sparks nationwide discussion
Posted on October 15 at 2:05 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
trombonemann,
I do plenty of things throughout the day that don't get me called a racist or a bigot.
It is a common propoganda technique to depict your opponent as subhuman. One way that American racists have tended to do this is to depict African-Americans as apes. Blackface caricaturization is another previously common propoganda technique.
Now, I'm not saying that the artist was trying to do either of these things, it could simply be a caricature with no racist or bigoted motive behind it. I personally thought it was simply implying that Obama had an ego. I can, however, see how some people might question the meaning of aspects of the caricature.
While some people do occasionally take political correctness and racial sensitivity to extremes, I don't think we should automatically assume that all such claims are baseless. If nothing else, instances such as this can present an interesting opportunity for conversation and may make people aware of actions of their own that might be insensitive toward others.
On Chinese plan goes before school board Tuesday
Posted on October 15 at 8:46 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Hopefully, we can agree that language/communication skills are an important part of primary education and an important business skill. Foreign languages not only an understanding of English, but give children the potential to effectively communicate with more people. You focus on the fact that children are learning Chinese, rather than focusing on the fact that learning Chinese can and likely will improve their English. Would you care to address the ancillary benefits of learning a foreign language or is it simply easier to ignore?
Sure, mathematics is integral to primary education and a basic understanding of it is often useful. Using the lattice method rather than long multiplication is in no way integral.
You focus too much on the mathematics example though. As a child, I was "forced" to take art, music, and physical education. I was "forced" to learn how to build things with clay, rather than focusing on drawing skills at one point. I was "forced" to learn how to play the recorder rather than learning basic hand percussion. I was "forced" to play dodge ball rather than learning the fundamentals of golf and racquetball. All of the "choices" that I was denied would be much more useful in the business world (at least for me).
Beyond all that, being able to figure out how to communicate with other people is an important life skill. Learning a foreign language as a child will help teach children the skills they need to learn other foreign languages down the road, should they choose to. Janesville students are not only learning Chinese, they are learning HOW to learn Chinese. Whether the foreign language down the road is Spanish, Farsi Russian, ASL, or Visual Basic, the ability to learn, understand and use vocabulary and syntax from another language is an important skill to teach our youth.
On Chinese plan goes before school board Tuesday
Posted on October 14 at 5:30 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
You're doing a great job of being evasive, but not of having an honest debate. What about a foreign language necessitates choice where there is none in other subjects?
Parents can't choose whether or not to have their elementary students learn mathematics. They can't choose to have their elementary school students learn one method or subject of mathematics but not another. Yet, you and others (some but not all of whom are obviously xenophobic and/or racist) haven't stepped up to say why we can "force" mathematics, let alone lattice multiplication, on children but we can't "force" Chinese or any other language on them.
I have not tagged all those who oppose this program as xenophobic or racist. Quite the opposite, I have given people the benefit of the doubt that they have legitimate opposition that isn't based on the logical and useless fact that "this is America."
You questioned the usefulness of my own knowledge of foreign language as if me not having a particular use for it would negate its usefulness. I explained many ways in which is has been useful. You may not perceive the benefits that I do, or you may not believe that others would not get the same benefits out of, but trying to paint me as "fancy" rather engaging me certainly isn't going to make me understand your point of view.
I did attack your (apparent) attempt to paint knowledge of foreign languages as Communist and by extension a bad thing as ignorant and xenophobic because it such a belief would be seem to me to based on the fear of others (xenophobia) and ignorance (of knowledge and Communism). If you were attempting to paint such a picture, then I do not apologize. If were not, then I do, but I would point out that I asked if that was your intention, not stated. You had the opportunity to clarify.
Believing that we should never learn any foreign languages is a small-minded belief that would hamper our ability to protect our nation and operate in the global market were it a universal American belief. Again, the use of "small-minded" was related to the potential/apparent conflation with knowledge of foreign languages and Communism. I will gladly reassess your motives if you would clarify.
On Chinese plan goes before school board Tuesday
Posted on October 14 at 11:17 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
localboy,
Do we judge the usefulness/importance of knowledge based on whether or not a person on a comment board can name specific instances in which that knowledge has benefited them? I can't name a specific instance when knowing the capital of Oregon or how to spell giraffe has helped me in the business world, are geography and spelling therefore useless subjects that parents should be able to exempt their children from?
Speaking Spanish allowed me to earn an extra semester of college while in high school and landed me a pretty good job while I was in college. My first post-college boss listed my extracurricular activities and studying Russian in college as reasons for helping me stand out among other candidates.
As side benefits, studying Spanish for so many years improved my understanding of English verb tenses and parts of speech (specifically adjectives, nouns, and adverbs), especially once I got to advanced Spanish grammar courses in college. It's hard to use the pluscamperfecto tense if you don't understand past perfect in English. Studying Russian helped me better understand English cases, minor as though they are. Better understanding of English grammar, learned through studying English and foreign languages, helped me excel in high school and college and has made me a valuable proof-reader in my office.
In my Spanish and Russian classes, I practiced reading skills, public speaking, and listening skills.
Studying two foreign languages have made it much easier for me to understand how to pick up phrases in new foreign languages when I wanted to. Learning a foreign language, like anything, is a skill.
While I have been in many social/public and some business situations where speaking Spanish or a little Russian or knowing some basic ASL wasn't necessary but did get me extra respect, better service, or even just a smile from someone who appreciated that I had taken the time to learn a bit of their language.
Knowing English has come much more in handy, but that hardly makes my other language skills useless, nor negate the fact that knowing how to learn a foreign language is a useful skill in and of itself.
On Chinese plan goes before school board Tuesday
Posted on October 14 at 8:55 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
localboy,
I speak Spanish pretty well (thanks to being "forced" to learn it as a child), I can speak basic Russian, and I know some extremely basic ASL, French, German, and Italian. I fail, however, to see your point.
Is your reference to "red glasses" an attempt to conflate knowledge of foreign languages with Communism? If so, then your xenophobic ignorance is of no use to any of us.
We should all be glad that other countries don't proclaim, "This is _____, not the US, we don't need to learn English!" We should also be glad that all those language analysts and interpreters in organizations such as the NSA and the military are not so small-minded.
On Chinese plan goes before school board Tuesday
Posted on October 14 at 8:34 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
I suspect that Moco is at least partially correct, some or even many of those who oppose Chinese being taught do so because of their own xenophobia or even racism.
Unfortunately, so far the only response from the other side is to tell Moco to shut up, not to express non-xenophobic, non-racist reasons why the teaching of a particular foreign language is held to such a different standard than the teaching of particular methods/sub-topics of other subjects.
Noname, your previous comments have, unfortunately, done nothing to dispel the concerns of some that there is a large xenophobic/racist component to the opposition to this program. A belief that immigrants to this country has nothing to do with teaching children a foreign language to receive all the benefits that come from learning one and is a belief that could be perceived as xenophobic/racist. A suspect that a majority of the students in this program already speak English fluently, so they have "learned English first" so I'm not quite sure how that relates either.
Posted on October 13 at 9:38 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
jvltrnsplnt,
Our discussion thus far has been about whether or not this country has, at it's roots, Christian values and principles. Are you trying to tell me that currency or allegiance to a nation-state are exclusively Christian values or even Christian values at all?
As prounion points out, "...one nation, under God..." was added during the Red Scare of the 1950s. I believe that "In God We Trust" was put on our money around the time of the Civil War, approximately 100 years after founding of this country. If we accepted currency and patriotism as exclusively Christian values/principles, neither of your examples would support our country having been founded on those values/principles.
Posted on October 13 at 3:22 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
leesbunny,
With all due respect, what Christian values and principles is this country founded on?
Values such as not killing and stealing are relatively universal. It would be extremely difficult and arrogant to claim that such values are exclusively Christian.
Many of the 10 Commandments (no matter which version you use) and other Christian values as laid out in the bible are not any part of our founding documents or current laws. We can, for example, have false idols and gods before your the Chrisitan God. We can boil a kid (young goat) in it's mother's milk. We can eat shellfish, work on the Sabbath, have premarital sex. We are not legally obligated to turn the other cheek nor exact revenge in the form of an eye for eye. We don't stone adulterers. We can't sell our daughters into slavery. I could go on, but hope that I don't need to.
Sure, some of the Founding Fathers were Christian, but that doesn't mean that we are a "Christian nation". All of the Founding Fathers were white, I hope you don't believe that this fact makes us a "white nation" with "white values and principles"
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On The importance of being pivotal
Posted on October 16 at 2:47 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
That's because legislation only needs 51 votes to pass the Senate.
The 60 vote threshold that people refer to is the number of votes required to invoke cloture and end debate on bills that are not budget-related. There is no Constitutional nor Senatorial requirement that 60 Senators agree on the actual bill. I suspect, however, that you already know this.
It is perfectly conceivable that 60 Senators would vote to invoke cloture but only 51 (or 50 with a Vice President tie-breaking vote) Senators would vote for the actual bill.
I happen to support this piece of legislation passing with "only" 51 votes and I have seen plenty of legislation that I disagree with pass with "only" a majority (Bush's wartime tax cuts, for example). I disagree with the people (not necessarily you, retiredairforce) who think that the threshold should be 51 when their party is in power but 60 when they are the opposition party. The standards to which we hold one party should apply to all parties.