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CHARLES HARRINGTON ELSTER IS BACK FOR PLEASE TELL ME I'M RIGHT! So get your word and grammar questions ready, he joins me at 2. Find out more about Charles and buy his wonderful books by clicking here.
HOW ONE FAILING UNIVERSITY TURNED THINGS AROUND My guest at 1 is a journalist named Andrew Gumbel and his new book Won't Lose This Dream: How An Upstart Urban University Rewrote The Rules Of a Broken System. The book is about the extraordinary turnaround that took place at Georgia State University. GSU was failing to graduate two-thirds of it's students in 2003 and since has erased every achievement gap and now graduates more African-American students than most other institutions in the US. Buy his book here. This is a great article about GSU if you want some more info.
FATHERS MATTER VERY MUCH TO CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT And this divorce attorney lays it out really well.
THIS IS A STUNNING INDICTMENT OF OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM And explains why millennials think Trump is LITERALLY Hitler. Because they know NOTHING about the Holocaust and who Hitler LITERALLY was. A new survey says people of the millennial generation and younger have NO CLUE how many people even died in concentration camps at Hitler's bidding. One in ten respondents say they have never heard the WORD Holocaust before. How are we supposed to prevent this from happening again if no one even knows it happened??? This is what a Howard Zinn history education gets you.
NO, MORE MONEY DOESN'T EQUATE TO BETTER LEARNING And thanks to Washington DC, we know this for a fact, as they spend over $30,000 a year PER STUDENT and yet, only 23% of 8th graders are proficient at reading. This is criminal. Absolutely criminal. It's time to bring back phonics and grammar and all the other crap we hated though it all taught us how to read.
A SWISS TOWN IS VOTING TO GIVE MONKEYS RIGHTS And even as I type that, it seems ridiculous. But here we are. An animal rights group has filed the petition for the community to vote on. They say:
The proposal, launched by an animal rights activist group called Sentience Politics in 2016, called for an amendment to the constitution in the northern half-canton of Basel City to include "fundamental rights to life for non-human primates".
The animals are "highly complex beings, possessing an intrinsic, essential interest in living a life of bodily and mental integrity," the group said.
"Non-human primates need to be protected by fundamental rights which guarantee that their essential interests are respected," it said, pointing to a right to life, as well as to physical and mental integrity.
Mmmkay. This would just be a first step though. This is why they are doing it. Do they even HAVE monkeys in Switzerland???
THIS OREGON WOMAN IS NOT SUFFERING FOOLS WITH MATCHES And this woman is a badass. I love her. Everything is on fire in Oregon and this jacktard is walking around with matches. This is what happened next. Note he already knew how to assume the position. I wonder how. She held the man until police arrived. Bad. Ass.
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A NEW FILM SHEDS LIFE ON ROBIN WILLIAMS FINAL STRUGGLE And oddly, I am comforted by the understanding that he took his own life not because of simple depression, but because of the effects of Lewy Body dementia. Read more about it here. This is the sort of suicide that is understandable to me, and most are not.
HAPPY CONSTITUTION DAY, EREBODY! A short 233 years ago our Founding Fathers put forth a document that changed the world. Here is a good column about our founding documents.
TWO BLACK LEADERS ARE TRYING TO COUNTER THE VICTIMHOOD CURRICULUM PUSHED BY THE 1619 PROJECT And they have birthed the "1776 Unites" high school curriculum full of black people who benefitted and flourished because of our system of government. From National Review:
The curriculum’s goal is to “let millions of young people know about these incredible stories, African-Americans past and present, innovative, inventive, who faced adversity, did not view themselves as victims, and chose pathways to be agents of their own uplift,” said Rowe, who is also a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
The curriculum says it will present “life lessons from largely unknown, heroic African-American figures from the past and present who triumphed over adverse conditions” and aims to help young people of all races “be architects of their own future by embracing the principles of education, family, free enterprise, faith, hard work and personal responsibility.”
Sounds like every student regardless of color could benefit from this.
Y'ALL, THIS COMMERCIAL IS PERFECT And it's a commercial for Panera. It's just excellent.
THIS IS SYDNEY KENNET WHO TAUGHT DAVE HOW TO INDOOR SKYDIVE And she is a total delight. I'm glad she's getting some press. This is a cool video.
TODAY'S NON POLITICAL MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH OF THE DAY ISN'T ABOUT YOU, IT'S ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE
MY REVIEW OF THE NEW DENVER GAZETTE It started this past Monday arriving in my email Inbox before I even sit down at my computer. First, the good. The Editorial board is ON POINT and this editorial excoriating Candi CdeBaca is a great example. The news stories are rooted in what, when, how, why with a good mix of opinions from interviewees. The not-so-good is the format. It's set up like an actual newspaper online and it just feels old and stuffy. I don't know why they went with that except maybe there is a print edition in the future? Overall, so far, I like it better than the Colorado Sun, which I also subscribe to. I recommend it. It's definitely better than the Post.
THIS EXCELLENT OP-ED BY STEP DENVER'S PAUL SCUTO IS A MUST READ AS WELL Check it out here, but Paul makes the case for more places like Step Denver and less making homelessness comfortable.
GOODBYE, MANUAL TRANSMISSIONS This column is an ode to the standard transmission, which is quickly going the way of the dodo bird. I'm not going to tell you I miss having a clutch while I creep along in bumper to bumper traffic, but there was something to be said for conquering a manual transmission on your way to getting your driver's license. I remember having to drive my mom's Toyota Celica for my driving test, with it's firm clutch after driving my boyfriend's truck with it's much looser gear shift. It was terrifying, but what a sense of accomplishment when I didn't stall. Read this for more.
SUPPORT FOR BLACK LIVES MATTER AND THEIR PROTESTS IS DROPPING And this isn't surprising. We are all "aware" now, we are ready for real solutions but ongoing protests that turn to riots? No thank you. I'm not alone.
THE ISRAEL DEAL MAY HELP TRUMP WITH JEWISH VOTERS Although some Orthodox hardline Jews are against ANY concessions at all, many Jews are pretty stoked about the peace deals between Israel and Bahrain. This MAY help Trump at the polls, but I don't think you're going to see Jews for Trump be a huge thing now. Many secular American Jews don't care about Israel as much as you might think. Trump's campaign is actively courting Jewish voters though, so we'll see what happens.
COMPLAINING TO IMMIGRANT PARENTS ISN'T A GREAT IDEA and this guy should know.