The new process can turn a mixture of kombu and water, with the E. coli added, into a solution of about 5 percent ethanol in two days. Distill the ethanol from the water; put the water back into the ocean and “Voila”! Better yet, this happens at low temperatures, between 25 and 30 degrees C. Thus the ethanol can be produced without the use of additional costly energy—a big advantage over the current efforts to produce cost-effective ethanol from algae.
An analysis by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory suggests that the U.S. could supply one percent of its annual gasoline needs by growing the brown seaweed for harvest on less than one percent of its territorial waters.
The world already grows and harvests more 15 million metric tons of kombu and other seaweeds for direct human consumption. There seems no reason why large additional amounts of the seaweed could not be harvested for ethanol without driving up the costs of other foods. Corn ethanol competes directly for land with food and feed, thereby increasing food costs to consumers, especially for meat, milk, and eggs.
The seaweed catch? The new ethanol depends on genetically engineered bacteria. The process has been developed by BioArchitecture Lab., Inc. (BAL) and the University of Washington in Seattle. They modified the common E. coli bacterium to turn the sugars in edible kelp into ethanol. The research has just been reported in the January 20 issue of the journal Science. “The form of sugar inside the seaweed is very exotic,” says Yashuo Yoshikuni, one of the developers. “There is no industrial microbe to break down the alginate [in the seaweed] and convert it into fuels and chemical compounds.”
How badly does the environmental movement want to get rid of fossil fuels? Enough to accept the biotech ethanol solution? At this moment, the world’s acceptance of other renewable fuels is plummeting, due to their high costs compared to coal and natural gas. Meanwhile, the new horizontal drilling and fracking processes have suddenly made long-known and abundant shale petroleum reserves far more cost-effective. The claims that fracking will pollute drinking water are not holding up, since the petroleum-drilling is thousands of feet further down in the soil profile than the well-drilling.
The eco-movement has long demanded “natural” food production. Bio-tech food production has been successfully banned in many 3rd world countries because of the pressure from 1st world activists. But would that apply to kelp ethanol vats? The kelp for biofuel can be grown in Puget Sound, but kelp farms have been rejected by landowners and fisherman.
On the other hand, if kombu ethanol can be produced so readily, other nations have at least as much seawater in their surroundings as the “rich” in North America and Europe. Meaning all countries having access to seawater could make energy and support their own populations while expanding their economies into the 21st century.
Remember, of course, none of this will much reduce our dependency on oil. One percent of our territorial waters for one percent of our fuel means it will only be useful in fulfilling the congressional mandate and perhaps rescue us from corn ethanol.
Dennis T. Avery
]]>Wouldn’t you be kicking yourself not releasing your tax returns even though your top advisers had exhorted you to do so?
This is not where Mitt Romney expected to be going into the Florida Primary. He was supposed to have gone three for three in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Instead with only the Granite state in his pocket, Romney has entered the Sunshine State facing his winter of discontent.
So now Romney is going after Gingrich with everything he has got. In light of the fact that Romney will soon release his tax returns, he is accusing Gingrich of “potentially wrongful activity of some kind” by not registering as a lobbyist for Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, called upon him to return compensation he received from Fannie & Freddie and for good measure called him “highly erratic.” (1) You can be sure that Romney will be raising this and then some during the two Florida debates this week.
While these charges might once again raise doubts about the former House Speaker, will it necessarily benefit Romney? After all, Romney is telling Republican primary voters why they shouldn’t vote for Gingrich. But it doesn’t tell them why they should cast their fate with him. After all, when the Romney PAC went after Gingrich, it ended up benefitting Rick Santorum.
So therein lay the problem. What is the raison d’être of Romney’s candidacy? Well, his main selling point has been his experience in the private sector. Yet when that experience is challenged, Romney displays the kind of thin skin reminiscent of President Obama. Romney equates criticism of his time at Bain Capital with criticism of free enterprise itself. That Romney considers his private sector record beyond question is a strong indication that he treats the Republican nomination as if it were an entitlement. And here we thought Romney wanted to earn his way to the nomination. At the very minimum, he has to do more than earn it in New Hampshire. (2)
Frankly, aside from a clear cut victory in the Granite State, the only thing Romney has earned during this campaign is suspicion from many Republican primary voters. His reluctance to release his tax returns gave suspicion that he was being evasive and had something to hide. Romney also earned suspicion when he said he enjoyed firing people who provided services to him. Yeah, yeah, I know he was referring to health care providers. But is it really a stretch of the imagination to believe he also enjoyed firing people while he was at Bain? At the very minimum, these were not very carefully chosen words and he said them far too casually. In a time of high unemployment, are those struggling to make ends meet going to trust the economy in the hands of someone who derives any kind of enjoyment out of firing people?
Of course, Romney continues to earn suspicion from Republican primary voters for being a conservative of convenience. It is all well and good for Romney to extol Ronald Reagan’s virtues and to say he wants America “to remain the shining city on the hill.” But when he was running against Ted Kennedy here in Massachusetts in 1994, Romney wanted absolutely nothing to do with Reagan when he said, “I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.” (3) While one can criticize Newt Gingrich for being at odds with conservatives at various points over the years, he led Republicans to a majority in the House of Representatives and no one can take that away from him however some might try. And where was Romney while Newt was championing the “Contract with America”? He was calling it a “not a good idea” and a “mistake.” (4)
I understand that Mitt Romney is angry at Newt Gingrich for stealing his thunder in South Carolina. But while Romney directs his anger at former Speaker, Newt will be content to direct his anger at President Obama and the liberal media who protects him. If Romney isn’t careful and lets his anger towards Newt get the better of him he could help clear a path for Newt to the White House even more than he has already.
Aaron Goldstein
]]>Another foolproof system employed by the Progressive Republican leadership is to let their friends in the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media set the agenda and choose their candidate. The debates these Corporations hold are aimed at causing division and starting intramural fights, and the Republicans fall for it every time. The Progressive Media loved John McCain. He was their “Maverick.” They just couldn’t get enough of his “reaching across the aisles” until he had won the nomination, then he was the enemy. It was the same thing with Dole. Full Piece
]]>This was all my own doing.
First degree courses in China are normally spread over four years. When students enter their third year they become “junior” students and then “seniors” in their final year.
My students that year were all juniors.
The senior year is mainly spent tying up loose ends and either applying for jobs or for postgraduate courses.
Those who apply to study abroad are expected to include a document called a Personal Statement (PS) as part of their application package. Basically, this document is an attempt to “sell” themselves – to say why they are applying, what makes them suitable, what makes them different from other students, what they can bring to the university, their educational and career aspirations and so on.
If students are competing with other students who have similar backgrounds and qualifications a well written PS will help them to get noticed and “stand out” from the rest.
In particular, if they apply to a prestigious university, the quality of the PS may well be the decididng factor – the one that determines whether or not they get a place.
A few weeks into the semester some students asked me if I would “look-over” their PSs. Like a fool I agreed, thinking I would only need to do a bit of editing here and there.
They were so bad I ended up rewriting them.
It took ages
Students normally start thinking about what they’re going to do after graduation in their third year. This means they start competing with each other. If they do get some extra help, like me with the PSs, they will normally keep it to themselves.
However, no sooner had I emailed the rewritten PSs back, than the word was out.
“Free help available – come and get it!”
I suspected that some person, or persons unknown, in the English Department, had started palming them off on me. I never found out for sure, but I started to get more and more requests – not just from students I had taught, or was teaching, but from others – I didn’t know which was which and, having started, wasn’t really in a position to say, “No, no more!”
By the time the May holiday arrived I was so inundated I had no choice but to pull the plug.
I didn’t go travelling. Instead I went to the internet and selected the best sites I could find on PSs. I spent the next three days reading, downloading, cutting, pasting, re-arranging and editing.
It was like putting together a giant jigsaw.
By the end of it I had a very long document which laid out all they needed to know about PSs, in plain English, along with a step by step guide for compiling one and examples of finished ones thereof.
Phew!
From that point on I emailed the document back to anyone asking for help saying I had no time to personally attend to their request. This did not mean that I never helped anyone again. I did, but only under special circumstances and then only on the understanding that it went no further.
The document became one of a handfull I would email to all my students at the beginning of each subsequent semester.
No sooner had the PS problem been put to bed, than I was asked to give a speech at a conference on property tax - one week after the May holiday.
This request came out of the blue and at very short notice. Nothing unusual here. If you are going to live and work in China - get used to it. Someone, somewhere, with power, makes a decision, snaps his or her fingers and everyone jumps.
If you don’t, it will be remembered and, one way or another, sooner or later, you’ll know about it.
The conference had a very grand title: “International Symposium on the Theory and Institution of Property Taxation”. It ran over a two day period and had nineteen illustrious speakers - experts on property tax – and me.
Two of the speakers were foreigners, both famous professors in their field, one from Russia and the other from Canada.
I tried to explain that taxation was not my specialism - but one of the organizers told me to just “say something” for twenty minutes – something about property tax in the UK. I would be provided with a translator, but not to worry too much about it. I was due to speak late in the afternoon on the first day. By that point very few would be listening anyway.
A light went on. The penny dropped. I got the message
Even I can take a hint when it’s big enough.
I was there to make up the numbers – to boost the international flavour of the thing – that’s all.
Once again I headed for the internet. I cobbled something together and then gave it a devastating title: “UK Freehold Property Tax”!
As I “researched” this masterpiece I actually came across a joke. Yes, I found something humorous, deep in the bowels of the mysterious and forbidding world of taxation. I decided that I would somehow work it into my notes. That I would try to inject something of interest into what would be a mind-numbingly boring speech.
Still, I had to take the whole thing seriously.
To those outside academia, it’s hard to convey just how seriously these conferences are taken, especially by the professors. Old scores may be settled. Reputations can be established or destroyed.. Heroic intellectual battles can be set in motion and last for years - like the one between Professors Galbraith and Friedman.
Galbraith, it was, who let off the first salvo - who hurled down the gauntlet.
He [Friedman] who lives by the sword of empiricism shall die by it!
Friedman immediately sent back a broadside:
And he [Galbraith] who places his elitist normative values above positive economics walks a treacherous road!
This is how bad things can become when professors decide to get down and dirty.
Friedman had risen to the challenge and an epic struggle ensued. In Ivory Tower terms it was long and bloody. Many years would pass before the forces of Friedman would prevail and those of Galbraith be vanquished.
The academic debate about tax reform in China was no different – it had been going on for years - at this point it was still unresolved. Many powerful minds had locked horns on the issue.
They met again at ZUEL to do battle.
They came well prepared. Heavily armed with powerful arguments
Conference papers and speeches are usually very high-brow affairs. The time which goes into preparing them is no-one’s business. And there’s a good reason for this - theye are usually published by the university - so care must be taken.
Unfortunately, no matter how good the material is, most of it will sink without trace.
Outside of universities, very little of it ever sees the light of day.
The same goes for the books they write – which may take years – on very difficult subjects – brilliantly researched and written - some may be breathtaking in their prescience - but few outside academia will ever know or care.
Maybe this is why so many academics lean to the Left.
How galling they must find the success of books like Harry Potter. How could something as intellectually anemic as this earn its author millions and millions?
The same could be said, on a different level, about books like The Da Vinci Code? As one critic wryly noted, the author might as well have claimed that Jesus and His disciples travelled around in a stretch limo – for all that anyone could disprove it.
Surely, these academics must reason, there has to be something seriously wrong with the system?
Yes, for most professors, life is indeed a long and lonely road with little in the way of money or recognition at the end of it.
The night before the ZUEL conference all the speakers were treated to a lavish banquet.
I was seated between the two foreigners. They were both friendly enough. The Russian laughed a lot; probably because he was drinking Chinese rice wine, known as Bai Jiu, very strong stuff. He said he was going to take a crate home. The Canadian didn’t drink alcohol. He wore tweed, smoked a pipe and, as I remember, had a thing about peanut butter.
After the banquet I met my translator. Her English name was Maggie and her spoken English was excellent. She had a Chinese translation of my speech. We spent about half an hour sorting out how we’d do the thing. I told her about the joke I wanted to use and how I wanted to use it. She said she liked the method, but would have to say it slightly differently – in a way that would work much better with a Chinese audience.
That was fine by me.
The next morning the conference hall filled rapidly. The organization of the thing was extremely professional and the venue was excellent. No complaints here - it was first class.
There must have been at least five or six hundred people there. I sat through a number of boring speeches in the morning, then a boring lunch and then more boring speeches in the afternoon. When I was finally called to speak I didn’t feel nervous. I was well prepared. Anyway, when numbers get to this size, or larger, the whole thing becomes kind of surreal.
Maggie stood a few feet to my right and one step back. This was so she could see my hand gently tap the lectern when it was her turn to speak. She had her own stand-alone microphone – no lectern to stand behind and hold onto – more exposed than me.
As I adjusted my microphone I heard her papers rustling. I turned and looked to signal that I was about to start. Her hands were shaking and her face was a little flushed. She was very nervous. I felt for her – but nobody was going to do it for us.
She sort of straightened herself – composed herself – and then gave me a very slight nod.
I began. She followed the signals perfectly. The introduction lasted about three minutes and ended with the first part of the joke. I hit a key on my lectern computer and a very large picture of the Eiffel Tower appeared on the PPT screen behind us.
“What is this?” I asked the conference.
Maggie translated.
No one replied.
She spoke again.
This time a few people called out the answer.
“No”, I said, “this is not the Eiffel Tower.”
Maggie translated. There was a bit of murmuring and head-shaking.
I killed the image and went straight on to the body of my talk. This lasted about fifteen minutes. As I spoke, I remember thinking how glad I was not to be amongst those having to endure it.
Then came my conclusion.
The speech finished something like this;
“Finally, let us return to a question I asked you at the beginning.”
Translation.
Once again the Eiffel Tower appeared on the PPT.
This brought them back from a collective state of open-eyed unconciousness.
“This is not the Eiffel Tower.”
Translation.
Murmur … murmur, murmur … murmer.
“This … is the Empire State Building … after tax!”
Maggie translated. She spoke for longer than I expected. When she delivered her punchline, I swear, the place erupted.
The laughter and clapping hit like a wave and washed over me. It really was a great feeling. I just didn’t expect it – I was taken totally by surprise. I have no idea how she re-arranged things so that it would, “work much better with a Chinese audience”, but she did.
She had made it the highlight of the day.
I didn’t walk back to my seat – I floated – I found it difficult to come down.
God knows how entertainers cope - after a great concert or show - in front of thousands of people.
I’m not sure I could.
That evening, at dinner, a number of people told me how much they enjoyed the speech. The truth is no-one could remember a word of it – except for the finish – which is the only bit I remember as well.
I managed to bail out of the second day – I couldn’t take any more speeches.
Did the conference achieve anything? I doubt it. I felt that trying to put any kind of major tax reform in place was like putting the cart before the horse. The thing to deal with first was corruption.
While this was happening, if it ever happened, impose some kind of occupational flat rate tax and have done with it!
xxx
When the second semester began I thought most of my time would be spent getting the presentations up and running.
This was not the case.
The time-consuming PS debacle and, to a lesser extent, the conference, would see to that.
Then there was something even more unexpected. Something that would involve a lot of new reading and learning. Something which would introduce me to China’s twenty first century version of the Klondike.
I’m talking, “unregulated markets”.
And one in particular.
Chris Clancy
]]>Bill Madlock
Ironically, when the Cubs acquired Madlock from the Texas Rangers after the 1973 season for future Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, it was Santo who became expendable and was soon traded to the cross town White Sox.
While the “Mad Dog” did not have Santo’s defensive prowess at third base, he could flat out hit. Arguably one of the best right-handed hitters in the National League, Madlock won back to back NL batting titles with the Cubs in 1975 and 1976 and would win two more batting championships in 1981 and 1983 while with the Pittsburgh Pirates. (2) Madlock also earned a World Series ring with the Bucs in 1979. He also had stints with the San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers and the Detroit Tigers and finished his career with a .305 lifetime batting average, a .365 on base percentage (OBP) and 2,008 hits. Yet Madlock only received 4.5% of the vote from the BBWAA in 1993 and was dropped from the ballot. I believe his career totals would have been better had he not been a victim of collusion by the MLB owners. Despite helping the Tigers to an AL East pennant in 1987, Madlock could not hook on with another MLB team and ended up playing one season in Japan before calling it quits.
Another thing working against Madlock was his temper. He wasn’t called “Mad Dog” for nothing as he was ejected from games 18 times over his 15-year career. (3) But one of those occasions wasn’t his fault. My Dad got him ejected from a game in Atlanta more than 25 years ago. But that’s another story for another day.
Dave Concepcion
Now that Larkin has made his way to Cooperstown, I hope greater consideration will be given to a Reds shortstop of an earlier generation. Davey Concepcion is by far the most unheralded member of the Big Red Machine that won four NL championships in the 1970s including back to back World Series titles in 1975 and 1976. Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez all have plaques at Cooperstown as does the late Sparky Anderson. Surely Concepcion is also deserving of inclusion.
If we put Concepcion and Larkin side by side they are very comparable players. (4)(5) To start with, both men played 19 seasons with the Reds. Larkin finished with only 14 more hits than Concepcion (2,340 to 2,326). Granted, Larkin needed nearly 600 fewer plate appearances to collect his hits and consequently had a far superior lifetime batting average (.295 to .267), OBP (.371 to .322) and slugging percentage (.444 to .357) than Concepcion. Nevertheless, Concepcion was no slouch at the plate winning NL Silver Slugger Awards for his offense in 1981 and 1982. Concepcion also finished his career with 321 stolen bases although Larkin bettered him in that department as well with 379.
Concepcion and Larkin are bookends to Ozzie Smith, arguably the greatest defensive shortstop to ever play the game. Before the Wizard of Oz, Concepcion was the premier shortstop in the NL and when the Wizard faded, Larkin became his heir apparent. Larkin was selected to 12 NL All-Star teams while Concepcion was selected to nine. But if we measure their defense you have to give the edge to Concepcion. Although Larkin’s career fielding percentage is slightly higher than Concepcion (.975 to .971) and committed fewer errors (235 to 311), Concepcion had far better range resulting in far more chances (10,575 to 9,250), putouts (3,670 to 3,150), assists (6,594 to 5,858) and double plays (1,290 to 1,092). Concepcion earned eight NL Gold Gloves for his play at short while Larkin only earned three.
Although Concepcion remained on the Hall of Fame ballot for fifteen years, he never garnered more than 17% of the BBWAA vote. I think the BBWAA muffed the ball repeatedly. In light of Larkin’s election to Cooperstown, perhaps the Veterans Committee will field that grounder cleanly.
Mike Cuellar
In December 1968, the Houston Astros traded the Cuban born southpaw to the Baltimore Orioles for Curt Blefary who had been AL Rookie of the Year in 1965. In five plus big league seasons with the Reds, Cardinals and Astros, Cuellar posted a career record of 42-41. In 1969, armed with a devastating screwball, he would go 23-11 with a 2.38 ERA en route to the first of three AL pennants with the Orioles and would share AL Cy Young honors with Denny McLain of the Detroit Tigers. Between 1969 and 1974, Cuellar went 125-63 with a 2.99 ERA winning 20 or more games on four occasions. (6) Over that same period, Steve Carlton, considered by many amongst the top five left handed pitchers in the history of the game, went 103-82 with a 3.07 ERA. (7) Yet while Carlton received 95.6% of the vote from the BBWAA in his first year on the ballot in 1994, Cuellar did not receive a single vote from any of the 374 BBWAA members who cast a ballot in 1983. It’s true that Carlton won four Cy Young Awards, earned 329 wins and struck more than 4,000 batters while Cuellar finished with 185 wins and struck out just over 1,600. Yet Cuellar still found a way to get hitters out. Does it really matter how he got them out?
As always, I welcome your agreement or disagreement.
Aaron Goldstein
(1) http://spectator.org/archives/2011/01/04/consideration-for-cooperstown
(2) http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/madlobi01.shtml
(3) http://www.cardboardgods.com/BillMadlock-1975.html
(4) http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/conceda01.shtml
(5) http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/larkiba01.shtml
(6) http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cuellmi01.shtml
(7) http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/carltst01.shtml
]]>Read The Precious Steven Pinker, a critique by David Bentley Hart posted on the First Things website. For a larger picture of Professor Pinker’s views, see this video of an interview with Stephen Colbert, this New York Times opinion article, this New York Times profile, and Professor Pinker’s letter to the editor in Commentary Magazine.
Has the world in fact become less violent?
Professor Pinker’s argument is largely based upon statistical analysis that shows a declining ratio of violent deaths, excluding accidents, to the world’s population. In effect he agrees with the position attributed to Joseph Stalin: “One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is just a statistic.“
He admits that millions of deaths occurred in the First and Second World Wars, the latter a product of Hitler’s National Socialism. He also acknowledges that Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot liquidated hundreds of millions of their subjects. Despite the horrific nature of these mass slaughters, professor Pinker sticks to his statistical analysis as proof that the world has become less violent. While he doesn’t so state, the callousness of his position supports the prejudice of many people that more than six million Jews killed in Hitler’s Holocaust wasn’t a big deal.
Pinker’s optimistic assessment is a throwback to the 19th century idea of Progress, the burgeoning faith that liberal-progressive-socialism, guided by an academic elite, was inevitably propelling humanity toward social and political perfection. Millions of deaths on the battlefields of Europe between 1914 and 1918 rudely shattered intellectuals’ naivete. More recently Islamic jihad has been a call to look reality full in the face.
Has there been an evolutionary change in ways humans use their brains, a change that leads to reduced violence?
Harvard experimental psychologist Steven Pinker argues that every aspect of thought and emotion is rooted in brain structure and function, i.e., there is no such thing as the human soul. Humans certainly were not created in the image of God.
Eliminating humans’ spiritual dimension eliminates the possibility of God’s existence. If Professor Pinker and his atheistic colleagues can reduce the human soul to a large mass of physical nerves and synapses, they will have made humans little more than phenomenally complex computers contrived entirely by chance.
The probability of that evolutionary chance, as a critic famously observed, is on the order of a tornado passing through a junk yard and producing a completely finished, fully functioning Boeing 747.
Professor Pinker implicitly espouses the liberal-progressive-socialistic faith that the world is evolving toward a single world government guided by an intellectual elite representing the best of brain-use evolution. He explicitly credits evolving diplomatic policies among nations and creation of international organizations such as the League of Nations and the United Nations as the agents making our world less violent.
He characterizes evolving brain-use as a process of learning to see issues from other people’s viewpoint. This, of course, is an attribute of amoral multiculturalism, which preaches “tolerance,“ meaning the absence of standards of conduct. One can’t condemn Hitler, for example; one must see Nazi barbarity from his viewpoint. One can’t condemn the 9/11 terrorists; we must see their actions from their viewpoint.
Evolutionary psychology, a materialistic philosophy, is the field of study in which Professor Pinker conceives his thesis.
Evolutionary psychology’s basic elements are, one, that human psychology first evolved in the late Paleolithic era, dubbed the era of evolutionary adaptation. Evolutionary psychologists offer no explanation for how or why human psychology is supposed to have made its evolutionary appearance at that time. As with all things evolutionary, things just happen by chance.
Two, in that Paleolithic period all human basic strategies for coping with getting food, clothing, shelter, and sexual relations for procreation appeared as the foundation of human behavior.
Three, those strategies, overlaid by materialistically evolved modifications, persist today as the underlying foundation for all human behavior. That’s another way of stating that humans are just receptors of pleasure-pain stimuli from external conditions, that morality and individual responsibility are illusions imposed by those external conditions.
Professor Pinker does not recognize the pervasive and powerful pressure of Judeo-Christian morality in softening the barbarisms of European life after the 6th century fall of the Western Roman Empire. He charges that Judeo-Christianity historically was responsible for genocide, toleration of slavery and rape, and prescription of the death penalty for idolatry, homosexuality, blasphemy, and working on the Sabbath.
Christianity, as a matter of historical record, was the greatest source of steady improvements in Western life for more than a thousand years. Among Judeo-Christian accomplishments were hospitals, education, food and shelter for the poor, as well as transformation of Roman latifundia across Europe from slavery into the feudal system that gave peasants hereditary rights to occupy and cultivate their family land. 19th century abolition of slavery in the British Empire and in the United States was the product of decades of Christian agitation.
David Berlinski, in The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions, notes that there is absolutely no evidence whatever for the assumption that basic human psychology emerged via an evolutionary process in the Paleolithic period.
It is an assumption plucked out of thin air. It is a variant of the standard justification for all of evolutionary doctrine: “it might have been,“ or “we can speculate that this must have been,“ or that “it must have been this way,“ the rationalizations offered by evolutionists like God-hating Richard Dawkins.
Yet so-called scientists, who savagely condemn the faith of religious Jews and Christians, have no trouble taking the assertion of evolutionary psychology on blind faith. Why? Because it conforms to their preconceptions that God does not exist and that humans are the product of blind, material forces combining with random genetic variation to evolve new species.
Another aspect of evolutionary psychology is scientists’ never ending struggle to demonstrate that they are so intelligent that they don’t need God as the Creator of the universe. They can handle everything in their own minds, thank you; it suffices to gaze upon themselves worshipfully in the mirror every morning, congratulating themselves as lords of the universe.
Thomas E. Brewton
http://thomasbrewton.com/
Nowadays, newsrooms have done away with beats like city hall, police, education, the courts. Under the old system, reporters would spend a lot of time covering their beats, cultivating sources, getting to know the people and issues. Today, everyone is a generalist, a slot we used to give to kids just out school and slackers.
Of course, today’s reporters don’t have time to cover beats. Their bosses keep them busy writing three or four stories a day and constantly updating blogs to feed the newsroom’s cyber beast.
Well, we roll a little differently here at the ranch. The work flow is a bit more segmented than in most places. That’s why we have beats, or “desks” to use the old print vernacular.
The end of the year gives us a chance to clean off the desks of stories we didn’t write about or forgot to file away. It also gives us a chance to share with our readers some of the items that kept us amused.
From the “workin’ on our night moves” desk comes the story out of Michigan where police busted a couple deeply engaged in the back of a Buick Regal parked outside the front door of a restaurant. The two crazy kids, naked at the time of their discovery, had met at a nearby bar not too long before they chose to continue their discussion in the back seat of her car. Each admitted not to knowing the other’s name, maybe because 1) they never exchanged the information, 2) they were too drunk to remember, or 3) who needs names at their ages. She is 71 and he is 54.
From the “hairy, crazy ants” desk comes a warning of an invasion of hairy, crazy ants making their way through Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. They’re hairy, they’re crazy, and they’re destructive. Kill 100 and a million show up ready to fight. An exterminator said he put down insecticide over a half-acre site and in 30 days he had two inches of dead ants covering the land with the top layer a constant movement of live ants.
From the “don’t say Eat Me to her” desk comes the story from California that the woman who killed, boiled, fried, and ate her husband on Thanksgiving 20 years ago is up for early release from prison. What prison? Chowchilla State Prison. Hey, even I can’t make up stuff like this.
From the “it’s the Chicago way” desk comes details of a demand by Windy City cabbies to increase rates by 22 percent and to charge a $50 fee for using a fraudulent credit card, which begs the question, if you know it’s fraudulent, why are you taking it?
From the “I’m nekkid, what are you wearing?“ desk comes the results of a study that found people are more likely to lie while texting, compared to talking on the phone, video chatting, or bio-facing. That’s a term we made up here at the ranch to refer to any communication with another person that does not involve an e-communication device.
From the “just because he can sing, he thinks he can dance?“ desk comes word that Stevie Wonder wants to be on Dancing with the Stars.
From the “terrorists beware” desk comes word that the Department of Homeland Security is on the job. Today’s terror alert: don’t fry partially frozen turkeys.
From the “do they know something we don’t” desk comes word that Egypt’s state security apparatus, infamous for domestic spying and torturing dissidents, has renamed itself: Homeland Security.
From the “no, it wasn’t Demi Moore” desk comes the story out of Florida of cops finding a dead cougar in the freezer of a 73-year-old man.
From the “Forsooth, verily, alackaday, prithee, tosspot, and anon” desk comes a statement from English actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes that Twitter is killing the English (as in England) language, noting that Shakespearean text is a challenge to those more familiar with truncated prose used on social networks. IDK, but TTFN.
John David Powell
]]>Introduction - “The Mayas were intelligent; they had a highly developed culture. They left behind not only a fabulous calendar but also incredible calculations. They knew the Venusian year of 584 days. . . “ (p.55)
Von Daniken, Erich. Chariots of the Gods? Bantam Books: New York.
For years people wondered where did these peaceful geniuses go. Did the mother ship come down and carry them back to Jupiter or wherever peaceful geniuses come from? Did they evolve into a higher state of being?
All this wondering provided the gist for popular speculation and pseudoscientific pontification for many years or at least until Yuri Valentinovich Knorosov and other linguists translated the Mayan language. Then it was learned that they might not have been so peaceful after all, and as a matter of fact they may have been one of the most warlike of all peoples. And low and behold archeological data began to supply the required evidence and the problem was solved: the Mayan had destroyed themselves in an orgy of fire and arrows. It all seemed so neat, scientific, and profitable. Full Piece
]]>This may be true in the virtual reality of EPA computer models, linear extrapolations, cherry-picked health studies and statistics, government press releases and agency-generated public comments. However, in the real world inhabited by families, employers and other energy users, the new rules will bring few benefits, but will impose extensive costs that the agency chose to minimize or ignore in its analysis.
Emissions of mercury and other air toxics from power plants have been declining steadily for decades, as older generating units have been replaced with more efficient, less polluting systems or retrofitted with better pollution control technologies. While a few older plants still violate EPA’s draconian proposed rules – the new rules are not based on credible scientific and epidemiological studies.
As independent natural scientist Dr. Willie Soon and CFACT policy advisor Paul Driessen pointed out in their Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily articles, and in Dr. Soon’s 85-page critique of EPA’s draft rules, US power plants account for only 0.5% of the mercury in US air. Thus, even if EPA’s new rules eventually do eliminate 90% of mercury from power plant emission streams, that’s still only 90% of 0.5% – ie, almost zero benefit. The rest of the mercury in US air comes from natural and foreign sources, such as forest fires, Chinese power plants and the cremation of human remains (from tooth fillings that contain mercury and silver).
EPA fails to recognize that mercury is abundant in the earth’s crust. It is absorbed by trees through their roots – and released into the atmosphere when the trees are burned in forest fires, fireplaces and wood-burning stoves. In fact, US forest fires annually emit as much mercury as all US coal-burning electrical power plants. Mercury and other “pollutants” are also released by geysers, volcanoes and subsea vents, which tap directly into subsurface rock formations containing these substances.
The agency compounds these errors by claiming fish contain dangerous levels of mercury that threatens the health and mental acuity of babies and children. In making this claim, the agency commits four more grievous errors. First, it ignores the fact that selenium in fish tissue is strongly attracted to mercury molecules and thus protects people against buildups of methylmercury, mercury’s more toxic form.
Second, EPA based its toxicity claims on a study of Faroe Islanders, who eat few fruits and vegetables, but feast on pilot whale meat and blubber that is high in mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – but very low in selenium. Third, it ignored a 17-year Seychelles Islands evaluation, which found “no measurable cognitive or behavioral effects” in children who eat five to twelve servings of fish per week.
Fourth, it used computer models to generate linear extrapolations from known or assumed toxic levels down to much lower levels. Not only is this method contrary to sound science and epidemiology; it resulted in politicized “safety” levels that are twice as restrictive as Canadian and World Health Organization mercury standards, three times more restrictive than US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and four times tougher than US Food and Drug Administration recommendations. No wonder the Centers for Disease Control says blood mercury levels in US women and children are already well below excessively “safe” levels set by EPA.
Simply put, EPA grossly exaggerated the health benefits of its proposed mercury rules – and then claimed additional mercury benefits based on double counting of reductions in particulate matter. It also ignored the adverse effects that its rules will inflict. Not only is EPA’s anti-mercury campaign scaring mothers and children into not eating nutritious fish that is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids. It is also raising electricity heating, air conditioning and food costs, impairing electrical reliability, costing jobs, and thereby harming the health and welfare of countless Americans.
Energy analyst Roger Bezdek has calculated that utilities will have to spend $130 billion to retrofit older plants – and another $30 billion a year to operate, maintain and power the energy-intensive pollution control equipment they will be forced to install. Moreover, under its MACT rules, EPA intends to micromanage every aspect of power plant operations. It will now cite companies for violations even if emissions fully comply with air quality standards, if operators merely deviate from new agency “work practice standards” and “operational guidelines,” even under unusual weather conditions or equipment malfunctions that are beyond the operators’ control.
While it is true that older power plants are more significant sources of toxic air emissions, those plants are mostly in key manufacturing states that burn coal to generate 48-98% of their electricity. Many utility companies cannot justify those huge costs – and thus plan to close dozens of units, representing tens of thousands of megawatts – enough to electrify tens of millions of homes and small businesses. Illinois alone will lose nearly 3,500 MW of reliable, affordable, baseload electricity – with little to replace it.
Electricity consumers could pay at least 20% more in many states within a few years. According to the Chicago Tribune, Illinois families and businesses will pay 40-60% more. That will severely affect business investment, production and hiring – and family plans to repair cars and homes, save for college and retirement, take vacations, or have health physicals or surgery.
Chicago public schools will have to pay an additional $2.7 million annually for electricity by 2014, says the Tribune. Hospitals, factories and other major electricity users will also be hard hit. Many poor and minority families will find it increasingly hard to afford proper heating and air conditioning. Further job losses and economic stress will lead to further reductions in living standards and nutrition, more foreclosures and homelessness, and additional drug, alcohol, spousal and child abuse.
The very reliability of America’s electricity grid could be at risk, if multiple power plants shut down. Brownouts, blackouts and power interruptions will affect factory production lines, hospital, school, farm and office operations, employment, and the quality of food, products and services.
The impact on people’s health and welfare is patently obvious. But EPA considered none of this.
EPA insists there was strong public support for its rules. However, its rules were clearly based on false, biased or even fraudulent information. Furthermore, EPA itself generated much of that public support.
The agency recruited, guided and financed activist groups that promoted its rulemaking. Over the past decade, it gave nearly $4 billion to the American Lung Association and other advocacy organizations and various “environmental justice” groups, according to a Heritage Foundation study. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and members of her staff also visited historically black and other colleges – giving speeches about “toxic emissions,” providing templates for scare-mongering posters and postcards, and making it easy for students to send pro-rulemaking comments via click-and-submit buttons on websites.
This EPA action does nothing to improve environmental quality or human health. In fact, by advancing President Obama’s goal of shutting down power plants and raising electricity costs, it impairs job creation, economic recovery, and public health and welfare. It is intrusive government at its worst.
It is a massive power grab that threatens to give EPA nearly unfettered power over the electrical power we need to support our livelihoods and living standards.
Congress, states, utility companies, affected industries, school districts and hospitals, and families and citizen groups should immediately take action to postpone the MACT rules’ implementation. Otherwise, their harmful impacts will be felt long and hard in states that depend on coal for their electricity.
Craig Rucker
Craig Rucker is CEO of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.
]]>CFACT played by the rules, obtained the necessary permits beforehand, and ensured that its message was heard throughout the seventeenth annual climate conference (COP-17). Greenpeace, on the other hand, got no permits before staging an Occupy Durban protest in the hallway outside the plenary session – and got kicked out of the conference.
Shortly thereafter, however, Lord Monckton and another CFACT representative were summarily (though temporarily) ejected from the Durban conference, for preposterous reasons that dramatize how thin-skinned and arrogant the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has become.
As a South African and delegate at the COP-17 conference, I witnessed more amazing and absurd exhibitions than one would find at a Believe It Or Not circus sideshow. Along with thousands of government delegates, scientists and journalists, we witnessed music and dance groups, Women for Climate Justice, the Alliance for Climate Protection, APEs (Artists Protect the Earth) and others pleading for “planetary salvation.”
It took a truly nimble mind, and abiding sense of humor, to appreciate their often competing messages. One large official poster proclaimed “More climate change means less water,” while the one next to it said “More climate change means more floods.”
A socialist group sloganeered “One planet living is the new aspiration.” I could only conclude that they were neo-Malthusians worried sick about speculative climate chaos and resource depletion – and promoting a roll-back of energy use and living standards, so that people can share “more equitably” in sustained poverty and misery, enforced by UN edicts.
Yet another group insisted that the world should “Stop talking and start planting.” However, this group and countless others oppose profits and private enterprises. They apparently haven’t yet realized that large paper and timber companies plant the most trees and create the largest new-growth forests, which breathe in the most carbon dioxide and breathe out the most oxygen.
These and similar organizations also demanded that profit-making companies give more money to environmentalist NGOs – which might temporarily make the companies less reprehensible and more eco-friendly. Of course, if the activists succeed in further obstructing the companies, they will plant fewer trees, remove less CO2, create fewer jobs and have less money to give to NGOs.
This parallel universe aspect of the Durban extravaganza was troublesome enough. Another aspect of the conference was much more sinister and worrisome. Which brings us back to Lord Monckton, a renowned debater and expert in IPCC and climate science, economics and politics.
One day he and I were meandering through the halls, as advisors to CFACT and its official delegation to the conference. We were accompanied by CFACT project organiser Josh Nadal, who was using his video camera to film anything he liked, to make a video of “what we did at COP-17.”
As we rounded a corner, we saw someone we didn’t know being interviewed for the in-house television information system that transmitted programs throughout the official venue. We were astounded by how biased and inaccurate his comments were. When atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose, temperature also rose, he insisted – very simple. Of course, that is simply not true.
His interview over, he stepped off the dais and headed our way. I asked him whether he would agree that global temperatures had actually gone down during the early 1970s, even as CO2 levels continued to rise. He refused to acknowledge this universally accepted fact. I then mentioned the Medieval Warm Period of a thousand years ago. In response, he asserted that the MWP was merely a localized event of no consequence. Also simply not true.
At that point Monckton asked him to acknowledge that the science was nowhere nearly as clear cut as he had proclaimed. The official refused to do so, asserted “I have work to do,” and walked off.
Josh had been filming the entire exchange, but now an aide put a hand over the camera lens. When I remarked that just walking off was bad manners, the aide said “You are not worth debating.” I replied, “All he had to do was answer two simple questions.” I was amazed when the aide responded, “He is the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation. He does not have to answer your questions.” The aide then walked off just as rudely as his boss had.
These unelected technocrats and bureaucrats want to decide the science and ordain the energy and economic policies that will determine our future livelihoods and living standards. And yet they are of the opinion that they can talk scientific nonsense and ignore anyone’s inconvenient questions. We had not known that he was Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of the WMO. But that is irrelevant. We were polite, and he should have been, as well. But it gets worse.
Two hours later, Lord Monckton and Josh were informed that they had violated ad hoc rules and were banned from further participation in the conference: Josh for filming without permission, Monckton for “unprofessional” conduct. Somehow I was spared. The next day, following negotiations between CFACT and UN officials, the two were reinstated.
A couple of days later, a TV interviewer asked IPCC Vice Chair Jean-Pascal van Ypersele whether there was now enough information to decide the next steps COP-17 should take. van Ypersele answered, “The body of knowledge was there already in the first [IPCC] report twenty years ago and was actually good enough to start the action which inspired the convention on climate change.”
The interviewer then asked if the science was well enough understood. “Not only is there enough science” the Vice Chair replied, “but that science has been there, available and explained by the IPCC, already from the first report.”
In other words, in the view of the IPCC, climate change science was settled even before the term “climate change” was coined – and all “research” and “findings,” reports and conferences since then have been window dressing – inconsequential. Even new evidence about cosmic ray effects on cloud cover, and thus on the amount of the sun’s heat reaching the earth, is irrelevant in the view of the IPCC and other UN agencies, and thus may be intentionally ignored.
The imperious attitudes and intolerance of dissenting opinions displayed by these officials further underscores the wholly unscientific and politicized nature of the IPCC process. Even in the face of Climategate 2009 and 2010, The Delinquent Teenager, Marc Morano’s A-Z Climate Reality Check and other revelations, the UN and IPCC fully intend to impose their views and agendas.
At this point, in the view of the IPCC, the only thing left is for first world countries to pay up and shut up – and poor countries to develop in the way and to the extent allowed by the United Nations.
Kelvin Kemm
Dr. Kelvin Kemm holds a PhD in nuclear physics, is currently CEO of Stratek and lives in Pretoria, South Africa. He also serves as a scientific advisor to the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow ( http://www.CFACT.org )
]]>I tested the first truism mentioned above as a young man whose motto should have been, “I’ll never do that again – I just did it again.” For some reason just as not going to school didn’t lead to improved job prospects attempting to spend every day at a party didn’t lead to happiness. Over and over I valiantly kept trying to rock-n-roll all night and party every day. I developed a patented hang-over cure. Stay drunk. I figured it wasn’t the drinking that caused the hangover it was the getting sober, and I tried my best to avoid hangovers from the time I was fifteen until I was thirty. Then at thirty I had my Come-to-Jesus moment, meaning I literally came to Jesus. With His guidance I found another path which included school and working which yielded a different result including a soul mate for a wife, a son to be proud of, and a wonderful life. Full Piece
]]>Otherwise, we’ll see one of two bad things: Either lots of people will starve, or we’ll plow down all the wildlife for low-yield crops. The stakes are high. But the basic ways to raise yields over the past half-century—cross-breeding plants, irrigation, pesticides, and lots of nitrogen fertilizer—are already widely used. Another three-fold yield increase will be tough.
The Stine Seed Company of Adel, Iowa, says it’s ready to lead the charge. This year, it had a test plot with 75,000 plants per acre. It was supposed to be 60,000, but the planter malfunctioned. “It can be done,” says the company’s Myron Stine as he checks an ear from the densely populated field. The ear looks normal, with kernels filled almost to the tip. An ear to be proud of. As a start, however, seed companies are urging their growers to ramp up to 40,000 plants per acre en route to the bigger goal.
Growing more plants per acre seems an obvious potential strategy, but it won’t be easy. The fields will need consistent rains, irrigation, or supplemental irrigation in well-watered regions. We may need drought-tolerant seeds, which we don’t yet have. We’ll need lots of nitrogen fertilizer, and careful management to prevent the extra nitrogen from leaching into streams. Some actual re-design of the corn plant leaves, to maximize the amount of heat the plants intercept from the sun, could be on the menu to success. We’ll need good erosion control, such as no-till, to prevent the soil from slipping away during storms.
Stine is unusual—an independent seed company that can take the best of what it sees from the whole range of high-science seed companies. Stine’s premier seed now is labeled 9806. It’s “triple stacked” with Stine germplasm, plus Monsanto’s herbicide tolerance trait, and a bred-in Bt pesticide. Other technology is licensed from Syngenta and Dow Agrosciences.
Stine also licenses LibertyLink from Bayer Crop Sciences—a direct competitor for Monsanto’s Roundup (glyphosate) herbicide. One factor in Iowa’s continuing yield gains has been the use of genetically engineered herbicide and pesticide bred into the plants; it’s a more direct delivery system than spraying. However, huge amounts of Roundup herbicide have been used in Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready corn and soybean seeds in recent decades. Some weeds are beginning to show signs of resistance to Roundup. Fortunately, LibertyLink is already available, so farmers will be able to rotate their weed control systems.
Farmers used to get their technology from public sources such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the land-grant university experiment stations. After the 1960s Green Revolution, however, the public began to fear “overpopulation” more than they feared hunger for poor people. Now we know that human birth rates are tied to death rates. As high-yield crops and modern medicine have cut death rates, birth rates are also plummeted in both rich and emerging countries.
More food won’t produce more human numbers in the years ahead, just better-fed people. But the public farm research institutions have been focused lately on growing crops without pesticides rather than trying for higher yields. The private sector has expanded to fill the gap, along with such prominent donors to high-yield farming research funders as Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. Buffett’s son, Howard, has his own major foundation, also dedicated to high yield farming research.
The farmers are facing their biggest challenge in history. They’ll need help—and public approval—to raise their yields high enough to meet that test.
Dennis T. Avery
]]>But, in all honesty, given the general standard of teaching, it wasn’t too difficult to shine. All you had to do was make a bit of an effort.
At this point I still had no clear delivery plan for the course.
Certainly, there was no help or guidance from my colleagues in the department – I was very much on my own – a kind of “sink or swim” situation. I can only recall being officially observed once, maybe twice – even then nothing was said.
As mentioned before, whatever advice and support I did get was from the students.
I was determined to avoid the terrible start I’d had at the beginning of the first semester – and the uncertainty that followed – feeling my way week by week.
I couldn’t go through that again.
I did my travelling early – down to Gunagzhou to see my son and his wife - this time I paid for a guide. It meant spending a lot more but it was worth every penny.
When I returned I got to work on the course. This occupied me, on and off, for the remainder of the holiday.
In the first semester I had been asked to give a number of talks to classes in other departments. These talks were usually about how I came to be in China and what had happened after. I tried to make them as interesting and humorous as I could. As I gave more and more of these talks I built up a kind of stand-up routine.
By the end of it I had lots of material to choose from.
This was my introduction.
When teaching began I kicked off each class using parts of this material – which parts I used depended on how things went and what questions came up - it lasted for about two teaching hours. It may sound a bit on the long side but actually it was just about right. It was a relaxed and friendly way to get things going – plus, they had an opportunity to get used to my voice and my accent.
After the classes I spoke to each monitor. I handed out a class list and asked them to divide their classes into groups of 4 – 6 students. This was to be done on a “friendship” basis. Each group would have a group leader. At the beginning of our next class they would each provide me with a list detailing group members along with each group leader’s mobile number and email address.
This involved a lot of hassle and time for the monitors but I knew it would be done properly and on time. Most monitors take their duties very seriously and actually refer to it as their “job”.
For large class sizes, the group system is a very effective management tool - for many reasons. The most important is that it can help to stop students getting “lost” in such big numbers. If they are part of a group then support is available. It’s a way of holding classes like this together.
When I met classes for the second time that week I spent the first lesson going through the group system rationale. I also talked about the course structure and methods of assessment. As for methodology, the most important thing was that I would send group leaders a list of key technical accounting words and phrases in advance.
The idea was to “feed” the jargon week by week and let it build.
The job of group leaders was to meet their groups and make sure they were familiar with these key words and phrases before each class.
To my surprise, most of the groups did actually do this. For those that did, it helped the bonding process in their groups and, of course, made things easier for me and them
The second lesson was spent introducing something completely different.
The idea for this, “something completely different” thing, came to me quite by chance
A few weeks before I was shopping in a very large store called Metro. The attraction of this place was that I could buy Western brand products - especially food. It was expensive, but at least it was the real thing.
While there, in the booze section, I met a very large Australian gentlemen. He was stocking up with bottles of spirits. He didn’t seem to be too choosy.
He was about my age.
It was his first time in this store. He asked me where he could find a few things. I offered to show him. We chatted as we walked. He told me he was an Oral English teacher.
“How long?” I asked.
“Oh … donkeys’ years. Here, there and bloody everywhere.”
Yes, he was very “Australian” – down to earth – no nonsense – no sides - no pretensions – speak as you find and call it as you see it.
When we got outside the store we chatted for a while more.
A few days later we met up for a drink. Well, I say “a drink”- that’s what I had - he had a bottle of Jack Daniels.
I remember him pouring himself a very generous first measure – he threw in a splash of coke. As he did so he muttered something about his mouth being drier than a kangaroo’s jockstrap.
“Up yours,” he said raising his glass.
“Likewise.”
After a little bit of small talk we got on to the subject of teaching Oral English in China.
I mentioned how frustrating I had found it at all at DJK.
He went straight to the heart of the thing – no preamble.
“Look, most teachers, and I include the people who train them, just don’t get it. They turn up with their little box of EFL magic tricks and then set about “teaching” Oral English. If the purpose of these classes is to get students talking then for most it’s a complete and utter waste of bloody time and money. They won’t speak. It’s the teacher that does all the talking.”
I couldn’t argue with this. Not after my experience at DJK.
“The only way you’re going to get students to speak is to force them.”
“How?” I asked.
“Make them stand out in front of the class and do ten minute group presentations. No singing, no dancing, no reading. Everyone has to talk – no exceptions – week in week out for a full semester.”
“What about topics?”
“Whatever they want.”
“Class size?”
“Forty max.”
“Group size?”
“Six, no more, that’s tops.”
For the next hour or more he went through his teaching method from start to finish. He drank liberally as he did so. I can’t say I noticed any discernable effect, adverse or otherwise. I asked more questions as he spoke – he had pretty good answers for most of them.
I remember saying it didn’t sound like much fun?
“It’s not supposed to be,” he replied. “It can be, but that’s up to them.”
I also remember asking how he got them to take it seriously?
”I tell them right at the start there’s no 80% minimum grade.”
This needs a little explanation. The course grade for Oral English is usually determined by a one or two minute interview with each student at the end of the semester. The grade given will normally lie somewhere between eighty and one hundred percent.
The reason is that most employers in China will reject students with course grades lower than 80%.
I suppose you could call it an “unwritten” rule.
In my department at ZUEL, for example, we all gave students a good indication about what their end of semester exams would contain. The majority would score above 80%. If they didn’t they only had themselves to blame.
It may sound ridiculous, but that’s just the way it is and people have to deal with it.
Therefore, as a useful learning point, if you ever want to get the attention of Chinese students just mention the magic words, “course grade”.
The man from Oz made it clear to his students that he didn’t play the 80% game.
Each student in each group got an individual grade per presentation. He scored them using a number of categories; speech, pronunciation, participation and so on.
At the end of each week progress reports were sent to group leaders by email. Every student could see how they were doing. If it looked like they were heading for a sub-80% grade it was up to them to do something about it.
At the end of the semester all grades were aggregated and a single course grade given to each student.
And that grade was final – no negotiation.
“Everyone has to talk,” he said again, “not just a handfull in the first two rows.” He poured the last of his JD. “This is a better way of doing things - more honest too. If students want good grades then they got to bloodywell earn them!”
“But does it really work?” I asked.
“Damned straight it does! Providing you got the guts to put it in place and stick with it. Remember the old saying, ‘Teacher first, friend second’.”
He drained his glass and slammed it down on the table.
“Ripper,” he declared loudly, “fair dinkum!”
This is what I like about Australians – you always know where you are – even when you don’t know what they’re talking about.
He had signalled that the evening was over.
We exchanged a few friendly words, shook hands and parted.
We didn’t meet up again - which was probably a good thing – I can drink with the best of them, but that guy was on a different level. However, he left me with plenty to think about.
When I was looking for that extra “something” which I could use on my course I briefly considered using things like presentations, debates, critical thinking and so on. But I thought they’d turn out to be either non-starters or disasters or both.
Yes, I had planned to use a group system but I hadn’t actually thought about using the groups to make presentations.
Obviously, I couldn’t do things in the same way as him – for a start I wasn’t teaching Oral English and, even if I was, I had too many students.
However, I could use his ideas and do something similar for part of my course.
I had four 45-minute lessons with each class. How about if I used one of these lessons each week for a group presentation?
I could let them choose any topic they liked but had to steer clear of sex, religion, politics and accounting.
I sold it to the students as a way of developing their presentation skills using PPT – an essential skill in today’s business world. It would also help to develop other skills such as planning, research and team-working. The whole thing would be in English, last for at least thirty minutes and everyone in each group had to participate.
A single mark would be awarded to each group which would form part of their overall course grade.
The reason I gave them for the exclusion of accounting was that I wanted to get away from the seriousness of the whole thing. They would have one lesson each week when they could relax and, hoperfully, have some fun for a change.
The real reason for excluding accounting was that I thought, at that time anyway, that any such presentations would be a flop – that they could not be made interesting and entertaining – which was supposed to be the main purpose of the things.
The great benefit for me was that I could meet each group for up to two hours outside class. The first hour would be spent discussing and planning their presentation. The second, a few days later, would be spent watching the students rehearsing – usually the night before the actual presentation.
The hope was that this would help to break down the non-interaction barrier in class.
OK, I was dreaming, but it did bring other benefits.
I didn’t mention anything about this to the department. I knew if I asked for permission they’d just say “No”. Saying “Yes” would mean that someone somewhere would have to make a decision about introducing something new.
So I just went ahead with it.
This was the first time I’d raised my head above the parapet in China.
Unbeknown to me, a few people in the department took this as an opportunity to quietly lock and load, hunker down and take aim.
How fortunate I was not to be aware of this. Had I known I may well have abandoned the presentations.
Thank God I didn’t.
There are times in life when ignorance isn’t such a bad thing after all.
Chris Clancy
]]>12. Twelve Days of Christmas – Straight No Chaser
In 1998, a men’s a cappella group at Indiana University performed a comedic version of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” which had been arranged more than three decades earlier at Williston Prep School in Easthampton, Massachusetts. (1) But Straight No Chaser added a mix of “Dreidel” and Toto’s “Africa” and made the parody their own. (2) It would unexpectedly go viral on YouTube in 2006 and resulted in a recording contract from Atlantic Records.
11. Happy X-Mas (War is Over) – John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
O.K., I know this is an anti-war song. But it manages to transcend its political message with the young voices of the Harlem Community Choir. (3)
10. Santa Claus is Coming to Town – Bruce Springsteen
Recorded during a concert in December 1975, The Boss begins by gently teasing the now departed Clarence Clemons and other members of the E Street Band if they’ve been good this year. But what stands out most about this version of this Christmas classic is how Springsteen sings the song. While most pause between “you better watch out/you better not cry/you better not pout/I’m telling you why”, he sings it like it was a continuous sentence. (4) In a clever twist, the song ends with the first few bars of “Jingle Bells.”
9. Jingle Bells – Frank Sinatra
It was the lead track on the Chairman of the Board’s 1957 Christmas album A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra. The song begins with backup vocals by The Brewster Singers which were arranged by Gordon Jenkins and make this recording a cut above. “I love those J-I-N-G-L-E Bells.” (5)
8. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – Dean Martin
Ol’ Blue Eyes wasn’t the only Rat Pack member to get into the Christmas spirit. In 1966, Dean Martin recorded a Christmas album of his own. How can you not like someone who sings, “Rudy the Red Beaked Reindeer.”? (6)
7. White Christmas – America
At the risk of sacrilege, while the Bing Crosby recording of the Irving Berlin classic is memorable I prefer a more contemporary version. In 2002, the pop duo America recorded an album of Christmas songs titled Holiday Harmony. The arrangements of several of the Christmas songs they recorded were similar to those of some of their biggest hits. In the case of “White Christmas”, the sound was reminiscent of their 1974 hit “Tin Man.” Indeed, when they perform “White Christmas” in concert it segues into “Tin Man.” (7)
6. Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth – Bing Crosby & David Bowie
On paper, this is the strangest duet in the history of recorded music. Bing & Ziggy Stardust on the same song? While taping his annual TV Christmas special in London in September 1977, the producers arranged for Bowie to sing “Little Drummer Boy” with Crosby. The only problem was that Bowie detested the song. The producers came up with a compromise. Bing & Bowie would sing “Little Drummer Boy” but composed a song called “Peace on Earth” which Bowie would sing as a counterpoint and wove it into the melody. (8) Yet somehow it worked. (9)
This would prove be Crosby’s last Christmas special. Sadly, a month after the recording, Crosby died of a heart attack after playing a round of golf in Madrid.
5. Remember (Christmas) – Nilsson
When Bing Crosby asked David Bowie if he listened “to any of the older fellas”, Bowie replied, “John Lennon and the other one, Harry Nilsson.” While Lennon is remembered for “Happy X-Mas (War is Over)”, Nilsson was far less remembered for “Remember (Christmas)” from his 1972 album Son of Schmilsson. (10) Although the song doesn’t actually have the word Christmas in it, the arrangements take you to December and make you think of a time that is very likely never to return.
4. Wonderful Christmas Time – Paul McCartney
The former Beatle wrote and recorded this song in 1979 without Wings although they would appear in the music video with him. (11) I’ve always loved the warmth and good cheer that emanated from this song. I could never find this record in the stores. One night I remember leaving my radio on in the hope of hearing the song so I could record it onto a cassette and at about 4:45 a.m. I leapt out of bed and pressed the record button.
3. Merry Christmas Baby – Charles Brown
This is Christmas at its most bluesy. (12) I like Brown’s understated piano and the soft rhythm guitar. Whenever I hear this song on the radio I feel like I’m front of a cozy fire.
2. Merry Christmas Baby – Otis Redding
The arrangement is 180 degrees away from Charles Brown’s version but every bit as good. (13) Released in 1968, the year following his death in a plane crash, Lord only knows how many Christmas songs the King of Soul could have left with his vocal imprint.
1. I Believe in Father Christmas – Greg Lake
Released in 1975, it was the only solo hit for Greg Lake who is best known as the lead singer of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. (14) It does take a rather cynical look at Christmas. “They said there’ll be snow at Christmas/They said there’ll be peace on Earth/But instead it just kept on raining/A veil of tears for the Virgin’s birth.” It is a reminder that we can do better in the New Year but it seems that New Year has yet to come.
Aaron Goldstein
(1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCGY5zm10oo
(2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8&ob=av2e
(3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN4Uu0OlmTg
(4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xOe4GRyebo
(5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p07T4dlw2cc
(6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-OZTGmlD2Q
(7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjWZTFJs4GM
(8) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901260.html
(9) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiXjbI3kRus
(10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU1IMXe8EkI
(11) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9BZDpni56Y
(12) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RJJwk-Opw4
(13) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEyV8gnC4aQ
(14) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXCEdrnaFlY&feature=related
]]>Adam Smith addresses the contributions of societies individuals when he says, “intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” Full Piece
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