Ask Mitt Romney about the hostility towards Mormonism across the Christian evangelical community and observe how Republicans embrace the tactic of repeating Senator Obama's (Islamic-sounding) middle name and watch widespread bigotry crawl out of its corner.
As of February 29, 2008...
The American Bigotry Hierarchy is:
• Religion • Gender • Race
Let's play the Family Feud!
By the way, if Barack Obama were a Muslim, Jew or Mormon, would he be disqualified to be President?
As we congratulate ourselves for voting for an African American, we ought to recognize that ignorance and bigotry remain a large stain on the American fabric.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's telecommunications regulator said Tuesday it has lifted restrictions on YouTube that knocked out access to the video-sharing Web site in many countries for up to two hours over the weekend.
Sure, they switched YouTube off due to an "offensive" clip, but then they reopened the system. Many school district use prior restraint and protect kids and teachers from the 21st Century.
A kid just sang "Jailhouse Rock" on American Idol. This week's theme is music of the 60s.
Jailhouse Rock was recorded by Elvis in 1957.
A few weeks ago, "Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann," had a motown theme. Most of the songs performed were not recorded by Motown artists.
How hard is it to get such basic facts correct?
If a kid sings a 50s song during 60s week of American Idol, shouldn't they be disqualified? Surely the musical director for the show knows that Jailhouse Rock is not a 60s tune.
I just walked 20 blocks in the rain to the flagship Apple Store on 5th Avenue in NY. I wanted to buy the new Aperture 2. I've surrendered a couple of hundred thousand of digital photos to Aperture and the new version promises to be at last usable. The speed of the previous version is excruciating.
As a big Apple fan and stockholder, I was thrilled to see the store packed with customers on a rainy Sunday evening at 11:30 PM. There is a $99 upgrade path to Aperture 2, but not from education/academic versions. So, I'm out of luck, but at least I can save $20 off the retail version as an educator, right?
OF COURSE NOT. "You can't get the Apple academic discount in the Apple store. Why not order the software online and wait for it to arrive?" asked the store employee. I figured that if I walked back to my hotel, I would make up for the price differential and surrendered more money to the Apple Gods.
As I went to pay I noticed customers on either side of me purchasing five iPhones each. "Woo hoo! Perhaps my stock will rebound," I thought to myself.
Not so fast, the clerk swiped the credit card of the customer to my right, read the display and exclaimed, "You've already bought five iPhones! Her arms scooped up the product he was trying to buy with actual money."
Apparently the Apple Point-of-Sale system is sophisticated enough to detect if someone buys lots of iPhones, but not capable of giving me the academic discount.
Back at my hometown Apple Store I've watched customers turned away for trying to pay cash for an iPhone even when purchasing other items as well. Using legal United States tender is some sort of no-no for iPhone customers!
I realize that people are hacking the iPhone, but do not understand why that is a problem for Apple. Even if they lose the kickback they may receive from AT&T, they still made money on the device.
As an Apple stockholder who lost more 1/3 of value since January, I want Apple to make lots of midnight iPhone sales. I don't care if people are crushing the iPhones and snorting them!
I was exiting the subway at Rockefeller Center when I heard horns blaring and sirens wailing up 6th Avenue. Hundreds of (luxury) cars and SUVs full of exuberant flag-waving Kosovoans were jamming traffic and ear drums in all directions.
My first thought was that Kosovo won a soccer match, but then I noticed all of the American flags.
This was no celebration of a sporting victory. Kosovo, with the help of the Clinton Administration and NATO, had earned their independence from Serbia.
Congratulations Kosovo and Americans from Kosovo! I love NY!! Sent from my iPhone
The exclusive private Choate Rosemary Hall school in Connecticut hosted that great American, Karl Rove, earlier this week. Recent Fox News and Time correspondent, Rove, denied media access to the event in which the school's wacky headmaster compared a student wearing a sweater, instead of the mandated uniform, to jeopardizing undercover intelligence agents and national security by outing Valerie Plame.
Oh, Buffy!
One student really challenged Rove. Thanks to the Hartford Courant for capturing the following exchange.
Then there was Marla Spivak.
Spivak, a senior from Hamden, was one of the students invited to have lunch earlier with Rove. That left her somewhat emboldened as she stood before the crowd and asked Rove to explain how giving gay people the right to marry would endanger other people.
Rove took issue with the way the first gay marriages came about, through the Massachusetts Supreme Court. An issue as important as the definition of marriage should be resolved by a legislature or a referendum, not a court, he said.
Gay couples could gain the legal rights of married couples through legislation without actually getting married, he said.
But wouldn't creating a separate body of legislation for gay people be creating a separate but equal system, a step back?, Spivak asked.
Rove replied with an answer about Mormons changing their views on marriage to conform with the nation's laws.
Spivak kept pressing. "You never actually answered, how does it threaten anyone?" she asked.
Rove asked, what's the compelling reason to throw out 5,000 years of understanding the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman?
What, Spivak countered, was the compelling reason for society to allow interracial relationships when they had once been outlawed.
Then Rove invoked the Declaration of Independence before Spivak interjected that its reference to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" seemed to support her claims.
Their verbal ping pong match tapered off after Rove brought up polygamy and Spivak acknowledged that she did not know enough about polygamy to answer. Rove later asked when she planned to run for political office.
I've only met him a few times and did say, "Hi," in passing at the recent MacWorld Expo, but few people have provided my life with more beauty than musician extraordinaire, Herbie Hancock. Tonight, the recording industry came to its senses and named his album, River: The Joni Letters, Album of the Year! Although this album is hardly Hancock's best or most important, it is quite heartening to see an actual recording artist honored by the Recording Academy.
My most prized possession is Herbie Hancock's classic LP, Maiden Voyage, signed by all of the musicians on the record. It took me a couple of years, but George Coleman, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, the late Tony Wiliams and Herbie autographed my album.
I've been privileged to see/hear Herbie Hancock perform live in a variety of settings, including at the Village Vanguard with Ron Carter and Tony Williams, with his own band and most recently with Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Billy Cobham at Ron Carter's 70th birthday celebration at Carnegie Hall. Every cell in my body comes alive and wants to scream with joy when Herbie plays the piano.
Hancock is arguably the greatest living jazz pianist and one of the most influential in history. He is also an electronic music pioneer, Macintosh aficionado and brilliant composer. Check out his solo album, The Piano, and have your mind blown by his originality and artistry. I missed this year's Grammy Awards telecast while I spent 12 hours flying from Los Angeles to Boston. Watching tonight's 50th Grammy Awards would have been quite a let down from last year's 49th Annual Grammy Awards since I not only got to attend last year's ceremonies and after-party, but my friend, Brian Lynch won the Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album of the Year for his fantastic recording, The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project: Simpatico. I was a new media producer for the project and had the great privilege of attending rehearsals, recording sessions, the record launch in NY and was thanked from the stage of the Grammys! I'll never forget how loudly I screamed when Brian's name was announced as the winner. I cannot imagine a greater thrill. I was so proud of Brian and all of the great artists who contributed to the album. Brian, Sylvia & I at the 49th Grammy Awards (captured on a smuggled in phone camera)
A few months later, I accepted the Jazz Journalist Association's award for "Best Latin Jazz Album of the Year," on behalf of Brian and Eddie Palmieri who were touring Europe at the time. Eddie Palmieri, Brian Lynch & Gary Stager backstage at the Bluenote in NYC
There IS a Difference Between Teaching, Learning and Curriculum!
Last Friday, I enjoyed the great privilege of participating virtually in a discussion of Daniel Pink's dubious book, "A Whole New Mind," with terrific high school students from Arapahoe High School in Colorado. Karl FIsch, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Moritz earned my respect for inviting "outsiders" into the discussion and for their preparation. Based on the comments from their articulate students, they are doing something right.
(You may read the discussions I participated in here: Period 4 & Period 5)
Twenty-first century education won’t be defined by any new technology. It won’t be defined by 1:1 laptop programs or tech-intensive projects. Twenty-first century education will, however, be defined by a fundamental shift in what we are teaching—a shift towards learner-centered education and creating creative thinkers.
This comment makes an all-too common mistake. It confuses teaching, learning and curriculum. They are not the same! "A fundamental shift in what we are teaching" refers to content, not how students learn or think. In fact, I do not believe that you can create creative thinkers since learning is what the learner does - not the result of teaching.
It seems peculiar to me that there is so little discussion of changing curricular content among those who spend their time blogging about school "change." Surely, you cannot keep adding content to the overcrowded curriculum. Not only does some curricular content need to be cut to make room, but some content is irrelevant while other "content" is counter-productive, unteachable or bad for students.
Kids at Arapahoe High School understood me when I suggested that "kids go to school to be taught." This is not the same as learning. Too many educators and policy makers seem to have a tenuous understanding of terms central to their mission.
Here is a primer...
What you teach is curricular content. How you teach is pedagogy. Learning is the process of growth undertaken by the learner. Knowledge is the consequence of experience.
For many years I have been troubled by the timeless mystery of Shamu. How is it possible that every SeaWorld features daily performances by Shamu, the killer whale? Is there an elaborate system of subterranean transcontinental waterways connecting SeaWorld venues in Florida, Texas and California? Or, is there a more nefarious explanation?
Today, I received an email from Ticketmaster (often scary enough). The email was trying to sell me tickets to see The Harlem Globetrotters "play" in California. For Christmas, I gave my nephews tickets to see The Harlem Globetrotters "play" in the New Jersey Meadowlands. Both Globetrotter games are on the same day; 3,000 miles apart!
How can that be? Scooby Scooby Doo... where are you?
Our obsession with finding mechanistic explanations for human behavior is time consuming. We can spend time on diagnosis with little left for actually collaborating with students in meaningful learning adventures. Classrooms are not sterile laboratories where a change in one variable reliably predicts an outcome. Good teaching and learning are far more fluid, serendipitous and personal.
I Love Nothing More than Watching Wolf Blitzer Use a Mouse
When CNN launched the 37-hour daily program, "The Situation Room," I immediately thought how profoundly boring it was to watch America's funnyman, Wolf Blitzer, and other "digital immigrants" (mostly generals) demonstrate their tech literacy and mouse for those of us at home.
Jon Stewart finally annihilates the multi-screen short-attention-span pandering format of the show here..
The Situation Room is about as interactive as all those white boards schools are buying to "teach 21st century learners."
Too bad kids don't have the ability to change the channel while in Algebra class.
, Album of the Year! Although this album is hardly Hancock's best or most important, it is quite heartening to see an actual recording 
