How to make television golf more interesting
Slate has a proposal for making television golf more interesting: Add basketball announcers to the broadcast booth.
The Onion: Bald Eagle frustrated at sterotyping
According to The Onion, an American bald eagle has spoken out, frustrated that so many people assume that he is pro-war.
Frustrated by the widely held assumption that he unequivocally endorses the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a bald eagle said Monday that his thoughts on the conflicts were far more nuanced than many Americans might expect. Speaking to reporters from his nest in the upper branches of a 175-foot ponderosa pine tree, the eagle explained that each member of his species was different and none should be taken for granted as a lockstep supporter of American military policy.
Pro-choice by pro-athletes
Planned Parenthood plans to run this pro-choice ad on Superbowl Sunday to counter an anti-abortion ad featuring Tim Tebow. This is a sophisticated spot that gets its point across without being confrontational. I do admire the work done to put it together. Then again, I suspect that tens of millions of people will see these two ads and not a single person will change his/her opinion on the issue of abortion.
Changing our approach in our classrooms
In her NYT Op-Ed, Pychologist Susan Engel advises what we are doing wrong in the classroom. She argues that we need to do more than change the way we measure progress--we need to overhaul the entire way we teach:
In order to design a curriculum that teaches what truly matters, educators should remember a basic precept of modern developmental science: developmental precursors don’t always resemble the skill to which they are leading. For example, saying the alphabet does not particularly help children learn to read. But having extended and complex conversations during toddlerhood does. Simply put, what children need to do in elementary school is not to cram for high school or college, but to develop ways of thinking and behaving that will lead to valuable knowledge and skills later on. . . . What they shouldn’t do is spend tedious hours learning isolated mathematical formulas or memorizing sheets of science facts that are unlikely to matter much in the long run. Scientists know that children learn best by putting experiences together in new ways. They construct knowledge; they don’t swallow it.
Shrinking Democracy
Robert Reich reminds us that even though the number of government employees keeps growing, the American democracy is shrinking:
It seems as if more and more decisions that should be made democratically are being shunted off somewhere to a few people who make them in back rooms. Which programs should be cut, which entitlements pared back, and what taxes raised in order to reduce the long-term budget deficit? Hmmm. Let's convene a commission and have them decide. Commissions are a default mechanism when politicians want to hand off difficult issues to "experts." . . . Democracy requires at least three things: (1) Important decisions are made in the open. (2) The public and its representatives have an opportunity to debate them, so the decisions can be revised in light of what the public discovers and wants. And (3) those who make the big decisions are accountable to voters. But these principles are in retreat . . .