Frazz by Jef Mallett for December 11, 2015

Stupid jedi mind tricks.

A few years ago I had to voice a very strong objection about the Math text my son’s school was using. The teacher’s text had instructional material that the student’s texts did not. When the students had to do the exercises for homework there was no way for them to look up the ways to find the solution for some of the problems because the method to solve them was not in their textbooks. It was also a poorly proofed text since some of the examples they used in the text were wrong. What a racket these textbook companies have. Last night my daughter had a reading exercise that continues to promote Newtonian Physics when Einstein debunked the concept of Gravitational Force 100 years ago. And they couldn’t even get that right when they stated that the Earth attracts the Moon when Newtonian Physics states that they attract each other.

When I was a teenager, I thought I had all the answers. Now, it seems I only have questions.Why is that ? (see? there’s another one !)

When I was in fourth grade, back in 1958-59, my teacher taught us that whales are fish because the Bible says so. My parents weren’t happy.

i may regret this question: Where does it say that whales are fish?

While subbing a high-school science class yesterday, I found a kid who had grabbed the answer key (there for the purpose of checking one’s answers) off my desk and was furiously copying it onto his otherwise blank worksheet. I pointed out that this was not a class in copying; he should have perfected that skill somewhere around the second grade. Trouble is, our obsession with testing (“No child left behind,” “Race to the top”) sends the message that learning is irrelevant; all that matters is to deliver the “correct” answer at the desired time, by any means necessary.

Translation errors don’t accumulate over the years. Each new translation goes back to the ancient sources. So what you read is not a translation of a translation of a translation, etc. It is a new translation of the ancient sources. Admittedly, we don’t have the original sources, but we have a multitude of ancient manuscripts that were copies of copies of the original. By comparing the multitude of copies, we can determine with great confidence what the original was.

nosirromTry to do anything about it and you get a media blackout as I did when I ran for Texas State Board of Education in 2010. After the election, I had several tell me the first they knew I was running was when they read the ballot.

My brain hurts!

Double whammy here — when I was teaching Common Core Science we had an introductory lesson that explained how magnetism was the reason the planets moved around the sun.Along with at least five significant grammar & syntax errors, the illustration was incorrect (Uranus and Neptune transposed). Tax dollars at work indeed.

Back to the cartoon. Frazz is using a screwdriver. What did he do to upset the kid? And what does his comment mean? Someone? Anyone? Help.

He sort of tricked the boy into realizing the textbooks are more than just questions and answers. Nice one Jef.

comicsssfanI think you know me well enough that I would not run on a football platform. However, I do know there would be no music program if it weren’t that bands are traditional at football games. I think the media blackout was because I was running on the Green Party ticket, as all other candidates, and the party itself, were also never mentioned in the Corporate Media since the battle to keep us off the ballot a couple elections previously (and since). After all, grassroots democracy, economic justice, environmental justice, and nonviolent change (the defining pillars of Green parties throughout the world) are inconsistent with the military-industrial complex of the American Empire.

“I do know there would be no music program if it weren’t that bands are traditional at football games.” I have to disagree; my daughter’s high school, which I attended 50 years ago, has always had an excellent stage jazz band program and still does today. The football team’s performance over the same years has been so-so; the jazz band has won numerous national and international competitions. (A friend of mine was in Paris last summer. While sitting at a cafe, she mentioned to her friend that my daughter was in the orchestra at Garfield. The waiter overheard and commented, “Oh yes, Garfield High School, they have an excellent jazz band.”)