The OSBA is a Gold Mine of Bad Press

From an old story announcing the original passage of the antic-censorship law, this is amazingly stupid:
Opponents of the bill, such as the Oregon School Boards Association, said that students aren’t capable of responsibly editing a newspaper. They said even professional journalists are subject to the editorial control of publishers and owners.
It’s so stupid, in fact, [...]

DH: New State Law Protects High School Journalism Programs From Censorship

I’d heard this was coming down the pike, but I’d not paid close enough attention to get the details. From the story, it sounds like the new law is going in effect around the first of the year, with school boards changing their policies to match some time in the upcoming year. (On [...]

Anne Bishop’s Pillars of the World Trilogy

I finished the trilogy – Pillars of the World, Shadows and Light and The House of Gaian – earlier tonight, and I loved it.
I’m not going to try and write a review, as it’s become painfully obvious I have no idea how, but there are a few things I wanted to say.
1. The trilogy, [...]

Summary: Hering Still Unable to Tell the Truth

Two recent editorials in the DH remind me that Hering is still struggling with honesty.
Hering on the EPA/California dustup:
Then last Wednesday, the federal Environmental Protection Agency denied the California waiver request, provoking cries of outrage from California officials and others including Oregon Governor Kulongoski.
But the EPA made the right decision. Automobiles are an international business, [...]

Still Amazed at How the Awesomeness of Apophenia; Or, the "Get Into College or Die" Crowd Strikes Again

This was great.
Specifically, this passage:
What Pew’s data shows is that online participation correlates with offline participation. They are not able to show causality (and they do not try to claim that they can), but such a correlation still contradicts the ever-present myth that online activities cause a decline in offline activities. Of course, don’t misread [...]

The Dumbing Down of Music [the downside of MP3s]

Seen at both BoingBoing and Slashdot (but really a Rolling Stone article), I have to offer a qualified disagreement with Cory Doctorow on this one.
Rolling Stone:
Just as cds supplanted vinyl and cassettes, MP3 and other digital-music formats are quickly replacing CDs as the most popular way to listen to music. That means more conven- ience [...]

The Bush Administration’s Top Ten Dumbest Legal Arguments of the Year

From Slate…. how in the world did we let this happen?
My favorite:
8. The vice president’s office is not a part of the executive branch.
We also learned in July that over the repeated objections of the National Archives, Vice President Dick Cheney exempted his office from Executive Order 12958, designed to safeguard classified national security information. [...]

Movie Review: The Kingdom (Ideological Spoiler Alert)

I just finished (as in the credits are still rolling) watching The Kingdom.
The Kingdom is a Syriana-like exploration of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States, except with a focus on terrorism instead of oil.
It’s also a very good movie.
Since I interpret movies through a filter that allows forces me to look for [...]

U.S. Senate Candidate Steve Novick

I have not been following this race as much as I should have, I feel, but the more I hear the more I like Novick. From this profile (via Blue Oregon):
A 44-year-old attorney (he was the lead counsel on the Love Canal case), with a long track record as a liberal activist in Oregon [...]

Fantastic Letter in the Democrat-Herald

My family points me to this letter on the topic of Native American mascots in schools – and particularly Lebanon. The author, Bob Zybach of Foster, Oregon, also responds to LHS student Miranda Gestrin’s Young Voices column on the same topic.
Zybach:
As contrast, the Indian “chief” used to represent Lebanon teams is a “Native [...]

Whiskey Fire on the Connection Between Troops and Liberty

Hint: There is none, crazed howls from my gun-toting extended cousins notwithstanding.
Nothing the American military is currently doing abroad has any bearing whatsoever upon the degree of liberty enjoyed by any American citizen. To suggest otherwise is absurd. Had we not invaded Iraq, would any American be any less “free,” any less capable of [...]

A Response to LT’s "Movies and Education II" Post

I agree with LT that we’re likely to end up in the same place, though I feel like I’ve been a bit misunderstood. So, some clarifications.
1. LT says:
RW takes issue with our statement that we should push our students to achieve as much as possible to get as much education as possible.
RW wants [...]

Tasered While Black

A new blog actually called Tasered While Black, found via Automatic Preference.
Check out this one in particular:
November 29, 2007 TROTWOOD, Ohio — The FBI is investigating after a Trotwood police officer used a Taser on a pregnant woman. Trotwood Public Safety Director Michael Etter said the incident happened on Nov. 18. He said the woman [...]

Lebanon Truth on Education Leads to The Big Questions

Of all the things LT has written, this is my favorite (beating out even this):
Can we change how the world views those who are educated and those who are not? No, even if we thought it was the right thing to do, we lack that power. But what we can do is tell these kids [...]

The Civic Literacy Quiz

From way back in early December, from a comment left on my blog by commenter Bernstein, comes this Civic Literacy test that Americans supposedly do so bad at.
I took the test and scored something like 46/60, for a score of 77%. I’d be more upset with myself if I thought the test was any [...]