Sunday, March 9, 2025

Offbeat Humor

 

at No comments:

Data Talks

 

at No comments:

Dance of Eternal Love (Red Crowned Cranes) by Yoshida Toshi

Dance of Eternal Love (Red Crowned Cranes) by Yoshida Toshi (Japan, 1911-1995)



















Click to enlarge.

at No comments:

Saturday, March 8, 2025

Radio by Therese Lindsey

Radio
by Therese Lindsey

We have picked the pocket of silence. By this feat
Is set another pace for light to beat.
With coil of silk-covered wire to snare a song
Between whose breaths a thousand miles belong!
We brand our sounds and loose them pigeon-free
And practice on them some new falconry.

at No comments:

One of you is lying.

Oh, the woes of the bibliophile.  I am in a used book shop where the books are very cheap.  I see The Portable Dorothy Sayer.  I leaf through it quickly - a collection of her non-Wimsey writings.  Excellent.  I only moderately enjoy her mystery writing but I usually enjoy her essays.  In the stack it goes.

I get home and I sit down to sample it a bit to determine whether it goes into the "Read right now" stack or the "Soon" stack, possibly even the "Maybe in a while" stack.  

I am a page into the reasonably oblique and abstract Introduction when I begin to sense something is wrong.  The sketched life story does not match what I know of Sayer's life.  Hmm.  

Another half page and the mystery is solved.  This is the The Portable Dorothy Parker.  I would have significantly preferred Sayer but Parker, well, at a couple of bucks, I am sure I will get my money's worth.

For example:

By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing.
And he swears his passion is,
Infinite, undying - 
Lady make note of this:
One of you is lying.

at No comments:

History

 

at No comments:

An Insight

 

at No comments:

I see wonderful things

 

at No comments:

Offbeat Humor

 

at No comments:

Offbeat Humor

 

at No comments:

Data Talks

 

at No comments:

A Winter Walk by Hester Cox

A Winter Walk by Hester Cox (England)























Click to enlarge.

at No comments:

Friday, March 7, 2025

History

 

at No comments:

An Insight

 

at No comments:

I see wonderful things

 

at No comments:

Offbeat Humor

 

at No comments:

Data Talks

 

at No comments:

The Old Farmyard, Findon Place by S. R. Badmin

The Old Farmyard, Findon Place by S. R.  Badmin (England, 1906-1989)



























Click to enlarge.

at No comments:

Thursday, March 6, 2025

History

 

at No comments:

An Insight

 

at No comments:

I see wonderful things

 

at No comments:

Offbeat Humor

 

at No comments:

Data Talks

 

at No comments:

Moonlit Owl by Takashi Kanazawa

Moonlit Owl by Takashi Kanazawa (Japan, 1986 - )





















Click to enlarge.

at No comments:

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

History

 

at No comments:

An Insight

 

at No comments:

I see wonderful things

 

at No comments:

Offbeat Humor

 

at No comments:

Data Talks

 

at No comments:

Blue Moon, 2020 by Wilf Perreault

Blue Moon, 2020 by Wilf Perreault (Canada, 1947 - )

























Click to enlarge.

at No comments:

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

History

 

at No comments:

An Insight

 

at No comments:

I see wonderful things

 

at No comments:

Offbeat Humor

 

at No comments:

Data Talks

 

at No comments:

Mill Houses by A. J. Casson

Mill Houses by A. J. Casson (Canada, 1898 – 1992)






















Click to enlarge.

at No comments:

Monday, March 3, 2025

History

 

at No comments:

An Insight

 

at No comments:

I see wonderful things

 

at No comments:

Data Talks

 

at No comments:

Long-Tailed Titmice and Crocuses, 1947 by Sir Cedric Morris

Long-Tailed Titmice and Crocuses, 1947 by Sir Cedric Morris (England, 1889-1982)























Click to enlarge.

at No comments:

What happens when all the evidence is on the side which experts reject?

Emily Oster provides another example of the dangers of "experts" in her article, What Is the Best Way to Teach Reading.  She is summarizing the status of the long running battle between phonics (teaching children to read on a basis of sounding out words) and whole language or whole word (memorizing patterns of words.)  

Whole word came to prominence in the 1980s and now has nearly fifty years of embedded financial stakes (curricula sold to school districts) and reasonably strong and enthusiastic support from the education establishment (Teachers Unions and Education School/Departments in Universities).  In other words from the "experts."

Whole word also has fifty years of opposition from parents and no credible empirical evidence from studies.  In fact, it is worse than that.  There is a vast literature to the effectiveness of the tried and tested phonics approach.  There is little evidence to the effectiveness of whole language.  And there is material evidence that those most educationally marginalized are those who perform the worst under the whole language approach.  

The experts inflicted whole language on parents and children without the evidence of its effectiveness and have stood in opposition as the evidence to its harm has accumulated for nearly fifty years.  This is experts being profoundly wrong.  

Oster has a good high level discussion with some important nuance.  After a base established through phonics, we don't really have any evidence for the effectiveness various supplemental approaches to reading.  Free reading has its advocates.  Story-telling and narrative development probably have roles.  But so far there is little evidence of how much of which in what sequence yields what results.

Oster concludes:
  • Research shows that phonics (linking letters to sounds) is an essential part of an effective reading curriculum. Programs that deemphasize phonics are less effective, especially for readers who are struggling.
  • There is still a lot we don’t know about the best methods for teaching reading. More research directly comparing approaches is needed, especially if it focuses on the group of kids who need more support. 
  • Parents can ask their child’s school about their reading curriculum, particularly whether there is a focus on phonics. To support reading at home, parents can use various programs and resources, but the most important thing to do is regularly read aloud to their child. 
Its all there in the first bullet.  After fifty years of debate and in opposition to the position of education establishment experts, phonics works and it works better than any known alternatives.  And it works better for the broadest spectrum of student abilities.

The second bullet is true but daunting.  If it has taken fifty years to begin, only begin, to displace the expert recommendation of whole language, it suggests the education establishment is not good at conducting research and/or is not good at acting on the evidence.

The third bullet can only have been written with a blind eye to the continuing failure of the education establishment and legions of misinformed education "experts" and with an unwarranted confidence in the effectiveness and credibility of the education establishment.  Parents can ask whether their schools whether the schools are using the one proven technique (phonics)?  That seems to misplace roles and responsibilities.  

Forget asking about whether asking whether schools are doing the bare minimum of using the one approach known to work.  Parents should insist on phonics and then turf out any school boards who refuse. 

at No comments:

These are not the times to make an argument based on self-claimed establishment "expert" status

I am sorry for the testy response but this is the third vacuous assertion from a nominal "expert" first thing in the early hours of the morning.  All this is empty posturing.  

OBrien asserts that "Russia cannot be defeated by Ukraine" is a patently false argument and that anyone who does not know this is ignorant.

Clearly, on the other hand, we have three years of war and hundreds of thousands of deaths which should have been averted were it true that Russia can be defeated by Ukraine.  

"Russia cannot be defeated by Ukraine" is an argument that can be made with logic, reason and empirical evidence.  Three years of evidence suggests it is (so far) a true statement.  Russia (the instigator) has not so far been defeated by Ukraine. 

Will it remain true for another three years?  Who knows? It is conceivable.  

On the other hand, Russia has suffered gross losses in men and armaments in the three years.  There seems to have been a mass outmigration of men in their most productive ages.  The financial burden of prosecuting the war seems, by some measures, to be unsustainable.  

Can Ukraine defeat Russia?  That is obviously conceivable and a plausible argument can be made.  

But Ukraine has also suffered in terms of manpower losses, in civilian losses, in losses of territory, and in terms of the catastrophic impact on the economy.

Two battlers have gone three rounds and beaten each other to a bloody standstill.  I believe it is possible to make perfectly plausible arguments that either might still win the current war.  

I also suspect that with adequate funding and armaments from Western nations, it would become much more likely that Ukraine can defeat Russia.  

But it remains, based on logic, reason, and empirical evidence, perfectly feasible to make a plausible argument that "Russia cannot be defeated by Ukraine".  

OBrien is simply trying to shut down an argument that stands in the way of his own opinion or objectives.  The unstated, and unwarranted, supposition is that he is an "expert" who knows better than those with a different opinion than he has.  It is simple, baseless bullying.

And, given the poor credibility of "experts" after the past five years of "expert" failure across many fields (education, public health, economics, foreign policy, politics, etc.), basing your argument on your status as an "expert" reflects poorly on your ability to make a credible argument.

Lots of posturing opinions masquerading as evidence-based insight going around these days.  All amounting to cognitive pollution.  

at No comments:

Sunday, March 2, 2025

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T. S. Eliot

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
               So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
               And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
               And should I then presume?
               And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head
               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
               That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
               “That is not it at all,
               That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

at No comments:

History

 

at No comments:

An Insight

 

at No comments:

I see wonderful things

 

at No comments:

Offbeat Humor

 

at No comments:

Data Talks

 

at No comments:

In for the Night by William H. Hays

In for the Night by William H. Hays (America, 1956 - )































Click to enlarge.

at No comments:

Saturday, March 1, 2025

Alas, So Long! by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Alas, So Long!
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti  

AH! dear one, we were young so long,
It seemed that youth would never go,
For skies and trees were ever in song
And water in singing flow
In the days we never again shall know.
Alas, so long!
Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
Nay, but we were young and together.
Ah! dear one, I've been old so long,
It seems that age is loth to part,
Though days and years have never a song,
And oh! have they still the art
That warmed the pulses of heart to heart?
Alas, so long!
Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
Nay, but we were young and together.
Ah! dear one, you've been dead so long,—
How long until we meet again,
Where hours may never lose their song
Nor flowers forget the rain
In glad noonlight that never shall wane?
Alas, so long!
Ah! shall it be then Spring weather,
And ah! shall we be young together?

at No comments:

History

 

at No comments:

An Insight

 

at No comments:

I see wonderful things

 

at No comments:

Offbeat Humor

 

at No comments:

Data Talks

 

at No comments:

Appalachian Sunset, 2025 by Jef Bourgeau

Appalachian Sunset, 2025 by Jef Bourgeau (America)

























Click to enlarge.

at No comments: