Big Day – Graduate Course

by Rupe | Nov 15, 2005 | Mad Musings

Start Air University Graduate Course today. It is an 18 month program, hope to finish it in 8-12. Will make a schedule tomorrow on start compiling notes.

Testing Gap

by Rupe | Nov 13, 2005 | Mad Musings

Washington Post Editorial

EDUCATORS ARE still mulling over the results of national standardized test scores released last month, which showed an unusually clear national trend: While there have been some slight improvements in elementary and middle school math scores, the rate of gain is slowing. Meanwhile, reading scores are stagnant. These results contrast sharply with the scores of many states’ own standardized tests, which purport to show clear gains. Already, some have pointed to this gap as evidence that the No Child Left Behind law, the president’s plan to make states set standards and show annual academic improvement, isn’t working.

In a narrow sense, the critics are right: The gap is indeed evidence that many states are still using tests that are too easy, and they have not faced up to the genuinely difficult challenge of improving their schools. But the gap does not negate the value of using standards and high-stakes testing to improve student performance. On the contrary, many of the states that have shown the most improvement are precisely the ones that have been using statewide standards for the longest period. One is Massachusetts, which has long used testing to measure achievement and is now at the top of the country in both reading and math. Another is Virginia, which, thanks to its Standards of Learning tests, has also made gains on national tests over the past five years. States that have not been using standards for quite so long have not done so well: In Maryland, for example, some scores have dropped since last year.

The gap has also set off a discussion of what, if anything, can be done at the national level to help states raise their students’ achievement levels. Some are advocating the setting of national standards, a proposition that sounds nice in theory but seems politically impossible in practice. For the first time, there is a national discussion of teacher quality, too: what it means, how to define it, how to improve it. The administration has launched teacher mentoring and teacher “e-learning” programs. Several states have reexamined their teacher training requirements. Others are arguing that states need to rethink their pay scales: The Education Trust recently surveyed teachers within a single California school district and discovered that the most experienced teachers, and therefore the best paid teachers, were all in wealthier schools. Inequality persists not only between districts, in other words, but within them.

The scores should also cause educators to think about the deeper causes of low student achievement. Teach for America, the charity that sends high-achieving college graduates to teach in low-income schools, recently published a survey of its alumni, who overwhelmingly believe that schools underrate children, fail to challenge them and resist imposing higher standards because they simply don’t believe the students will meet them. Higher expectations, Teach for America argues, can actually lead to higher test scores.

Standardized math and reading tests are, by themselves, not sufficient to improve American education. But without a recognition that higher standards are needed, improvement isn’t even possible.

Jobs and Joblessness on the Gulf Coast

by Rupe | Nov 8, 2005 | Mad Musings

The White House announced last week that it would reinstate the Davis-Bacon Act, the law that guarantees that construction workers on federally financed projects be paid at least the minimum prevailing wage. In an executive proclamation shortly after Hurricane Katrina, President Bush had revoked the law’s wage protections for workers in storm-struck parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Let’s hope this reversal is the start of a trend because more wrongs need righting.

The Labor Department has not yet restored the rule – also suspended shortly after Katrina – requiring federal contractors on hurricane-related projects to have a plan for hiring women, minorities, Vietnam veterans and the disabled. And Congress has not yet provided adequate unemployment benefits for some 400,000 people who lost their jobs to Katrina. Even a recent $400 million grant to help Louisiana with unemployment claims is less than half of the projected need for the coming year.

Unemployment pay from the states averages $270 a week nationwide. But in Louisiana, it’s $192, and in Mississippi it’s $169, the lowest in the country. Federal unemployment aid, generally for the self-employed, is no better. It all adds up to peanuts for the unemployed, who, in many cases, have lost everything and who are scattered around the country in places where costs are higher than in their home states.

The federal government must increase both state and federal unemployment benefits to a level that’s closer to the national average, and increase their duration, which is now 26 weeks. Widespread unemployment from Katrina is as much a national disaster as the destruction of infrastructure. The afflicted states simply can’t afford to foot the whole bill – and shouldn’t have to.

In the months since Katrina, plans to increase unemployment aid have flitted across Congress’s legislative radar screen, only to vanish as Republican lawmakers prepare to push a $70 billion tax cut package, much of it to benefit millionaire investors. As they did with the Davis-Bacon law, government leaders have to turn back from their wrongheaded pursuits and do the right things instead – and, preferably, soon.

Credit: New York Times Article

My Thoughts: These f#@!ers will face their judgement. What evil lurks in the house of white.

The Spread of Beheadings as a Modern-Day Militant Tactic

by Rupe | Nov 4, 2005 | Mad Musings

Indonesian police continue to search for suspects involved in the gruesome deaths of three schoolgirls whose beheaded bodies were found near the town of Poso in Sulawesi province Oct. 29. The attackers, armed with machetes, descended on the girls from nearby hills as they walked through a cocoa plantation on their way to a private Christian school. In a particularly brazen move, the perpetrators left two of the bodies near a local police station and one of the girls’ heads outside a church.

Central Sulawesi is the scene of sporadic violence between the island’s Muslim majority and Christian minority populations, and the area around Poso is known to be particularly violent. The sectarian strife began in late 1998, but reached its height between 2000 and 2001, when more than 1,000 people lost their lives in sectarian conflicts. Despite a government-brokered peace deal in December 2001, tensions have remained high and isolated attacks against Christians continue. Beheadings, however, are uncommon, as most sectarian violence takes the form of bombings or shootings.

This attack, then, could indicate an escalation in anti-Christian violence in Poso. Whether this was a one-off incident is too soon to say, but the beheadings do indicate that the attackers either adopted a tactic used by militants in other parts of the world or are, in fact, militant or criminal elements from elsewhere, possibly Malaysia or the Philippines, were Abu Sayyaf operates. Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim separatist group-turned criminal gang, has strong ties to the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group Jemmah Islamiyah (JI), and it is possible that Abu Sayyaf members linked up with JI elements in Indonesia. It also is possible that the beheadings were the work of a small cell of local militants out to gain quick notoriety or establish a reputation for ruthlessness within a larger group.

In any case, the killings are testament to the spread of beheadings as a modern-day militant tactic. The latest wave appears to have begun in the late 1980s, when some of the death threats against British writer Salman Rushdie, author of the controversial book The Satanic Verses, specifically mentioned beheading. In the 1990s, foreign jihadists fighting in Bosnia were known to behead Serbian and Croatian prisoners. In June 2001, Abu Sayyaf beheaded two hostages in Indonesia’s southern island of Mindanao.

In the aftermath of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraqi, videotaped beheadings by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s jihadist network al Qaeda in Iraq shocked the world. Among the most infamous of these were the beheadings of U.S. contractor Nicholas Berg in April 2004 and a Japanese traveler in October 2004. Since late 2004, al-Zarqawi has refrained from beheading foreign hostages, but beheadings still occur frequently in Iraq as part of sectarian or inter-tribal feuds between Iraqis. In June 2004, jihadists beheaded U.S. contractor Paul Johnson, Jr., that time in Saudi Arabia. In southern Thailand, ethnic violence involving beheadings occurs frequently between Muslims and Buddhists. In the Netherlands, Mohammed Bouyeri, the confessed killer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, attempted to behead his victim after shooting and stabbing him.

The phenomenon of beheading as an element of sectarian violence continues to spread, as indicated by the recent attack in Indonesia. Unless the perpetrators of the Oct. 29 attack are identified and arrested, there is no reason not to expect more beheadings in Sulawesi.

Iran: What is Ahmadineja up to?

by Rupe | Nov 4, 2005 | Mad Musings

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday made his second attempt to fill four Cabinet positions, after some of his initial nominations were overwhelmingly rejected by the Majlis for lacking relevant experience. Intriguingly, he seems set on treading the same path once again: He has appointed Sadeq Mahsuli, who like himself is a former commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to head up the crucial oil ministry — although Mahsuli has no experience in the oil sector. The nomination is subject to a vote of confidence in the Majlis.

The nomination is adding to a growing perception, even within Iran, that Ahmadinejad is, in addition to being a political novice, possibly a loose cannon as well. His provocative statements, such as the recent and widely reported “Israel should be wiped off the map” remark, drew powerful condemnation from the international community (though only a mild response by Washington) — including calls by Israel for Iran to be ousted from the United Nations. As previously noted, his statement was hardly out of the ordinary, considering that it was delivered in an appearance at a student conference titled “The World Without Zionism,” but it certainly was an invitation for a media frenzy. And the timing was such that the controversy could undermine Iran’s confidence at the Nov. 25 IAEA meeting to discuss its nuclear program and in backchannel talks with Washington.

Despite misgivings about his qualifications for his role, Ahmadinejad does have certain uses within the Iranian regime, one of which is making inflammatory statements when Tehran needs a delaying tactic. One of Iran’s goals at this stage in the negotiations over the nuclear issue is simply to buy time: The longer talks continue, whether in the public sphere or behind the scenes, the longer it can stave off military action or some other type of unacceptable (from its standpoint) conclusion. It long has been our view that Iran has used talks with the EU-3 strategically, putting up a public show, while more substantive discussions with Washington over Iraq and the nuclear issue were taking place in private. By drawing attention to its nuclear ambitions, Iran sought to elevate its status as a global player and gain economic concessions along the way.

The question at this point is, if Iran is trying to buy time, to what end?

It is becoming more apparent that the hard-line power brokers in Tehran are unhappy with the pace and direction of talks with the United States. Iran certainly has an interest in sustaining the current level of talks with Washington in its bid to increase influence across the border in Iran, but there also is a desire to keep things from getting too close at this juncture. Although contacts are now at a level not seen since the 1979 revolution, Tehran has dealt warily with the Bush administration, and the unelected clerical establishment wants to remain reasonably conference that improving ties with Washington will not eventually cost them power. In other words, the goal is to make sure that as relations warm, the United States does not use the opportunity to back the more moderate elements within the regime.

Thus, a political figure like Ahmadinejad has utility — and when a reckless statement slows down talks, the establishment can plausibly claim deniability for his actions. But there are some worrying signs even here.

Reports have emerged that the regime has decided to purge as many as 40 ambassadors and senior diplomats from their posts when their terms expire in March. Many of the diplomats belong to the reformist camp of Ahmadinejad’s predecessor, Mohammad Khatami. Flushing out moderates from Tehran’s diplomatic circles, including those that have been engaged in nuclear talks with the United Kingdom, France and Germany would signal Tehran’s goal of consolidating hard-line control over the government and applying the brakes to backchannel talks. But there is a problem looming, hinted at with news — also on Wednesday — that Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Javid Zarif, had been reinstated to his role.

Zarif resigned in early October from the nuclear negotiating team, and there has been speculation that he would be among the diplomats Ahmadinejad is now seeking to purge. However, it appears his time in office is being extended — either because the hard-liners need his services as they proceed with nuclear negotiations, or because they have not yet identified anyone capable of filling the void.

All of which leads to a question: If Ahmadinejad, who is coming to be viewed as a bull in the political china shop, embodies the next generation of hard-liners, will it be possible for Iran to carry the ideals of the 1979 revolution forward and still progress with foreign policy goals?

Why Race Isn't as 'Black' and 'White' as We Think

by Rupe | Nov 1, 2005 | Mad Musings

By BRENT STAPLES
Published: October 31, 2005
People have occasionally asked me how a black person came by a “white” name like Brent Staples. One letter writer ridiculed it as “an anchorman’s name” and accused me of making it up. For the record, it’s a British name – and the one my parents gave me. “Staples” probably arrived in my family’s ancestral home in Virginia four centuries ago with the British settlers.

The earliest person with that name we’ve found – Richard Staples – was hacked to death by Powhatan Indians not far from Jamestown in 1622. The name moved into the 18th century with Virginians like John Staples, a white surveyor who worked in Thomas Jefferson’s home county, Albemarle, not far from the area where my family was enslaved.

The black John Staples who married my paternal great-great-grandmother just after Emancipation – and became the stepfather of her children – could easily have been a Staples family slave. The transplanted Britons who had owned both sides of my family had given us more than a preference for British names. They had also given us their DNA. In what was an almost everyday occurrence at the time, my great-great-grandmothers on both sides gave birth to children fathered by white slave masters.

I’ve known all this for a long time, and was not surprised by the results of a genetic screening performed by DNAPrint Genomics, a company that traces ancestral origins to far-flung parts of the globe. A little more than half of my genetic material came from sub-Saharan Africa – common for people who regard themselves as black – with slightly more than a quarter from Europe.

The result that knocked me off my chair showed that one-fifth of my ancestry is Asian. Poring over the charts and statistics, I said out loud, “This has got to be a mistake.”

That’s a common response among people who are tested. Ostensibly white people who always thought of themselves as 100 percent European find they have substantial African ancestry. People who regard themselves as black sometimes discover that the African ancestry is a minority portion of their DNA.

These results are forcing people to re-examine the arbitrary calculations our culture uses to decide who is “white” and who is “black.”

As with many things racial, this story begins in the slave-era South, where sex among slaves, masters and mistresses got started as soon as the first slave ship sailed into Jamestown Harbor in 1619. By the time of the American Revolution, there was a visible class of light-skinned black people who no longer looked or sounded African. Free mulattos, emancipated by guilt-ridden fathers, may have accounted for up to three-quarters of the tiny free-black population before the Revolution.

By the eve of the Civil War, the swarming numbers of mixed-race slaves on Southern plantations had become a source of constant anguish to planters’ wives, who knew quite well where those racially ambiguous children were coming from.

Faced with widespread fear that racial distinctions were losing significance, the South decided to define the problem away. People with any ascertainable black ancestry at all were defined as black under the law and stripped of basic rights. The “one drop” laws defined as black even people who were blond and blue-eyed and appeared white.

Black people snickered among themselves and worked to subvert segregation at every turn. Thanks to white ancestry spread throughout the black community, nearly every family knew of someone born black who successfully passed as white to get access to jobs, housing and public accommodations that were reserved for white people only. Black people who were not quite light enough to slip undetected into white society billed themselves as Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, South Asian, Native American – you name it. These defectors often married into ostensibly white families at a time when interracial marriage was either illegal or socially stigmatized.

Those of us who grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s read black-owned magazines and newspapers that praised the racial defectors as pioneers while mocking white society for failing to detect them. A comic newspaper column by the poet Langston Hughes – titled “Why Not Fool Our White Folks?” – typified the black community’s sense of smugness about knowing the real racial score. In keeping with this history, many black people I know find it funny when supposedly white Americans profess shock at the emergence of blackness in the family tree. But genetic testing holds plenty of surprises for black folks, too.

Which brings me back to my Asian ancestry. It comes as a surprise, given that my family’s oral histories contain not a single person who is described as Asian. More testing on other family members should clarify the issue, but for now, I can only guess. This ancestry could well have come through a 19th-century ancestor who was incorrectly described as Indian, often a catchall category at the time.

The test results underscore what anthropologists have said for eons: racial distinctions as applied in this country are social categories and not scientific concepts. In addition, those categories draw hard, sharp distinctions among groups of people who are more alike than they are different. The ultimate point is that none of us really know who we are, ancestrally speaking. All we ever really know is what our parents and grandparents have told us.

Fighting the Enemy

by Rupe | Oct 30, 2005 | Mad Musings

Personal observation. I think it will be very hard, if not impossible, for the U.S to win the war on terrorism until a few changes are made.

The U.S. military harbors some of the most racist minded individuals on this Earth. This (their racist attitude) blinds them to the solution
of terrorism. Instead of fostering the growth of minorities that can get closer to the enemy we fight, we systematically purge the ranks of
these people.

If we were to ask the military to give an accounting of the number of minority officers that are working in the intelligence field, it would
be appauling. How can we succeed like this. I am not convinced that we can, until we change our tact.

U.S.: The Ku Klux Klan's Tactical Shift

by Rupe | Oct 26, 2005 | Mad Musings

The American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan plans to rally against gay marriage in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 5 — three days ahead of the Nov. 8 vote on a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Although the demonstration likely will attract more police and counter-protesters than Klan members, it is significant in that it vividly illustrates the new trend among white supremacist groups to adopt causes that appeal to a broader base of Americans.

By focusing on a hot-button political issue such as same-sex marriage — rather than railing against the evils of the “Zionist-occupied government (ZOG),” which is how the Klan describes the U.S. government — the white supremacists believe they become much more appealing to the general public. Once the Klan and other such groups establish rapport with a person on the controversial issue, their thinking goes, they can gradually open that person’s eyes to the reality of the ZOG, the “evil” Jews and its other core beliefs. These groups claim that Jews are fostering illegal immigration and homosexuality as part of their secret conspiracy to weaken and control the “Aryan race,” and figure that a person concerned about these issues will, with guidance, come to recognize “the hidden Jewish hand.”

In addition to jumping on the anti-gay-marriage band wagon, white supremacists have participated in anti-immigration rallies and the Minutemen Project. The neo-Nazi National Alliance unit in Las Vegas even has rented a billboard on the Strip that reads, “Stop Immigration: Join the National Alliance.” Other units of the organization — many of which have broken with the National Alliance leadership to join the new group National Vanguard — have protested in front of Home Depot stores and day labor sites carrying signs that read, “Stop Immigration, join National Vanguard.” As we have discussed, National Vanguard and other such groups also sought to capitalize on the looting and unrest in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

The Klan, which has been in Texas since the Reconstruction era and once had a large membership in the state, has not held a protest in the capital since 1983 — so the rally is noteworthy in that it is occurring at all. This particular Klan group, which is not that well-established in Texas, however, will have trouble drawing more than a few followers. Even established Klan groups face this problem because of the repercussions of being publicly affiliated with the Klan — and because they will have a hard time finding members willing to hazard the counter-protest that undoubtedly will occur at City Hall. (The Klan had hoped to rally outside the state capitol, but was told it needed sponsorship from the governor or a member of the state legislature).

If the 1983 Klan rally in Austin or the Oct. 15 National Socialist Movement (NSM) rally in Toledo, Ohio, is any indication, the upcoming Austin rally could spark violence. NSM, which calls itself America’s Nazi Party, was prevented from carrying out its planned march in Ohio by the violent clashes that broke out between police and counter-protesters. These protesters vandalized businesses and even torched a building. Toledo Mayor Jack Ford was forced to declare a curfew to squelch violence and rioting. In such circumstances, the Nazis actually appear to be the more reasonable of the two groups – which is one of the things the white supremacists hope to gain from such rallies.

Publicity, of course, is another thing. A handful of strangely dressed people protesting in front of City Hall is not major news. A clash between these strangely dressed people and counter-protesters, however, does attract major media attention — especially if it turns into a riot. In Toledo, the counter-protesters played right into the hands of the white supremacists. Time will tell whether Austinites fall into the same trap.

Nothing Really

by Rupe | Oct 20, 2005 | Mad Musings

Today is day 4 into the NIIC. Not bad exchanges today. Still a big skeptic of the overall plan. We have a group of guys who are no doubt pretty smart. But since they are all from the same vine, group think is what is killing all of us. Iam thinking of redoing my paper to address a concept that came up today.

The concept that came up has to do with culture. And the idea that was thrown out touched on an idea that may be provocative, but has quite a bit of truth to it. It is akin to this guy putting himself out there and being the devils advocate for something that is beneath the surface.

Will speak more to this later.

I Heard a Genius Today

by Rupe | Oct 19, 2005 | Mad Musings

Today was a good day. Had the rare chance to listen to a military genius today; probably one of the most plugged in dude around. Well verse on broad based military issues and capable of talking across a wide spectrum.

Good questions were asked and good answers given. Not all was inspiring, but at the very least it caused you to think; a thing very few cogs do.

Fat…Ooops! Overweight People

by Rupe | Oct 8, 2005 | Mad Musings

Goddamit! my inside voice is gonna get my ass in trouble again. I am really not one to talk bad about (so called FAT) people, in fact I personally have a few fat friends (hmmm, where have I heard that before), but from time to time, you run in to an aaaghhhh! situation – you know what I mean, and your emotions just get the better of ya.

The fact of the matter is not that I inherently have neg feelings towards fat people, but I feel it towards their fatness. Some fat people have been fat for so long that they think it is normal. It is as though they have developed a fat personality. And boy when you develope that fat personality…..yo a** is done for.

My boy(Marcus) had a fat doctor. I kid you not …a friggin’ fat doctor. What the heck? What would be her advice to lowering blood pressure….hmmm….let me see. On top of that she had mad attitude. Can you believe that….fat with an arrogant attitude. It was like she remembered that she was a doctor, but forgot that she was fat. Had to straighten her out a couple times. Naw…I didn’t straight up tell her to watch her fatness, but a threw a few subtleties her way….nahmeean? In my book fat people have no say in certain things.