State of the Discussion

Another favorite we read in high school:

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

https://alexsheremet.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Pieter-Bruegels-Landscape-With-The-Fall-Of-Icarus-1560s.jpg

Who gets to decide whether a Department or a law failed in its intent or not?

Well, can we discuss what we're shooting for?

If what we're looking for is stuff like "our purpose is to provide union jobs to middle class people", we can look at this or that school and say "we are succeeding!" or "we are failing!"

And if the goal is something like "We want 39% of our students to be able to pass a literacy test", we can see if we've got 40% or more or if, seriously, literacy is a very difficult concept and can we really say that a person is "illiterate" (a slur, by the way) just because they aren't good at taking Scantron tests? We shouldn't be judging people on whether they are good at reading Harry Potter books and JK Rowling is a bigot and I don't know why you're in such of a hurry to sell more of her books to vulnerable children.

I have a friend from my hometown who I knew since elementary school who is a Mason. He's only two years older than me. The fraternal orders gained a reputation of being dodgy and uncool during the 1960s. They weren't replaced with much as a replacement though.

From Spring and All (the book; the poem is really just I in that book, "The Red Wheelbarrow" is poem XXII in the book):

Composition is in no essential an escape from life. In fact if it is so it is negligible to the point of insignificance. Whatever "life" the artist may be forced to lead has no relation to the vitality of his compositions. Such names as Homer, the blind; Scheherazade, who lived under threat--Their compositions have as their excellence an identity with life since they are as actual, as sappy as the leaf of the tree which never moves from one spot.

His poems, especially from around this period, deliberately played with form and imagery in order to challenge the traditionalist ideas of poetry as having specific formal limits, and relying heavily on complex and often obscure imagery.

You could ask the same question of any of the poems from that book. Look at "The Red Wheelbarrow": it could be read as just part of a full sentence, the rest of which (why so much depends on it, for what it depends, whatever) is missing.

Anyway, if you're asking yourself why this is poetry and not prose, and then thinking about that question, you're on the right track. I also recommend reading Spring and All. It is mostly an essay on poetry in a time of war , industrialization, and alienation, and why what the world needs from poetry in that time (and perhaps this) is something more than formal restrictions and imagery that pulls us away from, instead of towards life and new possibilities.

Gary Tan is talking about California's attempt to force California's universities to water down math standards here.

I mean, if your goal is to get more people accepted to college and more people to graduate from college, making it so that you don't have to know algebra to get into/graduate from college will open doors for the millions who can't do algebra.

But then you go back and wonder "why did we want college graduates?"

And part of it had to do with needing a quick and dirty way to signal "this person is capable of doing algebra".

So in answer to the question "Don't you want more college graduates?", my answer is "yes, but no."

Seems almost inappropriate for me to say that this was an awesome post.

The whole "the purpose of a system is what it does" criticism has, itself, a number of criticisms but it makes sense to look at what a system actually accomplishes and then say something like "a jobs program with zero deliverables? Is that really what we wanted to end up with?"

I'm 100% down with improving education for everybody. Universal literacy! Cuba pulled it off! We should be able to pull it off! Let's look at the trendlines over the last few decades.

Oh no. Oh no no no.

Heh... but you'd probably be talking about Pope Baldwin not Pierbattista Pizzaballa. Only historians and sede vacantists use the Pope's prior name.

Of course, without good PR counsel in the conclave, he might cross the cultural divide and accidentally chose John XXIV effectively making himself Papa John.

Conclave week... the 'smart' money is on a short conclave with Friday May 9th as the decision day. Three - Five ballots is the modern norm.

I haven't seen any good 'smart takes' on who exactly will corral the required 67% super majority... people tend to glom on to the 'big names' like Parolin and Tagle ... but the success of front runners is very limited... Pacelli (Pius XII), Montini (Paul VI) and Ratzinger (BXVI) were the only real 'obvious front runners' to win in the past 125 years.

Mostly it's just projection and wish-casting on Cardinals people know very little about. Projecting how they think a particular cardinal will advance a particular agenda that usually has little to do with how the (new) Pope will set his agenda.

The best Catholic news site to follow, if interested is The Pillar: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/

My prevaricating take is that I could see a fairly fast Conclave settled on Friday... but I would not at all be surprised to see it bleed into the second week. The wildcard, IMO is the scrambled consistories that Francis convened and the lack of collegiality among the Cardinals post 2014. There are a lot of unknown unknowns in this lot.

To what extent ought we expect immigrants to assimilate into their new culture?

And, golly gee, wouldn’t it have been swell to hammer that particular point out *PRIOR* to millions and millions moving in?

I hope the left does a better job of welcoming that incel energy than the right did.

What's your thoughts on the best ways to welcome them into the big tent?

On Saturday night, Palm Beach TV apparently showed Escape from Alcatraz. Sometime later, also on Saturday night, Trump announced we should re-open and expand Alcatraz.

He also announced a 100 percent tariff on foreign movies so now incels will be against him for taking anime waifu.

The answer is "the usual things which are illegal or banned are still illegal or banned". You (an immigrant) can assimilate at your own speed. If we fail to absorb you then we'll work on your children. It's a standing offer.(*)

America has been multicultural for a long time, these issues have mostly been worked out.

Among other things that means no violence or threat of violence.

(*) BTW that means our culture is the natural enemy of both Islam and Judaism. Lower your shields and surrender. We will add your distinctiveness to our own.

I'm not saying that you should pick "the other side" over "your side".

If you can't comprehend how someone else might have a different conclusion than the one that is so freakin' obvious to you, I may be able to shed a little light, however.

The Pro-Palestinian left was protesting Israel after 10-7 but before Israel invaded Gaza.

Pictures of dead Jews is "you have to understand", pictures of dead Gazanias is "how can your heart be unmoved".

Big picture 10-7 was an act of war and we should expect certain pictures from a war.