Tora! Tora! Tora!

There's a lot of fuss in Alberta about this no-zero policy that some schools and/or school boards are instituting.  Basically, it's where teachers aren't allowed to give students a zero on a test or report. Instead, they have to mark it "incomplete".  There's a teacher who's being fired and may lose his teaching license for disobeying this rule, and another who's standing beside him in protest and may be fired.


Okay, so here's the thing...

The pro-zero people are adamant about how the world doesn't accept some layabout handing in his stuff after the buzzer, so why should schools reinforce this behaviour? Well, I guess there's two things about that:


1) Yes, it does. And it does it a lot.

Oh wait, you've never misgauged the time it takes to compile a report, write a computer program, paint a room, build an oil tank, convert a document, drive to work, figure out a problem, convince a group, etc. Did you get a zero? Perhaps, and being good and on time is obviously the best and always will be, but it's not always the end of the world if you're not. Have you ever shown up late for work, but then ended up putting in a much more productive day?

Would you, as a teacher, like to know that you finally got through to a student, even if it was outside the artificial boundary set by you or the curriculum? You might be the first person with enough patience to have waited and listened. You might be that teacher who's remembered for life. Remind me again why you got into teaching.

Perhaps you prefer the neatness of completely cutting off an effort based upon time. In the same way, multiple choice tests would be better...all those neat circles and overlays giving a quick, cold percentage...mmmmmm. Always the best way.


2) Since when are elementary, junior-high, and senior-high schools the last bastion of cruel-worldliness?

They weren't when you were there, but now they should be? Try not to be the old white male Republican for a second. Do you know anyone who is a slow starter, who chokes on tests? Did you have schoolwork at home not only unsupported, but actually as an object of derision? Did you have a shitty home life without supportive parents...or even a downright terrifying and dangerous home life such that doing schoolwork isn't even on your list? Were you able to safely sleep at night?

Thankfully I didn't have these issues thrust upon me at such an important time of my life, but I know people who did. I didn't used to understand that - that I wasn't always competing against someone with a similar support system - but to my small, slow-learning brain's credit, I now kind of get it.


Here's an excerpt from the Alberta Assessment Consortium on this:

One of the principles specifically relates to the need to separate achievement from effort.


4. Combining disparate kinds of results into a single summary should be done cautiously. To the extent possible, achievement, effort, participation, and other behaviors should be graded separately.
No-Zero Policy Alberta



So, to those brave teachers bucking an unjust system:

From my gut I understand your position and your frustration, but you've phrased the question wrongly, so you're getting the wrong answer. Now do your homework, go back to work, open your mind, and sit on the board that makes policy instead of being a rebel without a cause.

Thank you,
Paul

Linked In

What is it about this time of year and coincidences?

Cyclist Lance Armstrong, Astronaut Neil Armstrong

- In late August, Lance decided to quit fighting allegation of drug doping
- In late August, Neil lost his fight with heart disease

- Neil was the first man on the Moon
- Neil was just buried under a Blue Moon

- Lance trained for his comeback in North Carolina, home of Salem...home to witches
- Lance claims that he's the victim of a doping witchhunt

- When piloting the Lunar Lander, Neil had to keep the gyroscopic guidance system steady by focussing on 'the ball'
- Lance had testicular cancer and now only has one...

ZZ's - Buzz Aldrin was the second man on the Moon
ZZ's - Neil's family requested that, in Neil's memory, that they Wink at the Moon
ZZ's - Ozzie Osbourne sings Bark at the Moon

Tims, Hockey Player Bill Barilko

- Toronto Maple Leafs won 4 Stanley Cups in 5 years
- On Aug 26, Barilko died in a plane crash going on a fishing trip
- no cups for 11 years, and they won the Cup the year they found his body
- listen to The Tragically Hip's 50 Mission Cap for details

Creepy Double-H part:
 - Bill Barilko's pilot-friend was Henry Hudson
- A person named Henry Hudson* was mutineed against and set adrift just 200 miles north of Barilko's crash site

Creepy Double-Tims Double-Double part:
- Barilko crashed between Timmons, ON and Cochrane, ON
- Barilko was born in Timmons
- Timmons has a Tim Hortons coffee/doughnut shop
- Tim Hortons restaurant is named after Tim Horton, the hockey player, who also played for the Leafs
- Horton played in the NHL starting the year after Barilko disappeared
- Horton also died in a crash (car)

* named after Henry Hudson: Hudson Bay, Hudson River, Hudson Strait, Hudson County NJ, the Henry Hudson Bridge, and the town of Hudson, NY

Hockey Player Pelle Lindbergh, Aviator Charles Lindbergh

- Pelle died Aug 26 in an auto accident near an elementary school in New Jersey
- Charles's infant son was kidnapped in New Jersey

- Charles helped invent the precursor to the heart pump
- Pelle's heart was harvested after his accident

- before the war, Charles got to pilot a high-performance Bf 109 German fighter aircraft
- Pelle died in a high-performance Porsche 930 German sports car

- Charles believed in eugenics, which eliminates weaker people from the human race
- Pelle played on Philadelphia, who later eliminated Evgeni Malkin and the Penguins from the playoff race

- Charles's plane was called The Spirit of St Louis
- Pelle played with a lot of spirit in St Louis

- Charles was the first person to fly solo across the waters of the Atlantic; which is now common
- Pelle was the first goalie to take a water bottle to his net; which is now common

Thlong Song

Is your favourite [Greek number-word]-thlon in the Olympics?
Do you have a favourite 'thlong?
If you were competing in your last 'thlon, would it be your swan song 'thlong?

Aquathlon
- run, swim
- not Olympic
- favoured by homeless beach-dwellers


Biathlon
- x-c ski, rifle
- Winter Olympic
- favourite sport of James Bond extras

Biathle (modern biathlon)
- run, swim, run
- not Olympic
- 50% better than wussy Aquathlon-ians


Nordic Combined
- x-c ski, ski jump
- it's Olympic, but not a 'thlon'
- I said it's not a thlon, let it go


Duathlon
- run, bike, run
- not Olympic
- favoured by petty thieves and aquaphobic triathletes everywhere


Triathlon
- swim, bike, run
- Olympic
- only moderately cool because there's a brutally sexy Ironman version in Hawaii


Quadrathlon
- swim, kayak, cycle, run
- not Olympic
- invented by the Inuit; first bike was actually a seal


Ancient Pentathlon
- long jump, javelin, discus, sprint, wrestle
- not Olympic for a few hundred years
- still unofficially practiced by G8 protesters


Pentathlon
- 100m hurdles, shot put, high jump, long jump, 200m
- not Olympic anymore, was discontinued in 1984
- hope no-one sold you tickets for London's pentathlon

Modern Pentathlon
- shoot, swim, fence, equestrian, x-c run
- surprisingly, Olympic
- dominated for years by riot police and farmers with hot daughters



Other pentathlons not in Olympics
- classic, military, naval, aeronautical (6 events), science Olympiad




Heptathlon
- 100m hurdles, High jump, Shot put, 200m, Long jump, Javelin throw, 800m
- Chicks: Olympic (replaced the pentathlon)
- Men: not Olympic


Octathlon
- 100m, long jump, 110m hurdles, high jump, 400m, shot put, javelin, 1000m
- not Olympic, it's a youth event
- this probably has an awesome wicked cool octopus logo in an octagon


Decathlon
- 100m, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400m, 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, 1500m
- yes, Olympic (men only)
- once upon a time, an annoying Kardashian husband was big in this

One Hour Decathlon
- same as above, but athletes have to start the last event within sixty minutes of the start of the first event
- it's not an Olympic event
- how awesome is it that someone thought of this, let alone competed in it?


Icosathlon (double decathlon)
- 100m, long jump, 200m hurdles, shot put, 5000m, 800m, high jump, 400m, hammer throw, 3000m steeplechase, 110m hurdles, discus, 200m, pole vault, 3000m, 400m hurdles, javelin, 1500m, triple jump, 10000m
- not in the Olympic fold
- how could they have enough venues and volunteers?


Tetradecathlon
- similar to above, but based upon women's heptathlon
- no, it's not Olympic either
- possible tetra-pack sponsorship might get it in Olympics







Mathlon
- geometry, calculus, matrix long divisions
- not Olympic
- hopefully, this not even close...although the gals in above pic are cute


Marathlon
- 26 miles, 385 yards?
- not Olympic
- were you thinking of the marathon?


BoJacksonthlon
- football, baseball
- not Olympic
- too many broken hips stopped this sport in its infancy


DeionSandersthlon
- football, baseball in same day
- not Olympic
- similar to BoJacksonthlon, but more medals handed out


Chess-Boxing
- this would be chess and boxing
- not Olympic, although boxing is
- again, not a thlon
- not even in my top-five types of boxing:

Me on Religion

No, I won't argue religion with you.


Just to be clear, I enjoy arguing and I'm an atheist. And that's a-theist, not anti-theist. In the same way that there are moral, amoral, and immoral ideas.

Theist -- believes that there is at least one god
Atheist -- believes that there's not enough proof to know
Anti-theist -- believes that there are no gods
Agnostic -- believes that there's no way of knowing

I explain this because there's too much with us or against us attitude in this area. I don't believe in gods, nor do I believe that there definitely isn't a god or two or three. Although I believe it to be redundant, for clarity I usually say open-minded atheist. The analogy I use is that I don't believe that there's proof yet of a cure for cancer. I hope that I'm wrong, but until I see the cancer wards shutting down, it seems the more accurate stance.

Why do I take an atheist position? I just do. The religious usually say that you have to have faith, and that you have to believe. Well, if you don't believe, then you can't really force yourself to, can you? I mean, unless you see a miracle, find a logical proof, or can commit on a gut feeling.

Compared to most people I know, I've read a lot about religion. I've read, watched, or listened to, the earnest explanations of many people and how their belief works for them. It's helped my research, but mostly not swayed me in any huge way. To their credit, most people are humble about this, and keep it a personal thing.

Back when I was smarter, I read logical proofs from minds like Rene Descartes and David Hume. In fact, I remember Descartes' treatise on religion where he logically proved the existence of God. I was shocked. I remember thinking that I had to now believe in God. That's quite a thing, if you haven't gone through it. I was stunned, wondering how it would change my life. Then I went back and reread his argument, only to find a proposition that needed to be accepted for the logic to work. I wasn't being closed-minded, but I legitimately couldn't accept the proposition, so it invalidated the argument for me. That was my hour as a believer.

I understand the value of religion. I also understand the value of atheism. Religion promises eternal value to one's consciousness, meaning for life, redemption of evil, an external code of conduct, etc. Atheism generally gives more meaning to the value of life and decisions on Earth - and puts the onus on the individual.

Truth be known, I'm jealous of anyone who truly believes in a god. It'd be a huge weight off of my shoulders to know that there's meaning. I can't imagine, for the life of me, what that meaning would be - but it'd be nice. I'd trade places with anyone in the world who believes.

Being kind of scientific, it galls me to see the irrational blustering from most sides. It makes sports and political discussions seem downright civil and logically backed-up. The thing is, the arguments are less on the actual existence of a god, and more on the follies of some organized religion practitioners and anti-religionistos. Amazingly, both sides have iron-clad proof of the stupidity of the other side. There's a saying somewhere about throwing poo and getting it on yourself. Or there should be.

To win an argument, you first frame the question in your terms, then most of the work is already done. For example, when George W Bush wanted to dismiss the Global Warming crowd, he insisted that people call it Climate Change. He and I differ on a lot of things, but we both agree on at least one thing: GWB really is great at politics. Yes, actually great. He knows how to play the bully card better than anyone going back to at least McCarthy.

In religion, typically the argument is framed using the terms believer and non-believer. If you believe that religious discussion is an argument measurable by the number of people on your side, then this is genius for the religious side. A non-believer is wishy-washy, non-committed, and pessimistic. The argument is already won.



Okay, but enough crap...who's right?
Who knows the answer to existence?

I'll save you oodles of time and distill the answers to existence right here.


If you believe in a god or gods, then the basic explanation of existence is simple...because God made it:

• "It just works that way."


But hey - you're big into reasons, science, proof, and analysis - so that simple explanation just isn't good enough for you as an adult. Thus, you do research and find out how atoms work, then you find out how electrons work, then you find how mesons work, and then you find out how quarks work. Eventually, you get to the very core of the building blocks of the universe. You are the mack-daddy physicist of all time. But you still don't really know why they work, you just know more and more detail about how they do. Your eventual answer to the question of existence and why things work is:

• "It just works that way."


Congratulation people, you now agree. Now go do something useful, be a good example for 'your side', agree to the folly of extremists on both sides, and quit hacking each other.



So anyway, this boils down to the fact that I won't* argue religion. It's not that I don't want to. I can, and have done it quite well. See...I don't believe in deities, but I could, and I see how people could. I see great value in the reasonable belief of them, so I wouldn't want to 'win' the argument and convert anyone away from that. Making someone less happy would be a loss to me. I explained that at the outset of several discussions with the Jehovah's Witnesses. They're quite delightful people, if you take the time to find out.


Paul

* Okay, that inaccurate, I will argue it if you're a pompous, lecturing windbag and I have a moment of moral weakness. To be fair though, I now will argue either side with almost-equal abandon.

I Prefer to say Consistent, Not Boring and Predictable

One of these days I'll put together a kick-ass blog essay and the world will jolly-well sit up and take notice. Until that day, here's the same old crap avec moderately relevant pictures:





• Last year, I did the rare live online Jeopardy test. I cleaned up, had water, turned off my phones, lowered my answering machine volume, closed all other computer programs, made coffee, and put on a cool shirt and clean socks. It started okay, and I built some confidence, but then I got roughed up pretty bad. By halfway I was sweating like a whore in church. The result was that I didn't get a callback. Totally not surprised. Annoyingly, they don't give any kind of score. On the bright side, I've convinced myself that I missed the cut by just one question...and it was probably worded vaguely and thus not my fault.



• I've always liked the kitsch of store restaurants. Ikea and Costco do it nowdays, but I remember Zellers and Sears and all those stores having them. My strongest memory is them ladelling gravy onto the fries. I'm a tray person - probably something about it having edges and boundaries, yet still being mobile.



• I like ice cubes that aren't fully frozen because the water jiggles around inside. If you break into it and drink the water, it's like a combination of drinking pure glacier water and drinking from a coconut.





• In public, please don't dance like nobody's watching. Please dance like everybody's watching. You don't have to be nervous about it, just try a touch harder than you would at home. I mean, you're probably dressed up a bit, so should raise your level of decorum to match, non?



• Work Tetris is where all your good stuff is deleted, but your mistakes pile up.



• They turn down the flow of water over Niagara Falls at night. Yep, from the Canadian side. They divert more of it to the electricity-generators at night, which bypasses the falls. With darkness and/or sexy lighting, no-one notices.



• If you're looking for an airport, the way that the airplane faces on the sign points you in the direction. It'd be awesome if other signs did that, but it'd be brutal trying to find the Tower of Pisa.



• I've always liked it how some places have a hole in the counter for garbage to fall through, like at Ikea by the hotdog station. A close second is that old cooking show where he opened a drawer for the scraps. Galloping Gourmet?



• My social teacher from high school told a joke about a country, whose first language wasn't English, setting up their government by reading the observer's notes from the British Parliament. The punchline was: A Titter went through the crowd.





• Optimist vs Pessimist:
- Glass is half empty = pessimist
- Glass is half full = optimist
- Glass is only half empty = optimist
- Glass is barely half full = pessimist
- Glass is still only half empty! = optimist
- Glass is half empty of poison = optimist
- If your basement is flooded, then 'half empty' is optimistic
- If the quantity of optimists is a natural number greater than one, and can only be divided by one and itself, then this is Optimists Prime.



• I mentioned to my friend Joe that I'd talked to someone who was a phlebotomist. Later, one of his emails was entitled: Is anyone here a marine phlebotomist? What mad Seinfeldian skillz he has.



• Things I've learnt from doing The Edmonton Journal Crossword:
- The only airports in the world are JFK and ORLY
- The only airplane is the SST, and it only flew to JFK
- An eagle can't be endangered, its AERIE is too popular
- Mel OTT is the most famous ballplayer
- An EEL is a scaleless fish
- Buy stocks in maids, because Indian AMAH's are in
- EDAM is the only type of cheese
- An OGEE must be the best damn moulding





• Welsh Rabbit was originally used as an insult against the Welsh, because it contained no rabbit. In England, rabbit was the poor man's meat. In Wales, cheese was the poor man's meat. Its history has largely been sanitized, and you'll now see descriptions like: "Eighteenth-century English cookbooks reveal that it was then considered to be a luscious supper or tavern dish, based on the fine cheddar-type cheeses and the wheat breads..."



• That feeling like you want to jump off a high place is called l'appel du vide (the call of the void).



• On a ship, port is left and starboard is right. 'Port' and 'left' both have 4 letters, so that's an easy way to remember it. Port used to be called larboard, but thankfully they changed it.



• 'Ski-Doo' was originally supposed to be 'Ski-Dog', for the tie-in with sled dogs, but the guy doing the poster messed it up. The owner liked the new name more.



• Los Angeles International Airport is abbreviated LAX. If you used to police that area for work, be careful not to list your occupation as an ex-LAX security guard.



• A quanta is the smallest detectable amount of energy, not a ton of energy. Thus, a quantum leap is the tiniest detectable leap. But yes, it does sound all sciencey.





• Arab word for dust storm: haboob.



• The Big Bang Theory has the best opening theme song of any show. Don't argue - but if you must, then at least argue for "The Partridge Family".



• Traditional fishing is a feminine occupation because it involves attracting, rather than pursuing.



• Edmonton has rights to a new lingerie football team. The best name suggestion: Sex-imos.