Raptor Release at Carpenter Nature Center

Live and Die, by the Avett Brothers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5CMDmxtpbc

Minnesota's Answer to the Achievement Gap

Some racial groups are not scoring as well as others in academic testing. Some demographics have a higher number of behavior issues. How do we fix this? Should we "dumb-down" the standards and rules to close the achievement gap? Because that is what I'm seeing from our education system right now. Don't tell me some people can't live up to the standards. That is simply not true and another backhanded form of discrimination. If you work hard and obey the rules, good things should happen.

My wife is from a family of immigrants and she was born across the world from where she lives now. Her family were refugees when she arrived in the USA. She now has her Master's degree in Education and teaches Art. When I met her she was teaching jr. high. The artwork the students created was spectacular. When the art program was cut due to funding, she left that district for a new one with a new emerging art program for elementary age kids. I expected the artwork would be less... spectacular because of the younger ages of the kids. I was wrong. I asked her how her students could do such great work? She answered simply, "I have high standards and the students try hard."

That is the direction we should be heading instead of treating some people like they are unable to achieve. That is telling them it is OK to be underachievers. That is telling them that they can't do it; so don't try.

This liberal idea that we need to lower the standards is not working. At a parent engagement event at our school district last evening, I was alarmed to learn that in-spite of such misguided efforts, the gap still exists. Shall we lower the standards more?

Shouldn't academic achievement be celebrated more than becoming a street thug? Because until we address attitudes and help to create strong, caring families for kids, this will be a problem for a long time. No matter their color, religion, origin—they can achieve. Don't try to tell me they can't!

Morning Song

Morning Song by the Avett Brothers

Political Dynamics of Climate Change

There has been a lot of talk about climate change recently—and rightly so. A young lady from Sweden by the name of Greta Thunberg, has brought the fight to the world leaders. She is quite right, that we need to be careful of what we do to the environment. I remember when I was a child, there were no hawks or eagles around my local area—because of the widespread use of DDT. Now after being banned in 1972, I see hawks daily and eagles weekly.

But there are still climate change doubters. Even if the science shows the impact, some will always deny it. Part of this is due to how the World Economy plays into the politics. This is often frustrating for the activists; who usually don't want to think about this part of the issue—because they believe their point-of-view is of a higher importance. Perhaps it is, but when I visited the the climate protest at the Minnesota State Capitol, the first few speakers were more focused on racial inequality than they were on climate change. I wasn't able to stay for the entire protest (only a small portion) since I had work to do on a Friday afternoon. But what I heard sounded a bit off the main topic. But since similar protests were going on globally, hopefully the message of stopping/reducing climate change was the main focus.

Finally, while we can be sure that we (humans) are causing changes on the Earth, if we look at the Earth's prehistoric climate change timeline, climate/weather changes and mass extinctions have and will likely continue with or without our help. Regardless, we, as citizens of this planet need to be responsible and try to give our children the best world we can.

—KJC

Ride Prince's Hondamatic

Equal Treatment for all Races

https://kstp.com/news/former-st-paul-teacher-talks-publicly-about-525000-legal-settlement--spps/5501720/?cat=1

One standard for all races. Anything less is discrimination.

Avett Brothers

The Avett Brothers and Trampled by Turtles was a great concert!

Climate Change Protest

It was great to stop by the Climate Change Protest at the Capitol today! But I couldn't stay very long. I had to leave the protest in the capable hands of the people who don't work.

The signs were great! In fact I haven't seen that many cardboard signs since that panhandler convention a few years back. But just the same, I'm glad that somebody is taking notice of the damage being done to the environment.

https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

Dingo Patch

I'm trying to see if I can get a patch pushed out to all of our computers so that when you turn them on, instead of the little musical startup sound, it shouts, "The dingo ate your baby!".

I Remember 9-1-1

Only One Shooting

When he woke up in the morning and checked the news, there had only been one shooting overnight that was hardly anything! Yet, after all of the shootings every day and every night, the neighbors were getting upset. But why now? There had been only one shooting!!! I mean, that is hardly anything right? Now if there had been 147,496 shootings then there might be something to get upset about!!! It was all a moot point anyway as long as conservatives wanted more and more guns; and the liberals were afraid to place blame on anyone shooting whose skin was a darker complexion, the problem would continue on and on anyway so why get upset? I mean really! How are people supposed to settle their differences? By talking? Come on let's be realistic! Shouldn't we just blame the police, bad schools, an unfair world? Certainly that is much safer politically and socially! Oh well, he couldn't fix the world and there had only been one shooting overnight. That was nothing maybe even cause for celebration! If we weren't interested in really making the changes that might fix the problem then we should take our victories where they come right? Only one... That's not like a million... He happily continued on with this day.

Sophos Tracking

In the environment I'm familiar with, Sophos tracks all browsers relentlessly except for Chrome. It is very lenient with Chrome, but tracks where the user goes from all other browsers and then assigns a label, often rather recklessly to the sites that it deems unauthorized or problematic. I'm not sure if it was set up this way, or if it comes this way out of the box.

Sophos Fails

After seeing Sophos for three months I can tell you that in my opinion it fails. There are false positives, and it sits in the background and prevents things from working even by an administrator. I cannot recommend this antivirus software. Perhaps worst of all, is that it is not upfront about messing with your programs. It sits in the background and behaves like malware.

Trump Nails Hurricane Forecast

Trump Nails Hurricane Forecast
UnAssociated Press
September 6, 2019

President and inventor of "Fake Science," Donald Trump, was super accurate with his forecast of Hurricane Dorian this week! His cool map clearly shows that Dorian slammed into North Korea, wiping it off of the face of the Earth. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was asked about what it is like being killed by a superstorm. "No! I alive," he shouted at reporters. "You dead! Me still alive!"

"No! Me still alive!"

Stuffed Peppers