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The Shadowland Prophesy
by mcc
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Run Hello
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Xaxxaxoxax
by mcc
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Run Hello
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Markov Space
by mcc
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Run Hello
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01/26/12 : Roxy: Break some glass.
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MS Paint Adventures
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01/26/12 : Roxy: Clear some space.
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MS Paint Adventures
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01/26/12 : Roxy: Break bottle.
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MS Paint Adventures
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01/26/12 : Roxy: Retrieve mutant kitten.
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MS Paint Adventures
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01/25/12 : Roxy: Take cat.
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MS Paint Adventures
No Child left behind intended to expand upon equity imperatives of Title I and combine them w/ eductional reforms from the state standards movement
promises equal opportunity
1. academic proficiency for all in 2014
proficiency define by each state's academic standards
3. "highly qualified teachers
4. states + school districts accountable for ensuring all schools have capcity to keep up with needed progress, consequences and sanctions for schools that do not meet expectations
5. student progress measured through annual assessments determined by state standards, reported in disaggergted form by racial/ethnic/disability/income groupings
NCLB has failed to achieve any objectives
1. NO state is on track to reach full profiency by 2014
number of schools that fail to achieve is likely to accelerate, no progress in reading or math, achievement gaps between poor and middle class
2. most states do not have challenging acad standards, states have lowered criteria in response to NCLB pressres
3. law has ensured teachers of minimum qualification, still massive gap between poor and middle class teacher quality
4. schools in need of improvement lack resources and instructional capacity to deliver more successful students, states and school districts also lack resources
5. many states tests are not valid in accordance with psychometric standards, most state nosts not fully aligned with state acad stands, test validity affects english language learners and students w/ disabilities most
NCLB timetable puts unreasonable performance expectation w/ minimal support
law doesnt define 'challenging' pace, states set sloppy standrds
states are penalized for setting high standards and not living up to them
some support NCLB because of symbolic commitment to educational equity
"NCLB is a start"
possible to repair apparent disconnect between equity ovjectives of nclb and ineffective reform mechanisms
can it be revised?
Demanding national goals of NCLB *are* achievable
Positive academic goals must be demonstrated for all races under NCLB, but no school system has ever achieved goals set by NCLB
NCLB labels schools "in need of improvement" for failing to meet impossible goals, has effect on public perception
concept of punishment Doesn't Fucking Work
states can backload acceleration of standards under nclb
proficiency-for-all mandate must be modified
Proficiency goals are stressed while opportunity goals are spoken of minimally
NCLB reconsidered: Is it delivering MEANINGFUL education opportunities?
Meaningful has judicial and legislative antecedents that give it meaning
Consistent progress toward high levels of achievement rather than concrete levels of such
Add another dimension of judging school performance: Measure how quickly the gaps in educational opportunity are being narrowed
NCLB bargain: Increased resources for increase accountability
Extra funding has not even covered the costs of new testing and administration!
NCLB standards allow teachers with minimum qualifications to pass requirements
Health-regulated barriers to learning
Lower-class children lack linguistic development in early age
At the root of achievement gaps are opportunity gaps
Concentrates of accountability instead of developing a support framework
Comprehensive cost analyses with suggestions for how to increase cost-efficiency
Hey, what if we trade increased states rights for the inclusion of a broad antidiscriminatory civil rights framework as an amendment to the constitution.
"Laboratory" of the states
Supreme Court decided in Tex v Rodriguez that public education is not under federal interest in Constitution
Challenges to inequitable funding at the state level have met with significant success--changing legislation using the court
"What's missing from this story- what's unfortunately almost always missing from any discussion of GID revisions in the DSM, including discussion from the committee members- is any mention of the actual science. People can argue about whether the revisions are helpful or politically disadvantageous, and those are legitimate concerns, but at the end of the day the DSM is supposed to be science based. When the furor over Blanchard's taxonomy first blew up publically, the science was beginning to point in the direction of cross gendered brain wiring as the cause of transsexuality. In the seven years since, it's become conclusive. A small partial list of the studies confirming this are toward the bottom of this post:
http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2010/03/we-do-things-differently-here-in.html
TThe owner of this site has got many, many more from multiple research groups referenced in various posts I don't have the time to dig out. They all support the same conclusion- transsexuality is caused by cross-sexed brain wiring, and sexual orientation, contra Blanchard, has nothing to do with it.
And that's not even mentioning the fact that "autogynephilia" was never actually differentiated from "normal" female sexuality in Blanchard's studies. It has since been found that if you apply his criteria to cisgendered women, over 90% would be classed as "autogynephilic"
http://home.netcom.com/~docx2/AGF.htm
(Note that Blanchard's original AGP and transsexual typology study used what Moser characterized as the "common" definition rather than his "rigorous" one)
Unfortunately, Blanchard and Zucker have managed to insulate themselves from reality with their political influence within the field of psychiatry, so all this will be completely ignored for this round of DSM revisions. "
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final fantasy tactics
i've been playing final fantasy tactics again lately. it's such an amazing game, every time i play it i appreciate it more.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/house-passes-bill-that-intrudes-on-private-and-religious-schools-86274992.html
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it's really important to be able to let go of and diffuse anger.
stop trying to write the Great American Novel, it's already been written and it's called "gravity's rainbow"
hey the c-span archives are open, do any of you readers(none) want me to start posting horrible shit that i find? i started with the search string "jesse helms", figured i'd get to the worst shit first
today i found out that it's illegal to own a raven or crow. then i found out that it sort of isn't illegal. http://corvitude.com/corvidranch.html
i want to make you understand how fucking complex everything is.
essentialism is a myth; humans have no fixed nature. the whole record of human history(and the history of existence itself) can be explained in terms of the causal principle. the only human nature that can be spoken of is the chemical reaction of the human body to its physical surroundings and internal status.
this is the template for understanding everything about human social organization. we can derive no truths about the "natural" human condition when no human can be observed outside of any social/environmental influences, but by understanding environmental influences we can explain and predict human behavior with some accuracy.
how do people look at history without this mindset? some people are certain that history is driven by the essential differences between groups divided along arbitrary borders, or the influence of a divine being with extremely obscure methods, impenetrable designs. by force of divine or biological inevitability, people possess an essential nature, are 'good' or 'evil' down to their cores.
a complete history, which takes into account the countless baleful horrors of the human condition, can't be explained in this context. the world is a place where prison doctors kick the stomachs of pregnant inmates as they're delivering their babies. the world is a place where women die in dangerous factories, scalded and drowned in vats of boiling rubber. dr. john fian, a real human being in full color who felt pain as real and exquisite as you do, met his end in north berwick, scotland, "put to the most severe and cruel pain in the world, called the boots." if such cruelty is inherent in human nature or inexorable divine will, then we are utterly beyond hope of redemption, we have only to despair.
but this isn't the case. applying the causal principle allows us to avoid viewing history in these stark terms of despair vs. optimism, because it uniquely allows us to derive some aphoristic truths without generalizing away any important facts. i'm thinking of a particular truth here: "everything makes sense." not "everything happens for a reason", but "everything happens for every reason, to varying degrees."
applying the essentialist mindset as a historical method flagrantly defies everything that we actually know about history. an intensive review of even a single historical event requires one to understand an unbelievably sophisticated number of facts which constitute a rough approximation of the sociocultural context in which the event occurred. during a historical event, each actor involved is a product of their entire personal history intersected with the results of their genetic code. the place where the actor was born, their sexual attractions, their gastrointestinal well-being, their childhood nightmares, their personal conflicts of interest, all of these can and do influence historical outcomes in ways that can't be measured. everything makes sense.
to say that these influences can't be measured, however, doesn't mean that they are irrelevant or that they can't be accounted for. as analysis of the historical record grows deeper, the influences of smaller historical forces can be seen; when we do history correctly, we develop an ever-closer approximation of actual history without fully explaining it. it's impossible to know everything, but our generalizations can become marvelously accurate and we can strive to include as much of the historical record as possible in our analysis. because everything makes sense.
when i speak of history, i'm not referring to an isolated academic subject which stands apart from other subjects; countering essentialism also requires us to recognize the arbitrary divisions even between the academic schools. political science, history, sociology, psychology, all of these fields focus on analyzing the total historical record in different parts or for different purposes, but they cannot exist apart. to understand political science thoroughly, you must understand how sociology and psychology effect political actors. to understand sociology, you must understand the place of political entities in the formation of societies and the role of psychology in informing people's social development. the political and social spheres loom large on the landscape of human imagination which psychology seeks to understand. all three topics draw on history for their analysis. an elegant understanding of art and literature is required to account for their influence in these subjects.
and all human history is but a consequence of human biology and environmental circumstances. our biology and environment are but consequences of the laws of chemistry, which are themselves the consequences of the laws of physics. our understanding of physics is shaped and limited by our chemical-biologically determined sensory perception, and the development of physics as a science is a consequence of our unique methods of social organization. things circle in on themselves. there is a completeness, a sort of reciprocal cycle, that the complexity of reality creates. because everything makes sense.
this requires us to be rigorously challenging of our own moral standards. it seriously fucks with the concept of "blame": our whole political system is founded on the idea that people are solely responsible for their own actions and life conditions. but people as actors play no role in their own genetic composition or the environment that shapes them. to go against the environment requires that the actor have some internal difficulty in dealing with an environmental circumstance, and to do this the actor must have some knowledge that things can be different. even then, there are often extreme social consequences to acting against the norm.
in short, we're like the people chained up in the cave in the allegory of the people in the cave by the Greek guy.
john fian and the thousands of curious young girls and unlucky old women who shared his fate died at the hands of miserable, sexually repressed, uneducated, malnourished, perpetually insecure people. those who accused witches were not always petty profit-seekers often quite literally insane with grief in the wake of losing something invaluable to their lives: their virility or fertility, irreplaceable livestock or crops, their health and well-being, the lives of their loved ones. is it unreasonable to be understanding of the actions of these people, who desperately sought explanation and closure and completeness in the face of terrifying events that they couldn't understand? were they truly "evil"?
this is the defense attorney's argument, isn't it? that the atrocity that individuals do can't be separated from the society which created the individual. this is the argument which we are too quick to reject in our hunger to punish people.
the priests who condemned witches to their torture and death did so because they were insane too. deprived of all sexual gratification and given an ideological language of authoritarian malice by their churches. their wealth and privilege could barely protect them from the horrible conditions of the outside world; no amount of money could have bought them decent medical care.
do you see it yet? everything blending together. everything connecting, not in some vague spiritual sense but in the most direct sense imaginable. the individual, irreducible from the universe which developed them.
to get someone to commit torture, you must not only possess the authority which reasonably inspires fear and therefore obedience but you must also dehumanize the subject of torture, you must convince the torturer that their victim is deserving.
to maintain racial apartheid in any society, the authority figures of that society must work tirelessly to prevent miscegenation and integration. the racist institution is constantly threatened by the possibility that people will just stop caring about the cultural divide and start fucking.
to study the abuser, determine at what points and in which what ways they were abused.
do you see it yet? the causal principle is the foundation of everything. intellectual honesty can only occur when you recognize the staggering complexity of all existence and constantly compare your own intellectual products against this standard.
essentialist arguments attempt to make arbitrary divisions meaningful. they unwittingly sacrifice accuracy and validity for the sake of efficiency. this isn't necessarily wrong; indeed, the best generalizations are actually extremely effective, descriptive, and practical. they should never, however, be confused for the indescribably complex reality which they seek to describe.
do you see it yet?
Draw Your Own Site Design
uh, so i think my new adhd medication works?! and it isn't going to drive me crazy like adderall?!
lately i've been thinking about the empty world. the empty world is a place after a large part of the human population is culled by disease. a place where small settlements and patterns of organized living still exist but once populous cities and towns are all abandoned and are becoming reclaimed by nature.
there's something about this kind of environment that is attractive to me. i think that a less populous world is the only environment that heroic qualities can be properly displayed in, simply because a smaller cast makes the players that do exist more immediate.
the empty world has its population distribution in microcosm to the world we live in today. it has its bullies and villains, its heroes, its victims, its common people and privileged people. it also relies on and is informed by the circumstances of a low population density.
in such an environment, physical strength and melee combat would probably figure prominently, and would become the weapon of bullies and villains. at some point, someone will be the first person to pick up a rock or other projectile weapon, learn to throw it properly, and effectively keep even strong people at bay.
i don't want to make things that are unoriginal. so many of my most beloved stories are driven by melee combat that doesn't operate on rules, the hero can succeed basically at the discretion of the author using whatever explanation they might have on hand. i'm constantly thinking of ways that this formula can be altered and replaced without compromising the intensity of the heroic struggle.
...this is what my creative process looks like right now, i guess, trying to pare away cliches and bad ideas so as to get to the core of my ideas and present them properly. "maybe it'll be fun"
there are all kinds of finches hopping about my front yard every morning.
sometimes in the back of my mind there's a old woman in a heavy grey coat and trench hat sitting out and watching the finches. one day, the finches fly up and past her and she's gone, just the coat and trench hat in a perfect pile at the spot she was sitting.
things are starting to move really quickly in my life. for the first time, i feel like things in my life might start to be completely under my control. i had no idea how exciting this feeling could be until i tried it.
it makes me less afraid of myself. when my life was in the hands of other people, i always felt like i had to watch what i did or some terrible unnameable thing was going to happen. this is beginning to change. when i laugh, i do it as loudly and as long as i want. when i drive i sit in the right lane and drive the speed limit and let people pass me. i make eye contact with people without feeling awkward or worrying what they're going to think about me.
this makes it easier to feel like myself. and you know what THAT means...
"a woman needs a place of her own to flip the fuck out and draw scrows"
--Virginia Woolf, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
this blog is a place where i can do whatever i want. there are more and more places like that in my life these days, but i figure it couldn't hurt to start another one. i'm going to try and update this often with lots of dumb little notes and longer, more well-thought-out stuff.
hi. i'm wendy. i'm 21 years old and i live in an apartment on U of Memphis campus. my goal is to learn everything in the world before i die. thanks for enjoying this thing.
