Category: Collaboration Zones

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SchwartzReport: US Education (and Graduates) Comatose

04 Education, Cultural Intelligence

schwartz reportThe “No child left behind” educational scheme imposed during the Bush Administration has been, every teacher I know has told me, a disaster. Here is an impassioned assessment. At the very moment when we face a world in which many other countries are developing technological prowess, we are left with an educational system that is falling over a cliff.

A warning to college profs from a high school teacher

Valerie Strauss

The Answer Sheet, February 9, 2013

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Focus on testable material has destroyed US education, and eliminating all teaching, practice, and testing of higher-order skills such as constructing hypotheses, testing them, and developing competing arguments for and against any given topic based on soundly discovered, discriminated, distilled, developed sources and methods.

See Also:

SchwartzReport: One Third of Americans (USA) Qualify as Idiots

 

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Chuck Spinney: Time to Face the Truth About Iran

05 Iran, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Ineptitude
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

An excellently argued appeal to sanity.

Time to Face the Truth About Iran

by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

Agence Global,  07 Feb 2013

Fifty years ago, during the Cuban missile crisis, the United States faced what is frequently described as the defining challenge of the Cold War. Today, some argue that America is facing a similarly defining challenge from Iran’s nuclear activities. In this context, it is striking to recall President John Kennedy’s warning, proffered just months before the missile crisis, that “the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” Half a century later, Kennedy’s warning applies all too well to America’s discussion — it hardly qualifies as a real debate — about how best to deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

For more than thirty years, American analysts and policy-makers have put forward a series of myths about the Islamic Republic: that it is irrational, illegitimate and vulnerable. In doing so, pundits and politicians have consistently misled the American public and America’s allies about what policies will actually work to advance US interests in the Middle East.

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SchwartzReport: Right versus Wrong – Four Cases

Cultural Intelligence

schwartz report

 

 

Many Americans Believe Recession Is Permanent CHAD BROOKS – Live Science/Business News Daily

As Drought Intensifies, 2 States Dig In Over Water War GRANT GERLOCK – npr

Moyers Guest: Internet Company ‘Bullies’ Charge ‘A Lot’ for Access But Give ‘Second Class Access’  SAMANTHA KIMMEY – The Raw Story

Indiana Soybean Farmer Sees Monsanto Lawsuit Reach US Supreme Court PAUL HARRIS – The Guardian (U.K.)

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Marcus Aurelius: Fight Like a Girl Re-Defined

Cultural Intelligence
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

Click to Watch Video — Full Screen Mode Recommended!

Video (1:07) ARUGAH!  All-American Kid

Katelyn Francis is 13 years old. She's a 3-gun competitor and she is now our favorite athlete. This has been making the rounds so you may have already seen it, but if not, check this young lady out. THIS, boys and girls, THIS is raising kids RIGHT. This is Katelyn at the Fallen Brethren 3 Gun in TX.

Katelyn Francis, 13
Katelyn Francis, 13

Katelyn is from Missouri. The rifle is an automatic ACR, the shotgun a 12ga Benelli (nearly as big as she is) and the pistol an S&W M&) 9mm PRO. She says, and we quote, “For those of you who say I need to find cover and try doing it with people shooting back……I am 13 and this is a competition. For those (few) of you who think I should be playing with barbies instead of guns and who think this type of sport will make me a bad person. I play on several sports teams at my school. I also make straight A's. I am a girly girl (notice the finger nail polish). I have been shooting since I was 5 and do not play video games. Not that I dont like them, I would rather shoot real guns than fake ones. i have never had any professional training except from my dad and a couple of his buddies.”

Damn right. Keep up the good work Katelyn.

This young lady is damn sure Mad Duo Approved!

Mad Duo, Breach-Bang-Clear!

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Theophillis Goodyear: Updating McLuhan — The Message Is Now the Medium

Cultural Intelligence, IO Impotency
Theophillis Goodyear
Theophillis Goodyear

Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “the medium is the message” to draw attention to the  heretofore underestimated importance of media. Trains can serve as a simple illustration of what he meant. It wasn't the cargo in the trains that was of prime significance to society. It was the fact of trains.

But now things have changed. Trains were the arteries of change at one time. But those arteries have grown in number and diameter. Now it's not just trains but TV, radio, internet, smart phones, and too many other examples of media to mention.

Media has become a jungle of arteries that are so thick that individuals can't negotiate them or penetrate them. We are hamstrung by media. And these media transmit useless mediocrity at best and toxic folly at worst.

Now media isn't just the message; media has become the aorta of survival. So now the idea that “the medium is the message” has become obsolete. Now the message that media transmits is all important!

So as innovative as Marshall McLuhan was as a thinker, this is something that I doubt he could understand to the degree you and I can understand it.

Of course I probably wouldn't understand it at all if not for Marshall McLuhan.

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Marcus Aurelius: Gun Control, Revolution, & Secession

Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

This is circulating among retired SOF O-6's.

The Next American Civil War

Cusp of violence: Defend something the political left, an authoritarian cabal itself, cannot abide, at all: personal freedom, individual freedom.

“Tyrants preserve themselves by sowing fear and mistrust among the citizens by means of spies, by distracting them with foreign wars, by eliminating men of spirit who might lead a revolution, by humbling the people, and making them incapable of decisive action…” … Aristotle

EXTRACT

Look.  There is so much pent-up anger in America today that if this argument over gun control ever gets beyond the talking stage it is reasonable to believe there will be violence on a scale not seen since the 1860’s in this country.

I would ask the political left if they understand that this is only a temporary argument over gun control?  Do they understand it will quickly become an argument over whether or not the country continues to exist as a single fifty state entity or breaks up into separate countries?  I don’t think they do.  Indeed, I don’t think most Americans understand that once this fight begins, in earnest, there will be no turning back and when it is ended—there will be no going back, either.

Read full article.

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Theophillis Goodyear: A Glimpse of Integrated Consciousness

Cultural Intelligence
Theophillis Goodyear
Theophillis Goodyear

The Handbook to Higher Consciousness, by Ken Keyes Jr

Keyes had a deep insight into basic spirituality. It's comparable to the Buddhist view. In fact sometimes I think he's more of a Buddhist than many contemporary Buddhists. And he acknowledges that he drew on the teachings the Buddha, Jesus, Western psychology, and many other philosophies to arrive at his system, which he calls The Living Love way.

The introduction gives a good overview, in my opinion, about the social predicament of contemporary humans. And I think it's one of those cases where simply seeing things from this perspective is in itself a kind of solution, because seeing the big picture is often a solution in itself.

Some people may see this as New Age philosophy, but it really doesn't deserve that label. this is very similar to the overall philosophy of the Transpersonal Psychology Association, which is made up of psychologists with Ph.Ds, obviously, who have combined Western psychology with every religion under the sun. Some are Buddhists, some are Gnostic Christians, some are Sufi Muslims, etc. But none, I repeat, none, are fundamentalists or religious fanatics. They are mainstream psychologists who are simply more enlightened than most psychologists or most religious people, in my opinion. And I'm only saying this so you won't underestimate the value of what Keyes says. I think his perspective is valid and enlightened. His system may not be for everyone, but that's a given.

Continue reading “Theophillis Goodyear: A Glimpse of Integrated Consciousness”

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