Fraternal Organization Signs ONLY !
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Europe, Portugal, Algarve, Faro, Centre, High rise (slightly cut)
Elementary to high-density building construction is, of course, the stacking of houses. The Romans started doing it in the first century with their 'Insulea' (in Ostia Antica. There are still some ruined examples of them).
The multi-story modernist apartment building from a few posts ago is shown here, zoomed in on its yellow complex right part. It is from the end of the 20th with an ornamented/articulated front facade serving two purposes - decoration and shading of the sun (brise soleil - there seems to be a kinda Le Corbusean touch to be enjoyed here).
While editing the picture, I remembered the cover of Perrow’s Complex Organizations. After a long time, the book is still in print, though the cover has been changed many times. The book explores different (visual) metaphors of organizational structure and complexity.
High density in Faro (1) is here. High density in Faro (2) is here. High density in Faro (3) is here.
This is number 27 of the Faro album & 1385 of Minialism / explicit Graphism.
Saudi-Arabien ist eines der wenigen Länder der Welt, in dem es Doppelstockcontainerverkehr auf der Schiene gibt. Auf der gut 550 km langen Strecke vom King Abdul Aziz Port in Dammam nach Riyadh verkehren am Tage mehrere mit EMD SDL38, SDL50 und GT46 ACS bespannte Züge. Die Strecke und der Güterverkehr wurden bis zum letzten Jahr durch die SRO (Saudi Railway Organization) betrieben und gehören seit 2020 zur SAR (Saudi Arabia Railways). In der Ausweiche Shajah hat am Morgen des 18.11.2021 der von den Loks 2033 (SDL38) und 4314 (GT46 ACS) gezogene Containerzug nach Riyadh einen Gegenzug gekreuzt und beschleunigt nun in die Sandwüste hinein.
Saudi Arabia is one of a few countries in the world with double stack container traffic by railway. Between the King Abdul Aziz Port in Dammam and the capitol Riyadh you can see several trains a day hauled by EMD SDL38, SDL50 and GT46 ACS on this about 550 km long line. The track and freight service were once owned and operated by the Saudi Railway Organization (SRO) and belong since last year to the SAR (Saudi Arabia Railways).
In the morning of November 18, 2021, loco 2033 (SDL38) and 4314 (GT46 ACS) crossed another container train at Shajah junction and are now running through the desert to Riyadh.
Hello there! I hope all is well! Happy Tuesday my friends! I am here featuring Chez Moi with the Sassy Messy Futon which is new to the Tres Chic Event. It is texture change by hud. I liked the black color and went with it. I love black spaces and adding bold colors! This futon has some clothes and shoes thrown about it. It inspired me to decorate a closet or dressing room. Having clothes on a living room sofa for me would make my OCD go in overdrive. But it's fine in the closet. LOL This Futon can go in any space you choose though. Don't let my weird ways influence you! It would also look cute in a nice foyer entry. The animations in here are really nice and there is something for everyone. I always have to try out animations in furniture. You don't want something you and your guests will look crazy sitting on! LOL Full details are on the blog! Feel free to have a look! Thank you so much for the support and have a blessed day! xoxo <3333 Ebony
Majesty- Unorganized Organization- majestyfiles.blogspot.com/2019/07/majesty-unorganized-org...
Visit Majesty Blog: majestyfiles.blogspot.com/
Chassepierre is part of the Belgian town Florenville located in Wallonia in the province of Luxembourg.
The village is a member of the non-profit organization Les Plus Beaux Villages de Wallonie ("The Most Beautiful Villages of Wallonia"). The name Chassepierre comes from Casa petrea, the Latin for "stone house". Indeed, the houses of the village are mostly made of stones from the 18th and 19th century.
The village, considered one of the most charming of Belgium, is mainly famous for its international festival of street art, more commonly known as la Fête des Artistes (literally "the Artists' Festival"). The Chassepierre Festival takes place every year on the second-to-last weekend of August.
The festival currently gathers some 50 professional performance companies with different artists such as actors, musicians, dancers, and acrobats from all over the world. More than 30,000 visitors take part in this festival every year.
Following the Civil War, R-MC students raised $13,000 to construct a campus in Ashland, Virginia, after their facilities in Boydton were rendered unusable. Washington-Franklin Hall, or "Wash-Frank" Hall, was the first building constructed on the Ashland campus in 1872.
Incidentally, Wash-Frank was also the first brick building in Ashland and it houses many historical treasures, including a rosewood Steinway piano, one of only four in the world. The building is included on the National Register of Historic Places and, appropriately, it is home to R-MC's history department.
Named after two long-standing student organizations, the Washington Literary Society and the Franklin Debate Society, Wash-Frank Hall is the host site for the college's annual Washington-Franklin Collegiate Challenge Debates, a parliamentary-style debate in which audience participation is strongly encouraged.
A lone photographer finds a secluded spot in Mesquite Dunes, Death Valley National Park.
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www.mikebordersphotography.com
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50% of all profits donated to childhood cancer organizations
Lake Street is a major business street in South Minneapolis that serves the many different ethnic communities that live there. The neighborhood is very progressive and contains many artistic organizations and artists.
Buckling Organizations.
Res illustrantes magnas respectus chartulae acutae variae interactiones spiritus transformantes phaenomena reflexiones interna.,
συσχετιζόμενοι χώροι αποδίδονται πινακίδες που καταρρέουν καρέκλες επιδείξεις φιλοσοφία απογύμνωση υλικού αποκήρυξη κανόνων φυσική κόλαση,
manières entrelacées divers symboles inspirés énergies modèles de naufrage absorptions spectacles appelant focus superficialité dirigeants guerres agressives à l'intérieur,
proses hanesyddol geiriau dwfn reverberating rhyngweithio apathy trachwant awgrymiadau lethargies gwersi cynhenid awdurdodau anwybodaeth,
prljave strane kontradikcije izložene bučne štete neoprezni varvarski katalozi zanemarivanje slika stoka poziva daleki zvukovi sve veći nanosi,
協会を誘惑する評価されていない動き信じられないほどのゲーム無制限の火大声で叫び声を上げて固体の声を却下武器無数の仮定死の病気の心スペクターが崩れた.
Steve.D.Hammond.
From left to right:
María Antonieta Gaxiola, Director of the OAS Department of Human Resources
Jose Miguel Insulza, OAS Secretary General
Gerald Anderson, Gerald, OAS Secretary for Administration and Finance
Date: July 12, 2011
Place: Washington, DC
Credit: Patricia Leiva/OAS
Something I've wanted to do for awhile now with this special antique piece I have had for years. Love how this turned out, a feast to the eyes!
It's funny how, no matter how well you know a person, if you no longer live with them you don't know some of their little habits. Like the way my brother has his shirts color-coordinated to the hangers they are on.
UNESCO declares the DOLOMITES a “Natural World Heritage Site.”
On 26th June 2009, UNESCO included these calcite mountains located in northeastern Italy on its list of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. By this action, the United Nations has officially recognized, through its organization for education, science and culture, the unique nature of the Dolomites. Now the Dolomites, with their famous peaks, including Marmolada (3,342 m), the Three Peaks of Lavaredo (2,999 m), Averau (2,649 m), Sciliar (2,563 m), the Pale di San Martino (3,192 m) and Mount Pelmo (3,169 m) to name just a few, will take their rightful place among the most beautiful mountains in the world.
58 Sparks St., Ottawa
Dates:
1938 to 1939 (Construction)
Event, Person, Organization:
W.E. Noffke (Architect)
Other Name(s):
Postal Station B, Central Post Office (Designation Name)
Custodian: Public Works and Government Services Canada
Heritage Value
Postal Station B is a Classified Federal Heritage Building because of its historical associations and its architectural and environmental values.
Historical Value
Postal Station B was constructed as a postal substation between 1938 and 1939 as part of the Confederation Square redevelopment. It is associated with the Diamond Jubilee of the Confederation celebrations in 1927 when the federal government implemented a massive redevelopment of downtown Ottawa. The new post office was crucial in redesigning the eastern end of Ottawa’s central business district, and it has become the main centre for delivering all postal services for the downtown core.
Architectural Value
Postal Station B is a good example of the Classical and Château styles used in civic buildings during the 1930s. The building’s roof was imposed by a political preference for large copper roofs, often in the Château Style, and its smooth stone face and minimal decoration reflect the simplified character of classicism during the early 20th century. Its very good functional quality is shown in the excellent craftsmanship and materials used in the exterior construction and the rich treatment of the public spaces within. The building remains one of the best examples of the architect W.E. Noffke’s work.
The Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) is a South American New World vulture and is the only member of the genus Vultur. It is found in the Andes mountains and adjacent Pacific coasts of western South America. With a maximum wingspan of 3.3 m (10 ft 10 in) and weight of 15 kg (33 lb), the Andean condor is one of the largest flying birds in the world, and is generally considered to be the largest bird of prey in the world. It is a national symbol of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru and plays an important role in the folklore and mythology of the Andean regions. It may live to 50 years or more, and correspondingly has low reproductive rates. Andean Condors mate for life.
The Andean condor is considered vulnerable by the IUCN and the Peruvian Conservation Organization. As a result of research on its plight, its status was changed to Vulnerable from Near Threatened in 2020, and only about 10,000 individuals remain. Hacienda Zuleta is home to one of the reintroduction Condor preserves where offspring of captured birds are reintroduced to the wild. Zuleta is home to one breeding pair, and wild condors will often pop by.
I'm crazy about organization!
What began with a simple, child's vintage loom
(featured here in green), has grown and grown!
Another child's loom was ordered (not featured),
and brought with it some heddles . . .
I decided I needed a bed tray to contain some of my supplies!
This I can straddle and also use as a place to balance my loom,
as I weave . . . and that's another photo!
Of course the piece below didn't need a loom at all!
A dear friend likes this the best of all!
*sigh* . . . I'm just a hopeless artist . . .
PS . . . don't you just LOVE the little wooden lamb?
It comes apart and is actually a baby's toy!
Snow blankets the White House south grounds during a blizzard Feb. 6, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.
President Barack Obama talks on the phone with FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate to receive an update on Hurricane Matthew, Oct. 8, 2016. The President spoke from his home in Chicago, Ill. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.
The Vogue Theater in downtown Manistee opened in 1938 and operated until 2005. In 2011 it was acquired by a non-profit organization and a $2.6 million restoration began in 2012.
*Working Towards a Better World
Our animal welfare is in our hands they devote their lives to us and we owe it to them to devote our lives to them. They should be fully integrated into the family. Animal abuse is unacceptable in any form. Our pets are helpless without our care, feeding them properly, giving them good hygiene, exercise and medical attention is important and of course loving them unconditionally as they do us.
I also believe that farms, zoos and other animal organizations should treat their animals with the care and respect they deserve, it is awful what some will do to make a quick bit of extra money. I hope that one day all our animal livestock will be properly cared for throughout the world.
The WannaGoFast organization was founded in order to fill a niche in the Motorsports marketplace. Our goal was to create a safe and controlled environment for fellow car enthusiasts to pursue their “Need For Speed” without the restrictions of the standard 1/8 or 1/4 mile drag strip. See what it’s like to hit speeds you’ve only dreamed of without the risk of law enforcement or causing injury to others, while being surrounded by on-site safety personnel.
WannaGoFast social media links...
Website: wannagofast.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/wannagofastllc
Instagram: www.instagram.com/_wannagofast_
Sue and I have visited the Rockingham church twice previously, but we decided to take Brian and Heather on a photographic field trip while we were at the cottage in the autumn. I find this pioneer church, situated way up on a hill, to be fascinating. What an interesting climb to services that would have been on a wintry and slippery Sunday morning.
There are tombstones around the structure, some with fences, so I think it is an apt post for HFF.
© Anvilcloud Photography
The following tidbits are excerpted from the Pembroke Library
The Rockingham Church, formerly known as St. Leonard’s Anglican Church, was built in 1875, when the hamlet of Rockingham was a thriving community. Essentially abandoned 60 years ago, the church’s simple grace and imposing location high on a slope overlooking the village attract many visitors each year. A post and beam structure, the building is a unique survivor of its kind in Renfrew County and one of the oldest remaining buildings in the area. In 1999, the Townships of Brudenell, Lyndoch & Raglan designated the church a heritage site under the Ontario Heritage Act.
Evidence for the date of construction of the Rockingham Church is conflicting, but The Renfrew Mercury, May 28, 1875, reported:
New Church at Rockingham
The Protestant settlers at Rockingham have, with the assistance of a few kind friends, lately erected a commodious place of worship for the settlement ...
In 1882, the Anglican Mission Board granted $400 to the Bishop of Ontario toward the support of a missionary to be stationed at Rockingham, where there was “a genial society of church members, Mr. Watson and family being among them.” The Rev. A.W. MacKay arrived in early 1882 to take up the position. The Church Warden’s Accounts for the same year record expenses of $391.14 to improve the church with the addition of a porch, communion rail, and organ, most likely to complete it for use as an Anglican mission; at that time it was named St. Leonard’s Church. A stove was added in 1885, and a belfry and bell in 1891.
In 1975 and 1976, a group under the name Madawaska Association for Developmental Ecology (M.A.D.E.) repaired the back wall, reshingled the roof and arranged for the return of the pews. Apart from the visits of tourists, history buffs and artists, the church stood empty and decaying until 1995, when the Friends of the Rockingham Church formed to undertake the present rehabilitation of the building.
Architecture of the Rockingham Church
The church is constructed in conventional post and beam style, with board and batten siding of locally cut pine. The siding is for the most part the original wood, installed in 1875. The old shingles removed in 1974-75 were of cedar—it is hard to believe they could have been original after 100 years, but there is no record in the Church Warden’s accounts that shows earlier repairs or replacement.
The elegant curved pews are original to the Rockingham Church. They were removed to the Quadeville Pentecostal Church in the 1940s and returned in the mid-1970s. The original altar rail and pulpit remain, although the font was moved to the Union Church at Barry’s Bay.
The repairs undertaken in 1999 and 2000 uncovered extensive rot to the post and beam structure within the walls and at the ground, which had caused the increasing sag in the walls and roof. Siding boards were removed and numbered to allow repair and/or replacement of the 8” x 8” beams without disturbing the interior panelling. Rafter ends, too, were rotting where they sat on the wall top plates. These were reinforced with new lumber, unsound roof decking was replaced, and the roof was reshingled in new cedar. The steeple was removed for repairs and reshingling. After much debate, copper was chosen for the steeple shingles for its longevity and its appearance. Repairs were completed in July 2000.
The Friends of the Rockingham Church, Inc.
The Friends of the Rockingham Church formed in 1995, in response to the imminent threat of the church’s demolition. The Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, then the owner of the church, was concerned about the building’s deteriorating condition and applied to the municipality for a demolition permit. Local concerned citizens took action, prevailed upon the Diocese to delay and eventually waive the application. The group incorporated in 1997 and was designated a charitable organization by Revenue Canada. The purchase of the building was finalized in 1998.
The Friends continue to raise funds for the ongoing maintenance and insurance of the building and to support programs to publicize its historical value. Tax receipts are issued for all donations. Cheques may be made out to:
The Rockingham Church is located at the junction of John Watson Road and the Rockingham Road, in the village of Rockingham. From the east (Killaloe or Eganville), turn off Hwy. 512 at Brudenell onto Renfrew County Road #66 (the Opeongo Line). Turn left onto Renfrew County Road #68 (the Letterkenny Road) and follow the signs to Rockingham. From the west (Combermere), turn off Hwy. 62 onto Hwy. 515. Turn left immediately onto Renfrew County Road #68 (the Rockingham Road) and follow to Rockingham.
It is the Distinguished Company at the Bijou Planks!
Today we see Clara Barton. An educator and humanitarian, Clarissa “Clara” Harlowe Barton helped distribute needed supplies to the Union Army during the Civil War and later founded the disaster relief organization, the American Red Cross.
Born on December 25, 1821 in Oxford, Massachusetts, Barton was the youngest of Stephen and Sarah Barton’s five children. Her father was a prosperous farmer. As a teenager, Barton helped care for her seriously ill brother David—her first experience as a nurse.
Barton’s family directed their painfully shy daughter to become a teacher. She began teaching at age 18, founded a school for workers’ children at her brother’s mill when she was 24, and after moving to Bordentown, New Jersey, established the first free school there in 1852.
In 1854 she was hired as a recording clerk at the US Patent Office in Washington, DC, the first woman appointed to such a post.
When the Civil War began in 1861, Barton quit her job and made it her mission to bring supplies to Union soldiers in need—among them, men of the 6th Massachusetts Infantry. This started a life-long career of aiding people in times of conflict and disaster. In 1862, she received official permission to transport supplies to battlefields and was at every major battle in Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, where she also tended to the wounded and became known as the “angel of the battlefield.” She was officially named head nurse for one of General Benjamin Butler’s units in 1864, even though she had no formal medical training. She joined Frances Gage in helping to prepare slaves for their lives in freedom. After the war, Barton helped locate missing soldiers, mark thousands of graves, and testified in Congress about her wartime experiences.
In 1869, Barton traveled through Europe to regain her health. While in Switzerland, she learned about the International Red Cross, established in Geneva in 1864. Returning to the US, Barton built support for the creation of an American society of the Red Cross by writing pamphlets, lecturing, and meeting with President Rutherford B. Hayes. On May 21, 1881, the American Association of the Red Cross was formed; Barton was elected president in June. In 1882, the US joined the International Red Cross.
Barton remained with the Red Cross until 1904, attending national and international meetings, aiding with disasters, helping the homeless and poor, and writing about her life and the Red Cross. In 1904, she established the National First Aid Association of America, an organization that emphasized emergency preparedness and developed first aid kits.
Clara Barton, a distinguished individual!
__________________________
A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.
There's no red-headed stepchildren in the agama's family, because only the head of the tribe gets to show off all of his brilliant colors while the rest of his family has to settle for dulled versions of the rainbow. These African lizards average only about nine inches long, but their bright colors and big personalities are hard to miss.
Color
Commonly called the rainbow lizard, the red-headed agama's crimson crown is just the start of his display. While females and non-dominant males are not so brightly colored, a breeding male has a red or orange head, blue body and a tail that can be either red, deep blue or striped turquoise. The male's colors intensify during breeding season. They also change when he's contemplating a fight with another male. Preceding a fight, his head turns brown and white spots appear on his body. Females and young males are typically brown or olive green with a white belly, and a head that is slightly different color than their body.
Social Organization
Dominant male red-headed agamas establish a territory and govern a group of ten to 20 females and juveniles within the territory. Subordinate males, if allowed to remain, must be submissive to the male leader, such as allowing him the choice spot for basking in the sun. Males fight for territory and control of the group, with the winner gaining the right to breed with the females.
Sewing Room Organization Challenge
Come check out my Sewing Room Organization Challenge and hundreds of links to sewing project tutorials!
Sea Shepherd names latest turtle campaign after murdered Costa Rican conservationist Jairo Mora
The environmental group Sea Shepherd will patrol beaches during this year’s turtle nesting season in the name of murdered Costa Rican conservationist Jairo Mora.
The group announced “Operation Jairo” on April 23 and asked for volunteers to help patrol beaches against poachers and other dangers in southeastern Florida, Honduras and Costa Rica.
“Sea Shepherd’s Operation Jairo campaign will span the peak nesting or hatching months for sea turtles in all three locations, in an effort to save as many hatchlings as possible – giving the next generations of these endangered species a fighting chance at survival,” the organization wrote on its website.
For the first time, the group will patrol Moín Beach in Costa Rica’s Limón province, the beach where Mora was brutally killed — allegedly by a group of poachers — in 2013.
In January, a criminal court acquitted seven men of Mora’s murder, citing reasonable doubt. The court also scolded the government for botching the investigation and trial proceedings.
Sea Shepherd will be patrolling from mid-July to mid-September in Fort Lauderdale, and from May 31st until September in Honduras and Costa Rica.
In Costa Rica, volunteers hope to protect hawksbill, green and leatherback sea turtles on Pacuare and Moín beaches. Poachers are the main threat.
Five out of seven species of sea turtles are endangered, and three of them —hawksbill, kemp’s ridley and leatherback — are listed as critically endangered.
Photo : Sea Shepherd
"Light Echo" Illuminates Dust Around Supergiant Star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon)
Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute conducts Hubble science operations.
Goddard is responsible for HST project management, including mission and science operations, servicing missions, and all associated development activities.
To learn more about the Hubble Space Telescope go here: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
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Special NOTE: On Feb. 8, 2012 I attached a comment, readable & easily discoverable on Page 2 of the comments below, that details the vast corporatist scheme, fronted by Jeb Bush, financed in part with hundreds of millions from Rupert Murdoch (FOX nooze), to privatize American public education & reduce it to 'virtual' schools - not to improve anything (as national & international educational research studies clearly show), but rather to become the final recipients of the taxes people pay so that they can skim huge profits off of the top while providing grotesquely inferior services & lots of lying propaganda to keep the public bamboozled. I beg everyone to read the report.
The McGuffey's Ecclectic Spelling Book was published in 1879.
Raymond Cyrus Hoiles (1878-1970) founded Freedom Communications, a newspaper publishing & broadcasting company that has never hesitated to shape the news to fit right wing ideology. When Hoiles was alive & roaring I lived in Orange County, California, home of the equally right wing Walt Disney & Walter Knott, & was frequently compelled to suffer people who agreed with Hoiles' constantly editorialized insistence that public education was a form of theft & communism that must at once be got rid of. Hoiles was motivated by his fundamentalist Christian persuasions, & quite serious. We should restrain our laughter at the abysmal stupidity of his example, because in many ways he & people like him won & are still winning control of public education. - To introduce the article below, I'll say a little about the Christian strategy.
For many years Orange County's teachers worked under a Draconian ruling that forbade the teaching of values. There is no way around the fact, however, that the statement, "Values may not be taught," is itself a value statement belonging to a class of propositions known as Epimenidean Paradoxes. A comparably illustrative sentence would be, "This is not a sentence." Or, a favorite of the best hypnotists, used when addressing a resistant subject, "Do not obey any instruction which I give you."
What, then, was intended by those who created the paradoxical Orange County law? Well, if any teacher dared to say or imply something that would be disagreeable to any person whose beliefs began & ended with church, flag & free-for-all capitalism, then that teacher could be charged with teaching values & be suspended. One family friend, a young man teaching at an elementary school in Anaheim, was charged, hounded, publicly disgraced, threatened with death & discharged from his post, immediately after which he died from a heart attack. The case was depicted in Life Magazine. His only crime was that he was Jewish. His wife, also a teacher, remained bereft & embittered the rest of her long life.
These people became increasingly invisible over time, largely by devising ever more clever ways for gaining control of both education policy & the public dialogue about education.
Ralph Reed, working for Pat Robertson & the Christian Coalition, devised the "stealth agenda" to place fundamentalists in every local school board in America. The plan helped select & fund candidates, who in accord with Reed's instructions never mentioned their religion or religious connections when campaigning for office. In 1983 Reed rigged an election at his university - he got started early, in other words. Recently we learned that Mr. Reed & Jack Abramoff were associate crooks. The revelation forced Reed to abandon his run to become the lieutenant governor of Georgia. Mr. Reed will not disappear, however. He remains a darling of the far Christian right, & owns Century Strategies, a dirty-tricks political consulting & lobbying organization. In 1999 Karl Rove got reed a nice contract with Enron, which was paying Reed $30,000 per month. And guess who recently went to Georgia to try to save poor Reed? Rudy Giuliani, who has the hots to be the next U.S. president & is pandering to the Christians so he can be their new burning Bush.
Stealthiness did not go away when the Christian Coalition folded & Reed went off on his own to rig elections for big bucks. Rather, the stealth moved into policy matters. For instance, all the phony propaganda claiming religious & private education is more successful, creating the excuse to promote vouchers (for which the motives are both religious & racist). Or, most recently, Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, which was sought by the Christians not because they believed all the testing of students would lead to improved education, but rather because they wanted teachers to be made too busy preparing students for endless tests about facts to find time to do the great evil thing, which is the teaching of concepts. Teaching concepts leads to teaching logic, scientific & other academic methodologies which by their nature instill respect for critical - read, skeptical - thinking. Dogmatists, advertisers & con men have equal cause to fear skepticism.
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From: Truthdig.com
Taking Back Our Schools--and Fixing Them
Full text with links: www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060425_taking_back_our_sch...
Posted on Apr. 25, 2006
By Wellford Wilms
The recent news reported in The New York Times that schools are throwing out science, social studies and art to make time for drilling students in remedial math and reading is a sign of things gone terribly wrong. Former New York State Commissioner of Education Thomas Sobol told the Times that narrowing education to just math and reading would be akin to restricting violin students to playing scales day after day. “They’d lose their zest for music.” But most schools that serve poor populations, like those in Cuero, Texas, are squeezed to meet federal math and reading standards. Cuero Superintendent Henry Lind told the paper, “When you have so many hours per day and you’re behind in some area that’s being hammered on, you have to work on that.”
But by the looks of things, hammering students for higher test scores isn’t making much of a difference. Most students have already lost their zest for learning. How do we know? In Los Angeles, upwards of 50% of Latino and African American students never finish high school. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’ve been a professor of education at UCLA for more than 25 years and am convinced that despite the fads that come and go, nothing has put a dent in the public schools’ failure to educate inner-city children. In fact, things are getting worse. But I am also convinced that we’ve been looking in the wrong places for solutions. My own research across a wide array of organizations—corporations, trade unions, public schools, colleges, teacher unions and police agencies—suggests another way of looking at the problem and that solutions will come from a new direction.
This essay is a proposition—one that I hope will spark a lively debate among Truthdig readers and inform policy leaders. Future essays will examine Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign to take over the public schools, analyze whether teacher unions can be a force for productive change, and expose promising ways to rebuild public investment in the schools.
Let’s start with Jonathan Kozol’s new book, “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.” It is a scathing indictment of American social policy that banned racial segregation in public schools in 1955 and then turned a blind eye to its implementation. Today, Kozol says, schools are more segregated than ever. But he fails to explain why resegregation has occurred. Because Kozol overlooks the root causes of the problem, his solutions—spending more money on dysfunctional schools and wishing for a social mandate to desegregate the schools—miss the point.
To be sure the problems are undeniable. Kozol examines the appalling condition of big-city schools. In school after school we see children who are brimming with potential but who are walled off from the larger society and abandoned by the schools. Most middle-class white Americans simply cannot comprehend the horrid schools that Kozol describes. Ceilings fall in, toilets are filthy, libraries, music and arts have been stripped away. Teachers in these schools, who are paid 40% less than teachers in the suburbs, are forced to teach “scripted” lessons that are written for children who are deemed incapable of learning.
It is all part of the latest reform pushed by the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind initiative, a reform aimed at the singular pursuit of increasing test scores. Learning has been stripped of its intrinsic meaning and reduced to simplistic steps—“Authentic Writing,” “Active Listening,” “Accountable Talk”—that hamper teachers in teaching anything but how to take a test. Behind it all is an attempt to impose control, much as mass production techniques were used a century ago, to standardize instruction to fit new immigrants to the system.
Meanwhile, millions of children are failing. In nearly half of the high schools in America’s 100 largest districts, fewer than 50% of students graduate in four years. Most of these students are from poor Latino and African-American families. And from 1993 to 2000 the number of failing schools has mushroomed by 75%. Mayor Villaraigosa calls Los Angeles’ high dropout rates “numbers that should put a chill down your spine.”
The reasons, Kozol argues, are lack of money and racial discrimination that produce inferior and segregated schools. No doubt this is partly true. We have tried to desegregate the schools for a half-century and failed. Middle-class white parents have voted for individual freedom with their feet, enrolling their children in private schools, leaving the public schools more segregated than ever. The same is true for middle-class black families. Gail Foster, an educator who has studied black independent schools, was quoted in 2004 in The New York Times as saying: “Many of the most empowered parents and families are removing their children. What’s left, in even working-class communities, are schools filled with the least empowered families. Families with the least parent involvement to offer, families with the least help with homework to offer. There’s been a continual outflow for at least 10 years, and it isn’t stopping now.”
More money is not the answer either. Kozol points to wide disparities in educational expenditures ranging from $11,700 per student in New York City to $22,000 in suburban Manhasset. Disturbing as that is, study after study shows that equalizing money does not necessarily equalize learning.
In 1966, sociologist James Coleman conducted the most extensive study ever made of desegregating education and found that what mattered most in students’ learning was the economic status of their peers rather than the racial makeup of the school. He also found that school funding was not closely related to students’ achievement—their families’ economic status was far more predictive. Coleman’s findings were controversial and led to a bitter debate, but they have been replicated many times. Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed it up best when he commented shortly after Coleman’s groundbreaking study, “We should begin to see that the underlying reality is not race but social class.”
Since social class matters because money follows privilege, and since desegregation will take generations to eradicate, what can be done now? Are poor children doomed to attend grossly inadequate schools? Surely not. We must find ways to remove the influences that have crippled the schools. Money must be diverted from bloated bureaucracies that snuff out innovation. Instead it must go directly to schools where principals and teachers can influence what is taught and what children learn, and help bring parents back into the fold. Otherwise, it is going down a rat hole.
Parents have a significant role to play in their children’s education, but their voices have been largely silenced. Over the last 40 years, we have witnessed the decline of civic involvement and the growing dominance of self-interest over the greater good, a social deterioration that sociologist Robert Putnam calls “hollowing out” in his 2000 book “Bowling Alone.” One result, as the old saying goes, is that “the rich get richer” and the poor fall ever further behind in crumbling schools.
Over the last 25 years, education in general has been taken from ordinary citizens and teachers by politicians, administrators, union leaders, publishers, test makers, consultants, university professors, hardware and software developers and the media, each playing its part in keeping alive the illusion of reform. All in all, this $1-trillion industry has replaced the common interest, and no one, it seems, can muster the will to rein it in.
Local control is only a dim memory. Decisions now come from the top—from the federal and state governments, school boards and high-level administrators who have little knowledge of what goes on in the classroom. Teachers are left out of these decisions, carrying on the best they can, safe in the assumption that the newest fad, like those before it, will blow over. Parents are all but forgotten.
While command-and-control management may seem to produce results in the short run, it strips schools of the capacity to develop the stable leadership that is necessary to sustain success. Principals are besieged with demands from district offices and from the educational fads that emanate from publishers and university researchers. Many principals know that they put their careers in peril unless they do what their bosses want. One elementary school principal told me, “District directives undermine our own abilities to think for ourselves, to believe in what we see and know.” When schools discover something that works, it is rarely sustained because they lack authority or stable leadership.
In 1969 when I worked for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, I monitored the schools in impoverished Ocean Hill-Brownsville in New York City. The local school board hired a charismatic superintendent, who fired incompetent teachers and hired young and idealistic ones. The firings set the local board at odds with the huge teachers’ union, which demanded due process for the fired teachers. The superintendent, Rhody McCoy, was convinced that good teachers had to respect the children they taught. He put it in plain words: “If you’re convinced that this kid is doomed by nature or by something else to lead a shrunken and curtailed life, then you’re basically incompetent to teach that child.” The experiment worked. Observing classrooms left no doubt in my mind that students were learning. Eager first-graders sat attentively on the floor in semicircles shouting out answers to fraction problems and reading aloud. The schools buzzed with excitement as parent helpers streamed in and out of classrooms. But in a bitter power struggle the board seized authority and the experiment ended.
Years later, in 1985, Deborah Meier, a passionate educator who founded Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary School, achieved stunning successes that led the school to be celebrated as a model alternative school in Time magazine. But it could not be sustained beyond Meier’s unique leadership. Today, 10 years after Meier left, a respected children’s advocacy group, Insideschools and Advocates for Children, reports that the Harlem school “…has fallen on hard times in recent years with rapid staff turnover, low staff morale and uneven discipline.”
In risk-averse environments like public schools, few principals will stick out their necks, because they don’t want to buck the bosses downtown. Courageous and visionary principals like Rhody McCoy and Deborah Meier keep coming. But charismatic leadership is no match for heavy-handed district management, which always wins out.
Take Foshay Learning Center in Los Angeles, for example. In 1989, Howard Lappin took over a failing middle school. With the help of teachers and an infusion of money, Lappin wrested control from the district and transformed Foshay. The school expanded into a K-12 “learning center” and became largely autonomous of the district’s bureaucratic requirements. Teachers and administrators decided who would be hired and what would be taught. Foshay succeeded, and in 2000 its high school was selected by Newsweek as one of the 100 best in America. But in 2001 Lappin retired, and his unique leadership was lost. Today Foshay is being threatened with sanctions by the district and the county because gains in students’ test scores have stalled. As the school has fallen under the district’s “one-size-fits all” bureaucratic requirements, the impact has been to undermine the once vibrant teacher leadership that made the school so enviable.
The problem with public education is not with the teachers, or with the children, but the way we organize the schools. Probably the greatest casualties are teachers themselves, who are forced to accept decisions by authorities about teaching that they know to be nonsense. One professor interviewed by Kozol said that forcing an absurdity on teachers teaches something: acquiescence. For example, in study after study, teachers report that relying on test scores as sole marks of student achievement and teaching scripted lessons destroy students’ natural love of learning. And such practices also erode teachers’ professional authority, which is fundamental to student learning.
Why is it so hard to foster the only kind of reform that really works, which is right in the schoolhouse? Because politicians, school board members and administrators are under intense pressure to produce immediate results, i.e., higher and higher test scores—a goal that is pursued through directives from districts with little input of principals, teachers and parents. Superintendents serve at the pleasure of school boards, and most board members are elected or appointed and have limited terms of office. As test scores have become the measure of educational quality, everyone is under immense pressure to show fast results or be turned out.
No wonder that school boards hire superintendents who promise to deliver quick results. But few do. Superintendents last on average only three or four years. Many are thwarted by outmoded bureaucracies that were designed a century ago using top-down control practiced in American industry to mass-produce learning. Within these organizations, power has quietly accumulated, making them all but impervious to outside influence. Sid Thompson, former superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, told me: “Trying to change the district is like trying to change the direction of a fast-moving freight train. You might knock it off course for a moment, but before you know it it’s rattling right down the tracks again.”
Frustration and suspicion about who might emerge from the shadows to sabotage their plans often lead superintendents to jealously guard their power. In 2002, Day Higuchi, then president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the Los Angeles teacher union, had high hopes for working with the school district’s new “can-do” superintendent, Roy Romer. Higuchi hoped that Romer would endorse a new union initiative called Lesson Study, a plan to help teachers work collectively to improve classroom lessons. At a breakfast meeting that I attended, Higuchi presented Romer with an invitation to work with the union to develop and spread Lesson Study across the district. When Higuchi finished, Romer flipped over his paper placemat and with a red felt pen drew a box with an S in it. “That’s me,” he said. Beneath he drew 11 boxes with smaller s’s in them, representing the 11 local superintendents, and below that, a number of small boxes with roofs, representing schools and teachers. Then, pulling his face near to Higuchi’s, he drew bold red arrows pointing downward from the top. Romer jabbed his pen in the air to accentuate each word: “You cannot usurp my authority to manage this district!” It was a dumbfounding moment, one that revealed the true underside of the use of power. Here was a chance for a new superintendent to forge a small but significant step with the union, but Romer, who recently announced his resignation, explained that he was “in a hurry.” He clearly had little time for ideas that were at odds with his own. In the end his refusal to work with the union undermined the possibility of creating a broader base of power that could transcend self-interest.
Nor are the unions exempt from self-interest. A few years ago I helped establish a national group of union presidents called TURN (Teacher Union Reform Network) who were dedicated to remaking their unions as forces to improve education. One way was to cooperate with administrators and encourage teachers to use their classroom know-how to redesign teaching at the schoolhouse. But hostility and mistrust run deep. The union leaders became nervous, fearing that fellow unionists would attack them for “collaborating” with the enemy and that if the effort to collaborate failed they would share the blame. Don Watley, president of the New Mexico Federation of Educational Employees, commented: “It’s like the Normandy landing. We’ve got the best troops in the world. We’ve got the best officers in the world. And we’ve got the best equipment in the world. But at 0800 when we hit the beach half of us are going to get killed!” Sadly, in the years to come, the ingrained mistrust, and the unpredictable dance of union politics, prevented these unionists from becoming a positive force in educational reform. Instead, they have been reduced to stockpiling power, much as the Soviets and Americans stockpiled nuclear weapons during the Cold War, to oppose any hostile moves the other side might make.
So what can be done to break the standoff between teacher unions and districts? How can teachers’ professional authority be restored? How can parents be awakened and brought back into the fold? Experience shows that it can be done. Schools such as Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary, Los Angeles’ Foshay Learning Center, those in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, and many others attest to the fact that schools can be made into safe places where children learn. Sustaining them is the hard part.
There is little doubt that trying to build good schools with command-and-control management doesn’t work. School boards, superintendents and union officials need to clear the obstacles—unnecessary bureaucratic requirements and outmoded work rules—to make innovation at the schoolhouse possible. These top-level educational leaders also must make resources available to support new ways of teaching. Jonathan Kozol has it right. Teaching is the only reform that counts and it can be done only at the schoolhouse by teachers, principals, parents and students working together.
Turning school districts upside down will also mean turning a century of top-down management on its head. But where is such bold leadership to be found? One promising place is among big-city mayors. But they must resist trying to take over the schools, as they did in New York, Chicago and Boston with mixed results at best. Instead, popular mayors could use their influence and visibility to tell the truth about the condition of education and to build a popular consensus about how change must occur.
In the next essay I am going to examine what mayors can do. Waiting for the schools to be saved by someone else is nonsense. Only concerted local action offers a chance. Doubters should recall Margaret Mead’s observation: “Never doubt that a small group of concerned people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2006 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
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Its been a while since I've posted any pictures of my (our) Lego building studio.
Last year, the room was completely renovated. Originally, the room was built as part of a house extension in 1985 to enclose a hot tub and shower. Since owning the house, we used the hot tub only a few years until we shut it down and converted the room into a playroom. The playroom then evolved into a family Lego studio. During this time, we built storage and work spaces around the hot tub. This of course resulted in inefficient use of space and inconvenient accessibility.
Finally, in 2018 we embarked on a much needed renovation. This involved removal of the hot tub and infrastructure, followed by new floor joists and framing. The shower was converted into a storage closet and the entire room received new tiled floor with under floor heating system.
Of the best attributes of this studio is abundant natural light emanating from large floor to ceiling windows and three overhead skylights. For nighttime use, the room is illuminated from ceiling mounted track lighting and a series of adjustable gooseneck LED worklights fitted along the entire length of the work spaces.
Lastly, a custom centre island was constructed from 2x Ikea Kalax storage units. The units were bolted together, a table top surface was installed (with bullnose edges) and heavy duty castor wheels were fitted to the bottom. This centre island not only incorporates integrated storage but serves as an immensely useful worksurface for staging models, sorting parts, or collaboration.
Storage and parts organization is a topic for another day. Suffice to say, we use Ikea Trofast drawers for bulk parts storage of major colours. We use wall mounted Kalax units (not shown) for less used colours, the island Kalax units store monochrome colour detail parts (e.g. slopes, round bricks, etc.), and finally the workspaces are completely surrounded by many 100's of small parts bins organized by part type and also colour if applicable. All storage is labelled using custom python software scripts which generate part thumbnails, part descriptions etc. and automatically lays out label graphics for a variety of Avery brand label sheets of different sizes.
It is a wonderful space to spend time being creative and having fun! Now I just need time to enjoy it!
President Barack Obama meets with Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham in the Oval Office to discuss Syria, Sept. 2, 2013. National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice is at left.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.
President Barack Obama joins Fox Sports announcers Joe Buck, right, and Tim McCarver, left, in the broadcast booth at the MLB All-Star Game in St. Louis, July 14, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
This official White House photograph is being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.
This is a building right next to this one in Barcelona. The building itself is rather plain and ugly, however I found the shutters kind of interesting.
See it Right (flickr's sharpening kinda kills those lines...)