June 11, 2014
California K-12 Teacher Tenure System Struck Down
On Tuesday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu said that the laws governing K-12 teacher job security were unconstitutional. Treu declared the rules governing K-12 teacher tenure in California were unconstitutional because they affect predominately minority and poor students, allowing incompetent instructors to remain in the classroom. He said in the decision that the protections "impose a real and appreciable impact on students' fundamental right to equality of education." He went on to say that the evidence for this "shocks the conscience."
The decision ends the process of laying off teachers based solely on when they were hired. It also strips them of extra job safeguards not enjoyed by other school or state employees. And, lastly, it eliminates the current tenure process, under which instructors are either fired or win strong job security about 18 months after they start teaching.
The case was brought by a Silicon Valley group, Students Matter.
The suit has highlighted competing views of teacher tenure.
The decision has lead to significant and spirited debate over K-12 teacher job protections.
"We’re not beautiful, we’re not ugly, we’re angry"
The Miss World contest of 1970, of course, isn’t famous for its motley crew of judges but for the feminist protest that took place in the middle of the show. While the judges were putting women in order of beauty, Bob Hope the London-born compere, came on stage to go through a comedy routine. All of a sudden about fifty women and a few men started throwing flour bombs, stink bombs, ink bombs and leaflets at the stage wile yelling “we are liberationists!”, “We’re not beautiful, we’re not ugly, we’re angry” and “ban this disgraceful cattle market!”. The worldwide live television audience couldn’t fail to notice what was happening. Bob Hope certainly noticed and he quickly tried to flee the stage as the missiles flew by. Julia Morley, the wife of the organiser Eric Morley, grabbed hold of his ankle in a desperate attempt to stop him leaving. It only took a few minutes for the police to restore order but ‘Women’s Lib’ had in one fell swoop established itself as part of the seventies.The Anorak looks back at (the judges) of the 1970 miss world competition.
MTV of books
Publishers Weekly: "What MTV did for music videos and record sales, BookReels wants to do for book trailers and book sales." No, but they have collected about 3000 book trailers and interviews. New Yorker: The Awkward Art of Book Trailers: "Then there is the leading book-trailer auteur of our time, Gary Shteyngart." TheRumpus: Fantastic Book Trailers and the Reasons They’re So Good: "There tends to exist a general skepticism toward book trailers."
Brief film noir reviews: 290 and counting
But they hadn't destroyed it.
On Tuesday, a group of Islamic militants that were thrown out of al-Qaeda for being too violent took over Iraq's second largest city. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (abbreviated as ISIS) kicked the Iraqi Army out of Mosul, a wealthy city in northwestern Iraq. Today, ISIS secured another northern city, Tikrit. It currently controls an area "the size of Belgium," according to Jason Lyall, a Yale University political scientist who studies insurgencies. [more inside]
Empires love their dissidents foreign
Molly Crabapple talks Snowden, Pussy Riot, and Cecily McMillan: "Cooing over foreign dissidents allows establishment hacks to pose like sexy rebels—while simultaneously affirming that their own system is the best.
The dissident fetishist takes a brave, principled person, and uses them like a codpiece of competitive virtue.
The Kremlin loves (American) whistle-blowers. The State Department loves (Russian) anarchist punks."
The Kremlin loves (American) whistle-blowers. The State Department loves (Russian) anarchist punks."
How long is yours?
Axon: A Neuron building game.
Yummy tail sez the ourobouros
Musings on, in the age of digitization and photocopies and the dying off of old collectors, what it means to be a book collector by Johan Kugelberg of Boo-Hooray (the guy who cataloged Afrika Bambaataa's collection for Cornell University, and I can't believe there isn't a Previously for that!) [more inside]
“…A council of this sort is akin to…my own funeral”
High-profile progressive Mormons Kate Kelly, the founder of the Ordain Women movement (previously), and John Dehlin, most well-known as founder of Mormon Stories Podcast (previously and previouslier), have been invited by the LDS Church to disciplinary councils that will most likely result in their excommunication from the church. [more inside]
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, back to the drawing board we go
DisneyToon Studios is best known for their spin-offs of Walt Disney Animation Studios films, like the Tinker Bell and Planes series, or the execrable string of direct-to-video sequels to Disney movies released from the mid-nineties to mid-2000's. But around 2005, they had a different spin-off in development: an epic, dark prequel to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
"It will ache in my chest the rest of my life."
On May 13th, the film world was shocked and saddened by the tragic death of documentary filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul, who had won an Oscar just last year for the documentary "Searching for Sugar Man". In the month that has passed since then, more details have emerged of the months and days that led up to his suicide. The Hollywood Reporter profiles the life and death of Bendjelloul and takes a look at how sudden success can bring about even more sudden depression.
The theatre appeared in the crime section more than the arts section ...
Bloodletters and Bad Actors Mefi's Own Max Sparber looks at the early days of Omaha theater, back when it was a frontier town, its amusements were questionable, and vice was rampant, with occasional forays into more recent performing arts misbehavior. [via mefi projects]
You Won't Believe What These Students Learnt In Just Four Years
The editorial maxim was a simple one: Write the best story.
There's no simple or singular means of explaining why publications thrive or die. Entertainment Weekly rose and declined with larger waves affecting the entertainment and publishing industries at large, but its story is more than just that of print media at the turn of the century. That might be the environment, but the larger narrative is that of widespread deregulation in terms of media ownership and the resultant flurry of mergers, acquisitions, and conglomerate masterplanning.The history of the business of EW.
The OG of OVPP
Some highlights from Joshua Rifkin's career(s):
- At the age of 21, in only five weeks, he wrote and conducted The Baroque Beatles Book, an album of Beatles themes rendered in the styles of Bach and Handel.
- On Wildflowers and In My Life, he arranged some of Judy Collin's best tracks, including "Albatross" and "Suzanne."
- Rifkin helped kickstart the 70s ragtime renaissance with three acclaimed Joplin albums.
- In 1981, he published an infamous paper [JSTOR] declaring that Bach's choral work wasn't actually choral work as we understand it. Rather, Bach intended only one singer to take each vocal part...
The Shores of Normandy
On June 6th 1944 Jim Radford, aged just 15, was serving on the HM Rescue tug Empire Larch at Gold Beach tasked, amongst other things, with building the breakwater and later the mulberry harbour there. 70 years later an 85 year old Jim stood up in front of a packed Albert Hall in London and, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra, sung his autobiographical composition - The Shores of Normandy. [more inside]
"The Clash would have KILLED to have come from Derry"
Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland, was a dangerous place to be in the late 1970s. With bombs, shootings, British Army Patrols, riots on the streets, and The Ramones and New York Dolls on the turntable, the most punk thing 5 Catholic lads could do was to sing upbeat songs about adolescent lust, girls, getting nowhere with said girls, and the general struggles of being young. In the bleeding heart of The Troubles, The Undertones escaped by dreaming of a life more ordinary. [more inside]
Print Not Dead, Says Website
Think Instapaper is a misnomer? With PaperLater (from Newspaper Club), you can save things online to read later, on paper. [more inside]
Trigger warning: Child Abuse
Marion Zimmer Bradley, award-winning author (The Mists of Avalon, Darkover, amongst others) not only aided and abetted her husband in child abuse (Walter Breen, a man who was first convicted in 1954), she also took part in it, according to an email from her daughter published yesterday.
Don't Ever Let Anyone Tell You Its "Just" Sports
The awesome Rick Reilly's last column addresses fathering and sports. Until 2008 the "back page" columnist for Sports Illustrated, Reilly is retiring from ESPN. He is already a member of the Sportswriters Hall of Fame and was 11 times voted Sportswriter of the Year.
3 iPad Airs, and 17 Gold Bars
2014 iPhone Photography Awards "All images must be taken with an iPhone, iPod or an iPad. The photos should not be altered in Photoshop or any desktop image processing program." [more inside]
these stories happened to so-and-so, they’re happening to us.
"They write the lies but I tell the truth"
I have no idea how much of this is staged vs actually going off script, but either way Tom Hanks at CES 2009 is pretty entertaining.
“Got any of dem Zoh’s?”
How Much Does It Hurt?
Zohydro is the new FDA-approved painkiller that some doctors think the FDA had no business approving. And in ERs across America, they’re anxiously awaiting the fallout.
Zohydro is the new FDA-approved painkiller that some doctors think the FDA had no business approving. And in ERs across America, they’re anxiously awaiting the fallout.
Korean Grandmothers Selling Sex
Korean grandmothers sell Bacchus drinks (energy drinks) and sex on the side. Once part of Korea's economic engine, older Korean women are turning to prostitution to pay for their living costs. The Bacchus women also work the hiking trails where they offer coffee and sex.
Narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic.
Argentina, 1978
While the World Watched At the same time Argentina hosted the 1978 World Cup, the nation's dictators were waging their "Dirty War" of repression, kidnappings and torture. As the tournament again draws near, ghastly memories are flooding back.
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