Who’s right?

Also, in the Kaavren stories, the person who found Aliera’s soul and bound it into a staff was Grita. The staff was later used to bribe the wizard Loraan for his help with Kana’s plans for conquest. In Taltos, however, Sethra says that Loraan is the one who found the soul and put it in the staff.

Perhaps this is an honest mistake on Sethra’s part?

I just finished “The Viscount of Adrilankha,” and I have noticed a conspicuous Loose End, namely the manner in which Aliera’s soul found its way from the staff (last seen in the possession of a certain corrupt wizard) back to her body. Maybe this is cleared up somewhere in the Vlad Taltos series, but, if it is, I’ve forgotten that detail.

Again, it’s semantics. To me, deregulation would be to allow companies to rise or fall by their merits, and prosecute them for any fraudulent activity. We might have different definitions.

Jess @85

One argument that, at least in part, the current problems in the financial system is due to deregulation is the fact that the SEC, in 2004, provided a “special exemption” to five companies allowing them to exceed a 12-to-1 debt-to-capital ratio and lever up to 30 or 40-to-1. The five companies were Goldman, Merrill, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley. Three of these have since failed to some degree.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/09/regulatory-exem.html#more

During the earlier part of this century (’02), parents in the Philadelphia area became disheartened realizing 1) a mere 13% of 11th graders were able to read a newspaper and 2) the Pennsylvania Department of Education and her unions were too powerful to allow appropriate modification to staff, faculty, curriculum, discipline, the legislature at either the local or state level, etc. to address the failing schools. They remain a catastrophe to this day. The parents banded together and began a Cyber School, which, within its first year, the PDE was able to de-fund through the state legislature and throw up insurmountable bureaucratic hurdles.

CNN reported (gleefully) how this competition to public schools was failing. I read that article and called the Cyber School, offering my companies assistance (they couldn’t pay their Internet bill because the PDE blocked the legislature from providing the promised funds). We brought the students back online and they were able to complete the school year.

That opened doors to my company providing this service to Cyber Schools nationwide. I realize that most people in our nations departments of education and teachers unions mean well, it is just that parents are at their wits end. Those who cannot home school need options.

As the father of a child with autism I know that all children do not fit in the cookie cutter our public education system provides. Allowing alternatives through vouchers or deductions appear to be a step in the right direction.

I know full well that there is no such tax break for childless taxpayers. I also know that many of them pay property taxes, so there’s no relief there, either.

But noticing that the seats in your truck are broken and the bed is rusted through doesn’t change whether the engine still needs to be rebuilt.

I find the notion preposterous. I know no other place in society where people are grouped by the mere fact of being the same age, and then expected to accomplish tasks. Perhaps certain parts of the military, but even that as a whole rapidly delineates into areas of skill, expertise and aptitude.

The public school gives window dressing to “advanced” and “honors” programs, as well as extra-curricular activities. But these are miniscule parts of the curriculum. As long as a kid is said to be a certain grade because of his/her age, it’s a farce.

There was a book I read when I was three or four called “Educating Betsy.” It was about a girl going from the big city to a one-room schoolhouse. After the teacher tried her out on different things, she was declared to be something like “seventh grade in math, fourth grade in spelling, fifth grade in geography, and ninth grade in reading.” Betsy broke down and started crying because she was confused about what grade she was. The teacher became equally confused and said “You’re not a grade, you’re Betsy.”

Folksy, of course. But the point is one that I fervently believe in. A child is not a blank slate that will absorb material in exactly the same way as the kid next to them, simply because they’re the same age. That’s as ridiculous as grouping kids by height, hair color, skin color, or personal hygiene for their classes.

Until we start teaching classes by assigning students that are at the same level ON THAT SUBJECT, it’s a failure from step one.

A kid isn’t a grade.