Jim's Blog

Inspirational story in NYT today about efforts in San Fran to alert locals about products made there.  More important, discussion about smaller, locally targeted, mfg processes which create real jobs.

In particular, I like the values expressed in this statement (esp. in light of the stories of US companies going abroad to avoid taxes e.g. GE):

Jamieson Leadbetter, a fourth-generation baker whose grandfather gave him this advice when he decided to continue the Portland, Me.-based family business in San Francisco: “Pick your community well. You’re not there solely to make money; you’re there to play a larger role.”

Georgia’s Department of Econ Dev sponsors this site for Georgia made/grown products: http://www.gamadegagrownproducts.org/

There has been quite a dust-up over a candidate for Provost at KSU.

See article here and here.

Citizens have written that if you take my tuition and tax money – I should have a say what you teach.  Imagine being limited to teach what people already know.

My take:

Society used to believe those that pursued knowledge, pursued truth, and pursued God. Society no longer pursues any of those, as they would rather repeat erroneous statements than spend time pursuing truth. And, that is why our educational system is failing. Society does not care about learning.

This is a project that looks interesting — works in the cloud…

Weiner was right.  Must read this article and dig further at a later time.

The tweet this am caught my eye:

 

@baseballcrank Dan McLaughlin

Small Companies Could Face Big Risks From Climate Change 

Read more: http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2011-01/small-companies-could-face-big-risks-from-climate-change.aspx?storyid=51643#ixzz1AFLt1h7Z

A post on Peachpundit examines a draft bill by Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver which would limit the authority of the Department of Family and Children Services to require children to take prescribed psychotropic medications.  The pundit is shocked that a bill would be drafted to allow children to make such decisions.  She then impugns the Representative’s credibility for drafting HB 23, citing a lack of experience in psychiatry or medicine.

Accidentally, I heard a representative from the Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic speak to this issue on WABE FM– how foster children were medicated far more frequently than their counterparts in other states and non-foster children in this state.  This “over reliance on medication” is known to affect the foster children’s performance in school, as well as social relationships.  An op/ed written by Rep. Oliver succinctly states her reasons for the bill.  Since the state via their foster parents are their guardians there is no one but the child left to question this practice — hence the legislation.  Of course, the legislation is a starting point for discussion – not a final solution.

So, it seems the bill was drafted using evidence compiled by a credible organization which relied upon studies from medical and policy professionals.  Because the pundit did not bother to a) interview Rep. Oliver, or b) simply google the topic (psychotropic foster children) — readers are left to assume the conclusion is correct with regards to both the facts presented and the conclusion reached.

My Googlesearch found from Science Daily News News a brief on a study by The Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) which notes:

• Estimated rates of psychotropic medication use in foster care youth, however, are much higher (ranging from 13-52%) than those in the general youth population (4%)

• The majority of states in the multi-state study reported an increasing trend in the use of psychotropic medications among youth in foster care, specifically regarding: Increased use of antipsychotics, antidepressants, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications;

• Increased polypharmacy (the use of more than one psychotropic medication at the same time); Increased medication use among young children; and Increased reliance on giving medications “as needed” and “blanket authorizations” for such drug use in residential facilities

So – there is evidence sufficient to cause the author, and the advocates, to drop a draft bill which should create some discussion this session.  Interestingly, Georgia Politico has a post which takes a different tack on the bill:

However, this bill is different. Foster Children should have their prescription’s monitored by doctors and appointed guardians. They are frequently transferred between state institutions, temporary homes, and foster families. It would be difficult for any one person to keep up with their medical history, so centralizing such information in the Department of Human Sercies, which oversees the Foster Care system, is a good idea.

I read his essay found in My Pedagogic Creed.  He notes with great excitement the potential of education upon the society:

I believe that the community’s duty to education is therefore its paramount moral duty By law and punishment by social agitation and discussion society can regulate and form itself in a more or less haphazard and chance way.   But through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move.   I believe that when society once recognizes the possibilities in this direction and the obligations which these possibilities impose it is impossible to conceive of the resources of time attention and money which will be put at the disposal of the educator.

I believe it the business of every one interested in education to insist upon the school as the primary and most effective interest of social progress and reform in order that society may be awakened to realize what the school stands for and aroused to the necessity of endowing the educator with sufficient equipment properly to perform his task I believe that education thus conceived marks the most perfect and intimate union of science and art con ceivable in human experience

Scoble writes an excellent blog on the coming molecular age of information.  I am cross-referencing here… for later thought.

Data = electrons

info = atoms

ideas = molecules

knowledge = ???