But it's Not The Breed...

South Florida Daily Blog often posts articles about Pit Bulls biting their owners, or neighbors, or other dogs, with the comment "...but it's not the breed" appended.

Of course, the intended message is that it is indeed the breed that dictates behavior.

Nature versus nurture, and SFDB says "it's nature."

But then there are stories like this one, from WTAE Pittsburgh:

CARNEGIE, Pa. -- A woman who fell down a hill and was crumpled against a sewer grate was saved by a pit bull.

Jimmie Belchick's American pit bull terrier, Cobain, helped to save the woman who fell down the hill and landed on the grate with no way to get help.

"My dog put Lassie to shame. He came and alerted me when somebody needed help and what more can you ask for out of your dog," Belichick said.

But it's not the breed.

Why Johnny Can't Add; The Failure of American Education

On a recent visit to my sister's, I witnessed as my niece engaged in a struggle familiar to me; math homework.  The difference; I struggled to juggle the numbers to come up with the correct answers.  She was struggling to learn how to come up with the wrong answer.

I kid you not.  The state of the art flavor of the day shit-for-brains educational theory is called "compatible numbers."

In proper math, you deal with the actual numbers to come to the correct answer.

In compatible math, you round up the numbers (or one of them) to one that's easier to deal with, to come up with an answer that is close to the actual number the problem should result, but isn't actually the number the problem should result in.

Is your head hurting yet?

OK, let's take 28-13.  We round up 28 to be 30, because it's easier to deal with; 30-13=17, which is close to the correct answer of 15.  Of course, even though 15 is the correct answer to the problem of 28 minus 13, it's wrong for the homework because they are looking for the wrong answer.

In essence, our schools are teaching that 28-13=17.

Just so you don't get as confused as I did, with two digit numbers, you only round up if the second digit is greater than five.  Thus 69x14 becomes 70x14.  And of course, you get completely different answers when you solve the equation.

Educators, however, have decided that "close is good enough."

Of course, this kind of sloppy thinking can actually kill people.  Can you imagine the results if an engineer using this technique to design aircraft, or bridges?  "Oh, the parts ALMOST fit, but close is good enough."  Or if a pharmacist or nurse gave you "almost" the correct dosage?

It's completely unacceptable.

Some of you might remember "new math."  New math differed from old math (or simply "math") in that the processing of the equations was broken down so that the student could work with smaller units.  Sometimes this process was outrageously complicated.  So complicated, that Tom Lehrer satirized it in song.

But the end result was still expected to be the actual, correct, answer.  A number that was close, but incorrect, was still  incorrect. 

Proponents of this educational malpractice make an extremely lame argument.  "We're teaching them how to estimate," they coo reassuringly.  "WHYYYYY?" I hiss back at them.

Yes, many adults have been doing this kind of estimation for years; many of us can look at the multiplication example I gave earlier and say "yeah, that's gonna fall somewhere between 900 and 1000."  And when we do the actual math, we nod our heads because the correct answer is close to what we projected. 

But that's not what you teach kids.  When you teach that at a primary level, sloppy thinking becomes a primary process instead of something you know you can get away with later in life.  What you learn first is what sticks; it is the foundation for everything that follows.  What you learn first usually ends up being what you learn.

Morris Kline, Professor of Mathematics, in his 1973 book Why Johnny Can't Add: the Failure of the New Math addressed this issue directly:

"abstraction is not the first stage but the last stage in a mathematical development"
- Why  Johnny Can't Add, page 98

I doubt there will be funny songs about the use of compatible numbers. Teaching kids how to arrive at the wrong answer just isn't very funny.

Cain Isn't Able

The results were sprawled across the news websites:

Herman Cain wins Florida straw poll

And like most people, my first thought was "Who?"

And after a little research, I can say with authority that Herman Cain is the other black man in the Tea Party.   Unless the Tea Party is still pissed at Allen West,  in which case Cain becomes the Tea Party's token black man.

Alright, I confess, I kid; but not by much.  There have been accusations against the fringe conservative group since its inception, and Cain recently rebuked Morgan Freeman for calling the group racist.  From his Fox News interview with Neil Cavuto:

...I doubt if Morgan Freeman, with all due respect, who is a great actor, has he ever been to a Tea Party? Most of the people that are criticizing the Tea Parties, Neil, about having a racist element, they have never been to a Tea Party.

Of course, other Tea Party defenders have come to other conclusions, such as The Economist's Lexington's Notebook column:

I SAID in a recent post that people, such as those in the NAACP, who call the tea-party movement racist did not know whereof they speak. Now, in light of the Mark Williams affair, I have to consider whether a correction is in order.

To judge by a "satirical" letter he wrote in reaction to the NAACP, Mr Williams, a tea-party activist, is indeed a racist...

...I concede that there are racists within the movement, maybe many more than I had realised.

Like Lexington, I'm willing to concede that the organization isn't intended to spread racism, and didn't set out to recruit racists.  But take a look at this slideshow of photos taken at last weeks Conservative Political Action Conference, and take your own inventory.

My second thought, when I look at the numbers, it's hard to agree that he "won" the straw poll.

Here they are:

• Herman Cain: 37 percent
• Rick Perry: 15 percent
• Mitt Romney: 14 percent
• Rick Santorum: 10.9 percent
• Ron Paul: 10.4 percent
• Newt Gingrich: 8.4 percent
• Jon Huntsman: 2.3 percent
• Michelle Bachmann: 1.5 percent

Sure, he got more votes than the top two runners-up combined, but he still took only a little more than a third of all the votes cast.  That means that about 2 out of every 3 participants voted against him.  He didn't win so much as he didn't lose as badly as everyone else.

I wouldn't call it a stunning victory. 

Everyone expected Rick Perry to win, even though he's an idiot.  Of course, George W. Bush was elected, and he was an idiot.  But last week, he had to hold his own with people who were much smarter than he was, or at least with Mitt Romney.  Perhaps, like Sarah Palin, Perry should have written his prepared off-the-cuff retorts on his arm.

Mitt Romney would probably be a good choice to lure in voters from across the aisle, which is why die-hard conservatives won't consider him.  Toss in the fact that he's a member of "a wierd cult," and we can see why Romney won't get the nomination.  Again.

The rest are the usual flotsam and jetsam of knee-jerk conservatives spouting all the usual conservative talking points; lower taxes, less regulation, and screw anyone who isn't already wealthy.

The real message from the straw poll isn't "Cain is a great candidate."  It's "can't you turd-herders come up with even ONE potential candidate who's not a complete jerk?"