Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
This week, we’re giving the regular crew off so we can bring you this special edition of the Ricochet Podcast featuring our entire editorial staff. Troy Senik, Jon Gabriel, Claire Berlinski, Tom Meyer, and Rob Long gather together (well, virtually though the magic of Skype) to opine on Trump and how he harms Jeb’s (!) chances at winning the nomination. Also, the future of education, a certain Rico Editor’s man crush on Alexander Hamilton, and why Ricochet has become the web’s number one venue for janitorial insights.
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If Perry is 2-3 in your minds, does that put him very solidly in the VP spot? I’ve thought for a long time that his gift for retail politicking and rumored arm twisting makes him very close to ideal for the spot, especially considering the changes to the office wrought by Dick Cheney.
Ok, everyone, before you bother, it’s just a long riff on their original hit-
Don’t let’s forget Spiro Agnew-
As far as I’m concerned, Hamilton should have never left the Rangers! Good riddance. Oh, wait… what? wrong Hamilton! Oooof! Never mind.
The schools are in a bind largely of their own making. They are talking constantly about “disproportionality”, the disproportionate number of minority students who are failing academically. Their answer to it is to water down the curriculum, so that they can achieve equality of outcome by bringing everyone down to the same less than mediocre level.
For some time they provided advanced fast moving classes for the best students. Unfortunately, those classes were overwhelmingly populated by white and Asian students with a very small representation of blacks and Hispanics. This, in the minds of the critics was just one more example of Disproportionality. The response was a form of Affirmative Action, put less qualified students in with the tops students. However, they couldn’t be graded on the same standard as the other students who had actually qualified for the program. They had to be proportionately represented throughout the grade curve.
Once again you are back in the situation where the best students are being held back, not being pushed as they should be to excel. The only answer really is charter or private schools unaffected by the politics of race and social justice.
As a long time user of Great Courses, I do think that there is a lot of value in that form of education for the more motivated students.
Burristas are among those angling for legislated wage increases, right? They’d like at least one photo of Hamilton per hour worked.
Current US currency denominations per The World Almanac:
1$–Washington; $2–Jefferson; $5–Lincoln; $10–Hamilton; $20–Jackson; $50–Grant; $100–Franklin; $500–McKinley; $1,000–Cleveland; $5,000–Madison; $10,000–Chase; $100,000–Wilson. The $100,000 bill is used exclusively for transactions between the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve System.
On education policy: one of the few insights of much value I recall Paul Goodman* having was pointing out that compulsory education to 18 was an artifact of the Depression and the immediate post-war fear that there wouldn’t be enough jobs to go around. Limiting the labor pool was the object. (Why don’t economists die of embarrassment?) To his credit, I recall he thought that was a bad idea. It also made it necessary for the authorities to mess with the Amish in ways that now seem illiberal, but I don’t remember him commenting on that.
* he was quite the deal in progressively enlightened circles long ago, children. I read him while in high school lock-down–with a “made in California prisons” on the back of the desk in front of me just to add to the irony of it all.
The Golden Horseshoe in Las Vegas had 100 of these on display at on time. They were encased in heavy glass plates and hung in a large horseshoe shaped display case. I remember that the serial numbers were 1 through 100. (this is a picture of one of them) Pretty impressive to a high school kid in the late 1950’s.
So there was never a real $1 million bill?
Nope, but that doesn’t mean that people haven’t tried to make one. In 2004, a woman in Covington, Georgia, tried to pick up a $1,675 tab at a local Wal-Mart with a forged $1 million bill featuring a picture of the Statue of Liberty. Police quickly arrested her. It’s hard to say what’s more ludicrous: trying to pass off a million-dollar bill or thinking that Wal-Mart would just fork over $998,325 in change.
Surprised to hear how unconcerned everyone was about Trump. I think Charles C. W. Cooke was right that Trump will do a lot of harm to the serious candidates and media will love it.
Good discussion on online education. I think MOOC (massive open online course) should be added. Some are really good and there are a lot of them. Check out Coursera or EDX. Most of this is done with universities so it an example of change in the system. I have seen great courses from John Hopkins but also Wharton trying to game the idea and use it as a marketing device for their brick-and-mortar business.
I will probably share your sentiments as soon as Trump files all of the requisite paperwork.
For years I’ve said that a major advantage of having a Ph.D. is that it enables one (and I can say “us”) to make fun of the entire hoop-jumping process without being accused of sour grapes. I am old enough to have been seduced by the allure of academia before it became, at least in the humanities, a criminal racket. Later I had just enough experience as a visitor in the politically correct Alice-in-Wonderland world of an American university that I fled in amazement and horror—and that was nearly thirty years ago…Still, as, among other things, a French speaker, I wince whenever Rob Long and others treat the language and its culture as though it were emblematic of useless pedantry, with a few perhaps deliberately mangled phrases thrown out as though to emphasize the point. I am also old enough to be among those who (blush!) took existentialism seriously, but surely the alternatives in higher learning are not limited to Sartre and high-tech welding. I still believe in cultivating the life of the mind. Conservatives should focus on exposing the fraud in which the American university establishment is engaged while encouraging free-market alternatives. But the greater challenge is to help nurture a culture in which wisdom and genuine knowledge are valued, in which citizens, young and old, at least occasionally delve into the Great Courses instead of watching football or an inane Hollywood movie.
interesting how pundits on the right are dismissing Rand Paul out of hand
Claire, you seemed to infer that students (and thus their parents and/or indebtedness) pay for college sports. I had a friend – a graduate student in Classics – who loved university sports, even though he had no personal interest in them. It may have changed, but he had discovered that the Classics, Music and Foreign Languages divisions were being financed by what are known as the “revenue sports,” football and basketball.
Troy I’m calling you out. You cannot pass yourself off as a Tennessean and endorse the removal of Andrew Jackson from the $20 AND on top of that defend Grant as the one we can’t replace! May God have mercy on your soul. :)
I was always more of a Polk guy. That oughta get me something.
As long as you didn’t say Andrew Johnson. I was waiting for the trifecta of denouncing Davy Crockett while you were on a role! Here is a good rule of thumb for you in the future:
Lee/Jackson = Good
Grant/Sherman = Bad
Jon Gabriel: I am a “Hamilton Hater” and not a barista. And I think your wife has more sense than you I suspect, but if a duel is desired, bring it.
A duel! Spoken like a true Jacksonian.
They should just offer Trump the ambassadorship to Mexico or China. He’d be satisfied then.
You might, in fact, be the Polk guy.
Troy’s riff on the socialization “benefit” of bricks-and-mortar schools: YES. You are singin’ my song. Rather than “realistic,” the traditional model says Lord of the Flies to me. How is that optimal at all?
I can’t wait to see this . . . moonshine jars at twenty paces!
I just want to echo the discussion about member posts and Meetups. I enjoy hearing on the podcasts discussions around member posts and Meetups, coming from our—for lack of a better term—Rico-celebrities. Member involvement is key to any organization, group, country club . . . whatever. It keeps things alive and vibrant.
Personally, I find the Meetups extremely stimulating, and the podcast talk on what sounded like very esoteric topics in Kansas City was illustrative of the kinds of wild discussions that go on at these events. One minute, we discuss who would make the best Veep. The next minute, we discuss the virtues of moonshine (Nashville), terrible TV series endings (Charlotte), who paid for what drinks on the tab (Fort Lauderdale) or IT conversion woes (Fuquay-Varina—yes, there is such a place).
Oh, and the Meetups are incredible fun!
My bottom line? I initially joined Ricochet for the podcasts (“The Shores of Lake Naboo” hooked me). However, it’s the posting, commenting, and going to Meetups that keeps me excited. That, and the variations like having the contributors do a podcast, or the membership Q&A podcasts that give Ricochet a unique flavor.
May I offer one suggestion? One night during the Charlotte Meetup, a bunch of us got together for a short recorded session we were going to call “Ricochet After Dark”. It was simply us folks who had not gone to bed yet, and we did a short, recorded “podcast” about what we did, liked, and thought about the Meetup. Alas, the recording was lost to the ether, but something like that could be a fun thing to do to encourage existing members to come to Meetups, and to give prospective members a reason to join.
Just a thought . . .
Stad:
You had me at moonshine……
All of your arguments for online education sound like my arguments for homeschooling. :)
The two go hand-in-hand very well; think of online stuff as a supplement to home schooling, or a resource for home schoolers to use. :)