Are teachers going to have to become "curricular dieticians"? Nonsense!

The environment, sex, marriage...these are subjects that could come up in any classroom, depending on a variety of stimuli like the short story, essay or poem or novel being discussed. Any class in civics or media would also find discussion difficult if such topic had to be avoided. These are also subjects that cut to the core of many religious beliefs, and for fundamentalists of any faith, they are "hot-button" subjects around which some fundamentalists have drawn "red lines" making any classroom mention of such subjects "triggers" for reprisals against the offending school, teacher and school system.
Clearly, in both the letter to Christian and Muslim parents, and in the Greek Orthodox father's law suit against the Hamilton-Wentworth school board, the 'red lines' are being drawn, not so much in the sand, as around the newly constructed moat around the "ownership" of the children, as the dentist father puts it. (See Globe Editorial and Law Suit stories below)
Are the teachers and administrators in public schools to become both puppets and "victims" of the religious bullies? Is the tail of the fundamentalists going to wag the dog of the already emasculated public school system?
We all know that the public school system in any society and culture is one of the best, if not the prime, instruments for building bridges of tolerance, respect and acceptance of different cultures, ethnicities, and lifestyles. And at least in the North American context, large strides in the direction of respect for a multicultural parent demographic have demonstrated such systemic respect. Of course, there are still bullies in the school yards, many of whom are repelled, for example, by those living a gay-lesbian-transgender lifestyle. When the public school system is under attack from the religious "right" regardless of the faith perspective of those attacks, then the whole society has both a right and a duty to step up and draw a larger line in the sand. The public school system must never be held hostage to the religious claims of the religious, if we are to preserve the purpose and sensibility of a healthy, vibrant and non-discriminating curriculum.
If specific religious institutions wish to conduct classes in their facilities, on whatever topics (leaving aside the training in both social upheaval and terrorism), with parents of those religious institutions consenting to such training, that is their business, both the institutions and the parents.
However, to expect any teacher of any subject to transformer him or herself into a curricular dietician, removing the slightest mention in the classroom or on the premises of the school of anything smacking of "peanuts" (because of a religious "allergy" of the child) is both impractical and unwarranted.
We know much today about the dangers of specific food allergies and public institutions in both health care and education have moved a long way to accommodate such dangers. There is scientific evidence to support such moves, and they could impact children/people from all faiths.
However, to balkanize the school system, and the curriculum, to placate the religious beliefs of specific faith communities is to expect the impossible.
It is quite a different thing to avoid using a specific word of disrespect, for a specific cultural or ethic community, in public discourse, from sanitizing normal conversation from the religious "tastes" of the many religious groups whose children attend the public school system.
Christian fundamentalists would limit the shool's ability to teach the curriculum
Editorial, Globe and Mail, September 14, 2012
A form letter is being circulated to enable conservative Christian and Muslim parents to ask Ontario public schools to exempt their children from various programs, as an accommodation of their religious faith. A similar letter is at the heart of a Christian family’s lawsuit against a southern Ontario school board that refuses to grant the requested exemption. Its core belief is that parents have the right to direct the spiritual and moral education of their education.

Fair enough. Some exemptions may be reasonable to ask for and receive – from sex education, for instance. But here’s the problem: The authors of that form letter define spiritual and moral education so broadly as to encompass a wide swath of the public-school day. In their view, a public-school education delivers, explicitly and implicitly, a religious training of its own – in “secular humanism.”
Take discussions about the environment – labelled “environmental worship,” or “naturalism.” “Our faith requires that we place nothing above our God,” says the letter, written by a group that calls itself Public Education Advocates for Christian Equity. “Meeting expectations of conservation would be more successful, for our children, if connected to their spiritual understanding of being responsible to their Creator.” Any time the environment is to be raised, parents would have to be notified ahead of time. Presumably, spontaneous discussion of the environment would be off limits.
Or take “values neutral education – indoctrination of students in ‘moral relativism’ and principles of situational ethics. This ‘ism’ is a central tenet of the religion of ‘Secular Humanism.’” This may cover nearly any topic imaginable. Perhaps discussion itself is off limits.
There’s a space in the form letter to ask for notification or an exemption from any discussion about homosexual “conduct or relationships” as “natural, healthy and acceptable.” Since when does the teaching of “acceptance” of anyone run counter to parental rights? Should schools be obliged to tell parents about books about gay parents on in-class bookshelves, or of pictures of lesbian mothers or gay dads on the walls? Should children be excused from learning about respect for difference?
The accommodation sought by these parents would make it difficult for public schools to transmit the curriculum, with its explicit teachings and implicit values. It’s not really an accommodation they seek; it’s a different program.
And then there is this:
By Kate Hammar, Globe and Mail, September 10, 2012
A Hamilton-area father is taking his local school board to court, accusing teachers of failing to accommodate his family’s Christian beliefs.

Steve Tourloukis, a dentist and follower of the Greek Orthodox Church, has a daughter in Grade 1 and a son in Grade 4 at the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. He says that teachers at his children’s school have dismissed his requests for advance notice whenever they discuss family, marriage and sexuality in the classroom.
He would like the warning in order to determine whether he should coach his children ahead of the lesson, or pull them from the classroom altogether.

“My children are my own. I own them. They don’t belong to the school board,” Dr. Tourloukis said.
He dismissed the idea of sending his children to a private or Catholic school.
“Why should I send my children to another school?” he said. “I pay my taxes…I don’t see why somebody else’s discrimination should cause me, should influence where I send my children. Not in a free country. Not in Canada.”
Dr. Tourloukis told reporters Monday that the school board had rejected his requests to have his children withdrawn on the basis that it discriminated against other students. He filed a lawsuit against the board on Friday. None of the allegations have been proven in court.
The school board’s director of education, John Malloy, said he couldn’t discuss the specifics of the case, but said broad requests for religious accommodation were relatively rare. It’s more common for parents to request specific accommodations around a section of a course such as sex ed.
Broad requests for accommodation may impact other students – who would like to discuss spending the day at the park with their two dads, for example – and are much more problematic.
“It’s imperative that any accommodation doesn’t hurt someone else in that classroom who has a right to be accepted,” Mr. Malloy said.
The board’s religious accommodation policy states that schools should “study what all people believe, but should not teach a student what to believe.”
Education Minister Laurel Broten said the government took the politics out of creating the curriculum by asking an expert panel to help draft it in 2003.
“We really focus on vetting a number of key components across all of our grades,” Ms. Broten told reporters on Monday.

CAVEAT EMPTOR: CU Boulder Campus open for "concealed-carry permit" guns

from truthdig.com, September 15, 2012
After a March court decision overturned a systemwide ban on guns, the University of Colorado on Wednesday decided to allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring them almost everywhere on its Boulder campus.

CU Boulder retained its prohibition on guns in dorms, and firearms are banned entirely from ticketed events, including sports games and concerts. Regent Jim Geddes found these remaining restrictions to be a failure of the university’s obligation to protect its students.
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
The Denver Post:
“At the end of the day, you still have created some gun-free zones on campus,” Geddes said. “Creating a gun-free zone without taking some other measures to protect our students within those zones has shown over and over again to be a failed policy.”
The regents approved the new policy on a 7-0 vote, with board chairman Michael Carrigan, D-Denver, abstaining. Regent Joe Neguse, D-Boulder, was absent from the meeting
Regent Stephen Ludwig, D-Denver, voted to approve the new rules.

"I'm supporting this measure because it brings the university in compliance with the law," Ludwig said.
In June 2010, the regents took a vote on whether they should continue a legal fight to keep guns off campus.
The Colorado Court of Appeals that year ruled in favor of a gun-rights group that argued in a lawsuit that a 1994 university policy banning concealed weapons violated state gun laws. At the time, Tillie Bishop, R-Grand Junction, sided with the Democrats on the principle that regents should have the authority to set rules for the campus.
CU officials studied policies at other universities and at military bases in Colorado to examine their gun rules for dorms and barracks.
University counsel Patrick O'Rourke reported to the board that the attorney general has not raised any concerns with CU's new policy.
CU-Boulder Chancellor Phil DiStefano told the board that university officials have held an open forum and met with various campus groups and departments to keep them apprised of the new campus gun rules. Asked whether university employees have been given ample notice, DiStefano said: "Absolutely."
CU sent a letter to professors last month clarifying that employees must adhere to the new rules.
The letter came after Jerry Peterson, a physics professor and chairman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly, told the Camera that he will cancel class if he notices any students carrying guns.
Read more: CU regents revise campus gun policy to comply with Supreme Court ruling - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/entertainmentcolumnists/ci_21525847/cu-regents-revise-campus-gun-policy-comply-supreme#ixzz26aaplNbu  
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse 

Just as we watch some twenty US consulates and/or embassies under attack across the Muslim world, we now learn that one of the most notable universities in the country has fallen over the cliff, "bringing the university into compliance with the law" as one trustee puts it, by opening the campus to guns.
In literary terms, this represents one of the more graphic examples of the oxymoron.
How does the permission to carry guns reconcile with the pursuit of advanced learning?
In a word, "It doesn't!"
And it will not, no matter how many trustees voted in favour.
If you think the crazies are in control of the board of trustees at CU, you would be right.
If you think the board of trustees is primarily focused on the students' need for a comprehensive and exhaustive and contemporary education at their vaunted campus, you would be mistaken.
And when the Boulder campus signs on to the "gun culture" that abounds throughout the country, you know the president will have a very difficult time winning the state of Colorado.
Next we will learn that Clint Eastwood has been appointed Chancellor of CU, in honour of his performance at the Tampa-Tea-Party Convention of the "former" Republican party. That would complete the take-over by the red-necks of this illustrious learning institute.

Engagement, not withdrawal from the world, only appropriate foreign policy

We need embassies in countries like Iran
By Jeffrey Simpson, Globe and Mail, September 14, 2012
The Cold War remained cold for a long time after Mr. Khrushchev’s burial pronouncement. The Soviets were the West’s enemy, and Canada was anchored in the Western alliance. We stationed troops in Europe, developed an Arctic detection and intercept capability, and generally considered the Soviets hostile to the world we wanted.
Yet, Canada always maintained an embassy in Moscow. We staffed it for 16 years with an ambassador, Robert Ford, who translated Russian poetry, knew the Soviet leaders as well as any Westerner and became the dean of the Western diplomatic corps. He was to Canada what George F. Kennan was to the United States: the indispensable man on the USSR.
Why did Canada, whose country had nuclear weapons aimed at it by the Soviets, keep an embassy there? Surely, it wasn’t in the vain hope that Mr. Ford and his team would cause the Politburo to change how it saw the world. No, it remained open, despite overwhelming differences between the Soviet Union and Canada, to gather information, better understand (insofar as was possible) what was happening inside the government and country and, therefore, to offer information to Ottawa about how best to respond to Soviet developments in the furtherance of Canada’s interests. The embassy was there, in short, to do diplomacy.
In 1970, the Trudeau government established diplomatic relations with “Red” or “Communist” China, something most other Western countries hadn’t done, although the Diefenbaker government had authorized shipments of Canadian wheat to China at least a decade earlier.
When the embassy did open, Mao’s China was raining daily rhetorical thunderbolts on the West. It fought wars of varying intensity with the Soviet Union and India, and in Korea. It was pledged to overturn the world order.
Yet, Canada opened an embassy there, despite the rhetorical enmity of Mao’s China and the bloody regime that had led to the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese people. Canada established diplomatic relations, with personnel on the ground for the same reason Canada had kept an embassy in hostile Moscow: to listen, learn, interact, inform and, if necessary, protect Canadians. Again, no one was under any illusions that Canada would “influence” Maoist China to adopt Western values or institutions.
The Soviet Union and China were “enemies” of Canada and appeared to threaten the world order Canada preferred. But we kept embassies there, and we tried to improve our understanding of what was going on in complicated, hostile, places, because that’s a cardinal reason for practising diplomacy. Canadian governments always understood in these, and many other, instances (such as Cuba or South Africa) that diplomatic relations didn’t mean agreement, let alone concurrence, in the domestic or international practices of other countries.
Which brings us to Iran, and the Harper government’s sudden decision to throw out Iranian diplomats and shutter Canada’s embassy in Tehran. Iran is an exceptionally complicated country with many factions and diverse political opinions below the surface and sometimes on the streets, as witnessed when two million people demonstrated in 2009 against a fraudulent electoral result. Its political system is almost as complicated as the U.S. one; its theocratic leadership is mysterious; and the inferiority complexes of Shia Islam produces what one observer correctly calls a “lachrymose intransigence.”
Iran is a hard country to fathom, with a government whose foreign policy is objectionable, even potentially menacing. It’s also a country that can’t be ignored and needs to be analyzed as correctly and as independently as possible – work more easily done from Tehran than from Ottawa. That is, unless you have a government that doesn’t wish to analyze grainy reality but to shun the real work of diplomacy and stand on the shaky certitudes of ideology.
Most analyses point to a complex "Iran" with Shia religion and a political system under the thumb of Shia mullahs. And, for very good reasons most people are transfixed by questions of religious conflict, Sunni versus Shia, Islam versus "the West" including all forms of Christianity including Coptic, and while those analyses merit further study, there is another phenomenon that we see going on in the Islamic upheavals that does not get mentioned too often.
And that is the concept of colonialism, and the colonial mentality, that is part of the experience of most of the countries where the people are taking to the streets, and "acting out" hostility against what they perceive as their "colonial masters" (read United States).
Canada has a long history of holding fast to a colonial mentality, and our masters included England and France, although certainly Great Britain played a much more prominent role than France.
And there are some very serious and troubling aspects to the colonial mentality that might warrant a further reflection at this time of turbulence.
John Ralston Saul writes cogently about the "colonial mind" in his book, A Fair Country, Telling Truths about Canada:
Studies in a variety of situations around the world all produce roughly the same analysis of the nature of the colonial mind.
At its core is a personal insecurity that cannot be intellectually explained or dealt with. This may easily involve a physically strong, well-education, rich person as the opposite. In fact, the insecurity is more likely to blossom in successful persons because they quickly run up against the elite's confusion over its own purpose.
Such uncontrollable insecurity in turn produces a profound self-loathing. The sufferers can rarely identify or express their emotional state as either insecurity or self-loathing.And so it must be expressed in a compensatory manner. Sometimes this takes the form of aggressive cynicism, as in, nothing basic to their own origins could be worth struggling for. Sometimes the sufferers search for an individual or a cause they feel comfortable treating as greater than themselves--something they can adore and so emotionally attach themselves to. This must almost inevitably involve an important foreign element. In the shadow case by what they accept to be a great force, their insecurity is assuaged.
At a more profoundly confused level, this insecurity or self-loathing weakens the individual's desire to live. It is often said that in a deeply unconscious way, the colonial mind harbours a love of death. Humans are normally driven by a basic desire to exist. This gets us through life's complex circumstances. That desire is reinforced by our belief that life must be deserved. And there lies our motivation--accomplishment, creation, family, reward, admiration from others. But colonial insecurity makes it hard to believe that you are deserving, in part because your accomplishments do not carry the emotional weight of those who belong to a real place.
In practical terms, insecure people living in smaller societies find emotional security through the acceptance of their inferiority before another civilization. Their sense of belonging then takes on a happy, contented form of passivity. If you don't deserve life at its fullest, then you can accept all sorts of mediocre situations as normal, indeed as proof of your sophistication. For example, the idea that you could own, shape or build seems pretentious when you can make yourself feel secure by following, imitation and becoming dependent. (p. 231-232)
Overthrowing the colonial "master"  of the countries in the Middle East, the United States, may take a very long and arduous journey, and along the way, there will be many other tragedies similar to, or even more calamitous than the death of the four U.S. envoys in Banghazi this week. And we can watch the dramatic narrative unfold, hopefully, from a more clear perspective, as the world sheds even more of its colonial mentality, in places not as likely as the Middle East, in Canada, for example whose new 'internal colonial master' could turn out to be her own duly elected government.

Hepburn: Stephen Harper’s democracy award a sad joke on Canadians

By Bob Hepburn, Toronto Star, Setpember 12, 2012
With great fanfare, an international organization has announced it is honouring Stephen Harper as its World Statesman of the Year for his work as a “champion of democracy, freedom and human rights.”

Harper will accept the award from the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, which was created by a New York rabbi in 1965, at a reception on Sept. 27 in New York City.
Harper won the award largely because of his support for Israel and his criticism of Iran.
Clearly, though, the foundation either blatantly ignored or didn’t know that Harper is arguably the worst prime minister in history when it comes to defending democracy and human rights in Canada.
Indeed, Harper’s record of abuse of democracy here at home over the past few years makes a mockery of his award as Statesman of the Year.
It’s a sad indictment for the foundation, which according to its website “believes that freedom, democracy and human rights are the fundamental values that give nations their best hope for peace, security and shared prosperity.”
In the past, the foundation has bestowed its award on some of the world’s top leaders, including former prime minister Jean Chrétien. The foundation also boasts a distinguished board of trustees and advisers, such as former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.
Since he became prime minister in 2006, however, Harper has systematically assaulted democracy in Canada, overlooking — and in some cases condoning — clear cases where our democratic institutions and traditions were undermined.
So outraged are Canadians by Harper’s actions that many of them have started to fight back to save our democracy, launching letter-writing campaigns, tweeting politicians, signing petitions and joining local and national organizations promoting citizen engagement.
Harper’s record of abuse and assault on democracy and rights in Canada is long and well documented.
In April, his government killed the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Rights & Democracy), which for 24 years had promoted democracy and monitored human rights around the world.
In 2010, Harper slashed funding for the Canadian Human Rights Commission so deeply that the agency had to close its offices in Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax.
In 2009, the prime minister approved cutting funds to Kairos, an organization of church groups that advocated for human rights, after it criticized Israel for bombing a Gaza health unit.
In 2006, Harper’s government severely chopped funding to Status of Women Canada, resulting in the closure of 12 of the agency’s 16 regional offices. Also in 2006, the Conservatives shut down the Court Challenges Program, which had worked on behalf of the rights and equality of women, immigrants and gays and lesbians by helping to fund court challenges to discriminatory laws.
At the same time, Harper orchestrated two controversial prorogations of Parliament in less than a year, became the first prime minister ever to be found guilty of contempt of Parliament, and approved the distribution of a handbook on how Tories can disrupt committee hearings, such as by barring witnesses with potentially damaging testimony.
In addition, Harper and his cabinet have flagrantly ignored freedom of speech and information tenets by muzzling senior bureaucrats, withholding and even altering documents, launching personal attacks on whistleblowers and lying to voters.
Also, there’s the anti-democratic robocall affair in the 2011 federal election, with allegations of voter suppression by the Conservatives. The Federal Court of Canada will start hearings into the allegations on Dec. 10.
This is far from an exhaustive list, but it’s a good starting point for officials at the Appeal for Conscience Foundation if they want a more complete picture of their 2012 award winner.
Canadians understand that they should never take their democracy for granted. Given that, the foundation should have known that anointing Harper, who has displayed such a casual disrespect for democracy at home, as its World Statesman of the Year would be seen as a sad joke on all Canadians struggling to protect their democracy.
Obviously, it’s too late for the foundation to revoke the award. But Harper could at least have the decency to be a bit contrite when he officially accepts it

Digital media free to those who would abuse its power...witness Benghazi and Cairo

Modern Communications fans the flames of religious attacks
By Oliver Moore, Globe and Mail, September 12, 2012
The movie isn’t going to win any awards for artistic brilliance.
A 14-minute version circulating on the Internet relies on low-grade actors whose hackneyed lines demonize Islam. The Prophet Mohammad – strangely Aryan-looking for a person whom history records as having come from Mecca – is mocked as a hypocritical libertine who condones child rape and who suffers the indignity of being chased by women who batter him with their shoes.
But as clumsy a piece of agitprop as it is, the film was enough to spark violent mobs in several countries, joining a growing number of incidents in which a perceived insult to Islam has sparked deadly attacks.
It’s a modern phenomenon, the most notorious being the Danish cartoon controversy, which left nearly 150 dead.
“It is very difficult to find parallels, if you go even 10 or 20 years back,” said Jamal Badawi, a professor emeritus in the Department of Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. “I’m not aware of something older, at least not as dramatic.”
He pointed to modern communications as an aggravating factor. Satellite news and social media mean that, in short order, a perceived insult can be disseminated, a hardline mob roused and the results of their violence broadcast. It’s a manifestation of the global village, with Prof. Badawi noting that the inter-connectedness can confuse those who don’t grasp Western freedoms.
“Foreigners may not realize governments cannot order films, for example, to stop,” he said. “They perceive the attack on the prophet as an attack on their own identity.”
The results can be deadly.
Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh, a great-grandnephew of the painter Vincent, received death threats after making the provocative 2004 movie Submission, which included showing verses of the Koran written on female bodies. According to his friend and scriptwriter Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the firebrand Somali-born intellectual, he did not take the threats seriously. He was killed while cycling to work, shot eight times by a Dutch-Moroccan who also stabbed and tried to decapitate him.
In 2005, unconfirmed reports that the Koran had been thrown in the toilet at the U.S. detention centre in Guantanamo Bay sparked violent protests. Dozens were killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Middle East and Africa. Newsweek later retracted part of its report and military investigators said that no deliberate desecration had occurred.
Later that same year, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a number of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The incident passed largely unnoticed outside of Denmark, until several local Muslims created a dossier of the cartoons, along with their feelings of hurt and several unrelated images, and circulated the material. The resulting protests in Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan left 139 dead. The cartoonist lived for years under the protection of police, who shot and wounded a man who burst into the house with an axe and a knife.
In 2010, fringe Florida preacher Terry Jones announced plans to set fire to a Koran on the ninth anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on the United States. His plan – which he dubbed “International Burn a Koran Day” – drew widespread condemnation. Only two days before the act he called it off, after protests that left 20 dead in the Middle East and central Asia. He vowed never to burn a Koran but broke his word the following year, joining supporters for a “trial” and “execution” of the book that garnered limited attention and brought a fine for not having a permit.
Earlier this year, the U.S. military decided to burn a large number of religious materials, including Korans. They said these had been written in by prisoners at Bagram air base, in Afghanistan, as a way to pass notes. Only a small amount was burned before an Afghan labourer noticed and doused the flames. But the news caused a mob attack on the base, as well as other protests that left 30 dead. Among those slain were several Americans believed killed in retaliation.
The latest violence was sparked by a film produced by a California resident who calls himself an Israeli Jew. It is back by Mr. Jones, the Florida preacher. Film-maker Sam Bacile spoke openly to the Associated Press of trying to discredit Islam, calling it a “cancer” and said the $5-million production was funded by 100 Jewish donors. He is now in hiding but denies responsibility for the U.S. ambassador being killed in Libya, saying that his security detail failed.
(UPDATE!  The movie was not, apparently, funded by Jewish doctors, but to the tune of merely $60,000 by Coptic Christians in Egypt, family members of the movie maker (source Brian Ross, ABC investigative reporter,quoted on Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Thursday, September 13, 2012)...whoever he turns out to be. His bio is so "swiss-cheese-like" that the holes and stench have yet to be corrected.)
Framing the murder of the American ambassador to Libya and three staffers at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, as a merely religiously motivated killing, misses two important aspects of the events.
First, the making of the movie is, and should be regarded as a "hate crime" as is the killing of the Ambassador. For the movie-maker to deny responsibility, claiming "that his security detail failed" is heinous, at least, and criminal at worst.
Second, the political ramifications of the movie's provocative reactions, including the legal implications, cannot be left unmentioned. The White House has already announced that "justice will come to those who committed the acts in Benghazi."
By Jim Kuhnhenn, The Associated Press, in Globe and Mail, September 12, 2012
President Barack Obama vowed Wednesday the United States would “work with the Libyan government to bring to justice” to those who killed U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American personnel in an attack on the consulate in Benghazi.
“Make no mistake. Justice will be done,” he said in an appearance at the Rose Garden outside the White House, where he was joined by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Mr. Obama, who ordered an increase in security at U.S. facilities overseas, said he “condemns in the strongest possible terms the outrageous and shocking” attack.

He spoke after Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney condemned the attack, and criticized the administration for its initial response to a separate incident on Tuesday, the breach of the U.S. embassy in Cairo.
The attacks occurred Tuesday night in the eastern city of Benghazi by protesters angry over a film that ridiculed Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, according to Libya officials. Ambassador Stevens, 52, was killed when he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff as the building came under attack by a mob with guns and rocket propelled grenades. Three other Americans were also killed.
Speaking at the State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton decried an attack that she said “should shock the conscience of people of all faiths around the world.”
She blamed a “small and savage group” of militants, not the people or government of Libya.
“There is no justification for this. None,” Ms. Clinton said. “Violence like this is no way to honour religion or faith and as long as there are those who would take innocent life in the name of God, the world will never know true and lasting peace.”
The radicals among the Christian fundamentalists, among the Islamic jihadists, and among the Jewish community are seizing more power than they merit, more funding than they deserve and more political coverage than their bigotry warrants. And the social media are merely megaphoning those realities.
It was the convergence of three kinds of religious radicals that produced the vortex that killed the Ambassador.
Having been the target of the radical wing of the Christian fundamentalists, on more than one occasion, I have witnessed the virulence that continues to exist even against one raised in their church should that one disagree with their positions. They have used innuendo, gossip, slander and libel with impunity in more than one instance against me personally, in both Canada and the U.S.
So when the Koran becomes the target of the hatred and bigotry of some of their numbers, including the "reverend" Jones holds and expresses without either contrition or shame, imagine the heat and the amount of their venom in these escalated stakes! (Was that not also, ironically, the same last name of the "reverend" who had his disciples drink their "kool-aid" in a mass religious suicide in Waco Texas?)
As for the participation of the "Jewish doctors" who allegedly funded this half-baked movie project, linked also to the Netanyahu demand for a "red line" and a deadline from the U.S. on Iran, with some fifty days left in a U.S. presidential election (in which Bibby's personal "horse" in the race is running for the Republicans), their actions are inexcusable, but obviously co-ordinated and calculated to produce the desired impact on geo-politics, especially in the U.S. election.
There are going to be more deaths coming out of this latest chapter in international religious conflicts before there is a calming period. And some of those deaths are going to be among the Islamists, the Jews and the Christians, most likely.
With the failing clout of the UN, just when international collaboration is critical to reducing tensions, and the mounting pressure from Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah, including the Syrian civil war, and the blocking of even humanitarian aid by both China and Russia to suffering refugees and victims of the Assad brutality, as ordinary people are putting it more frequently, "This is one helluva mess!"
And for us, we add, Who would even consider switching horses from Obama to Romney in the middle of the mess?

Harper "statesman of the year" only in the eyes of a self-interested donor

The presentation of the award to Mr. Harper is likely to spark debate at home, where his critics and admirers will face off over whether the Conservative Prime Minister ranks as a global statesman.
Mr. Harper’s critics have argued he lost a bid for the UN Security Council, has overemphasized the military and shifted Canada to a one-sided support of Israel. His supporters will contend he has taken strong stands – and his position on Israel was cited by the ACF’s founder as one reason he will be recognized with the award. (From the Campbell Clark piece in the Globe and Mail, September 11, 2012, excerpted below)
Count us among Harper's critics in both foreign and domestic policy.
With regard to foreign policy, statesmanship can  be defined as the complex relationships among world leaders that supports a vision of international multilateralism balancing the interests of competing views especially the middle powers like Canada.
Awards for positions and for initiatives that are less balanced and less nuanced than we have been both capable of and well-known for in the past point to the political necessities of those presenting them.
Balancing Israeli and Palestinian interests, in the past, has been a hallmark of Canadian diplomacy.
That has been thrown under the bus by Harper.
Support for the United Nations has also been a hallmark of Canadian diplomacy.
That too has been trashed by Harper.
Support for the European bail-out would, under different administrations in the past, would have been another sign of the diplomatic signature of the Canadian government. That has also been ignored by Harper.
Securing a seat on the Security Council has always been a priority for Canadian governments.
That is a significant failure of this Harper government.
If finding a friend and becoming a cheerleader for that friend is the new definition of what "counts" in global diplomacy, then multilateralism, internationalism and working toward securing more than trading arrangements has fallen from favour on the world stage.
If this group wished to name "the outstanding statesman" there are so many more worthy candidates for the honour, especially this year. Among them are names like: Christine Lagarde, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and even Fareed Zakaria or Thomas Freedman,  Kofi Anan, or Louise Arbour.
Self-interest ought to be one of the last  and least significant criterion in such a high-profile award.
And blatant self-interest tarnishes the award, no matter the recipient.
This specific recipient pales in comparison even with David Suzuki and Stephen Lewis, as Canadians who have brought honour to themselves and their country, through their engagement with the world community.
Harper's snub to the UN, while he is in New York, also reminds the world of George W. Bush's attitude to the world body, and that too rankles many observers of the theatre on the world stage.
By Campbell Clark, Globe and Mail, September 11, 2012
The Appeal of Conscience Foundation, an international organization founded by New York rabbi Arthur Schneier, has picked Mr. Harper as its World Statesman of the Year for 2012. He joins a list of past recipients – also deemed promoters of human rights and freedom – that includes Jean Chrétien, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and, most recently, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
The presentation of the award to Mr. Harper is likely to spark debate at home, where his critics and admirers will face off over whether the Conservative Prime Minister ranks as a global statesman.

Mr. Harper’s critics have argued he lost a bid for the UN Security Council, has overemphasized the military and shifted Canada to a one-sided support of Israel. His supporters will contend he has taken strong stands – and his position on Israel was cited by the ACF’s founder as one reason he will be recognized with the award.
The timing of the award ceremony, during the week when world leaders descend on New York to address the annual opening of the UN General Assembly, underlines Mr. Harper’s distaste for the multilateral diplomatic forum. Prime ministers were offered UN speaking slots on Sept. 27 – the very day Mr. Harper will accept the award in New York – but Mr. Harper chose to skip the UN. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird will speak for Canada, but, as a mere minister, is relegated to the following week.
The soirée where Mr. Harper will be feted typically features luminaries drawn from the social and political elite of New York and the foreign-policy world. Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger will present the award to Mr. Harper. The audience will likely include former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, a member of the ACF’s board, and possibly former U.S. president Bill Clinton, its honorary chair.
Mr. Schneier, long involved in interfaith initiatives with Christian leaders, co-founded the ACF in 1965 to promote religious and human rights – notably, at that time, in the Soviet Union.
He said Mr. Harper’s promise to open an Office of Religious Freedom in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs drew the notice of the ACF. (The office is slated to open later this year.) He said Mr. Harper’s staunch support of Israel and vocal criticism of Iran were also significant factors in the foundation’s decision to honour him.
“We’re not one issue. However, this [is] a significant issue – the Middle East and Iran today. His stand, I think, is basically one of conviction. That Israel is an outpost of democracy, and he supports democracies,” Mr. Schneier said. At a meeting last week, Mr. Schneier was impressed by the Prime Minister’s “unambiguous” views.
“I met the man for the first time face-to-face, and I must say that he impressed me as a man who has a vision and doesn’t veer,” he said.
That isn’t always a characteristic Mr. Harper’s critics appreciate. By coincidence, the award was announced just a few days after his government cut off diplomatic ties with Iran – and even when it comes to dealing with a pariah regime, his opponents have accused him of going too far.
Perhaps most pointedly, his disaffection for the UN is demonstrated by his willingness to fly to New York during the so-called UN week to meet other world leaders without agreeing to speak to the General Assembly.
Mr. Harper has only addressed the General Assembly twice in his nearly seven years in power. The last time was in 2010, when he was campaigning for Canada to obtain a seat on the UN Security Council for 2011 and 2012, a period when the Security Council has debated intervention in Libya, came to a stalemate over sanctions in Syria and grappled with Iran’s nuclear program.

Reflections on "teacher evaluation," an issue in the Chicago teachers' strike

In the midst of the Chicago teachers' strike, is the conundrum of how to evaluate teachers.
And, with  accounting, accountability, and demonstrated "value for investment" in the corporate world having subsumed the whole culture, who is surprised that several quarters are arguing for a certain percentage of the evaluation to be based on student test scores. The percentage figure ranges from a low of 25% to a high of 50%. And both figures are far too high.
First, tying "my" salary to the level of "achievement" by students on specific tests means a number of things to me:

1. It means that my family's budget is also now tied to those scores.
2. It means that I insist on taking as much time as needed in class, from the rest of the curriculum, for practising those tests, for assuring that students in my class are going to do as well as I can possibly help them to achieve.
3. It means that my "performance" is going to be graded "socially, politically, culturally and economically" by everyone who knows me personally, professionally and barely at all.
4. It means that if my students do not do well, in the tests this semester, my timetable for next semester's teaching assignments will be tailored to my perceived failure, at least in my mind.
5. It means that all enthusiasm for both teaching and learning that have supported and sustained me for the X number of decades I have taught, will drain considerably, with this new perspective on my "teaching" credentials, where it counts most, in both the pocketbook and in my professional reputation.
6. It means that curiosity, creativity and subjectivity will be sacrificed on the altar of objectivity, science, math, statistics and I will be categorized by my level of ROI (Return on Investment).
7. It also means that on the day I receive the notice that my teaching performance will be graded even partially, like as low as  10% on student test scores, will be the same day, or at least the day before, I submit my resignation from the teaching profession.

These are not negotiable items for me. My union, my teachers' professional association, and my twenty-odd years of successful teaching in the classroom, by all reports at least, will not mean a thing, should those test scores put a  negative ranking on my performance, considering all the variables that go into a student's perfomance on those tests. There is the home situation, the level of hunger, the respect for learning in the home, in the community, the reading levels at home, in the school and in the community, the place where my students sleep, including the comfort of the bed, not to mention the intellectual aptitude, capacity and level of interest and motivation of each student, generally and specifically on the day of the test. If a student is harbouring a "grudge" against me, and has been feeling ill-disposed to the way I marked his or her last assignment, that will show up on the results of the test, especially if s/he knows that my professional reputation will be bruised by his/her negative performance.
And then there is the testing instrument itself. For grading purposes, it will likely be a type of multiple choice test because they can be submitted to a computer for grading, eliminating the need for extra "pay" for marking those tests. Also multiple choice tests have earned a reputation for objectivity, and hence reliability, and validity, all requirements of a statistical model, without meeting the specific learning goals of, for example, an English language and Literature curriculum which requires the production of words, sentences, paragraphs, and extended themes in order to demonstrate some command of those aspects of language, including the normal and expected use of interesting and captivating metaphors, and all of the other literary devices, including some mastery not merely of the content and context of their deployment by respected and published writers, but their deployment in the writing of the students themselves. And multiple choice testing will not "cut it", as the vernacular expresses it.
If we want to pour facts and equations and definitions into our students, perhaps a multiple choice test will suffice to demonstrate whether or not the contents of those "pourings" have  been assimilated.
But learning is much more than the assimilation of facts, equations and definitions and a testing instrument worthy of the challenge, especially when both the student's performance and my performance as an instructor are "on the line," must include the integration of facts, definitions, equations in their support of both oral and written communication.
I always considered "education" and the learning that constitutes the process as being from the Latin root, e-ducere, to lead out of or out from...meaning that we were to bring to consciousness what was already hidden and uncovered in the students' minds, not merely to attempt to attach some new concepts to a portion of the brain, for the purpose of regurgitation come exam time.
And that extremely complex and sensitive and human interaction needs highly sensitive and complex and reliable measures to test the effectiveness of whatever processes are being engaged in the classroom.
Most politicians know literally and metaphorically nothing about teaching and learning.
And the level of the rung on the political ladder that the politician has reached has no bearing on that opinion. In fact, there is clear evidence that politicians have been misguided in their apprehension and appreciation of the learning process in North America for decades, considering their worship at the altar of both dollars spent and numbers of students in a class, including numbers of graduates, as a percentage of enrollment.
We have created, by our hubris and the complicity of several groups, including politicians, at the provincial and state level, and at the local level, the teachers and the administrators, a system that refuses to accept, acknowledge and face head-on the question of student achievement, including the need to examine student failure. We have students being "pushed through" to the next grade level, because the political climate demands that because their parents are paying taxes, they are entitled to a graduation diploma, even when, in many cases, that diploma means less and less each year, and not only because of the rising demand of higher education among graduates at all levels, in the workplace.
We have also, together, through both overt and willful manipulation combined with lethargy, apathy and silence,  generated a "business model" for governments, including schools, libraries, hospitals and even roads and bridges that is inappropriate for the work involved, and the kinds of results it expects.
By reducing students to numbers, teachers to numbers, administrators to numbers and a societal model of organization to the corporation,(itself based exclusively on the manipulation of numbers) including civic governments, and thereby taxpayers as well, we have sucked all the gas out of the shock absorbers needed for the societal "car" to move smoothly through the pot-holes, and the floods and the windstorms and even the hurricanes of our collective lives.
Such a model requires "products" and "sales" and "profits" and ROI (Return on Investment) and the people making the laws are virtually in charge of how those equations are both designed and met.
Teachers, nurses, doctors, librarians, social workers and even lawyers and clergy...all those whose work provides the oil, grease and the kind of roads and bridges and the exciting of the hearts and minds and bodies of the people they serve, must never be reduced to the numbers of their successes and failures and regardless of the current "political fashion" must push back against a profit-and-loss reductionism of everything they have learned and everything they do.
And sometimes push-back requires drawing a red-line in the sand and refusing to co-operate with expectations that are incongruous to the ethics and the professional demands of the exercise.