Alright, it seems that I have run out of interesting things to tell people. OK, not really, but the traffic here at the blog is not doing so well. Or not as well as I would like.
I have an idea and maybe you know what it is. Tell your friends (and not so friends) about this site. Even if you completely disagree with the content, tell somebody who will reasonably disagree with me. Tell them to comment. If you don't agree or have something to add, please don't forget to make some comments.
I sometimes say things to try and get a rise. I know all the people on board do not always agree, let me know. I know in this day and age of reletivism, it does not seem nice to tell someone you think their ideas are wrong, but that idea is a big crock full of doo doo. I am sometimes wrong. If you have some ideas you think are better, instead of simply disagreeing, try to tell me why you think your idea is better.
That is the basis for civil discussion in the public square. So, do me a favor and comment, disagree (or agree and add some of your thoughts). Tell your friends, and if you have none, tell strangers or enemies.
Here's a topic: I think watching sports on TV is dumb. Any comments?
Derrick
P.S. Simon Cowell (of American Idol) has been labeled "homophobic" for his comments on AI. I think it is dumb to call him homophobic because he makes rude comments about a person having gender issues. He is an ass. If he just picked on gay people, this claim might be valid. But he says mean, rude, and sometimes hurtful ("I'm just being honest", he says) things to EVERYONE no matter their color, gender or sexual preference.
So, stop with the name-calling of "homophobic". I doubt he is afraid of gays. Even if he was, what if he was born that way?
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<< Alright, it seems that I have run out of interesting things to tell people. OK, not really, but the traffic here at the blog is not doing so well. Or not as well as I would like.
I have an idea and maybe you know what it is. Tell your friends (and not so friends) about this site. Even if you completely disagree with the content, tell somebody who will reasonably disagree with me. Tell them to comment. If you don't agree or have something to add, please don't forget to make some comments. >>
Okay, so what do you have to say that people could read? Everyone has an opinion about something, and most opinions are not even worth listening to. So if you want to capture an audience, then it would be good to make yourself stand apart from others, whether intentionally or otherwise.
Also, the amount of time people spend in reading your posts and the amount of reader that you get should roughly be commensurate with the amount of posting that you do in each week; the more you post, the more you get read.
Furthermore, here is a reminder that a person should have an angle of his own; Ann Coulter has hers, Koukl has his, Dr. Dobson has his, Dr. Horton and the rest of the people at the White Horse Inn have theirs, etc. So what is yours? Answer that question, then accentuate your idiosyncrasies or your special KSAs, and you win.
But here is a warning at the end of it all: it is well possible to be “a jack of all trades, and master of none.” So if we, the readers, ever catch you making any dogmatic assertions beyond superficial assessments of postmodern epistemology, beyond shortcomings of macroevolutionism, and beyond the shortcomings of acceptance-as-tolerance (the things that you seem to have mentioned the most in this forum thus far), then it may be the case (speaking merely from my own relatively ignorant perspective) that you have crossed the lines of propriety; a perfect example would be that of laypeople who presume to declare that this or that person in the Bible was Black and that all these Hebrew and Greek practices of Classical and ancient periods of history were of Egyptian origin--not a single one of these “ignorant scribbers” (as John Gill might say) has even thought to address the issue of the constant migrations and invasions throughout the pre-Classical period or the evidence that suggests that the phenotypical picture of Mideast inhabitants of antiquity was far from being a simple one. (But hey, just read a couple of superficial, one-sided books from a couple of authors either left or right of center and you are now an expert of things anthropological, historical, linguistic, etc., right?)
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Now then, watching sports on TV is not dumb. If it makes you happy, then so be it. Even if it’s watching a Clippers game, so be it. Sometimes happiness is of greater worth and good than romantic ideas of what people should do with their time. And so now I want to go and try out these utilities I just downloaded and try to build and reconfigure some mods for Klingon Academy, which came out 5 years ago.
-Kwame
And today’s word is “mabfzxkw.”
I had a student from my newspaper column ask me about what I thought regarding his class having to examine Indian Burial Site artifacts. My answer was not very popular.
I simply agreed with the student that I thought it was wrong to disturb ANY burial sites. When does grave robbing stop and archeology kick in? At which year after burial or who, determines if a grave is to be disturbed "in the name of science"? Me;I'm going to be cremated. You never know that in a thousand years if archeologists are going to want to dig up special education teachers for display or study.
Well, I think part of my strength is that I am a "jack of all trades, master of none".
Now, part of the reason for this is that I have never really been really good at any one thing, but pretty good at a few things and ok at more.
However, to put a positive spin on this, I would say, like Greg Koukl, I don't have time for all of the details, but rather I try to focus on the content or the ideas behind certain things.
Now, much of the time, you will not find me making more than superficial observations about some things mainly because I have not focused on any one thing.
Both my Bachelor's and Master's degrees are more generalized, by design. I am an elementary educator, so to do well, it would seem best to be moderately knowledgable in many subjects.
Perhaps part of the reason for including the topics of evolution, tolerance as acceptance and postmodernism (though to a lesser degree), is that I have done more research on these and they are more of a "love" for me.
Derrick
Kwame,
to be fair, I don't think there is no value in watching sports on TV, but mostly as a preference I do not like to. Though I have been starting to enjoy, on occasion, a Nascar race (thanks to my in-laws). But even then I don't watch all of it...usually. :-}
But even with that, it becomes more enjoyable if you have a "team" to root for. So, sometimes, if I am watching some sports show at someone's house, I must pick the opposing team just to rile up the other person, and so I have someone to root for.
That is why I like games of family cause I know someone.
Plus I like the occasional live game like the Mavericks.
Also, thanks for the word "mabfzxkw".
Derrick
Maybe you just say things so well that you take the words right out of people's mouths and there is nothing left to comment on. Hmmm? :-)
Haha,
yeah, that's probably it. ;-)
Derrick
<< Also, thanks for the word "mabfzxkw". >>
Don’t thank me; thank blogger.com. But now here’s a better one:
floccinaucinihilipilification. Just add the linking vowel between your lateral approximant and and your voicless bilabial stop and you have a real word; the Geico commerical was not far-fetched.
Anyway, you’ve zeroed in on one of the problems of specialization in being a teacher at an elementary school. When you play the role of elementary school teacher and when you serve the people paying your salary, you are obliged to disseminate information which is meanwhile questionable (though treated as unquestionable) and in a number of cases perhaps flat-out erroneous. Even if, for example, you are a history teacher at a public school yet continue even after college graduation to do research and uncover new indications that the historical record WRT this or that alleged fact is inaccurate, you still have to serve your benefactors and tell your students the misinformation your benefactors want them to be told. But that’s if (in the first place) you’re still learning and still doing research, as it was before you went to work to indoctrinate young-uns as your benefactors wish. Now, history professors at universities sometimes may find themselves at a place where they can correct themselves and their former lectures, for many are expected to do research well after they earn their doctorates with attendant theses or what-not. Likewise, philosophy professors at universities find themselves at places where they can correct themselves, for it is constantly discovered within the community that ideas erstwhile held to be true (even intuitively true in some cases) are not true. Moreover, even a field such as physics possibly can be subject to correction as physics does to some degree overlap with philosophy.
Things are different, however, when your time is spent during each day, each week, each month (besides two) preparing lesson plans, grading homework, giving lectures. I can imagine that most of the people feeding the popular curricula of social studies, history, and science to their students at public schools aren’t doing a lot of post-graduate research in their down time or during the summer; the result is that lectures on the Revolutionary War, the so-called Civil Rights Movement, biology, and so on end up being incomplete, if not outright inaccurate.
Of course, there are obvious ways by which this problem could be circumvented, yet the problem should be circumvented even if it merely involves a teacher’s taking the initiative to give to himself the equivalent of the further education that he will not receive at the university--the equivalent of the Master’s program, doctoral program, or post-doctoral program that he will never receive.
This all goes beyond just the condition that public school teachers are placed in. Examples come easily enough: Every Christian in this country who disagrees with this or that latest ruling by the Supreme Court presumes to have as great of an understanding of the words and content of the Constitution of the United States as do Supreme Court justices, but when you take a look at these dissenters or complainers, they really are ignorant. Every unbeliever who with perfect confidence declares that no single religious tenet is true in virtue of the fact that there are many who disagree with many tenets--this person also is ignorant and misled though he may go as far as to believe that his view is intuitively or a priori true. Every person who says that Black are owed reparations for slavery, as though this person does not know what the word “reparation” means, or as though the dead should be repaid, or as though he confuses and conflates the identity of persons now dead and persons now living--he too is someone who does not believe that he needs any further education or needs anyone to tell him that he may be mistaken. HOWEVER, if these individuals, right along with every other lay person, were to sit down and read a book, and another book, and another book, and finally all books then each of them would eventually learn that he or she was overconfident all along. Thirty percent of his beliefs had been false, and if in the meantime he would have assumed the task of becoming the master of various fields of study (one should not strive for anything less, ultimately), he would not have found himself leading people to hell with false beliefs or establishing grounds for racial strife in the first place.
Make no mistake about it: a person had better be good at something, or else keep completely to himself. Actions have consequences, and a person’s mistakes ultimately are NOT merely his own.
Okay, that is enough for one day. I’m done.
-Kwame
P.S. If a person thinks he knows everything about postmodern philosophy, then I would invite him to consider John Blackman’s comments over at the Theology and Apologetics group at Yahoo. I will not try to find the specific dates of the e-mail posts, but just remember that it should not be assumed that all adherents of the philosophy are ignorant people who have given little or no thought to their ideas. This is even more true, as it were, of the community of atheistic critics of Christianity. Specialization in various fields of knowledge becomes utile not only because we can lead others astray, but also because not everyone is ignorant.
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"Here's a topic: I think watching sports on TV is dumb. Any comments?"
Agreed....except for Baseball..
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