Why study algebra?
Log Cabin Democrat, April 5
Learning how to think applies to other fields, too
It's always nice to get a good report card. A little recognition, a pat on the back, a head held higher.
That's true for the student and especially true for the parents. It's even true for a whole community.
And that's the case for the Conway School District, where the students scored above the state average on a rigorous end-of-course exam in Algebra II. That performance earned a prominent place in a Washington Post article about high school graduation requirements and a subsequent report in the Log Cabin Democrat.
Algebra II is typically the fourth most advanced math class required when states set tougher graduation requirements. The next step up is calculus, which is usually an elective course offering.
Catherine Lyons, a Conway High School senior, told the Log Cabin that her Algebra II class is by far her most challenging class. "It is hard. Some of it is hard, but not all of it. Once it clicks, it is pretty easy."
That's the key. It's the secret of educating students: Pushing them through the problems and the challenges so that they learn a new way to think. When a subject clicks, that student's brain has developed a new pathway for seeing how the world works. That student has discovered a new way of solving a problem. And that new way of working through problems applies to more than polynomials and complex numbers.
Many of the jobs today require this very skill - the ability to look at an issue, weigh the options and find the best way to solve it.
Conway Superintendent Greg Murry understands the importance of new skills in today's market.
"We've had to retool our training so that students can perform on a higher level," he told the Log Cabin. "It's important for us to push the envelope with them."
Unfortunately, students might not understand that particular lesson until they get out in the job market.
There's another benefit to having math and science requirements that challenge students. (And the same could be said for English and art classes.) We are reminded of an acquaintance who was a college professor with a doctorate in chemistry. He went from football field to his chosen field only because he took a chemistry class and discovered that he loved the subject.
But then, as in any field, people often respond to a challenge by meeting and then exceeding expectations.
That seems to be the case for Conway's math students.
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Honor guard duty admirable
Southwest Times Record, April 12
Have you ever spent 12 hours a day learning how to properly fold an American flag?
Members of the Air Force Honor Guard at the Little Rock Air Force Base spend countless hours on flag-folding and more during training to honor Air Force veterans at their funerals.
"We put an exclamation point on somebody's life," said Master Sgt. Branden Issitt, superintendent of the Little Rock Air Force Base honor guard. "We wrap up and we symbolize that person's military career."
The honor guard aims to recognize every fallen Air Force veteran, attending funerals in Arkansas and western Tennessee, according to an Associated Press report in Monday's edition.
Last year, it performed nearly 800 military burials, and Issitt noted the number is likely to be higher this year because Korean War veterans are dying at an increasing rate.
According to the USAF Honor Guard website, the training program is standardized, so that the ceremonies and how they're performed are the same at Air Force bases across the United States. Funeral ceremonies also include a rifle salute and playing taps.
The ceremonial guardsman "is an individual of good reputation, having integrity, ethical conduct and exhibiting standards which merit respect; responsible for protecting and overseeing the maintenance of standards on and off duty," according to the site.
It isn't an easy task; honor guard members face the hours of training, of performing multiple funeral services in a day, of performing in a variety of weather conditions.
But it's an honorable one, and the airmen in Little Rock acknowledged that. "You have to know that you are there do to a job and you are to do it at the best of your ability to give that individual the ceremony they deserve," said Staff Sgt. Richard Hadley. "It's not always easy to separate yourself from that, and there were many times when I really had to fight back the tears. But this is something that person's family will remember that the rest of their lives, and you're just honored to be there."
We thank the honor guard for paying tribute to our veterans in their final ceremonies.
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Was Arkansas not good enough for you, governor?
Harrison Daily Times, April 12
Swing your partner with a hee and a haw,
She elected you gov'nor of Ar-kin-saw.
She might have buck teeth and big ol' ears,
But she hired you back for 10 long years.
Now you're makin' all kinds of dough-si-dough
And that former dance partner just has to go.
So dump your partner with a hee and a haw
And build your new home in Flor-ee-daw.
There's an old saying that you should dance with the one who brought you. For 10 years, the State of Arkansas brought Mike Huckabee to the dance, with its comfortable living (while the governorship of Arkansas is not one of the top paying positions in the country, its $71,000 salary is not to be sneezed at by many hard-working people struggling to make it), national stage and opportunities for lucrative gigs.
Now, instead of remembering that old dance partner, Huckabee is building a $3 million home on the Florida Panhandle.
We agree that a person should be able to live wherever he wants, as long as he can afford it and everything is done legally. However, why couldn't Huckabee have built his home in the place that entrusted him to a position of leadership for so long? Why couldn't he have spent the $3 million in a state that needs the money more than Florida? To be fair, though, the Huckabees still own a home in North Little Rock. And Huckabee is not the first Arkansas politician to consider the grasses greener elsewhere. Bill Clinton comes to mind.
We think politicians, especially, should show loyalty to the district or state that brought them to the dance, whether that be Little Rock or Washington.
The Third Congressional District of Arkansas deemed John Paul Hammerschmidt worthy enough to be returned to Washington for almost 30 years. Upon his retirement, Harrison was deemed worthy as his home, and Hammerschmidt has continued to work tirelessly for its betterment. We commend him for that.
Huckabee, who has carved out a very high-paying career as a Fox News commentator, said that living in Florida makes the weekly trip to New York easier. Last time we checked, there is an airport in Little Rock. Plus, with all the modern advances in communication technology, wouldn't it be possible to do at least some of the show from a studio in Little Rock?
Of course, there's the matter of no income tax in Florida and the fact that Florida would be much more attractive and influential in the case of say — oh, we don't know — a presidential run.
Huckabee commented that the panhandle was a much better place for him than the rest of Florida.
"It's less likely to be crowded and there is a great attitude among people here," he said. "In South Florida, all of New York and Connecticut relocates there. But South Walton is all Southeastern Conference. I can order grits and people know what I'm talking about."
If you lived in south Florida, you certainly wouldn't want a lot of people from somewhere else moving in, people like former governors of Arkansas.
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In a battle with the superbugs
South Arkansas Sunday News, April 10
A government shutdown. Violence in the Middle East. Earthquakes. Tsunamis. Radiation poisoning. The list of calamities we have to worry about just seems to keep growing, and just last week we became aware of yet one more thing to add to that list, the arrival of highly dangerous - and sometimes even fatal - superbugs.
Rampant misuse of antibiotics has led to the rise of these superbugs, which are fast becoming a global threat. The first, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is attacking people in hospitals as well as in the community at-large. The second, a multi-drug-resistant bacteria called carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP), is also spreading.
In 2010, antibiotic-resistant infections took the lives of 25,000 people in Europe, and since that time, CRKP has been reported in 36 U.S. states, and is suspected of triggering infections in 14 other states where reporting isn't required. Both MRSA and CRKP have been reported in Arkansas.
So now that we know these superbugs are out there, what steps can we take to protect ourselves and our families from infection?
According to the CDC, "those most at risk are patients, usually the elderly, who are already ill and living in long-term healthcare facilities such as nursing homes. People who are on ventilators, require IVs, or have undergone prolonged treatment with certain antibiotics face the greatest threat of CRKP infection. Healthy people are at very low risk for CRKP. There are two types of MRSA, a form that affects hospital patients, with similar risk factors to CRKP, and another even more frightening strain found in communities, attacking people of all ages who have not been in medical facilities, including athletes, weekend warriors who use locker rooms, kids in daycare centers, soldiers, and people who get tattoos. Nearly 500,000 people a year are hospitalized with MRSA."
Both MRSA and CRKP are mainly spread by person-to-person contact, the CDC reports. They can enter the lungs through a ventilator, causing pneumonia, the bloodstream through an IV line, causing bloodstream infection (sepsis), or the urinary tract through a catheter, causing a urinary tract infection. Both can also cause surgical wounds to become infected. MRSA can also be spread in contact via infected items, such as sharing razors, clothing and sports equipment. Neither superbug can be spread through the air.
As you can see, both of these bugs are complex and dangerous, but our best defense against them comes down to good, old-fashioned hygiene. The CDC recommends that if you know someone in a nursing home or hospital, you should make sure that the doctors and staff wash their hands in front of you. You should also wash your own hands frequently with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer and avoid sharing personal items.
Make no mistake - we are in a war against these superbugs, but through cleanliness and vigilance, hopefully we can gain the upper hand.
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It started on this day
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 12
It was a pleasure to watch "The Civil War," Ken Burns' masterpiece of a documentary that AETN ran again last week. Starring the likes of the talented Dr. Barbara Fields, Mathew Brady's photographs, haunting music, and Shelby Foote, gentleman. And, most enjoyable, the late Mister Foote's east-of-The-Rivah, pure Mississippi liquid voice lapping toward some distant cascade. When he spoke, time seemed to slow down. Aeons might pass between subject and verb, preposition and object-time filled with thought years past.
They tell us Mr. Foote was born in Mississippi and grew up with the fabled Walker Percy, but to some of us his soothing voice and extended vowels sounded more like Georgia. More specifically, Augusta. Or just outside Augusta, along a rural route with a gravel road, a little pond to the right, wasps in the air, the summer hot as a pepper. Or rather peppa. Oh, the South! the South! the South!
They say Mr. Burns' documentary took five years to put together. Which was longer than the Late Unpleasantness itself. It shows. When we read about the re-run in the paper last week, we made a point to gather the family 'round every night for most of a week and just take it in. From the first glorious, patriotic, heroic and idiotic decision to fire on Fort Sumter (what were those people thinking, or were they just emoting?) to the avalanche of events in April 1865, the best word to describe the documentary is: spellbinding.
Most of us over the age of 40 aren't going to be around when this one nation, indivisible, notes the 200th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Those under 40, mark your calendar. That day will come April 12th, 2061. Today, however, we can take a moment to pause on the 150th anniversary of the day The War began and the Old South would end.
The events of 1861-1865 have been called the rock from which we are hewn-we being, mostly, Southerners. We don't want to shock anybody, but the South lost-and the losers don't forget. As in, Fergit Hell!
Those who hail from north of the Mason-Dixon may find it easier to look at what we call The War as just another conflict in the middle pages of American history. We can imagine a lot of kids these days, at least kids in Chicago or New York, sighing from boredom in history class. They may no more think of Fort Sumter than they do the Battle of Hastings.
If the War Between the States is more important to young Southerners, or old ones, it's only because they've heard more about it around the supper table. (Oh, if only we had taken Little Round Top early when it was undefended . . . . If only that rascal Stuart hadn't disappeared when Lee needed him most . . . . If only we hadn't lost Jackson at Chancellorville . . . . Oh, if only we could go back and alter Fate itself!) Now a new generation looks on the Confederate Battle Flag and may not even associate it with Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, the last, Lost Legion of chivalry in warfare. They may see only some kind of cheap political statement-and a provocation to black folks. The Old Folks at Home. Folks whose feelings no true Southerner would ever hurt.
Back in the Stone Age when we were in college, there was a history professor at a small school in Arkansas who liked to tell his students, over and over and over again, that slavery didn't cause The War. Not at all, he protested too much. All those people, he said, died fighting for, or against, something called States' Rights.
That particular elderly and unreconstructed history professor died several decades ago, rest his soul, but tattered shreds of his argument live on. From Jefferson Davis' The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government to modern apologists, there still are many who'd like to make The Lost Cause a noble one. We didn't believe that theory then. We don't believe it now. The War was a sad, illusory crusade undertaken in hubris and ending in disaster, and the death of the Old South.
Is there any doubt about the still contentious proposition that slavery and slavery alone caused The War? Then just listen to the evidence, the direct testimony, the primary sources:
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin." —The second paragraph of Mississippi's declaration of secession.
"For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property . . . ." —The second and third sentences of Georgia's declaration of secession.
"One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute." —Abraham Lincoln in his First Inaugural, and, as usual, cutting to the core of the thing.
But there is something more convincing than the reams of evidence, the selective quotations, the testimony of history in general. Just try a little thought experiment, Gentle Reader. Just sit back, close your eyes, and try to imagine The War happening if a single African slave had never set foot on American soil. Picture it if you can. We can't. No slavery, no war. Oh, yes, there was many a civil dispute — over states' rights, over the tariff, over electoral votes and all the rest of the political show. There was many a threat to secede, too, usually composed of very hot air. But no War.
Looking back 150 years later, some would like to make The War about some abstraction or economic interest, everything but what The War was really about. Such attempts fail. They fail the thought experiment.
April 12th, 1861. What a disaster. This date ought to be bordered in black on every calendar in the South. For the South is still trying to rebuild from the effects of that monstrous, bloody folly. Look at our poverty rates. The South usually leads. Look at education. The South is still trying to get to the level of the Vermonts and Connecticuts. In a way, The War has not even ended yet, or at least its effects haven't.
The War didn't end at Appomattox, whatever it says in the history books. Or with Lincoln's assassination, or Johnson's impeachment and trial, or not even with Reconstruction. Its costs go on to this day-in wasteful hatreds, empty antagonisms, and generations unborn. To quote a general and president named Grant who oft bears quoting: Let Us Have Peace.
If we can't say just when and where The War and its toll ended, we know just when and where it started. In Charleston Harbor, on this date, 150 years ago.
What a glorious, patriotic, heroic, idiotic decision.
