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I have done a few ‘Hero of the Day’ posts and I have a few more on the way. The recipients have done great work spreading important information, rallying against injustice, educating us masses, and have been generally awesome. But today’s hero is special. On top of those usual achievements, she’s done it all while personally facing off against one of the leading threats to civilization as we know it. Oh, and she’s only 15.
The Taliban, with its “all powerful god”, is threatened by literate females. So much so, it will use brutal violence, murder, torture, and arson to enforce its view that girls should not be allowed in schools. What else would you expect from the “religion of peace”?
Malala Yousafzai, from the Swat district of Pakistan, however, does not agree. With aspirations of becoming a doctor or a politician, Malala is a strong advocate for gender equality, especially for equal access to education. Like many other girls in Swat, Malala has risked her life to attend classes against the wishes of the Taliban. At the same time, she was also doing something extraordinary. Malala, using a pseudonym, started blogging for the BBC, reporting to the world what it was like to be an ordinary child under the Taliban as it destroyed schools and forbade girls from attending the ones they hadn’t destroyed yet.
Adam B. Ellick from the New York Times made a documentary called Class Dismissed profiling Malala, her activism, and the difficulties and dangers for girls wanting to go to school.
Since the documentary, Malala’s has kept on advocating for girl’s education, growing in influence and visibility. This earned her and her father numerous death threats from the Taliban. Undeterred, Malala kept working for equal education opportunities.
On October 9th, 2012, the Taliban tried to make good on its threats. To preserve the glory of Islam an Allah, Malala was shot in the head.
Now recovering in a UK hospital, Malala isn’t done yet. Her message and story are spreading and the world is taking note.
Tarek Fatah, from Toronto, started a petition on change.org to nominate Malala for a Nobel Peace Prize. The response has been tremendous. The Prime Minister and the leaders of all of our major parties have unanimously endorsed this petition. If you haven’t done so already, please sign as well.
In the west we’ve had huge media organizations cower and retreat when islamist extremists raised their hate filled voices. In Swat, a 15 year old girl stood directly against the guns, bombs, soldiers, and machetes wielded by the worst of brutal zealots, just outside her door.
It is nice to have a post you can point to when people suddenly become hyperskeptical of Evolution. Thanks Qualia Soup.
I’ve been around the mulberry bush a couple of times about teachers and unions. It’s nice when someone puts a piece together that concisely answers the usual bally-hoo about how bad unions are and how things would be fixed if there was just more free market, because more competition always fixes everything all the time no matter what how dare you even question that assumption you commie pinko-intellectual socialist!!!1!
Lie #1: Unions are undermining the quality of education in America.
Teachers unions have gotten a bad rap in recent years, but as education professor Paul Thomas of Furman University tells AlterNet, “The anti-union message…has no basis in evidence.” In fact, Furman points out, “Union states tend to correlate with higher test scores.” As a 2010 study conducted by Albert Shanker Fellow Matthew Di Carlo found, “[T]he states in which there are no teachers covered under binding agreements score lower [on standardized assessment tests] than the states that have them… If anything, it seems that the presence of teacher contracts in a state has a positive effect on achievement” – by as much as three to five points in reading and math at varying grade levels.
Even so, Thomas doesn’t believe that high test-scores should be taken as the primary indication that union teachers are good for kids, noting that “union states tend to be less burdened by poverty while ‘right-to-work’ (non-union) states are disproportionately high-poverty” – and poverty, as we well know , has its own, profound impact on student performance.
For these reasons among others, union presence can never be isolated as the sole relevant factor in producing higher student achievement. But teachers unions are still important to student success. Why? Most importantly, perhaps, because they fight for equality of opportunity in education by, for example, opposing attempts to resegregate American schools . One of the reasons the CTU so resolutely opposed the school closures Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Board of Education threatened was because closures have proven to have disastrous consequences for displaced students in Chicago, who are generally forced to move from one underfunded, low-performing school to another. Teachers unions oppose such injustices because they support the rights of all children to have access to high-quality education — not just the kids whose parents can afford high property taxes. That’s a good thing for America’s education system, not a bad one.
Essentially, it would be for the laughs because as Chomsky explains, the Office of President is largely a ceremonial role.
Hurrah, Bad Science Watch is here!
It is about time Canada had its own team of people dedicated to showing the absolute nuttery that goes on under the guise of homeopathy, riki, acupuncture and the rest of the quackery that goes on up here. Go to their blog, click on there advertising, heck donate to them and help them in their battle against the dishonest woo-peddlers that are infesting our society.
The first bastion of bullshite they are tackling are the so called “nosodes vaccines” which like the rest of the shit and sugar water homeopathic foolishness are unproven snake-oil remedies that can really hurt the people taking them and the people around them. From the BSW website:
Today, the new Canadian science advocacy group Bad Science Watch announced plans to convince Health Canada to de-register homeopathic health products that are offered as unproven replacements for childhood vaccinations. This project will combat the anti-vaccine camps within homeopathy that offer these so-called “nosodes”; the sale of which directly contradicts Health Canada’s own efforts to promote childhood vaccinations.
Nosodes are ultra-dilute homeopathic remedies prepared using diseased tissue, such as blood, pus, and saliva, that are based on the unsupportable “like-cures-like” hypothesis where you give someone a very low dose of the offending substance to then cure or prevent the disease in question.
Homeopaths in Canada are offering these nosodes for a variety of childhood diseases, like pertussis, or whooping cough, a deadly disease that is currently afflicting more Canadian children, mostly infants, than it has in the past 50 years. The anti-vaccine messages spread by homeopaths have caused parents to needlessly question the usefulness and safety of vaccines and as a result the level of vaccination in Canadian communities has dropped to as low as 62%. A level of 80% or higher is needed to have proper protection from pertussis in the community.
62%? Frak me, people. You need to vaccinate with real vaccines not this froopy-doopy shite that doesn’t work. You are hurting yourself and the people around you. BSW is starting large, I hope they can get the ball rolling on defenstrating this quackery ASAP.
I keep finding good stuff to repost. This blog entry is by Salty Current with the original found here.
“If you say
I think sexism, misogyny, and harassment of women, including in this community, are real problems that need to be addressed,
you should stop there and consider what you’re actually doing and could be doing to counter them and how you might be contributing to them. If you then say
…BUT feminists really shouldn’t talk publicly about their experiences, shouldn’t write blog posts about the subject, shouldn’t object to slurs, shouldn’t take sexually violent language seriously, shouldn’t be angry, should name names, shouldn’t name names, shouldn’t call out any man who’s ever done anything to support women, shouldn’t call out any man who considers himself their ally, shouldn’t call out prominent men, should only discuss prominent men, shouldn’t call out women who say misogynistic things, shouldn’t call out young people, shouldn’t organize events focusing on women, should mute their criticisms to protect skeptical organizations or events, shouldn’t talk about what’s said on Facebook, shouldn’t talk about what’s said on Twitter, shouldn’t talk about what’s said on YouTube, shouldn’t turn a skeptical eye to sexist “science,” should let their experiences go unexpressed because other women have it worse, should be more polite, should be less polite, should painstakingly qualify their every statement to make it less likely to be misconstrued by those with hostile intent, should calmly describe the entire history of the arguments to everyone who jumps into them ignorant of the context, should give the benefit of the doubt to every guy who’s done or said something sexist, should frame the issues in this or that way, shouldn’t talk about patriarchy, shouldn’t talk about privilege, shouldn’t talk about rape culture, should constantly and patiently explain sociological concepts to their interlocutors, should only discuss problems that affect them personally, shouldn’t work to change official policies, should only work through official organizational channels, should only focus on this or that part of the problem, should never analogize their situation or women’s oppression to anything else, should be more aggressive, should be less aggressive, shouldn’t insult people, shouldn’t ban commenters from their blogs, shouldn’t strenuously object to mischaracterizations of their statements,…,
you should realize that this belies your claim to caring about the problems and wanting to help address them, and recognize that you are contributing to the problem. If you insist on your preconditions for listening to and supporting feminists in their struggles against sexism and misogyny, you’re acting in a way that is harmful to the cause you claim to support.”
This is a case of the Educational system, although technically right, is looking very stupid and out of touch with reality when it comes to giving zeros to students who have not done their work. It is shameful though that a veteran teacher is going to lose his job over the issue.
“The Edmonton physics teacher who broke school policy by giving zeros to his students has decided not to appeal his suspension.
Lynden Dorval, a 35-year teaching veteran, had until Friday to file an appeal. He consulted with a lawyer who told him that based on past cases, his odds of winning are slim — a position also taken by the Alberta Teachers’ Association.”
Fighting the system is never cheap. The economic requirements essentially make the appeal process a joke.
“There’s a rare chance, or small chance, that I may have to pay for the whole hearing if I lose,” Dorval said on Friday. “I can’t take that kind of hit.”
Dorval became a hero to many for refusing to comply with the so-called ‘no-zero’ policy for incomplete assignments and missed tests at Edmonton’s Ross Sheppard High School.
We should seize the spirit of the Montreal protests and hold a demonstration to show our support for Mr.Dorval. It won’t happen because, unlike Quebec, the atomization and “me first” attitude quashes most impulses of solidarity before they begin.
“The thinking behind the policy, which was adopted by the school a year and a half ago, is that a failure to complete assignments is a behavourial issue, and marks should reflect ability, not behaviour.
But Dorval believes not giving zeros tells students that they don’t need to be accountable for their actions.”
The EPSB completely dropped that ball on this one. The PR that is dominating the news is almost completely negative against them. The issue of accountability is one that most people out of school can quickly and easily relate to. It spurs the gut reaction and the quick media analysis, as people tune out the explanation of why the board has a no zero policy in this particular school.
It should be a lesson to the Administration of the school and the superintendent as how not deal with an issue. This should have been resolved in house, because the nuance involved in putting forth their position is a no-win PR proposition.
“Dorval admits he first wondered if it was right to take a stand. But the response he’s received since then — calls, emails and letters from complete strangers, and talks with frustrated teachers — has validated his decision.
“It certainly has made my resolve even stronger than ever because the support I’m getting from people is just unbelievable,” he said.
Last week, Dorval said that he spoke out because as a 35-year veteran, he could retire and live on his pension if he lost his job, a price he expects to pay for speaking out.
He still hopes he can return to teaching, even on a part-time basis, once his suspension is complete.”
People of principle are hard to come by these days, I think Mr.Dorval would be an asset to any school that employs him.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
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