education – American Delusions

My Year End Siege of Angers – the list

January 1, 2023 2

Yesterday as I was taking a walk up and down Warren St. here in Hudson I realized that I had become actively angry about the state of the US and the world. I walked past hotels where a single room would set you back $400 for a night or you --->> read more -->>

Is OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI app a deceptive, perhaps dangerous tool?

December 18, 2022 Comments Off

Further experiments with ChatGPT (following yesterday’s post >>>) significantly weaken its usefulness and even suggest that it is a potentially dangerous, unreliable source of information. Experiment Six (continuing from previous post) – Query: when will ChatGPT provide bibliographic references for its answers? As an artificial intelligence, I am not able to --->> read more -->>

The State of Artificial Intelligence – OpenAI’s ChatGPT

December 17, 2022 Comments Off

ChatGPT has been all over the internet in recent weeks. I have now experimented with it and have some initial thoughts to share. I ran a number of “experiments” to explore what this natural language AI could do. Using the December 15th version of ChatGPT I posed a series of questions. --->> read more -->>

“How Structural Racism Works” – Tricia Rose and Samuel Rosen – recently noted

June 7, 2020 Comments Off

If you are struggling to get your head around how racism works you will probably find it helpful to have a general framework as a guide. This one hour lecture from 2017 features an overview by Brown University Professor Tricia Rose of the structure of racism and how it works --->> read more -->>

Tightrope – Americans reaching for hope by Kristof and WuDunn – book review

May 1, 2020 Comments Off

Kristof and WuDunn’s book, Tightrope – Americans Reaching for Hope, spent some weeks on bestseller lists. Kristof is a well known reporter and writer for the NYTimes. It centers around the town of Yamhill OR and the people that Kristof grew up among. The stories of industrial decline, increasing inequality, --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – busing, re-segregation, white supremacy

July 17, 2019 Comments Off

The recent controversies surrounding Joe Biden’s anti- school busing collaborations with racist politicians from the south has for the moment aroused new comment on segregated America. The New York Times published an excellent review of the history of school desegregation by Nikole Hannah-Jones, “It Was Never About Busing: Court-ordered desegregation worked. --->> read more -->>

Roosevelt’s 1944 Second Bill of Rights – a good starting point today

February 14, 2019 1

As WWII was trending towards an end, President Roosevelt proposed a Second Bill of Rights, a bill of economic rights, in his January 11, 1944 State of the Union address. Here is that section of the speech excerpted: It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – PhDs on Food Stamps – Labor in US Higher Ed

December 24, 2018 Comments Off

American higher education, once the envy of the world, is continuing to slump towards a becoming a factory for debtors. With falling public tax support around the country for our two and four year colleges and universities, students are underwriting the enormous growth in tuition and administrators’ salaries with student --->> read more -->>

Education – Miseducation – Human Creativity – TED Talk by Ken Robinson

November 5, 2010 Comments Off

We all have had, some now enduring, experiences in the educational system. Excepting the academic super stars for whom the educational system was designed, most have at best mixed feelings about it. Here is a TED Talk given in 2006 by Ken Robinson: “Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity” It --->> read more -->>