Links of Interest

With the cost of college credits today, I thought this article was interesting:
Six college courses that help grads find jobs:

Because students by definition have less work experience, experts say the right mix of courses taken and skills learned during their time on campus can improve the odds of filling that talent gap and landing a decent job.
That’s what 2013 DePauw University graduate Chase G. Hall, a journalism major, credits for helping him land one of five management fellowships at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America.
“On my résumé, I look like a starving artist who only wants to do journalism,” said Hall. But his course work showed a broader range of interests and experiences, including science, ethics and social change courses as part of his participation in the university’s honor program.
Course work that makes applicants stand out from others with the same major, or speaks to skills that are relevant to the job but unrelated to their major, should be listed in the skills portion of a résumé, said Oakley. “If I had taken say, five finance classes where I had done well, I would list out the class and the grade,” he said.

The Plain Dealer finally picked up on the new Ohio Law allowing homeschoolers and private schools to participate in sports and other activities.

Robert Tayek, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, said diocese educators will have to study the new rules to gauge what the impact will be on local parochial school students.
The high school athletic association is concerned about several potential effects, including how the new set-up jibes with the notion of athletes playing for “their” school.
According to an association release, having team members who don’t attend the school could work against “the notion of citizenship, loyalty and school spirit, the building of a cohesive student body, the promotion of amateurism by drawing athletes from the school’s population only ..

My experience with this in the past when Calvin swam and now with Noah running is that the kids accepted them pretty well and they felt part of the team.   The team becomes the thing – not necessarily the school although my kinds had no qualms about representing the school they played for.

The Problem of Surrogacy:   Outlines all the problems that I think common sense and our inner selves tell us about why surrogacy is a bad idea.

Interestingly this has also been the topic on General Hospital this fall:

Miley Cyrus and her Daddy’s Achey Breaky Heart

The former star of Disney’s Hannah Montana, who
officially changed her name to Miley Ray following her grandfather’s
death in 2006, ignited a firestorm of criticism on the Internet this
week, with her obscene performance at the MTV Video Music Awards; but
that was only the latest in a string of moral missteps which have
reshaped the career of this troubled star.

At fifteen, she reportedly posed topless for a Vanity Fair
photoshoot by photographer Annie Leibovitz—although the New York Times
later clarified that she had actually been wrapped in a bedsheet.

In 2008, her gmail account was hacked and several provocative photographs of Miley clad only in underwear were distributed on the web.  At her 19th birthday party, she addressed fans with an obscenity-laden message that “You know you’re a stoner when your friends make you a Bob Marley-themed cake.  You know you smoke way too much f***** weed.” 
And she has been an advocate for gay rights; in 2011 she got a tattoo
on her finger, two stripes symbolizing her support for alternate
lifestyles.

And now this:  the nude swimsuit, the tongue action,
the twerking with celeb Robin Thicke, were so atrocious that even
Hollywood types reacted like this:

Will Smith and his family watch the Awards

Through the controversy this week, I’ve remembered the old Miley Cyrus, wholesome role model for young girls; and I’ve wondered about her famous father’s reaction.

This is what I’ve found:  That despite his extreme
disappointment at the course her life has taken, he loves his daughter
and is supportive.  Some followers believed that he was holding steady
in a tweet he posted, shortly after Miley’s scandalous VMA performance. 
Still the steady, positive-focused father, Billy Ray wrote:

In a February 2011 interview, though, the country star spoke honestly about his fear for his celebrity daughter and about his personal regrets.  Although the website Hollywood Gossip
demeaned the singer’s concerns, Billy Ray expressed his conviction that
Satan was attacking his family.  Cyrus was concerned that Miley’s early
stardom on Disney’s Hannah Montana had not been good for his daughter.  He said:

It’s the way it is.  There has always been a battle
between good and evil.  Always will be.  You think, ‘This is a chance to
make family entertainment, bring families together….’ And look what
it’s turned into.   

He acknowledged that Miley had a lot of people around her who were putting her in a great deal of danger.  He wished that he could get her sheltered from the storm, could ‘stop the insanity just for a minute.’

Asked whether he regretted encouraging Miley’s career as Hannah Montana, Billy Ray was emphatic:

[It] destroyed my family….  I’d take it back in a
second.  For my family to be here and just everybody to be okay, safe
and sound and happy and normal, would have been fantastic.  Heck, yeah,
I’d erase it all in a second if I could.

I think he’s right – Satan does attack families.

Fascinating look at an old 1930 text book.

In the very first chapter of the textbook
these students, whom were only 12 years old, were learning how to pay
workers. By contrast, today’s 7th grade math textbooks weigh 10 lbs,
have hundreds of pages filled with thousands of math problems and the
objective seems to get the students to just be able to replicate the
answers and/or the work process to get to the answer.

The students in the 1930′s on the other
hand were equally taught how to process the mathematical problem, but
they were also taught how to think through the problem while at the same
time having the entire topic applied to the working knowledge
associated with being an entrepreneur.

Why I refuse to get a mammogram – The Dangers and  Futility of Mammograms.

Why I refuse to let my daughters become altar servers – Statistics Concerning male Altar Servers.