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A plan by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to send a copy of the King James Bible to every school in the country – each including a personal inscription from him – has run into trouble after government sources reported he has been told to find private funding for the project.

Sources said David Cameron told Gove that while he supported the idea, the education secretary should avoid using taxpayers’ money for it. But Gove has yet to find a private philanthropic sponsor for the enterprise, and some Whitehall sources said he has been told he cannot distribute the book until he does so, leaving thousands of copies in a warehouse abroad…

…But Whitehall sources said Gove was told at the highest levels that it would be wrong to spend nearly £400,000 on the project at a time when the government was in negotiations with teaching unions over cuts to their pension entitlement…Wow! I’m surprised the Tories were that perceptive.

The 400th anniversary of the publication of the Bible was in 2011.

This is the same dweeb who wanted British taxpayers to pop for £60 million for a new yacht for the Queen. Phew.

Wim Deetman
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Thousands of children suffered sexual abuse in Dutch Catholic institutions, and church officials failed to adequately address the abuse or help the victims, according to a long-awaited investigation.

The report by an independent commission said Catholic officials failed to tackle the widespread abuse “to prevent scandals”. The suspected number of abuse victims who spent some of their youth in church institutions probably lies somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000, according to a summary of the report…

The commission said it received 1,800 complaints of abuse at Catholic schools, seminaries and orphanages and that the institutions suffered from “a failure of oversight”. It then conducted the broader survey of the general population for a more comprehensive analysis of the scale and nature of sexual abuse of minors.

The commission was set up last year under the leadership of former government minister Wim Deetman to investigate allegations of abuse dating from 1945…

The investigation followed allegations of repeated incidents of abuse at one cloister that quickly spread to claims from Catholic institutions across the country, echoing similar scandals around the world.

The commission identified about 800 priests, brothers, pastors or lay people working for the church who had been named in the complaints. About 105 of them were still alive, although it was not known if they remained in church positions, the report said. It identified them as “perpetrators” rather than “offenders”, meaning they had not been proven to have committed a crime.

The Dutch Catholic Church says it will agree to a system of compensation for victims of priests and church staff. No details, yet.

Anyone expect whatever is volunteered will be closer to real compensation than the amounts contained in first offers from other national branches of the Catholic Church?

This is one of those topics that suggests enough discussion to prompt writing a book – or a separate blog. But, I’m not about to do either. So, discuss it in “comments” or among yourselves.

A rising number of children are learning about sex from watching pornography because sex education lessons are inadequate, researchers have found. The average age at which children first watch pornography is just 11, interviews with 140 pupils, teachers and people working in the porn industry also revealed.

Australian researchers Maree Crabbe and David Corlett said children were turning to adult films because schools were not handling the positive aspects of sex…

“Discussion of sex and intimacy is too often avoided in schools,” they said. “Porn has become a cultural mediator in how young people are understanding and experience sex. Porn is our most prominent sex educator…”

Mary Clegg, chair of the British Association of Sexual Educators, agreed there was a shortfall in sex education at schools. “A lot of our sex education is based on a don’t-do model,” she said. “But young people are hungry for more explicit information. They’re curious and they’re hormone-driven.”

The research found 88 per cent of scenes in pornographic films showed an element of physical aggression, with most directed at the female participant.

To me, that’s the key to the discussion. I would have said this – even prior to reading about the research.

Read the rest of this entry »

The long-awaited $35 laptop is here, the Indian government said on Wednesday. And it’s not a laptop!

Kapil Sibal, India’s minister for human resources development unveiled “Aakash,” a tablet computer that will cost the ministry 2276 Indian rupees, or $50, at a press conference in New Delhi.

Free tablets were distributed to 500 students invited from across India to the event. The government will be providing subsidies to students to bring the cost down to about $35.

The tablet, which has a seven-inch touch screen and 256 megabytes of RAM, will use the Android 2.2 operating system from Google and has two USB ports…

DataWind, a company founded in 2001 by two brothers who live in Canada, Suneet and Raja Tuli, won the tender for the tablet, beating out several other bidders. The company’s research and development is based in Montreal, but its products were, until now, mainly sold in the Britain…

Unlike DataWind’s other products, which are made in China, the new device will be manufactured in India, Ms. Khan said, by a company called Quad. DataWind won the tender from the government to provide 100,000 devices, beating out several other bidders, Ms. Khan said. If the trial run is successful, “the next order is for one million units,” she said.

There are three significant aspects to this announcement, the culmination of an Indian project to bring cyber-education to their schools.

First, is recognition of a new paradigm created worldwide by Apple’s introduction of the iPad. That took a partially-realized form factor to something truly useful. Lightness, thinness, miniaturization possible with the latest components. Apple proved the concept. The world is adopting it.

Thanks, Ursarodina

Classes haven’t changed or added colors since they graduated in 1993

Children are being taught in “ghettos” as inner-city schools are increasingly divided along racial lines, a leading headmaster has warned.

David Levin said parts of London were starting to resemble apartheid-era South Africa, with black and white pupils being separated at a young age. He insisted that Britain was becoming a “silo society” as many young people never leave their own housing estate or mix with children from different racial and religious backgrounds.

The comments come amid continuing alarm over segregation in inner-city communities.

Entrenched segregation in the education system was seen as one of the fundamental causes of the race riots that rocked parts of northern England a decade ago. A recent report found that schools in Oldham – one of the worst flashpoints – are still largely split along racial lines…

Mr Levin, the head of fee-paying City of London School, said he grew up in South Africa “where apartheid was imposed and people had to live in different areas”…

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, which represents 250 leading independent schools, Mr Levin told how his teachers and pupils were involved in partnership programmes with state schools in the capital to help raise standards. This includes the “gifted and talented” scheme designed to push the brightest children…

Some 97 per cent of pupils at one of the schools – Stepney Green Maths and Computing College – are of Bangledeshi origin, he said.

Mr Levin added: “A number of those children through no fault of their own have not been out of their council estate, never mind Tower Hamlets. This cannot be a good thing…”

“In my view, I think London is sleepwalking towards Johannesburg. The ghettoisation of the community.”

Mr Levin said that children in many of these inner-city schools were “not mixing with other people from different faiths, different races and different socio-economic backgrounds”.

There’s little or no justification for maintaining the foolishness of segregated society. Yes, everyone has great “natural” reasons about how this occurs. Everyone too lazy to be concerned.

There is never a shortage of rationales to justify bigotry and discrimination. But, when avenues from the bottom of society leading to the top are blockaded by a ittle mistake here, a little slip-up there – and children grow into disaffected youngsters, unemployed and unemployable – the result is always the same. A breeding ground for crime and violence – which officialdom hopes will always be directed into the segregated society instead of striking out at the profiteers of a divided society.

A proposed constitutional amendment to lift the ban on public funding of religious groups should be ripped from the 2012 ballot because it is “misleading and insufficiently specific,” according to a lawsuit filed by Florida’s largest teachers union…

“This is designed to open the state treasury to voucher schools, but this is not what the ballot summary says,” said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association…

By attacking the ballot summary as “misleading,” the teachers union takes aim at a sensitive issue for the Republican lawmakers, who have watched in recent years as the Florida Supreme Court used that very reason to block a series of constitutional changes from the ballot.

In response to the legal challenges, the GOP-controlled Legislature passed a new law this year requiring the attorney general to fix any ballot titles or summaries a court deems problematic and return it to the ballot within 10 days.

The teachers union is also trying to reverse that law in their suit, saying it violates the separation powers provision in the state Constitution…

The ban on public funding of religious institutions, known as the Blaine Amendment, was cited by the 1st District Court of Appeal in an earlier ruling against the program…

Instead of giving religious institutions the right to public funding in the U.S. Constitution, plaintiffs argue the Florida change would mandate it. Union attorneys, led by Ron Meyer, also argue the ballot summary falsely implies the change is required by the U.S. Constitution.

Meyer also said the ballot title of “religious freedom” is deceptive.

Not that deception is new to political practices either side of the aisle. Historically Democrats have pulled the wool over voters eyes in many cities and states – the usual reason being good old-fashioned graft and corruption.

The New Wave of Republican lies is a lot more ideological. They’d love to return the nation to 19th Century standards of citizenship and practices – including forcing religion down the throats of everyone, official kowtowing to the wants of corporate crowned heads, dismantling any additions to civil rights in the past century – all paid for by taxes destined solely for the backs of ordinary working people.

Naoto Kan, the prime minister of Japan, is expected to confirm the “Sunrise Plan” initiative in a statement on the nation’s energy policy at the forthcoming Group of Eight Summit opening this week in France.

Mr Kan is expected to tell other leaders that Japan will continue to use nuclear energy following industry-wide improvements on safety standards, according to Japanese media reports.

However, he is also expected to highlight the nation’s future efforts to boost the use of renewable energy sources, in particular solar power for which the nation is already among the world’s top users…

The Sunrise Plan builds on earlier solar plan initiatives, including a target of using solar power energy in 12,000 schools as part of its School New Deal, with the company Kyocera Corporation already installing panels in over 1,200 establishments.

Millions have also been spent encouraging home solar power use on a domestic level, with one initiative involving utilities having to purchase excess solar power from homes and businesses for higher amounts than standard electricity rates.

Other energy sources being investigated by the government include geothermal, wind, biomass and hydropower, as the nation explores ways to increase its energy independence.

Most Americans have no idea where building codes come from. If anything, it’s just one more thing to whine about. It might be different if the United States played a leading role at anything more than fire safety – where we participated in the worldwide process of advancing safety decades ago.

We will be last in line, once again.

A cuckolded computer consultant hired to link the city’s 1,400 schools to the Internet has been charged with downloading $3.6 million into his crooked pockets.

Willard (Ross) Lanham, aided by corporate giants IBM and Verizon, masterminded the massive fraud to enjoy a life of luxury from 2002 to 2008, according to a scathing report from the special schools investigator. “Lanham effectively stole from schoolchildren so he could buy fancy cars and valuable real estate,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

Prosecutors described Lanham’s greed as staggering. He was charged with looting the Department of Education while earning a $200,000 annual salary and living with his family in a sprawling, two-story Long Island home.

As he earned an illegal fortune off phony companies, inflated fees and a pair of no-show jobs, officials said, he built three luxury homes on a piece of abandoned Long Island farmland.

Once finished, Lanham even named the private street after his estranged wife, Laura Lanham.

The couple have since endured a long, angry and ongoing three-year divorce, with the wife dumping her 57-year-old husband to pursue younger men while blogging about her “cougar” lifestyle…

The probe, aided by the city Department of Investigation, found Lanham was hired to work on three major DOE projects – including the highly touted “Project Connect.”

The scam was simple: He hired contractors at low hourly rates, persuaded subcontractors to bill the city at a much higher rate and pocketed the difference, officials said.

In all, his Lanham Enterprises allegedly was paid $5.3 million for consulting work that cost his company only $1.7 million.

The accused swindler even ripped off his own brother, hiring him for a $40-an-hour consulting job while charging the city $225 an hour, a criminal complaint charged.

IBM and Verizon kept their corporate mouths shut over anything they may have noticed in the course of the fraud. I’m never surprised when systems run by elected officials are inefficient – though they needn’t be. Corporate governance should be a bit more consistent.

Verizon has said they will return any inappropriate profits. Nice of them.

If he was entering a Republican Party conference he’d be carrying bible action figures
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

The Department of Education responded to a letter of concern from the British Centre for Science Education (BCSE), which is worried by applications from Christian groups to run free schools. It fears that schools might be exploited by groups seeking to promote a literal interpretation of the Bible at the expense of science classes.

However, the Department of Education confirmed that Mr Gove is “crystal clear that teaching creationism is at odds with scientific fact”…

The BCSE expressed in writing its “extreme concern” about groups such as Christian School Trust who have made up to five applications to run free schools…

The Everyday Champions Church, in Newark, Nottinghamshire, submitted its proposal for a 652-place school in January. It claims that the parents of more than 660 children have signed up to attend the school.

The Church’s leader Gareth Morgan told the BBC: “Creationism will be embodied as a belief at Everyday Champions Academy, but will not be taught in the sciences. Similarly, evolution will be taught as a theory. We believe children should have a broad knowledge of all theories in order that they can make informed choice.”

In July last year Mr Gove acknowledged there were concerns about “inappropriate faith groups using this legislation to push their own agenda.” He told MPs on the cross-party Commons education committee that his department was working to ensure there were no “extremist groups taking over schools”.

A clear distinction between conservative politicians in the UK and US. The former resemble what traditional American conservatism used to embody – including disdain for populist pandering to religious nutters. That used to be left up to the Democrats in the United States.

Apparently when Nixon instituted the Southern Strategy to acquire the racist and bigot vote in America, they inherted the nutballs along with the whole package.

Fred Hargesheimer, a World War II Army pilot whose rescue by Pacific islanders led to a life of giving back as a builder of schools and teacher of children, died on Thursday morning. He was 94…

On June 5, 1943, Hargesheimer, a P-38 pilot with the 8th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, was shot down by a Japanese fighter while on a mission over the Japanese-held island of New Britain in the southwest Pacific. He parachuted into the trackless jungle, where he barely survived for 31 days until found by local hunters.

They took him to their coastal village and for seven months hid him from Japanese patrols, fed him and nursed him back to health from two illnesses. In February 1944, with the help of Australian commandos working behind Japanese lines, he was picked up by a U.S. submarine off a New Britain beach.

After returning to the U.S. following the war, Hargesheimer got married and began a sales career with a Minnesota forerunner of computer maker Sperry Rand, his lifelong employer. But he said he couldn’t forget the Nakanai people, who he considered his saviours.

The more he thought about it, he later said, “the more I realised what a debt I had to try to repay…”

In the decades to come, Hargesheimer’s U.S. fund-raising and determination built a clinic, schools and libraries in Ea Ea, renamed Nantabu, and surrounding villages.

In 1970, their three children grown up, Hargesheimer and his late wife, Dorothy, moved to New Britain, today an out-island of the nation of Papua New Guinea, and taught the village children themselves for four years. The Nantabu school’s experimental plot of oil palm even helped create a local economy, a large plantation with jobs for impoverished villagers.

Since the war, this sort of tale has been part of my life. Remembering the war, friends and relatives who fought and survived, often with the aid of those who risked their lives to save members of the Allied Armed Forces. Remembering the debt. Remembering the war – and maintaining a commitment to fight against all the unjust and unjustified wars that followed.

Contradictions to the history and bravery of those who fought in World War 2.