GEORGE ROTHERT – Page 25 – George’s slightly off-center view of the world

The World, STEM and History,

It could be this is just an old liberal-arts grad yelling at the sky, but here goes…

Tuition at Waldorf School of the Peninsula in Mountain View California is $38,000. Its student body comprises many of the offspring of Silicon Valley tech executives. The school’s curriculum emphasizes literature, mathematics and science; also visual and performing arts. Students learn cursive writing using pen and paper. Teachers illustrate lessons by hand on chalkboards. There are no computers in the classrooms. Those who have made fortunes convincing school districts on the importance of technology in the classroom — and designing software intended to be addictive — want their own children to grow up without it.

Voter Suppression Update: Marching Toward Plutocracy

Republicans accept as a truism that the fewer people voting, the better the outcome for the so-called Grand Old Party. So they proceed accordingly, ranting, without evidence, about rampant voter fraud, passing legislation making it more difficult to vote, devising radically partisan gerrymandering and even making those working on voter-registration drives subject to criminal penalties. (Click here for the latest from Tennessee.) And of course, doing noting to safeguard electronic voting equipment from foreign intrusion. We here in Oregon are smug, with our vote-by-mail that makes every vote verifiable with its paper ballot.

But now the GOP has a better idea. Why go to all the trouble of concocting schemes to make it harder for people to vote? Why not just do away with elections altogether? They are already doing just that in several states. Republicans have already cancelled 2020 primary elections in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas. The Republican National Committee, in collusion with the reelection campaign for the current president, decided they don’t need no stinkin’ elections. Too bad for Joe “You lie!” Walsh and Mark “Appalachian Trail” Sanford who have announced their intentions to challenge the current occupant of the White House for the Republican nomination.

Yes, the party can cancel primary elections. You can be assured they are hard at work on the ultimate voter suppression: how they can “postpone” the general election.

Amazon, the New Domino’s?

In the mid 1960s, Tom Monaghan did some informal research among customers of his three-location pizza restaurant. He concluded that enough people wanted their order delivered and wouldn’t much care whether the pizza was any good, he changed the emphasis of his operation. Domino’s Pizza promised delivery within thirty minutes of taking the order or the pizza was free. He also began franchising and in less than a decade had two-hundred locations.

I’m b-a-a-a-ck!

Did you miss me? I have been away from my screen for a couple weeks refreshing my brain and doing some high-tech housecleaning… or more accurately, having some high-tech housecleaning done for me. Look for regular posts about my favorite — or sometimes not-so-favorite — subjects. You will be surprised and amazed.

Our Recycling Delusion

You likely have seen the news that China is no longer accepting material the U.S. sends for recycling. If you’re like me, your reaction was, What? We’re burning fossil fuels to ship our waste to the Far East? China’s reasons that most of what we sent was adulterated with garbage and could not be recycled.

If you’re thinking, okay, we’ll just recycle it at home, you’d be right, partly. There has been some investment in paper and plastic production from used materials. The news is mostly not good, though.

The Other Green Monster

No, not the Green Monster at Fenway Park. (If you’re a baseball fan, you know what the Green Monster is; if you’re not a baseball fan, you don’t care.)