All Stef, All the Time

I recently finished The End of Days; Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount by Gershom Gorenberg. It was a good read. ( a poorly written facebook visual bookshelf review under here. )

Tom V Morris is a public philosopher (hey, that's what his byline says) and wrote a good blog on self-deception and goals; click here to go to his HuffPo blog.

Links
The Broken Plate Pendant Shop - pendants made from...you guessed it, broken plates. Immediately thought of yaaresse shopping for place settings. :-)

Are we thinking ourselves into illnesses (read: syndromes) New Scientist article.

I went to private junior-high & high school on scholarships and my grandmother's SSI:
A conservative view on choice-based education and a recent congressional vote here.

Observation
I met two local high school English teachers this week. They desperately want for students to have to test out of each grade for promotion beginning with first grade. Social promotion is killing them; the California high school graduation exam is written at an eighth grade level. Every teacher I've met during my 14 years in California (~30 people) has said the same. The other instructors at the University where I teach have said so also. Who is keeping this from happening? More importantly, why. What is the gain for preventing this from happening?

I'm not being rhetorical or argumentative; I'm asking. Discuss, babies.