Tag: Education
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Improving public administration one course at a time
Retirement is good, or so I’ve been told. I’ll let you know when I arrive after August 1. They say that it beats working for a living. As I hang up my career though, I sure didn’t expect the opportunity to share my wisdom in any meaningful way. You expect cake in a conference room…
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The graduation speech
Attention graduates! Here is why you really went to college and what you should have gotten out of it. Did you absorb the lesson? The point of education is not just to give you a leg up so you can survive and have a higher standard of living, but so you can see beyond the…
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Cutting the apron strings
She took her final exam today, the very last exam for her very last class in a journey that consumed five years (two in community college) and three at Virginia Commonwealth University. “She” would be my daughter, age 23, who now merely needs to wait for the mail to get her diploma for a bachelor’s degree…
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Advice to Democrats
I love to give advice, even though if I am inconsistent in following my own advice. Recently after their losses in the latest election I gave some advice to Republicans. Today, I figure turnabout is fair play. Here is some advice for Democrats. Democrats, it’s easy to assume that due to changing demographics that Republicans…
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Republicans: Let’s talk real national security
There is a little irony that a day after the Supreme Court narrowly decided the Affordable Care Act was constitutional after all, that I would undergo surgery. The surgery to correct a deviated septum (known as septoplasty) was actually scheduled six weeks earlier. My mother in law’s untimely death and my plastic surgeon’s busy schedule…
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So many privatization opportunities abound
Unless you live in the state of Virginia, you may have missed the news that our ubiquitous state owned ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) stores may be going the way of the dinosaur. Governor Bob McDonnell promised in his campaign to turn them over to the private sector. He says that the private sector would run…
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The dangers of deficit fever
Why study history? After all, many people (particularly students) find history boring. However, there are excellent reasons for studying history. By observing our actions in the past and their effect we can predict with a fair amount of confidence whether they will work again. For example, based on our experience during the Great Depression, cutting…
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Community college is not quite college
As long time readers know, I teach off and on at a community college. More specifically, I teach off and on at Northern Virginia Community College, one of the nations largest community colleges. I taught a Computer Fundamentals course in the spring semester, took the summer off, and am back teaching the same course for…
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Bless her father for she has sinned
Way back in the 1960s and early 1970s, Sister Monica was principle and eighth grade teacher at my parochial elementary school in upstate New York. When I first knew her, she almost looked like a Talibani woman. Like all the sisters, she wore ankle-length black dresses, black shoes with black hose, a belt with beads…
Occam's Razor 