Education

While we have seen Education  alone isn’t the path to “More”(It’s an Elephant 1/25/16), it is a very important building block. Our present Educational system suffers from the twin blemishes of being ineffective while being ridiculously expensive. At the K12 level the whole format is hopelessly out of date. In this wonderful interconnected world somehow we are using a basically 19th century Prussian teaching model adapted at that time in the U.S. by Horace Mann. While a rigid system of lecture, drill and exams working your way up yearly grades may have worked centuries ago, it is evident we could so much better adapting to modern educational opportunities. For instance look at the worldwide success of the online Khan Academy. Kids learn online, combine the online and classroom or the home. Seemingly endless learning variations, but isn’t that the point. Each child learns differently, but all have a natural curiosity. With the ability to customize the learning experience to the needs of each child to a degree never even contemplated in the nineteenth century, why are we stuck with this antique system? Continue reading

HITTING THE CEILING

While this morning all the noise is about how Donald Trump is going to take over the country, may we just say that the Donald has already peaked. Didn’t anyone notice while we had big Republican Super Tuesday turnout with all this these supposed new voters, Donald got the same mid 30% of the vote he has been getting. Even though some polls showed him expanding his base he under performed across the board. Generally at this point in the primaries the leader is expanding his or her’s base. Instead the exit polls 50% 0f the expanded number of voters said they really don’t like him. In other words, Trump is   bringing out equal or greater numbers of people who are against him. This is horrible math for the front runner. The under performance was after less than a week of sustained attacks on Trump. A lot of votes had already have been mailed in before his last horrible debate performance and the attacks. It is hard to see his base growing in the face of these sustained attacks he will see all the way to the election if he ever gets that far.

Why he wasn’t exposed earlier, will be question for the ages, but it’s started and it is a target rich environment. Maybe the Republicans took it easy on him, but the Democrats won’t. All his bigotry and misogyny will be used to gin up the opposition while leaving him stuck with a minority of a minority base.? Of the 50% of Republicans that really don’t like or worse fear him form a huge pond for the Dems to fish in. Many won’t vote Dem but won’t vote for Trump either. Another candidate or write ins are always a possible. For a candidate that hasn’t received 50% in any primary, where exactly does he go for votes? If he actually gets the nomination he may add those getting  or hope to get a check from the party and those who habitually without thought vote Republican. Not much there to expand the his base. After all how many Christies are there? Yesterday will be remembered as Trump’s best day. A deeply flawed system may let him win the nomination with far from a majority of voters but the nomination under these circumstances will be fool’s gold. It will be all down hill for Trump from  here.

Nobody seems to have thought of the irreparable harm Trump win or lose will do to his brand. Half of the country would avoid staying at an Obama Hotel. Let’s play golf at the Obama club? That’s if he wins. More likely he loses but is faced the major discomfort women would feel having anything to do with the Trump name. Given the wide choice of hotels, office building and golf clubs, why would anybody take the real chance of offending. Hispanic groups, you have to be kidding. The value of saying I live in a Trump Tower would take on a whole new meaning. One that wouldn’t denote increased value.

That brings up the question of judgement not only of Donald Trump but of his family. Anyone looking at Trump’s financial statements would quickly surmise that his greatest asset and the one that everything else hangs on is the Trump name. Why would you risk everything knowing that name for many will become synonymous with bigotry and misogyny. It’s impossible not to clearly see the harm when millions and millions of dollars will make that perfectly clear. Maybe Donald is an out of control narcissist,but where are his supposedly brilliant children? Are these actual Stepford Children? Sell out first then run would’ve made sense to anyone but maybe that would’ve shown his empire wasn’t what he claimed. The real worth of anything is always what someone is willing to pay. From this day forward, the Trumps will find their speedy trip to Ego City ends going off a cliff. Everyone should’ve seen it coming. Unfortunately a lot of other s will also suffer. But that has never been a Trump concern. Check his numerous bankruptcies.