StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I recently read the following story:

Flap sparked power outage, death of pigeon flock, PG&E official says
Birds on pole holding a 21,000-volt power line left 11,000 in dark
By FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
PITTSBURG -- A group of pigeons that picked an inopportune place to roost caused a power outage Friday morning and died, officials said.

The pigeons had gathered on top of a pole holding a 21,000-volt power line and may have all flapped their wings together killing themselves and causing a short in the line, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokesman Jason Alderman said.

The short occurred around 7:30 a.m., and left about 11,000 customers without electricity in Pittsburg and parts of Antioch.

Repair crews restringed the wires and restored power two hours later.

During the outage, the Pittsburg Police Department said it was a mess driving through the city because traffic signals were not working.

No dental records exist for the pigeons, so they have not been identified, Alderman said.

http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0 ... 50,00.html

Anyone take note of the words "restringed the wires"? Didn't the reporter ever take English in grade school? Don't they have editors who are supposed to fix mistakes like this? This may seem like a minor thing, but if they are fucking up things that are so easy and so obvious, what else are they fucking up? If they didn't learn how to use the correct past tense of a verb, what are the odds they learned critical thinking skills?

If these people can graduate high school, and college, and then go to work in the field of communicating information so poorly equipped with language skills... Oh the pity of it all! No wonder American students perform at or near the bottom in international rankings.

This is the current American public school system at work. Everyone in the NEA and the teacher's unions ought to be stood against a wall and shot!

Um, where would you even get dental records to identify pigeons?

At the pigeon dentist

This is why my mother and father sent me to a Catholic school. MUCH better education than in public schools, even if it is a religious school.

Out all of the stories in the paper there's a typo. A dumb one but it happens to the best of us.

I'm more worried about the pigeon dental records bit myself. I mean what's gonna happen? PETA sending the pigeons family a telegram? "Dear Mr and Mrs Flappy, we regret to inform you your son was killing a tragic power line accident."

I dare say that a single grammatical error is not indicative of a nationwide failure in edumacation.

I'm rather stunned. You are overlooking the one obvious, serious error, and finding another where there is none.

Stormbringer wrote:Out all of the stories in the paper there's a typo. A dumb one but it happens to the best of us.

That's not a typo. A typo is writing restrunf instead of restrung. Writing "restringed" indicates that you do not know the correct past tense of a very commonly used word. Given that you are supposed to have that down pat by, oh, third grade... Yeah, I think that's a serious error. It's a bad enough misuse of the word that it jumped off the page at me. But to get in print means the reporter didn't catch it, the editor didn't catch it, the typesetter didn't catch it. Several people must have read that article before it was printed and nobody caught a mistake that a country grammar school graduate of ninety years ago would have been embarrased to make.

Stormbringer wrote:I'm more worried about the pigeon dental records bit myself. I mean what's gonna happen? PETA sending the pigeons family a telegram? "Dear Mr and Mrs Flappy, we regret to inform you your son was killing a tragic power line accident."

Come on guy. This is an obvious attempt at humor. Whether you think that's appropriate for story meant as straight news is another issue.

It's one error. An obvious one but in the scheme of thing it's a little thing. I mean really the American educational system has hardly failed because of one little error. That's just being hysterical.

Howedar wrote:I dare say that a single grammatical error is not indicative of a nationwide failure in edumacation.

How about the continual poor performance of American students in international tests? How about the fact that 50% of the freshman students at UCSC (which accepts the upper 8% of high school grads from California, and whose out of state admission requirements are even tougher) have to take remedial English when they go through their first year?

According to Empower America, our 12th graders rank 19th out of 21 industrialized countries in mathematics achievement and 16th out of 21 nations in science. Since 1983, more than 10 million Americans have reached the 12th grade without being able to read at a basic level. Over 20 million have reached their senior year unable to do basic math. Almost 25 million have reached 12th grade without knowing the essentials of U.S. history.

This article is just one more symptom of a very real trend. Our public school system had become the joke of the industrialized world.

Stormbringer wrote:It's one error. An obvious one but in the scheme of thing it's a little thing. I mean really the American educational system has hardly failed because of one little error. That's just being hysterical.

Are you getting the point at all? Where do you get that I said the American school system has failed because of one little error? I said it is further proof that it has failed, not why it has failed.

Hah! You're inability to distinguish cause and effect is further proof that our educational system has failed to pass on those critical thinking skills.

Perinquus wrote:Are you getting the point at all? Where do you get that I said the American school system has failed because of one little error? I said it is further proof that it has failed, not why it has failed.

You think it's a sign that American education has failed. I think you're being hysterical.

Perinquus wrote:Hah! You're inability to distinguish cause and effect is further proof that our educational system has failed to pass on those critical thinking skills.

You really are a dumbass. I think you're overreacting to one little error and now brining out a strawman to insult. I never claimed it was the cause of an American educatiobal failure. Dumbass.

Their are hundreds of papers in the US, thousands probly, millions of words, everyday. You find a mistake in one, and suddenly the entire education system in the country is an utter failure.

anarchistbunny wrote:Their are hundreds of papers in the US, thousands probly, millions of words, everyday. You find a mistake in one, and suddenly the entire education system in the country is an utter failure.

It's not proof, just a typo. If you want proof, just walk into any High School and ask some questions to the students.

Stormbringer wrote:

You think it's a sign that American education has failed. I think you're being hysterical.

I think it is another in a long list of symptoms. That was the whole point of my post, and I've reiterated it now a couple of times. One more frame in the big picture. This is hardly just my opinion. It has been observed over the last several decades. American students perform poorly compared to other students. Period. The evidence is in. There is absolutely no way you can deny this, and if you even attempt to do so you are an idiot.

So yeah, damn right our puclic education system has failed. Fuck yeah it has. When the wealthiest, most powerful, and perhaps most economically prosperous country on earth is raising a generation of semi-illiterate dumbasses, you're goddamn motherfucking right our public school system has failed! I don't think that I'm being hysterical at all. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for a nation with the resources ours has to turn out students so badly educated that they perform almost dead last in competition with students from other countries.

Stormbringer wrote: You really are a dumbass. I think you're overreacting to one little error and now brining out a strawman to insult. I never claimed it was the cause of an American educatiobal failure. Dumbass.

Sure you did, you said: "the American educational system has hardly failed because of one little error" (emphasis mine). Do you understand what the words "because of" mean? Let me help you: "as a result of", "thanks to", "in consequence of" are all synonomous phrases you could use in its place, and they all indicate causation.

Okay, I was trying to keep a little levity there with the emoticon and the phrasing I used. To temper the jibe with a little humor, so to speak, since I didn't really mean it to sting; but that's fine. You want to get nasty about it, fine. I should have known beforehand that it was a waste of time since you are too fucking stupid to have caught what was perfectly obvious to everyone else - that the reporter was not being serious, and apparently you actually thought that officials were really scrambling for a way to identify the dead pigeons. Go ahead and keep the name dumbass for youself pal, it's a far better fit on you.

anarchistbunny wrote:Their are hundreds of papers in the US, thousands probly, millions of words, everyday. You find a mistake in one, and suddenly the entire education system in the country is an utter failure.

Suddenly? Where have you been? I trot out all that other evidence (some of it statistical), and if you've been reading things I've written on this board, you may recall there are other posts on other topics where I've said much the same thing.

But none of that counts. No mtter how much other evidence I provide, no matter how many times I use the phrase "more proof" - even use the words "more proof" in the title of this thread (more as in "the latest addition to what has gone before") - all you people carry away from reading this is that I have grown hysterical because of this one, single error.

Perinquus wrote:

Stormbringer wrote:I think you're overreacting to one little error and now brining out a strawman to insult. I never claimed it was the cause of an American educatiobal failure.

Sure you did, you said: "the American educational system has hardly failed because of one little error" (emphasis mine). Do you understand what the words "because of" mean? Let me help you: "as a result of", "thanks to", "in consequence of" are all synonomous phrases you could use in its place, and they all indicate causation.

"Hardly" used as an adverb in this context means something along the lines of "most probably not". In other words, Stormbringer was expressing extreme doubt that a single error is the cause of any failure in the American education.

(Edit: mixed up...)

A person who asserts that the American educational system is going downhill is just someone who doesn't know the way it works.

The fact is that American education simply works differently from other nations. In America, public education is designed as a basic skills course--students who need more are supposed to go to university. If they can't afford it... well, hope for a scholarship. You see, America's high school students are less brilliant because America is less socialist; the undustrialized nations of Europe depend on a vital public education system to keep their citizens smart. In America, we say that only the professional class needs to be smart, so why waste money on fast-food managers who can work out complex trigonometry and construction workers who are versed in the works of Chaucer?

That, and if you're comparing to several Asian nations that shall remain nameless, the US education system tends to keep the truly dumb ones whereas they drop out of the other systems, skewing the averages.

Pablo Sanchez wrote:... why waste money on fast-food managers who can work out complex trigonometry and construction workers who are versed in the works of Chaucer?

Because a strong public education system is necessary in order to produce voters who can think critically, and voters who can think critically are crucial for a workable democracy.

But we aren't talking about critical thinking skills here. We're talking about grammar.

Not to say I disagree.

Darth Wong wrote:

Pablo Sanchez wrote:... why waste money on fast-food managers who can work out complex trigonometry and construction workers who are versed in the works of Chaucer?

Because a strong public education system is necessary in order to produce voters who can think critically, and voters who can think critically are crucial for a workable democracy.

Ah, so that's why our education system is so weak. A critically-thinking public spells doom for our politicians.

Pablo Sanchez wrote:A person who asserts that the American educational system is going downhill is just someone who doesn't know the way it works.

The fact is that American education simply works differently from other nations. In America, public education is designed as a basic skills course--students who need more are supposed to go to university. If they can't afford it... well, hope for a scholarship. You see, America's high school students are less brilliant because America is less socialist; the undustrialized nations of Europe depend on a vital public education system to keep their citizens smart. In America, we say that only the professional class needs to be smart, so why waste money on fast-food managers who can work out complex trigonometry and construction workers who are versed in the works of Chaucer?

Sorry, but that's a pretty farfetched theory, and it borders on conspiracy theory, conjuring up images of bloated, greedy, cigar chomping plutocrats deliberately keeping the masses oppressed and ignorant. I don't buy it. Public education did not used to be as fucked up as it is now. People used to graduate from public high school with good math skills, good command of English grammar, and good knowledge of American and at least Western history. None of this is true anymore. And decades ago, when the schools worked better, America was even less socialist than it is now. The fact is that an American high school graduate from when Herbert Hoover was president had better basic math skills, better command of his native language, and knew more of American history up to his time than high school graduates today know. There was no socialism in the American government or economy back then, no income tax, no welfare, no medicare, etc.

No, I'm afraid your theory doesn't hold water.

The real reason American public school education is so fucked up is that several decades back, a lot of new ideas and theories of education began to be promoted, and they are tenaciously held onto by the NEA and the teacher's unions, despite their manifest failure. They've advanced all these theories over the past several decades, and they now have a vested interest in maintaining their position.

The "Whole Language Method" simply has not proved as successful at teaching kids to read as teaching phonics, which worked very successfully for decades, was. So called "outcome based education" is another faddish theory that has simply not worked as well as its promoters intended. The philosophy of de-emphasizing grades and emphasizing students' self esteem has also done its evil work. Teachers, many of whom were themselves poorly taught, who are more intent on social engineering and promoting ideological crusades than they are about teaching are another big problem.

Schools are not the entire problem, since times have changed and society is a bit different. The rise of single parent families means there is often less parental supervision, inner city kids have drugs and gangs to contend with, etc. But the public school system has changed for the worse. For example: since 1960 our population has increased by 41%, spending on education has increased by 225% (in constant 1990 dollars), but SAT scores have fallen by 8% (or 80 points). This is one reason why, in many American univeristies, half the students in science and engineering graduate level courses are immigrants. American kids are not meeting the standards, so a lot of the talent is imported.

We have a serious education problem in this country, and it has to be fixed.

Perinquus,

There is an alternative explanation. Perhaps the past tense form of string is falling out of common usage, much like "lit" as opposed to "lighted". If a person is not familiar with the irregular verb, then the default condition is the "ed" form.

XPViking

XPViking wrote:Perinquus,

There is an alternative explanation. Perhaps the past tense form of string is falling out of common usage, much like "lighted" as opposed to "lit". If a person is not familiar with the irregular verb, then the default condition is the "ed" form.

XPViking

If so, I have yet to hear anyone else use it. But anyone who can get through high school, and college, and then get a job - as a professional wordsmith no less - certainly ought to be familiar with the irregular verb form wouldn't you say? Especially with so commonplace a verb.

Periquus wrote:If so, I have yet to hear anyone else use it. But anyone who can get through high school, and college, and then get a job - as a professional wordsmith no less - certainly ought to be familiar with the irregular verb form wouldn't you say? Especially with so commonplace a verb.

Agreed, since I'm not defending the actions of the newspaper. Just offering another way to look at the situation. Consider how teenagers basically invent their own kind of language or the newly developed alphabet-soup netspeak involving numbers and letters. When I see "words" such as "w00t" I'm reminded of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

XPViking