Saturday, August 9, 2025
A little insight. “The barbarity displayed on Oct. 7, combined with the cheering chorus from enemies and the silence from many friends, hardened the conflict for many Israelis to the fundamental, zero-sum and inherently violent struggle for land and sovereignty that so many of the kibbutzniks murdered in their homes that day had sought to overcome with their peaceful intentions.”
On the other hand, enough is enough.
. . .
When I taught introductory American government classes, representation was one of the very first subjects addressed. What is democracy? How best to represent the public? As inheritors of British practice, we generally rely on single member constituencies and "first past the post," the most votes = the winner. Accordingly, slight differences in vote count may produce great differences in political power. The remedy for political scientists then and now is proportional representation, allocation of legislative seats according to the distribution of the popular vote.
In 2022, "more than 200 leading political scientists and historians . . . call[ed] on the House of Representatives to adopt proportional representation — an intuitive and widely used electoral system that ensures parties earn seats in proportion to how many people vote for them."
Germany uses a mixed system to elect the Bundestag, the national legislature, half the seats filled by proportional representation, the other half by single-member constituencies. The purest system, however, is Israel's, where the unicameral Knesset of 120 members is elected entirely by proportional representation. Voters select a party and the party gets the number of legislative seats corresponding to their percentage of the vote, if it reaches a threshold of 3.25%, yielding four seats. This has led to a proliferation of parties, often with very narrow agendas. The will of peoples may defeat the will of the people. Why would the United States not face the same dilemma?
Sunday, August 10, 2025
Last week, I cited statistics from the SAT which seem to pose an unbridgeable racial gap in achievement. A couple of numbers, though, give an insufficient picture and leave open the question of causality, why the racial gap? Much of the answer lies outside the classroom. Valuable data are found at:
Most notable is the information that students with parents who have graduate degrees achieved the highest total SAT score while students with parents without high school diplomas had the lowest total SAT scores. Similarly, the difference between test takers from the lowest economic quintile and the highest quintile was 265 points in total score. In brief, “the rich get richer.” The problem is that, while these factors are not immutable, it might take generations to neutralize them.
There are other interesting factoids, such as Kansas and Utah having the highest average scores and New Mexico and West Virginia having the lowest, men significantly outperform women in the mathematics section of the SAT and “mixed race” students have the highest scores after Asians.
Monday, August 11, 2025
I spent three years living in Ithaca, New York. Most of the time, I had limited use of an automobile, so I barely had the opportunity to experience the natural beauty of the environment. It looks very good in retrospect.
On Sunday, Anas Al-Sharif, a Palestinian journalist working for Al Jazeera, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a media tent outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Israel accused him of being a Hamas fighter posing as a reporter. Accepting that as a given in spite of strong denials, six other people, including four other reporters were killed at the same time. The ratio of 6:1, civilians to Hamas, seems less destructive than the toll on the general Gazan population, but is it really anything more than an example of bloodlust? See above.
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
“Despite rising temperatures, only about half of homes in Italy today have air conditioning, according to Italy’s national statistics institute. In Spain, real estate data indicates the share is roughly 40%. And in France, only an estimated 20% to 25% of households are equipped with air conditioning.”
How hot is it? “National records for the maximum June temperature in both Portugal and Spain were broken when temperatures surpassed 46 °C (115 °F), whilst regional records were also broken in at least ten other countries.”
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
My trip to Citi Field to see the New York Mets play baseball started very well. In spite of a rain delay of 95 minutes, I had the good company of two talented young men, William Franklin Harrison, establishing himself as a filmmaker before setting course for the White House, and Toby McMullen, the last stand-up comic standing.
The Mets initially cooperated, coming out smoking, scoring three runs in each of the first two innings. Then, as our pitcher ran out of gas, evident to everyone but our manager, the bad guys scored nine runs in one inning, a Herculean feat. This resulted in another rarity, my departure before the game ended.
Thursday, August 14, 2025
I had lunch with Irwin Pronin, CCNY Student-Government-President-
. . .
The answer: Basically not. The figure is the salary of Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist candidate for mayor. His wife is an artist/illustrator whose earnings are unknown. They live in a rent-regulated apartment for $2,300 per month. Andrew Cuomo, his major opponent, charges that Mamdani earns more than most New Yorkers and pays less than many. Does this translate into prosperity? Stay tuned.
Friday, August 15, 2025
If an enemy force took over control of the United States government, would it do more harm than we are now experiencing?
. . .
I am always aware of my educational role, bringing vital information to your attention. Here is the graphic illustration of America's preference in potato chips.
