David Foster

Tangerines per Gallon

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In a meeting with environmentalists, Elizabeth Edwards talked about the importance of buying locally-produced foods:

“We’ve been moving back to ‘buy local,'” Mrs. Edwards said, outlining a trade policy that “acknowledges the carbon footprint” of transporting fruit.

“I live in North Carolina. I’ll probably never eat a tangerine again,” she said, speaking of a time when the fruit is reaches the price that it “needs” to be.

Being the kind and considerate person that I am, I don’t want the Edwards family to unnecessarily forego the pleasures of tangerine-eating. Therefore, I’ll try to help them out by calculating a vital economic and environmental parameter which shall be known as tangerines per gallon.

This is a very rough and preliminary analysis; tangerine experts and transportation experts are invited to chime in with more data.

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Senate Technophobia, 1930 Style

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In 1930, U.S. Senator Carter Glass (Virginia) introduced the following resolution:

Whereas dial telephones are more difficult to operate than are manual telephones; and

Whereas senators are required since the installation of dial telephones in the Capitol to perform the duties of telephone operators in order to enjoy the benefits of telephone service; and

Whereas dial telephones have failed to expedite telephone service; therefore, be it

Resolved that the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate is authorized and directed to order the Chesepeake & Potomac Telephone Co., to replace with manual telephones, within 30 days after the adoption of this resolution, all dial telephones in the Senate wing of the United States Capitol and in the Senate Office Building.

The resolution passed.

(source: Visions of Technology, edited by Richard Rhodes)

Goodbye, Winston

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British secondary schools will drop Winston Churchill from a list of figures to be mentioned in history teaching. Also dropped: Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King. The schools will now be emphasizing “lessons on debt management, the environment and healthy eating.”

Also:

Schools are also being told to tear up the timetable of eight lessons a day and introduce classes lasting a few minutes – or several hours – by mixing different subjects together.

Five-minute lessons on spelling, French or German could be “drip-fed” throughout the day.

The architect of the new curriculum, Dr Ken Boston, insisted traditional approaches had been “exhausted”.

Check your calendar. This is not April 1.

Related: The Trivialization of Science Teaching.

(cross-posted at Photon Courier)

What Year is This?

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…because it increasingly seems that the first 3 digits must be one, nine, and three.

British film-maker Richard Littlejohn has released a documentary titled The War Against Britain’s Jews. Read this article, in which he talks about some of the things he has learned in his research.

I believe this program ran on Britain’s Channel 4 on Monday—don’t know if any reruns are planned.

Via Judith at History News Network.

Priorities

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California has a growing shortage of registered nurses–an estimated shortfall of 40,000 by the year 2014. There are lots of people who want to learn nursing, but can’t get into nursing school because of a shortage of instructional capacity–an estimated 17,000 qualified applicants are now on the waiting list.

So what does the University of California system want to do?

Start a new law school. This, despite the fact that the California Postsecondary Education Commission has found that the state has no shortage of qualified attorneys.

Joanne Jacobs has thoughts on this matter.

(cross-posted at Photon Courier)