Can Math Lead to White Supremacy?

 So this story unfolds....the Oregon Department of Education came out in the past month to suggest to teachers to take seminar training that involves “ethnomathematics.” 

In this suggestion, they are suggesting that plain regular math....leads to racism, and you need a special 'toolkit' to avoid racism in mathematics.  

Ethnomathematics?  It's a term invented in the mid-1970s in Brazil.  The suggestion, as it has evolved over the past fifty years....is that math is unfairly distributed to cultural groups and some have advanced....some have fallen behind.  

In simple terms....various cultural groups don't have the wit or knowledge level to perform simple mathematical calculations, and their advancement in society is prevented (racism of course is suspected).

I sat and thought about this.

As a kid...particularly from the 5th grade to the 9th grade....I was a dismal math student.

At some point in the 9th grade, maybe six weeks into the new year.....the instructor (new guy) had a chapter which was supposed to take three weeks to cover, test through, and reach a knowledge level for the next chapter.  Roughly twenty-four students in the group, and by the 3rd week....this test business was crapped-out (maybe six people passing out of 24).

It was so bad, that he decided an additional five days would be spent (covering the same material), and re-test.  That got around eight people up to the passing level out of 24).

So another week was added....covering the same material, and another test on Friday (he managed to get nine people of the 24 to pass).  I was in this group (getting around a 65 on the test).

A 6th week was now added....a complete practice test was done on Thursday, with every one of the ten questions laid out, and he used the same test the next day....getting all twenty-four to get a minimum of 60 on the test.

In simple terms....he was a lousy math teacher.

A year later....I had a math instructor who simply handed me the book and said to progress at my own speed....I wrapped up every single test with a 90 or above, and finished the book at the half-way point of the year.  Yeah, I was mostly bored by the whole class environment and simply needed the book to explain the details, and test out through each phase.  

To be blunt....we have an enormous number of math instructors (not just in high schools) who are marginally proficient at the art of teaching math.  

These kids or 'experts' claiming racism?  No....you've got crappy instructors, and math itself does not lead to white supremacy.

The obvious attempt here?  I would suggest they intend to dumb-down math....to the level that you finish high school with a 6th grade level of math.  Somewhere down the path in twenty years....new 'experts' will arrive and be furious over the number of dumb idiots at age 20 to 30....unable to do simple math formulas.  

What's the Difference Between the Bonus Army Riot and the Reichstag Fire?

 Well....this starts get interesting.

On 28 July 1932....the Bonus Army Riot finally occurred.  A veteran group from around January had started camping out and demanding the payment of their WW I money (set into law to be the early 1940s before the money would be paid out).  

The Senate had a vote and reaffirmed the commitment to the date, with a major riot started up by the veterans camped out on the SE end of the city.

Without real manpower to protect the capital....the President called upon the US Army to 'kick' the Bonus Army members out of town.

This event....captured in a rather negative way....became a major front-page episode and basically ended the Hoover re-election campaign.  FDR won in a massive way because of this portrayal.  

The Reichstag Fire?  It occurs roughly eight months later, and is blamed on a Dutch radical who supported the German Communist Party.  

The fire occurs roughly one month after Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.  It solidifies the public support behind Hitler and openly targets the Communist Party members as 'problems' to be corrected.

Did Hitler observe the Bonus Army Riot and realize the value of the trigger event?  

It just makes one wonder.

Why the Gitmo Conversation Always Lingers?

 Back around 2009/2010, President Obama had picked up the entire 'close-Gitmo' conversation and hinted (never promised) that things might change, and Gitmo (in Cuba) would close.  

The international community (mostly journalists) heaped praise upon President Obama, and it went at the core issue....HATE-BUSH.  Anything that Bush had done....had to be undone.

So weeks and months went by with the Obama-team who reviewed the whole Gitmo 'game'.

They had three central issues:

1.  The US Army had delivered some of the consumed individuals on Earth, who were driven to destroy either the US, or to kill Americans in general....to this little prison property that was not on US territory.  

2.  On this small stretch of land, there were only simple basic rights given to the prisoners.  The lawyers to defend these folks?  They had to arrange for permission to fly in....had to settle for what the judge gave them as 'rights'....and the guards were US military.

3.  If you ended Gitmo, where would you resettle Gitmo prisoners?  Into the US?  And if so, what state?  

At the end of the whole process....the problem left unanswered centered on where in the US that you would bring the prisoners?  At some point, Illinois was suggested.  That drove a fair amount of negativity in the state.  Then the subject got dropped.

So President Biden has started the same discussion.  The prisoner movement into the US?  I'm guessing that some element of the White House is thinking of some 'red-states' and thinking of creating a game to generate fake action.  

This whole thing to linger through 2021, 2022 and 2023?  I would suggest that.  

Biden 'Weapons' Chatter

 In general, if you use forty years of Biden-chatter as your 'tool'....95-percent of what he talks about or suggests....never occurs.  Even from the 5-percent that might accidentally get resolved or pushed.....you can count on half of that to marginally change or improve anything.  

Over the weekend, he got onto gun control, and telling the Congress that they need to do something.  

The key driving point?  He wants a list of weapons of war, that would be quickly evolving into a list of things that he could issue an EO upon and halt sales.

So could the AR-15 rifle be a 'weapon of war'?  No.  There is not a single country in the world that runs a military....that has purchase contracts for the AR-15 rifle.  None.

Yes, the M-16 is sold and could be on this 'weapon of war' listing.  But the AR-15 lacks full-auto capability.  Without that....it's useless in a war situation.  

AK-47?  Well....if it was designed and built as the semi-automatic role only....then it's in the same position....it can't be a 'weapon of war'.  The automatic version (typically not sold in the US)....is sold in different versions and used by a minimum of forty countries in military situations.  

Mayan spears from 700 years ago?  Well....you could make the case that they are 'weapons of war'.

Catapults?  You could make the case they also are weapons of war.

Swords?  You could make the case they also are weapons of war.

So all this chatter may just lead into a wide circle, and end up with nothing accomplished?  More or less.  

If you went into the heart of Detroit, and asked most urbanized middle-class families (even those who say they are Democratic-homes)....the vast majority will admit they have a weapon or two in the house.  Some might even admit that they have five or six guns in the house.  A few might even admit that they've had to shove the weapon in the face of a person at least once in their life.

AR-15s around the nation?  The current estimate is five to ten million in the hands of Americans....some Republican, some independent, and some Democratic.  I don't see much occurring here except Biden getting a front-page article and some House Democrats shaking their head because their district doesn't want anything really changed.  

(Just for the record, in 2010-2011....72k cases of confiscated knives in schools occurred, and no one really remarks much about stabbings or threats via a knife)