Imagined Community

March 29th, 2010

Home Ed Hustings: Kate Sweeny, Green

Both Hilary Myers (Lib Dem) and Craig Whittaker (Con) were quick out of the blocks, acknowledging my enquiry within a matter of hours. Quite impressive: let’s not forget that the candidates have day jobs, too. However, the first substantive reply comes from Green candidate Kate Sweeny:

Dear Ian
Thank you for contacting me, and I apologise for the slight delay in responding. I have reproduced below the relevant section from the Green Party’s Education policy – you will see from this that we are very supportive of your choice.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to contact me again if you have further questions.

Home-based Education: ED150 We support parents’ rights to educate their children in settings other than at school. ED151 Too often parents exercise this choice as a result of negative experiences such as children experiencing bullying, feeling restricted by the curriculum or intimidated by large schools and class sizes. The Green Party’s reform of the education system would alleviate many of these issues.

I sent the following response:

Dear Kate

Many thanks for your reply. I was hoping for a little more detail, I must admit. After all, Ed Balls insists that he too supports Home Education, and yet the proposals in the CSF Bill will have a disastrous effect if they do become law.

Having said that, does the lack of detail imply that the Greens have no intention to enact legislation affecting home education? The status quo is not ideal (largely due to Local Authorities’ inability to understand the existing law) but it is far more preferable to what the CSF bill offers. There is certainly no pressing need for change.

Best wishes

Ian

It was a bit of a rushed response, I suppose – I now wish I had mentioned something about home education often being a philosophical preference as opposed to “too often” being a response to difficulties in schools. Oh, well, there may yet be chance.

Update 30 March 2010:

Kate replies thus:

Hi Ian
I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to your question, so I’ve forwarded your message to our national policy team. they may reply to you directly.

Best wishes, Kate

Well, that’s a result of sorts – anything that raises awareness of the threat to HE at national policy level can’t be a bad thing. I will of course blog what, if anything, they send. Thanks to Kate for her replies.

Tags: home ed hustings, Kate Sweeny
Posted in Calder Valley 2010, Political/Personal, home educational | Comments Off

March 24th, 2010

Home Ed Hustings

I’ve blogged about the Badman Review flaws in the past, so won’t rehash the detail now. Suffice to say that if Clause 26 and Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill now awaiting scrutiny by Peers becomes law, autonomous home education – sometimes known as unschooling – will be effectively outlawed. A very powerful and philosophically rigorous educational approach will be banned for no good reason, and several bad ones. As you might imagine, this prospect does not please me.

Thankfully, the public-spirited types at MySociety have come up with a great new project tracking parliamentary candidates. So what do the people standing for parliament in my constituency* feel about the matter? Well, why don’t I ask them?

Dear $candidate

I am a home educating parent in Hebden Bridge. Whilst I am not exactly a single issue voter, the ability to ensure my children’s wellbeing and learning in the way best suited to their age, aptitude and ability is obviously of great importance to me, and will be a major factor in how I decide to vote. Can I ask where you stand on home education?

In particular, what is your opinion of the Badman Review, and Clause 26 and Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill now awaiting further scrutiny in the House of Lords? Do you in fact believe that new legislation in one form or another is necessary? If so, what form do you think that should take, and what are your grounds for believing so?

There is a thriving home education community in the Calder Valley, and I know many people will be interested in your reply. I intend to ask the same question to all the candidates, and I would like to make all the responses public on my blog: http://ianappleby.net/blog

I look forward to hearing from you.

So that goes to Steph Booth (Lab), Hilary Myers (Lib Dem), Kate Sweeny (Green) and Craig Whittaker (Con). Just as soon as I find contact details for Greg Burrows (UKIP), I’ll ask him, too.

Watch this space.

[Update 24/3/10 1:15am Greg Burrows can be contacted via this page. In passing, I'll note that that really doesn't match up to the other candidates' web efforts. I only found it by drilling down from the UKIP home page *clears cache* Still, I have now sent him the same text as the other candidates.]

* I gather via @matgb – a Twitter conversation with whom prompted this post – that Chris O’Connor has in fact withdrawn from the race.

Tags: CSF bill, Graham Badman, home ed, hustings
Posted in Calder Valley 2010, Political/Personal, home educational | Comments Off

March 19th, 2010

Damned Data

Fascinated to read about Charles Fort and damned data from the Fortean Times:

… Fort spent some 30 years identifying many of the methodological and sociological mechanisms by which scientific communities regulate the reporting and discussion of ‘damned’ data. He had a particular hostility to astronomers, and devoted New Lands (1923) to exposing “the means by which the science of Astronomy has established and maintained itself”. While Fort’s criticisms were sometimes vitriolic, they were generally on target: he amassed hundreds of verified and cross-referenced observational reports, exposing disregarded observations, startlingly inaccurate predictions, and politely ignored anomalous astronomical phenomena. As ever, his concern wasn’t with the data itself, but with its treatment by the scientific community. Time and time again, he found ‘damned data’ and dissenting observers ignored or ridiculed in a manner quite inconsistent with scientific method and professional respect …

There’s a common tendency, especially in online debates, to privilege scientific method above all else. This website’s a case in point – I don’t agree with it, but I can see it’s an effective joke. But look at the caveat:

If you notice any mistakes or errors on this website, please email us and we will publish a correction.
Please note that corrections will not be accepted unless accompanied by robust, peer-reviewed, scientific data.

For all the sceptics protest otherwise, they are giving peer-review the status of holy scripture. The trouble with holy books is, even if they were actually dictated by some supreme being, the text is transcribed by fallible humanity. The same fallible humans, or, to be more precise, humans who are fallible in the same way, produce and peer-review academic books and articles. Yes, I applaud the scientific method for attempting to reduce bias and prejudice to a minimum, but it ain’t infallible. Fundamentalists of any stripe are deeply unattractive; Ten23 partisans and their ilk would do well to keep this in mind.

Posted in (Ir)rational | Comments Off

March 19th, 2010

Arch Linux and HP Laserjet 1020

I’ve been struggling on and off for months now to get my eee pc to talk to the HP Laserjet 1020 printer we have (which I got, ironically, because it was supposed to play well with Linux…) It’s one of those things – when I needed to print, I needed to do it in a rush. What’s that they say abbout not fixing the roof when it rains? Anyway, the Imaginary Friend so far remains immune to the blandishments of open-source – she’s an Excel power-user, and can’t get on with adjusting to Open Office. Means I can use a memory stick and her machine, but it don’t half offend my sensibilities every time.

I haven’t kept track of all the wrong turns I took, but last night early this morning I got it working. Bear in mind that this is specific to Arch Linux, but I hope it might be useful whatever distro you use.

I made sure I had the latest version of cups (pacman -Sy cups) to start with, then checked the Arch wiki for how to configure cups. I plugged in the printer, and sure enough

# tail /var/log/messages.log

revealed that the printer had been detected. I opened the CUPS web configurator (http://localhost:631/), and chose the ‘add printer’ option. Enter root and password at the prompt, and, well, only two choices for local printer: SCSI printer and PDF printer. There should have been the option of USB printer, too.

Searching the Arch forums for Laserjet 1020 brought up a thread entitled HPLIP & hp-toolbox. Not entirely relevant, I thought, but then it struck me that the HPLIP package was not one I had come across before.

# sudo pacman -S hplip

and refresh the CUPS add printer page. Lo and behold, this time I see the USB printer option. Click through the pages, which are straightforward, until a dialogue that prompts you to choose the model from a, frankly bewildering, variety of choices. Below that drop-down box is the option to “Provide a PPD file.” Handily, in

/usr/share/cups/model

you’ll find a selection of gzipped PPD files, including

HP-LaserJet_1020.ppd.gz

Simply gunzip and select in this dialogue. Choose your printer defaults, and you should be good to go.

Posted in Open-Sourcery | Comments Off

March 15th, 2010

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-15

H Whatnell, home improvements, advertises "uni dry verge" on his top.What? If I weren't so English, I'd ask him. #
@gwynrichards Curious about your no RT rule, what's driving that? Thought your director mismatch worth sharing. in reply to gwynrichards #
RT @gwynrichards: Just had a strange bout of confusion: Miyazaki (directed Spirited Away) vs Meir Zarchi (directed I Spit on Your Grave). #
@gwynrichards Thanks. Done Couldn't be a starker contrast, really, could there? in reply to gwynrichards #
More bollocks in the press about Home Ed, this time from Yorkshire Evening Post: http://is.gd/9X37G #
RT @ebertchicago: Variety fires Todd McCarthy and I cancel my subscription. < Since when was Tucker Jenkins writing for Variety? #
@chickyog It's the Ed Balls Twitter model – claim to be engaging whilst ignoring the awkward questions. Wouldn't give you 2p for the pair. in reply to chickyog #
I set up a new blog last year. Still no real new content, but at least there's a post: http://ianappleby.net/blog/ Cossacks on film! #
. @uponnothing @NewHumanist Too many leaps in that article for my liking: Home Ed=religious=creationist. Not true in US, def not true in UK in reply to uponnothing #
I've said this before – there are faith schools teaching god knows what, yet no-one is calling for the whole schooling edifice to be hobbled #
But everyone's a home ed expert, because they've all been to school. Aaargh. #
@NewHumanist Hi – yes, I'd be happy to chat about this, but can't just right now. Maybe later today? in reply to NewHumanist #
@brightravenmum Dead right. "I was a baby once (not that I remember much about it) so I know everything about _your_ child" Give me strength in reply to brightravenmum #
@firebird2110 "poor sad little man" are all self-evident, but I don't get the Goth tag? Creep shows no signs of Goth sensibility to me. in reply to firebird2110 #
@OrganisedPauper @firebird2110 Ok, thanks. Dread to think what it was he wrote then, but that's pretty much my default position for him… in reply to OrganisedPauper #
It was the Sunne in Splendour wot won it – Freak Weather Freaks Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross #historicaltabloidheadlines #
French eBay seller wants me to pay £2 extra to cover conversion to Euro (auction ran in GBP). Cough up or complain? #
#Request 1: does anyone know if opinion polls by constituency are available? Specifically Calder Valley, Morley & Outwood #
#Request 2: can Twitter source me a spare USB cable for a Nu Dolphin 1GB waterproof MP3 player? Feel free to RT #
@bridd Yep, and it was listed on ebay.co.uk, not .fr. He's having a laugh, isn't he? in reply to bridd #
Consensus on eBay dilemma was to complain. Thanks for input. BUT realise he might renege on combined shipping, so… #
… just paid the auction end price in Sterling via paypal without comment. Passive aggression FTW! #
@megnog Good luck with that – it's a subject of immediate relevance to me… Would you lmk if there's a good starting point? in reply to megnog #
This made me laugh so hard a rescue party came from downstairs to check I was all right: http://is.gd/amPdN #
RT @GaryDelaney: Brian Blessed has his own sign language interpreter with really big hands. < @wittertainment, is it Mark Kermode? #
Via @brightravenmum: Please RT: more Daily Fail poll fail. Vote yes for breastfeeding >2 y/os. http://bit.ly/a2CiAE #
@shane_macgowan Great to see you on here, Shane. Er, you will stick around after the single hits no.1, won't you? in reply to shane_macgowan #
@shane_macgowan Magic in reply to shane_macgowan #
Ladies & gents, for what is my 2nd #ff after Jurgen Habermas, only one of our greatest living songwriters: @shane_macgowan. #
The e-mails and the she-males parading in style. #shanemacgowan enters the technology age, and it's a better place for him. #
Where we once watched the robots landing… #shanemacgowan goes technological. #
@megnog Was that a hint? How are you planning to find them? Are you taking qualitative or quantitative approach? in reply to megnog #
Any comments on latest version of #xmarks I recall performance hits last time I used it. (Arch linux, firefox) #
RT @edballsmp: out this morning in Stanley – lots of families preparing for Mother's Day lunch < Gee, Ed, you don't say? #

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

March 11th, 2010

A Day at the Races

I’ve not tried anything like this before, but as I read prompt 1 for this week’s writing workshop at Sleep is for the Weak, viz:

1. Take the time to talk to an elderly relative or friend and share with us a story of theirs. Or perhaps tell us a favourite story you remember being told by/about someone you have lost.
- Inspired by New Day New Lesson’s beautiful and thought-provoking post reminding us to take the time to learn our heritage before it’s too late.

I realised I could see the character quite clearly. I’d love to hear if you get any sense of her from this brief vignette. It’s based on things I was told by, well, I need to respect her privacy and memory, and anyway as you’ll see it’s more an imagining than a straight re-telling.

—

Another glass of champagne, she thought. After all, I have a reputation to consider. Actually, she acknowledged ruefully, she had a reputation to build – let them think her intriguing, certainly, but not dissipated. Ne dai Bog, never dissipated. Her liaison with Charles was fun, but an emigre girl like her didn’t have too long to find a respectable husband before warm white wine and hurried assignations in cheap hotels would be all she could aspire to. No better than she ought to be, they would say, they wouldn’t know or care she was a general’s daughter. They hadn’t cared in Paris when Mama sold the last of her jewels for a pittance. Damn the emigres who had flooded the market, and damn the dealers who were waiting for them. She remembered that dinner with the Irish writer who had been most impolite with his enthusiasm for the Bolsheviks who had murdered poor Papa. Despite herself, though, she had been amused by his exchange with that simpering woman who was not as young as she had been. What was it he’d said? “We’ve established what you are, madam, now we are just negotiating over the price.” Very clever, even if he had missed the obvious target at that table.

Charles had been as good as his word to her when she came aboard his ship in Constantinople. He’d offered all the hospitality of His Majesty’s Navy, plus a little that she was sure the King hadn’t specified in regulations. He was still a handsome man, and anyway, hadn’t Mama married poor Papa when he was nearly forty years older than her? Mama certainly didn’t seem to mind either that Charles was already married to someone else, or that he had been for longer than Maria had been alive. Even a general’s daughter can’t be too fussy in emigration, and a Naval Captain offered a certain entree into respectable society that was not to be lightly foregone. They both knew he would never leave his wife, but as he’d promised, he was in return helping her find a husband.

But, bozhe moi, it was dull work, the social round. The English had neither Parisian gaiety nor Russian melancholy, just that damned stiff upper lip and insipid talk of the insipid weather. Thank God for the occasional Irish playwright, she thought, even if they are dangerously democratic. Charles awoke her from her reverie with that glass of champagne. “The Gold Cup used to be known as the Emperor’s Plate, you know, my dear.”
“Are the English so easily confused over their crockery?”
“Ah, quite so. That is, indeed we are not.” She would never tire of his perplexity at her gentle mockery. However had he become a Captain? She’d overheard a conversation between two ratings on board ship: “if you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined.” She absent-mindedly ran her fingers through the tress of hair that kept getting tangled in the silk bow on the shoulder of her sundress and, not for the first time, marvelled that a senior officer could be so easily distracted from his train of thought.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

March 10th, 2010

Adel’ Al’-Khadad and Me

Adel’ Al’-Khadad’s feature The Ancient Russians (Rusichi, 2008) aspires in at least two ways to become one of the historical blockbusters familiar from the Putin era that Stephen Norris (2008) has described. Firstly, it takes elements of Russian heritage, which are “repackaged for convenient consumption.” (Norris, 2008) Although the film is labelled a children’s fantasy, it presents a vision of the primordial forefathers (for there is an obvious gender imbalance) of Rus’ —and thus, by extension, of the modern Russian nation—in their struggle for supremacy over enemies both external and internal.
Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair
Secondly, and more immediately, it clearly hankers to repeat the success of The Wolfhound (Volkodav; dir. Nikolai Lebedev, 2007) by parlaying a version of the pre-Kievan past into box-office success. The Wolfhound took $20 million at Russian cinemas, some recompense for the critical scorn leveled at it. By contrast, The Ancient Russians has taken less than $150 000. This public disdain has been matched by the critics, who have likewise devoted very little attention to the film. Curious marketing decisions will hardly have helped publicize the film: the premiere of the partily Iurga-financed film took place in Khanty-Mansiisk as part of celebrations to mark the extraction of the nine-billionth ton of oil in the region. Although some filming has taken place in the region, the majority of locations are around Vyborg. A provincial premiere, however worthy the occasion, is unlikely to pique the interest of metropolitan critics.

And there’s more.

Posted in Academical, Cinematical, Russianal | Comments Off

March 9th, 2010

Bortko and Me

“The appeal of Taras Bulba as an adolescent adventure story is obvious,” remarks Judith Kornblatt (1992: 58) of Nikolai Gogol’s novella Taras Bul’ba. Vladimir Bortko’s film adaptation is faithful inasmuch as it largely fails to engage on any more sophisticated level—despite a big budget, period costumes and some respected actors. In its 1842 version, the novella was instrumental in helping to create the mythical Cossack that has become a stock figure not only in the Russian imagination, but also farther afield.
Bogdan Stupka as Taras Bulba
This mythical Cossack has evolved as later authors engaged with him, and Bortko has had to acknowledge this evolution in his cinematic treatment. In fact, Gogol aimed higher: the larger-than-life Cossacks he depicted were intended to act as a foundation myth for the Russian nation. Bortko, too, appears to have striven for a mythologizing film that upholds Russian virtues, for these Cossacks are undoubtedly Russian in the ethnic (russkii) sense of the adjective as they are set against the cowardly, decadent West…

Tags: Cossacks, review, Taras Bulba, Vladimir Bortko
Posted in Academical, Cinematical, Cossackral, Russianal | Comments Off

December 31st, 2009

New Year, New Parents

There’s a new year ahead,
And an impending revolution -
The state has found a “problem”
And wants a powerful solution.
Children are not watched closely enough
Within our current system -
When there are “anomalies” in the home,
The authorities might have missed them.

They want powers to come in as a routine measure,
And speak to our children alone.
“Innocent ‘til proven guilty” must go -
Along with privacy of the family home.

Parenting decisions are far too open,
And have become a cause for concern,
Especially when the Local Authority can’t
Control what children will learn.
The National Curriculum and testing regime
Are now firmly established in schools,
But those educated “otherwise” than at school
Do so within self-defined rules.

A parent who doesn’t choose school for their child
Must immediately be under suspicion.
They’ll be first in the line for the new idea
Of approval of every decision.
If they have to register this parenting choice,
Then that means the child will become
A child of the state, so the state has control -
That’s it! Box ticked! Job done!

But please don’t forget the state must pursue
Their responsibilities under these powers,
Resources will be taken from children who need it
In order to monitor ours.
And once they establish the state in this role
All children who are not happy in school
Can hold them to blame and play the compensation game -
I hope it’s a bottomless pool!

Care will be needed so as not to alert
The media and those with some clout,
So they’ll start with this “home-ed” group, who seem small enough,
And who most don’t know much about.
If it sounds like it’s children they’re out to protect,
Then it’s hard to argue against.
It’s easy to hide behind smoke screens like this,
And most will just sit on the fence.

Then a bit later on, when it’s time to extend
These new powers and apply them to others,
There’ll be a big shout “WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT?”
From the rest of the fathers and mothers.

Don’t be hoodwinked – sign our petition and prevent the Government from taking over parenting
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Home-ed-families/
Further info
http://www.home-education.biz/news/22/60/AHEd-demands-rethink-of-home-education-policy/
http://every-child-matters.blogspot.com/2009/11/our-case-against-change.html
Courtesy of Jill

Tags: Graham Badman, home educational
Posted in home educational | Comments Off

December 20th, 2009

Setting Out the Stall

So, just as blogging jumps the shark*, and better bloggers than me reduce their activity, why do I go and splash out on my own domain name? Couple of reasons, really: firstly, we had a spare base unit floating round at home, and I discovered our excellent ISP offers a free static IP address. In fact, never mind firstly, that’s the main reason – any excuse to learn more about computers and the ‘net. I’ll try and keep the set-up proudly open-source, as well.

The second reason is simply that, while micro-blogging seems to be where it’s at right now, and certainly where I’m mainly sharing my thoughts online, sometimes 140 characters just isn’t enough – now, I’ve got somewhere to call my own to store, ahem, important historical documents such as my response to the latest DCSF nonsense consultation (which they took such careful note of).

Mind you, I still don’t fancy these curtains, much.

*Typical, you think of an overused metaphor, and a more-established blogger comes along and swipes it from under you.

Tags: Uncategorized
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off