Unfortunately the later is often what is the focus of public school reform.  Schools will, and always have, <a href=”http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/60II/main591676.shtml”>manipulated numbers to create the impression they are doing a better job than they are</a>.   Students are strategically removed from a school to improve scores.  Attendance numbers are faked.  Student who drop out are misclassified as moving to another school.  In essence, schools, like corporations have been doing for year, are cooking the books so that stake holders believe that the situation is all milk and honey.  As the continuos financial crisis since 2001 have shown, such fabrication  almost always lead to very negative consequences.

This is why only structural changes taht promote learning, not end of year quality control, are useful.  As an analogy take a look at the current oild spill in the gulf.  Drilling for oil is a very complex procedure, and incidents will happen.  The way to minimize these incidents is to insure quality through the process, not just a the end.  If the rig has been built properly, it likely never would have exploded, and we would not likely not be in the current situation.  While testing of milestones is important, those tests much be truly high stakes, meaning no work continues if quality does not exist, and the test must be backed up with a culture that builds in quality, not just adds it at the last minute with jury rigged additions.

No Child Left Behind, even with all it’s faults, did add two critical structural elements to the school system.  The first is the ‘Well Qualified Teacher’.   The well qualified teacher not only knows that art and science of teaching, but also the subject being taught.  Unfortunately, as in a political process, loopholes were left open.  A minor problem is that a teacher can be in the process of becoming well qualified and still teach.  Since a teacher tends to a have bachelor degree in the subject being taught, this is more like on the job training.  A more critical loophole is that charter schools, those publicly funded schools that often teach our students in most need of an excellent teacher, can have state exemption to the well qualified teacher.

A second issue is the high stakes testing.  This is where we see the importance of the quality control process.  If I manufacturing a part with 13 steps, say steps k-12, I will have at least one quality check at each step.  If I am really smart, and can hire the proper staff, I would have the line worker that actaully completes eat step to perform the quality check of the product at the ingress of egress of each step.  If a part does not meet the spec, it would either be sent back or reworked.  A part that is sent back would incurr a higher penalty than a part that is reworked within a department.  At the end of the line a part is inspected, and if does not meet spec, is investigated, the department that missed the spec is determined, and some further penalty is applied.  This is of course an overgeneralization, but it is what is often attributed to manufacturing, and is the method of high stakes testing in the school today.

At each grade level a test is given.  If the student does not pass then test, then the student is reworked.  At certain steps, or grades, the student is held back, unless a committee says not to.  The big difference is that the only people who are penalized for off spec end product is the high school teacher.  This system does not encourage quality at each step, any more that the BP procedures did.

This is what I was thinking about as I read a the recent review of <a href=”http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/328/5982/1107″>A Reformer’s Change of Heart</a> in a recent issue of Science Magazine.  Like Diane Ravitch, I have come to see testing as a tool of limited value.  Not becasue measuement and quality assurance is not good, but because we do not have the feeback mechansims we need.  A student may not meet the standards of a test, but what can we do with those results?  If we have enough such students we can close the school, but what do we replace it with?  Do we close down the Gulf to drilling or close down BP because of an uncontrolled spill?  Do we close down the banks becasuse they nearly crash the economy?  No.

We can hold  student back, but does that work for all, even most, students.  Social promotion is a norm, and holding students back and closing schools are just threats that cannot be universally enforced, so why waste our time with a threat?

Then there is letter in another issue of Nature , stated the, in my opinion, quite obvious fact that <a href=”http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7295/full/465157a.html”>Asia should be educating kids for innovation, not taking tests</a>.  By corollary, US education should not go the test taking route, but continue our successful educational system that encourages students to innovate.  By it’s imperfection, by it’s lack of absolute structure, it requires students to innovate to be successful.

So what can we do to keep our tradition of innovation and improve quality control through testing.  First, while it is reasonable to enforce absolute or growth test standards at certail places in the educational process, the enforcement process must be geared to help the student, not punish teachers or students.  These means innovative alternatives.  If a student is not succeeding, that likely means the process is not working.  Like manufacturing, if a process is not working that does not mean we blame the material or the worker.  We must adjust the process.  Charter schools can be part of this adjustment.  A big issue is at the middle school level.  If a student is failing in a traditional middle school, the a charter school might help, or some other program.  It is silly to do what we are doing now which is to just infinitely reprocess.  If we are taking measurement, we must respond to these in a meaningful manner.

Second, we must innovate the proces so we can respond to all feedback, not only formalized testing.  but any meaningful object measure we might wish to make.  In my opinion this innovation must involve some sort of skills based process.  Not in the traditional sense of fixing air conditioning, but in the basic skills sense.  If we teach a student who an air condition works, then they can not only fix but improve.  If we teach a student how to program a computer, then they can improve, not only fix.

This to me is the key.  If we have skill based schools, charter or otherwise,  that not only teach basic skills but an innovative process, then that is a useful school.  If we have schools, charter or otherwsie, that are required to teach all students as much as possible, or place them in better environments based on objective data, then we have schools that will educate.  Right now we have schools, mostly charter, that just pick the students they want, and ship the unwanted students elsewhere.  The comprehensvice schools are punished for trying to teach all students, whille the other are lauded for teaching the few.  We known how to teach the few.  We have the innovative process to teach everyone.  It is just hat teaching everyone requires work.

That is a bold statment, and one that is at the center of the misunderstanding of most people not involved in comprehensive education.  Nearly every example of success comes from a school that in some way is able to select it’s students.  If it is a suburban school, there  is not only the barrier to moving into the district, but also a willingness of stakeholders to support extreme punishments for minor offenses.  It can easily be imagined that such rules can be applied selectively to remove students who are difficult to educate.

The selective process for KIPP and like schools are more obvious.  For any private or charter school, they must only accept those that apply and goes through a sometime rigourous process.  This means the parent has to come in with the child and often interview.  Unlike a public school where all students with an adress in the district must be accepted, KIPP and schools like it are free to discourage students they don’t want.  Any proffesional can create a clearly hostile environment without breaking any laws are leaving significant evidence.  Even an unwanted student insists on being enrolled, there is often a contract to accept extreme consequences and leves of mistreatment for minor behaviors.  At the very least, the unwanted students is not going to the educational problem she or he would be in a comprehensive school where every child has a right to an education.

The point of this post is not to say that KIPP or any other school is not educating kids, or doing what they think is best for the future of the children, but simply to point out there is a difference between the schools that are in the news for excellence and comprehensive schools.  Comprhensive schools must be in the bussiness of educating every student, and by definition can’t expel kids just because they are hard to educate.  This country is very good at educating kids that want to learn, educating kids that have been trained at home to mind authority, educating that kid that is a pleasure to have in the classroom.

What we have trouble with is educating the other, likely majority, of the population.  How to do get a student through high school?  What do we do in middle school so the average kids will want to stay past sixteen and not drop out?  These are the questions that are not being answered.  The answer we get is to create schools of homogenous minimally motivated students, rid ourselves of the 25 to 50 percent who give up, and then have great success with the remainder.  I say that is not good enough.

We need to do better.  We need teachers that likes kids, because if a kid is attached to a teacher then they are more likely to stay for the four years.  A teacher that is in the classroom for two years in order to pay off student loans is not neccesarily that teacher.  A teacher that has been teaching kids for 20 years without any major incident likely is.

We need curriculum that meets the needs of the student.  Paper and pencil is not the norm.  Note talking, while a critical college skill, cannot be the sole basis for a class.  Students expect increasing levels of customization of thier work.  Everyone working on the same worksheet is not where it is at.  Exploring simulations on the computer, working through problems, building genuine products is what is expected.

Standardized exams, even when measured on growth, do not measure what the kid has learned.  These exams do not measure developmental growth, such as the ability to sit for hours and work a problem.  They measure the trivia that can be taught in any classroom with hand selected student, but not useful knowledge.  Saying that one school is better than another because of SAT or AP scores is not really a rational statement.

I will make one more bold statement.  Before the US began obsessing on doing well on standardized exams as compared to other country, we did well in genuine education.  We built cars, we built computers, we wrote code, we created indsutries that did not exist.  Our problem is not education, but the idea that we need to compete on paper as opposed in reality.  I do not care how many engineers some other country says they have.  What I care is that scandinavia is taking over the programming and telephone industry.

It is expected for the followers to eventually take over mature industries, that is the way the world works.  The way the leaders remain leaders is to foster creativity so that new industries are created.  The one sure way to fall is to think that existing industries are more important than new industries, and to focus public policy on the maintainance of old technology.  Knowing how to build a bridge is not such a big deal.  We must know how to build new bridges.

We used to teach kids how to build new bridges.  Now place like KIPP are lauded as successes because they teach kids how to copy the same old bridge.

What are the misconceptions.  First, motivation of the student matters.  In the U.S. we have compulsory education.  Public shools must educate every student.  Public schools must go to court and charge truent students with fines so they or their parent feel compleled to keep them in school.  Public school must accept students that are at school only to stay out of jail.  Public schools must reaccept students who attack teachers and fellow students, or choose to be disruptive in the classrom knowing they will get expelled and get a vacation.  Public schools are judged on the performance of all students, even those that are just there to stay our of jail.   Kipp and charter schools are not.  To enroll in KIPP parents have to contact  KIPP and KIPP decides who to accept.  While they say they are open, then standards for admission are not published. And while Public Schools have public discipline procedures, KIPP has no such requirement..  In effect, KIPP is selective and has the freedom to remove students.

What does this freedom mean.  Many of friends and I went to Public School.  But the schools we went to were exclusive.  We could be removed.  This created a profound pychological efffect for us.  No longer was the compition about who could annoy the teacher, or who could do best at sports, or who could skip the most classes.  Now the competition was which of us were going to make it throuhg 9th grade, knowing a significant percetage of us would not.  The competition was who was best, who was going to get the best teachers, who was going to work on the best equipment, and which of those were going to be losers that did not get an education.  These were public schools with 90%+ percent title I, 80%+ minority, and, unlike KIPP, very minimal facilities.  The issue was not public schools, but exclusivity.  Comparing a comprehensive private school to KIPP is simply inappropriate to the point of being incompentant.  If one school accepts unrepentant convicts and the other doesn’t, there simply is no comparison.

The other errors of the essay will be discussed in future blogs

The danger is, of course, that the metaphor can be taken literary.   If the atom is like the solar system, then maybe there is gravitation effect in the atom, or maybe the solar ssytem is an atom and we are just part of a greater molecule that we call the universe.  This is fun for philisophical debate, and can show issues with a model and drive the refinement, but it is not why we use metaphor.   We use metaphor to bridge extisting knowledge to novel knowledge.

What made me think of this is the xkcd Christmas Comic which lead to some discussion which made some people upset.  This is an issue of metaphor.  Let me be clear, if one wants to take the bible literally and never wear clothes made of two materials and never remarry after divorce and tithe on pre deduction income, it is each persons right to so do.  But few people do this, and at that point we are in the realm of metaphor.

As the metaphor Christmas and christian belief is powerful.  We celebrate the birth of Jesus, and we celebrate the birth of every child, no matter when or where they are born, because any birth is a miricle.  We feel for people who are suffering and do what we can, just as the manager was provided for Mary because there was no room at the inn.  We raise our children as a community and hope that everyone will help provide for the child, just as the three wise men provided for Jesus, and the little drummer boy gave the most precious gift of all, mental confort for a new unwed mother.

The story provdies insight into how cvilized people car for the newborn child, just as the plum pudding provides insight into the atom.  We think we are beyond such insights, that of course we take care of our children, but look at what happens wehen some people say it takes a village to raise a child, or that a post natal mother sometimes needsa bit of extra help.  Others will talk about personal responsibility instead of talkiing about the little drummer boy.

At it’sbest Christmas is time to make sure that every child knows she or he is loved.  To, over time, teach the responsibility of love to others, and not just a self-centered love.  There is no point to argue who did what to whom, or if things actually happened, or if the metaphor is valid, or if one is offending because it is called a metaphor or myth.

Give what one can, teach the age and culturally appropriate message, and live the love.  Instead of forcing the moneychangers in the sanctuary to say Merry Christmas instead of Merry Xmas, taach those that would go to the money changers so as to get a present that christmas is not something so much bought as given.  The sameis true of teaching and learning.

But then I listen to the debates on popular radio and TV.  People want simple solutions.  They don’t want the world to be complicated.  Univsersal health care is either a liber plot, or the conservatives are heartless.    Global warming is either a liberal conspiracy or conservatvie plot to destroy the world.

In such an environmnet teach problem solving skills is impossible.  The adults do not want to think, so how can we teach the children to think?  The adults have no desire for innovative products, so why should the children learn to make them.

In this holiday season there is hope and there is simplicity and there is clarity.  The person who Christmas celebrates has innovative ideas, and those who listened to him are arguably better off.  While some think that he is the only one with innovative ideas, and not innovative ideas have come since, most of us know differently.  Most of us know that if we listen to people with new ideas, and not just assume the old ideas are corect, we can move to a better world.  A world where women are not forced to wear modest apperal, and everyone is not freaked out with cross dressing women, or semi nude bodies.  A world where we can have some art, so trinkets, and not violate the commandment against graven images.  A world where we can have a sausage if we so wish.  A world where we can study the world, and voice our conclusions, without the fear of fundemnetalist sending Anthrax to us through the mail.

And there is a second thing, a thing that every Christian raised person knows to be the fundemental truth.  To treat others as we woudl want to be treated.  Most of us do not want to be called Nazis, so why do we call others that?  Few of us want to be called sluts, so why do we call others that?  We do not consider ourselves liars, so why do shout out such a thing in civil debate?  We all want to be listened to, and loved, and respected.  So why can’t we show that to others.

The truth of the season is that tolerance is not enough.  We must move beyond tolerance.We must try not to pity the student who cannot solve the problem, or the person who has not heard the words of love and respect, but model those problem solving skills, model that love, model that respect, in hopes that others learn those skills.

But this is not a travel blog, so what lesson did I take from this. First science is done as an almost context free search for knowledge. Much of the work that would create the greatest weapon of mass destruction was done stemmed from the 1899 Planck solution to the black body problem, to the Lenard’s 1902 discovery of the photoelectric effect, to the 1905 papers of Einstein detailing the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and the special theory of relativity.  These among other discoveries set for the structure of the atom, and stated that the atom could be split with mass converted to energy, and the amount of energy might be generated.  All before World War I.  No one knew that some 35 years later a device would be created that could destroy 1/3 of a large city, and over half it population,  one minute after being deployed.

Second, science is not independent of society.  Oppenheimer, the person that managed the Manhattan Project, was a first generation American whose parents immigrated from Germany.  They were joined by other Germans who fled the oppressive German state.  That did not mean the Germany was without scientist.  Heisenberg did foundational works in Quantum Mechanics.  However, many scientist did leave and the Germans likely lost the war as a result.  My kingdom for a nail.  When one starts trading freedom for fear, one has to expect some consequences.

Third, there is significant fear concerning the impact of science, and the decisions to apply science to certain situations.  Much of the exhibit is spent justifying  the decision to kill.  This to me is very disturbing.  The science and decision to apply the science are reasonable separate.  One must make the decision to apply the science as a technology, that is write down the process of use, to realize a product.  We still see this false transference.  Genetics is cool science, geneticaly modified food is the application, so if one against genetically modified food one is against science. This is a fallacy.  The science of genetics is sound.  The decision to use genetically modified food, patent it, and sue if others use the product, is social not science.

In all, the museum provided a rather lopsided view of the issues, which is always a sad thing for a science museum.  On the other hand, at least it directly approached a subject which many avoid.

I think many would agree that the purpose was defensible to a point.  A purpose of the public education system in the US is to assimilate children into the common culture.  The question is do we have to destroy the old culture to do so.  To some extent, yes.  If I am teaching a student science or math, and the culture does not see any purpose in science or math, then I as a teacher must, to some extent, violate the culture of the student.

The question is that violation an expansion of the student’s culture, for example can we remove some bits of the old culture, replace it with bits of the culture to be assimilated, and still have some level of respect for both.  This is what often happened appeared to happen when Christianity was introduced.  Or do we need to obliterate the old culture, which is what the US was trying to do when the forcibly removed kids from their parents.  I believe it is the former.  It is interesting to how many people seem to believe it can only be the later.  Who remove the kids from public school because, in the modern need for cultural diversity, the schools are not longer marching to the European Christian culture.

This indicates that, for the most part, we in the US have known exactly what we have done.  When we teach history a certain way, when we limit the classes in math.  When we restrict the teaching of science, not to maintain ignorance of the working class, but to not offend a few people, we know what is going on.  There is no hiding from the facts.

It disturbs me that we have seen, we know, and yet we continue to hurt children to promote some questionable cause, to maintain a social order that arguably is not even relevant in the 21st century.  In a world where communication is all but free, where travel between any tow points on the globe can be done in a day or so, where being the top 5% of the population is no longer good enough because the population has expanded to the world, any limitation we put on education or potential is self destructive.  Yet we continue to so do.

Here is the classic example.  Though I cite on anecdote, this situation has been a constant throughout my life.  First background.  In teaching, one must present the information in many different manners.  One may start with a verbal description.  The an alternative verbal description.  Then several forms of 2d graphics, the a 3d representations that involve movement.   In some cases, math as language is used. Basically anything that gets the point across, and is age appropriate, is to be used.  Millions of dollars are spent to train teachers to do this.  Teachers who just talk are given bad reviews.  We are to use all the tools at our disposal to teach.

Except for language.  In most cases, unless one is a special class, one is supposed to speak only English.  There are many justifications for this.  It costs more to print in other languages.  Not everyone knows more than one language.  The kids have to learn english eventually, so why let them speak anything other than English.  These seem like good reasons.  But they are not.  They imply that we are to educate everyone to the same mediocre level, which we do not.  They imply that if someone comes into my algebra class not knowing 8th grade math, then I should just let them fail the class and not help them with remedial work.  Teaching is based on multiple representations and re-teaching and  using every tool available to help the child internalize the information.

Language is culture, and just like we did with the indigenous people, we are denying culture by denying language.  Still today I see monoglots become very offended when the kids do not speak english.  I have been reprimanded for explaining to individual students in another language.  Mind you, the student is responsible for learning, but is not allowed to use the available tools.  Denial of a language is denial of a culture.

I teach very ordinary kids with often an extraordinary lack of education.  One things that makes these kids special, however, is that they are very hard working and creative.  Another is that each knows two to three languages.  This is an advantage.  I often introduce a subject and then let them work out the specifics.  It is interesting because they will switch languages, but not randomly.  Often when one student is helping another, the language will shift as the student tries to work out how to explain the topic.  In principle this is not different from me starting with an equation, then translating the equation into english, but to many of my collegues I am doing great harm by allowing this to happen.  It is like when I allowed one group of students to explain some problems in Russian to help with that class.

Denial of language, denial of alternative expressions, is denial of culture.  I think we all understand this, which, as I mentioned, is why so many parents are now keeping their kids at home or sending them to private school where the language is more consistant with what the parents were brought up to believe was correct.  But, as I was also mentioned, though we may have to violate a culture in the name of assimilation, we do not have to disrespect it.  Most of my classes may be taught in English, but that does not mean that other languages are taboo.  I may teach a science class that makes some fundamentalist shudder, but that does not mean I think their beliefs are wrong or inappropriate.  Other teachers may present a biased history, but that does not prevent parents or other adults from expanding and correcting that history.   We must teach to assimilate, but that does mean we must destroy.

Here is the interesting thing, the generalities which I will talk about in a minute. Light, as physical manifestation which allows us to see the world, was first formally described in Europe by Isaac Newton at the turn of the 18th century. It was the science that defined the 18th century in the same way that Galileo Gallei defined the 17th century. From newton we learn that things are not inherently red or orange(I am talking in modern language here) but only that we see light reflected from them that are that color. We see this idea permeate the world and we see the effects of this idea affecting the way impressionists painting. They paint the light, not the object.

Likewise, the end of the 118 century began a process by which europe began to realize that the air was a physical object, made up of many different parts. Oxygen was isolated in 1782.and by 1789 we had the idea that the parts of a compound were in constant proportion, that is, in modern language, that water is always 2 hydrogens and 1 oxygen. By 1811 we had the idea that different stuff existed, and it exibited the property that the same mass of stuff always lead to the the same number of stuff. In 1815 we have the idea that atoms have a common mass, all which are multiple of Hydrogen. By the late 19th century, we have the periodic table. We don’t paint what we see, because what we see are just made up of a small and common set of atoms.

During the 19th century, the view of the world shifted from a solid reality to a complex interaction between light and air. When philosophy changes, everything moves with it. It is not that so much that the science of the times caused impressionism, or that impressionism caused the science of the times, but that both existed in world where air was no longer just an æther, but a combination of atoms, which were distinct. Light was not longer something that separated night and day, but a wave that allowed us to see the world.  This light and air, that had been so long ignored, now has an art form of it’s own.

Perhaps art is what lead to the 20th century realization that light and atoms and the world are not as clear cut as we though in the 19th century.  Perhaps cubism helps deal with the reality that most small things are probabilistic, not certainties.  Perhaps the evolution of expressionism into modern abstract, such as Kandinsky, is the evolution from planetary orbital atomic shells to the atomic clouds.   I think it is wise to keep an eye on art as a metric on what might be happening in the other natural philosophies.

Here are one thing that she says that I absolutely agree with. One has to paint what you see in such a way that the feeling, not the object, is conveyed. This is the source of the abstraction. One is communicating a reaction, a feeling, not what simply what one sees. I would argue that in this sense all drawing, or any other description, is abstract. No one can represent every detail of every object. The artist has to pick and choose the key aspects of that will be used to define the overall object. Each of us, the viewer, will add out own experiences to complete the image.

This, to me, is a universal in art, math, science, and engineering. in science we cannot recreate the universe. All we can do is create models and allow the viewer to create concrete instantiations from the model. The more trained the viewer, the more the model means. For instance, if I say the e²=m²c⁴+p²c² this means something very specific, if a particle has a mass then the inherent energy is related to square of the speed of light in a vacuum, and additional energy is created by the momentum.  It is a radical idea, that mass and energy are the same thing. Like poetry, the codes must be unpacked, and those that are willing to do the work are greatly rewarded.

Something similar happens in technical drawing.  In such drawing, an object is generally reduced to two dimensional representational sketches.  An untrained viewer is not going to be able to relate those sketches to the object, except in trivial cases.  This, however, is what is needed to define the object, not in a representation form, but in a mechanical form.  In teaching this drawing, the student must learn to choose the relevant details of the object that will create an ideal case.  For instance, in a oversimplified case, if one were to draw my computer, one would not draw the dents.  If one were to do a drawing of a molded plastic object, one may leave out the mold line.

This idea of our personal experiences interacting will all fields of study is getting traction.  One reason for public school is provide a common base of experiences so that when we go into the workplace we have some hope of communicating with each other.  In college, much of the course work is to provide a common set of experience, either my reading a canon of books, creating a standard set of devices, or solving the requisite number and type of equations.

This of course is double bladed sword.  Neither Daphne Odjig or O’Keeffe we interesting in the standard canon of visual art.  They were then both free to go and do what was wanted to do because they did not know any better.  Philo Farnsworth and his team of amateurs were able to make significant advances in the television because they simply did not understand all the forces against it’s invention.  I think we as a society, then, needs to understand the importance of a common perspective, but also understand that, for some people, such a common perspective is not very useful.

It is these types of observations that makes on ponder the interaction between human and nature. Building these roads through these mountains certainly served a purpose. People do wish to travel. Nothing in nature in permanent. Mountains that are not blown up will eventually decay with air and water. It hits some of us a bit more cruel to cut through a mountain than the apparently featureless south texas hell hole, but there really is no difference. Likewise is it there that big a difference between blowing up a mountain for a road and blowing up a mountain for coal? Some would say yes.

Much of the difficulty in the discussion of the management of the planet
derives from the conflict of those that believe any human action is acceptable and those that believe any human action is unacceptable. While these views are important to define a center, they serve no purpose in a rational discussion.

Homo Sapien Sapien exists, and is every bit an integral part of the planet as any other organism. We have an apparently unique ability to configure the planet to our comfort, which is not a bad thing. I like air conditioning, cars, bicycles, and shoes. There is not a human who depends on a tool,
and the purpose of a tool is amplify force so that we can more effectively change the planet. Cut down a tree, move a rock, build tall structures.

The discussion is then not how to cure the human cancer on the planet, but how to use our unique abilities to insure that we all have a place to live, while minimizing the long term damage that will jeopardize survival. This is much more complex question, which is why so many people move to a simpler fundamentalist view.

For example fission reactors can be a solution. There are technical and political problem, perhaps so difficult that fission is not a good answer. Fusion research is useful, but not if it is promoted as power too cheap to meter, which is one of those things that killed fission. Likewise, promoted an energy source as harmless is simply stupid. History tells us there is no such thing as a free lunch. Windmill kills birds. Damns destroy livelihoods and kill fish. Who knows what the long terms effects of solar are going to be.

Like my drive to Las Vegas, I can appreciate the natural beauty and the determination of us to succeed as a part of nature. Given that we will do what we need to do for food, clothing, shelter, power, the only question is will we let our future be determined by c0unterproductive fundamentalists or a political process based on rational discussion.