We shouldn't be obsessed with finding a theory of everything, says Lisa Randall, one of the world's most prominent theoretical physicists. Her recent books are Knocking on Heaven's Door and Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space.
Valerie Jamieson and Richard Webb: Doesn't every physicist dream of one neat theory of everything? Lisa Randall: There are lots of physicists! I don't think about a theory of everything when I do my research. And even if we knew the ultimate underlying theory, how are you going to explain the fact that we're sitting here? Solving string theory won't tell us how humanity was born.
VJ & RW: So is a theory of everything a myth? LR: It's not that it's a fallacy. It's one objective that will inspire progress. I just think the idea that we will ever get there is a little bit challenging.
VJ & RW: But isn't beautiful mathematics supposed to lead us to the truth? LR: You have to be careful when you use beauty as a guide. There are many theories people didn't think were beautiful at the time but did find beautiful later?and vice versa. I think simplicity is a good guide: The more economical a theory, the better.
VJ & RW: Is it a problem, then, that our best theories of particle physics and cosmology are so messy? LR: We're trying to describe the universe from 1027 meters down to 10-35 meters, so it's not surprising there are lots of ingredients. The idea that the stuff we're made of should be everything seems quite preposterous. Dark matter and dark energy?these are not crazy ingredients we're adding.
VJ & RW: Did the discovery of the Higgs boson?the "missing ingredient" of particle physics?take you by surprise last July? LR: I was surprised that the Large Hadron Collider experiments reached that landmark. I thought the teams would say something very affirming but the announcement of the discovery was amazing. It was a feat of engineering that they got the collision rate up to what it had to be, and the experiments did a better job at analyzing the data.
VJ & RW: Are you worried that the Higgs is the only discovery so far at the LHC? LR: I'm not worried that nothing else exists. But I am worried that the LHC might have too low an energy. Had the Superconducting Super Collider been built in Texas, it would have had almost three times the energy. There is a distinct possibility we'll discover things when the LHC's energy is nearly doubled next year. But it's too early to see signs of warped extra dimensions?they will take longer to find.
VJ & RW: What would an extra dimension look like? LR: The best signature of the warped extra dimensions would be seeing a so-called Kaluza-Klein particle. These are partners of the particles that we know about, but they get their momentum from extra dimensions. They would look to us like heavy particles with properties similar to the ones we know, but with bigger masses.
VJ & RW: What if we don't see one? Some argue that seeing nothing else at the LHC would be best, as it would motivate new ideas. LR: I don't know what dream world they are living in. It would be very hard to make the argument to build a higher energy machine based on the fact that you didn't see something.
This article originally appeared in New Scientist.
The Kapaleeshwar forehead Chennai is in the vibrant suv place of Mylapore in the condition of Tamil Nadu, Native indian. Mylapore is the social hub of Tamil Nadu and house to several sightseeing opportunities and especially several Hindu wats or wats. An excellent show of the Dravidian structure, the Kapaleeshwar forehead is said to be designed in the 7th millennium CE. The structural information and well-known stars of Master Shiva create it a must-see position for all the visitors viewing Chennai. Considering the same, a lot of hotels in Chennai and especially in Mylapore, are situated near to the forehead.
Kapaleeshwar forehead attractions
The Kapaleeshwar forehead is in the middle of the populated suv place of Mylapore. Many hotels in Chennai have blossomed by maintaining the needs of Kapaleeshwar pilgrims in thoughts. The forehead was designed by kings of the Pallava empire in Southern Native indian and is known by several other titles like Kapali or kapaliswarar forehead. The traditional Dravidian structure styles like overwhelming gopurams (entrances) and mandapams creates Kapaleeshwar a visible cure for the tourists. The Kapaleeshwar forehead has designs and identities that go returning to the mid-12th millennium.
The forehead has two gopurams, namely southern and european gopuram. The southern gopuram is 40 metres high. The wastern gopuram has a smaller footprint sized as as opposed to southern one and encounters the holy share of water. The Kapaleeshwar forehead homes various shrines of other Hindu deities including:
Parvati (Karpagambal) Dance Ganesh (Nardana Vinayakar) Muruga (Singara Velar) with his consorts Valli and Deivayani Shani temple
Along with the shrines, the forehead property also homes sculptures of various vahanas of these deities (God's vehicles) such as hippo, peacock, peahen, bird, goat, bandicoot and Adhikaranandi or fluff.
Chennai hotels near Kapaleeshwar temple
A lot of Chennai hotels and homestays are exclusively created available for the visitors who check out Mylapore for Kapaleeshwar forehead. You can quickly create an on the internet arranging for bedrooms at any of the Chennai hotels that are near to the forehead. Be it price range, luxurious or high-class resort, Mylapore has enough hotels for the guests of the forehead. Apart from that, you can also guide one of the assistance residence hotels in Chennai and Mylapore. All hotels are well-equipped with fantastic services and genuine Southern Native indian delicacies. You can check out the encompassing vacationer areas like Santhome seaside for pleasure and Giri for purchasing.
The forehead has a attribute environment loaded with tolling alarms and hymns. Kapaleeshwar forehead is start for the guests from 6 am to 1 pm and 4 pm to 8 pm IST. The Pujas take position four periods a day, which are the hurry time for guests looking for Master Shiva's delights. The Tamil 30 days of Panguni (mid-March to mid-April) is the most well-known time as the nine day lengthy brahmotsavam event is famous during now. Other celebrations like Theppam or flow and Aruvathumoovar event are also famous. If you want to check out the forehead during the event, then guide hotels in enhance.deals and discount rates on hotels, routes, vacation offers, vacation cruise trips and car hire arranging.
The forehead has a attribute environment loaded with tolling alarms and hymns. Kapaleeshwar forehead is start for the guests from 6 am to 1 pm and 4 pm to 8 pm IST. The Pujas take position four periods a day, which are the hurry time for guests looking for Master Shiva's delights. The Tamil 30 days of Panguni (mid-March to mid-April) is the most well-known time as the nine day lengthy brahmotsavam event is famous during now. Other celebrations like Theppam or flow and Aruvathumoovar event are also famous. If you want to check out the forehead during the event, then guide hotels in enhance.deals and discount rates on hotels, routes, vacation offers, vacation cruise trips and car hire arranging.
About the Author: Chennai was formerly known as Madras. It is it all capital to the condition of Tamil Nadu, and it all biggest city town of Native indian.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A federal appeals court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency is overestimating the amount of fuel that can be produced from grasses, wood and other nonfood plants in an effort to promote a fledgling biofuels industry.
At issue is a 2007 renewable fuels law that requires a certain amount of those types of fuels, called cellulosic biofuels, to be mixed in with gasoline each year. Despite annual EPA projections that the industry would produce small amounts of the biofuels, none of that production materialized.
There have been high hopes in Washington that the cellulosic industry would take off as farmers, food manufacturers and others blamed the skyrocketing production of corn ethanol fuel for higher food prices. Those groups said the diversion of corn crops for fuel production raised prices for animal feed and eventually for consumers at the grocery store. Lawmakers hoped that nonfood sources like switchgrass or corn husks could be used instead, though the industry hadn't yet gotten off the ground.
The 2007 law mandated that billions of gallons of annual production of corn ethanol be mixed with gasoline, eventually transitioning those annual requirements to include more of the nonfood, cellulosic materials to produce the biofuels. As criticism of ethanol has increased, lawmakers and even Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have talked of the cellulosic materials as the future of biofuels.
But the cellulosic industry stalled in the bad economy and still hasn't produced much. According to final EPA estimates, no cellulosic fuel was produced in 2010 or 2011. Last year's estimates aren't yet available.
"What you have in our industry is a technology that is ready to go but has had a hard time punching through commercially because of a very challenging global financial climate," said Brooke Coleman of the Advanced Ethanol Council, which represents companies trying to produce cellulosic fuel. Coleman said there are better hopes for 2013 as several plants are coming online.
The court faulted the EPA for setting last year's projections at 8.7 million gallons even though the two previous years had shown no production, and also for writing in the rule that "our intention is to balance such uncertainty with the objective of promoting growth in the industry."
Judge Stephen Williams on Friday threw out the too-high EPA estimates in response to a challenge filed by the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil industry.
Williams, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, said the law was not intended to allow the EPA "let its aspirations for a self-fulfilling prophecy divert it from a neutral methodology."
The court rejected the oil industry's arguments that the EPA also should have lowered the total production requirement for renewable fuels once the cellulosic goals were not met, saying the EPA had authority to decide to maintain those requirements.
An EPA spokeswoman would only say the agency will "determine next steps." The oil industry praised the decision.
"The courts have reined in a mandate for biofuels that don't exist," said Bob Greco of the American Petroleum Institute. "It's a voice of reason."
___
Associated Press writer Matthew Daly in Washington and AP Energy Writer Jon Fahey in New York contributed to this report.
___
Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
Question 1: Why and when did your parents originally decide to homeschool? Did their reasons for homeschooling change over time?
Joe:
My family knew nothing about homeschooling until we met the esteemed, Bill Gothard.? Then, when Mama fell in love with every word that dripped off his tongue, she viewed his homeschooling program as the only program worth belonging to.? Little did I know this would be a huge blessing in my life.? I considered it a curse at the time, as you will soon see.
In 1992, Bill Gothard required the board of the Advanced Training Institute to approve families that desired to enter into his homeschooling program.? This made sense because, according to his program?s strict standards, their could be no bad apples.? Thus, my family received scrutiny from the board due to our horrible evil condition of being seven children with a single mother.? Gasp!? We were eternally marred by divorce.? The board required a bunch of signatures to vouch for us as being good people and worth their time.? Then, they required us to get our father?s approval.? My dad would have nothing of it.? He knew how abusive and horrid Mama was to us and didn?t want her to have complete control of our lives 24/7.? The board rejected our application.
I wept.? I was twelve.
My mother never attempted again and, instead, wore the badge of a martyr for the cause ? whatever cause that was.? From that day forward, all the Mama approved ?testimonies? we had to recite in front of church people made some mention of how our father stopped us from homeschooling.
Latebloomer:
I heard the stories so many times as I was growing up, the reasons for my parents? decision to pull me out of public school halfway through first grade and start to homeschool me. ?I heard how I cried every day when my mom dropped me off at school. ?I heard how I was bored in class because I had learned to read at age three, long before going to kindergarten. ?I heard how my teacher was wasting classroom time on political issues by having the class write a letter about saving some whales. ?I heard how the teacher hurt my feelings badly by insulting my quiet speaking voice during a presentation. ?I heard how I had the problem boy as my seatmate because I was the best behaved student. ?I never thought to question my mom?s narrative; school was certainly a terrible place for me, based on her stories.
As a former elementary school teacher, my mom knew that she could give me a more personalized education than I would get in a classroom of 30 other students. ?While helping me get ahead academically, she would also be able to protect me from worldly and liberal influences.
Unfortunately, after many years of countering criticism and being surrounded by other like-minded Christian homeschoolers, my mom lost the ability to objectively evaluate whether homeschooling was still working for our family. ??By then, our identity as homeschoolers was inseparable from our spiritual, political, and family identity; failure was not an option.
Libby Anne:
My parents originally decided to homeschool for purely practical reasons, and they only planned on doing it for a year. But that first year went so well they did another, and another. Meanwhile, they began reading Christian homeschool literature, attending Christian homeschool conferences, etc. By the time I was ten my parents were homeschooling us because they believed that the public schools brainwashed children into ?secular humanism? and turned children into unthinking robots, and because they believed, based on Deuteronomy 6, that it was the responsibility of the parents, and not the state or anyone else, to educate their children. Homeschooling had moved from being a practical and temporary option to being a lifestyle.
Lisa:
My parents said that they always wanted to homeschool us kids. I as the oldest have never seen a public school from inside. My Dad was convinced that public schools were filled with sin (sex and drugs) and that they enforced certain ?agendas? on the students. It got worse over time, my Dad thinking that all the bad things in America are rooted in the pro-gay pro-choice pro-everything ungodly schools.
Mattie:
As I mentioned before, my parents always planned to homeschool. They felt that they, and no one else, were responsible for their children?s education (referencing Deuteronomy 6:7). Education is inseparable from faith, in their minds, and this was something they believed was a responsibility and a calling from God.
Melissa:
Originally, I remember my Dad talking about choosing homeschooling because he had hated being in school. He had always felt as if he had been held back and had never fit in well with the other kids. My parents saw an article about homeschooling in the newspaper and decided to try it. As time went on there were more reasons, such as protecting us from the disbelief and propaganda in the schools, and keeping us girls safe from unsupervised interactions with men/boys. I remember them talking about how we would waste so much time in school, learning stuff that we would never need for life, whereas if we were at home we could learn about caring for children and cooking and cleaning, all things my mom had felt inexperienced in when she started her family.
Sarah:
My dad had serious problems in school as a kid. He was very intelligent and found the structure of school to be oppressive and a hindrance. When my parents first heard about homeschooling they were very excited to have found an alternative. My dad wanted us to have academic freedom, and my mom wanted us to be safe from the world. Their goals converged over time.
Sierra:
My mother decided to homeschool me because I was terrified of school. I was in kindergarten for three months in a room with an aging, unsympathetic teacher and a bunch of rowdy boys who bullied me. I was a sensitive child, and couldn?t handle it. I had insomnia, horrible nightmares, anxiety attacks, random fits of crying, and was generally miserable. I was also a gifted child who had known how to read for three years and was bored to death by the lessons we were doing. My mother (prudently, I think) decided to take me out of school for a year and let me mature a little bit before being put back in that environment. Then my mother met a fundamentalist and hit it off with her (as I hit it off with her son, Sven) and we were sucked into that family?s church. Once we were part of the Christian Patriarchy movement, my mother?s reasons for homeschooling me changed from getting me a head start academically and letting my social skills catch up to protecting me from worldly influences.
?
Question 2: Briefly describe your experience being homeschooled, including the amount of interaction you had with other homeschoolers or non-homeschoolers (socialization) and what sorts of textbooks or homeschool program your family used (academics).
Joe:
Not being homeschooled, I have no experience with it at all.? But, we churched exclusively with homeschoolers.? We never had friends outside of this church and, if we did, were banned from them immediately.? Homeschooling was God?s plan for everyone and public school was the evil spawn of Satan?s semi-eternal plan.? We socialized with only these homeschoolers and, even though we went to government schools for our whole schooling career, we told everyone we were missionaries there and they believed the lie.
Latebloomer:
Regarding academics, my mom was very careful in planning our curriculum for each year; she never became overly reliant on one source or publisher. ?Almost all the materials that she chose were promoting a conservative Christian worldview, such as our history, literature, and science materials from A Beka and Bob Jones. ?For math, we used Saxon. ??From my observation, she prepared a much more academic and structured education for us than many other homeschooling families seemed capable of.
In terms of socialization, when I was young, we had regular activities with other local homeschoolers such a weekly park days, monthly roller-skating days, and occasional field trips. ??We also participated in some community-based activities such as gymnastics. ?But as I got older, there were fewer homeschooled kids my age, and our participation in outside activities started to decrease.
As I reached my teens, my parents bought into Reb Bradley?s idea that teenage rebellion was a recent American trend due to indulgent parenting and peer pressure. ?So, for most of my teen years, my main opportunity for social interaction came once a week at church. ?However, it wasn?t much of an opportunity because I wasn?t allowed to join a youth group at our churches (and later, our homeschooling church Hope Chapel didn?t even allow a youth group to exist). ?At my high school graduation ceremony, which was attended by hundreds of local homeschooling families, I had only briefly met one of the other 12 graduates before.
Libby Anne:
I was involved in a number of homeschool groups, though which varied by year. We had a circle of other like-minded homeschool families that we associated with regularly, and that, combined with at least one homeschool co-op a year and also a weekly Bible club, is where we got the majority of our socialization. This meant that literally all of my socialization took place with people who shared my parents? beliefs, and I was never exposed to people who believed anything different.
As for academics, my mother used a hybrid approach with us, choosing different textbooks for each subject. We did apologia for science, for instance. Our history and science curricula were religious while our math and grammar curricula were not.
From K-8, mom was pretty good at making sure to work with us one-on-one. Especially early on, there were a lot of hands-on activities, and the education I received during my elementary school years was really pretty top-notch. This hands-on and one-on-one approach began to change during the last couple years of this period as we worked more independently, but even then mom made sure to at least supervise our work. Once we reached high school, we studied on our own full time. Mom would give us the textbooks to complete at the beginning of the year, and then we?d give them back at the end of the year. For a few subjects, like languages, we sometimes (though not always) had tutors.
Lisa:
I hated school more than anything. I mean, when I was really small and the others weren?t old enough for school yet (many of them weren?t born yet!), it was nice that my mom would spend so much time with me and it was fun, I enjoyed learning something. But the older I got and the more kids my Mom had to tutor, the less fun I had. My Mom had little time for each individual kid and at some point, I guess it was when I was 12, 13, I felt like it wasn?t so important what I had to study, it was more important to help the smaller ones do their studies. My Mom had some tougher pregnancies as well, which put her out of the picture for weeks and months. Those were the times where I was the one responsible for teaching the others. I basically didn?t do much myself since I also had the house to manage and the smaller kids to look after. It was horrible, trying to keep the toddlers satisfied while cleaning and cooking and at the same time looking after the boys who were just screaming and not concentrating.
At one point, once I turned 14, scientific studies lost their importance. My Dad felt it would do no good to teach a girl too much science. So the kitchen became my classroom and, even though I could already manage a house better than most 20 year olds, my Mom made me her fellow ?help-meet.? I tried to get in some more math and that, but I didn?t get far. When I was 16 I realized that I wasn?t going to get any sort of degree anyway. My Dad didn?t want me to take SATs ? not that I would?ve passed them anyway ? and so I settled on studying the ?important? things with some other women we knew ? sewing, flower arranging. I also read a lot of the P/QF books that were coming out ? the Ludy books, Harris, Pride, Pearl and so on. My Dad was torn. At some point, he wanted us to be smarter than kids from public schools and I think that somewhere he hoped I would have finished high school earlier than most people do, but then again, he took pride in the fact that his daughters were so ?biblical.? I never quite understood what he wanted us to do.
We didn?t have much contact with other homeschoolers. We went to conventions where we met mostly other Christian homeschoolers, but never many who lived close enough to actually have vivid contact with them. Having friends wasn?t as important anyway, your siblings were supposed to be your best friends.
Since my mother was such a great fan of Mary Pride, Pride?s books on homeschooling were her major resource on how to structure the classes as well as which textbooks to use. We tried out different curricula and different systems, but online-learning wasn?t our major way of studying. I guess we were just too many kids and had too little money to buy the technical necessities for that.
Mattie:
My dad once said with some disdain that homeschoolers who participated in homeschool co-ops and group classes were ?faux-schoolers.? However, we did have some small group classes for extracurriculars and I took French and art from local women who taught classes in their homes. Our family friends were almost always other Christian homeschoolers, and we were fairly well-socialized [albeit primarily within that demographic]. When we took ballet or gymnastics or martial arts, we made friends with the other kids and didn?t seem to have any socialization issues beyond general pop culture ignorance.
Melissa:
Early on we had a consistent schedule each day, I usually did handwriting reading and math, I remember enjoying different school projects we tried. When I was aged 7-9 we periodically attended a homeschool co-op where we participated in an arts and music program, we were also part of a conservative homeschoool girls club called ?Keepers at Home? which I enjoyed. As there were more and more children involved, things got less consistent. The older kids were expected to cover much of their work on there own in independent study. We did not have much interaction outside the home when I was in my teens. I don?t remember having a consistent curriculum. My mom tried many different ones, and sometimes we would start and stop different programs in one year.
Sarah:
My parents used a very eclectic curriculum. They used different systems for different subjects. One year, my mom tried out a series that covered all the main subjects in one massive book. That year we read a lot and made fun science projects. I learned a lot that year. But the more kids my mom had, the less involved she became in our school work. By the time I was 11, I was completely responsible for my own education. I would create my own schedules and do my very best to stick to it. Every week or so I would update my mom on how I was doing. It is very hard to be self-motivated when you are so young. Especially while being required to do so much house work. I never really completed any of my goals, and was constantly lagging behind. During my second year of high school we joined a homeschool co-op at our church that met once a week. I probably accomplished more academically in the two years we were involved with co-op than at any other time.
Sierra:
My mother tried out a lot of different curricula with me. We started out using Bob Jones, Abeka, Rod and Staff, and others I can?t remember. I hated all of them. They were boring and their religious message was painfully overt. Eventually we settled on Sonlight, which both of us liked for academic content and for the creativity of their approach. I generally did my school work in the morning, finished up at noon and went outside to play. I saw other children 3-4 times a week at church, homeschool meetups, visits between stay-at-home moms, field trips and days at the park. I?m an introvert, so I never felt like going a day or two without another child around was a hardship. I read for pleasure, did creative writing of my own, and generally entertained myself. When I got to college, I needed remedial math and never went beyond geometry and algebra II. My verbal skills were always off the charts, however, from all of my writing and reading.
?
Question 3: What do you see as the pros and cons of having been homeschooled? Do you feel that your homeschool experience prepared you well socially? Academically?
Joe:
Homeschooling is right for some people and very wrong for others.? Many people see homeschooling as the opportunity for indoctrination of their children.? Others see it as the only path to educating their child, with the child having failed all other alternatives.? I like the latter reason for opting for homeschooling.? But, the fact is, most people that homeschool do it for strictly religious reasons.
My wife, Kristine sat on a homeschool board for a few years and witnessed the split of the homeschool group in that region of the country.? What was the split over?? Academics?? Nope.? Whether or not it was the right thing to require a statement of faith for a family to join the group.? The ?yea?s? won the day and the detractors had to leave.? The detractors were a much smaller group and yet, when anything was to be done academically with tutors or extra classes taught by experts, it was this group that organized it.? The ?statement of faith? group was simply satisfied to have a sermon with a gym day.
That explains my view of academics in some homeschooling to a ?t?.? On a side note, my wife has gone back to school and has seen that her parents were miserable teachers.? Miserable.? Her writing competency was at the 6th grade level, as was her math.
Latebloomer:
For my family, the strength of homeschooling was in having our education tailored to our needs, giving my siblings and me the ability to do some subjects more quickly or slowly as necessary. ?One weakness, however, was that we didn?t have much internal motivation to perform for a parent rather than a teacher, so we did the minimum required and didn?t get challenged. ?For my brother and me, our enjoyment of reading gave us very high reading comprehension, so we ended up very well prepared for college classes despite doing most of our schoolwork independently. ?My sister has a much different personality and learning style, and she struggled much more with the experience of being homeschooled. ?She began to thrive academically when she was put in Christian school for high school.
Socially, all three of us were at a disadvantage from homeschooling, although my brother had the easiest time because he regularly hung out with other guys in his Christian homeschooling Boy Scout troop. ?In my case, I had only one friend from age 10-12, and then no friends again until I was 17. ?In my teens, I was terrified of social interaction to the point of trembling and feeling sick to my stomach, and I often wrote in my journal that I wanted to run away from society and become a hermit. ?I used to cry myself to sleep at night quite often, occasionally trying to get my mom to notice my tears by sniffing juuuust loud enough for her to hear as she walked by my door. ?When she came in to ask why I was crying, I would say something like, ?I don?t have any friends? or ?I don?t know how to talk to people.? ?In the morning, life would proceed as usual, quiet and empty.
The social effects of homeschooling are with me even today. ?First, I can still feel significant social anxiety in even the most non-threatening situations. ?I am particularly at a loss in group settings full of new people. ?What do I say? When do I say it? Whom do I say it to? ?How/when do I end a conversation? ?Even in a circle setting, when it?s my turn to say my name, my blood pressure skyrockets. ?Second, in the whole world, there is no place and no group of people where I feel like I belong. ?It?s like I was raised in a different culture, with the distinct difference that I can never go ?home? to it. ?I?m permanently a foreigner; interacting in this foreign culture takes a lot of attention and effort. ?I?ve tried to catch up on the culture I missed?to watch the movies, to listen to the music, to see pictures of the clothing styles?but it will never mean to me what it means to you. ?People always use cultural references and nostalgia as a way to build community and connections between people; for me, they create distance and remind me how different I am inside.
Libby Anne:
Homeschooling did not prepare me well socially at all. I only had experience socializing with other people just like me, and had no idea how to handle myself around those who were different or in large crowds. Furthermore, when I went to college I found that I had a huge cultural disconnect with my peers to the extent that I almost couldn?t understand them. It took a long time for me to adjust, and in some ways I still feel like a cultural outsider.
As for academics, homeschooling served me pretty well. There were some holes in my education ? while I read voraciously, I never actually had a literature course, for example ? and some miseducation that I had to undo later ? much of what I?d been taught about American history and about evolutionary science was wrong ? but I nevertheless excelled in college. I think this was because my parents gave me a love of learning, taught me to think critically, and educated me well in the basics. That said, homeschooling has not worked as well for some of my younger siblings. I think that I had the benefit of having a fairly independent and motivated learning style, which allowed homeschooling to work well for me academically. Homeschooling has not served as well for those of my siblings who would do well having the challenge of other students or who really need the presence of an actual teacher.
Lisa:
Well, I do think homeschooling can work if done right, but it just didn?t work for us. Not that my parents were intellectually incapable of teaching us, it?s just that they never used much of a curriculum other than my Dad?s personal opinion. So my big con is that I didn?t actually learn things you need to know in order to get higher education. Academically I wasn?t prepared to live in the ?real world? at all. A big part of our girl?s education was ?homemaking,? where Mom taught us stuff like knitting and cleaning and cooking and all that stereotypical stuff. We were discouraged from studying things like math and science simply because my Dad believed it would put the wrong ideas into the girl?s minds ? going out, getting an education, work, do a man?s job. At some point I think he wanted to keep us dumb so that we wouldn?t even have the chance to think about the situation we?re in. Make sure we do what we?re best at ? being homemakers.
I think the social aspect of being home schooled is overrated. I can imagine that you might be just as socially prepared if it?s done right, but then again, coming from the P/QF background, I was in no way socially ?normal?. The only people we ever had contact with were other fundamentalist homeschoolers and every family kept to themselves, so there wasn?t much going on. If I was different than I am the aspect of helping my younger siblings with their school would?ve certainly been positive, but then again I was so clueless about the things we had to learn myself that it was a huge fright to explain things to them. It just cost me a lot of energy to get through the day.
Mattie:
For school, we used Sonlight Curriculum, Rod & Staff, Beautiful Feet, Gileskirk, Apologia Science, and Alpha Omega LifePacs. I think I suffered in math due to lack of good teaching, but I was largely prepared for college because I taught myself how to learn on my own and how to manage my time. The point was not to ace the test?the point was to gain an education. And I thrived in college because of this mindset.
While I don?t necessarily endorse the specific curricula my parents chose for me, I feel that I came out with a real passion for learning and a delight in education. A con of this big-family lifestyle and homeschooling was that we didn?t get a lot of one-on-one tutoring unless we were seriously failing a subject. We were all expected to figure out how to follow the textbook and do the work of using it to teach ourselves. Mom was often too busy or tired to give specific attention to questions we had, and dad wasn?t ever available to help with homework unless it was for an intervention. For example: my sophomore year of high school, I read classics all day and drew and painted instead of doing my assigned schoolwork, and my parents found out after I?d ?lost? three months of school by doing this. My dad stepped in and gave me a talk about using my time wisely and priorities, and then left the details of fixing this issue up to my mom.
Melissa:
I really loved the early years of getting my schoolwork done in the morning hours and then spending hours outdoors. I feel that homeschooling can give the freedom to explore topics that each child finds interesting. I feel that there are gaps in my education academically ? I had very little science and history and no biology or geography. At some point education can be limited by the parent?s limitations. I have also found that many of the things I was taught were inaccurate, such as being told that we never went to the moon, ?I actually did not hear that there were multiple moon landings until recently, and even then I was sure that was a lie until I looked it up for myself.
Socially I feel like I was very limited, I still have a difficult time make friends today, or maybe more accurately I have a hard time believing that anyone actually wants to be my friend. There are many experiences that I haven?t had, so sometimes conversation can be awkward, because my upbringing was so different.
Sarah:
I am sure homeschooling could work very well if there were only a few children, and if the mother was very organized and had good support. This was not the case in my family. We had little to no structure, and until later, zero social interaction with other people. Homeschooling was a struggle for me, and it still plagues me today. I never made it past remedial arithmetic and am struggling to catch up in college. My reading and writing skills are excellent, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that I?ve always loved to read and write, so I never found it hard to learn. I think there are situations in which homeschooling could be good, but in my case it was not.
Sierra:
When I was a teenager, I did have serious social anxiety. It coincided with the depression and poor body image I developed after puberty. Since my church didn?t allow me to do anything about my looks (no makeup, no hiding my zits, no filling in my sparse eyebrows, no trimming my hair, no wearing fitted clothes) I was mostly very self-conscious and ashamed of my appearance. I also was the target of a lot of hostility from boys at Christian camps I went to, and the girls thought I was too weird and ignored me.
Now I consider myself 100% normal and confident. I can start up conversations with strangers. I know how to handle myself in a group of my peers, and I?m frequently the one starting up the loud music and cracking open the beer. I think I?m actually pretty fun to be around. I?m comfortable public speaking. This all came about through an excruciating five years of training myself to get over my social anxieties, however. I actually think going to public school would have made it worse, since I would have been faced every day with people I thought were normal and I would have been a serious loser with my baggy denim skirts and frizzy mane. By the time I got to college, I was already transitioning to listening to normal music, wearing tighter clothes, and trimming my hair. By my sophomore year, I was wearing jeans and makeup.
?
Question 4: Do you perceive of your academic or social abilities differently today than you did when you were being homeschooled?
Joe:
I had the best of both worlds.? I went to public school and had many friends who were home taught.? I can relate to both.? Had I been homeschooled, I would have thought that everyone who thought differently than me was to be ostracized.
Latebloomer:
Definitely! As a teen, I put the blame on myself for my lack of social skills, and I felt happy to be safe at home. ?I believed that kids would probably just pick on me for my Christian faith and my awkwardness if I were at public school. ?Now, in hindsight, I believe that more continuous socialization starting in my younger years would have prevented my social anxiety and awkwardness from getting so out of hand. ?Although I likely would have been shy even in public school, at least I would have had a couple friends and learned coping mechanisms for relating to others.
Academically, I realize now that I missed the opportunity to learn critical thinking and respect for different opinions during my youth. ?All our homeschooling materials presented a consistent Christian worldview, and my family?s opinions were never challenged. ?As a result, even into my early twenties, I believed that people who didn?t share my worldview were either deceived or in rebellion against God.
Libby Anne:
Absolutely yes. When I was homeschooled I used to laugh at the socialization question. I thought I was perfectly socialized, no problem whatsoever. It was only later that I realized how wrong I was about that. As for academics, I used to swear by homeschooling as the cause of my academic success until someone pointed out to me that, with my parents? emphasis on education, I would almost certainly have also excelled if I had been sent to public school. That really made me think, because it was so true. Many of my close friends in college had been sent to public school, but because their parents valued education and were involved, they were academically just as prepared, and often more so, as I was. Academically, I now think what matters more is the parents? emphasis on education and involvement in their children?s learning, not whether children are home schooled, private schooled, or public schooled.
Lisa:
I considered myself well-prepared for the longest time. When all you?re looking at for your life is being married, raising kids and being a good wife, you don?t need chemistry, you don?t need real friends. You?re not supposed to share private stuff anyway, that leads to gossiping faster than you believe. And after all men want to be the heroes, they want to be admired. A woman smart enough to go to college would just make any man feel stupid, she might question him and that?s something you want to avoid. If he can explain things to her, he?ll feel strong, admired and respected. Yes, I can say I felt like I was going to be a good housewife and I still believe that this was true ? I would?ve been well-prepared for that.
Now that I depend on my education to live, I feel every day just how much I don?t know and how much harder things are for me. I will do well in school for weeks and suddenly I?m hit with something that I lack basic knowledge of, and I?ll have to start from scratch to get it. Especially in math, I don?t think I could have even helped my husband with finances if I stayed with my family? ?Here?s a confession: I can?t calculate. I mean, I couldn?t do the easiest calculations and I?m having major issues even today. A good example would be the multiplications. I still need to use my fingers, and it takes me very long to answer. (And no, I have been tested, I do not have any calculation disorders. I just can?t do it.)
Mattie:
I think I could be ?a math person? if I had been adequately equipped in primary school to master the concepts. (Also, in ?homeschool circles, the gender divide between maths and sciences, and arts and humanities seems to be more pronounced.)
As for social abilities, I find that I am coming around to be more like the person I was before puberty and before I was paralyzed with fear over modesty teachings and gender role mandates. I am more myself and more comfortable socially, as a result.
Melissa:
At the time I felt that homeschooling was superior academically, but I felt that I was not smart enough to capitalize on that. I struggled to stick with my self-taught subjects in high school and though I had many interests I did not get to explore many of them. I felt like this was my fault for not pushing myself harder somehow. Socially, I felt very lonely growing up, but I protested to anyone who would listen that homeschoolers were perfectly socialized! I went to violin lessons after all, and I could interact with other people just fine!
Sarah:
Back then I thought that I was about 100 times smarter than every other kid on the planet. My parents taught us that kids in public schools were being brainwashed, that they were dumb, and that their parents didn?t love them. I treated all ?public-schoolers? with disdain and pity. It wasn?t until later that I realized how very wrong I was. Not only were other kids more socially comfortable than I was, they were better at math, and knew facts about history, anatomy, and science that I had never heard. It was shocking and I felt like I had been lied to.
Sierra:
I am much more confident in my intelligence and ability to use my creativity to make meaningful contributions to society. Although it was not homeschooling precisely that undermined my confidence, my church damaged my vision of myself severely. Homeschooling simply made me unaware of my potential. Since I was so depressed in high school, I think that going to public school would have made the problem worse because I would have had bad grades. Homeschooling gave me a very flexible timeframe for my lessons and kept me from giving up on myself. When I got to college and found that I performed well, it blew my mind. I was preoccupied with figuring out the limits of my intelligence, so I pushed myself to the max and graduated summa cum laude. It was amazing to finally realize that I wasn?t stupid or awkward or insignificant.
?
Question 5: Do you plan to homeschool/are you homeschooling your children? Why or why not? If you do plan to homeschool, in what ways will you/do you do it differently from your parents?
Joe:
We tried for two years and were miserable failures.? Not only did we discover we had no life outside of child rearing and schooling and feeding and changing diapers and blah blah blah, but we discovered that you cannot fit a child into a cookie cutter teaching style.? My wife had a very distinct teaching style and it worked admirably on our first daughter and yet failed completely on the next two.? We put them in public school and they flourished ? all of them.? And they have friends now.? Friends with different perspectives.? And they are living and breathing and?they haven?t sacrificed a baby to the devil yet.
That was a bit of tongue and cheek and yet, not so much.? We have been warned that our children will be ruined.? At least now, I can blame it on the teachers and wash my hands of all responsibility.
Latebloomer:
I believe that there are good reasons to homeschool, as long as parents try to compensate for the inherent weaknesses of homeschooling (lack of socialization, too much monitoring and control by parents, difficulty teaching more advanced subjects, etc.). ??Personally, I will not consider homeschooling unless I feel we have exhausted every other option; if I homeschool, it will be temporary and my children will participate in non-homeschooling activities as much as possible.
Libby Anne:
I do not plan to homeschool my children. It?s not that I don?t think I could do well by them academically ? I know I could ? but rather that I want them to have the socialization experience I never had. I want them to learn how to handle playground politics, to have teachers who aren?t me, and to have the opportunity to be involved in band, or soccer, or chess club. I want her to have the chance to be normal that I never had. I plan to be very involved in their education, of course, and were there to be some huge issue, I could see homeschooling temporarily.
Lisa:
I will never homeschool my children. If I stay in Germany I don?t have a choice anyway since homeschooling isn?t an option here. If I go back to the U.S., I just don?t think I would enjoy doing it.
Mattie:
I reserve the right to change my mind on this, but: I tentatively plan to homeschool. My husband has a vision for the possibilities that open up for a thorough and tailored education when a student has more freedom and one-on-one attention. I benefitted from this myself, and am really glad I had the opportunities I had as a homeschooler to study more thoroughly certain things which caught my attention.
That said, I would like to avoid the pitfalls which my family experienced: homeschooling isn?t an identity or a calling?we?ll do it if it?s the best option available. We?ll re-evaluate the decision to homeschool for each child, each year. I also will be very open to co-op classes and collaborative learning opportunities. And finally, I need to be very careful to avoid letting myself get burned out and becoming depressed (like my mom did a time or two). My husband is heartily in favor of this and wants to be really involved in teaching our kids (unlike my dad), and this excites me.
Melissa:
At this point, no. Our oldest child is going to Kindergarten this fall. Both my spouse and I feel that homeschooling puts a huge amount of control into the parent?s hands, we both want more community and input and interaction for our kids. I want my children to have a variety of experiences and idea they encounter. I am still nervous about putting my kids in school, because I have literally no experience in that area, so I wonder how I will be able to help them with any problems they may encounter. I still toy with the idea of taking them all out for a year of traveling someday when they are older.
Sarah:
I do not plan to homeschool my potential future children for a number of reasons. First, I do not plan to be a stay-at-home mom. I didn?t leave the house for years of my life, and I know I would lose it if I ever went back to that. I have a lot to offer the world, and I do not plan to closet myself away in the home. Secondly, I want to be a mother to my children. I do not want to taint that relationship by also being their teacher, their supervisor, their principal, and their surrogate friend. I want my children to have a broader frame of reference than just my own. I want them to have other role models and examples besides myself. I also just don?t think I?m cut out to be a teacher.
Sierra:
I would never homeschool a child past elementary school, because I would want my child to have experiences that bind generations together. I want my child to listen to popular music, wear shorts, hang out at the beach, swear and play sports. I want my child to go to prom and graduate in a big pompous ceremony. I want my child to have friends of all genders, races and sexualities. I want my child to have expert teachers.
I would consider homeschooling a very sensitive child for the first year or two, and I would thoroughly check out any school (public or private) that was within reach before enrolling. My child would probably have a more balanced homeschool education than I did, since my partner is into math and science and those are my weak points.
?
Comments open below
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
Read everything by Libby Anne!
Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the religious right. College turned her world upside down, and she is today an atheist, a feminist, and a progressive. She blogs about leaving fundamentalist and evangelical religion, her experience with the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements, the problems with the ?purity culture,? the intricacies of conservative and religious right politics, and the importance of feminism. Her blog is Love, Joy, Feminism
The Spiritual Abuse Survivor Blogs Network
NLQ Recommended Reading ?
?Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment? by Janet Heimlich
?Quivering Daughters? by Hillary McFarland
?Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement? by Kathryn Joyce
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) ? Liberia's people have a novel way of finding out how their government is spending their money.
On a bustling street in the capital, people can look up at an electronic information billboard that relays how state funds are being spent.
The U.S.-supported project in Monrovia aims to improve state transparency, and the government of Nobel laureate President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf wants passers-by who might not normally read newspapers or surf the Internet to see what government projects are under way and where its money is being channeled.
Hundreds turned out Wednesday as the Harvard-educated president switched on the billboard, which is connected directly to the Finance Ministry's database, for the first time.
The billboard amounts to another step in the country's reconstruction following back-to-back civil wars from 1989 to 2003 that killed an estimated 250,000 people, displaced millions and devastated the economy. Founded in the mid-19th century by freed American slaves, the impoverished country has received hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid since the civil war.
The bright, colorful, viewer-friendly screen shows how tax dollars go to hospitals, roads, schools or agriculture, and how Liberia shapes up by sector compared to its West African neighbors.
Finance Minister Amara Konneh said the ultimate ambition is that Liberians "will hold public officials accountable for results." He acknowledged it won't be an antidote for corruption, but could help make inroads against it.
"The official corruption in our country is entrenched," Konneh told The Associated Press. "What we are doing by putting this symbol of openness out is to prevent; prevention is better than cure."
As Monrovians stopped to ponder the new billboard, some struggled to see the point or sensed a public-relations stunt.
"I don't see any significance," said James Smith. "Government should find another means to really educate people rather than plant billboards."
But Marie, a hairdresser who preferred to give only her first name, said: "Liberians should learn to appreciate a small beginning .... We were never being told of how our money was being spent. This is a way to start creating the awareness."
Yesterday, I received a call from a lovely woman named May* living in Birmingham, Ala. May initially called my office to find out where our magazines were available near her home. However, we started to chat about being a family caregiver. And, after a few minutes, she asked if I would give her some advice.
Since my clever response of "no hablo ingles" didn't even get a faint response, I realized that her question could be rather serious. It was. May blurted out, "My mother and I never got along, how am I supposed to be there for her every day? I don't even like her."
Now May, that is a question!
First, I congratulate May for having the courage to ask such a brutally honest question. Trust me. Having communicated with thousands of family caregivers, there are many questions dealing with some aspect of this emotionally-draining issue. Let's face it. Not everyone was raised by Ozzie and Harriet (especially for those of you over 50 years old).
So how do you take care of someone you may love but who you just don't like? Dr. Robert Holden, Ph.D. has a wonderful saying, "You need to be honest before you're positive." I cannot think of a more appropriate place to start.
It's nonsense for anyone to tell you to just block out the past and make today a fresh start. It's baloney! And, unless you are a super-enlightened person with incredible control over your ego, I believe this advice is not too constructive. So let's take a look at several steps that May and I discussed. I believe they can help.
Let's call them "The 4 Ls":
Level
If you are feeling angst about your relationship with the loved one you're caring for, you are not alone. There is a good chance that they have similar feelings. Perhaps they're not on the same level, but there is an emotional distance between you.
These conditions, although uncomfortable, promote the opportunity to put your cards on the table and discuss what is bothering you. It's an effort to bridge the distance between you. Remember, be honest. If you're not, you'll be back in the same position next week!
Learn
Since life is not a one-way street, this is also the time to openly listen to the thoughts of your loved one. Our egos, especially when they have been bruised for a long time, can make accepting alternative viewpoints difficult... to say the least. But, if you are sincerely open, you may learn something that can help build a healthier conversation and relationship. By the way, this is also a great approach in dealing with everyone in general.
Let Go
While acceptance can be difficult, it can also be very liberating. Accepting the relationship, warts and all, is necessary if there is any chance of moving forward in a way that can make the time you spend together enriching. (OK, OK, how about we start with tolerable and try to evolve to enriching!) There are countless family caregivers, who after their experience as a caregiver have moved their relationship to a place they never knew possible.
Live
Yes, live! Under the best of circumstances, being a family caregiver presents some challenging times. No one is asking you to give up who you are for the sake of being the primary caregiver. But it is very important that you determine expectations as soon as possible to ensure resentment does not creep in (any more than normal). You need to talk with your loved one about each of your needs and foster respect for each other's circumstances. Don't feel you need to give up friendships and time for yourself.
Well, I really debated on bringing this up but... there is actually a fifth "L."
Leave
I wouldn't really be giving you the complete picture if I didn't mention that sometimes a relationship is in such a state that it just can't be worked out. There are times that people can't forget their differences -- not because they are stubborn, or selfish, or uncaring, but because there is just too broad a chasm to cross. When being together is this unmanageable, it can affect the health and well-being of both the family caregiver and the one in their care. This being the case, it may be that the best thing for everyone's sake is to find other resources to provide caregiving assistance in a way that ensures your family member experiences the best quality care possible.
As I said to May, working these situations out takes time, because emotional changes (on both sides) don't happen overnight. There's a Latin phrase that applies here. Tabula Rasa. It means "blank state." Instead of starting with a blank slate, let's be realistic -- start with a polka dot slate and over time work toward removing the not-so-pretty dots.
Andre Barbosa is living the dream. The 23-year-old has been crashing at a vacant mansion in Boca Raton, Fla., for free - and it's all legal. Say what now?
Using an obscure Florida real estate law to stake his claim on the foreclosed waterside property, Barbosa is legit squatting. The police can't move him.
No one saw him breaking into the house, so it's a civil matter. Representatives for the real owner, Bank of America, are "following a legal process."
Not surprisingly, the situation is driving his neighbors crazy.
"This is a very upsetting thing," said neighbor Lyn Houston. "Last week, I went to the Bank of America and asked to see the person in charge of mortgages."
"I told them, 'I am prepared to buy this house.' They haven't even called back."
Barbosa, according to reports, is a Brazilian national who refers to himself as "Loki Boy," presumably after the Norse god of mischief. He did not return calls.
He has reportedly posted a notice in the front window naming him as a "living beneficiary to the Divine Estate being superior of commerce and usury."
A spokeswoman for Bank of America said her company has sent overnight a complaint and an eviction notice to a clerk in Palm Beach County.
Still, it's unclear how quickly (if at all) the matter will be resolved.
Barbosa is invoking a state law called "adverse possession," which allows someone to move in and claim a property's title if they can stay there seven years.
A signed copy of that note is also posted in the front window.
Soon after Bank of America foreclosed on the property in July, Barbosa notified the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's Office that he was moving in.
Police were called to the home, which was empty for 18 months, but did not remove him. He presented cops with the "adverse possession" paperwork.
The law stems from the days when most people lived on farms; whomever moves in to occupy the property must do so in an "open and notorious manner."
The deed is currently valued at $2.5 million, according to county records. The county appraiser's office lists the total market value at $2.1 million.
If you were judging math by how Hollywood movies describe it, you'd wonder why it even exists. Like Nazis and dogfighting, math is universally hated. Just look at this supercut of movies talking about math. Nobody even wants to bother with two plus two! More »
The most likely short-term political future of the Maldives is a cycle of failed governments, according to a report produced by local NGO the Raajje Foundation, and supported by the UNDP and the US State Department.
?The Maldives finds itself at a critical juncture in its political development. The high hopes for the country after the new Constitution and first ever democratic election in 2008 have been tempered by the events of February 2012, in which President Nasheed resigned from office under claims of duress following weeks of public protests and increasing political tension,? writes Professor Tom Ginsburg from the University of Chicago Law School.
?This has led some observers to consider Maldives as a case of a broken transition to?democracy, and there is growing disagreement among Maldivian commentators on what?might the best or most desirable route forward.?
Democratic development in the Maldives is hampered by challenging conditions, including ?a political culture that emphasises recrimination over reconciliation, a thin inchoate civil society, nascent higher education, limited transparency, a long tradition of patronage, massive wealth inequalities, difficult population demographics, weak politicised institutions, distorted labor market, and a narrow economy vulnerable to external shocks,? states Ginsburg.
?At the same time, the country is also confronted with major economic and social problems, such as the prospect of national insolvency and a young generation wracked by drug abuse, that would challenge much stronger states and more institutionally developed societies. This all renders the current moment one of very high stakes.?
The report documents an incendiary background for future political upheaval, noting that the 40 percent of the Maldives? population aged under 21 are ?not being integrated into traditional social and economic structures.?
Resulting issues included widespread youth delinquency and heroin addiction, affecting as much as eight percent of the population, the report notes.
?There are also other unstudied issues such as the slum-like overcrowding in the capital,?increasing religious extremism, and a large illegal immigrant population, many of whom are?believed to be trafficked as part of an organised racket in which the state seems either?complicit or unable to control. Expectations are high but government capacity to deliver is?low and a looming budget financing crisis means that there is very little room to maneuver,? it adds.
Researching such problems from the outside is difficult, Ginsburg writes, due to state obfuscation ?by endlessly referring enquiries from one government office to another. Scholarship, policy analysis, and social data on the Maldives are almost nonexistent. It has for many been a very difficult country to learn about.?
?There is also very limited capacity in the Maldives for policy analysis outside a very few?select government ministries. Indeed, there does not seem to be a culture of reasoned?justification but rather any effort to provide a neutral perspective is assumed to be and is viewed as politically partisan.?
The report analyses the economic crisis facing the country, noting that ballooning public expenditure had reached the point where 10 percent of the population is employed by the government, and commented on the lack of an independent pay commission to prevent parliament and other commissions from effectively raising their own salaries to those akin to developed countries.
Independent commissions were in a position where they faced either accusations of selective enforcement based on politicisation, ?or focused on fact-finding and other activities to keep them out of the heated political conflicts of the day.?
The Judicial Services Commission (JSC)?s mission to ensure the new judiciary was was clean, competent, and protected from political influence, ?has sadly gone unfulfilled.?
?The courts have essentially been able to capture the JSC so as to ensure that the old judiciary remained in place under the new constitutional order,? writes Ginsburg.
?While the 2008 Constitution does include a provision allowing for five year terms for current judges before appointing them for a life term till the age of 70, presumably to allow some transition from the old regime, it is now not clear this provision will be exercised without some dramatic and unexpected change in circumstances.?
A raft of new civil society organisations which sprang up after 2008 were meanwhile accused of being ?aligned with various political agendas?, while ?a few organisations have obtained an effective chokehold on international funding and support, inhibiting the overall growth and competence of the sector.?
Three scenarios
Against this backdrop ? ?a cascade of serious structural weaknesses that undermine continued democratic development? ? the report outlines three potential scenarios for the country: a cycle of failed governments; dominance of one hegemonic faction; and an?eventual move towards constitutional democracy.
Scenario one: Cycle of failed governments
This scenario would be most likely to result ?if the current government pursues its legal case against former President Nasheed in a shortsighted and headstrong manner, or if Nasheed escalates conflict to try to ?overthrow the government?,? Ginsburg writes.
In this scenario ? the most likely ? ?personalities rather than policy differences continue to define the party system and alliances of political aspirants shift back and forth among two or three factions competing to secure access to state resources.
?These personalities, when in government, will therefore always have the incentive to stymie critically needed reforms for fear of cutting down the very patronage networks that sustain them and allowing their opponents to promise to restore this largess.
?In this scenario, true national leadership becomes the casualty. No one will be willing to take the tough decisions to put through the needed legislation, undertake essential bureaucratic rationalisation, and get the government on a proper fiscal footing. One government after another will find itself unable to do what is required in order to break through the cycle of repeated failure.?
With the state paralysed, ?There will be almost no chance for the unanimous consensus required to make the constitutional changes needed to reintroduce rigorous judicial accountability or even rewind the country back to its transitional period.
?Given the politically weak bargaining power of the general public, and the large and still growing youth demographic in particular, radical ideologies and charismatic anti-establishment figures may become more popular with a frustrated but disempowered population,? Ginsburg predicts.
Scenario two: Dominance of a hegemonic faction
?Some already talk openly about a ?Singapore option? in which a single political party takes leadership and empowers a technocratic state apparatus to provide for the public good,? writes Ginsburg.
?The permanent collapse or suppression of one faction to another does not seem likely to occur without a use of force which would put Maldives in clear violation of its treaty obligations and basic international norms. Consequently, efforts to attain hegemonic control would actually likely lead to an even more adversarial version of the cycle of failed?governments scenario in a way that is perhaps reminiscent of Maldives? present situation,? he warns.
?With a still politically disempowered public unable to truly hold government to account, this scenario may similarly also lead citizens to look to more radicalised religious and non-establishment actors who claim to offer more equitable alternatives to the status-quo.?
Cautioning against comparisons with Singapore, the report notes that the Maldives ?is coming from a completely different context and, more significantly, does not have a potential leader who could command the respect that Lee Kuan Yew earned in Singapore.
?Pursuing a strategy premised on the promise of enlightened leadership is thus risky and likely to fall back into a cycle of failed governments. It is also what the Maldives had sought to move away from in the first place by not supporting a continuation of its prior tradition of autocratic governance.?
Scenario three: Constitutional democracy
The most internationally-desirable forecast for the Maldives ?is also the least likely?, writes Ginsburg.
?This would involve potential alternation in power among political groups, a focus on policies as the basis for political decision-making, along with a deep infrastructure to support the development and implementation of policies, significant constraints on extra-constitutional governmental action, and a sense of political maturity that has heretofore been lacking,? he states.
The report outlines a number of recommendations to achieve this scenario, particularly constitutional education to encourage the kind of public pressure ?that ensures that politicians and government agents comply with the orders of courts, independent agencies and the intent of the Constitution.
?Ignorance of the public on their own Constitution is by far the most obvious gap within the Maldives? democratic transition,? the report suggests.
In terms of judicial reform, ?There must be mechanisms to ensure that the judges obey the law and apply it consistently. there are reasons for concern about the current situation, in which the legal framework is underdeveloped and the Supreme Court has foreclosed many of the extant channels of ensuring accountability.?
Ginsburg proposes a more active and independent, self-regulating bar association, with lawyers freed from the requirement to be registered through the attorney general?s office. He notes that the International Bar Association ?has repeatedly offered its assistance?, but suggests that the prospect is unlikely ?given the politicisation of the various groups who would have come together for such a purpose.?
Programs such as citizen-initiated ?court-watch? initiatives, common in other countries, were hampered by the lack of open courtrooms. Moreover, ?rules squelching discussion of court decisions form a major barrier to this or any other channel of accountability.?
The report proposes the use of laymen in adjudication, with four to five?citizens ?sitting with two to three judges in serious criminal cases such as murder.? However, ?the challenges of implementing such a system in the Maldives with its dense network of family ties should not be underestimated.?
The report cautions that donors supporting the development of judicial capacity in the?Maldives ?must tie this to developing enhanced mechanisms of accountability.?
Thousands of young women killed by families for actions that are considered dishonorable
The
United Nations estimates that 5,000 women and girls are murdered
annually by male relatives as punishment for behavior judged to have
damaged the family's reputation. Called "honor killings," these barbaric
acts are in and by themselves very dishonorable.
The majority of reported honor killings had nothing to do with protecting the honor of families. They were carried out for various criminal reasons. Often women are killed during family or financial disputes, and then the men claim the honor killing defense to get reduced sentences.
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - It's estimated that between 2007 and 2010, 29 women in the West Bank were officially reported murdered in the name of honor. The actual number of slain women there is believed to be far higher, as the Palestinian Interior Ministry refuses to divulge exact statistics on honor killings.
The West Bank has a population of about four million, and Gaza about 1.5 million.
"Thirteen Palestinian women were (known) murdered in the Palestinian Territories in 2012 in so-called 'honor killings'," Soraida Hussein from the Palestinian Women's Affairs Technical Committee says. The committee is an advisory group to the Palestinian Legislative Council.
"The majority of these murders had nothing to do with protecting the honor of families. They were carried out for various criminal reasons. Often women are killed during family or financial disputes, and then the men claim the honor killing defense to get reduced sentences," Hussein says.
Palestinian law in the West Bank is based on Articles 97 to 100 of the Jordanian Penal Code, which reduces sentences for any act of battery or murder committed in a "state of rage." Sentences for men found guilty of killing female relatives in crimes of passion in Gaza also reduces sentences relating to declared sexual indiscretion and family honor.
According to the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in Ramallah, only a small minority of men who carry out these murders are ever convicted. When they are the sentences are generally a few months.
While some these killings hide behind the skirts of religion, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says that this is utter nonsense.
"Nowhere in the Quran is the murder of anybody justified on the basis of sexual indiscretion or rage. Our organization is supported by religious leaders from various backgrounds who condemn these murders and in fact call for stronger penalties against the perpetrators."
In fact, contrary to popular belief the crimes of passion laws were in fact inherited from the region's colonial occupiers including the Turks, the French and the British.
"People are struggling to feed their families in a crippled economy. Palestinians are being indiscriminately killed by Israel on an almost daily basis. Sometimes women's rights become secondary in people's minds. Despite this there is no excuse for not at the very least introducing new legislation.
"The laws need to be changed as do the school curriculums and the attitude of the media which all reinforce the idea that women are inferior to men. I don't see that happening under the current leadership especially as Fatah (the ruling party in the West Bank) and the even more conservative Hamas (in Gaza) are in the process of uniting," Hussein says.
"But the younger generation will eventually take over and they are far more progressive and that is when change will eventually come."
A version of this story was first published by Inter Press Service news agency.
? 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.
Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution condemning North Korea's rocket launch in December and imposing new sanctions on Pyongyang's space agency.
The multi-stage rocket launch is considered part of a covert program to develop ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads.
The council reiterated its previous demand that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible manner" and cease launches.
China joined in approving the resolution, the first resolution in four years to expand the sanctions regime on North Korea.
"We believe that action taken by the Council should be prudent, measured, proportionate, and conducive to stability," Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong said after the vote.
China's agreement to join a resolution is a step away from the protection it usually gives to North Korea, its neighbor, which it supported in the Korean War in the early 1950s against U.S.-led U.N. troops.
China is seen as North Korea's closest ally, and its protection of North Korea meant that the Security Council previously denounced North Korea's launches with non-binding council statements, which are unenforceable.
In a defiant statement early Wednesday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry warned that it will strengthen its military and nuclear defenses in reaction to what it called evidence of "U.S. hostility" toward Pyongyang. It also warned that it would rebuff any attempt to engage Pyongyang in disarmament negotiations.
"There can be talks for peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the region in the future, but no talks for the denuclearization of the peninsula," the Foreign Ministry said in a memorandum carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea ominously warned that it would take steps to "bolster the military capabilities for self-defense, including the nuclear deterrence."
North Korea sent a satellite into space on Dec. 12 aboard a long-range rocket, a launch that the U.S. and its allies have criticized as a test of banned ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang maintains the launch was a peaceful bid to send a satellite into space and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un cited its success in his New Year's Day speech.
In 2006 and 2009, Pyongyang conducted atomic tests after being slapped with Security Council condemnation and sanctions for similar launches of long-range rockets.
Security Council resolutions ban North Korea from any use of ballistic missile technology, even if characterized as a satellite launch or space launch vehicle.
The resolution imposes new sanctions under existing authorities on North Korean companies and government agencies, including North Korea's space agency and several individuals.
It also updates lists of nuclear and ballistic missile technology banned for transfer to and from North Korea and includes several new provisions targeting North Korea's smuggling of sensitive items that could contribute to the prohibited programs.
In its talks with China, the U.S. had to agree that the resolution would not bring in new forms of sanctions but would build on the existing Security Council sanction regimes.
"''We hope that all relevant sides can, with a view to maintaining peace and stability, stay calm and restrained, and avoid all acts that will escalate tension, which is conducive to the interest of all sides," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in Beijing on Wednesday. He stressed the importance of moving ahead with the six-nation, aid-for-disarmament talks.
It is believed that China may have been willing to join the new resolution because satellite surveillance has shown activity at North Korea's nuclear blast test sites suggesting another atomic test may be imminent.
North Korea vowed last week to strengthen its defenses amid concerns the country may conduct a nuclear test as a follow-up to last month's rocket launch.
Citing U.S. hostility, Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said in a memorandum that North Korea will "continue to strengthen its deterrence against all forms of war."
The memorandum carried by state media did not say what action North Korea would take to defend itself. However, North Korea has claimed the right to build atomic weapons to protect itself from the United States, which stations more than 28,000 troops in South Korea.
Lisa Randall 
by Libby Anne
