If we were serious about education, then our education discussion wouldn’t be focused on demonizing teachers and coming up with radical schemes to undermine traditional public schools. It would instead be focused on mounting a new war on poverty and thus directly addressing the biggest education problem of all.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/15849/teachers_were_never_the_problem/
The worldwide Baha’i community has learned that the house of Baha’u’llah, the Founder of the Baha’i Faith, in Baghdad, Iraq – a profoundly sacred site known as the Most Great House – has been destroyed. The precise circumstances surrounding the demolition are not yet clear.
Bani Dugal, the Principal Representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations said: “This deplorable act has robbed people throughout the world of a priceless piece of their spiritual heritage.”
“While the details are not yet clear, there should be no doubt as to the Baha’i community’s strength of feeling about this terrible and shocking deed”, she continued.
“The Baha’is of the world are, of course, heartbroken by the news. Yet, as always, they remain positive and focused on their efforts to promote peace and contribute to the betterment of their communities”, she added.
The Most Great House was Baha’u’llah’s place of residence for much of the time of His exile from Iran to Baghdad, Iraq. The site is located close to the banks of the River Tigris.
http://news.bahai.org/story/961
What I want to see in an educated applicant for a work position in the organizations that I work with is the capacity to work effectively – the skills, abilities, and experience for accomplishing things.
For the most part I am not not looking for a set of memorized facts and formulas. These things change all the time and are learned during one’s work life.
The capacities and skills that I am looking for are generally not taught in today’s educational system nor measured in standardized tests. We are only beginning to figure out how to assess and value those things in our education system. I feel very fortunate to be involved with two organizations who are working in this area: http://www.kickboardforteachers.com/features/behaviors http://www.bahai.us/community-life/teens-and-preteens/
What would be some of the skills, abilities and capacities that I want to see as a sign of someone ready to work effectively?
“… the goal of education today, argues Wagner, should not be to make every child “college ready” but “innovation ready” — ready to add value to whatever they do.
“Today, because knowledge is available on every Internet-connected device, what you know matters far less than what you can do with what you know. The capacity to innovate — the ability to solve problems creatively or bring new possibilities to life — and skills like critical thinking, communication and collaboration are far more important than academic knowledge. As one executive told me, ‘We can teach new hires the content, and we will have to because it continues to change, but we can’t teach them how to think — to ask the right questions — and to take initiative.’ ”
via Need a Job? Invent It – NYTimes.com.
Creating Innovators, by Tony Wagner:
http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Innovators-Making-People-Change/dp/1451611498/
Zork, Infocom, and other Interactive Fiction on Android, iPad, iPhone, PC, Mac
Overview
Our favorite old Adventure game and many Infocom games (like Zork, Suspended, Planetfall), as well as many newer “Interactive Fiction” games (like Spider and Web) are available for PC, Mac, iOS devices and Android devices.
Here’s how it works:
The original games were generally written for, or ported to, a portable virtual machine / interpreter called the Z-Machine.
For more info, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine
http://inform7.com/if/interpreters/
http://www.ifarchive.org/
In this realm, a game is embodied as Z-code file, and typically has a .zn file extension like .z5 or .z8, with n indicating the interpreter version it is made for (requires at least that version).
Z-Machine player apps
There are now Z-Machine interpreter apps on PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and Unix
The Google PlayStore usually has at least one interactive fiction Z-Machine players
Here is one:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.onyxbits.textfiction
The iPhone/iPad app is called Frotz, and is free in the Apple App Market
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/frotz/id287653015?mt=8
For Windows
http://www.davidkinder.co.uk/frotz.html
For Mac, there is Zoo
http://www.logicalshift.co.uk/mac/index.html
Z-Machine game libraries, and how to use them
There are various online libraries of Z files.
Here is the Z-Machine section of the Interactive Fiction Database (IFDB
http://ifdb.tads.org/search?sortby=rcu&searchfor=format%3AZ-Machine*
(they don’t have the games that were commercial and never released as free, including most of the Infocom Games)
Here is a pretty complete looking library of downloadable Infocom games:
http://www.pokenet.co.uk/misc/files.dev/dslinux/frotz/
On Android and PC, you can just download the file (.e.g. the .z5 file) from an archive, then open it in the player app.
On iOS, you can go to one of these archives, click on a link, and when you are asked what to open it with, pick Frotz, and it gets added to your Frotz library (or get a file mailed to yourself and open it etc.)
Authoring new Interactive Fiction
You can write new Z-machine Interactive Fiction (IF) games or stories.
A popular free tool for doing so is “Inform”
http://inform7.com/
Dear Friends,
Abdu’l-Bahá arrives in New York City today, having sailed on the S.S. Cedric from Alexandria, Egypt.
[100 years ago, that is]
Here are some resources for following His visit and reading the talks He gave in North America for 239 days from April 11 to Dec 5, 1912.
Online Resources
Commemorating Abdu’l-Bahá in America 1912-2012
With a map of his visit and an interactive timeline including many news articles from the time
Books
Promulgation of Universal Peace
Talks Delivered by Abdu’l-Bahá during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912
First edition 1922
Second edition 1982
Baha’i Publishing Trust
ISBN 0-87743-172-8
You can order a physical book here:
http://www.bahaibookstore.com/productdetails.cfm?sku=PUPT
or here:
http://www.amazon.com/Promulgation-Universal-Peace-Delivered-during/dp/0877431728
Online versions:
http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/PUP/ (html, or downloadable PDF or DOC)
http://bahai-library.com/writings/abdulbaha/pup/ (html)
http://www.bahai-library.com/writings/abdulbaha/pup/pup.html
eBooks:
http://www.bahaiebooks.org/ebooks-by-title
At this site, toggle to the mode you want to download (ePub or Kindle)
Then click on the book name
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19285
Mahmud’s Diary
The Diary of Mirza Mahmud-i-Zarqani
Chronicling Abdu’l-Bahá’s Journey to America
Translated by Mohi Sobhani with the assistance of Shirley Macias
George Ronald
ISBN 0-85398-418-2
1998
This book has a telling of what Abdu’l-Bahá did each day, who He met, etc, as well as His public and private talks
The translation of the talks is a different one that in the Promulgation of Universal Peace.
You could theoretically order a physical book here:
http://www.grbooks.com/show_book.php?book_id=124 (though it looks perhaps to be out of Print at the publisher)
or here:
http://www.amazon.com/Mahmuds-Diary-Mahmud-i-Zarqani/dp/0853984182 (one copy for $1,833.97 !)
Online version
http://bahai-library.com/books/mahmud/index.html (html)
(Let us know if you find eBooks somewhere)
These young Buck Moth caterpillars are doing something unusual, walking together in single file. Anyone know why? Also a brief shot of Andrea and Anthony. Taken in New Orleans on March 19, 2012
Buck Moth (Hemileuca maia) in a single file train – YouTube.
Here are a 13 year old @kellysnook and her dad @carlfravel on his Aries Synthesizer using a Serge Modular sequencer/keyboard as the controller.
▶ “Daddyphonics” on the family synthesizer circa 1982 by the.secret.buttons.
http://news.bahai.org/story/862
UNITED NATIONS, 23 October 2011, (BWNS) – Iran’s persecution of Baha’is is among the most “extreme manifestations of religious intolerance and persecution” in the world today, according to a UN expert.
The remarks of Heiner Bielefeldt – Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief – came during a press conference here in response to a question about a new report that documents the Iranian government’s media campaign to demonize Baha’is.
Read the complete report here: http://bic.org/resources/documents/inciting-hatred-book
“The Iranian government has a policy of systematic persecution…” said Dr. Bielefeldt, “with the view of even destroying that religion worldwide…It’s a very clear, clearly articulated policy of extreme hostility.”
Asked whether he had received any response from Iran to his statements on the issue, Dr. Bielefeldt replied, “The typical response is the following: Bahaism is not a religion, it’s a cult, it’s an evil cult.”
“They distinguish…between genuine religions – in their understanding the divinely revealed religions Judaism, Christianity and, of course, Islam – and the rest,” he said. “So this is a problem.
“I mean they really excommunicate, systematically, the Baha’is from the application of freedom of religion or belief by simply denying their faith to have the status of a religion. And this is something states cannot do.”
Freedom of religion or belief is a fundamental human right, he said at the press conference on Thursday.
“The starting point must be the self-understanding of human beings. Their deep convictions…That is what counts,” he said.
“Inciting Hatred”
One aspect of the Iranian government’s campaign against Baha’is is documented in the report, “Inciting Hatred: Iran’s media campaign to demonize Baha’is”, which provides evidence of a state-sponsored strategy to vilify the Baha’i community.
The report, launched on 21 October, highlights false accusations of Baha’is being involved in a variety of subversive practices including being anti-Islamic, morally corrupt, and agents for foreign powers.
Responding to the findings, Faraz Sanei – Iran researcher with the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch – told CNN that rights groups have long documented Iran’s actions against Baha’is, designed to “deprive them of their ability to freely manifest the beliefs and teachings of their faith.”
The report, said Dr. Sanei, provides “valuable insight into the mechanics of a less documented and more insidious element of this campaign – anti-Baha’i propaganda propagated by official and semi-official media outlets, and the degree to which hate speech further exposes an already vulnerable minority group to discrimination and attacks by private actors.”
At the report’s launch, Bani Dugal – Principal Representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations – noted that Baha’is in Iran “are particularly vulnerable to campaigns such as this because they don’t have any right to reply.”
To read the article online, see photographs and access links, go to:
http://news.bahai.org/story/862
For the Baha’i World News Service home page, go to:
http://news.bahai.org/
