The 2012 high-school basketball season has come to a close, but there are still a few awards to hand out. I’m working on The Seattle Times’ boys all-state team and I’m asking for input.
Which player deserves to be the state’s MVP?
Here is your chance to vote:
A mother and daughter looking at secondary school prospectuses. Graham Turner for the Guardian
That time of year is here again – national offer day – when parents, children and schools discover which secondary school each child is destined for. Some parents will be understandably distraught and believe the whole system to be desperately unfair. Politicians go out of their way to promise the impossible, and parents think they have been assured their “choice” of school.
The reality is that, as long as some schools are perceived as better and have more applicants than places, some parents will be disappointed. Changing the admissions rules simply changes who is disappointed – it does not create more desirable places.
The admissions system is supposed to ensure allocation is fair and objective. Schools cannot “choose” children; the choice belongs to the parent. And if a school is heavily over-subscribed, the criteria and procedures for allocating places are rigorously controlled.
So is it fair to parents? Well,
Words cannot describe how dirty I feel when I hear bloated Rush Limbaugh pontificate from his moated Florida castle. Yesterday’s slur of a law student, seeking to testify regarding contraceptive coverage brought my blood to a boil.
Since when is contraception the axis of a political divide? Is the world safe, economy fixed? What is this politicalization of women’s health? Again. The sixties called, Rush- they want you to skim Our Bodies, Our Selves.
Where is the fervor over mens’ party drugs? I don’t believe Viagrafied sex is essential to one’s health, but it is generally covered by insurance, without suggestions of moral turpitude. No one gets his shorts in a knot over funding for this fun. I do not see my friends at the Roman Catholic church reprising their “reproduction only” crap for that moral dilemma. I do not see righteous indignation coming from any quarter, in fact.
Costs for the little blue pill are spread to me. I have a group policy and a self-funded policy at this time. I am h
Texas is making a habit out of coming from behind and narrowly triumphing in most-win games.
Oklahoma (14-15, 4-13) was the latest victim of a Longhorns comeback victory as the Sooners fell to Texas (19-11, 9-8), 72-64, at the Erwin Center Wednesday night after beginning the game on a 19-9 run. The Longhorns ended the contest on a 19-9 run of their own, with junior guard J’Covan Brown scoring 12 of his 22 points during that rally, as freshman guard Sheldon McClellan contributed a career-high 24 points. Here’s five things to take away from the win:
Texas squarely on the bubble heading into regular season finale
With their 19th win, the Longhorns probably need one more win to earn a spot in the NCAA tournament, either on the road against Kansas in Saturday’s final regular season contests or in the first round of the Big 12 tournament. Unless Texas takes down the Jayhawks and Kansas State drops a home game to Oklahoma State, the ‘Horns will face Baylor in that first-round Big 12 tourney game.
Opening the event on Monday with a keynote speech, Abiodun Williams, vice-president of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the United States Institute for Peace and a former United Nations peacekeeper, argued that all higher education institutions should embrace internationalisation, as “academic detachment from the world is not an option for the 21st century”.
But he also told more than 800 delegates from 45 countries attending the AIEA’s conference, Building a Secure World Through International Education, that spreading knowledge and ensuring students have an international outlook was “not enough”.
“Building a secure world is not just about producing educated people with skills and the outlooks required to meet the challenges of a changing world,” Professor Williams said. “Future peace builders must have the sensibility which underpins the idea of civilised life. In the 16th century, [Edmund] Spenser called the idea ‘courtesy’. In 18th-century tho