Mostly Damaged

From now on, you may refer to me as CZAR DEREKTOR, The Oracle of Valor - Mecha-Omnitron, The Ultra-GigaBot.

I said this a couple years back actually, when Reznor began intentionally leaking tracks.  I remembered all the way back to his “donation” of Closure.  I respect this guy for more than just his music.

Wow. 101 companies from the S&P 500 are trading below $10 a share. Even worse, a third of the index is at low enough levels to not even qualify to BE on the index. Sweet.

Here’s an excellent write up by Newt Gingrich on the “experiment” of adolescence.  I’ve been advocating this for years.  As a bright kid, I was bored to death by school, and saw the futile nature of the “learn by rote” education system we have in place from a very early age.  I decided to drop out, take some college courses, and start working instead of going along with the the system.  I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I never viewed this as one of them.

The fact that you come out of 18 years of schooling with no vocational preperation, no real readiness to enter the world, is a tragedy.  We treat children as children far too long, and as a result we artificially restrain their development.  Boredom is deadly to an intelligent teenager, and even those put on an enhanced track usually just end up with more busy work.  The critical thinking and troubleshooting skills that make a person truly invaluable to organization’s later in life are abandoned in place of a system that does nothing but enforce rote memorization.

Dropout rates are at an all time high.  We don’t need to throw more money at the education system (That’s been proven to be ineffective).  We need complete reform and a reduction in the scope of the public education system to have any chance of regaining our status as an educated nation (While avoiding high suicide rates seen in Japan from enforcing even more significant busy work)

An interview with Saul Williams reflecting on the success of Niggy Tardust, working with Trent on another album, and how the transformative period that America is going through is changing Saul’s lyrical approach from one of anger and politics to a sense of “connection and exuberance”.  Great read.  This guy is one my musical and lyrical idols.