theirishtimes--2019-09-16--Children who opt out of religion in primary are denied teaching for 129 full school days

More than 30 years ago, I taught third class in a Cork city boys’ school.  The local priest was a frequent visitor to the classroom and liked to engage with the class on matters catechetic.  On one such visit, his focus was on praying loudly and with passion.  He invited the class to join him in a decade of the rosary but stopped after the Our Father and chastised the boys for their lack of volume and urged them to raise the roof with 10 Hail Marys.  While the rafters remained firmly attached to the struts, a single voice suddenly boomed above all others as one child, Jules, attempted to let the Mardyke know how blessed was the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.  The priest was suitably impressed and commended Jules for the power of his prayer.  “You are a great boy!” he told Jules, who replied in a proud Cockney accent: “Yes, thank you, Father. And I’m not even a Caffolick!”  Jules was one of many children I taught who opted out of religion classes but obviously had absorbed much of what was happening in the classroom around him.  There is no way of gauging the effect on a child, included in a classroom but excluded from what is being taught.  I recently came across a child who put her hands to her ears any time religion class started.  Her parents had jokingly told her to do this but underestimated how literal an attentive five-year-old can be. Clearly, children undeservedly have their difference exposed.  The welcome that schools extend on admission bears a caveat of conditional consent to accepting the school ethos and agreeing to opt out.  Fundamentally, if parents’ beliefs do not meet those of the single faith on which the school’s patronage is based, then the child will be excluded from teacher-time for part of each school day.  In concluding its 2012 report, the Forum for Patronage and Pluralism recommended the divestment from church to community patronage for primary schools on a phased and incremental basis.  With 96 per cent of all primary schools patronised by a single religion, the forum stated that it would be inadvisable to recommend “a big bang radical upheaval” and cautiously called for a softly, softly approach.  Little did the authors of the report realise that eight school years later, the rate of divesting could be measured by a junior infant on one hand with a spare thumb to suck, with single-faith school patronage continuing on a dominant 96th percentile.  Admission policies to these schools invariably claim to be welcoming to children of all faiths and none.  The welcome mat is rolled out for all children, but for those whose parents do not wish them to receive religious instruction it reads “welcome but . . .”.  The “but” is the opt-out, where those children must sit out religion class. While the class teacher works with his/her class in fulfilling the faith (including a majority who do not practise this faith with their families outside of the school), the opt-outs sit down the back of the class and count down the 30 minutes while colouring in yet another dinosaur.  In my 20 years as a principal of a Catholic school, parents acquiesced to this mono-ethos system without question.  The only times issues arose might have been at time of First Communion and Confirmation, when rehearsals impinged hugely on the integrity of the school timetable, with their children more clearly left on the outside.  However, the daily teaching of religion directly affects this integrity of the school timetable.  Children who opt out are denied teaching for half an hour every day. With 1,464 days in the eight-year primary school cycle, this amounts to 129 full school days.  This equates to 26 full school weeks in a child’s primary school career. That’s a lot of time for colouring dinosaurs.  Surely this time would be better spent being helping all our children to “know about and understand the cultural heritage of the major forms of religion, beliefs, traditions and world views which have been embraced by humankind”.  These are the aims of the Education about Religion and Beliefs (ERB) programme proposed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) as part of its new primary school curriculum  The ethics section of this ERB programme aims to create in the child “the promotion of a personal commitment to the dignity and freedom of all human beings” and stresses the importance of human rights, justice and service of the common good.  The NCCA proposal focuses on the theist, non-theist and secular beliefs and avoids the nurture of one religion or belief system. It is a programme that will include all children, with no child losing out on teacher time.  The introduction of ERB and ethics may meet with resistance from patrons of Church-run schools, who wish to retain their current monopoly of religious instruction time. Such retention appears as iniquitous as it is segregationist.  It is time for church bodies to seriously address the incongruity of its ownership of religious teaching time in our schools.  It is also time for them to take their hands down from their ears and address the negligible rate of divestment and to allow all children to be included to their entitlement of the full school day. It is time for all to opt in.  Peter Gunning is a writer and former primary school principal


thenewyorktimes--2019-12-23--Montana Battle Over Aid for Religious Schools Reaches Supreme Court

WASHINGTON — Kendra Espinoza sends her daughters to Stillwater Christian School, in Kalispell, Mont. The girls are thriving, but the tuition bills are steep. Ms. Espinoza, a single mother, has worked three jobs, raffled off quilts and held yard sales to help make the payments.  She had also hoped to get some money from a state program enacted in 2015 “to provide parental and student choice in education.” Soon after the program started, though, a state agency said students attending religious schools were not eligible.  Ms. Espinoza and two other mothers with children at Stillwater sued, and the Montana Supreme Court ruled against them, shutting down the entire program for all schools, religious or not.  The court relied on a provision of the state’s Constitution that bars the use of government money to aid religious schools. Many state constitutions have similar provisions.


truepundit--2019-01-18--Left Opens War On All Religious Schools By Targeting Where Karen Pence Works

Vice President Mike Pence’s private religious views have been a remarkably common aspect of liberal commentary. Pence is one of the most polite and respectful religious people ever, if the headlines about him are to be taken into context.  The most recent was a breathless HuffPost headline that read, “Karen Pence Is Working At A School That Bans LGBTQ Employees And Kids.” It begins with a dark and somber tone: “Karen Pence, wife of Vice President Mike Pence, started at a job this week teaching art at Immanuel Christian School in Northern Virginia. It’s not a school where everyone is welcome.”  The core cause of concern comes from the parent agreement, which says the school may refuse admission or deny continued admission if a student participates in or condones homosexuality. The writer is stunned that the employment application “also makes candidates sign a pledge not to engage in homosexual activity or violate the ‘unique roles of male and female.’”  The author further states, “The application says that the school believes ‘marriage unites one man and one woman’ and that ‘a wife is commanded to submit to her husband as the church submits to Christ.’” The application asks potential employees to explain their view of the “creation/evolution debate.” The “parent agreement” asks parents to cooperate in its “biblical morality” policy.  After confirming that the state of Virginia, as with many other states, permits private religious schools to discriminate, the article ends with a quote: “‘Why not teach at a school that welcomes everyone, instead of choosing one that won’t serve LGBTQ kids, kids of LGBTQ parents?’ said JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president for policy and political affairs at the Human Rights Campaign, in a statement to HuffPost. ‘The Pences never seem to miss an opportunity to show their public service only extends to some.’” – READ MORE


usatoday--2019-06-28--Supreme Court will decide if state funds can be used to help pay for religious school tuition

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide if state funds can be used to help pay for tuition at religious schools.  The case comes from Montana, where parents of religious school students sued for access to a program providing tax credits for tuition assistance. Residents and businesses that donate to private scholarship organizations receive up to $150 in tax credits; the donations are used for scholarships for low-income families.  A district court initially ruled for the parents, but the Montana Supreme Court said it conflicted with state Constitution and invalidated the scholarship program.  Since the 1990s, federal and state courts have divided on whether religious schools can be included in student-aid programs.  "Under the current legal landscape, whether a child attending a religious school is permitted to participate in an educational choice program is based solely on the state or federal circuit within which that child happens to reside," said Scott Bullock, president and general counsel at the Institute for Justice, which brought the case. "No child should be denied educational opportunity simply because of the state they live in."  More: Supreme Court in transition: Conservatives ascendant but Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh prove unpredictable  The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of religious liberty in several cases recently. Just last week, it ruled 7-2 that a mammoth Latin cross on government land in Bladensburg, Maryland, does not have to be moved or altered in the name of church-state separation.  It was another in a series of high court decisions defending religious freedom, from allowing public prayer and allocating public funds to exempting religious objectors from laws regarding contraception and same-sex marriage.  More: Supreme Court to hear Trump administration plea to end DACA program for immigrants who came as children


windowoneurasiablog--2019-09-24--Moscow Plans to Drop Courses on All Specific Faiths from School Curriculum Infuriating Religious

Moscow Plans to Drop Courses on All Specific Faiths from School Curriculum, Infuriating Religious

Staunton, September 20 – Russia’s education ministry has proposed dropping courses about Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism from the school curriculum, retaining in this segment only courses devoting to world religions and civic ethics, an action that already has infuriated some, most seriously the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.  The synod’s department for religious education and catechism has released a statement denouncing this move, arguing that it violates the rights of parents and children and calling on the government to revisit the issue by having a broad public discussion in which the ROC MP wants to take part ( rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=85906  If the government goes through with the plan to drop courses on specific faiths, it will further intensify tensions between the Kremlin and the Patriarchate which has made the introduction of such courses a priority. It is also likely to annoy some in Russia’s three other “traditional” faiths.  But if the religious are certain to be opposed, liberal Russian opinion will be on the other side. Indeed, Nezavsimaya gazeta headlined its upbeat report about this development “Religious Segregation May Leave the Primary School” ( ). What is now likely is a recapitulation of the debate which surrounded the introduction of such courses in the first place.  The big difference is that this time the government will be starting as an opponent of such instruction rather than as a major force pushing for it.


npr--2019-06-23--At Sunday School Jimmy Carter Extends Praise To Trump For Restraint On Iran

At Sunday School, Jimmy Carter Extends Praise To Trump For Restraint On Iran

Former president Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Ga. **Emma Hurt/WABE** ****hide caption****  ****toggle caption****  Emma Hurt/WABE  Former president Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Ga.  Emma Hurt/WABE  For the second time since ****[breaking his hip a month ago,](https://www.npr.org/2019/05/13/722948126/former-president-jimmy-carter- suffers-broken-hip) former President Jimmy Carter taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Ga. this weekend.  Addressing an audience of approximately 500, the 94 year old used his scripture lesson to discuss a topic he is intimately familiar with: Iran.  "I agree with President Trump[ on his decision not to take military action against Iran](https://www.npr.org/2019/06/21/734683701/trump-reportedly- orders-strike-on-iran-then-calls-off-attack-plan)," he said. "I had a lot of problems with Iran when I was in office."  Carter's remarks came just two days after President Trump said that he called off a strike on Iran ordered in retaliation for Iran's having shot down a U.S. drone. Trump said he did so after being told that 150 people would likely have died in the attack.  The escalating tensions with Iran have revived memories of the Iranian hostage crisis that **** dominated Carter's final year in the White House. He reminded the congregation the hostages were embassy staff he had sent to try to make peace with what was then the new Islamic republic, and to establish diplomatic relations with the government.  Indeed, peace has been elusive for the United States for almost all of its history, he said. That's ironic, Carter suggested, given how central the concept of peace is to Christianity.  "We're supposed to be a 'Christian' nation are we not? But we are known throughout the world as the most warlike country on Earth. And I would say almost all the wars in which we've been involved, have been unnecessary," he said.  He made the point that peace would be an important step towards bringing the proverbial kingdom of God to Earth.  "So if God's kingdom was on Earth, we would live totally at peace with each other. Maybe that's an individual choice too," he said. "Not just between nations not being at war, but with a friendly attitude, or a loving attitude to other people that are different than us."  Carter's classes at Maranatha date back to 1981, when he returned to Plains from Washington. The town has a population of more than 700 and the church has a congregation of about 30. But on this Sunday, attendees from all over the world were in Plains to see Carter. As has become typical when Carter is teaching at the church, many of them slept in the parking lot overnight — the first car arrived at 8 p.m.  On Sunday, Carter's message was one that many of those visiting Plains had been hoping to hear.  "As polarized as our country is right now, I wanted to come hear a president that believes peace is possible, even among the most vicious of enemies," said Andy Oliver, a pastor from Florida who traveled to Georgia with his wife and two children. "Just wanted to come and feel inspired this morning. And wanted my son to hear that too."  The praise for Trump, in particular, struck Cathy Smith from Milton, Ga.  "He actually praised another political party, for doing something well, when most people nowadays, they take sides," she said.  "Within the first five minutes he said President Trump is doing something good ... a lot of people would not do that if you're from the Democratic [Party]. That goes to the kind of person he is," she said.  Visitors on Sunday came everywhere from Tunisia to California, from Michigan to South Korea.  "We're a mega-church every other Sunday," said Jill Stuckey, a member of the congregation and superintendent of the national park that comprises many of the Carter monuments in town.  "And a very rural, quiet church the other times."  "It's unbelievable to hear the crowd that comes to hear the truth," said Maranatha Pastor Tony Lowden. "And I believe people come in, searching for the truth. I think Americans all across the country are looking for someone that's going to tell them the truth."


bbcuk--2019-02-21--Religion cannot stop LGBT education says Ofsted boss

'Religion cannot stop LGBT education', says Ofsted boss

All children must learn about same sex couples regardless of their religious background, the head of Ofsted says.  Hundreds of parents protested outside a Birmingham school over it teaching pupils about same sex couples and gender identity.  Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman told the BBC it was crucial children were exposed to differences in society.  She said it was important children knew "there are families that have two mummies or two daddies".  Parents of Muslim and Christian faith have held demonstrations outside Parkfield Community School in the Alum Rock area of the city, where children are taught about same sex couples through story books.  Protesters have claimed the lessons, part of the "No Outsiders" programme, contradict their faith.  They argued assistant head Andrew Moffat, who started the lessons and is gay, has been "promoting personal beliefs and convictions about universal acceptability of homosexuality as being normal and morally correct".  But Mrs Spielman said the lessons were "about making sure they [children] know just enough to know that some people prefer not to get married to somebody of the opposite sex and that sometimes there are families that have two mummies or two daddies".  "It's about making sure that children who do happen to realise that they themselves may not fit a conventional pattern know that they're not bad or ill."  In light of the protests, Mrs Spielman said there needed to be a "careful exploration of the middle ground" but lessons covering LGBT topics were important.  One mother, who wished to remain anonymous, accused the school of "planting ideas" in children's heads.  Her daughter attends Parkfield School and she said she was too young to be taught "what goes on in someone's bedroom".  "It's something that we would like to teach our children ourselves," she said. "It kind of feels like they're forcing it upon us."  She denied being homophobic but said "it's just not what we're about and we don't agree with it".  Mr Moffat told the BBC he had been receiving threats and "nasty emails" from parents who disagreed with the programme.  Mrs Spielman argued the lessons were less about "endless sex education" and more about understanding differences in society.  "The essence of democracy is that we don't all get our way," she said.  "We accept majority decision which means there will always be things that some of us don't like, but that is the very essence of it - accepting that we can't have 100% of what we want."  Solutions, she said, would be found in "sane, rational discussion, not protest".  However, the BBC understands more protests were being planned and some parents have said they would write to the government demanding a change in equality legislation.  The change, they hoped, would enable schools not to teach subjects that were not in line with religious beliefs.  Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, and sign up for local news updates direct to your phone.


newyorker--2019-08-23--How the Religious Right Transformed Israeli Education

Rafi Peretz, Israel’s new Education Minister, recently gave his first major television interview. Peretz, a former chief military rabbi and the founder of a military-preparatory academy in the Gaza Strip, belongs to a far-right alliance of parties and is a newcomer to politics. In the interview, Peretz was flushed and visibly nervous. He couldn’t stop smiling.  “Let’s talk about the L.G.B.T. community,” his interviewer, Dana Weiss, said at one point. Peretz was clearly caught off guard. He replied that he respected all people, but that “our Torah teaches us differently.” Weiss asked, “Do you support conversion therapy? Do you believe it’s possible to convert people’s sexual orientation?” By now Peretz’s smile had completely vanished. “I think it’s possible,” he said. “I can tell you I have a deep familiarity with this type of education, and I’ve also done it.” He went on to describe how he had counselled a student. “The objective is that, first of all, he should know himself well,” he said. “And then he will decide.”  Later in the interview, Peretz said that he wanted to “extend Israeli sovereignty to the entirety of Judea and Samaria”—to fully occupy the West Bank—without giving Palestinians any voting rights. It is saying something about how far to the right Israeli society has moved that this comment earned little notice. But Peretz’s embrace of conversion therapy proved too much for mainstream Israelis to stomach. After the interview aired, hundreds protested in front of the government’s Tel Aviv offices, holding signs with Biblical quotes about love and acceptance. Three thousand teachers threatened to strike. Thousands of parents around the country signed a petition stating that Peretz “shouldn’t be a minister of anything.” Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, moved quickly to disavow Peretz’s comments on conversion therapy, calling them “unacceptable.” But he didn’t fire the man he had entrusted with the education of Israel’s children.  Unlike the United States, which enshrined separation of church and state in its Constitution, Israel is defined, in its basic law, as a “Jewish and democratic state”—a muddled term that breeds near-constant battle over its meaning. Since its founding, Israel has had to rely on a series of fragile compromises between its secular leadership and its religious community. A letter known as the status-quo agreement, signed, in 1947, by David Ben-Gurion, who went on to become Israel’s first Prime Minister, guaranteed basic religious tenets, such as observance of Shabbat, while insuring that Israel would not become a Jewish theocracy. Marriage, divorce, and burial have, since the country’s founding, been under the auspices of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate. But on matters relating to the work force, military, universities, or public schools, there has been a clear separation between religion and state.  In the past decade, since Netanyahu came into power, Israeli society has undergone a process so transformative that a new Hebrew word had to be brought into use for it: “hadata,” or “religionization.” Manifestations of hadata appear throughout civic life. On some public buses that pass through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, women have been forced to sit in the back, for reasons of “modesty.” In the military, female soldiers are officially given the same opportunities as males, but the presence of just one religious male soldier in a unit can prevent female soldiers from serving there. Such discrimination is often done in the name of supposed inclusiveness: in order to accommodate the strictures of observant Jews, certain adjustments have to be made. Yet those called on to “adjust” are almost always women or members of the L.G.B.T. community. Just this week, Israel's attorney general said that cities could enforce gender segregation at public events, adding that “the justification for the separation is greater if the events are attended by a public that desires to be separated.”  Nowhere have those changes been more pronounced or more influential than in the public-school system, where the values of the Jewish Home Party and its far-right allies have taken hold. The Education Minister controls funding to Israel’s two systems of public schools, a religious system and a non-religious one, as well as its ultra-Orthodox schools, Arab and Druze schools, universities, and colleges. According to a 2017 investigation by the liberal think tank Molad, classes in Jewish education received a hundred and nineteen times more funding than those having to do with democracy or coexistence. Whereas schools used to promote a pluralistic approach to Judaism, with weight given to the Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox movements, much of the curriculum these days is being taught through the narrow prism of religious orthodoxy. And the emphasis on Jewish studies insures that other content is pushed out. Naftali Bennett, the former leader of the Jewish Home Party and the Education Minister before Peretz, said as much, in 2016: “Learning Judaism and excelling in it is more important, in my opinion, than learning math or science.”  Religious organizations have likewise mushroomed in the country in recent years, a result of generous state budgets that increased with time—more than doubling between 2007 and 2017. Representatives of these organizations have taken to teaching classes—often for free—in the school system, an offer that is too tempting for many administrators to pass up. “It started with, ‘Let us teach them the Jewish holidays, because you don’t know anything about it,’ ” Ram Vromen, a Tel Aviv businessman and the founder of a nonprofit group called Secular Forum, which tracks religious content in public schools, told me. “It quickly escalated to them teaching bar-mitzvah-preparation classes, classes in family values, and even leading discussions about the assassination of [the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin.”  Vromen started the secular forum in 2011, and focussed on the school system after he saw a handout that was given to his daughter in her third-grade reading-comprehension class. “It described a guy called Suleiman who is Jewish and living in some Arab city,” Vromen told me. A pogrom is about to take place just before Shabbat and everyone decides to flee. Nobody stops for Shabbat except for Suleiman and his family, “who are very observant and decide that honoring the Shabbat is more important.” Those who continue to flee are later massacred, and only Suleiman and his family are spared, because of their religious fervor. “Then there were questions like, ‘How do you observe the Shabbat in your own home?’ ” Vromen recalled. Among the accounts collected by Vromen’s group is a science textbook that includes a prayer for rain.  “You can’t examine these cases individually,” Vromen said. “You have to look at them as a whole. And when you do you see that there’s a clear attempt to change the face and character of Israeli society.” There was a father who reported that his six-year-old daughter’s preschool had taken a trip to a synagogue and received fliers that read, “the people of Israel must study the Torah or else they don’t feel truly alive.” There was a mother whose eighth-grade daughter’s homework included the imperative to “Spell out nineteen times ‘Baruch Ata Adonai’ ”—the beginning of a Jewish blessing. Religious content, it turned out, ran deeper than that. “Learning history now matters only inasmuch as it relates to Jewish history,” Vromen said. “So that, if the First World War has no real connection to the Jewish people, they barely teach it.”  In 2017, a video of a ninth-grade student named Hilli from Tel Aviv made headlines. In it, Hilli addresses the “Dear Education Minister,” Bennett, with a confidence that belies her age. She recounts sitting in a class on Israeli culture when the teacher began describing the life paths of Israeli men and women. “A man’s path begins with a bris, through school, bar mitzvah, Army, university, marriage, and children,” Hilli quotes her teacher as saying. And a woman’s? “School, Army, marriage and children,” she says. Women, Hilli is left to conclude, “apparently skip university, because it’s more important to change diapers and make lunch.” She says, “As a secular girl, the education system simply erases me.”  When I was a student in Jerusalem, in the late nineteen-eighties and nineties, we celebrated the Jewish holidays in school, but no teacher asked us how, or if, we observed them at home. We welcomed the Shabbat with song but not with prayer, and certainly not with the full ritual of candle-lighting, Kiddush, and head cover that has become the norm across (nonreligious) kindergartens all over the country. There was a sense that Jewish culture contained a multitude of interpretations, with no one inherently better than the other, and that schools were there to provide anchor, not judgment.  Yael (Yuli) Tamir, a former Labor Party lawmaker, was the last liberal Education Minister, serving between 2006 and 2009. She told me that during her term there had already been pressure from the religious right to have a greater say in the way that the nonreligious public-school system was run. “There isn’t a country in the world that doesn’t want to teach some kind of cultural heritage,” she said. “But the question is when that turns into indoctrination.”  Tamir said that she fought to preserve the nonreligious system as distinct from the religious one. It was important to her that students learn about the Palestinian nakba (“catastrophe”), for example, when reading about Israel’s War of Independence, and that they be able to grapple intellectually with different, and at times contradictory, narratives. “The nonreligious system takes as a paradigm Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic country, with all of the complexities involved,” she said. “The religious system, on the other hand, is faith-based, and argues that we’re in this country because of God. It’s seemingly semantic—they’re not throwing anyone in jail; they’re not enforcing burkas on anyone—but the distance between that and theocracy is small, and getting smaller.”


pinknewsuk--2019-01-07--Ultra-religious Jewish families will leave UK over LGBT education

Ultra-religious Jewish families will ‘leave UK over LGBT education’

Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world  An ultra-Orthodox Jewish activist has warned that “many” Jews will leave Britain if faith schools agree to teach children about LGBT issues.  Lawyers have written to the Department of Education on behalf of Shraga Stern to say that members of Britain’s 70,000-strong ultra-religious Charedi community “would rather choose to leave the United Kingdom for a more hospitable jurisdiction, rather than comply with such an obligation to mention homosexuality, same-sex relationships or gender reassignment in a positive context at school.”  In an 8,500-word letter seen by PinkNews and reported on in The Sunday Times, Stern’s lawyers told Education Minister Damian Hinds and Minister of State Nick Gibb that their client, whose children attend an independent faith school in London, was “alarmed” by draft guidance published in March 2018.  The initial proposals state that pupils must be made aware of the Equality Act’s protected characteristics—which include “sexual orientation” and “gender reassignment”—in an “age-appropriate way.”  The lawyers have called the draft guidance “disproportionate, morally unacceptable to our client and unlawful.”  They argued that it would be “deeply unfair” to the Jewish Orthodox tradition to “require the schools to teach in a manner that is contrary to the faith and belief of the community and is something which they do not wish to teach.  Amanda Spielman, who oversees Ofsted in her role as Chief Inspector of Education, said that faith schools could not opt out of teaching children about LGBT people, as it was required by the Equality Act.  “We know a gay child might be born into any town, any family, any time,” Spielman said in a statement quoted in The Sunday Times.  “You can’t say in these communities there won’t be any gay children.  “This is about making sure every child has the chance to grow up with the right level of information [and] … access to the kinds of conversation or support they might want,” she explained.  Stern’s lawyers have written in their letter that “the current law of the United Kingdom,” including the Equality Act, “does not permit the proposed changes to the Department’s Advice.”  And Stern said that, as far as he was concerned, Jewish Orthodox children should not learn about any sex at school, including gay sex.  “We do not want sex education taught in schools. We are tolerant of different lifestyles but we do not promote them,” he said.


theindependent--2019-06-27--Parents should be stopped from withdrawing children from religious education over Islam lessons hea

Parents should be stopped from withdrawing children from religious education over Islam lessons, headteachers say

Parents should not be allowed to selectively remove their children from religious education (RE) lessons, headteachers say, as study reveals many withdrawal requests are over the teaching of Islam.  More than two in five school leaders and RE teachers have received requests for students to be withdrawn from teaching about one religion, research from Liverpool Hope University has revealed.  Islam is the dominant focus of these parental withdrawal requests, according to the study of 450 school leaders and heads of RE.  One participant, who received requests for children to be withdrawn from mosque visits said: “The students that have been removed are the ones that need to understand different cultures the most.”  The majority (71 per cent) of teachers believe a law allowing parents to withdraw their children from RE is no longer required, according to the study in the British Journal of Religious Education.  It comes after a report from Thurrock council revealed that parents in Essex were withdrawing their children from religious education lessons on Islam and stopping them from visiting mosques.  Iman Atta, director of Tell Mama, an activist group which records and measures anti-Muslim incidents in Britain, told The Independent: “We have been hearing about cases where parents are pulling their children out of mosque visits as part of religious education since they do not want them to be near a mosque.  “This has been taking place over the last five years and shows that there are parents who have fears or dislike Islam. This is also concerning, since what kinds of views are their children being exposed to? It does not bode well for the future of people and communities living together”.  The right of parents to withdraw their children from RE and from collective worship has been in enshrined in law by both the 1944 and 1988 education acts. Parents can withdraw their children from some or all of the RE curriculum without giving a reason.  Teachers warned in April last year that parents were increasingly abusing the right to withdraw their children from religious education lessons due to their prejudices.  Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers section of the National Education Union called on the government to take steps to prevent parents from selectively withdrawing youngsters from RE classes.  “Cases of parents withdrawing selectively from teaching of one religion, predominantly Islam, were often presented by participants as representing a hostility and intolerance to those of other faiths,” the new research says.  But it concludes: “While it was true that Islam’s prominence as a target for withdrawal implies prejudice, our findings suggest that teachers saw the reasons for this withdrawal as misunderstanding more than prejudice.”


theirishtimes--2019-09-16--Parents finding it impossible to opt children out of religion education

Parents finding it ‘impossible’ to opt children out of religion education

Many parents are finding it “impossible” to opt-out their children from religion classes despite their legal right to do so, according to campaigners.  Under both the Constitution and the Education Act (1998), parents have a right to have their children opt out of religion classes if they wish.  A spokesman for the Department of Education confirmed this was the case and said practical arrangements to accommodate children whose parents have chosen this option is a matter for each individual school.  However, the campaign group Atheist Ireland claims it is aware of dozens of cases where parents have been told the subject is a core subject and the right to opt-out should not arise. “It’s like the public services card – it’s mandatory, but not compulsory,” said Jane Donnelly of Atheist Ireland.  “If you do manage to opt your child out, they’re given no other subject and you’re asked why do you want to do this. Parents are questioned as to their reason. It’s like a form of coercion.”  Ciara Roosli from Tramore, Co Waterford, said she requested in writing on two occasions that her son be exempt from religion at Ardscoil na Mara.  However, she says she was told verbally that religion was compulsory at the school and the only solution was to remove him from the premises or to go to another school. There is no other secondary school in the town.  “I had to go and take my child out of the school during religion class as I’ve been told that he has no choice but to take the subject,” she said.  “I fully respect the school and its ethos. But pupils should not have to relinquish their human and constitutional rights.  “I can’t continue to take him out of the school. I run a business. I can’t do that three times a week.”  Ardscoil na Mara’s religious policy describes the school as being “immersed in the Edmund Rice (ERST) and the Religious Sisters of Charity traditions” and being “committed to developing the full potential of each student, within a welcoming Christian atmosphere”.  It says its official policy is that religious education is regarded as “an integral part of our programme and a very important subject throughout school”.  The policy adds that it respects the rights of parents who require that their child be excluded from religious education.  One option is that a parent should remove their child from the school premises for the duration of religious education.  Another option, according to its policy, is staying within the classroom following an “educationally appropriate activity” but cannot include study or homework.  The school principal, Pádraig Cawley, declined to comment on the individual case, but said the school promoted inclusivity and was always available to meet with parents to resolve any issues.  He said the school policy on religious education was being reviewed and updated to reflect the new Junior Cycle specification for religion. This new religion course, which teaches about religions and beliefs, is not regarded as faith formation.  According to the department, this subject is concerned with “understanding religion as a phenomenon in the world and are designed to be studied by students of all religious faiths and of none”. However, groups such as Atheist Ireland claim it “disrespects” the rights of parents who seek secular education for their children based on human rights.  Principals in a number of Catholic schools insist they are highly inclusive and seek to integrate students from all faith traditions and none.  They have pointed to ESRI and Department of Education inspectors’ reports, which have found an “ overwhelming majority of parents and students find their schools to be well-managed and welcoming”.


thetelegraph--2019-08-02--Humanists to help shape religious curriculum after threatening legal action to sit on education boar

Humanists to help shape religious curriculum after threatening legal action to sit on education board

Their decision came in spite of an identical 2017 legal challenge in Wales which saw that Council back down and decide to admit another humanist, Kathy Riddick, as a full member.  It then prompted the Welsh Government to issue guidance clarifying that human rights law means humanists have the right to be full members, and subsequently decide to change the underlying education law to explicitly reflect the need to treat humanists and humanism equally in religious education. The law in Wales is identical to England.  After being refused by Greenwich Council, Rachel sent a letter before action to them, arguing that she had been discriminated against because she was a humanist. The Council again refused to admit her as a member.  As a result, Humanists UK then instructed solicitors, who notified the Council of their intention to apply to the High Court to take a case. Only then did the Council decided to acknowledge that there is a legal basis on which humanists can be full members of SACREs. Ms Taggart-Ryan, who is the charity’s campaigns officer, has now been admitted as a full member of Greenwich Council’s SACRE.  She said: “I applied to my local SACRE because I believe it’s important that children have the opportunity to learn about a broad range of beliefs in RE including humanism.  “The key way to get involved in this is to join the local SACRE, but I was completely dismayed when the panel rejected my application solely because I am a humanist. This issue is a matter of fairness and equality so I am glad that I now have the right to participate and vote in my SACRE.”  Councillor Jackie Smith, Cabinet Member for Children's Services and Community Safety said: “The Royal Borough of Greenwich has admitted Rachel Taggart-Ryan as a member of its Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education and welcomes her contributions in helping shape the local curriculum for our diverse population”.


Definition of Religion

We may now circumspectly sum up the constructive argument, and in so doing we arrive at an inductive definition of religion.  1. Religion consists primarily in a surmise or conception, reached by way of simple animism, of the causation and control of Nature (including human life) in terms of inferred quasi-human personalities, whether or not defined as extra-Natural. On the belief proceed certain practices. Beginning on the side of fear, it necessarily expands in time, with the rise of culture, to the side of gratitude; and it expresses itself accordingly. But its magical or strategical and its simply precatory or propitiatory forms proceed on the same premisses, and are in origin contemporary and correlative, being respectively the expression of the more and the less self-confident sides of men’s nature in the state of ignorance.  2. The primary surmise or conception involves itself in a multitude of beliefs, of which one of the most significant is that of kinship between animal and man (making possible a religious development of totemism), and the animal descent of the latter. From animism in general and this belief in particular comes an endless diversity of mythic narratives, all of which must be regarded as part of religion.  3. On the basis of animism, and of primitive inference of causation in all coincidence, arise a multitude of special practices, as taboo, which are first and last religious, being invariably bound up with the religious ideas aforesaid.  4. In virtue of the inevitable correlation of moral with cosmological thought in early man through animism, religion thus becomes secondarily a rule for the human control of human life; and it remains structurally recognisable on this side when the primary aspect has partly faded away.  5. Alike when such a rule for life is ascribed to a mythical founder—whether God or demigod or supernormal man—or to a historical personage credited only with moral genius, the special sanctity or authority ascribed to his code partakes of the nature of religion. Thus the religious element in Positivism consists as much in the reverence given to the founder as in the elements of his teaching. [There is a varying measure of a common religious element in the kind of honour paid to Zoroaster, Buddha, Moses, Jesus, the Hebrew prophets, Apollonius of Tyana, Paul, Saint Augustine, Saint Francis, Luther, Calvin, Arminius, Jansen, Glas, Sandeman, Muggleton, Auguste Comte, Mrs. Eddy, and Madame Blavatsky.]  6. Philosophic, scientific, and ethical thought may be defined as specifically non-religious when, but not before, they have abandoned or repudiated the cosmological premisses of religion, found their guiding principle in tested induction, and, in the case of ethics, ceased to found the rule of life on either alleged supernatural revelation or the authority of an alleged supernormal or specially gifted teacher.  7. Even after conceptual thought has thus repudiated religion, however, what is termed “cosmic emotion” remains in the psychic line of religion.  In fine, religion is the sum (a) of men’s ideas of their relation to the imagined forces of the cosmos; (b) of their relation to each other as determined by their views of that, or by teachers who authoritatively recast those views; and (c) of the practices set up by those ideas.  Under this definition there is room for every religion ever historically so-called, from fetishism to pantheism, and from Buddhism to Comtism, without implicit negation of any claim made for any one religion to any moral attribute, save of course that of objective truth or credibility.


sottnet--2019-04-10--Ideological delirium Italian cemetery covers crosses so as not to offend people of other religion

'Ideological delirium': Italian cemetery covers crosses so as not to offend people of other religions

The crosses on graves in an Italian cemetery in Pieve di Cento have been covered with black cloth so as not to offend those who may come from another religion., Il Giornale reports Following the reports of the coverings of the symbols, many have expressed criticism including Forza Italia (Forward Italy) deputy Galeazzo Bignami who denounced the move saying those looking not to offend were disrespecting Christian values and he added, "even more so the memory of our dead, hiding them behind 'motorised tents' in a cemetery to avoid offending other religions.""If the administrators are ashamed of our tradition and our culture, they should go and hide themselves and not just behind a motorised tent. If they are not able to bring respect for the living at least they have the decency to leave the dead alone and not involve them in foolishness," he added.The incident is also unlikely to have been well met by populist Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's League party which proposed in 2018 to require a crucifix be hung in all public buildings including train stations, airports, universities, and embassies.The covering up of the crosses is also not the first time Italians have covered up statues and monuments so as not to offend those from different cultures.The Archbishop of Florence has announced he will be selling 86,000 square feet of property to a Muslim group in order for them to build a mosque in Sesto Fiorentino.Cardinal of Florence, Giuseppe Betori, approved of the sale saying, "The transformation of Western societies into multi-ethnic, multicultural, and multi-religious societies is a fact and a future that inevitably awaits us."In the northern city of Bergamo, another Muslim association has spent nearly half a million euros on an old church, which they also plan to convert into a mosque


thewashingtonstandard--2019-11-06--Less Religion Means Less Civilization – & Freedom

Pew Research Center recently wrote about “the decline of Christianity” at a “rapid pace.”  Pew stated: “More than eight-in-ten members of the Silent Generation (those born between 1928 and 1945) describe themselves as Christians (84%), as do three-quarters of Baby Boomers (76%). In stark contrast, only half of Millennials (49%) describe themselves as Christians; four-in-ten are religious ‘nones,’ and one-in-ten Millennials identify with non-Christian faiths.”  Some scholars, like Byron Johnson of Baylor, object that some Americans described as “nones” actually attend non-denominational churches, but are misclassified as if they are unbelievers.  Still, regardless of the statistical details, it does not bode well for society that Christianity is losing its influence.  In 1798, Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale, warned, “Where there is no religion, there is no morality. … With the loss of religion…the security of life, liberty and property are buried in ruins.”  The scary thing about Christianity losing influence in society is what it means to morality in America – and thus to freedom. As William Penn once noted, “If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.”  Yet our cultural elites do so much to banish any vestiges of religion in the public square.  Even as I write this, the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), is dealing with a case involving a retirement center in Florida, where residents display all sorts of lawn ornaments – oh, but there is a 12-inch white cross on one couple’s lawn. The cross is not allowed. Everything else is.  Because of so many liberal judges and so few Christian ones, the courts have sometimes gone to ludicrous lengths to keep any kind of religious – no, I should say Christian – expression out of the public arena. Perhaps the situation is moderately improving, since there are fewer justices on the high court who are legislating from the bench than in previous eras.  However, even to this day, we are still dealing with the damage caused by these court cases that have driven expressions of Judeo-Christian religion out of the public square.  A shocking and classic example is when the Supreme Court declared that the Ten Commandments were not allowed in the classroom. In the 1980 case of Stone v. Graham, the high court sided with the secularists in a Kentucky case involving privately funded copies of the Decalogue of Moses that were displayed in some public schools.  Justice William Brennan wrote the decision, striking down public displays of the Ten Commandments with these chilling words: “If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.”  Imagine that. Children obeying the Ten Commandments. How awful.  In a recent television interview, Christian attorney David Gibbs III of the National Center for Law and Liberty told me, “Now, shockingly, we live in a day where unfortunately school shootings and other things dominate our news at levels that are heartbreaking. And I think many American citizens would disagree with the Supreme Court and say, ‘You know what? We would like to see some principles and some values, where the young people of our nation would be taught that there is a right, there is a wrong, that thou shalt not kill.'”  Gibbs continued, “Why is murder against the law? Well, it’s against the law, because the Bible teaches that life has value and that God condemns. When you look at many of the things that we put into our legal system that we might consider core, you know, in terms of the safety and protection of people, it was all Bible-based.”  In the mid-1800s, former Speaker of the House Robert Charles Winthrop (descendant of John Winthrop) wisely warned us, “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”  A professor at Harvard Business School shows in a 90-second video the same idea: The less internal morality, the greater the need for external policing and vice versa.  This is a sober message as so many Americans seem to be entering a “brave new world” and leaving God and therefore morality behind – and thereby our freedom as well.


prepareforchange--2019-01-13--Religion the Oldest Weapon of Mass Destruction in Human History

Religion, the Oldest Weapon of Mass Destruction in Human History

Most likely the first human who invented the first god, was some smart tribal guy who saw that it was a very effective way to protect himself from bodily harm by the stronger ones if he made them and the less smart members of his tribe believe he had a very strong friend living across the mountains. A friend so strong that he could make the mountains rumble by stamping his feet on the ground. Others would not dare to attack him fearing the revenge of such a powerful friend and even though no one ever saw this friend it was better to be safe than sorry.  It probably did not take long for this smart guy to discover that his fellow tribesmen were easily led to believe that this thunder ally would make them nearly invincible in battle with rivaling tribes and could even conquer these tribes. The smart guy was well aware that in reality he was not safe at all so he turned to the strongest one around, usually the tribe leader and made him believe that he was favored by the mighty thunder-friend across the mountains.  As history progressed the tribal leaders became the Kings of the later times where the smart guys became the holy men, and priests.  Of course the strong friend story was revised when people could cross the mountain and were likely to find nothing there. As time passed the powerful friend moved to a place where no man could travel, places like in the sky, the deepest sea, or the top of unclimbable mountains.  Religion became the most powerful way of making people compliant and even the Roman Empire saw that its culture of countless god families would not work if they wanted to maintain power over Europe. In the 4th century Emperor Constantine the Great started a change when he decided to go for a new approach that seemed to work in the eastern territories so he threw out the old God families with their immensely complex mythical stories and started simplifying things by adopting the one single god of the Jewish culture combined with folklore about a prophet who claimed to have been the son of this Jewish god; this was a wise decision because in this way he would not cross the Jews, who he saw as a nuisance and wished he could get rid of.  He appointed a group of smart guys, that you will find in any era, and gave them the task of creating this system of a Father, a Son and a Mother who was chosen to bare this son of God, Jesus.  These smart guys of course were the Council of Nicaea that was well aware, creating a whole religion from scratch would cost decades unless they joined together old Chronicles with scriptures mostly taken from the Jewish Talmud and combined that with the new story of the prophet, Jesus son of god, in the one book that would be the guideline of the new roman religion Christianity for all the future.  This compromise was created in much shorter time, and there were bound to be errors in the bible because there wasn’t enough time to cross reference the books that were included. Taking the fact that no one could read anyway and the sermons would be given in Latin these errors would not show for another millennium.  To make a big leap forward, Christianity in the form of Roman Catholicity was spread across Europe and later the world in a bloody, merciless often genocidal way. Like in prehistoric times, Rulers and Priests joined forces to keep their people compliant, and a perfect example is: As the cardinal said to the king, “if you keep them poor, I will keep them ignorant”.  Even today historians are still arguing about the historicity of this statement but it gives a good image of the religious system of keeping people compliant and not turning against the ruling class. At the same time it shows how well indoctrinated compliant people could be manipulated to fighting their wars, all in the name of God and King.  To the Kings, Emperors yet to come were given the forces of church and religion, a weapon of almost unlimited numbers of subjects ready to fight their wars and to expand their illusion of power that in reality was in the hands of the smart guys behind religion.  Rulers would eventually die and could be replaced while religion kept expanding its power and influence.  All throughout history religion has been used as the most powerful weapon of genocide and destruction known to mankind.  This went perfect until the time of enlightenment when in spite of the efforts of religion to keep them ignorant, people started to think for themselves and discovered that they were being used and started rising up to the power of these Kings and other rulers, but still in the way religion had taught them, now it became “for God and Country”.  In the time of modernization, and especially the 20th century, all the religions began to lose their grip on the people when more and more people left the church because they became educated and aware that they have been manipulated. The time without god was born, at least in western Europe where the average person currently identifies themselves as atheist, no longer believing in a god presented by the church.  Don’t think the religious weapon has lost it’s power. Islam has gained more power in the past 5 decades than in centuries before; they know how to use the two pillars of religion, poverty and ignorance to organize people into a formidable strike weapon against its “enemies”; and Christianity only has minimal loss in this.  Same thing happened in the USA.  Because the ruling class were not Kings or Emperors, religion has found other ways to ensure its power by giving aid to the rich who can control politics just with their money.  But religion encountered a snag, for the first time it feels losses in the number of followers it can control, because more and more people become educated and skeptical about this whole religious thing.  One of the pillars of religion, ignorance is rotting away. These past decades the rich and powerful have been very active to enrich themselves and keep the people poor. This is not enough, to keep its power religion also needs that other leg to stand on. To regain this, it is of absolute necessity to return the people back to compliant ignorance and bring a stop to this threat of education. Religion realizes all too well that to reverse it back to illiteracy is no longer possible, so the smart guys are now actively doing what they do best, manipulating circumstances in their favor, and therefore they need to control education to the advantage of their religion.  I think the only proof I need to present that this is all happening is to urge you to look at the rise of creationist dogma in education by getting religious people into key positions in the educational system.  For the religious weapon to survive it needs an increasing number of blind ignorant followers. The religious weapon keeps totalitarian regimes in power, and together they keep the majority of the people in the world poor and ignorant.  But now instead of kings and emperors this power is given to the rich who can use their fortune to buy their way in to decision making politics while the “peasants” are going to church every Sunday and send their children to church dominated schools to make sure they receive their daily dose of brainwashing.  It is time for this weapon to be dismantled to stop this madness.  Animated map shows how religion spread around the world  The Future of World Religion (in 2050)


eveningstandard--2019-04-03--Princess Anne celebrates 100 years of City Lit for adult education

Princess Anne presented awards to hardworking teachers and students last night to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of a London-based adult education college.  City Lit has supported more than a million Londoners learn a new skill since its foundation in 1919, and recently opened a new Digital and Design Lab.  The digital facility is designed to prepare adults for work in the industry and update their skills for career progression.  The Princess Royal said: “It is particularly encouraging to see how people of all ages and backgrounds come together at City Lit to challenge themselves and transform their lives.  “If education can be defined as ‘training for life’, then lifelong learning and its ability to unlock potential throughout people’s lives should be accepted as part of life. I am honoured to receive the City Lit Centenary Fellowship.”  The Digital and Design Lab includes web, editing, layout and 3D print studios to support courses in everything from web development to visual arts.  City Lit’s executive director for external engagement, Phil Chamberlain, said: "Our overall purpose at City Lit is to ensure that learners come together, so that our classes are alive with different insights and experiences – led and nurtured by expert tutors.  “This new development is part of our commitment to build high quality, well designed learning spaces that are attractive places for learners and businesses to utilise. We pride ourselves in our open campus and our welcoming community – a space for Londoners to meet, learn and share ideas.”


eveningstandard--2019-04-10--How AI could change healthcare education and security

How AI could change healthcare, education and security

When you think about artificial intelligence (AI) you probably first think about self-driving cars and robots. However AI already plays a central part in our lives.  From film choices on Netflix to spam filters on Gmail, we already interact with AI on a daily basis. Over the coming years, the role of AI in our lives – particularly in healthcare, education and security – is likely to dramatically change.  "Many of these will save us time or allow us to do what we currently do more effectively," said Harry Rhys Davies, AI Programme Lead at entrepreneur network Tech Nation.  Last month at the State of AI 2019 conference at the Royal Institute in London it was revealed that the UK is leading the AI health and well-being sector. One in three European health start-ups are currently founded in the UK.  "We anticipate that the adoption of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare will help ordinary people by reducing the cost of diagnosing illness and increasing preventative healthcare," said Vasile Foca, Managing Partner and Co-Founder at investment firm Talis Capital which backs emerging technologies.  Doctors are likely to have access to tools that mean they can deliver highly accurate diagnostics.  "AI makes it possible to crunch data from huge sample sizes and that should help scientists to identify the causes of various diseases, including cancer, and from there find appropriate treatments."  There are some things AI is getting better at than humans, says Lydia Nicholas, a programme manager from think tank Doteveryone. "It can tell when we are lying, can tell a real smile from a fake one; can even tell more accurately than a human can which fake smile masks clinical depression and which ones are just because you aren’t in the mood," she said.  However, Ms Nicholas believes we need to be careful not to rely on systems that are not yet reliable. "When we do use automated systems for critical decisions the failure rate can be shocking," she said.  "Algorithms shape almost everything we see online; the next video to watch, the products and jobs we’re advertised, the order of news articles or social media posts we read. In doing so, they change how we understand the world," said Ms Nicholas. This means they also cater to the prejudices of their creators.  Last year Sir Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of Buckingham University and ex-head of Wellington College said that AI could teach pupils "better than ever". He said it could end "inefficient" group learning and mean teachers have more time for active one-to-one lessons.  He described the advent of AI in the classroom as “the biggest move in education for 300 years”. Sir Anthony said personalised learning means things can happen much more quickly, leaving teachers to lead group and project work.  Mr Foca also believes education will be a big benefactor of AI.  "Lots of startups are focusing on low-income populations who may not be able to afford to go to university, but can pay to learn online," he said.  Fraud detection is likely to get more sophisticated in the coming years. "In the security and cyber security worlds, AI is being used to process millions of videos and photo images to help spot bad actors/ criminals," said Mr Foca.  "While law firms and prosecutors are using AI to process data points in evidence statements, which helps take a lot of data processing and potential errors out of building a prosecution case."  However, these advances won't come with their own problems. For example, according to a report by Big Brother Watch last year the Metropolitan Police's facial recognition technology is still 98% inaccurate.  "We still have fundamental questions to ask ourselves and these will only become more pervasive," warned Mr Rhys Davies.  "Already we see that algorithms can perpetuate bias and social injustice where the datasets that AI learn from can often exclude minority groups. Issues of privacy are particularly potent as facial recognition gains ground."  Ms Nicholas said: "What will shape our lives is not specifics of what AI can do but how it is used, and what protections we can get, both as individuals and as a society."


fortune--2019-07-01--How an Education Startup Wasted Almost 200 MillionData Sheet

How an Education Startup Wasted Almost $200 Million—Data Sheet

Waiting to exhale. The tech sector can breath a sigh of relief, one which will likely inflate its stock prices, as President Trump and Chinese President Xi put off imposing any additional tariffs on trade between the two countries. That’s fortuitous for Apple, which not only avoids higher prices on the iPhone but also just moved production of its high-end PC, the Mac Pro, from the United States to China.  It’s OK if you’re clueless. That hot Wall Street Journal story we linked to on Friday accusing Advanced Micro Devices of transferring key supercomputer technology to China may have been a little too hot. AMD says the story had “several factual errors and omissions and does not portray an accurate picture of the joint ventures.” Monday’s new, hot Journal story says departing Apple design chief Jony Ive has missed a lot of meetings and flopped a bit over the past few years.  Getting to happy. Online retailer the RealReal went public on Friday and its shares jumped 45% from the initial offering price of $20. The site’s gross sales of “pre-owned” and post-authenticated Gucci bags and Cartier necklaces exceeded $224 million in the first quarter, up 42% from last year, though generating a net loss of about $23 million.  Disappearing acts. The government of Iran was not kidding around when it banned bitcoin mining in the country last year. The government closed down two mining operations in Yazd province which allegedly caused a 7% jump in Iranian power consumption in June.  How Stella got her groove back. They apparently need to de-ice a lot of things in Scandanavia. So Norwegian startup UBIQ Aerospace is building drones to break up the frozen stuff. The company said on Friday it raised seed funding from James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems and a local accelerator fund.  Last week’s Data Sheet essay about Microsoft’s ban on employees using rival messaging software from Slack brought some pushback from readers.  Several of you wrote in to defend the practice of developers relying solely on their own apps. “Companies should use their own products to show they use what they sell, to test and improve their own products, and for the obvious financial reasons of using your own products versus buying (or giving your data for the free ones) someone else’s product,” one reader noted. Another put it more succinctly: “If you don’t eat your own dog food, it will never be competitive.”  There was also some disagreement with my assessment of Yahoo email after Marissa Mayer required all employees to use it. “Beg to disagree, Yahoo Mail was *much* better for it–night and day according to our users and many long-time Yahoos,” wrote a reader who might know something about the subject, Marissa Mayer.  What Jony Ive’s Departure Means for Apple’s Stock By Anne Sraders  Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski on Netflix, Social Media, and Opening a Restaurant By Rachel King  Chef Marcus Samuelsson Wants to Redefine Cookbooks Through Audiobooks By Rachel King  There are many crazy days in sports, but I’m not sure many could rival Sunday night’s start of free agency in the National Basketball Association. Some of the best players in the NBA were on the move and it’s gotten quite difficult to figure out the favorites for the upcoming season. USA Today’s Charles Curtis took a stab at picking the initial winners and losers. Read it and weep–or cheer–depending on the verdict for your favorite team.  This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman. Find past issues, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters.


fortune--2019-08-21--How Womens Educational Gains Are Changing the Working World The Broadsheet

How Women’s Educational Gains Are Changing the Working World: The Broadsheet

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Reshma Saujani argues men should redirect their bravery, Jane Lauder becomes one of the world’s 500 richest people, and women’s pursuit of higher education is having a knock-on effect. Have a wonderful Wednesday.  – Getting educated. The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that this year could see the moment when women start making up the majority of the U.S.’s college-educated workforce. Surpassing that threshold reflects women’s pursuit of higher education; they have constituted the majority of college students seeking bachelor’s degrees since the 1980s.  College-educated women’s increased representation is changing employers’ approach to benefits, with companies aiming to attract and retain such skilled talent with offerings like egg freezing and improved paid parental leave.  At the same time, there are some not-so-nice forces behind the trend. Economic Policy Institute senior economist Elise Gould tells the WSJ that women are looking to education as a way to narrow the gender pay gap. I wrote about Georgetown data on the subject last year and it ain’t pretty: Women with a bachelor’s degree earn the same as men with an associate’s degree—a disparity that persists as you climb the rungs of the academic ladder. In other words, some women may be obtaining advanced degrees simply so they can make as much as less educated men.  But let’s end on a high note. Pew Research’s Richard Fry surmises that since college degrees are often a prerequisite for promotions, working women’s educational gains indicate their improved ability to advance in the corporate world.  – A better use of bravery. Growing up, boys receive endless messaging about the importance of bravery and risk-taking—sending them to the C-suite, public office, and beyond. Now, Girls Who Code CEO Reshma Saujani writes, men need to use that bravery in service of women. Fortune  – Mette’s meeting. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, the nation’s youngest PM who assumed the job in June, has gotten wrapped up in President Donald Trump’s obsession with buying Greenland, a self-governing country that’s part of the Denmark kingdom. Trump cited her disinterest in selling Greenland to the U.S. as his reason for canceling his planned visit to the Danes. Washington Post  – A pretty good Monday? Jane Lauder—heir to the Estée Lauder fortune, global brand president at Clinique, and a member of Eventbrite’s board of directors—became one of the world’s 500 richest people this week after her wealth surged by $447 million on Monday (that’s right: in one day). Estée Lauder reported strong earnings thanks to sales growth in Asia; Lauder is now No. 461 on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s wealthiest, one of 69 women in the group. Bloomberg  – Work/work. How do couples where both partners work, well, make it work? Harvard Business Review examines the question from a few angles: how spouses choose which career to prioritize when, how couples decide about whether to relocate, and the choice some partners make to live apart. Harvard Business Review  MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Barbara Messing is leaving her post as Walmart CMO. Ava DuVernay’s film collective Array promoted Tilane Jones to president. Uber hired Square’s Melinda Roylett as U.K. general manager. Former New Hampshire Republican Party chairwoman Jennifer Horn resigned from the board of Log Cabin Republicans in protest of the pro-LGBT GOP organization’s endorsement of President Trump. Founder and president of Nature Knows Inc. Andrea Watson joins the board of women-focused ridesharing service Safr. Former head of HR at Eventbrite Carolyn Satenberg joined Digit as its first head of people.  – Daily 2020 update. Dr. Jill Biden gave a less-than-inspiring pitch this week for her husband’s candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. “Your candidate might be better on, I don’t know, health care, than Joe is, but you’ve got to look at who’s going to win this election,” the former second lady said. “And maybe you have to swallow a little bit and say, ‘OK, I personally like so and so better,’ but your bottom line has to be that we have to beat Trump.” The next day, Sen. Elizabeth Warren put forward her criminal justice reform proposal, which includes repealing most of the 1994 crime bill Joe Biden authored.  – Chile’s communist reformers. Camila Vallejo and Karol Cariola became known in Chile eight years ago as student-movement leaders; now the pair have introduced a labor-reform bill that would cut the maximum hours of the workweek in Chile from 45 to 40. As stars on Chile’s left (both are Communist Party members) who are opponents of Chile’s president, the duo earn comparisons to, yes, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Bloomberg  – Money moves. Are you familiar with modern monetary theory—or its best-known advocate, Stephanie Kelton? A senior economic adviser to Bernie Sanders, Kelton has become an economic rock star based on the argument that the government should simply print more money to pay for major programs like the Green New Deal. The theory worries many—their main fear being inflation—but Kelton has made the fringe proposal more mainstream than ever. The New Yorker  Today’s Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe. Share it with a friend. Looking for previous Broadsheets? Click here.  For black women navigating corporate careers, this book is a must-read Essence  Trial date set in USWNT’s suit against U.S. Soccer Wall Street Journal  Meet one of the oldest black farmers in the American South Zora  “It’s a bit like being a hairdresser—some people take the chance to disclose their worldly secrets.”  -Jenny Watkins, a black cab driver in London, on her job


foxnews--2019-02-21--Why civics education matters

Why civics education matters

**Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.**    On the roster: Why civics education matters - House readies resolution to end national emergency - Harris calls for new election in NC House race - Biden considers his family ahead of 2020 decision - Girl scout of the year     WHY CIVICS EDUCATION MATTERS   You no doubt heard the news. Americans don’t know bupkis about our history and system of government.     The survey from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation found appallingly low percentages of Americans were conversant even in the basic facts of our system and past.     In order to pass a U.S. citizenship test, an applicant must get at least 60 percent of the questions on a civics and history test correct. You can take a sample test here but knowing you, dear readers, 60 percent will seem like a rock-bottom grade.     If you have been reading us for any length of time you will also know that civics and history education is something of a hobbyhorse for us, so we were certainly happy to see attention brought to the subject. What concerns us, however, is that very few people seem to be discussing why this is a problem.     Knowing civics and history isn’t something that is an abstract good like knowing how to play the clarinet, hit a one-handed backhand or tell the difference between Monet and Manet. It is a practical, vital knowledge the lack of which is creating a crisis for our country.     Civics education, where it still exists, is treated often as something obligatory. You make your bed, you shine your shoes for church, you say “please” and you know how many justices are on the Supreme Court.     If we expect students to care and schools to emphasize the subject, we had better make sure that everyone understands what’s at stake. Without a working knowledge of what this country is and how our system works, each generation becomes less able to operate this miracle that has proven to be a light into the world.     The most significant problems facing our government today aren’t really ideological, they’re systemic.     For example, there are good debates to be had about how the federal government should allocate the nearly $3.5 trillion in tax revue it collects each year. Where should it be spent and in what increments? How much more money should the government borrow?     But politicians have essentially destroyed the system that allowed those questions to be addressed for the previous two centuries. Most of the money that’s being spent is doled out on schedules and rates set decades ago.      Less than a third of federal spending is actually appropriated by the current Congress. The other 70 percent goes to entitlement programs, pensions, pre-programed welfare systems and interest on the $22 trillion national debt. It’s that way because previous generations of lawmakers determined they and their successors were too irresponsible to allocate money anymore.       While most federal outlays cruise on like a deep space probe zooming out past Pluto, what obviously will happen to the discussion over the ever-shrinking slice that Congress really does control? When there was plenty of money, the appropriations system allowed for an orderly, if greasy, means for allocating the money. Now, every time the bills come due at the end of the federal fiscal year, we start jumping off of fiscal cliffs.     We recently endured what was called the “Seinfeld shutdown,” the shutdown about nothing. Lawmakers and the president were at odds over a little flyspeck of spending – four hundredths of a percent of the deficit alone – and closed a substantial part of the government for more than a month only to come to what was an obvious compromise from the start.     However you feel about border barriers and “delayed action for childhood arrivals” and anything else about immigration, that’s not a sensible way to have discussions about spending priorities. That’s not liberal or conservative, Republican or Democratic but rather systemic. The way the U.S. government handles its money is a rotten, chaotic mess.     But there’s little political advantage to be had in addressing that. In fact, there’s substantial political disadvantage.      Listen to the president and his potential general election opponents as they talk about money. They sound like 1970s pornographic actress and disco star Andrea True. “How do you like it? More, more, more.” More tax cuts, more infrastructure spending, more entitlements, more welfare programs. More, more, more.     Spending is just one example. We could say the same of our legal, educational, medical and national security apparatuses. Deep problems continue to churn, but politicians across the spectrum tend to offer painless pabulum.           Now, we should rightly blame the politicians who pander and deceive. But as the scorpion told the frog, we know it is their nature. As comedian Chris Rock once joked about sexual fidelity, “Men are only as faithful as their options.” A dim, if not entirely undeserved view. For politicians, the maxim would hold that they are only about as honest as they have to be.     And voters are letting them get away with murder.     We will not reinvent human nature in such a way that a new generation of selfless politicians rises up to save us from ourselves. But that is what Americans look for each successive election. What do we want each cycle? Change. And each cycle they deliver the kind of surficial change that temporarily gratifies the bloody-minded partisanship of one side but leaves most people with a deeper-still feeling of unease. Something is wrong, but we just can’t say what.      So what will we choose next time? Why change, of course.     The purpose of an educated electorate – the crucial aim of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and others – was as the ultimate guarantor of good government. If the people do not know what they have, they won’t know how to use it. They won’t know which demands are sensible to make. They will become easy prey for demagogues.     Welp.     The urgent work of educating the next generation in American history and civics isn’t just something that would be nice or to avoid national embarrassment. It is actually about rebuilding a bulwark against tyranny. As our government slips deeper and deeper into dysfunction and people come to have less and less faith in the American system, we become sitting ducks for the kind of authoritarianism that has ruled most of our species for most of our history.      Civic classes are about nothing less than guaranteeing “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”           THE RULEBOOK: HOLD YOUR GROUND     “Whatever efficacy the union may have had in ordinary cases, it appears that the moment a cause of difference sprang up, capable of trying its strength, it failed.” – Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Federalist No. 19    TIME OUT: THE PRICE OF COLLEGE SPORTS  Sports Illustrated: “UNC-Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium is typically a showcase for everything that's great about sports… But the story was [Zion Williamson’s injury]. He's the presumptive No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, and one of the biggest names in sports at the moment. … What happens when the biggest game in America becomes dominated by the player who left after 30 seconds? For one, after 48 hours of news stories about Duke-UNC ticket prices, there were natural conclusions drawn about the injustice of Zion performing as an unpaid amateur and suffering an injury while almost everyone else in the college sports ecosystem was able to get rich off the game. That argument makes some sense. … And why does Zion Williamson have to be in college at all? … If players are talented enough to be drafted into the NBA after high school, many around the sport think they should be able to make that transition as soon as they graduate.”    Flag on the play? - Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.    SCOREBOARD   Trump job performance    Average approval: 41.8 percent  Average disapproval: 54.4 percent  Net Score: -12.6 points  Change from one week ago: no change     [Average includes: Fox News: 46% approve - 52% disapprove; Gallup: 44% approve - 52% unapproved; CNN: 42% approve - 54% disapproval; IBD: 39% approve - 57% disapprove; Quinnipiac University: 38% approve - 57% disapprove.]    HOUSE READIES RESOLUTION TO END NATIONAL EMERGENCY  WaPo: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday night that the House will vote in the coming days on a resolution rejecting President Trump’s national emergency declaration, encouraging fellow Democrats to support the effort as they try to stop Trump’s push to expand efforts to build a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. In a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter, the California Democrat said Trump’s declaration ‘undermines the separation of powers and Congress’s power of the purse, a power exclusively reserved by the text of the Constitution to the first branch of government, the Legislative branch, a branch co-equal to the Executive.’ By invoking a national emergency, Trump is claiming authority to shift federal funds appropriated by Congress for other purposes to be spent instead on his border wall. Pelosi announced that the House would move ‘swiftly’ to pass a disapproval resolution authored by Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), although she did not specify an exact date and indicated it would move through a House committee before coming to the floor.”    Sen. Collins backs lawsuit against national emergency - Portland Press Herald: “Republican Sen. Susan Collins said Wednesday that she supports the lawsuit filed by 16 states – including Maine – challenging President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a southern border wall. But Collins also signaled support for a straightforward congressional disapproval of an emergency declaration that she views as having ‘dubious constitutionality’ and setting a dangerous precedent. ‘It may be that the courts will stop what I believe to be a very unwise action, or it may come about through Congress,’ Collins said Wednesday. ‘If the House passes a resolution of disapproval and it is a clean resolution, I will support that.’ … The three other members of Maine’s congressional delegation – independent Sen. Angus King and Democratic Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden – also have strongly criticized the president’s emergency declaration.”    The Judge’s Ruling: Trump's brazen overreach - This week Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano explains how the president’s national emergency is unconstitutional: “When the president acts pursuant to authority granted to him by the Congress in an area of government delegated to him by the Constitution, his authority is at its peak, and he is free to exercise it as he sees fit. When he acts in an area as to which the Congress has been silent, he acts in a twilight zone and can succeed only if the area of his behavior is delegated to him under the Constitution and if he enjoys broad public support. But when the president acts in an area that the Constitution gives exclusively to Congress -- such as spending money -- and when he acts in defiance of Congress, his acts are unconstitutional and are to be enjoined.” More here.    HARRIS CALLS FOR NEW ELECTION IN NC HOUSE RACE  Raleigh News & Observer: “In a startling statement, Republican candidate Mark Harris Thursday called for a new election in the 9th Congressional District ‘to restore the confidence of voters.’ Harris’ statement came after a break in a hearing after he had testified about his dealings with Bladen County operative McCrae Dowless. On the stand, Harris said he suffered two strokes in January while hospitalized for a severe infection and was ‘struggling’ to get through the hearing. After hearing the evidence of absentee ballot fraud, Harris said, ‘I believe a new election should be called.’ A member of North Carolina’s State Board of Elections had pressed Harris on why he didn’t heed warnings from his son about hiring Dowless to run an absentee ballot operation in his 2018 campaign for Congress. … ‘He raised concerns (about Dowless). I did not consider John’s (emails) to be a warning. I thought he was overreacting,’ [Harris said].”    BIDEN CONSIDERS HIS FAMILY AHEAD OF 2020 DECISION   NBC News: “Joe Biden wants to be president. And each day, he’s closer to being ready to run for the office. But even as he weighs a campaign to unseat President Donald Trump, Biden is carefully considering a key question — what happens when the president or his top allies try to make his family an issue? Conversations with aides to the former vice president and others who’ve spoken with him in recent weeks present the idea of a Biden candidacy as not if but when. … But Biden knows and expects the president to fight as hard to stay in the White House as he did to win it in the first place — and he’s already shown nothing is off limits. … No line of attack would be more reprehensible to the former vice president than one directed at his family, and he and his team have been forced to consider that even as they also weigh the political dynamics.”    Harris swipes at far-left Dems over open borders - Fox News: “Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said ‘We can't have open borders’ as she continues to disassociate from her party’s calls for unrestricted immigration and tearing down existing barriers at the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. senator from California, a leading 2020 hopeful for the White House on the Democratic side, has recently been overshadowed by the entry of Senate colleague Bernie Sanders -- the progressives’ likely first choice -- into the race, and the potential candidacy of Beto O’Rourke the former congressman from Texas who’s been making inroads and positioning himself as the anti-Trump candidate. This prompted Harris to come out against O’Rourke’s call to tear down the existing 700 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border during a Wednesday night appearance on Comedy Central's ‘The Daily Show.’”    Family matters: Kamala’s dad isn’t happy over her comments on weed - Fox News: “The father of Sen. Kamala Harris is trying to distance himself from the 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful after she said her pot smoking in college stemmed from her Jamaican heritage. … Harris' father, Donald, disapproved of the comments, which he told the Jamaica Global Online constituted ‘identity politics.’ ‘My dear departed grandmothers ... as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics,’ he said. Donald Harris continued: ‘Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty.’”    Williamson: ‘One last grift for Bernie Sanders’ - National Review: “Right-wing populists and left-wing populists may disagree about such world-changing issues as whether the phrase ‘a man with ovaries’ actually means anything, but on the fundamental policy questions they come down strikingly close to one another. That is because the enemy of populism isn’t the right wing or the left wing — the enemy of populism is liberalism, understood here not in the demented sense we use it in U.S. politics (where liberals are the people opposed to liberalism) but in its proper sense, meaning the classical-liberal regime of property rights, free enterprise, free trade, individual rights, and a worldview based on well-ordered liberty emphasizing cooperation within and between nations.”    Disinformation cyber campaign begins against Dems - Politico: “A wide-ranging disinformation campaign aimed at Democratic 2020 candidates is already underway on social media, with signs that foreign state actors are driving at least some of the activity. The main targets appear to be Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), four of the most prominent announced or prospective candidates for president. A POLITICO review of recent data extracted from Twitter and from other platforms … suggests that the goal of the coordinated barrage appears to be undermining the nascent candidacies through the dissemination of memes, hashtags, misinformation and distortions of their positions. But the divisive nature of many of the posts also hints at a broader effort to sow discord and chaos within the Democratic presidential primary. The cyber propaganda … is being pushed across a variety of platforms…”    POMPEO RULES OUT ON KANSAS SENATE RUN  Politico: “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that he has ruled out running for a soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat in his home state of Kansas next year in favor of remaining the nation's top diplomat. The former Kansas congressman and CIA director had dodged questions about whether he planned on running in 2020 to claim the seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Pat Roberts, fueling speculation that he might by attending certain events and meeting with GOP operatives in the state. But on NBC's ‘Today’ show on Thursday, the secretary of state threw cold water on the prospect, telling anchor Craig Melvin ‘it’s ruled out.’ ‘I love Kansas. I'm going to be the secretary of State as long as President Trump gives me the opportunity to serve as America’s senior diplomat,” Pompeo said. ‘I love doing what I'm doing and I have 75,000 great warriors out and around the world trying to deliver for the American people.’”    Poll: Joni Ernst's approval rating soars ahead of 2020 re-election - Des Moines Register: “U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst’s approval rating has hit its highest point ever as she prepares for a 2020 re-election campaign, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows. Fifty-seven percent of Iowans say they approve of the job she’s doing — a 10 percentage-point increase since September. She earns approval from a majority of Iowans in each of the state’s four congressional districts. That includes a high of 65 percent in the Republican-heavy 4th District, in northwest and north central Iowa, and a low of 51 percent in the Democratic-leaning 2nd District, in southeast Iowa. … Ernst, a military veteran from Red Oak, became the first woman in Iowa elected to either chamber of Congress in 2014. … She announced in December that she intends to seek re-election.”    Alabama Rep. Bradley Byrne announces 2020 Senate run - AL.com: “U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne became the first official Republican entrant into the 2020 U.S. Senate race announcing his intention to run in a race that could become one of the most expensive political contests in Alabama history. … Democratic U.S. Senator Doug Jones, who narrowly defeated Republican Roy Moore in that election, raised more than $24 million. … Byrne said he anticipates, similar to the 2017 special election, national attention paid to the Alabama Senate contest next year. The race is considered one of the few 2020 Senate contests in which a Democratic officeholder is seeking re-election against a Republican inside a state that has long been dominated by GOP leadership.”    PLAY-BY-PLAY  Neal Kaytal: What to expect from the Mueller report - NYT    Poll shows Virginians aren’t demanding Ralph Northam’s resignation - Sabato’s Crystal Ball    AUDIBLE: NO ONE KNOWS   “I have read it and I have reread it and I asked Ed Markey… what in the heck is this?” – Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., discussing his struggle to understand the Green New Deal on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.    FROM THE BLEACHERS   “It's midnight. And I'm listening to ITYW podcast and you mentioned a Pawpaw. I hope this finds you because 50 years ago in the movie Jungle Book a Pawpaw is mentioned in the lyrics of Bare Necessities. I sang it all the time and never knew what I was singing about. Now I do. And I love ice cream. So I'll have to [check] that out. Please share my note with Dana.” – Brian Keill, Pearl River, N.Y.     [Ed. note: The 1967 animated version was one of my favorites as a little boy. It’s scary enough to give you some bad dreams — that snake! — but funny enough and tender enough to make it beloved. But I hadn’t remembered that paw paws made an appearance. Makes it even *ahem* sweeter.]     “Yet another polling question, although I understand the ones you use and the methodologies behind them. What does confuse me is that some days you have a certain set of polls, other days you have a different set of polls. The average can go up or down significantly based solely on one poll being included and another one being removed. Any chance you could enlighten us on that piece?” – Mike Schlender, Minneapolis     [Ed. note: As they would say in the business world, Mr. Schlemder, “FIFO” or first in, first out. We cycle out the oldest polls when new one comes in.]    Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.    GIRL SCOUT OF THE YEAR  WISN: “As if any of us needed any more of an incentive to buy even more boxes of Girl Scout cookies, a fifth-grade marketing genius just reinvented her Samoas packaging in the best way possible. The Colorado-based ‘Cookie CEO’ Charlotte Holmberg — who earned the title after selling more than 2,000 boxes in 2018 — is upping her game in a major way in the new year. Turning her Samoas into Momoas, the elementary schooler redesigned her packaging to include a shirtless Jason Momoa, and unsurprisingly, they're flying off the figurative shelves. Holmberg happened to have a marketing professional already on her sales team — her mom — and after spotting a few Momoa Samoa memes, she thought up the rebranding. The pair printed a shot of the ‘Aquaman’ star on the classic purple packaging, and suddenly, everyone was eager for a box.”    AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…   “Say it and sign it. To get, you have to give. That’s the art of the deal, is it not?” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in the Washington Post on Sept. 1, 2016.    Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.