>Eat more dog food 9 (8%)
Buy a second hand Mercedes in stead of new 18 (16%)
Send your kids off to work 9 (8%)
Have or shop at a garage sale 6 (5%)
Eat out less 69 (62%)
Votes : 111
We found the a full 69% said they would eat out less and 16% said they would buy a used instead of a new mercedes but only 8% said they would eat more dog food!
>THE NEW YORK TIMES
October 19, 2008
By KAREN ANN CULLOTTA
School officials and parents across the nation are turning an increasingly critical eye on the time-honored tradition of voters’ casting ballots in the gymnasiums and hallways of neighborhood school buildings while classes go on as usual just a few yards away.
Citing a litany of safety concerns, many officials are opting to keep youngsters home on Nov. 4, Election Day.
“School districts across the country now spend millions of dollars each year on controlling access to buildings with locked doors and surveillance cameras to keep strangers out,” said Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, an advocacy group, in Cleveland. “In a post-Columbine, post-9/11 world, we shouldn’t be opening the doors at our schools on Election Day, and just hoping everything will be O.K.”
The decision to cancel classes on Election Day in the Rockland public schools in Massachusetts stemmed from an accident — an elderly driver, on his way to vote in the state’s presidential primary on Feb. 5, struck and critically injured an 8-year-old girl outside an elementary school in a neighboring district.
The accident and the response by Rockland officials caught the attention of a PTA president in Aurora, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, a mother of two whose worries about the use of schools as polling places prompted the district to give students the day off on Election Day.
“The impetus for our resolution was simply a parent who asked, ‘Does it make sense for the security measures we have in place at our schools to be abandoned on Election Day?’ ” said Robin Church, president of the Parents’ Council at Indian Prairie School District 204 in Aurora. “We all agreed that student safety was paramount every day, and that includes Election Day.”
At the Smithtown Central School District in New York, Election Day will find teachers and administrators gathered at a professional development conference, while the district’s 11,000 students enjoy a holiday from classes.
“The decision to have a nonattendance day in November coinciding with Election Day was a no-brainer,” said Smithtown’s superintendent of schools, Edward Ehmann. “Our parking lots are already crowded with people coming and going on a regular school day, and this election is expected to have a record voter turnout.”
In Allen County, Ind., which includes Fort Wayne, students will be in school on Election Day, but voters will not. Officials have moved the polling places from schools to churches and other public places.
“In today’s world, we ask a mother to show her driver’s license before she can deliver cupcakes to her daughter’s classroom,” said John H. Weicker, security director for Fort Wayne Community Schools. “But on Election Day, we were allowing every Tom, Dick and Harry to walk in the front door.”
The wisdom of closing schools on Election Day has skeptics, including Kathy Christie, chief of staff at the Education Commission of the States, a nonpartisan organization. She described the effort to separate students from voters as a “knee-jerk reaction.”
“It breaks my heart to think we are losing the opportunity to send a very strong message to children about their civic duties,” Ms. Christie said. “Keeping kids home on Election Day also creates an inconvenience and another worry about day care for their parents.”
Chicago is one city where classes will not be canceled, nor polling places relocated, on Nov. 4.
“Our schools are public buildings, and we need to make them as available as possible to our community,” said Mike Vaughn, a Chicago Public Schools spokesman. “Our primary concern is that there is not a disruption to the students, so we’ve made sure the voting booths are not located in high-traffic areas.”
It is a decision with which the Cook County clerk, David Orr, whose jurisdiction includes the Chicago Public Schools, respectfully disagrees, especially since a record number of voters are expected to cast ballots.
“In an ideal world, it would be nice for children to see voters in their schools,” Mr. Orr said. “But you have to ask yourself, what if?”
>From kitchentablemath.blogspot.com
https://www.kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/
Monday, October 13, 2008
Ted Nutting on the math mess
I’m a high-school math teacher in Seattle. When I hear Mark Emmert, president of the University of Washington, say that this state is “at the bottom in the production of scientists and engineers,” and warn that our graduates “will be washing the cars for the people who come here for the best jobs,” I know what the problem is. It’s math. We are failing to educate our children in mathematics. I know how that came about, and what we can do about it.
The problem is national in scope, but in Washington state our difficulties can be traced principally to Terry Bergeson, superintendent of public instruction for the past 12 years. She oversaw the writing of our state’s weak, vague math standards, basing them on a “reform” idea to promote “discovery” learning. This has turned teachers into “facilitators” who “guide” children in learning activities. It has promoted “differentiated instruction,” placing students of wildly differing abilities together where some students cannot do the required work, often to the detriment of those who can.
She has moved away from rigorous testing. The “reform” math she champions encourages such things as journals, portfolios and group projects that tend to form large parts of classroom grading systems, while test results are relegated to a lesser role. The math portion of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), aligned to her faulty standards, tests math skills at a low level. Even so, about half our 10th-graders fail it.
She has wasted millions of dollars on “professional development” to encourage teachers to put “reform” theories into practice. These theories are supposed to make it possible for all students to learn math. But few students know significant mathematics, and most know very little. About half of our students entering college now have to take remedial math. Many of our students who do succeed use private tutors, and the racial achievement gaps have widened. “Reform’s” emphasis on equity and fairness has been revealed to be empty talk.
My experience tells me that we can fix this, and quickly. I am the Advanced Placement calculus teacher at Ballard High School. I don’t teach Bergeson-style. I tell my students what they need to know, they do problems to understand how it works, and they demonstrate their knowledge and understanding through testing. Up until this year, we’ve insisted that our students who take AP calculus actually be able to do the work.
We at Ballard have by far the best AP calculus program in Seattle Public Schools, based on AP test scores. I have no special magnetism or charisma; I’m not a cult figure for teenagers. I have high standards and I require the students to work. If they don’t work, they know they will probably flunk. But they do work, and I am proud of them. I also have the benefit of having an older textbook that doesn’t fit the “reform math” model, and most of my students have had an excellent pre-calculus teacher the year before.
In most of our other math classes (and I doubt that Ballard is unique in this), we’ve tended to follow a “reform” model. We’ve passed students on from class to class; there is no meaningful threshold they must cross to enter a more-difficult class. Since we find that many students in our classes cannot do the work, we dumb down the courses. We say we are admitting unprepared students into our classes in order to “challenge” them.
But students should be challenged in the classes that they are qualified to take, not sent on to classes where they cannot do the work. Unfortunately, things are changing, even in our school’s AP calculus classes: We’re starting to admit unqualified students, and our program will soon begin to deteriorate.
It’s not just Ballard’s AP calculus program that is successful, and it’s not just the top students. North Beach Elementary in Seattle [was this Niki Hayes’ school? will find out] switched its math curriculum to Saxon Math in 2001. This excellent series teaches real math and does not follow Bergeson’s fuzzy, reform-oriented ideology. North Beach did this with reluctant agreement from Seattle Public Schools because the PTA paid for the books and because the superintendent supported site-based decision-making. North Beach’s passing rate on the WASL rose from 68 percent in 2000 to 94 percent in 2004 — and yet, every year parents worry that real math will be scrapped. Recently, the school has had to seek waivers to avoid having to teach the district’s “reform” math.
Legislators have begun to understand the problem. At the Legislature’s direction in 2007, the state Board of Education reviewed our state’s math standards, finding they were failing. The Legislature set up a system to fix the problems, but that system gave Bergeson the opportunity to sabotage the process. She stacked the committees selected to rewrite the standards with like-minded ideologues. The results were so bad the Legislature refused to accept the rewritten standards, sending them to the Board of Education to fix.
Bergeson then stacked the committees set up to select curricula for state approval. That process is not complete, but the first results are discour-aging. The Legislature had required that the new mathematics standards be based on (among other things) the standards of Singapore, consistently a leader on international tests, but Bergeson’s initial submission of texts ranked Singapore Math, that country’s official curriculum (and a superior one), dead last out of 12.
Most school-district administrations have gone along with Bergeson and share responsibility for this mess. Even as an uproar arose nationally against the programs Bergeson promotes, Seattle started using two of them in elementary and middle schools.
None of this is necessary. Students can learn math. My students learn it. If our education leaders would follow the lead of our Legislature, stop ignoring obvious successes and support what actually works, we would see major improvements in just a few years.
Ted Nutting is the Advanced Placement calculus teacher at Ballard High School in Seattle.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
>Posted by packerma October 15, 2008 18:43PM
As the election approaches, Rep. Scott Garrett has a 2-1 fundraising lead over Dennis Shulman, his Democratic challenger for the 5th District seat, according to campaign finance reports filed Wednesday.
https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/garretts_fundraising_outpaces.html
Garrett, 49, a Sussex County Republican, has $571,000 in cash on hand, while Shulman, a Bergen County Democrat, has $279,000, according to their Federal Election Commission reports for July 15 to Oct. 15.
However, the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has promised to bolster the 58-year-old Shulman’s coffers, after labeling the race Tuesday as one of its “Red to Blue” campaigns, in which Democratic challengers are to receive more funding and assistance to try to defeat GOP incumbents on Nov. 4.
“We think this means Dennis is well-positioned for October, especially as the national party has made the race a priority and Dennis’ grassroots support continues to expand exponentially,” Shulman’s campaign manager, Jeff Hauser, said Wednesday.
Garrett’s campaign notes he has outpaced his own fundraising, as compared with the 2006 election.
“We have exceeded the fundraising activity from previous elections by almost $300,000, and our cash on hand is twice that of our opponent,” Garrett campaign manager Amanda Gasperino said Wednesday. “These numbers are proof that voters in the 5th District want a congressman who will fight to protect New Jersey taxpayers and their family budgets.”
The campaign finance reports show the following figures:
Garrett had $649,000 at the start of the quarter; raised another $281,000; spent $359,000; and has $571,000 cash-on-hand. About $179,000 of Garrett’s contributions came from individual donations while $98,000 came from political action committees, or PACs, including the New Jersey Right to Life PAC, American Conservative Union, and several banking, insurance and finance groups.
Shulman had $258,000 at the start of the quarter; raised another $328,000; spent $307,000; and has $279,000 cash on hand. Some $205,000 of Shulman’s contributions came from individual donations while $69,000 came from PACs, including the NARAL Pro-Choice PAC, the American Federation of Teachers and several labor unions.
Shulman also loaned his campaign $53,000 in the third quarter. He loaned his campaign $35,000 in the second quarter and also has provided $14,000 in in-kind expenses.
Garrett has not loaned any of his own money to his campaign.
Of Shulman’s loans to his campaign, Gasperino said: “It’s clear that he has been unable to raise the amount of money he needs to fund his negative media buy .¤.¤. he’s forced to dip into his own pocket because 5th District voters refuse to fund his incessantly negative and baseless attack ads.”
Hauser said Shulman “has engaged a vast grassroots support that will work in the field and friend-to-friend to bring the vote out, whereas Garrett has gone financial services PAC-to-PAC to build a top-heavy campaign, out-of-touch with the district.”
Shulman has run ads blasting Garrett as “corrupt” for receiving a farmland tax assessment on nearly 10 acres of land used by his brother for a Christmas tree farm — but not listing the farmland as an asset on federal disclosure forms.
Garrett is an attorney from Wantage who is known as New Jersey’s most conservative congressman. He has said he is not required to disclose the farmland because he does not earn any income from it.
Shulman, of Demarest, is a psychologist and a rabbi. He has been blind since childhood. If elected, Shulman would become the first rabbi in Congress.
https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/garretts_fundraising_outpaces.html
>Posted by cjrothma October 16, 2008 05:11AM
Gov. Jon Corzine today will propose a broad stimulus package designed to protect the state against the global financial crisis.
https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/governor_looks_to_aid_banks_an.html
With the state’s economic footing and his own political fortunes on the line, the Democratic governor is scheduled to address both houses of the state Legislature at noon at the Statehouse in Trenton. He is expected to speak for about 20 minutes in the Assembly chambers, which will be filled with economists, lobbyists and others eager to hear the former Goldman Sachs CEO’s plans.
Tim Larsen/Governor’s Gov. Jon Corzine
Corzine has said his agenda will “bridge troubled waters” in the short term and “lay a foundation” for growth when the downturn ends.
Earlier this week, Republican lawmakers proposed slicing the state sales tax in half during the holiday shopping season, saying it would help consumers and merchants beset by fears of a long economic downturn. The plan would cut the 7 percent state sales tax to 3.5 percent from Thanksgiving through Jan. 4. It also would halve the sales tax in Urban Enterprise Zones, which already charge a discounted 3.5 percent, to 1.75 percent.
Corzine plans to propose investing $250 million from the state pension fund in community banks to spur lending to small businesses, and directing $45 million in state funding to homeowners facing foreclosure, officials said Wednesday.
The infusion of pension funds would boost banks’ liquidity, helping local businesses to obtain the credit they need to operate, according to administration and legislative sources familiar with the governor’s proposal.
The state Economic Development Authority would play a matchmaking role between borrowers and banks, and the deposits from the pension fund would be insured, said the officials, who requested anonymity because they were speaking in advance of the governor’s address.
Help also would be offered to about 1,500 New Jerseyans in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure, through two initiatives that would spend $45 million from the state Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency to stabilize neighborhoods, according to Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), chairman of the Senate Economic Growth Committee.
The pension investment and foreclosure assistance programs represent a piece of the Democratic governor’s total economic-stimulus package. Overall, the plan is expected to contain more than 20 separate items ranging from emergency food and heating assistance to new tax breaks for businesses that create jobs.
Other components of Corzine’s plan include infrastructure projects such as roads and schools, a green jobs program encompassing wind and solar power and biofuels, and legislation to improve the state’s business climate.
The total cost to the state — not including the investment of pension funds — is expected to be about $150 million, to be paid for out of existing state revenues, the officials said.
Recognizing the moment’s political implications for Corzine, who faces re-election in 2009, Republican lawmakers have spent the week attacking his economic record and unveiling plans of their own, including a five-week sales tax “holiday.” Top GOP senators also urged Corzine to suspend real estate sales taxes and New Jersey’s new paid-family-leave requirements to help the state become more competitive with its neighbors.
“This state and its economy have been broken for a long time,” said Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth), who reiterated support for the GOP proposal to cut the 7 percent state sales tax in half for the holiday shopping season. Corzine does not support that plan.
Assemblyman Lou Greenwald (D-Camden), chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, said a proposal to allow businesses to carry net operating losses for 20 years instead of seven is among Corzine’s efforts to bring New Jersey in line with other states.
Making that change, and possibly others, to corporate tax policies “would send a strong message that New Jersey officials understand that job creation and job retention is the surest way out of this current economic downturn, and that we need to improve our business climate,” said Art Maurice, first vice president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.
James Hughes, dean of Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Policy and Planning, said Corzine can affect the overall economic downturn in three primary areas — increasing state construction spending, assisting households caught up in mortgage foreclosure or joblessness and easing taxes and regulations on business.
But he cautioned that even the most comprehensive list of New Jersey cures will not reverse a steep global economic decline.
“The tides here are very, very strong. And there’s no way at the state level you are going to be able to confront them directly,” Hughes said. “At the most you can deflect them a little.”
https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/governor_looks_to_aid_banks_an.html
>There used to be a time when Ridgewood residents were smart enough to sift through all of the new theories and ideas and separate the wheat from the chaff. They would implement only those ideas that were of the highest caliber and which would measurably improve their own value and greatness and those of their children and neighbors. These sound primary individual decisions would yield a secondary effect of fundamentally improving Ridgewood as a whole which in turn lead to the by-product of elevating and sustaining Ridgewood as a premier community.
Now it seems like the residents are so focused on the primary goal of building and maintaining the perception of “premier status” that they are easily fooled by any charlatan claiming to have something new… Many current residents are so insecure in their own judgments that they happily relinquish their decision making power to any golden tongued “expert” touting some “shiny new” theory or idea. Everything is treated as wheat even when it is chaff…and when one dines on too much chaff, one is not long for this world.
>BETHPAGE, N.Y., Oct. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ –Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) today announced that it has successfully deployed Optimum WiFi wireless Internet access in commercial and high-traffic locations across its Long Island, Connecticut and Westchester/Dutchess service areas as a free enhancement for its Optimum Online high-speed Internet customers. Optimum WiFi has also been activated on the commuter rail platforms and station parking lots across Long Island, and at many Metro North stations as well.
Already the largest and most advanced consumer WiFi network in the nation, based on geographic coverage, Cablevision has more than doubled the size of its activated Optimum WiFi service area just since its initial deployment update early last month. Over the next two years, Cablevision plans to deploy WiFi in the commercial and high consumer traffic areas across its entire tri-state service area.
“We are pleased to announce that Optimum WiFi is now available to customers across Cablevision’s Long Island, Connecticut and Westchester/Dutchess service areas, as our market-wide deployment continues,” said Kevin Curran, Cablevision’s senior vice president of wireless product development. “Free and broadly available WiFi access is already becoming a popular enhancement for our Optimum Online customers, and a significant differentiator over our competitors. With an estimated 300 million WiFi-enabled consumer electronics devices shipped last year – a figure that is expected to grow to 1 billion by 2012 – we believe the interest and value associated with Optimum WiFi is only beginning.”
Current Optimum Online customers using laptop computers and portable WiFi-enabled devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch and BlackBerry can access Optimum WiFi through a simple sign-on screen. Once a customer logs into the service by entering their Optimum User ID and password, the network delivers fast symmetrical speeds of up to 1.5 megabits-per-second.
Cablevision currently provides Optimum Online high-speed Internet service to more than 2.4 million customers, more than 51 percent of the homes passed by Cablevision’s fiber optic network, the highest penetration of any Internet service in the nation. Optimum Online customers are already familiar with the benefits of wireless access, with more than half using wireless routers in the home.
Optimum WiFi uses the same standard used in wireless home networks, 802.11, and any device that is certified by the WiFi Alliance as adhering to the 802.11 standards and has a browser will be able to access the Optimum WiFi network. Cablevision has launched a consumer Web site, located at www.optimumwifi.com, to provide customers with additional information on Optimum WiFi, including tutorials and detailed coverage maps, which will be updated as the deployment continues.
Previously activated Optimum WiFi community zones – which are still providing service as the market-wide deployment increases – include Denville, Ridgewood and Tenafly in New Jersey, and Parkchester in the Bronx.
About Cablevision
Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC) is one of the nation’s leading media and entertainment companies. Its cable television operations serve more than 3 million households in the New York metropolitan area. The company’s advanced telecommunications offerings include its iO TV(R) digital television, Optimum Online(R) high-speed Internet, Optimum Voice(R) digital voice-over-cable, and its Optimum Lightpath integrated business communications services. Cablevision operates several successful programming businesses, including AMC, IFC, Sundance Channel and WE tv, through Rainbow Media Holdings LLC, and serves the New York area as publisher of Newsday and other niche publications through Newsday LLC. In addition to these businesses, Cablevision owns Madison Square Garden and its sports teams, the New York Knicks, Rangers and Liberty. The company also operates New York’s famed Radio City Music Hall, the Beacon Theatre, and the Chicago Theatre, and owns and operates Clearview Cinemas. SOURCE Cablevision Systems Corp.
>I do not believe this site is connected at all with Ridgewood Public Schools. Although it has picked up the look of the RPS website it is not hosted through the schools. Beware. Does anyone have some info?
The comprehensive Online Directory is one of the most popular features of the Ridgewood High School Alumni Online Community. Find out what your old friends are up to both personally and professionally. Complete profiles include current professional information such as job title, company name, career category, and business address and phone number. In addition, you’ll find residential address and phone number, academic profiles, names of spouse and children – and of course, email address.
Visit the Ridgewood High School Alumni Online Community Today!
https://www.graduateconnections.com/ridgewood/
>
>WARWICK – Two New Jersey men were killed Sunday afternoon when their motorcycles collided on Long Meadow Road near the entrance to the property owned by King’s College, town police said.
Warwick police Sgt. John Rader said the men — one from Mahwah, one from Ridgewood and both in their early 20s — were pronounced dead at the scene. Their names were withheld pending notification of their families.
Warwick detectives – with the help of the state police’s accident reconstruction team – are still investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred around 4 p.m. Rader said it appeared that one motorcycle was broadsided by the other as it was making a turn.
Anyone who may have witnessed the crash should call Warwick police at 986-3423.
[email protected]
https://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081013/NEWS/81012013
>
Posted by trainsarefun on Sun Oct 12 18:02:58 2008, in response to Re: NJT board to vote, this week, on high platforms for Ridgewood station, posted by RonInBayside on Sun Oct 12 17:25:18 2008.
“Staff also seeks authorization to amend the existing professional services with Stantec (formerly Vollmer Associates) of Newark, New Jersey, for Construction Support services related to the construction contract in the amount of $1,000,000, plus five percent for contingencies, for a total contract authorization of $3,045,000, subject to the availability of funds.”
The math in that sentence doesn’t add up.
Well, it’s an NJT computation, so we all know what that means. 🙂
Construction project managers are usually paid a percentage of the contract value. Is it possible they really meant some percent of $23 million. 10% of 23 million is $2.3 million, plus another five percent contingency, would be $1.15 million extra. But that doesn’t add up either.
More seriously, though, notice that it’s an amendment to an existing contract. Here is an example of another agenda item doing something similar, in terms of accounting, which is also on for this week’s board meeting:
0810-74
ACCESS TO THE REGION’S CORE: ENGINEERING/ARCHITECTURAL CONSULTANT SERVICES: THE PARTNERSHIP – CONTRACT AMENDMENT
In August 2006, NJ TRANSIT initiated preliminary engineering for the Access to the Region’s Core project, also known as THE Tunnel Project. A continuation of these services through Extended Preliminary Engineering is required up to receipt of the Record of Decision (ROD) to ensure the project starts construction in 2009. The ROD is currently anticipated this fall and permission to enter into Final Design by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) will be issued shortly thereafter.
Staff seeks authorization to fund Extended Preliminary Engineering through 2008 and Final Design for 2009 and 2010 by extending contract (No. 06-046) with THE Partnership, a joint venture between Parsons Brinckerhoff, Inc., STV Inc., and DMJM Harris, Inc. of Newark, NJ, for Engineering / Architectural consultant services for the Access to the Region’s Core/THE Tunnel Project at a cost not to exceed $124,000,000, plus five percent for contingency, for a total contract authorization of $214,493,869, subject to the availability of funds. The consultant services for Final Design will be initiated after a Record of Decision and approval to enter Final Design has been obtained from the FTA.
>
One of the first known celebrations marking the discovery of the “New World” by Christopher Columbus was in 1792, when a ceremony organized by the Colombian Order was held in New York City honoring Christopher Columbus and the 300th anniversary of his landing in the Bahamas. Then, on October 12, 1866 the Italian population of New York organized the first celebration of the discovery of America. Three years later, in 1869 Italians in San Francisco celebrated October 12 calling it C-Day.
To mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage, in 1892, President Benjamin Harrison made a commemorative proclamation. But it was Colorado, in 1905, that became the first state to observe a Columbus Day. Since 1920 the day has been celebrated annually, and in 1937 President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed every October 12 as Columbus Day. That’s where it remained until 1971 when Congress declared it a federal public holiday on the second Monday in October.
Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1505)
Columbus, the son of a wool merchant and weaver, was born in Genoa, Italy and went to sea at the age of 14. Following a shipwreck off the coast of Portugal in 1470, he swam ashore and settled in that country.
Between 1477 and 1482 Columbus made merchant voyages as far away as Iceland and Guinea. But in 1484, his “Enterprise of the Indies” idea fell on deaf ears when he presented it to King John of Portugal. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Spain, where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella became more interested in his adventuresome ideas.
To the New World
On August 2, 1492, Columbus set sail in search of the East Indies. The voyage was financed by Ferdinand and Isabella by making the city of Palos pay back a debt to the crown by providing two of the ships, and by getting Italian financial backing for part of the expenses. The crown had to put up very little money from the treasury.
Columbus and 90 crewmen boarded the three ships that were to make the first voyage to the New World, the Niña, Pinta, and the flagship, Santa Maria. On October 12, 1492, Columbus first saw the islands of the new world, landing in the Bahamas. Later in the month, he would sail to Cuba, and to Hispaniola (now Haiti). He thought he had reached the East Indies, the islands off Southeast Asia.
Contrary to popular belief, most educated individuals in the 15th century, and especially sailors, already knew that the earth was round. What was not realized by Columbus, however, was just how big a globe it was. Columbus seriously underestimated the size of the planet.
Seaworthy Cuisine
The menu for Spanish seamen consisted of water, vinegar, wine, olive oil, molasses, cheese, honey, raisins, rice, garlic, almonds, sea biscuits, dry legumes such as chickpeas, lentils, beans, salted and barreled sardines, anchovies, dry salt cod and pickled or salted meats (beef and pork), salted flour.
Food, mostly boiled, was served in a large communal wooden bowl. It consisted of poorly cooked meat with bones in it, the sailors attacking it with fervor, picking it with their fingers as they had no forks or spoons. The larger pieces of meat were cut with the knife each sailor carried. Fish was eaten most often. On calm days, the crew would fish and then cook their catch.
Return to Spain and Additional Voyages
On Christmas Day, 1492, the Santa Maria sank off Hispaniola. Columbus departed for Spain on January 16, 1493 on the Niña, arriving there on March 4.
Columbus made three additional voyages to the New World. The second voyage set sail in September, 1493, with 17 ships. During his expeditions, he helped to colonize Hispaniola, and discovered the South American mainland. He did not, however, see mainland North America during any of his voyages.
He returned to Spain for the last time on November 7, 1504. He died at Valladolid, Spain on May 20, 1506, at the age of 55.
Controversy
Much controversy exists over Columbus’ expeditions and whether or not one can “discover” an already-inhabited land. The natives of the Bahamas and other islands on his journey were peaceful and friendly. Yet many of them were later enslaved by the Spanish. Also, it is known that the Vikings explored the North American coast 500 years before Columbus.
Nevertheless, Columbus’ expedition was unique and important in that it resulted in the first intertwining of Europe with the Americas, resulting in the first permanent European colonies in the New World.
>Since so many in Ridgewood are affected by the current banking crisis…….
by Human Events
10/10/2008
Sen. John McCain’s 2006 demand for regulatory action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could have prevented current financial crisis, as HUMAN EVENTS learned from the letter shown in full text below.
McCain’s letter — signed by nineteen other senators — said that it was “…vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]…operate in a safe and sound manner.[and]..More importantly, Congress must ensure that the American taxpayer is protected in the event that either…should fail.”
Sen. Obama did not sign the letter, nor did any other Democrat.
see the letter
>Obama & Friends: History of Radicalism
‘Hannity’s America’ investigates Barack Obama’s ties to controversial people and radical groups including exclusive information revealed for the first time
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special
Sunday Night @ 9pm on FOX
>I don’t think there is one single answer to the district’s math problems. As many mentioned before, many would prefer saxon math or singapore. I, personally prefer artofproblemsolving, which I have introduced to this blog a while ago, however, many people claimed that our public schools’ goals were not to produce “phd’s in math.” Instead I think our honors classes should use something like artofproblemsolving while regular classes can use the regular curriculum.
Personally, I don’t believe in the notion of being a “math person.” I believe anyone can learn math at the highest level given that they are willing to spend time(by this I mean a hour a day) practicing. I think if the kids are willing and motivated, it is a crime to hold them back from acheiving top notch (and I know our schools are not here to produce “phd’s in math”)results no matter what school they go to. Go on artofproblemsolving’s resource page and have your child spend an our a day on the usa amc 10/12(the easier contests) and you will be surprised at the improvement after a few weeks (you can check back at my posts from a few weeks ago if you don’t remember the url).
After all, if math talent was innate, why would we have practice problems on the internet. I also don’t understand how parents complain about their child not being good at math but reject a curriculum that would train their child to the level of those math majors at schools like MIT. Also as you can see https://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Focus_article.pdf artofproblemsolving
is supported by the mathematical association of america as well so it is not one of those curriculums that mathematicians speak out against.
