respublica

Happy Birthday Emporia State University

From the US senate:

S. Res. 33 – Emporia State University 150th Anniversary

My day trip through the Emporia State campus back in 2006

 

The State of our Union is...Dumber

The Guardian UK tracked the reading level of every State of the Union address and compiled the reading level of the speech for each president who gave one. You can take the graph and information as the reading level of the president or the reading level of his audience. In any case, the farther back you go, the better our the reading level of our citizens and president. 

Not surprising, but very interesting information. Each president has a bit of State of the Union trivia next to his name. If you like history, maps and graphs, you'll enjoy this. You'll probably enjoy it more than tonight's actual State of the Union address. Unless you're going to watch Westminster's dog show! :) 

Thanks Rand!

Comfort Dogs back in Newtown

The LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs were in Newtown Connecticut shortly after the tragic shootings at the Sandy Hook School. They must have done their job well because they were asked to return for yeterday's first day back in school. Here's a photo of the dogs getting recess time.

I couldn't love these dogs more.

Illinois students leaving for Mizzou in droves

Students from Illinois make up 21 percent of the freshman class at the University of Missouri! Part of this is due to strong recruiting by Mizzou, but that can't be the only reason since one fourth of Illinois college students have left the state. That one fourth is 30,000 students who went out of state.

MIZ  ZOU

RAH

I can just imagine what the Braggin' Rights game must be like these days for all those Illinois students.

Things I find hard to believe

This story has me putting on my skeptical glasses. "New educational standards now approved in 46 out of 50 states mandate that nonfiction books constitute at least 70 per cent of the texts high-school students read."

Suggested readings include: Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” “FedViews,” by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2009) and “Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management,” published by the General Services Administration.

Supposedly there has been too much easy reading in junior high and high school and student are now unable to digest complex nonfiction, including studies, reports and primary documents. Now English teachers will  have to decide what fiction books to skip in favor of government reports?

Call me cynical.

Oh and, Gangnam Style will eventually go out of style. Hopefully

Call it math...maybe

A study out of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found "Our Brain Can Do Unconscious Mathematics"

Supposedly. Count me as one who cannot.

Can women do pull-ups?

A story in the NY Times discusses a study by exercise researchers at the University of Dayton which attempted to determine if indeed women cannot do pull-ups. Pull-ups, if you remember PE class,  are where you place your hands on a raised bar using an overhand grip, arms fully extended and feet off the floor. Then using the muscles in your arms and back you attempt to pull yourself up to the bar until the chin passes over it.

The researchers found 17 women who could not do a pull-up, put them through a 3 month series of exercises to strengthen the biceps and large back muscle. They lifted weights and did modified pull-ups on an incline. They did aerobic training and worked on the abdominal muscles.

Then they asked them to do a pull-up again. Only 4 of the 17 could do even one.

In the end, the conclusion was people who can do pull-ups tend to be shorter and have low body fat. Women supposedly never get their best body fat ratio under ten. Taller people, men and women have the most trouble doing a pull-up due to the longer arms. Which makes the headline to the story misleading since it's not just women who have trouble.

The purpose of the study was to determine how meaningful pull-ups really are in fitness tests. 

Man! I remember those fitness tests. Chin-ups are done similarly to pull-ups but with the hands turned toward the body and are much easier. We had to do both in high school for the President's Physical Fitness Test. As I recall 40 chin-ups put you in the top percentile. So they're still doing some form of them? I'd love to know what the normal results are for each exercise. We had to do pull-ups, chin-ups, sit ups, the 600 yard dash, shuttle run, some kind of throw, maybe a jump.

Election countdown for kids

St.Louis' Magic House has an online presidential quiz with 2 questions each day for kids. This is a good test for adults as well, with questions about presidential elections and other presidential trivia going back to Washington. If you ever worried about being stopped on the street and asked American history questions by Jay Leno or someone from another comedy channel, this would be a good page to shore up your knowledge.

The daily test began last Wednesday so at this moment there are only 5 quizes. It goes to day 20.

PE class in Fall

Wydown Middle School students have PE on the Concordia Seminary athletic field under the increasingly colorful canopy of October trees.

 

Ugly college architecture

The least attractive college campuses in America. I'd add, put together in an annoying way by this website. Too many ads, too much wasted space before they show each campus. But interesting in its way.