Springtime of Nations: Abkhazia & South Ossetia Won’t Compete in Sochi Olympics, I.O.C. Declares

Springtime of Nations: Abkhazia & South Ossetia Won’t Compete in Sochi Olympics, I.O.C. Declares

Norooz Mubarak - Welcome 1389

Norooz means "New Day". It is the day that starts the year, traditionally the exact astronomical beginning of the Spring.
This exact second is called "Saal Tahvil". With its' uniquely Iranian characteristics this holiday has been celebrated for at least 3,000 years.
you start house cleaning (Khaane Tekaani), and buy new clothes. But a major part of New Year rituals is setting the "Haft Seen" with seven specific items.
In ancient times each of the items corresponded to one of the seven creations and the seven holy immortals protecting them. Today they are changed and modified but some have kept their symbolism. All the seven items start with the letter "S"; this was not the order in ancient times. These seven things usually are: Seeb (apple), Sabze (green grass), Serke (vinager), Samanoo (a meal made out of wheat), Senjed (a special kind of berry), Sekke (coin), and Seer (garlic). Sometimes instead of Serke they put Somagh (sumak, an Iranian spice).

Wheat or lentil representing new growth is grown in a flat dish a few days before the New Year and is called Sabzeh (green shoots). Decorated with colorful ribbons, it is kept until Sizdah beh dar, the 13th day of the New Year, and then disposed outdoors. A few live gold fish are placed in a fish bowl. In the old days they would be returned to the riverbanks, but today most people will keep them. Mirrors are placed on the spread with lit candles as a symbol of fire.
After the Saal Tahvil, people hug and kiss and wish each other a happy new year. Then they give presents (traditionally cash, coins or gold coins), usually older to the younger. this could be where the Christmas presents idea started. It is much older

The first few days are spent visiting older members of the family, relatives and friends. Children receive presents and sweets, special meals and "Aajil" (a combination of different nuts with raisins and other sweet stuff) or fruits are consumed. Traditionally on the night before the New Year, most Iranians will have Sabzi Polo Mahi, a special dish of rice cooked with fresh herbs and served with smoked and freshly fried fish. Koukou Sabzi, a mixture of fresh herbs with eggs fried or baked, is also served. The next day rice and noodles (Reshteh Polo) is served. Regional variations exist and very colorful feasts are prepared.

SIZDEH BEDAR

The 13th day of the new year is called "Sizdah Bedar" and spent mostly outdoors. People will leave their homes to go to the parks or local plains for a festive picnic. It is a must to spend Sizdah Bedar in nature. This is called Sizdah Bedar and is the most popular day of the holidays among children because they get to play a lot! Also in this day, people throw the Sabze away, they believe Sabze should not stay in the house after "Sizdah Bedar". Iranians regard 13th day as a bad omen and believe that by going into the fields and parks they avoid misfortunes. It is also believed that unwed girls can wish for a husband by going into the fields and tying a knot between green shoots, symbolizing a marital bond.

also the pranks played on the 13th day are where April fools day got its beginning. 13 has a long tradition as an unlucky number.

If you are unlucky at love do not forget to knot grass for luck in romance and good fortune in finding a mate

CHAHARSHANBEH SOORI

Another tradition of the new year celebrations is "Chahar-Shanbeh Soori". It takes place before Saal Tahvil, at the last Wednesday of the old year, well actually Tuesday night! The tradition is to leap the fire, sing songs and make merry.

Sorkhi-e to az man Zardi-e man az to

symobilically you are entering the light and leaving the darkness.

In modern times though while there is still jumping the fires there will be parties rather than purification rites

http://www.sundriesshack.com/2008/08/16/judge-finds-for-english-only-school-but-thats-not-necessarily-a-good-thing/

I think this story of a school in Kansas being able to institute and “English-Only” rule is both good and bad. It’s good because private groups (the school was a Catholic school) ought to be able to institute whatever rules they deem necessary. The market and public opinion will decide whether they prosper or fail and the courts didn’t have much say in the matter, and the judge properly ruled.

On the other hand, if the bits the reporter mentions about the school are true, then the school really did overreach with its rules and we conservatives are on the wrong side of things by backing the school’s “English-Only” policy. Here’s a good example.

School officials said Adam, who now attends a public school, had been asked to leave St. Anne after he tried to sit with other Spanish-speaking students at lunch.

Administrators said that defied a rule that required the Hispanic children to sit with white children at lunch, a rule Marten said was only applied to one ethnic group.

“The Caucasian students were not told to go eat lunch with the Hispanic students or participate in their soccer games,” he said. “It was all directed at the Hispanic students.”

It’s a really bad idea to force groups into social situations because it creates an automatic resentment that most times isn’t focused at the people doing the forcing but the people with whom you’re forced to socialize. What was likely to happen is exactly what happened - hard feelings, misunderstandings, and a lawsuit.

I’m not quite seeing it as the defeat for the open borders crew as Michelle Malkin does. It’s not as if the suing parents wanted Spanish-only classes or wanted the policy of Reconquista taught in the school. They thought that the rule that students must only speak English, even among themselves in non-classroom settings as unfairly targeting their children. I think they were right. They were also right to believe that the rule that their kids couldn’t sit in a group unfairly targeted them, too. And from what I’ve read here, the school focused on the students with the Hispanic backgrounds and not on the rest of the student body. That’s a different story from what groups like La Raza are trying to do.

It would be good for conservatives to draw a clean line between cases like this, where it looks like the school administration did go much farther than necessary and did unfairly target the Spanish-speaking students, and true “open borders” cases. Perhaps by backing a few legitimate complaints from our fellow Americans (and I didn’t see any indication that these students or there parents were here illegally) we can demonstrate that what we really find objectionable is not the mere presence of the Spanish language but the insistence that Spanish-speakers be specifically catered to. If we were smart, the phrase “seperate, but equal” would show up a time or three.

The Forgotten War - Sa'ana, Yeman

If you've paid any attention to Yemen, they've had a lot of problems

over the last few years. And not all of it is al-Qaeda. There's been a

tribal uprising in the north, and now Qatar is trying to mediate

between the government and the Shi'ite rebels. So it's also a

religious problem. I believe the current government is Sunni.

These rebels are Shi'ite - but they're not the same type of Shi'ite

as Iran. Iran is 12er Shi'ite (they believe in 12 Imams) and the

ones in Yemen are Zaidis, which is 5er Shi'ism. Qatar is Sunni

and Shi'ite, but I believe they are 12ers.


Saada War, Yemen — April 10, 2007

Civilians trapped in Dhahyan as it is bombed and attacked by tanks.

Diseases spreading, unburied bodies one cause.

Hospitals overcrowded with military and volunteers.

Locals plead for food and medicine.

Political arrests continue, including minors.

SA'ADA, April 8 – Tribal sources told the Yemen Times that

confrontations between the Yemeni army and Houthi loyalists

are still aflame in numerous areas of Sa'ada, particularly in

Dhahian city, as well as in Magz, Sahar, Saqeen, Haydan,

Kittaf, Baqem and Al-Safra districts. And, for the first time,

the confrontations have extended to Ghamar, a district bordering

Saudi territory.

The most significant fact of the Sa'ada war is, was and remains the

regime's collective punishment of the civilian population, including

random bombardment, arbitrary arrests and the withholding of food,

medicine and international aid. The withholding of food and

medicine to 700,000 civilians in Sa'ada is a practice the regime

sometimes openly defends, othertimes obscures as required by

"security concerns". Yemen's donors have made statements

about the humanitarian disaster in Sa'ada, calling for a resolution

that allows aid to the region, however aid organizations are still

stymied.

The EU called on the Yemeni government to do "all it can

to ensure that innocent civilians are not caught up in the

conflict"….Based on the assessment of needs and access

to victims, the EU remains ready to consider urgent

humanitarian assistance to victims, including the

worrying number of internally displaced people.

the Houthis are 5′ers not 12′ers like Iranian Shia and

the civilians have recieved very little attention

internationally, which is partially due to the media black-out.

As Global Security notes, Zaidis are "moderate" in that

"The Zaidis do not believe in the infallibility of the Imams,

nor that they receive divine guidance. Zaidis…believe it can be

held by any descendant of Ali. They also reject the Twelver

notion of a hidden Imam, and like the Ismailis believe in a

living imam, or even imams. In matters of law or fiqh, the

Zaidis are actually closest to the Sunni Shafie school."

It is my impression, and Im sure someone will correct me

if Im wrong, for which I am quite appreciative, that within

the moderate Zaidi school, the Jarudis are the most

inclined to require a Hashimi leader, within the broader

acceptability of a "just" leader.

Khordad Sal

The birth anniversary of Prophet Spitaman Zarathushtra (Zoroaster), who founded Zoroastrianism, is celebrated ...

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Why Class Size Reduction is A Bad Idea

"NOT IS IT IN THE NEWS, BUT WHY IT IS IN THE NEWS"

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Remember when the professional educators gave us New Math? We lost a generation of children, they hated math and even with calculators they had a hard time. Then it was the sensitivity training of the students. They were good kids, but couldn't read. Billions have been wasted on social experimentation, not education. First it was forced busing, which further segregated our schools. Now instead of being educators, they want to be the primary care physician for the students, and the main source of referrals to abortion clinics. They want to do anything, but educate. The teachers and principals want to educate, but they are not allowed to spend full time on that job.

Note that the authors of this article from Pacific Research Institute expose the joke called the CBEST Test. Even at that, thousands of LAUSD teachers failed the test!

It is the quality of the teaching, not who sits next to who, or how many children in a classroom that makes a difference. LAUSD can't account for one billion dollars--that money should be used for better training of teachers. But, class size reduction is as much a union demand, as it is an educational need. The more classrooms, the more teachers, the more money unions have to play politics with the classroom.

Forward this article to your friends. Do you agree with my good friend Lance Izumi? What do you think of government expenditures for education in general or class size? What giving parents the choice of education venues be a better expenditure of funds? Write your thoughts directly on the web site at http://www.capoliticalnews.com/discuss.php?id=767

Steve Frank


Why More Class-Size Reduction is a Bad Idea

by Lance T. Izumi and Rachel L. Chaney

Link

SACRAMENTO � There's no more popular education program among politicians and teachers than reducing class sizes in kindergarten through third grade. No other program, however, has spent more tax dollars for less result. Now lawmakers are pushing a bill that would fund class-size reduction (CSR) for additional grades.

SB 1133 would spend nearly $3 billion over seven years to decrease class size in fourth through eighth grade down to 25 students. California's current CSR law has spent around $16 billion over the last 10 years reducing class size to 20 students per K-3 classroom. The ultimate goal of the program, says the state Department of Education, is to "increase student achievement, particularly in reading and mathematics." Under this criterion, CSR comes up short.

A state-sponsored consortium of top research organizations analyzed the program and found no association between the total number of years a student had been in reduced size classes and differences in academic achievement. Further, there's no evidence that CSR helps at upper grade levels. Stanford education professor Michael Kirst says that research has focused on elementary grades, not middle-school levels, as SB 1133 would do. Also, that research has examined reducing class sizes to 20 students or fewer, not to 25 students as the bill would require. Says Kirst, "This is really a dark continent in terms of any research."

In spite of this lack of evidence, some top state education officials believe that SB 1133's minor provisions aimed at improving teacher quality in low-performing schools make the bill worthwhile. Unfortunately, teacher-quality problems in California plunge to a much deeper level. Consider the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) given to prospective teachers in California.

The CBEST was designed, "to test basic reading, mathematics, and writing skills found to be important for the job of an educator," according to the official CBEST website. While teachers should be proficient in these areas, the CBEST sets such low standards that it proves nothing.

One Bay Area teacher who took the test in 2003 described the experience as "a joke" and said: "Compared with other standardized tests like the SAT and GRE, the CBEST is laughable. The math section tests maybe for a fourth-grade skill level, and the verbal sections are hardly better."

As an example, one question from the math section of the online practice test asks: "Which of the following is the most appropriate unit for expressing the weight of a pencil?" Possible multiple-choice answers are: pounds, ounces, quarts, pints, and tons.

Easy test questions are only part of the problem. Low passing standards mean that teachers do not even have to master simple questions like the one above. Scaled scores range from 20 to 80 points for each section, and a paltry score of 41 or higher is considered passing.

Further, the test can be taken repeatedly until a passing score is achieved, and test takers can take one, two, or three sections at any given test administration. Since each session is four hours long, potential teachers have twelve hours to complete the test. And then, of course, if they still fail, they can always take it again. And again. And again.

Good teachers are an essential element of good education. With a smart and effective teacher, students will learn regardless of class size. With an ignorant or incompetent teacher, students won't learn even if there are only five in a classroom. Teachers can't teach what they themselves don't know.

Rather than class-size reduction, Californians should focus on how we educate and produce our teachers. There are plenty of careers available to people who want to weigh pencils in tons or quarts. Teaching should not be one of them.

--30--

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Steve Frank
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(Steve Frank is publisher of the California Political News and Views. He is also a consultant currently working on gambling issues and advising other consultants on policy and coalition building)
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The Foley mess: deal with it

the mess and nothing but the mess.
We have seen this befor only the republicans resign - interesting a must read and see drudge stories too,.
FLASHBACK: 1983 Congressional page sex scandal...

FLASHBACK: Clinton Pardoned Congressman Convicted of Sex with Underaged Campaign Volunteer...

FLASHBACK: Gerry Studds(D) Rep. Mass. did the deed with a page while in office and was backed by his party and reelected until he finally retired in 1996. How convenient the Dems forgot about both him and Barney "the Pimp" Franks when the go after Mark Foley for his x-rated e-mails. While disgusting, and probably felonious they don't rise to anywhere the level of the violations made by those two creeps who both were nevertheless kept as icons of the Damnacrat party despite their paedophilia.

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The saviors of Air America

Poised to announce their takeover imminently, the Drobnys are said to be acquiring the long- suffering operation for mere pennies on the dollar, the Radio Equalizer has learned.
Other buyout efforts by parties close to the network were said to have failed because of difficulties in putting together the necessary funds.

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