Legendary editor Harold Evans bemoans good old days

The discussion group's attention was directed to the following interview:

"At 81, the former Sunday Times editor recalls to John Barber the era
before Rupert Murdoch, when owners were heroes and editors lived by
the truism that ‘news is whatever someone wants to suppress.
Everything else is advertising' "
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/journalisms-high-priest-looks-back-with-wonder/article1398202/

I responded in the guise of a translator (even further removed from changing the world than a reporter!):

So much for bourgeois democratic rights these days.

There's no longer any tension between repressive government and the freedoms of expression, publishing, and assembly. Repressive government uses these freedoms as toilet paper, and they're soft and absorbent, and full of shit. The second anyone makes or tries to make real use of these freedoms, they're threatened, persecuted, thrown into jail or killed.

In this interview Evans is fatalistic about the situation today. He's witnessing (and conscious of) the erosion of all these freedoms, and sits there drowsing.

At least In The Thick Of It (aka In The Loop?) isn't drowsy.

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

And reporters have basically been reporting the world, even in their most "heroic" days, when they've not just been lying through their teeth or twisting the truth. Precious little interpretation at all. And change? Who needs change when we're living in the Best of All Possible Worlds?

Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat. WHUMP. "Love the smell of gasoline in the morning..."

Pan Gloss
pp Cunny Gonde Traditorial Agency, Ink.

Sweden falls behind in maths and physics [in Swedish]

This is my response to the following article in Swedish about the deteriorating performance of Swedish school students in the international TIMMS survey.

http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/svenska-elever-samre-pa-matte-1.1010663

What do you expect?? Skolorna är utsvultna när det gäller budget, klasstorlek, ungarnas framtidsstro, lärarmotivation, ledningars pedagogiska insikt, osv. Utbildningspolitiker fattar noll o tror att man kan lyfta sig i håret. Att man genom att satsa på ett socialt urval som utnämnas till elit kan uppnå bättre resultat än genom att satsa helhjärtat på att höja genomsnittet. Att vi i en otrygg, orättvis, fördummande och våldsam kultur kan vänta oss att elever ska uppträda som små ljus i klassrummet. Att lärare kan entusiasmera eleverna när klassrumet är stökigt o lärarna själva går på knä. Vi får göra som USA (som alltid) och importera studenter och familjer från Asien för att höja vår statistik. D v s tills alla kvalicerade jobb i landet försvunnit dit o vi nöjer oss med att vara billig arbetskraft som utför legotillverkning.

[Schools are starved when it comes to budgets, class sizes, the kids' faith in the future, teacher motivation, the educational insight of school managements, etc. Education politicians understand nothing and think that we can lift ourselves by our bootstraps. That promoting a selected social group and calling it an elite will achieve better results than putting a real effort into raising the average. That we can expect pupils to behave like angels in the classroom in an insecure, unjust, stupefying and violent culture. That teachers will be able to inspire pupils when classrooms are tense and disturbed and the teachers themselves are worn down. We'll have to imitate the US (as always) and import students and families from Asia to improve our statistics. That is, until all the advanced jobs in the country have been exported there and we make do with providing cheap labour power doing assembly on demand.]