A couple of things on the same day seem too much of a coincidence to let go by. The first was seeing “Flags of our Fathers” thanks to Netflix. The second was a Discover program, “Before the Dinosaurs”, about the animals on earth just before the dinosaurs appeared.

Reality bites. If “Flags of our Fathers” and “Saving Private Ryan” have any message it is that war truly is hell. The cost to humanity in pain and lives and treasure is so horrible. It does separate the men from the boys, however. The soldier from the politician. One other aspect of World War II is the spectacular leaps in so many fields that came from it. Computers, plastics, transportation, medicine, diplomacy, theoretical physics, politics to name just a few. It is fifty years later and we are still refining those basic discoveries. Necessity is the mother of invention. Darwinian Evolution is going to work its best when things are the most challenging. When the going gets tough....

Of course, the time when reality really bites is when Mother Nature comes down on us in full force. The Permian-Triassic Exctinction, the Great Dying, about 251 million years ago, in which 9/10 of the species on earth disappeared. “90-96% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates became extinct.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesozoic) What brought the jump to dinosaurs was a continent almost all desert. And it was the only continent on earth, the supercontinent Pangaea. The predinosaur reptiles did not make the cut and something bigger and better crashed through.

At the time of one of the great ice ages, one science show speculated that we evolved our ability to speak in an effort to survive the disaster. In another, because of the drought accompanying the ice age, homo sapiens was down to about a thousand individuals, on the edge of extinction. The toughest are our ancestors. Around 1800, a mini ice age hit agriculture hard. And we got the French Revolution and Napoleon.

It makes one think. What will come next? A disaster of our own making? A disaster of Mother Nature's making? There most certainly will be one or the other. I only hope it is after my lifetime and my grandchildren's lifetime. When it comes, what will the survivors have to show for all of the pain and suffering? And the big question, will we make the cut? Will we get what we deserve? Reality bites.

On Good Morning America this morning there was an interview with Melinda Gates. She was talking about being very concerned over the education system in the United States. As a retired science teacher and now-a-days an online tutor, it prompted a few thoughts.

Wictionary says education is “The process of imparting knowledge, skill and judgement.”(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/education). That is a good definition. Wikipedia: “Education is the organized teaching and training of students.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education). Not very helpful. Farther down the article it says: “Schooling occurs when a society or group or an individual sets up a curriculum to educate people, usually the young.” Better. I remember one of my education courses (Lynchburg College, MEd, 1976, VA) saying that education is the passing on of a culture to new generations, enculturation. A good definition, thought provoking. I would like to add one of my own: education is the passing on of culture and knowledge and skills so that each generation can do what they do best, be better than the ones before.

Of course, Mrs. Gates is correct. We should be concerned with the state of education in the United States. And in the world. The fate of the United States and the world is at stake. And even if we were doing a great job at it, we could and should do better.

There is also the “glass is half full” view. Literacy, one of the critical basic skills, is up. High school graduation rates are up. College enrollment is up. Job requirements and skills are more demanding and are being met. I tutor online in chemistry and physics. Some of the questions I get from students are brain strainers even though I have an MS in chemistry (Western Reserve, 1967, NSF). I retired from teaching in good private schools (VES, Trinity, HHP) over five years ago and I can see real progress, from 9th grade through AP.

Are the SOL's the reason? Could be. I used to be very critical about “teaching to the test”. Taught in an IB school in France for a few months. All we did was solve example problems to prepare for the IB exam. They never did learn the basic concepts. We were doing some acid-base problems, fairly difficult ones, but they did not know what acids and bases are, how you could identify one if it was on your lunch plate. And the teacher virtually read from a script. I took some minutes from the problems to explain the basic acid-base concepts and a couple of the students told me they learned more from those minutes than from the rest of the class period.

On the other hand, making students and teachers accountable can not help but be a good thing. Giving teachers and students better technology can not help but be a good thing. I know the arguments and they are valid. There are difficulties and misapplications. The learning curve will have some squiggles. In general, however, it keeps going up.

There is a TIAA-CREF ad which shows a professor standing in front of a large lecture class. I liked it because it, and my online tutoring, remind me that teachers really do enjoy educating. Education, private or public, is pretty much one of those undertakings where the main goal is not making a profit. If you want to become rich, education is not the place to be. I remember a story about a doctor appearing in front of St. Pete. He outlines all the lives he saved. St. Pete asks him how much money he made. After the doctor's spectacular response, St. Pete tells him he already had his rewards and puts him on the elevator down. Next in line is a teacher, confident after hearing the doctor's verdict. The teacher oultines all his student's achievements. St. Pete asks him if his students appreciated his efforts. The teacher glowed and said they certainly did, and that he enjoyed his contributions. St. Pete says he has already had his rewards and puts him on the down elevator.

As long as teachers do their best because they feel they are helping their students and the culture they are passing on, things are bound to get better. God is in his Heaven, evolution is alive and well. The next generation will be better. The glass is better than half full.

The April issue of Scientific American has an editorial on the GINA, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. The Senate act, S1053, is available at http://rpc.senate.gov/_files/L41HEALTHLABORdmkh100203.pdf. The House bill, HR 493, http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:h493ih.txt.pdf. The government's track of both the House and Senate bill's progress is at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-306. The history of the bill by the Coalition for Genetic Fairness is at http://www.geneticfairness.org/act.html. The Coalition's statement on why the bill is necessary is at that site, also.

In a nutshell, the act would prevent prejudicial treatment based on genetic information. Particularly, insurance companies would supposedly not be able to refuse coverage or change premiums because of your genes.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), passed 98 to 0. The House bill was introduced in 1995 by Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and 2005 by Representative Judy Biggert (R-IL). It did not pass either time.

The news, such as what I read in Scientific American ( breast cancer - http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=china-experts-identify-ca, colon cancer - http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=researchers-link-gene-mut, infertility- http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=gene-mutation-associated, ALS – http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=stem-cell-study-zeroes-in, to mention just a few.) show that modern science is finding numerous ways to use genetic data to warn of a predispostion toward health problems. Each person's having access to his genetic data could have tremendous benefits. The cost of this decreases dramatically and it is conceivable that it could be practically available very soon.

The first question is whether we need to protect this information. And the obvious response, you know we do. Should your medical and life insurance company have access to it, and they will, coverage for a large percentage of us will disappear. And not because we have diabetes, for example, but because we might get it. Or because I might become an alcoholic despite being an actual teetoler or obese despite being a marathon runner.

And now, why not pass the bill? We would like to believe that bills pass through Congress because they would help us somehow. Sure, and I have this bridge in Brooklyn. In this situation, it sort of seems like a battle between the insurance lobby and the pharmaceutical lobby. I would think that the pharmaceutical industry would find a way make a lot of money from widespread genentic testing. And insurance will, of course, fight it tooth and nail. Did the pharmaceuticals win in the Senate and insurance in the House?

Why can't we get Congress to do what is best for us? Aren't they there to represent us?

I was not going to compose an entry for today. But an issue piqued my ire. And when your ire gets piqued, you need to do things. A gun control advocate actually said that if there were more guns on campus, the Tech shooter would have been stopped! The professor who had survived the Holocaust and blocked the door so his students could get out should have been packing heat so he could take out the shooter.

I can see it now. On campusses (sp?, campi?) all over the country, students and faculty get issued a computer and a Glock. Mac or PC ? Revolver or automatic? 9mm or 45 ? And each student gets permission to carry a concealed weapon. In your bookbag? Purse? Tied down on your hip (I like that best, myself)? And to use it, you need to clear leather fast. We can have target practice and quick-draw as required courses.

There are folks in this world whose brain power – lack of it, that is – astonish me. The Holocaust did not happen. There is no God. The Earth is flat. Evolution did not happen. Firearms do not need more stringent control. Duh!

But, that is not the worst of it. The power of lobbyists to manipulate our government and us! The gun control lobby ranks right up there (should be down there) with the pharmaceutical lobby. See my 2 April, 2007 entry.

Of course, the Tech shooter should not have been permitted to buy those guns. The policies in Virginia are deplorable. There are a number of breakdowns that led to this tragedy, the most obvious being in communication policies. Between the mental health services and the school administration and public safety. And between them and the gun control listings. A bureaucracy failure cused the death of over thirty people.

I was a decent pistol marksman in younger Navy days, made national ranking. When the children started appearing in our family, those guns quickly were disposed of. And I am glad I did that. It was the right thing to do.

The news is full of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Today, the package sent to NBC was made public. Some thoughts.

Of course, the news media have a responsibility to report this in as much detail as possible. And to seek answers as to who is at fault or what could have been done better. In the scramble for attention grabbing and viewership augmentation, however, they tend to go too far. In particular, finding someone to blame and publishing the pictures of the shooter.

The shooter's goal was to make himself the center of attention. He had it all planned and carried it out beautifully. With the help of the news media. Both the police chief and a mental health type took the news to task for making so much of those pictures the shooter took of himself. Will there be copycats spring up? The mental health man told how some of his patients will watch “Natural Born Killers” for yours. Now they have something else to watch. Or even emulate. Those pictures should have been mentioned but not spread over the news for hours.

The administration at Tech did what they should have done. Of course, the events did happen and they should have been prevented. In retrospect, it is easy to judge. But, if an incident of domestic violence happened in my neighborhood, I would not expect the police to lockdown the whole town. I think they, the University and the police, acted properly and promptly.

The psychiatric community, if anybody, should be taken to task for not identifying the dangers and preventing the outbreak of violence. Mental illness in this country takes too much of a back seat in both our understanding and funding. And, it seems as if the shooter did not give any clues about his designs. He should have been monitored better, certainly. In all reality, they should have done better but they were far from negligent.

And now starts all of the lawsuits. Someone will have to make money from all of the grief and hardship. There are always the hyenas.