Controlled Chaos

Craig’s posters

I don’t think I could ever enter a religion in what most members of any particular religion would consider a full sense. The pluralist in me suggests that they all have qualities worth adopting into one’s character and leading others toward. In Hinduism, the ritual of prayer, the overt redistribution of food and wealth from those who have to those who don’t, the colors, the pantheon. In Buddhism, the buddha field and goal of self-sacrifice in an effort to awaken others, the disinterest in reward, the invitation to break rules to understand them. In Islam, the social cohesion born out of friday prayer, qurban, and haj that engenders community, the absorption of science and health in daily belief and practice, the middle path. As a former Christian/Catholic, I must admit that it is hard to say what I’ve gained, perhaps because it is more central to what I consider my neutral self to be. God, to me, is truth, and we realize it of our own accord. Humanity is a plane, and those who are evil can go very high by pushing others around them down. But the vast majority of people, regardless of religion, which to raise the plane. The battle for God is the many weak but well-intentioned people the few who seek power. God is a passive observer who created all of this, and now waits to see whether we will destroy ourselves. True reverence to God, to me, is dedicating oneself to one’s fellow human beings. If God is incarnate, he lives in humanity.

Rubrics are an interesting attempt to make quantitative that which is qualitative.  I am not necessarily opposed.  But Mr. is using them deceptively.  He is using them to mark progress.  If you leave no room for failure, you leave no room for improvement, because you leave no room for experimentation.  You suggest that there is one sure-fire way to teach.  A rubric isn’t dynamic enough to measure teaching styles.  To use a rubric effectively, you have to discuss and create it as a group, use it as a group, and then debrief and discuss it as a group.  You can’t use it like a ruler.

So much that he has the chef of StL restaurant Pi fly 860 miles to cook for him.  And the cook’s glad to do it, and pay his way, just for the publicity – he just opened a second restaurant in StL and is still going strong.  And it’s not just because of Obama publicity.  Pi pizza is pretty much perfect.

KMOX – St. Louis restaurant to make pizza for the Obamas.