Journey To The Center Of

JTTCO #5 - Journey To The Center Of...Eminent Domain

journeytothecenterof@gmail.com — Mon, 5 Dec 2005 13:27:00 GMT

Journey To The Center Of... Eminent Domain
Shownotes
Segment I

PODSAFE MUSIC: Cold cloth and an ice pack, by Derek K. Miller, penmachine podcast

When the gun-toting "park on my driveway by mistake and you'll take 2 to the chest" militia members of the right join forces with the "let's share all things as public property - except the stuff thats mine" Commies of the left, you are on a Journey To The Center Of... Eminent Domain

While Brant was enjoying freedom of religion by attending church, Steve was exercising his 2nd amendment rights by going shooting. Steve retells his near death experience on the shooting range.
L.A. Times story on Echo Park and the homes being destroyed by eminent domain
Steve and Brant agree that this is a case of government stepping on poor people
Eminent domain gives extraordinary powers to the politically connected and the rich
For the next segment Brant asks, is eminent domain even necessary?

PODSAFE MUSIC: We Knew Trance Mix - Big Joey Little Joey, by Trap Door

Segment II

PODSAFE MUSIC: What is Truth?, by Cybster DJ

Brant's extreme position as conversational device - eminent domain exists as a hold over from when we thought everything belongs to the king. Does it have a viable role in a liberal democratic society?
Steve makes the case that eminent domain has historically had some positive improvements - such as the railroad and the freeway system - though it can be argued that it was not an unmitigated good
Some scary cases regarding eminent domain - Scenic Park, Kelo

PODSAFE MUSIC: From the Moon, by Radoon

Segment III

PODSAFE MUSIC: Complacent Pretending, by Cheryl B. Engelhardt

The "BS clause" fencing in of eminent domain

Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's - no bulldozing homes for tax revenue
Prefer land that is not residential
Small, responsive government

CLOSING DIATRIBES

This is a new feature for us, let us know if you like it. We'll close each show with an unmoderated, free rant - the one place in our show where we can let the vitriol flow (though still not at each other).

Brant is mad about the republicans selling out CA and the fact that CA voters completely missed this in voting down prop 77
Steve has a rant on China on the 710

PODSAFE MUSIC: Cold cloth and an ice pack, by Derek K. Miller, penmachine podcast

Fin

Music played in this show is entirely available from the The Podsafe Music Network.

Show Promo

journeytothecenterof@gmail.com — Mon, 5 Dec 2005 08:23:00 GMT

We've been working on cutting a good promo that reflects what we do on the show well. We're glad to be able to share with you our new promo. If anyone out there has a podcast and would like to trade promos, feel free to email us and we'll spin yours.

JTTCO #4 - Journey To The Center Of...the 2005 special elections

journeytothecenterof@gmail.com — Thu, 1 Dec 2005 06:35:00 GMT

Journey To The Center Of... the 2005 special elections
Shownotes
Segment I - Prop scorecard - No means no.

PODSAFE MUSIC: Cold cloth and an ice pack, by Derek K. Miller, penmachine podcast

When the "this isn't a referendum!" partisan operatives of the right meet the national leadership vacuum of the left, you are on a Journey To The Center Of... the 2005 special elections

Proposition 73 - Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor's Pregnancy. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Steve says No
Brant says Yes
CA voters said No

Proposition 74 - Public School Teachers. Waiting Period for Permanent Status. Dismissal

Steve says No
Brant says Yes
CA voters said No

Proposition 75 - Public Employee Union Dues. Restrictions on Political Contributions. Employee Consent Requirement.

Steve says No
Brant says Yes
CA voters said No

Proposition 76 - State Spending and School Funding Limits. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Steve says No, but is very conflicted. Ultimately it gets a No for the powers it gives to the governor
Brant says Yes
CA voters said No

Proposition 77 - Redistricting.

Steve says Yes
Brant says Yes
CA voters said No

Proposition 78 - Discounts on Prescription Drugs

Steve says No
Brant says No
CA voters said No

Proposition 79 - Prescription Drug Discounts. State negotiated rebates.

Steve says No
Brant says No
CA voters said No

Proposition 80 - Electricity Regulation.

Steve says... I don't know. He skipped this one because he wasn't sure which way to go.
Brant says No
CA voters said No

PODSAFE MUSIC: Sly Bone, by Larry Seyer

Segment II - There is no segment 2!

Our apologies, but this podcast was never actually finished. We wanted to wrap it up, but work and Thanksgiving and other things conspired against us to thwart our efforts. Even though this one is a bit stale, as we thought about all the work that went into it, we didn't want it to go to waste and so we wanted to share it with you.

Brant explains this and promises that we will have a new show coming soon - so stay subscribed and stay tuned!

PODSAFE MUSIC: Cold cloth and an ice pack, by Derek K. Miller, penmachine podcast

Fin

Music played in this show is entirely available from the The Podsafe Music Network.

Welcome DSCers

journeytothecenterof@gmail.com — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:57:00 GMT

Welcome to any new friends that may have found us from the audio comment Adam Curry played on his Daily Source Code podcast today. The podfather spun an audio feedback that Brant recorded - check out his shownotes for all the links.

If you are new, or if you've been waiting for the next episode, fear not - the next show will probably be recorded this week. We had a wrap up of the ballot initiatives half recorded, but decided to scrap it as the issue is getting stale. We're tentatively planning a show on eminent domain for this week - stay tuned for more details and thanks for checking us out.

OC Register

journeytothecenterof@gmail.com — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 04:20:00 GMT

OC Register's the Gadgetress gave JTTCO a nod today on her blog:

The Gadgetress

Welcome to anyone who may have arrived from her site, and a big thank you to the Gadgetress for the link. We are currently planning on doing a followup to the ballot propositions, so subscribe to our RSS feed and we'll get you a new show as soon as we can.

Notice

journeytothecenterof@gmail.com — Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:10:00 GMT

To all our listeners who are patiently awaiting the second installment on the ballot props - this weekend was a little crazy for the JTTCO team, with a mix of both technical difficulties and life crowding out podcasting. We will hopefully get the last installment up tonight, just in time for you to listen to on your way into the polls tomorrow morning. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, Brant has blogged his position on all of the ballot propositions at his blog - Sarcasmagorical.com. And Steve, well... he was voting no on just about everything anyway.

Journey To The Center Of... CA Ballot Initiatives (Part I)

journeytothecenterof@gmail.com — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 20:00:00 GMT

Journey To The Center Of... CA Ballot Initiatives (Part I)
Shownotes
Segment I

PODSAFE MUSIC: Cold cloth and an ice pack, by Derek K. Miller, penmachine podcast

When the fetus-loving union haters of the right, rumble with the special interest Frankensteins of the left, you are on a Journey To The Center Of... California's Ballot Initiatives

Brief history and explanation of the ballot initiative process
Discussion of ground rules for evaluating props
See Brant's post
Tie goes to No - the default position for any proposition is No
Bond measures are highly suspect
Any measure that sounds like a repeat is also highly suspect
Also highly suspect is any initiative that raises money for things that everyone agrees on

PODSAFE MUSIC: Psychosis, by DJ Top Shelf

Segment II

PODSAFE MUSIC: Soupy, by Larry Seyer

Proposition 73 - Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor's Pregnancy. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Steve says No
Brant says Yes, and blogged his reasons why

Proposition 74 - Public School Teachers. Waiting Period for Permanent Status. Dismissal

Steve says No
Brant says Yes

PODSAFE MUSIC: Walk Away (Bitstream Dream Remix), by Lovespirals

Segment III

PODSAFE MUSIC: The High Country, by The Marriott Jazz Quintet

Proposition 75 - Public Employee Union Dues. Restrictions on Political Contributions. Employee Consent Requirement.

Steve says No
Brant says Yes

Proposition 76 - State Spending and School Funding Limits. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Steve says No, but is very conflicted. Ultimately it gets a No for the powers it gives to the governor
Brant says Yes

PODSAFE MUSIC: Cold cloth and an ice pack, by Derek K. Miller, penmachine podcast

Fin

Music played in this show is entirely available from the The Podsafe Music Network.

Journey To The Center Of... Homeschooling

journeytothecenterof@gmail.com — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 03:49:00 GMT

Journey To The Center Of... Homeschooling
Show Notes with Time Codes
Segment I

01:00 Discussed the question posed in the last show. Last week we decided that we both hate standardized tests.
02:10 Talk of the Nation discussed the failure of education last night.
03:00 There's no long term incentive to improve education.
05:00 What's the deal with Home Schooling?
05:50 It's not the role of the government to school my children. It's the parent's responsibility.
06:20 Doesn't the PTA handle the school curriculum problem?
07:00 If we agree on parents role in education. They should guide their children and do not have enough control and input in public school.
08:20 Study from about 15 years ago, one of the leading indicators of future economic success, was the presense of books in the home.
09:30 All education is self-education. If we can't teach someone to self educate themselves, we really haven't accomplished anything. Which points to the problem with standardized testing.
10:45 It is the parent that helps inculcate a child's ability to self educate, but that doesn't negate public education.
11:10 Steve's education really happened at home since his public school sucked (almost like home schooling).
11:40 Brant: the presence of books is important. The brightest people he knows were heavy book reader.
12:20 Kenneth Anger: "Television is the vampire of time"
13:50 The parent who are willing to home school, are already the parents who will raise smart kids. As opposed to Randy Weaver living in isolation in Ruby Ridge.
14:45 Steve: Parents would almost be as involved in public school as if home-school.
15:10 A guy in Massachusetts was arrested when he went to preschool, to prevent his child from being exposed to a topic being discussed, for trespassing on school grounds.
16:30 Public and home schooling problems are indicitive of a lack of control of the curriculum.
16:40 Brant: it's impossible to separate ideology from education. No matter what, in public school you'll end up with and an ideology that is not the parent's ideology being taught to the children.
18:00 Things to discuss in the next segment: collectivization of resources, economies of scale, efficiency. Applying industrial models to public education is fraught with danger. Centrifugal and centripetal forces in education.

Segment II

21:40 John Taylor Gatto talks about the 6 functions of public education, integrative being one of those.
22:10 Steve: How do home schooled kids not end up being social freaks? Social misfits?
23:30 Brant: Of course there's no social misfits in public school.
24:05 R.C. Sproul, Jr. If the goal of education is the socialization by locking my 10 year old in a room with a bunch of other kids just like him.
25:50 The goal of home schooling is to shelter the kids
26:30 You don't need to be an expert to instruct kids, you can hire a tutor.
29:40 Importance of public education helps to bring this nation of immigrants together.
31:40 Founding fathers had a real fear or someone seizing the reins of governance.
34:00 Public education has become a form of ideology.
36:50 Want children to idenify first with the family. Which is why home schooling is necessary.
37:30 If the American experiment is about the idea of freedom and the rule of law (and not of people) then an American identity will emerge from the home schooling experience.
38:00 Kids are not as susceptible to the entertainment complex if they are raise by strong parents.
39:00 People are more susceptible to advertising and media when they can't think well.

Segment III

42:00 Cladistic forces at work.
44:50 In light of how many crazy people that are out there, it's scary to think that these people might home school their children.
47:50 If the Christian community has their own church and home schooling, they will not attempt to force their ideology on others absent of the current state mandated controls.
50:00 Total home schooling would become chaos.
50:40 Broad scale social experiments usually fail.
51:30 You can't just shut down the public school system and switch to home schooling.
52:00 John Mark Reynolds says that 99% of new things fail and go bad this is why we know about the 1% of classical music.
53:00 If we leave the responsibility of home schooling to the parents, it can be a gradual sort of change. Which is why Brants kids will not be a part of the public school system.
53:40 If I'm willing to home school my kids, the state should be willing to step out of the way and allow it to happen.
54:40 How well does home schooling prepare kids for the work force?
55:20 Homeschooling allows for much more freedom in curriculum.
56:00 Worst way to prepare kids for the work force is to send them to college. It's unfortunate that so many employers have come to rely so heavily on diplomas when deciding employment.
58:00 Conclusions: Mega schools don't work. Standardized testing doesn't work. Smaller and more nimble schools will teach children better. Home schooling is taylor made for this.

Fin

Music played in this show is entirely available from the Podsafe Music Network. These numbers included:

Cold Cloth and an Ice pack Derek K Miller (Penmachine podcast)
Ecstatic (Radio Edit) Lovespirals
Mos Isley Maximum Angel
Boy Seventeen Delphinium Blue
White Hotel Torchomatic

Quotes on Education

sarcasmagorical@mac.com — Sat, 8 Oct 2005 05:28:00 GMT

As I was preparing for our last JTTCO podcast - Journey To The Center Of Education - I searched out some good quotes from C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton. Not wanting them to go to waste - since I didn't have a chance to read many in the podcast, and because I partially promised them in the cast - here they are:

G.K. Chesterton:
"It is quaint that people talk of separating dogma from education. Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It is education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching."

"We cannot teach citizenship if we are not citizens; we cannot free others if we have forgotten the appetite of freedom. Education is only truth in a state of transmission; and how can we pass on truth if it has never come into our hand?"

Speaking about the idea that education is "leading out", that educators draw out the innate knowledge in children (he also makes fun of this by saying they are leading out the child's innate love of long division and such) -
"I think it would be about as sane to say that the baby's milk comes from the baby as to say that the baby's educational merits do. There is, indeed, in each living creature a collection of forces and functions; but education means producing these in particular shapes and training them to particular purposes, or it means nothing at all. Speaking is the most practical instance of the whole situation. You may indeed "draw out" squeals and grunts from the child by simply poking him and pulling him about, a pleasant but cruel pastime to which many psychologists are addicted. But you will wait and watch very patiently indeed before you draw the English language out of him. That you have got to put into him; and there is an end of the matter."

"What is education? Properly speaking, there is no such thing as education. Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. ... What we need is to have a culture before we hand it down. In other words, it is a truth, however sad and strange, that we cannot give what we have not got, and cannot teach to other people what we do not know ourselves. "

"The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense. "

C.S. Lewis:
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."

"You see at once that education is essentially for freemen and vocational training for slaves... If education is beaten by training, civilization dies. That is a thing very likely to happen."

"One of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world."

"The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it out while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come."

The demon Screwtape, advising other demons -
"The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be 'undemocratic.'... Children, who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma...by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT.

In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I'm as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows?"

For these last few quotes, I'm greatly indebted to The Quotable C.S. Lewis. It's a great reference work and filled with Lewis' wisdom.

Journey To The Center Of... Education

journeytothecenterof@gmail.com — Sun, 2 Oct 2005 23:00:00 GMT

Journey To The Center Of... Education JTTCO Podcast #1

Show Notes with Time Codes

00:00 PSMN Cold Cloth and an Ice Pack by Derek K Miller the JTTCO Official Theme Song
00:30 Introduction and overview of show format.
03:00 Dorothy L Sayer quote from Inaugural Post.
03:50 Bailout Drills in the classroom.
05:00 Function of education in society is to raise kids who pass tests.
05:45 G K Chesterton, Education is the passing on our convictions to the next generation.
07:30 You can't separate religious education from other education. Math is important because God is true.
07:57 Johann Kepler says "Pursuit of science is the pursuit of thinking God's thoughts after Him."
08:30 Math is the descriptive language of the universe.
09:10 You can't separate our education from our religion (even if we're agnostic).
10:30 Traditionally, you received your religious education at the home or in the church.
12:00 A major shift in religion and morality happened in the last 30 to 40 years.
14:10 Is our world view shifting towards a secularism?
16:30 Some of the earliest acts of civil unrest were against federally imposed education.
17:45 Not in favor of using public education for teaching Christianity, but will home-school their child precisely because Brant wants his child to learn in the classically Christian style.
19:09 First break.
19:10 PSMN Pour quoi, pour quoi pas? by Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet

20:00 Brant mentions that we are promoting many of the products that we use to record and edit the show. These links can be seen off to the left of the page. Please consider these products if you like the sound quality.

20:50 PSMN Talk Talk Talk by Cheryl B Engelhardt
21:30 Welcomes the "Internetters" back to the show.
22:05 What is the deal with homeschooling? It seems so far from the mainstream!
22:30 John Taylor Gatto - Against School
22:45 Adaptive function. Getting kids used to hierarchical structure, to make kids more adaptive to being cogs in a week. Home school kids were like Amish kids amazed by A/C
24:45 The role of parents is to protect our children from bad ideas.
24:55 Originally, home-schooling was driven by a complex set of convictions.
25:30 Public schools are finding that you can separate dogma from education.
26:00 Current education is doing nothing more than indoctrinating our kids to do nothing but pass tests.
27:00 Standardized testing, like the balance sheet of education.
27:30 Steven J Dubner, Freakonomics. Wrote an article about fraud being conducted with regard of the standardized tests.
30:00 India is on it's way to becoming a super power.
31:00 Clyde Prestowitz, Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East.
32:15 What's the role of education?
32:40 We achieve greatness by standing on the shoulders of giants. But how do we do that without critical thinking skills. How can Home Schooling achieve that?
33:30 It's not the role of the state to conduct education.
34:25 Bad parents will exist, no matter what.
35:50 Kids should have access to a world-class education.
36:00 The first thing we should get rid of is compulsory education.
37:00 ACT level test only 50% have passed.
38:55 No one on earth will care more about our child than us (parents).
40:25 What happens to the kids whose parents can't home school?
40:42 Second break.
40:50 PSMN Love Survives by Lovespirals

42:30 Brant suggest that listeners who like how the site and podcast download to consider using LibSyn. Click here for our affiliate link.

43:00 Latin Groove by A.B.E. (Anthems of a Bygone Era)
43:20 Bonus third segment since Steve and Brant continued to discuss the topic. The reason that the state has to govern education is there is no market incentive otherwise.
45:00 If that's true, that why don't we feed them and clothe them by the state.
45:10 Brave New World decanting babies and turning them in to a consumeristic society.
46:00 Parents are no longer being held accountable for the education of their kids.
46:30 The dumbing down of America is leading to highly dependent and decompetencing of society as a whole.
47:20 People who can't change their own oil, have to become dependent on Jiffy Lube.
48:40 Liberal arts education significance.
48:50 Self education is so important, and the cornerstone to being truly successful in society.
52:00 It's very difficult to develop a standardized test to test for critical thinking.
53:30 Classical education is so good at educating children when compared to current contemporary education here in the US.
56:10 Without Critical Thinking Skills, you won't be able to develop as a human being!
57:00 Somehow in the last 30 years we've destroyed all Folkway in America.
59:10 We've achieved a culture of perpetual adolescence.
59:50 John Mark Reynolds says "Specialization is for insects."
1:00:02 C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity says "one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book [Pilgrim's Progress] that has astonished the whole world."
1:01:40 John Taylor Gatto [Mentioned above] says "One of the primary focuses of education is to instruct boredom."
1:02:00 One of the miracles of self-education is that you live a life without bordeom.
1:03:00 Please send all email comments or audio comments to JourneyToTheCenterOf@gmail.com

All opinions expressed during this podcast are solely those of the speaker.

Show Promo

journeytothecenterof@gmail.com — Sun, 2 Oct 2005 22:00:00 GMT

In the course of putting together our first show - Journey To The Center Of Education - Steve and I recorded a promo for the show. Producer Andrew has done all of the dirty work in getting the file thrown together and up here on LibSyn, but he hadn't actually put up a post for it. So here it is, our first brief promo. Stay tuned for the full podcast of Journey To The Center Of Education, and feel free as always to respond or suggest new topics via comments or email to journeytothecenterof@gmail.com.

Our Inaugural post

sarcasmagorical@mac.com — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 14:52:00 GMT

"Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisment and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined? ...do you sometimes have an uneasy suspicion that the product of modern educational methods is less good than he or she might be at disentangling fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible? Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the arguments of speakers on the other side?" - Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning

I came across these sagacious words while doing the prep for our very first podcast of Journey to the Center Of, and found them rather fitting for what our goal is with this podcast. Steve and I have worked together for a while and had many a conversation over lunch. While Steve leans to the left and I lean to the right, it surprises us how many different subjects we agree on - and usually for different reasons. In our culture, most of our debate (especially here online) centers primarily on politics. This fact alone is telling, as politics is not nearly the most interesting subject in which we can engage each other, and in fact most of our lunch discussions are directed toward other subjects even though they might still be broadly termed as right-left in nature. It might be said that our obsession with politics reveals a postmodernist bent in our culture; having discarded the idea of truth, the only interesting subject becomes power, which is really the foundation of political discussion. But even in the subject of politics, the idea struck us that there is a remnant of people who feel estranged from the two political parties and political "debate", which generally consists of each side throwing the same tired old arguments at the other, with far more interest in simply winning the political power over finding the truth.

The Bible teaches, "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." (Proverbs 27:17) Aristotle taught that virtue lies on a mean between the vice of excess and the vice of deficiency. Somewhere in between two extremes is where the truth will be found, and it is our endeavor to Journey To The Center Of - to examine disparate subjects in detail, to find where we agree and disagree, and to sharpen one another's understanding as we attempt to find the truth.

Our first show will be Journey To The Center Of Education, and we'll be looking at a number of different things about education - public schooling, modern vs. classical, homeschooling, etc. It should be obvious now why I was reading Dorothy Sayers' essay in prep for the show. We plan on recording it Sunday, but it might not make it up on the site until we've done a little editing. We welcome any suggestions on topics, and we plan on doing a Journey To The Center Of Journey To The Center Of (or JTTCO Squared, if you prefer) where we will discuss the format itself - but we wanted to get a few shows under our belt and find our format first. If you have any thoughts/comments on the show, feel free to comment this post or send us email at journeytothecenterof@gmail.com.