Categories
National politics

Evaluating Presidential Candidates

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Image by Donkey Hotey

Eight years ago with two crowded presidential primaries I did a long series evaluating each presidential candidate. I evaluated every candidate I could find, not just those in the two major parties. It was an interesting exercise although I opted not to do it again in 2012. I wasn’t planning to do it for 2016 either because I had expected Hillary Clinton and the following GOP candidates (in no particular order) to be the focus of the race: Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, and possibly Bobby Jindal. With the way the race has been shaped by other candidates I’ve decided to do it again – specifically, I decided to do this after watching both Scott Walker and Rick Perry have the life sucked from their campaigns by Donald Trump who is a vastly inferior candidate to either of them (having tipped my hand on Trump I should probably do my write-up of him first). Last time I evaluated 38 candidates, this time I will only do candidates from the major parties.

Categories
culture Education

U.S. Schools start too early

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Photo by jenni_froedrick

That title could be taken two ways: we shouldn’t start kids in school as young as we do; or we shouldn’t start the school day as early as we do. Both statements are completely true. Here I would like to address the latter claim and take the unscientific position of disagreeing with the conclusions being reported from the sleep-cycle research (which forms the basis of the recommendation to start school later) while completely agreeing with the CDC recommendation for when school should start. I take my position based on my experience as a parent and my experience as a teenager and as an adult.

This idea is one I’ve read about before and each time I read more about it my conclusion remains the same. I’m writing today after reading this article in the Deseret News.