Evaluation, statistics and OR

Should children be in school?

Yesterday (Friday 28th March) the airwaves were full of debates about whether children should be kept in school or not.  The intention of the debate was looking at school food and how to prevent children eating fast food every lunchtime rather than the healthy options offered by the school canteen.

There seemed to be a certain level of horror at forcing children aged between 11 and 16 to be in school during the lunch hour - it was against their human rights, it was preventing them making adult decisions about what to do in their free time and what they wanted to eat.

What utter tosh!  You can't have it both ways.  You can't say that children have to be driven to school as the streets aren't safe and they might be abducted or attacked or damaged by traffic, and then say that they can go out at lunchtime when all these things are just as likely to happen.  You can't say that childhood doesn't last long enough and then expect 11 to 14 year olds to make decisions about what to do in their lunchtimes and roam the streets, albeit that 15 and 16 year olds might start to take that responsibility.

In addition, lunchtimes are an ideal time to get involved with sport, hobbies, music, drama or catch up with homework.  When I was at school, breaks weren't long enough for games of hopscotch, huge sessions of french cricket, the music club, rehearsals for official or less official music or drama events, time in the library and getting that last bit of homework finished or that last bit of preparation for a vocab test done.  Has all this gone nowadays in the search for the best chippie?

Say no to young people from time to time.  Say that they must stay in school (there will still be truants, but not a mass outbreak).  Tell them what to eat - self-discipline is something that comes with age and how many middle aged middle class can say no to that glass of wine at the end of the working day?  Kids shouldn't be left to go to hell in their own way, until you have shown them how life can be otherwise.

What is normal - Gales in March?

This week the UK and northern France have been battered by gales with gusts of up to 82 miles per hour in the UK and up to 160 kph off the Breton coast.  There is already talk of the demise of global warming, as these gales are evidence that it isn't getting hotter - or are they?

First off I take exception to the phrase global warming, as there are all sorts of arguments about some places getting warmer and some getting colder (looking at its latitude, the UK is already unnaturally warm anyway).  I prefer to talk about climate change.

Secondly, I think it is fair to say that the weather is a chaotic system and does not conform to nice norms calculated over 50 or 100 or 150 years as being the average for the time of year.  In any case to get an average, some things have to be higher or more or stronger and other things less.

Chaotic systems are subject to variation and odd extremes.  You could say that our recent gales are part of that.  Or you could say it is part of the weather pattern of Northern Europe and is actually quite normal to have abnormal events.

When I was a child I was given a tiny book by Maurice Sendak called Chicken Soup with Rice, which had a poem a month about Chicken Soup - the entry for March went thus:

"In March the wind blows down the door and spills my soup upon the floor.  It laps it up and roars for more.  Blowing once, blowing twice, blowing chicken soup with rice."

I think something like that reminds us that gales in March, particularly in the run up to the equinox and tied in to high tides is actually normal, yucky weather for March, and that things are rather nice and normal!!

Be a World Citizen

I have just come back from the UK, and spent quite a bit of yesterday reading about a young man who tried to fight for the freedom and democratic rights of others.  Unfortunately, due to a couple of media plunders, that young man had to give up his front line work, but will probably do good things behind the scenes in future.  Bad luck they spotted you, Harry!

At the weekend, there was an incursion into Ecuador, and the second in command of the FARC was killed - there was a bit about that in the papers, but not nearly so much - after all, it is a continent away and nothing to do with us.

The week before the FARC released some of the hostages it has been holding for years, who brought with them out of the Columbian jungle news of another hostage.  She is called Ingrid Betancourt, she has been a hostage of the FARC for over 2000 days, she is being treated appallingly, and it is reported that she has hepatitis and may be dying.

Up in the United States, we are being kept enthralled by a contest for who will stand for President between a potential first woman President and a potential first black President.  It is a momentous moment for the world, but what does it have to do with Ingrid?  At the time she was taken hostage, she was campaigning to be President of Columbia, and 6 days before she was taken, she was filmed with the 2nd in command of FARC, demanding an end to hostilities, to hostage taking and to trying to pervert the course of democracy.

If Hilary Clinton or Barak Obama were to be kidnapped before the next bout of primaries, there would be an international outcry about democracy and law and order.  If they were held for 6 years, the country suspected of hiding them would be bombed to smithereens (think of Afghanistan or Iraq).  What would happen if they died in captivity?

Think back to the release of John McCarthy, Terry Waite and Brian Keenan, and then be a world citizen and sign the petition to release Ingrid Betancourt.