President Bush's Final State of the Union Address

And that's all I have to say about that...

Yup - same stuff. As grand as they paint the state of the Union addresses to be, I'm not sure any of them really have done much for me for a number of years. W's best speaches came around 911, and like any president when there isn't any thing like war, terror, infamy - we get balanced budgets, tax breaks, Congress be nice to each other... yada yada yada. I prefer to read these - somehow they're a little less dry in most cases ;)

At least when you're reading them, there isn't the constant interruption of applause... that always gets on my nerves, especially since it so often looks so ritualized: "Oh, he just said X, we need to applaud now."

Not only that, but the applause is cut short almost like it's edited or that the audience is cued to stop abruptly. There's no applause die down, it just crashes to a stop.

yeah.. I'll read 'em.

First President who starts a SOTU speech with "Please hold your applause until the end" gets my unconditional vote for re-election. ;-)

I agree about the speech - lots of good ideas and/or ideas that sound good, with little or no chance of anything changing because of it.

I did like the way he worded the state of the economy (record growth, but growth is now slowing & it's affecting people). I also took note of how his level of passion seemed to tweak up just a bit when he talked about No Child Left Behind, and how Ted Kennedy (co-sponsor of the original bill) sat their in "non-applause" mode as if he never liked the idea in the first place...

Other than that, ho hum...

Mmmmmmmm.

Bush's Final State of the Union Address.

Why am I covered in a sticky translucent goo?

Ew. :)

Funny, Brian...

You mention Bush's excitement on No Child Left Behind - a bit may have improved, but having done a tour of duty in the public education sector, at least in Utah, it's one of the poorest educational programs every implemented. You slow down for the kids having troubles and alienate the kids who are more accelerated. I was really surprised to hear that results appeared to be that good for the program. One thing that neither party has discussed is the severe need to redesign the education system from the ground up. With technology, most schools or teachers aren't teaching to the new ways students are learning and gleaning information.

A friend's wife is a teacher here in Utah -- her take on NCLB is similar to yours, Cheno, only she uses much less polite language. I suspect it's one of those things whose success or failure can be proven easily by cherry picking certain statistics and ignoring others. The president was desperate to point to accomplishments of his admin last night -- it's all about legacy now -- so he chose stats that made it looks like the program was working.

I agree that the education system could best be fixed by starting over. I've heard some interesting proposals to implement something like the Japanese and Germans have that begin shunting kids into either college-prep courses or practical training and apprenticeship programs for skilled-trade careers. I think that might be worth looking into...

FYI, I'm guessing that the reason the applause seems to cut off so abruptly is that the news feed switches back to the podium mic as soon as the Prez starts talking again.

That's about the most interesting thing I can say about last night's speech.

Leave it to Robert to debunk the "Mystery of the Sudden Applause Death".

I'm guessing you have an opinion on Roswell, too ;)

NCLB: A system that promotes mediocrity. :P

It's done "wonders" for the arts... schools left and right are abandoning "untestable" subjects in favor of the core basics, and yet students are not advancing as fast as people thought they would.

Yup, Jen...

In fact if you look at the amount of charter or private schools that have opened up since NCLB has been in place, the amount is staggering.

Having worked with a charter school that specialized in the arts, I got a good first-hand look at how art and public education have never really been friends, but with NCLB, the liberals is dying a quick death in order to keep up with "credit retention" focus that is prevelent with NCLB. Hence art is now found mostly in alternative schools. Sad to a degree, but at the same time, this new school movement is a sign that people are wanting that much talked about political word. "Change"

You have no idea, buddy. Do a Google search of "Roswell" and "RAND Corporation" and see how much crap comes up!