Weekly Math Updates

July 4, 2007

Contents:

  • Happy 4th of July
  • Poster Project Update
  • WMD Comics Fiasco

Happy 4th of July

Hi all,

Being our national holiday I thought I would give you a little treat on our country's history and so when you have a few minutes, read this fine speech by Rush Limbaugh's father on the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/folder/american_who_risked_everything_1.guest.html

After you read it, here's a link to the Declaration of Independence. After you read that, please read the Poster Project Update bearing in mind that to sacrifice name and fortune in just causes is the ultimate sacrifice our founders made, and in our own way we can do our part today.

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

Poster Project Update

Appropriate for the 4th of July, the poster project is moving forward but to do it, I need your help.

A couple weeks ago I sent an email to all the superintendents in the state asking for them to let me know how many teachers there were in their district, and also, if we were to deliver posters to their district office, could they invite principals to come get them for their individual schools. I know from the read receipts I've gotten that several have read the email, but only 2 have responded from tiny districts that only have 18 and 105 teachers. I need volunteers to help me out by calling a few of the districts in the state and asking these two questions of the superintendents. Districts that will cooperate with us will be the first districts we focus on helping get the posters.

Some superintendents may be nervous about accepting the posters and you can just explain to them that patrons and citizens of the state are merely helping to fulfill the state law that these posters "shall be" placed in one or more prominent places within each school. We are just giving teachers the option to put one up if they would like to. Nobody is being forced to do it.

We then need help raising funds to put these posters into classrooms. I'm out about $1,000 right now because I bought extra posters anticipating this project. Obviously I'd like to recoup some of that money by having donations flow in. I am going to send off posters to the two districts above since they are easy to take care of. I would really love to have anyone out there that cares, donate some time and/or money to the cause. This is something that will have a lasting effect on hundreds of thousands of Utah children and influence future generations in understanding what our great Republic is all about.

If you can help make a few phone calls, please email me and I'll give you 3-5 school districts to contact and speak with the superintendent to get those two answers. If you can donate money to the cause, we'll get a lot of the little districts covered on minor amounts of money and then we'll focus on bigger districts and raising money within them to provide them posters.

It's not often that a worthwhile project comes along that doesn't require very much time to see it to completion. This is far different than the math fight which is a progression of small battles until the war ends. The poster project has a clearly defined and achievable goal and anyone who participates will have the coveted blessing of being able to tell your children and grandchildren you stood up and were a participant, and not a casual observer. If you haven't read that article above yet, read it, and get inspired.

To donate money, go to this website and scroll to the bottom and click the donation button:

http://www.InGodWeTrustPosters.com/

WMD Comics Fiasco

Well, it looks like I may have to take the rating system offline sometime, but now I'm having fun. The constructivists have found the WMD site and are posting ratings of 1's for the comics. So a couple times this past week I've gone in and reduced the number of votes on the comics to raise their ratings. It's all messed up now, but at least the constructivists will have something to occupy their time rather than thinking of new ways to dumb down our kids.

Till next week,

Oak Norton

http://www.oaknorton.com/mathpetition.cfm

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