Tag: education

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

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A recent discussion between friends had me pondering a well-worn topic covering the Westboro Baptist Church.  While I am loath to give this repugnant organization any more lines in the massive universe of online and paper text I feel that the notion they were positing was not the best course of action.

It is the standard argument that crops up each time there is a tragedy and these vultures, nay ghouls, crawl out from their miserable crypt and threaten the world with their mere presence.  The subsequent ballyhoo over these vile, barely passing for, human beings feed into their hopes of either 1) spreading their woefully misguided message of monumentally ignorant hate with little understanding of their source material, or 2) getting someone worked up enough to do something irrational enough to warrant a lawsuit that will fill what has to be dwindling coffers.

However, I believe, and have argued, that the desire by the masses to simply ignore these individuals, or to refer to them in some offhand way that does not recognize them directly (such as ‘they who shall not be named’) does not retract from their capacity to continue these repulsive acts.  If anything, I believe it encourages them.

They are not deterred by legions on Facebook or twitter from referring to them as ‘those wackos’, but those who attend these services and stand in direct opposition of them and their message.  The Patriot riders who lined military funeral processions and revved their bikes so loudly that the WBC packed their things and left because they could not be heard.  The hundreds of students who mass against a planned protest on a college campus to face off against the WBC when they came to picket, or more likely celebrate, the death of a gay student.

Our society has picked up this notion that an evil ignored dies on the vine of ignominy.  We forget that terrible thoughts and hideous acts must be met with thoughts and actions in opposite.  Where there is truly misguided hate and disgust, there must be compassion.  Where praise of violence against the soldiers or against the children, there must be the solemn respect for the deceased and those still suffering from the loss.

The quote above is from one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett.  I won’t go into his fiction, and how it should be read by all who can spare the time, but I want to point out that in this scenario we are the darkness.

We contain the ever-present capacity for humanity to care, to feel, and to have compassion in times of our own suffering as well as the suffering of others.  The WBC may think they will get there first, that they will be the loudest voice, but the light, as is not often stated, only illuminates the area around it, leaving the rest into darkness.  Is it not too much to hope that the darkness is not the evil of the universe, but that which is all-encompassing.  That compassion for the injured, physically and mentally, the wounded, and the deceased fills the void that their ‘light’ would so like to dispel.

In that vein, should that light die, to turn a phrase on Dylan Thomas, I doubt there will be many that rage against it, but until it fails, until the abomination that is the WBC is stripped of its undeserved title as a ‘religious’ institution, and crushed under the heel of both judge, jury, and social executioner it should not be forgotten.  No evil that is forgotten dies.  No evil that is unchallenged shrinks.  if history has taught us anything, it is that.

An extended hiatus and forthcoming apologies followed by vitriol


It is not enough to do good; one must do it the right way.
John Viscount Morley, of Blackburn

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So, I’ve been gone for a bit.  School, as it turns out, is a little more arduous than expected this semester.  Planning is now coming together, and I should have my acts in order now.  Apologies to those who have read what little I’ve written and found interest.  My intention was never to leave you wanting, or to wander off into the dark expanses of the internet to never be seen again.  In a shorter phrase, “shit happened”.  Now,  on to more pressing/interesting matters.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/189844/did_a_school_use_webcams_to_spy_on_students_at_home.html

So, the remote desktop feature, something available on pretty much every Mac computer and, in several unique cases, was used to locate missing or stolen hardware, was apparently used to observe a student in his home.  The laptops are school issued, but, according to ever report I’ve seen on the matter, there is nothing in the contract the parents and students sign regarding off-campus observation.

So, now we have a young man who was approached by an Assistant Principal on a matter in which he was apparently doing something she did not approve of.  This would venture two questions:1) how long were they observing him doing whatever it is they are displeased with, and 2) were they informed that he was doing something illicit or did they just magically turn the webcam on to find him in a compromising position or role?

The second is statistically improbable, and the first implies a hideous revelation about how long those who have been abusing this technology have been at the game.  I believe the parents concerns are warranted regarding the possibility of students being observed in compromising positions or possibly, as one article put it, in “states of undress”.  Now the FBI is investigating and there are records of 42 remote access actions to recover 28 missing laptops.  The number of unrecorded webcam activations could be in the low hundreds.

To be frank, a question needs must raised about the intellectual capacity of the Principal and Superintendent on the matter.  As the invasive capacity of technology grows, the inclusion of technology into the educational environment must come at the pace of educating those who will be responsible for said technology.  The remote desktop feature could have been modified to exclude the webcam, as well as not relying on the webcam at all.  Rather, utilization the webcam as an anti-theft and item recover device work on the principles that the laptop is online, and that the offending individual hasn’t left it in a bag or similar carrying case.

No, software like Lo-Jack, designed specifically for the purpose of locating stolen equipment, was not used to my knowledge.  Furthermore, Lo-Jack only sends out communication signals daily unless the school reports the item stolen, then every 15 minute updates are issued until the laptop is recovered.  The use of the webcam as a device by which they ‘locate’ goods is a half-ass excuse at best since most stolen laptops, I imagine, are going to be closed off, and possibly active.  Lo-Jack will tell you where a laptop is if it is connected to the internet.  A webcam on a shut laptop will give you a black screen that tells you jack all about your position.

The simple fact that they managed to recover 28 of 42 reported missing laptops speaks to the level of responsibility and due diligence of a student to not forget their laptop at home rather than to track a thief.

Lastly, while the school feels it is necessary to ‘track down’ thieves that might try to lift their property, it is not their job to hunt down thieves and brigands.  A computer goes missing, a report to the police is generated, and then, and only then, is the webcam activated to locate the equipment.  Anyone operating outside the realms of their job as an information technician or as an administrator of an educational facility should be sacked on the spot.  Leave the law enforcement to those who wear the badges.