Forgive me for not answering sooner, mrrcatsam, but I have stopped visiting CreateDebate and did not intend to make any more posts. To answer your question, I was living in Spain until illness caused me to stay with relatives in Ireland. Best of luck.
It is fitting that Christopher Columbus be given recognition with a memorial day as it can be used by teachers to explain his achievement in discovering the New World for Spain and through the Spanish to other Europeans. He was not only a man of his time but a man who initiated a new time which we call the Age of Exploration. We must not forget that in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue with the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. But all Americans know this thanks to their teachers and Columbus Day.
Oh! Lordy! It's time to come down to Earth and the reality of education in the public schools. What you have just written is pie-in-the-sky and really not intelligible as far as scaffolding goes. I see this issue becoming a reason for the American Federation of Teachers to stop in its tracks. Time to pull the plug on the computer.
I'm sorry but as an educator by academic preparation and decades of classroom teaching, it looks to me like proponents getting onto the smart phone, tablet, laptop bandwagon and forgetting about textbooks. I was afraid of this development, given the ubiquitous texting and digital stuff that children are on every waking moment. Please! Give the kids a break and a book with a classroom teacher to guide their study. For once! Turn off those blasted toys.
Donald Trump is the worst president in living history. As a person he is a vulgar loudmouth with a small brain. All he thinks of is himself, a classic narcissist. He talks like a school dropout who never reads a book. The best proof of what I say is the man himself and his vainglorious rally speeches and tweets. He is, in short, a compulsive liar and the U.S. military are at his mercy as well as all of us.
Liberalism is about equality for all and when any group is being denied respect because they are a minority, Liberalism will champion them. Naturally, Liberalism whill condemn any group which espouses persecution of a minority because of their race, creed, sexual identity, and so forth.
In our little debate here on CreateDebate we cannot hope to cover all aspects of the European Union (EU), including its democratic deficit. The question put to us was whether the UK should leave.
As to your concern with the EU and its lack of democracy, I have heard nobody claim that it is perfect without any need of reform. One of its problems is the lack of power in its Parliament, for example its inability to propose laws. I know why this is the way it is. Individual member governments did not want to surrender their sovereignty to the EU so they have put a lock on the Parliament from making laws which a member state would be bound by. So, the power resides in the British Tory government and the other governments such as the Spanish Partido Popular which, like its sister party in London, has no respect for democracy in the devolved national governments of Catalonia and the Basque Country, to propose laws for the EU through the Council of Ministers. I do see an imbalance there but to make a change it would be necessary to qualify the sovereignty of national governments. The right-wing governments do not like that.
The individual states elect their national governments and their prime ministers and presidents, duly elected at national level, make up the Council of Ministers. These are answerable to the people in their respective states. If we cannot come together for meaningful regulations on a broad European scale then we cannot have a European Union in the first place. Most European people believe we can have a ever closer political union on the basis that we have more in common than not. I understand that English people have never thought this way (with the exception of their youth) and were always reluctant members.
