March 16 in history

On March 16:

597 BC – Babylonians captured Jerusalem, replace Jehoiachin with Zedekiah as king.

37 Caligula becomes Roman Emperor after the death of his great uncle, Tiberius.

1190 Massacre of Jews at Clifford’s Tower, York.

1322 The Battle of Boroughbridge took place in the First War of Scottish Independence.

1521 Ferdinand Magellan reached the Philippines.

1621 Samoset, a Mohegan, visited the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greeted them, “Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset.”

1660 The Long Parliament disbanded.

1689 The 23rd Regiment of Foot or Royal Welch Fusiliers was founded.

1774 Captain Matthew Flinders, English explorer, was born.

1789 Georg Simon Ohm, German physicist, was born.

1792 King Gustav III of Sweden was shot. He died on March 29. 

1802  The Army Corps of Engineers was established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.

1812  Battle of Badajoz (March 16 – April 6) – British and Portuguese forces besieged and defeated French garrison during Peninsular War.

1815 Prince Willem of the House of Orange-Nassau proclaimed himself King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the first constitutional monarch in the Netherlands.

1818 Second Battle of Cancha Rayada – Spanish forced defeat Chileans under José de San Martín.

1865 The Battle of Averasborough begins as Confederate forces suffer irreplaceable casualties in the final months of the American Civil War.

1872 The Wanderers F.C. won the first FA Cup, the oldest football competition in the world, beating Royal Engineers A.F.C. 1-0 at The Oval in Kennington , London.

1900  Sir Arthur Evans purchased the land around the ruins of Knossos, the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete.

1912 Lawrence Oates, an ill member of Scott’s South Pole expedition left the tent saying, “I am just going outside and may be some time.”

1920 Leo McKern, Australian actor, was born.

1924 In accordance with the Treaty of Rome, Fiume became annexed as part of Italy.

1926  Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.

1926 Jerry Lewis, American comedian, was born.

 

1935 Adolf Hitler ordered Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Conscription was reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.

1939 Hitler proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.

1939 Marriage of Princess Fawzia of Egypt to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran.

1940 Jockey Y-fronts were first sold in New Zealadn shops.

1942 The first V-2 rocket test launched. It exploded at lift-off.

1945 The Battle of Iwo Jima ended but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.

1945 – Ninety percent of Würzburg, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers. 5,000 are killed.

1948 Michael Bruce, American musician (Alice Cooper), was born.

1950   Czechoslovakia‘s ministry of foreign affairs asks nuncios of Vatican to leave the country.

1952  In Cilaos, Réunion, 1,870 millimetres (74 in) of rain fell in one day, setting a new world record.

1958  The Ford Motor Company produced its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company’s founding.

1959 EUROAVIA, the European Association of Aerospace students was founded, the first initiative towards European cooperation in Aerospace.

1962 A Flying Tiger Line Super Constellation disappears in the western Pacific Ocean, with 107 missing.

1963 Kevin Smith, New Zealand actor, was born.

1963  Mount Agung erupted on Bali killing 11,000.

1966 Launch of Gemini 8, the 12th manned American space flight and first space docking with the Agena Target Vehicle.

1968 Vietnam War: In the My Lai massacre, between 350 and 500 Vietnamese villagers were killed by American troops.

1968 – General Motors producds its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.

1976 – British Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigned, citing personal reasons.

1977 – Assassination of Kamal Jumblatt the main leader of the anti-government forces in the Lebanese Civil War.

1978  Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped and is later killed by his captors.

1978 – Supertanker Amoco Cadiz split in two after running aground on the Portsall Rocks, three miles off the coast of Brittany, resulting in the 5th-largest oil spill in history.

1983 Demolition of the radio tower Ismaning, the last wooden radio tower in Germany.

1984 William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, was kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists and later died in captivity.

1985 Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson was taken hostage in Beirut.

1988  Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter were indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

1995 Mississippi formally ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865.

1997 Sandline affair: On Bougainville Island, soldiers of commander Jerry Singirok arrested Tim Spicer and his mercenaries of the Sandline International.

1998  Pope John Paul II asked God for forgiveness for the inactivity and silence of some Roman Catholics during the Holocaust.

1999 NZHistory.net.nz was launched.

2003 The largest coordinated worldwide vigil takes place, as part of the global protests against Iraq war.

 

2005  Israel officially handed over Jericho to Palestinian control.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

God Only Knows

Happy birthday Mike Love, 69 today.

Monday’s quiz

1. Which country produces and consumes the most sheep meat?

2. Who has won 16 Golden Shears open contests and who won this year?

3. What is antimetabole?

4. Who is the only woman to have won two Nobel Prizes?

5. Pogonophobia is a fear of what?

Improved attitude helps farmer optimism

“The change of government has helped farmer optimism.

“No-one’s asking for special favours, they just want to be treated fairly, but with the last lot it felt like they hated farmers, it was personal.

“Now farmers feel they’ll get a fair go and it’s making a real difference.”

That conversation at the Wanaka Show with someone who works in the rural servicing industry was echoed by several others and the feeling is backed up by changes in policy.

Agriculture Minister David Carter says the government is considering opening up some of the conservation estate to grazing again.

. . . finding ways to generate income from a conservation estate that grew in size under the previous government was a looming issue, and allowing strictly controlled grazing to licensed farmers could be a solution.

“That, to me, makes perfect sense,” he said at the Federated Farmers high country committee two-yearly field day in the Nevis Valley last Wednesday.

Don Clarke, of Carrick Station, told the field day that he had found grazing of the upright-growing invasive weed, Hieracium lepidulum, could control its spread.

Mr Carter repeated his support for the greater use of conservation covenants administered through organisations such as the QEII Trust, saying it was “a sensible” way to achieve biodiversity protection and allow economic use of land.

Even the Commissioner for the Environment questioned the large amount of land the previous government retired to the conservation estate.

It’s very expensive and not necessarily in the best interests of the environment or public for the government to buy and then have to look after large tracts of land. It’s better to protect areas with high conservation values by covenants and leave the management to farmers.

Farming, conservation, private ownership and public access aren’t mutually exclusive.

Just flog yourself with barbed wire

When Rob Hamill and the late Phil Stubbs were seeking sponsorship for their Trans Atlantic rowing race entry they asked Sir Bob Jones for help.

He replied, they should just flog themselves with barbed wire. It would have much the same effect for a fraction of the cost.

There may have been moments when Shaun Quincey felt that flogging himself with barbed wire may have been easier and less unpleasant than his solo Trans-Tasman rowing attempt.

But he persevered and had the satisfaction of completing the challenge nine days faster than his father Colin, who rowed the Tasman from New Zealand to Australia in 1977.

Ultra marathon runner Dean Karnazes reckons you start running with your feet, continue with your head and finish with your heart. Long-distance rowing must take a similar level of physical fitness, determination and emotional strength.

It’s a feat he can be proud of and we lesser mortals can be inspired by.

March 15 in history

On March 15:

44 BC Julius Ceasar was stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March.

 

221 Liu Bei, a Chinese warlord and member of the Han royal house, declares himself emperor of Shu-Han and claims his legitimate succession to the Han Dynasty.

351 Constantius II elevated his cousin Gallus to Caesar, and puts him in charge of the Eastern part of the Roman Empire.

933  After a ten-year truce, German King Henry I defeated a Hungarian army at the Battle of Riade.

1311 Battle of Halmyros: The Catalan Company defeated Walter V of Brienne to take control of the Duchy of Athens. 

1493  Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first trip to the Americas.

1545 First meeting of the Council of Trent.

 

1672 Charles II issued the Royal Declaration of Indulgence.

1767  Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States, was born.

1776 South Carolina became the first American colony to declare its independence from Great Britain and set up its own government.

1779 Lord Melbourne, (William Lamb) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,, was born.

1781 Battle of Guilford Courthouse: 1,900 British troops under General Charles Cornwallis defeated an American force numbering 4,400.

1783 George Washington asked his officers not to support the Newburgh Conspiracy. The plea was successful and the threatened coup d’état never eventuated.

 The Newburgh Address.

1809 Joseph Jenkins Roberts, first President of Liberia, was born.

1844 The New Zealand Company ended its colonising efforts.

1848 Revolution broke out in Hungary.

 

1877 The first cricket test started between England and Australia.

1906 Rolls-Royce Limited was incorporated.

1916 President Woodrow Wilson sent 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.-Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa.

1917 Czar Nicholas II of Russia abdicated the Russian throne and his brother the Grand Duke Michael becomes Tsar.

1922  Fuad I becomes King of Egypt.

1926 The dictator Theodoros Pangalos was elected President of Greece without opposition.

 

1931 SS Viking exploded off Newfoundland, killing 27 of the 147 on board.

1933 Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss kept members of the National Council from convening, starting the austrofascist dictatorship.

1939 German troops occupied the remaining part of Bohemia and Moravia; Czechoslovakia ceased to exist.

1941 Mike Love, American musician (The Beach Boys), was born.

1943  Third Battle of Kharkov – Germans retook the city of Kharkov from the Soviet armies in bitter street fighting.

 

1944 Sly Stone, American musician, was born.

1944 New Zealand forces captured Castle Hill  during the Battle of Monte Cassino.

 1952 In Cilaos, Réunion, 1870 mm (73 inches) of rain falls in one day, setting a new world record.

1961 South Africa withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations.

1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to the Selma crisis, told U.S. Congress “We shall overcome” while advocating the Voting Rights Act.

1985 The first Internet domain name is registered (symbolics.com).

1988 The Halabja poison gas attack of the Iran–Iraq War began.

1990 Iraq hung British journalist Farzad Bazoft for spying.

1990 Mikhail Gorbachev was elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

I Got You

Split Enz reached #1 with I Got You 30 years ago today.

Security relates to risk

“Breaking the news is good, making it isn’t.”

These words of advice from a seasoned editor obviously don’t apply at the Sunday Star Times which stupidly sent its reporters to test security at sports stadiums last week.

Shock horror, they cry, there isn’t any.

Well why would there be?

There is always a risk of some idiot doing something stupid, as these reporters did. There’s also a risk of someone with evil intent harming others.

But the risk of acts of stupidty is higher than the risk of terrorism in New Zealand and we can’t live our lives in fear nor with the expense and restrictions which high security would impose on us.

Police Minister Judith Collins points the stunt could have led to the evacuation of a stadium and games being called off.

“This would have caused not only great public inconvenience and cost, but possibly presented a risk to the safety of spectators.

“Common sense would tell you that running around a stadium dressed as a bomber has the potential to end very badly.

“If there had been panic there was the very real possibility that people – particularly the elderly, children and those less mobile – could have been hurt. . . “

Ms Collins said security at major events is based on risk, and that security at a provincial rugby game will be much less than for a major international match.

“The only thing people masquerading as bombers will achieve is an unnecessary increase in security at considerable cost and inconvenience to the public,” she said.

David Farrar over at Kiwiblog makes a similar point:

New Zealand is not a country that has security based on paranoia. It is based on credible threat. I do not want to live in a country where I get x-rayed going to the local rugby match. Bizarrely, the Sunday Star-Times does.

But any more of these silly stunts and security might be tightened. That would include restrictions on the Prime Minister and other high profile people to whom reporters and the general public have remarkedly easy access.

The SST would be among the first to complain then and have only themselves to blame.

I was in Britain in the early 80s when there was the real and ever present threat of terrorist attack by the IRA. Security in some places was tight but generally people were free to get on with their lives without restrictions because that would have been seen as a victory by the terrorists.

There was a similar reaction after the 2005 London bombings.

If real acts of terrorism don’t lead to restrictive security in other countries, why would the SST expect our freedom to be curtailed when the risk is so low here?

Water schemes win

Two Canterbury irrigation schemes are among the winners in a competition for projects judged to have the potential to make $1 billion each in sales within 20 years.

Two other projects, a central-city village for international students and a whitebait-farming proposal, were also recognised.

The $150 million Central Plains Water Enhancement Scheme (CPW), now a cut-down irrigation project after widespread community opposition, and the Hurunui Water Project, were judged as having big potential.

Together, the two want to irrigate more than 100,000 hectares of farmland in central and north Canterbury.

They involve land acquisition and the construction of canals and a dam.

The competition, which drew 18 entries, was the brainchild of University of Canterbury vice-chancellor Dr Rod Carr.

The winners receive up to 50 days free professional help each, worth about $140,000, to further project development and confirm feasibility.

The competition was a great idea and it’s no surprise that irrigation schemes were among the winners.

The benefits and costs are high for farmers and it takes them many years to get real returns on their investment. But the returns for the people who work for, service and sell to farmers are immediate and so are the boosts to the wider economy.

Irrigation can have both positive and negative impacts on the environment. It will almost certainly lead to an increase in dairying which will concern some people. But dairying in itself isn’t a problem.

The best comment on this I’ve read comes from Daniel Collins at Sciblogs.

In a post entitled It’s Not US or the Cows, worth reading in full, he writes:

In any case, it is the pollution that is the problem, not the cows. More intense dairying would likely lead to worse water quality all else being equal, but there is no need to assume all else will be equal. In conjunction with regional planning to limit the extent of dairying, there is room for on-farm management practices to improve. The question is both how many cows and how to manage them.

Increased concern about the environmental impacts of irrigation and dairying have led to a lot of improvements in management.

One of the conditions for the North Otago Irrigation Company’s consent was that every shareholder must have an environmental farm plan which is independently monitored.

It works well to protect and enhance the health of soil and water and something similar could be adopted in Canterbury to ensure that the economic gains from irrigation don’t come at the expense of the environment.

Top Topps

The Topp Twins were busy enough at the show in Wanaka.

Official duties included judging the Glammies, presenting prizes for the Fox Terrior race (won by 14 year old Jed) and leading the Grand Parade before taking to the stage to entertain a large and appreciative crowd.

By the end of the show they’d have been forgiven if they’d been a little tired of smiling and being pleasant. If they were they didn’t show it when I came to a stop beside their car because the track ahead was blocked.

Lynda directed me backwards safely so one of the vehicles blocking the way could move, put a plastic chair over a large tent peg which I might not have seen, ushered me forwards and waved me goodbye with a broad grin.

The Topps are tops.

March 14 in history

On March 14:

1489 The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sold her kingdom to Venice.

1590 Battle of Ivry: Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots defeated the forces of the Catholic League under the Duc de Mayenne during the French Wars of Religion.

 

1647 Thirty Years’ War: Bavaria, Cologne, France and Sweden signed the Truce of Ulm.

1757 Admiral John Byng was executed by firing squad, on-board the HMS Monarch, for neglecting his duty.

 

1794 Eli Whitney was granted a patent for the cotton gin.

 

1869 Defeat of Titokowaru.

 

1900 The Gold Standard Act was ratified, placing United States currency on the gold standard.

1903 The Hay-Herran Treaty, granting the United States the right to build the Panama Canal, was ratified by the United States Senate.

1905 Chelsea Football Club was founded.

1910 Lakeview Gusher, the largest U.S. oil well gusher near Bakersfield, California, vented to atmosphere.

 

1915 Cornered off the coast of Chile by the Royal Navy after fleeing the Battle of the Falkland Islands, the German light cruiser SMS Dresden was abandoned and scuttled by her crew.

 

1939 Slovakia declared independence under German pressure.

1942  Orvan Hess and John Bumstead became the first in the world to successfully treat a patient, Anne Miller, using penicillin.

 

1945 World War II – The R.A.F. first operational use of the Grand Slam bomb, Bielefeld, Germany.

1951  Korean War: For the second time, United Nations troops recaptured Seoul.

1964  A jury in Dallas, Texas found Jack Ruby guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy.

1972  Italian publisher and former partisan Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was killed by an explosion.

1978  The Israeli Defense Force invades and occupies southern Lebanon, in Operation Litani.

 

1979 A Hawker Siddeley Trident crashed into a factory near Beijing, killing at least 200.

1980 Split Enz reached No 1 with I Got You from their True Colours  album.

  1980 A plane crashesd during final approach near Warsaw killing 87 people, including a 14-man American boxing team.

1984 – Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Féin, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt.

1989 General Michel Aoun declared that he will act for the liberation of Lebanon.

1994 Linux kernel version 1.0.0 was released.

1995 Astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American astronaut to ride to space on-board a Russian launch vehicle.

1998 An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hit southeastern Iran.

2005 Cedar Revolution: hundreds of thousands of Lebanese went into the streets of Beirut to demonstrate against the Syrian military presence in Lebanon and against the government.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Happy birthday Neil Sedaka, 71 today.

With Or Without You

Happy birthday Adam Clayton – 50 today.

Spot the MP

In election year you might spot MPs from a variety of parties at the Upper Clutha A&P Show but in the intervening years, National is the only party which always has a presence.

Yesterday Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean, in whose electorate the show takes place, had the company of a couple of her colleagues, Wairarapa MP John Hayes and Tauranga MP Simon Bridges.

Tent pitched, tempers intact

Many moons ago I won a Girl Guide contest for solo tent pitching.

That was way back in the days when tents were white canvas with green roofs. They had a centre pole and one at each corner. If you lay it out on the ground, banged in the pegs and attached the guy ropes you could put up the corner poles one by one then the middle one.

Modern tents can be a wee bit more complicated as a couple of volunteers discovered when they went to erect one borrowed for the National Party at the Wanaka Show. Several years later they joke about it but in a way which suggests that at the time things were a little tense between them. Their moods weren’t improved when they finally had the tent up and looking as it should and found they had several poles to spare.

They weren’t game to try to find a place for them but asked the owner about them when they saw him next day. He said he’d never known what to do with them either.

The next couple of years then-candidate, now MP, Jacqui Dean brought her camper van the awning for which went up pretty easily.

The year after that we borrowed a tent which went up reasonably easily but we then got a complaint that the guy ropes were extending beyond the site and might cause a hazard. When you’re representing a political party you don’t argue so we followed instructions to take it down and put it up on another site where the guys wouldn’t be in anyone’s way.

After that the electorate  bought a Kwik n Ezy tent – so called because it’s supposed to be able to be erected quickly and easily.

Quickly and easily are relative terms which can depend on the number of people helping and their ability to retain their senses of humour. This year with seven helpers it did go up without too much trouble and with the tempers of the tent pitchers intact.

The trick will be to remember how we did it so we can do it as quickly and easily next year.

Caption competition

The Upper Clutha A&P Show is the South Island’s second biggest.

It comes behind the Canterbury Show on numbers but it’s first for location – in Wanaka with views up the lake to the mountains.

Trade exhibits have spread across the road and now take up about half of Pembroke Park. There’s just about anything for sale from cars to compost makers.

In spite of that it still includes the old features including wool and stock competitions and vegetable sculptures such as this which is begging for a caption.

March 13 in history

On March 13:

1138 Cardinal Gregorio Conti was elected Antipope as Victor IV.

1639  Harvard College was named for clergyman John Harvard.

 

1764 Earl Grey, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was born.

1781  William Herschel discovered Uranus.

1809  Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden was deposed in a coup d’état.

1845  Felix Mendelssohn‘s Violin Concerto received its première performance in Leipzig with Ferdinand David as soloist.

 

1862  The U.S. federal government forbade all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.

1881 Alexander II of Russia was killed when a bomb is thrown at him.

1884 Sir Hugh Walpole, English novelist, was born.

 

1884 The Siege of Khartoum, Sudan began.

1897 San Diego State University was founded.

1900  British forces occupied Bloemfontein, Orange Free State.

1900 The length of the workday for women and children is limited by law to 11 hours in France.

1920 The Kapp Putsch briefly ousted the Weimar Republic government from Berlin.

 

1921 Mongolia, under Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg, declared its independence from China.

1925 Scopes Trial: A law in Tennessee banned the teaching of evolution.

1930 The news of the discovery of Pluto was telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory.

  

1933 Banks in the U.S. began to re-open after President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandated a “bank holiday“.

1938 – Anschluss of Austria to the Third Reich.

 

1939  Neil Sedaka, American singer and songwriter, was born.

1943 German forces destroyed the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.

  

1954  Battle of Điện Biên Phủ: Viet Minh forces attacked the French.

1956 – New Zealand won its first cricket test - playing against the West Indies at Eden Park.

 1957 Cuban student revolutionaries stormed the presidential palace in Havana  in a failed attempt on the life of President Fulgencio Batista.

1960  Adam Clayton, Irish bassist (U2), was born.

 

1969  Apollo 9 returned safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.

1979 The New Jewel Movement, headed by Maurice Bishop, ousted Prime Minister Eric Gairy in a nearly bloodless coup d’etat in Grenada.

 

1986 Microsoft had its initial public offering.

  

1989 A geomagnetic storm causef the collapse of the Hydro-Québec power grid.

1991 The United States Department of Justice announces that Exxon had agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

 

1992 An earthquake registering 6.8 on the Richter scale killed  over 500 in Erzincan, eastern Turkey.

1996 Dunblane massacre: 16 children and 1 teacher were shot dead by Thomas Watt Hamilton who then committed suicide.

1997 India’s Missionaries of Charity chose  Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader.

1997 The Phoenix lights were seen over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and by millions on television.

 

2003 The journal Nature reported that 350,000-year-old footprints of an upright-walking human had been found in Italy.

2005 Terry Ratzmann shot and killed six members of the Living Church of God and the minister before killing himself.

2008 Gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Get Smart

Happy birthday Barbara Feldon, 87 today.

Bye Bye Blackbird

Happy birthday Liza Minelli, 64 today.

Which part of not optional don’t they understand?

Criticism of national standards continues but like them or not, most schools are getting on with the work required to implement them.

Southbridge School isn’t.

Kathryn Ryan interviewed the principal and a parent to find out why.

The answer, from the principal, seems to be he wants the system trialled first and the school is too busy implementing the curriculum to handle national standards as well.

That’s a good example to set pupils – you only have to do what you have to do when you have the time and inclination to do it.

It could set an interesting precedent too.

A trucking firm could decide it wants a trial of the road rule change which will give right of way to vehicles turning left at intersections and instruct its drivers to take right of way when they’re turning right.

An employer could decide s/he’s too busy implementing the four-week holiday requirement to deal with changes in tax rates.

Anyone could decide to adopt only those new policies which have been trialled, came from a government of which they approved and to which they weren’t philosophically opposed or too busy to deal with.

But of course they wouldn’t because the law’s the law and some policies are optional, some are not.

If a board and principal don’t understand that, do they understand enough to run their school?