Gongol.com Archives: September 2025
September 9, 2025
At what point do we declare a reading crisis?
Reuters: "Over 30% of U.S. students in their last year of high school lack basic reading skills [...] 45% of high school seniors lack basic math skills". Surely we should call this a crisis by now.
A murder arrest more than 30 years later
DNA connects a newborn left to die in 1992 to the mother, who now faces first-degree murder charges. This is exactly why safe-haven laws are so important.
China is finding buyers for its airliners
Airliners are highly complex systems, even at the 90-passenger size, so it's worth watching as China develops a homegrown industry in large aircraft. Boeing and Airbus have held a duopoly on the really big airliners, with Embraer holding its own in the smaller range, perhaps especially after Mitsubishi shut down its regional jet program. ■ The aircraft themselves will almost certainly prove themselves airworthy enough (flight is pretty unforgiving of flaws), and most of us won't be able to credibly gauge whether they're particularly good or bad. Don't just watch the product itself, watch what's being learned about how to do really complex things. ■ Just as has been the case with the development of China's aircraft carriers, it's not just the output, but the process that is worthy of note. That process forms a whole different discipline from the technical and engineering management of tangible things like civil works projects. In an increasingly contentious international economic and security environment, it's wise not to underestimate the value of learning how to make those abstract systems go.
Protest burns Nepal's parliament building
The BBC offers a head-snapping observation: "So far, the protesters have not spelt out their demands apart from rallying under the broader anti-corruption call. The protests appear spontaneous, with no organised leadership."
States can't grow if their cities don't
A study regarding Nebraska's state economy warns that Omaha and Lincoln are falling behind comparable metro areas in job growth rates. It also notes "that Omaha and Lincoln account for roughly 60% of Nebraska's jobs and wages". People overstate a lot of things about lazy divides like "red state" and "blue state", but the reality is that virtually every state is a combination of large (even dominant) metropolitan areas and lots of smaller communities, and everyone has a vested interest in the broad well-being of all types of places.
