Thursday, March 02, 2006

Where's Colombia?

Little Green Footballs provides a link to a recording, made by a student, of a lecture by Colorado geography teacher Jay Bennish. Michelle Malkin has taken the trouble to transcribe the lecture, parts of which I have reproduced below. But to get the real flavor of Bennish's disquisition you must listen to him speak: without a gap between his words, at the top of his lungs and about 50 percent too fast, like a lecture at the chipmunk academy. The first part of the recording is reproduced verbatim below. It's a small sample because it goes on and on longer than one would think possible.

Why do we have troops in Colombia fighting in their civil war for over 30 years. Most Americans don't even know this. For over 30 years, America has had soldiers fighting in Colombia in a civil war. Why are we fumigating coca crops in Bolivia and Peru if we're not trying to control other parts of the world. Who buys cocaine? Not Bolivians. Not Peruvians. Americans! Ok. Why are we destroying the farmers' lives when we're the ones that consume that good.

Can you imagine? What is the world's number one single cause of death by a drug? What drug is responsible for the most deaths in the world? Cigarettes! Who is the world's largest producer of cigarettes and tobacco? The United States!

What part of our country grows all our tobacco? Anyone know what states in particular? Mostly what's called North Carolina. Alright. That's where all the cigarette capitals are. That's where a lot of them are located from. Now if we have the right to fly to Bolivia or Peru and drop chemical weapons on top of farmers' fields because we're afraid they might be growing coca and that could be turned into cocaine and sold to us, well then don't the Peruvians and the Iranians and the Chinese have the right to invade America and drop chemical weapons over North Carolina to destroy the tobacco plants that are killing millions and millions of people in their countries every year and causing them billions of dollars in health care costs?

Make sure you get these definitions down.

Capitalism: If you don't understand the economic system of capitalism, you don't understand the world in which we live. Ok. Economic system in which all or most of the means of production, etc., are owned privately and operated in a somewhat competitive environment for the purpose of producing PROFIT! Of course, you can shorten these definitions down. Make sure you get the gist of it. Do you see how when, you know, when you're looking at this definition, where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Is that a part of this system? Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It's at odds with human rights.

Anytime you have a system that is designed to procure profit, when profit is the bottom motive -- money -- that means money is going to become more important potentially than what? Safety, human lives, etc.

Why did we invade Iraq?! How do we know that the invasion of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction-- even if weapons had been found, how would you have known, how could you prove--that that was not a real reason for us to go there.

screen cap of Bennish
from Classical Values

 

The legal blog Volokh Conspiracy notes that Bennish has been suspended from his job at the Colorado public high school where he worked and examines the question of whether Bennish could be suspended for his lecture in class.

Can Bennish constitutionally be penalized for presenting one-sided political rants to his class? Yes, I believe he can, and, to the extent he was departing from the assigned curriculum, or violating school policy in presenting only one side of an issue, likely should. ... I go on to argue that so long as we live in a second-best world with public schools, government authorities have the right to dictate to teachers what to teach, and to punish those teachers who refuse to comply. I conclude, however, that teachers should only be excluded or punished based on what they actually say in class, not based on their background belief ... In short, a public school teacher shouldn't be punished for his background beliefs, though arugably it's constitutional to deny someone a teaching job based on those beliefs (no Klan members teaching a race relations course). But a teacher can be punished for what he says in class.

Commentary

It was interesting to see three of the most visited blogs on the Internet get all exercised about this issue, on a day when the President made a nuclear energy deal with India, the Patriot Act extended and a few car bombs had gone off in Iraq, so I figured Bennish had touched a nerve. But exactly which nerve was it? Horror at the quality of "geography" instruction in public secondary education? At a teacher jumping the bounds of a curriculum? Or the sinking feeling at being dragged, against our will, into a school activity like this one:

President Bush is being tried for "crimes against civilian populations" and "inhumane treatment of prisoners" at Parsippany High School, with students arguing both sides before a five-teacher "international court of justice." The panel's verdict could come as soon as Friday. Teacher Joseph Kyle said the "hearing"-- he preferred that term to trial -- opened on Monday in a senior advanced placement government class. The school's principal said he signed off in advance on the subject matter.

The Parsippany exercise has the merit of actually being relevant to the course (advanced placement government class) being taught and of allowing both sides of the argument to be presented. However that mock trial turns out, it seems less objectionable than the geography lecture that wasn't.

358 Comments:

Blogger enscout said...

Sadly, this likely occurs in some degree and form hundreds of times in any given day in our public school system.

My wife works at a rural public school where they still say a morning prayer (no kidding). But you still can't believe the goings on there.

I've been trying to convince her to get out but she's dedicated to 'her' kids. One day she'll be forced out due to her convictions. The handwriting is on the wall.

3/02/2006 04:36:00 PM  
Blogger 74 (William Powell) said...

Of course, this isn't a new phenomenon. I remember being chastised by a chemistry prof. at CalPoly in 1970 because I publically suggested that he should stop spouting his political views and get back to chemistry; which was, after all, what I was paying to study.

3/02/2006 04:55:00 PM  
Blogger Da Man said...

Social Studies teacher Joseph Kyle has been actively brainwashing Parsippany students with his radical ideology. During last year's election cycle, Kyle had his students conduct a series of mock debates for the New Jersey Governor's race. In the student "election" taking place after the Kyle-inspired debates, the Socialist candidate, Tino Rozzo, won on a platform of a $12-per-hour minimum wage and a "socialized healthcare system under workers' and community control".

Students in Kyle's senior AP politics and government class organized the debate and poll, in addition to acting as stand-ins for the gubernatorial candidates. Of course, the candidate for one particular political party was branded an outcast, as the Daily Record (NJ) reported back in November 2005:

Stephanie Foltzer, 18, ably stood in for [Doug] Forrester, though Kyle made it clear that the Republican wasn't a popular choice in her senior class. "The Libertarians were highly desired. So were the Democrats. Nobody wanted to be the Republican," Kyle said.

"Stephanie, who's truly not a conservative, was forced into that role," he said.


It's no mystery why no one in a class of more than one hundred students living in "relatively wealthy, Republican-dominated Morris County" would voluntarily choose to represent Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Forrester. As the evidence clearly shows, they've been inundated with liberal propaganda from socialist relics masquerading as teachers. What I don't understand is why parents of Parsippany High School students are apparently willing to put up with teachers spending their time indoctrinating their children with left-wing ideology rather than teaching the subject at hand.

Let's hope someone speaks out soon. Starting on Tuesday, Kyle's sophomore class will be placing long-deceased President Andrew Jackson on trial for alleged abuses against Native Americans. I guess its time for Parsippany H.S. senior Stephanie Foltzer to play the "bad guy" again.

3/02/2006 04:59:00 PM  
Blogger Arthur Dent said...

I believe it was a nucular energy deal, not nuclear.

[Wiki says: The reason why nuclear becomes nucular is founded in the phonotactics of the English language......assimilation of words and thoughts.]

Bwahhhaaa.

3/02/2006 04:59:00 PM  
Blogger Papa Ray said...

Off Topic but on Target, Max Friedman unloads and if most of what he says is true, (which I believe it is) a lot of people will be enraged when they read it.

Papa Ray
West Texas
USA

3/02/2006 05:46:00 PM  
Blogger geoffgo said...

Bennish studied at the feet of Ward Churchill, don't you know?

All day today we had radio talk shows, here in CO, declaring he can't be fired for expressing opinions.

But clearly, the school policy has been abused. Bennish is not nearly as clever as his fellow traveler in NJ, and didn't have a student stand in for the opposing view.

BTW, Bennish is an Aspenite, who also rants in his classes about how he hates his wealthy parents.

3/02/2006 05:50:00 PM  
Blogger geoffgo said...

And judging by other events, apparantly many of Kyle's sudents moved to Maryland and got elected to state office.

3/02/2006 05:52:00 PM  
Blogger Alexis said...

It saddens me how a key insight of Mr. Bennish can be obscured by his hysterical conspiracy theories.

Yes, there is a discrepancy between how tobacco and coca are treated. But it has nothing to do with any corporate agenda. Cocaine was only outlawed during the Progressive Era at the same time when alcohol was also getting banned. The difference now is that a large enough constituency of Americans broke the law during Prohibition to make that law unenforceable. Although a large constituency exists in some places (California) to make marijuana quasi-legal, coca leaf (and especially cocaine) users don't have the same political clout that alcohol, nicotine, and lottery addicts do.

Despite Mr. Bennish's conspiracy theories, corporate capitalism has nothing to do with banning cocaine. The "War On Drugs" is warmed-over Progressivism. I'm sure the pharmaceutical corporations would love to market cocaine, morphine, marijuana, meth and more and put out glossy ads in Newsweek and Cosmo and 30-second commercials on the evening news. I'm not so sure the criminals would like it, though.

I'm glad that somebody noticed the double standard between coca and tobacco. It's just too bad this pearl of wisdom was hidden in the sewage of leftist demagoguery. Oh well, I suppose somebody's got to make the point.

And all this time, I had been hoping someday to have a chance to drink some coca leaf tea in the United States. Now, if I want to drink it, I'd need to go all the way to Bolivia. (Sigh…)

3/02/2006 06:19:00 PM  
Blogger Arthur Dent said...

The Problem is not public schools, it is the community one lives amongst.

I do not support vouchers because I do not support a right to 'X' thousand dollars going 'Y'. I don't support an educational entitlement.

If parents have a problem with their school they should deal with it. Move, pay or do it yourself.

I went to a public school, almost everyone I know went to public schools. Parents, family, religion, philosophy and friends are more important than the local school. The local school is an amalgam...a mixture, a reflection of the adults.

If you still doubt that, consider that 'good', intuitive, parents move their kids out of failed places. Thus the failure of failed schools. Thus the solution of 'integration'.

Stupid people, who almost get it, often believe that they can produce smart children by moving to 'smart' communities. They are then shocked when junior is less than average, when junior cannot read.

I was going to say [Good parents, more often than not, produce well rounded kids]

I prefer to say that FUBAR and semi-FUBAR parents are the problem. They do not nurture.

Home schooling only works when Mom and Dad are.

3/02/2006 06:20:00 PM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

Even in Numby had someone presenting the other side he was still way out of line. The class was GEOGRAPHY not history, not civics but GEOGRAPHY. He should be teaching his students the geography.

Also on Arthur Dent's claim.

Vouchers are no more of an entitlement than public education is. Vouchers just free the students from the Teacher's Industrial Complex (TIC).

3/02/2006 06:31:00 PM  
Blogger Arthur Dent said...

Marcus A.
Vouchers just free the.....
------
Vouchers are not free. Vouchers do not free. Cash for schools should not be a right.
Vouchers will become a right.

If you want to home school, then pay for it. If you want other schools, do it. Pay for it. Set up charities.

I do not want $8,000 a year going to Hamas Elementary, where kids blow up real fast.

3/02/2006 06:59:00 PM  
Blogger Arthur Dent said...

Public Schools should not be free. They should be available.

Marcus A, part of my dilemma is that, coming from a dirt poor background, I benefited from a public education. My wife and my best friend in HS both finished in the top of their class and are brilliant. Far too many of my smart, but left, adult friends have messed up kids. Messed up kids sent to private schools.

The more important question is how can a University education cost $30,000 but a good Public one cost just $8,000? The College kids, like the KOS ones, are sorted.

3/02/2006 07:12:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Betcha Bennish graduated from Berkeley.

3/02/2006 07:25:00 PM  
Blogger Mannning said...

The student that recorded the rant said that this was typical, and that perhaps 80% of the time the class was being treated to the same sort of rant. He was nbot teaching the subject--geography--more than 20% of the time. Grounds for firing?

3/02/2006 07:29:00 PM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

Ahhh a Hillary follower.

3/02/2006 07:36:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

One argument is that the kids are smart enough to see through this madness.
That misses the most important point in all these examples:

The kids are not learning the truth about subject matter, and are left w/o a solid educational point of reference in all things until this deficit it rectified.

Very sad:
Demand Vouchers!
Encourage Homeschoolers!
Equal resources to private schools!

...start with minorities, who have been most harmed by our corrupt monopolist educational establishment.

3/02/2006 07:39:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Vouchers simply return money now confiscated by the NEA.
If we rid the country of Hamas, there will be no Hamas Highs.
---
Necessities, both.

3/02/2006 07:46:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

If Bennish Becomes Bernadine, perhaps his problems will diminish.

3/02/2006 07:48:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

I've seen a professor lightheartedly ask (assuming everyone's of the same opinion as her): "What's this mean?" while pointing at a picture of dead concentration inmates.

The answer? "Mission accomplished."

She isn't even malicious, she's just clueless.

Same professor made it mandatory for the class to visit a showing of a MoveOn.org film on Iraq in university theatre [paid in part by general tuition]. I had better things to do.

3/02/2006 07:51:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

The history department is desperate to bring in women, so they've imo resorted to bringing in obviously less capable professors for lack of alternatives.

The result is at this rate my degrees will become increasingly worthless - that makes it my problem.

The good news is that yesterday members of the campus who I know brought back a long dormant Conservative newspaper.

About damn time, the two other newspapers have gradually fallen into line with the administration. Journalism majors...

Only wya to break it is to go right at the alumni, who are kept deaf and dumb. In that respect, this new newspaper should go right for their heart, if the school doesn't close it down through intimidation.

I ain't writing anything though, I've in the belly of the beast at the moment. Funny how people are often more hesitant to risk reputation than actual personal safety...

3/02/2006 07:57:00 PM  
Blogger sam said...

If Bennish Becomes Bernadine, perhaps his problems will diminish.

It's possible that his teaching days are finished.

3/02/2006 08:00:00 PM  
Blogger Karridine said...

I see such contrasts here to the methods of EDUCATORS, who draw out childrens' capacities, draw out their logic and rational development, draw out their ability to ascertain, for themselves, right and wrong!

These 'little Eichmanns' are so sure of their cause's superiority, yet so frantic to compel and coerce and persuade those in their clutches, that they MUST use time for these rants, as much time as possible, ranting as strongly as possible, because "The Man" might come tomorrow to take them to Guantanamo for their convictions, speaking trooth to power, y'know, Dewd?

Wow! How did I get from THERE to HERE?

3/02/2006 08:01:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Public education was meant to be the engine of socialization, which took individuals and instilled a group identity larger than the family. Pledge of Allegiance and all that. Whatever happened to that vision?

3/02/2006 08:37:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Fox interviewed the kid who taped the teacher. He was asked if anyone ever argued with Bennish.

The kid said, no, that the teachers's "attitude and body language" made that undoable.

This is all so familiar--these birds are all alike, they're bullies on top of being liars.

Bleeding for the victim is always their big justification for a little (heh heh) "adjustment" of history.

That the profit motive is the human motive, and that it alone feeds the world's poor, can't be that difficult to understand.

So, not only are these creatures liars, they *know* they're liars.

So, question, what is it they want? The Kommisar's job at a future gulag?

3/02/2006 08:49:00 PM  
Blogger sam said...

I can remember saying the pledge of allegiance all the way up through the 5th grade then for some reason it stopped in the 6th. This would've been '78. Carter years?

3/02/2006 08:52:00 PM  
Blogger Mother Effingby said...

I believe the time has come for us to interrupt our Marxbot teachers and profs not to debate them, but rather to ridicule them. If you are in school, or have a kid in school, having a jerk like this teaching your future means the kids will have to study even harder, but when they demolish their prof's bloated egos with withering derision, it will be worth it.

3/02/2006 09:04:00 PM  
Blogger Red River said...

I made the news because we have all had such horrid teachers. Its a shared experience.

3/02/2006 09:13:00 PM  
Blogger Enlighten-NewJersey said...

What does play acting before an "international court of justice" have to do with a course on U.S. government? Absolutely nothing. It’s not in keeping with U.S. law or the Constitution. So how in the world could this stunt “connect perfectly with the AP government curriculum” as the high school principal claims in defense of Kyle? The school’s principal and the teacher clearly lack even a rudimentary understanding of U.S. government. Bad enough, but now they are passing their ignorance on to their students.

3/02/2006 09:27:00 PM  
Blogger erico said...

I believe Mike Rosen broke this story. I heard Mr. Rosen (850 KOA) on Tuesday announce that on Wednesday he would be airing the student tape on his show, and interviewing the student, after he was contacted by the student's father. Rosen represented that the father did not receive any help from the school district and so wished to apply pressure by going public. That is, the school district brushed off the family's complaint. I thought it would be an interesting show, but had no idea how big the story would become, or fast, or that it would show up on a blog I like to read. Missed the actual show on Wednesday, but heard some of the clips.

This evening, Kaplas and Silverman (650 KHOW) broadcast their show outside the Overland school, interviewing students and callers. The students held a demonstration in support of the teacher. Both hosts are smart lawyers. I think Kaplas was allowing the students who supported the teacher to speak long and loud, to demonstrate to the listening audience that the kids in support don't even realize they're being propagandized. One young lady couldn't even comprehend that Mr. Bennish was expressing his opinions. Let alone that it is inappropriate (school policy requires giving both sides of controversial issues), or that the teacher is overtly trying to mold their outlook. It's just the air they breathe.

FYI, according to Kaplas and Silverman, the teacher has taken on the services of a high-profile ACLU-type lawyer, David Lane, the same who is representing Ward Churchill. Lane said on air that the teacher feels it is his first amendment right to speechify in class.

Seconding a comment above, this story does touch a nerve for me because of the public education experience I endured at the hands of poor teachers, when I was the captive audience. The long, silent railings in my mind formulated my disgust by the time I reached high school: "I have to be the adult, because the adults refuse to." Now I have a kid in school.

3/02/2006 11:24:00 PM  
Blogger erico said...

Correction to my post above:

Dan Caplis, 630 KHOW AM

3/02/2006 11:53:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"Seconding a comment above, this story does touch a nerve for me because of the public education experience I endured at the hands of poor teachers, when I was the captive audience. The long, silent railings in my mind formulated my disgust by the time I reached high school: "I have to be the adult, because the adults refuse to." Now I have a kid in school."

It can be humiliating at times. Speaking up either takes bravery, or foolhardiness, or a combination of both. Sure, there's plenty of professors campus who disagree with me, but aren't political hacks, I can name a couple who I enjoy conversing with. But why even risk it? There's other people who see your name associated with College Republicans, or a politically incorrect article, and you're swimming against the current from then. For that reason, I certainly admire the brass ones on the group that's starting up this new newspaper. I've heard they aren't holding back either.

3/03/2006 12:33:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Trish posits the question:
"What happened between then and now? "
---
1.The Teachers Unionized.
2. The Federal Government got involved.

Test scores immediately began their death spiral.

3/03/2006 01:16:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Public education was meant to be the engine of socialization, which took individuals and instilled a group identity larger than the family.
Pledge of Allegiance and all that.
Whatever happened to that vision
?"
---
Wretchard,
To whatever degree that might once have been true, the opposite is certainly true now.

...and it is almost universally observed that Homeschoolers, raised with a great deal of interaction with adults as well as children of different ages, are better socialized than their counterparts raised around mostly their peers and "expert educators."

3/03/2006 01:33:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

John Conyers sends his sixth-grade son to a Prep School that costs 28 Thousand dollars per year.!

Around 50% of Hawaii's public school teachers send their kids to private schools.

Most liberals who can afford to send their children to private schools, while DEMANDING that others be deprived of the same choice.
...at the behest of their masters in the NEA.

3/03/2006 02:14:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

Listening to this guy reminds me of debating my lefty nephew. Talks fast, spews so much partially true and completely false stuff so fast that by the time I could get a word in it was hard to figure where to begin rebutting

That is pure Chomsky - and it's no accident. Mix generalization, analogy, and metaphor with a couple recognizeable factoids that you can make past, present or future at will by manipulating the verb tense and voila - you can get to any conclusion you want. If the speaker is artful in his placement of emotive verb phrases (kill civilians, destroy crops) your brain will automatically attach some degree of "truth" to what he's saying.

There is a path from 1930's Soviet cultural agitprop that snakes through France (Satre, Derrida) where it was reborn as postmodernism and where it came into adolescence in the 60's.

One cause of the cultural divide is that half of us are not speaking the same language. For Bennish et al objective facts are just something to be "framed" away.

3/03/2006 04:04:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...


Cartoonist’s Daughter Hunted by 12 Jihadists


While folks like Bennish tell Coloradao 12 year olds that their lives are not worth defending his ideological comrades hunt 12 year olds in Denmark.

Have Louisville Slugger. Will Travel.

3/03/2006 05:36:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

But those 12 men, pb, they just wanted to "talk", have a little "dialog" with the Cartoonist's kid.

But the real question, is did they have aQ Membership Cards? 'Cause if they did, well then the US could get 'em.
If not, if they are only Mohammedan males, well we must assume they are Men of Peace, from the Religion of Peace, 'til we see a Membership Card or an AK.
The AK makes someone an Enemy, sometimes, an Explosives detonator does not. (per M Yon and the troops in Mosul)
That is the Policy of US and President Bush, those are the our and his Rules of Engagement.

Just wait 'til 12 men show up to see Jay Bennish, why even sbw would think that was News.
But it'll never happen.

Or take the example of the Taliban spokesman, the 4th Grade Grad, now enrolled at Yale. In WWI or WWII that fellow would have met his demise. A vigilante, perhaps the brother or father of a slain Service member, would have capped that Mr Talibani by now.
But in modern America Mr Talibani is given Full Subsidy to study Terrorism 101 at Yale.

More US Surrender with Tribute paid to the Enemy.

Ain't it Grand.

3/03/2006 06:21:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Didn't Mr Bush go to Yale?
Think he contributes to the School, as an Alumni?

Wonder what he thinks of Mr Talibani?

How did that Mr Talibani fellow get a Visa?

Only in America would we subsidize the Enemy's education.

3/03/2006 06:27:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

Cynicism is good up to a point. I suppose. After that it's more like dead fish.

3/03/2006 06:37:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

That is US Policy, pb, not Cynicism.

Mr Jay Bennish's safety is not in question. He is not being threaten with violence. If he was, it would be News.

The 12 men visiting the little girl, they are assumed Innocent, by US. That is US Policy

Islam is a Religion of Peace, Mr Bush has said so repeatedly. The US has no quarrel with Islam or Muslims.
That is US Policy

The only Enemies that have been Authorized are aQ and the Iraqi Baathist Government. That is US Policy

You are right about one thing, though, pb, US Policy, it smells of dead fish.

3/03/2006 06:50:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Enroll the dead fish for free drug coverage, as well as a Yale Education, it will only cost 18 TRILLION dollars.
That should bring a dead fish back to life, not to mention give him an Ivy League Education.
Dan Rather said:
"Courage"
GWB:
"Compassion"
NEA says,
"Right On!"

3/03/2006 06:57:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Who was it said "a cynic knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."

I like that, "the value of nothing"--doesn't really say that "nothing" has no value. In fact it can have enormous, even infinite, value. It's the currency, in the Inferno.

3/03/2006 07:00:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Smaller Govt is not "nothing."
it is simply smaller.

3/03/2006 07:04:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

That's how we've handled Border Security as well, doug, made it smaller, more nimble.

3/03/2006 07:09:00 AM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

Desert Rat,

You inquired:

Didn't Mr Bush go to Yale?

Indeed he did, graduating in 1968. (I graduated in 1969, but did not know him personally, though some of my friends did.)

You have touched on an item of recent news that irks me more than anything, this Taliban character being allowed into Yale, and that fact being celebrated in the NYT.

I am so ashamed of, and enraged at, my alma mater.

Though to be truthful, in a way this outcome does not surprise me. If I had been more intelligent myself, I might have foreseen something like this based on my experiences with William Sloane Coffin, Marcuse and others when I was there in the late sixties.

At the time, I was stupid enough to swallow their garbage myself.

The place is hopeless now, and in a very small way, I contributed to the decline.

Jamie Irons

3/03/2006 07:13:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

One commonality between the Prescription Drug Plan and our Immigration Policy, is that neither is based on fact.

Both on the belief that they can be fixed, ...later.
Why later, only God knows.

3/03/2006 07:15:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Later is always better than now, doug.

We can win the War, later.
Secure the Border, later.
Fix the schools, later.
Secure our Ports, later.

This Administration and Congress, Republicans all, are a true disappointment.

Across the Board, they have fallen short. Better than the Opposition may have done, but the Republicans, having all the levers of Power, perform poorly in the internal Information Wars and Leadership.

3/03/2006 07:24:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"The place is hopeless now"
Jamie,
Hugh Hewitt came to a much different conclusion about Harvard after the Larry Summers affair.

After all, it was all over minor issues like
truth in Academia and
Free Speech.

I call that denial.

3/03/2006 07:29:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

The internal information wars have become the
Infernal Information Wars.
"Hijacked" does not refer to airliners, but to the RoP.

3/03/2006 07:31:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Don't forget Katrina--Bush knew as early as 1953 that hurricanes are bad--yet he did nothing, nothing about it.

3/03/2006 07:33:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Jamie,
Took me 30 minutes to remember her name, but Yale had Coffin and Marcuse, UC STILL has Marcuse protege, communist, and domestic terrorist, Angela Davis!

...and we had that "Revolutionary" coach of Tommy Smith, world's fastest human, who yours truly ran against!
(needless to say, I lost!)

3/03/2006 07:38:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Harry Edward's Useful Idiots

3/03/2006 07:45:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Doug at the 1968 Olympics:

3/03/2006 07:55:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

I'd give Mr Bush a pass on Katrina.
But not on Mike Brown. I know of Mr Brown and anyone that would hire him, to be a Disaster Manager, is suspect of REALLY POOR judgement.

I am not sure how involved Mr Bush was in Mr Brown's selection, but to have Mr Brown vetted by anyone and approved as competent is beyond imagination. The Arabian Horse industry is as corrupt a business as there is. Mr Brown managed the biggest Club in the Industry. Proofs in the puddin'.

3/03/2006 07:57:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

hey, that's guilt by Arabian Horse Association--

3/03/2006 08:08:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

You better believe it

3/03/2006 08:25:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

...more o' that capitalist rope, huh, Arthur?

3/03/2006 08:48:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Malkin wonders if iPod will doom the mystical teacher/student 'bond':

3/03/2006 09:07:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"hey, that's guilt by Arabian Horse Association--"
---
Just because they're Arabian doesn't mean they're going to blow up the Rodeo.

3/03/2006 09:08:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Full coverage and related analysis of teachers gone wild at
Front Page Magazine :
Indoctrination High

Academic Hanky-PankyHistorians vs. History

Klaus at Dignan's blog dissects Bennish's rant.

Bennish, put on leave, reportedly plans to file a lawsuit today to get back to work.

3/03/2006 09:17:00 AM  
Blogger Nomennovum said...

Jay Bennish reminds me of Otis Driftwood from the movie House of 1000 Corpses by Rob Zombie.

They look similar, they sound alike (see the movie; it's wonderful IMHO), but more disturbing, they are equally insane.

3/03/2006 09:18:00 AM  
Blogger Jack said...

Malkin wonders if iPod will doom the mystical teacher/student 'bond':

Get out all those potential Bernstein's and Woodward's in the student bodies, there's leaking to be done.

3/03/2006 09:18:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

That Bennish has got the vacous visage if anyone does. Wonder how old he is--22?

3/03/2006 09:20:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

vacuous. ha--hate that, like calling someone an idoit.

3/03/2006 09:22:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

As to the Stability of Iraq there is News at Bill Roggio's site that the Iraqi Police rolled up some Roadside bombers and that Coaliton Forces (unnamed) took 60 some aQ prisoners in the past couple of days.

No Civil War, the Iraqi Police and ISF are working away and the Government (democratic) is on the verge of forming. What the final outcome of that Government will be, that is still unknown, but a US Success none the less.

Columbia, that is down there near Mexico, right?

3/03/2006 09:34:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Vacuum Head.
He and Colmes are a couple of beauties.

3/03/2006 09:35:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

In the old days of tape, usually a lecture could not be heard rebroadcast on the radio.

This kid's recording was first class.
Let the lawsuits begin:
"You have NO RIGHT to know what we're teaching your child."

3/03/2006 09:38:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Rat, no, Columbia is the Gem of the Ocean. Colombia is down there next to Hugozuela.

3/03/2006 09:45:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

The President has a Coca Leaf on his coat of arms, or some such?

3/03/2006 09:51:00 AM  
Blogger Handsome Hu said...

Somethings to consider:

1. This bias does not seem new. Perhaps its gained new lows. My high school was rampant with it - and I was in a lone conservative county in the CA of the midwest, Illinois. There were weekly announcements dictating that the death penalty was wrong etc. Note: this was before 9/11 and OIF. I can only imagine what happened after that...

2. Wretchard has several times reminded his audiences that people are more capable than caricatures make them out to be, whether these caricatures are muslims who "fundamentally" cannot comprehend or value democracy or, in this case, young victimized minds ready to be steamrolled by the blustery hoopla of chomskyites.

3. Remember that in 2004, even with the mobilized levels of PR devices, be they moveon.org, raging grannies and all the other sharply-marketed groupthink "projects," Bush still won. PR, marketing and advertisements, the glitz and the glam, are highly HIGHLY overrated as to what they can do about improving a given idea's ability to persuade.

The advantage of such PR and glamorous marketing and entertainment is limited to how much it can increase the rate of persuasion. The question becomes, What effects do all the glitz and glamour have on the human brains ability to summarize, categorize and organize some worldly bit of reality into mental material? how much does it improve the rate of persuasion?

When humans evaluate ideas, it is at least unfair, if not also patently absurd, to think that in aggregate, people evaluate Sean Penn and George Clooney let alone this tool in the same category as politicians etc (although, you should note that BC'ers and LGF'ers could perhaps be distinguished by lumping these folks together in the same category - but these two groups arent whats being "fought" over by the mavens of pomo etc). I'm hard pressed to see any causal relationship, let alone imagine a mechanism that is truly threatening; i know those like clooney etc think otherwise and infact think the human mind is something that can be managed with some luck and some finesse. In the ongoing historical comedy of utopian thought, he too will learn that no amount of finesse can subvert human minds with access to cold hard facts - cold hard choosing-whether-to-burn-alive-in-jet-fuel
-or-leap-to-your-closed-coffin-funeral-
facts.

Furthermore, voters will form decisions from sets of information that are hardly exclusive to the moveon.org sets, the FNC sets etc. (What people always forget is how information and new ideas/arguments emerge out of interaction, i.e. conversation, with other human beings. this information is at least as potentially persuasive as what some 20/20 gn0bhead is saying)

There is also the issue that rules of thumb and idiosyncratic notions are at least at parity with any sort of empirically derived "lessons."

At best, I think the improvement any idea gains from being sharply marketed and mass-communicated is that it creates a groupthink term, which may or may not appeal to people's sensibilities. I think it is difficult to see the relationship as deterministic, but it could plausibly contribute, though not at a rate that gives the Soros of the world much return on their investments.

We've seen and continue to see time and time again, throughout Bush's 2 terms, well-organized idea-based offensives that fall flat on their presumptuous haughty little utopian faces. None of them effectively changed 2004;

There pyhrric victories of weekly polls seem reminiscent to the meaningless reptition of body count statistics during View nam.

These offensives, far more charging a trench full of machine gunners, rather than a flanking maneuver, have a different tone now because they seek to just sully his "legacy" etc, but they will fail to do even that. there is enough media that provides, even with blips of editorializing, images and facts of conquered cities, routed terrorists, free elections and illegitimate fanaticism. what is a shame is that many republicans lack a faith in their fellow countrymen to know that we know these things; what is worse is the royalty that thinks their minds are better at evaluating the information of these events than ours. n00bs.

3/03/2006 09:57:00 AM  
Blogger Handsome Hu said...

View Nam = Viet Nam

:-|

3/03/2006 10:07:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Kinch, JFKerry, possibly a greater danger to the essence of the idea called "America" than that idea's avowed enemies (such as OBL), came within three percentage points of winning the presidency.

I wish I could be as sanguine as you, but until I can explain the narrowness of that election, I just can't be.

Great post, though.

3/03/2006 10:27:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

9:57 AM,
Whatever, the fact remains that hours spent listening to this guy's blather are hours NOT spent learning factual subject matter.
Education suffers.

3/03/2006 10:28:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

Half of us are nuts. I hope it's them.

3/03/2006 10:29:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"I wish I could be as sanguine as you, but until I can explain the narrowness of that election, I just can't be."
---
It was Lurch Freaking Fonda Kerry, for crying out loud!

3/03/2006 10:30:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Is we Edjukatin' our chilluns good?

3/03/2006 10:33:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

buddy
Both Mr Bush and JFKerry attended Yale, even belonged to the same Secret Society, Skull & Bones.

The reason it was so close was that it did not matter to the Power Elite, either fellow would toe the line. Frat brothers forever.

Now that Mr Talibani is attending Yale, wonder if he will get into the inner sanctum of Skull & Bones, or will the Skull & Boners consider him just a prize, kinda like a monkey on a string, that Mr Talibani?

3/03/2006 10:37:00 AM  
Blogger Bonnie said...

The public school liberal arts are packed with socialist teachers. The kids at Overland High who were demonstrating for the teacher illustrate exactly why the communist's first goal is to take over the schools.

They've done so. Unless we break the NEA's lock on public schools through charter, voucher, and homeschool, our country is done for. We might as well buy our little plots in Galt's Gulch.

3/03/2006 10:38:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

re: Katrina,
Video "leaked" by Mike Brown was released to all the networks by Admin at the time it was recorded.
---
Also, Amtrack offered to take people out when they moved their equipment to safety.
Naggin turned them down.
Mayfield made a Special Call to Naggin.
Naggin ignored him.

Schoolbus Naggin, master of hot chocolate politics, gets a free ride, Brown/Admin get trashed.

3/03/2006 10:40:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Black Helicopters hover over Phoenix, directed by special mission
Black Phoenix Predators
armed with
Precision Rodent Rockets.
(PRR's)

3/03/2006 10:44:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

But it is Mr Brown who rereleases old tape with a spun message, that the Media pick up.

Mr Bush gets his "Just Reward" for hiring a person of Mr Brown's moral fiber, in the first place.

There just may be a God.

3/03/2006 10:45:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Remember, doug,
The Free Press,
it's not a shield,
it's a sword.

3/03/2006 10:48:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Rat, it's either the Illuminati, the Trilateralists, Bilderburgers, Masons and Knights Templar, or a silly-ass college-boy frat.

Until I saw through the elitism, I was in a frat for a year or two, and was somehow offered a paying job in the 68 Nixon campaign, tho I was barely out of my teens. Later I learned that HR Haldeman was a frat bro.

Point--can't blame adults for meaningless juvenile associations, even if they profit from it. Sinister? I doubt it. Why no exposes from the ten thousand other members?

3/03/2006 10:52:00 AM  
Blogger Starling said...

All is not lost. I routinely get visitors to my Business blog from k12 and dot-edu sites. Like today, for instance, someone from the Oakland Michigan public schools found their way to my blog after googling "walmart impact on america." They viewed a few pages.

Now I have no way to know if my blog was that person's cup of tea. I have no way to determine if my Wal-mart series of posts was or wasn't what they were looking for just then.

Still, all the edu and k12 hits that I get lead me to conclude that at least a few people (teachers and students) have been better able argue against the anti-capitalist nonsense that passes for instruction in far too many a business classroom.

Surely this is even more the case for high-quality blogs like this one and dozens of others which together reach hundreds of thousands of people or more each day.

3/03/2006 10:55:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

If Skull and Bones was nefarious, it would be called "People for the American Way" or the "Open Society Organization".

3/03/2006 10:56:00 AM  
Blogger Jrod said...

Why is it that these sorts of educational headlines usually springforth from Colorado? Kind of like anything that one would file under: "odd news event" seems to usually come from Florida.

3/03/2006 11:00:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

SDH, thank you for looking into the WalMart offensive. It's one of the left's major efforts, it's very serious.

3/03/2006 11:00:00 AM  
Blogger enscout said...

May as well go back to teaching out of the Bible, where the educational system in America got its start.

As we find many times over, if they don't have a God to worship, they'll make one up. Mr. Bennish - case in point.

3/03/2006 11:11:00 AM  
Blogger Handsome Hu said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

3/03/2006 11:14:00 AM  
Blogger Handsome Hu said...

Buddy:

I don't know how sanguine I am about those three percentage points. Perhaps it was a high water mark. But if it wasnt, that portends something more unsettling.

I'd say I'm inclined towards optimism of people making intelligent decisions when given the right information. Perhaps Kerry rode the wave of badly-informed intelligence.

One interesting post-2004 development is the fate of democrats. Although this is merely anecdote, two of my close friends who voted for Kerry and more or less hate bush, have, after the Cartoon Jihad and Iran's nuclear developments, come into agreement with me - or rather, we all find ourselves agreeing in...call it a "central" position:

1. You embassy-burning muslims are flippin crazy. Same with you terrorist-group electing muslims. Wtf? (to playfully generalize for a moment: they tend to articulate their opinions with a tone of erudite bewilderment, what with all their erudite presumptions being undercut by "craziness," not ratioanlly acting people that just want to maximize the kafir killing.) Whatever, ill take it.
2. Iran should not get nukes.
3. Uhh, the UAE is on indefinite probation, pending the end of the GWOT or them giving us some indispensable strategic asset or victory; something that changes the tides even further than they have been since 9/11.

After the Cartoon Jihad, I think standards for that part of the world have actually been raised by some people; its not enough for them to just resist killing one another; nope, realist definitions of stability arent sufficient either. Seems like a roundabout way to agree with Bush's OIF objectives...

The weblog WindsOfChange has a few posters who consider themselves "former democrats"
It was the events of 9/11 that reorganized the dynamics that underpin political consensus. None of that subsequent organization was written in stone though, despite what the theatrics surrounding OIF coverage contributed. Since then, I think there is something of a flow towards reunion, towards attacking the scourges of Islamism anew, especially because perhaps the scourges are different than those manifest in 9/11 and OIF...

Note that if this is occuring, this new consensus disagrees with this Colorado tool as well as the sean penns and howard deans etc. The reaction to this guys disgusting excuse for educating our young is appropriate, but the more sweeping statements seem more allergic...especially that that seems to edge towards melodramatic doomsaying.

Also note: we've killed/captured many of the upper cadre, many many more of the lower cadre; time to move on to supporters and that is where the game changes (i.e. different scourge). This is where we are attacking charities and front organizatiosn with lawfare, not chasing infrared jihadis with AC130 artillery (not to say the AC130s get to rest of course). At some point this shift has to happen...I presume desert rat would ream me for ideas like this...

I wonder if our electorate may vote in a powerful voice in 2008 from a more or less united position. Indeed, if the strategic landscape has changed, it allows new positions to be taken and new pursuits of political gamesmanship (one where democrats can begin crawling out of the hole they dug themselves). That there is bi-partisan condemnation of the UAE ports issue speaks powerfully towards GWOT sentiments being far from "settled," and that both sides find themselves suddenly on the same side of a new game, much how the USSR and the US found themselves curiously in agreement after the 1979 revolution (a new regional game) in Iran...

If there is a new consensus forming, what will another terrorist attack do? Is it a delicate mechanism, or is it an American glacier headed ultimately towards the Saudis and Pakistanis, crashing through CAIR and its ilk en route?

3/03/2006 11:19:00 AM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

You know I missed the central question of Wretchard's blog last night. He says: It was interesting to see three of the most visited blogs on the Internet get all exercised about this issue, on a day when the President made a nuclear energy deal with India, the Patriot Act extended and a few car bombs had gone off in Iraq, so I figured Bennish had touched a nerve. But exactly which nerve was it?

The three biggest blogs I guess (w/o taking time to visit the Ecosystem) are Kos, Instapundit and Michelle Malkin. Why did they spend their time going over the Bennish blow-up? Because, the war is as much between the left and the right (in America) as much as it is against the terrorists. The views of the left are crystalized and focused in Bennish's statements. Bennish and his ilk clearly do not want to defend America orally much less defend America on the field of battle.

Before we can truly win the war on terror (or lose it) this cultural battle in America has to be settled first. All else is on the peripherary.

Bennish is the oncoming truck crossing into our lane, the other things are a wheel bearing that should (but doesn't require) be replaced.

3/03/2006 11:30:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Great imagery, Kinch--and I hope against hope that you're right. We sorely need at least a kernel of a center to begin forming.

Many folks had joined into such a center, in the months between 911 and the beginning of the acid-drenched Democratic presidential primary. But mere rhetoric pulled it all apart--which is why I can't help but throw a little water at your sizzling posts.

3/03/2006 11:34:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

kinch,
I'd love and embrace all those Secondary Actions you described.
The Federals attempted such a case in Florida. Against a College Professor that raised monies, it was alleged, for Terrorists. Mr O'Rielly at FOX News berated this Professor at length.

He was aquitted of the Charges.

The Federals unable to prove the Case.

We "Freeze" the US Assets of the Syrian Intelligence Chief. The White House was unable to ascertain what those assets may have been, but it "sent a signal" according to the Press Agent.

Meanwhile the President's Staff approves the UAE deal and the President and his Policies are blindsided, by Mr Frist and Company.

Coordination and Leadership on the Federal level seems to be lacking.
The Democrats and the MSM are givens in the equation and the fault cannot be solely or even primarily theirs.

3/03/2006 11:53:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Perhaps Mr Brown clones were working that Port Deal?

3/03/2006 11:58:00 AM  
Blogger Handsome Hu said...

The convergence been IT solutions and political dynamics have made the beginning of the 21st Century quite different. Within part of this intrigue is www.vizu.com, a "flickr for polls,"

note the bottom-up polls weighin in on the faith of UN "diplomacy" re: Iranian nukes

This colorado guy is an artifact; don't turn your back to him, but don't lose sleep.

Rat,

Perhaps an IT solution can help inform the electorate of these discrepanices. Many people seem to just catch the reports of successful freezing of assets. (i know thats the case with me and i "feel informed" via the CT blog etc) I don't know if the problem has ever been posed as one of legislation, that there isnt enough power to deal with these problems.

Getting back to the IT thing, if someone did some sort of production of data, a mashup for instance that lays out the networks of terrorist charities etc and connects them all the way to the middle east via google earth, well, people might quickly change their opinions on the effectiveness of the current administration and congress. Has something like this been done? Something with a catchy domain name that everyone can namedrop at work, school, bars etc?

I only wish I had the IT skills to do something like that with the, at the moment, hard to access/effectively inaccessible info you reference. I'm learning xml right now but am not about to consider it a skill i have. Anyone have any recommendations on how a data mashup would look as far as the programming would go? I'd contribute money to server space if someone wanted to help map out terrorist funding in an easy to understand (and credible way - each node would be a hyperlink to official documentation/testimony of varying levels of officialdom/veracity). This could be something like Discover The Network but easier to navigate/use/understand.....

3/03/2006 12:06:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Animal rights groups are upset about mistreatment of Sheep in Filming of Bareback Mountain:

Rush e-mailer speculates it was misuse of
"Montana Sticks."
(a three foot stick with a mirror on the end so you can see if the sheep is smiling.)

3/03/2006 12:06:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"This colorado guy is an artifact; don't turn your back to him, but don't lose sleep"
---
NEA approved Anti-American textbooks are real books, millions of them.
Likewise for Books lacking any depth in subject fields.

3/03/2006 12:09:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Hey, the Port Deal is at least adding weight to Kinch's proposition. if it blows up (pardon the expression), it will have at least broadened the center of had-enough-jihad Americans. And that's good since disallowing it will give a little weight to the enemy. I mean the enemy-of-record. That is, AQ.

3/03/2006 12:10:00 PM  
Blogger Handsome Hu said...

doug:

there is an elegant "normalizing" effect that occurs when anti-american college students must enter the workforce, raise families and keep a roof over their heads. suddenly chomsky and his anarcho syndicalism or whatever no longer seems to resonate as strongly. maybe im wearing some blinders here, but I dont think there will be any lasting gains for those people in this post 9/11 climate. they can appeal to their friends to sound cool; they cant persuade us and they increasingly fail to explain much of what is happening in the world. at worst, things are still in motion and its hard to say how things will end up. but anti-american textbooks will mean little to kids if they have a proper conservative upbringing ( ;-D ) and will no doubt be an artifact of youth once they are competing for a job - unless of course, they stay in academia or join an NGO or something etc.

3/03/2006 12:15:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

College Profs are so far out kids see through it.
The fact remains that education/positive advice used to occur in all those hours now wasted.

3/03/2006 12:22:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

My 21 year old has never been in a classroom.
He just got his SDI clearance.

3/03/2006 12:23:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

This is good--and about time.

Kinch, re 'growing up', I'm sure google can provide the superb Michael Barone essay of some year or so ago, "Hard America, Soft America". Sez what you say. Barone is great, and keeps getting better.

3/03/2006 12:26:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

sci

3/03/2006 12:29:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Bennish--a sigh-ence teacher.

3/03/2006 12:32:00 PM  
Blogger Handsome Hu said...

doug:

its interesting that a new requirement of professionalism in some echelons is remaining effectively "apolitical" - in some cases, political science, this is more demanding than, say, molecular biology.

infact, ive worked under several professors who are sharp re: mol bio, less sharp re: political science, per se. it seems many bio professors are eager to paper their labs with doonesbury political cartoons and jokes about Bush, christians etc. I've never seen one whose done the contrary.

somehow education/positive advice still occurs despite the absence of broad agreement on certain topics - was it the "wiki-pedia" that preceded Wikipedia?

3/03/2006 12:35:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

wiki-wiki education was once the fast-track.

3/03/2006 12:43:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"somehow education/positive advice still occurs "
---
The product that comes out of our public High Schools does not reflect that.
...and poor districts where 1/3 don't graduate have an even sorrier record.
Compassion Demands Vouchers.
The NEA/Dem alliance will fight that to the death.
Hopefully that occurs in time to save the country's future.

3/03/2006 12:48:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

buddy,
skull & bones, while Mr Bush will not discuss it, saying it's Secret,
was being used as a metaphor for the Social & Economic elites of our Country.
They are not always a solid bloc, indeed, usually they are diverse in their opinions.

But as Mr Goldwater or Mr McGovern can tell you, when they do come together, do not pack your bags for the move to Washington.

There is little room for Real Mavericks in Washington, less in the White House.

3/03/2006 12:54:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Kyle 08
I won't hold my breath.

3/03/2006 12:58:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Reagan overcame the elites.
But then he was Reagan.

3/03/2006 01:04:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Reagan well represented the Elites, doug.
He well represented everyone.
Mr Carter and his Team had done such a dismal job, his replacement was vital.

Reagan won in a Landslide of Electoral Votes. The Elites had their way. Reagan had been successful in California and was not a threat. Mr Carter was an unmitigated disaster.

The Elite Class in America continues to grow, as home ownership and retirement stock plans become the norm, not the exception.

3/03/2006 01:18:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Gotta go back to JFK to find an elite prez--before GWB, who cannot help his lineage and has done his best to at least drop the optics.

3/03/2006 01:24:00 PM  
Blogger Handsome Hu said...

doug:

I like the wiki-wiki point. Re: high schools; those usually are what people point to when they say American education sucks; indeed they have much empirical evidence to that point. If people can get into our university's, generally, we are able to churn out some pretty productive citizens. needless to say, the 1/3 that are precluded access to these powerful institutions are at once both a tragedy but also perhaps a customer base. This speculation gets a bit flighty, but if the $100 laptop can create entrepreneurs out of Barnetts non-integrated gap, might they also integrate those who happened to be born in school districts that dont behave how schools are supposed to and dont integrate their students? If we can't win at the NEA/Democrat games, why continue to play, especially when we can play a very new game and circumvent them. I've heard some talk of new "models" for learning - they are usually couched in the IT marketing cliches of being better than "top-down" organization, what with P2P and "community-driven" models being touted as superior. I wonder how much truth there is to any of those proposals.

MIT's media labs are very much concerned with finding novels ways at educating our population better, and so in the long run, those victims of 19th Century rule sets (unions, populist politics) will perhaps benefit from the 21st Century rule sets of open source and "technical politics."

That still doesnt provide any short term solutions for the 1/3 that failed last year, and the next 1/3 will fail next year. We need some new governance to guide the transformation between the two methods of organizing then? Still an ongoing tragedy, and a liability insofar as any of those folks get integrated into the various Borgs out there...

not my area but my $.02

3/03/2006 01:31:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

buddy,
You mean Columbia is down there near FARCland, between Hugozuela and Moralasiva?

Who'd have ever guessed.

We've had troops there since '76 and I missed out? damn

3/03/2006 01:58:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Our oilpatch charter had to land at a rough field in Guatamala (an idiot light on the dashboard) once in the early 80s, and during four or so hours layover I met a whole bunch of Guatamalans attached to the P-51s (yep, P-51s) there, who were all from Teegootchigalpa, blond-headed and somehow spoke damn fine Mississippi/Alabama. Sort of miraculous really.

3/03/2006 02:14:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

I can remember when the ACLU was the darling of the far-right and the libertarians. Boy, has THAT outfit morphed.

3/03/2006 02:16:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"College Profs are so far out kids see through it.
The fact remains that education/positive advice used to occur in all those hours now wasted."


Some are so far out that kids see through it. Others are not, fitting a similar world view to the MSM, not quite insane, but still off tilter.

As to effectiveness, I always ask the question: Setting aside morality, if you had the opportunity to blast your political opinions to kids throughout their education, would you do it? I'd say so, it is going to make an impact. Even a few percentage point, god forbid a 5 point swing, would turnover the majority of our elections in the past century. Everything's little shifts.

3/03/2006 02:40:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

*5 point swing as in, 5 up D, 5 down R, so I suppose 10 point swing overall.

3/03/2006 02:42:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Whit, I may well have been buying the propaganda--the 'we're libertarian' line.

There's a lot of us who grew up in the 60s and thus cannot use age as an excuse, who still didn't glom onto the size of the Tranzi offensive until just the last few years--as Bush has smoked 'em out to where even dumbasses can't miss the show.

3/03/2006 02:55:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

buddy
knew their cousins while I was down there, some from Panama and the School, others from some contract work later.

The ones I met were lacking English, most likely why they were not with the airplanes, but walking in the Jungle.

But visual prejudices can be deadly, I learned that from those blond Guats.

3/03/2006 03:07:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Hmm, so, all for the individual except for the part where the individual has the last vote on what organizations like ACLU intend to do to him?

3/03/2006 03:08:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

If Bennish would ask anyone who has been out in the boonies where the Sandinistas, Cubanos, and trafficantes do their thing, then he'd know exactly why there's some counterforce from civilization deployed.

3/03/2006 03:18:00 PM  
Blogger Free West said...

The putrid pseudo-intellectual level of many politicized academic maggots is a well-known phenomenon. It's certainly no surprise. One example in the past was the total sellout of the German Academic community and Universities to the Nazi ideology - they were rather more eager to follow it than would be justified by mere self-preservation.

More shocking, if not surprising, is the cheery story going on right now at Yale:

Jihadi Yale-ee Taliban-man goes to school

Question: Shouldn't this guy be deported immediately ?

The public should demand his permanent expulsion from US territory - immediately.

3/03/2006 03:21:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

If you've never been outside the wire, it's hard to imagine there even is a fence, really.

3/03/2006 03:23:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Mr Talibani is beyond the Law now, ff, he's in the Sanctuary of Skull & Bones.

Protected by a vow of Secrecy and Silence, rigidly enforced.

Where even the Army of the Republic fears to tread.
No ROTC allowed on Campus, at Yale.

3/03/2006 03:28:00 PM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

buddy

Bennish couldn't care less.

I think the real enemy is capitalism, particularly USA capitalism. No cost is too high to bring its defeat.

How else can you explain how intelligent people like Noam Chomsky can just slough off the extermination of tens and tens of millions as unfortunate but necessary to advance Marxism over capitalism? Or crazy alliances like Queers for Hamas?

3/03/2006 03:35:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

But, in order that Yale not pass on the federal dollars that come with ROTC, Yale will accept the credit, offered at another campus, a convenient 70 miles away.

Nope, not kidding, a Yalie, ex-Army captain named--trust me--Flagg Trueblood (IIRC) told me all about it, from FNC's Hannity & Corpse Show last night.

3/03/2006 03:36:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

I don't get the Marxist drive. Oh, it's easy enough to rationalize the useful idiots, but what are those 'in the know' after?

Beyond the *relative* status and reward offered by the system to those with brains, hatred of man and God, sociopathic lack of conscience, will-to-power, disdain for virtue, love of vice, contemptuousness of Nature, and plain old nastiness, what's the appeal?

3/03/2006 03:46:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"You have touched on an item of recent news that irks me more than anything, this Taliban character being allowed into Yale, and that fact being celebrated in the NYT."

I was a little bit bitter at first, considering I was rejected from Yale Graduate school a few days ago, but then I imagined the guy's face the first time some idiot asks him if he wants to get "stoned"?

3/03/2006 04:10:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Trangbang, Please!
This public confessional could get really embarassing if it's not brought to a stop!
---
But I guess we WERE victims of the 60's/Vietnam, so that's something,
...right?

3/03/2006 04:39:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Queers for Hamas"
---
Does this mean we have to buy Montana Sticks for Hamas, or will the "UN" (us) cover it?

3/03/2006 04:45:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

I think McGovern lost 49 states--you can't hold Trang responsible for ALL that, Doug.

Cutler, why not join the Communist Party, and then re-apply?

3/03/2006 04:45:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

"Hamas, Hamas on the range, where the deer and the antelope play..."

3/03/2006 04:47:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

Well, I figured they already had the Red quota filled, and this guy was pointing the real way to go.

That's why I was talking about going to Afghanistan... If I join OUR military I probably don't stand a chance, but the Taliban on the other hand... I don't know, maybe the Revolutionary Guards? I'll be ahead of the curve. It might just be a blast.

3/03/2006 04:49:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

You can explode onto the scene--

3/03/2006 04:52:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

Our favorite person:

"In our only meeting in Afghanistan, a few months before the Taliban were ousted from power; I was amazed by his excellent command of the English language and his intelligence. He was opposed to Osama bin Laden and would not recognize his fatwas, considering al Qaeda leader's "an American creation" to whose legend the Taliban had not contributed. "We inherited bin Laden. We had to and still do deal with him, according to the Islamic traditions that the Taliban follow by protecting its guests."

He's among the like-minded now, I suppose.

3/03/2006 04:52:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"That still doesnt provide any short term solutions for the 1/3 that failed last year, and the next 1/3 will fail next year. We need some new governance to guide the transformation between the two methods of organizing then?"
---
Kinch,
This would require getting the ACLU enabled parents out and putting discipline back in.
...and until Roberts clones replace enough judges, that probably won't happen anytime soon, since parents believe THEIR schools/teachers are fine.
---
But Blacks Strongly want Vouchers which could solve it all.
...but the Damn Dem/NEA says Nyet!

3/03/2006 04:53:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Dems say "Hands Off Our Poor People! Go make your own, dammit!"

Cutler, look for Taliban Johnny's old outfit, "Low-Rents of Arabia".

3/03/2006 05:00:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

The goods news is that Georgetown and Columbia are still good, although from what I hear of the latter's Middle Eastern Studies department, I just might lose my head to masked men.

3/03/2006 05:00:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"Cutler, look for Taliban Johnny's old outfit, "Low-Rents of Arabia".

Speaking of outfits, I think I'd look good in white...

3/03/2006 05:02:00 PM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

This isn't exactly on topic, but it concerns practices in public education...

In this case, a campus-wide email went out to everyone -- faculty, staff, and students -- giving the name of a student who had been charged with rape.

Later, this student was found not guilty, but there was no apology forthcoming from the school, which tried him in absentia, and, I believe, suspended him. He is a senior and will not graduate with his class.

The boy has instituted a civil suit for defamation against his accuser. The Dean, or school official who sent the school wide email has been invited to a meeting of students on March 20th to explain his actions.

Very interesting from my point of view, since it says that college students at a state university -- in this case, the College of William and Mary -- do not enjoy the same civil freedoms and rights as do the other citizens of the commonwealth.

It remains to be seen if the official in question turns up for the meeting.

Eventually I plan to attempt to interview everyone. If it comes off, I'll post on it. Meanwhile, I'm recommending celibacy for any men attending college...these two people were supposed to have been friends. Friends don't accuse friends of rape, do they? Or maybe they do after the women studies people get into it...who knows?

I'll let you know what transpires.

_____
Note: the word to be verified for this comment was "coedman"...

3/03/2006 05:19:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Yes, I took the job, too, for Nixon, running the Houston "Neighbors for Nixon" phone bank-based grassroots thingie, I was 21 or so, and could only hire retired ladies to run the phones. Smart, Tricky Dicky.

3/03/2006 05:22:00 PM  
Blogger enscout said...

OT:
This, news from Bill Roggio @ The Fourth Rail:
"Coalition forces are investigating claims Zarqawi may have been detained in the raid in the Jazerra region.
The death or capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda’s commander in Iraq who is affectionately called the “Sheikh of Slaughters” by his admirers, would be a tremendous psychological victory to the Iraqi people and the American public. The Kuwait News Agency is reporting that Multinational Forces - Iraq is investigating claims that Zarqawi may have been detained during >the raid on the Jazerra region, which sits north of Ramadi and Fallujah. According to KUNA, “A MNF officer did not confirm or deny the arrest, noting that the US forces are still investigating the reports... Meanwhile, sources in the Iraqi Army said that Al-Zarqawi could be among those arrested in the operation on Monday.”

Enthusiasm should be muted at this time as we have been down this path several times. It has been believed Zarqawi has been close to death or capture on several occasions, including February of 2005, when he was almost captured in Fallujah (his laptop was seized and driver captured during the raid); April of 2005, when he was thought to be cornered in Ramadi; May of 2005, when Zarqawi evaded capture and was wounded in the Qaim region, and later thought dead; November of 2005, when he was believed to be in Mosul during a raid on a al-Qaeda safe house; and February of 2006 when reports indicated Zarqawi may be in the Hamrin region of north-central Iraqi[located between Tikrit and Kirkuk].

Zarqawi is being sought by the hunter-killer teams of Task Force 626. This is an elite team of professionals, likely made up of elements from the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Defense Intelligence Agency, NSA, and CIA. Multinational Forces - Iraq is very sensitive about the operations and whereabouts of this group. During my time in Iraq, questions about Task Force 626, their mission and any cooperation with conventional forces went unanswered, or the answers were so vague as to be meaningless.

3/03/2006 05:24:00 PM  
Blogger enscout said...

sirius:
Indeed.

Could be the locals, fed up with the antics of the interlopers, are being more cooperative with the IDF & our boys.

3/03/2006 05:39:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"I was 21 or so, and could only hire retired ladies to run the phones"
---
My short stint for McCarthy ended when a Marin County (!) Matron FOR McCarthy asked me a few simple questions.
I stuttered and sputtered, said goodbye, and quit.
That old why do you want this job/want him to get it is SUCH a tricky, unfair question.

3/03/2006 05:40:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Lady ~D,
Mine was coMEdian.

3/03/2006 05:42:00 PM  
Blogger Tony said...

Trangbang,

Thanks for your noble efforts in the '72 McGovern campaign, that's great to hear. As of a few months ago, Western NY is still like that, btw.

I lost a $50 bet on the 1980 election. What did I know, I was stuck in Oz for a couple of years, the only reference I had was Time Magazine. The stupidest part was, I lost the bet to a guy who had just been home. Don't get no stupider.

I didn't realize they (Time, et. al.) were messing with us, at that time. That's my personal confession, Doug.

3/03/2006 05:48:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Incidently, Pete Speer's 3:46 comment is the definitive word here, imo:
Kinch, the bottom line:

"The so called advance placement classes in Math and in Physics rank in comparison with the above countries in the fourth and zero percentile respectively. That is the bottom of the bottom."
Truly, the bottom line.

3/03/2006 05:51:00 PM  
Blogger Arthur Dent said...

Bonnie 10:38
said
The public school liberal arts are packed with socialist teachers. [T]he communist's first goal is to take over the schools...
They've done so. Unless we break the NEA's lock on public schools through charter, voucher, and homeschool, our country is done for. We might as well buy our little plots in Galt's Gulch.
.
------


By saying the 'communist's first goal is to take over the schools'
Does that mean that our losers are better than their smart people?

I think it might be true.

Our inner cities are full of people who are far more wealthy than most who have ever lived. We call them poor people. They are both.

The reason new Americans tend to do VERY well in US public schools, is that they believe they have to try. They know the consequence of not trying.

Many Americans, and our children, because we are so very wealthy, do not try. We do not try because we do not fear.... failing.

This problem is multiplied greatly when one is wealthy, in an inner city way, when one has no skills.

The ironic thing, even with the vast problems to be overcome, is that we in the USA do a far better job of integrating our youth than almost anyone.

Vouchers are an entitlement. Parents should be responsible for educating their children. Period.

Public schools need competition. Parents, yelling with their own dollars, should be paying for private schools if they are not happy.

Entitlements last forever.

3/03/2006 05:52:00 PM  
Blogger Tony said...

Dymphna notes about her post on an exonerated man, formerly accused of rape:

_____
Note: the word to be verified for this comment was "coedman"...


You know, Google thinks in word pieces, it ranks paragraphs by the contents of the main chunks, starting with Proper Names, then Nouns, Verbs and after that it gets real fuzzy.

So what it does in its spare time, to cut out the middle man, is read core words, not even whole words. That's how it's so fast at Search.

So, it only makes sense it could "read" our posts while it's asking for our Word Verification.

Google's being funny? with "coedman"?

Or are we reading tea leaves, seeing things?

3/03/2006 05:59:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Dymphna, how long 'til the institution rechristens itself, "That Bastard William, and Mary" ?

3/03/2006 06:02:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

My point with Reagan was that it took two tries.
The second one being something only Reagan could pull off, with his mastery of his position and ability to explain it, to attain the Republican Nomination.
That, and four years of tireless work toward the goal.

3/03/2006 06:03:00 PM  
Blogger Arthur Dent said...

Doug said:
My point with Reagan was that it took two tries.
The second one being something only Reagan could pull off
-----
I like Reagan. He was different, he was different. I remember a friend bribing a gas station owner so he could by gas on the wrong day. Reagan is bookmarked between the two C's, Clinton and Carter.

I like W. I could go on with my problems with W, but I like Bush.

Will W be bookmarked between 1. Reagan and X? 2. Between Clinton and Clinton? Or 3. between Clinton and Y?

I've read that the two party system, as a system, is supposed to produce non-extreme, centrist, results.

3/03/2006 06:21:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

They're all just skulls and bones according to 'Rat, Arthur.

3/03/2006 06:23:00 PM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

Buddy--

About the College of Wm and Mary...since the Baron's Boy's name is William (am I allowed to say he was christened "William"?) I always address his packages and motherly reminders to:

The College of William and Many

You know how mothers can be...a bit narrowly focused.

No one, not even the Boy, has noticed. I think he's too busy instant messaging and eating the cookies to notice the address.

3/03/2006 06:29:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

SUV - improvised destructive device injures 9.

...local paper in NC published the Cartoons.
Was Mohammed engraged?

Should the publisher be charged?

3/03/2006 06:33:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

New Details about UNC-CH Attack
(03/03/06 -- CHAPEL HILL) - The driver of an SUV that plowed into a group of pedestrians at UNC-Chapel Hill on Friday told police it was retribution for the treatment of Muslims around the world, according to ABC News.

3/03/2006 06:46:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"There was no indication that Taheriazar is connected with larger terror groups. Thomas said his sources said Taheriazar may have been the sole actor in the attack. "
---
But his roommates are missing, according to Hewitt.

3/03/2006 06:49:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Hewitt interviewed the student.
Student says about 80% of the time was spent on Mr Nebbish's personal politics, 20% on subject!
...said the students that were upset about him getting into trouble viewed him as entertainment, and if he got fired, they'd lose their entertainment!

3/03/2006 07:39:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

...and Time even explained why Hitler did not get person of the century.
But just wait.

When the Next Gen of True Believers gets a job at Time, Saddam and Akmeinkampfejad will get co-honors.

Too bad Mohammed took himself out of the running for a job there, if only temporarily:

A UNC-CH journalism student captured the aftermath of the crash.
---
Maybe he'll start a new trend:

Stupidside Bombing, in which people are lightly injured, and the Perp gets serious time.

I'm all for that.

3/03/2006 07:56:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Nebbish went to AZ State, 'Rat.

3/03/2006 07:59:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Fred,
He's 28, went to AZ State and has since gone to CU I think.
---
Check out Hewitt's Site and Radioblogger.com, might be something there.

3/03/2006 09:09:00 PM  
Blogger ledger said...

Jay Bennish seems to know a lot about cocaine:

Why are we fumigating coca crops in Bolivia... Who buys cocaine? Not Bolivians. Not Peruvians. Americans! ...they might be growing coca and that could be turned into cocaine and sold to us...

Judging by his rapid fire tirade one could guess he may be suffering from dysphoria due to cocaine abstinence syndrome.

This study examined the relationship between cocaine withdrawal and lifetime history of depression (major depression, dysthymia)... Results of bivariate analyses demonstrated that those meeting criteria for the cocaine withdrawal syndrome (dysphoria plus two or more other symptoms), in comparison to those who did not, were significantly (P<.001) more likely to have a lifetime history of depression. Lifetime history of depression was also more common in those individuals reporting the withdrawal symptoms of "dysphoria" (P<.001), "insomnia/hypersomnia" (P<.05), "vivid unpleasant dreams" (P<.01), and "psychomotor agitation/retardation"

See: NCBI

[and]

A growing body of evidence indicates that chronic cocaine administration can produce profound and long-lasting changes in brain neurochemical and neuroendocrine systems. At the behavioral level, evidence is accumulating that chronic use of cocaine compromises the neural mechanisms... Intravenous self-administration in rodents has been used successfully to study cocaine-reinforced behavior. This methodology has significantly advanced the understanding of the neurobiological basis of cocaine reinforcement and has established a critical role for the mesoaccumbens dopamine (DA) systems in cocaine's acute reinforcing effects.

see: Friedbert Weiss, Ph.D.

Btw, I agree with Klaus that most of teacher Bennish's facts were wrong.

In particular, China (PRC) is probably the largest maker of cigarettes - not the USA.

I was in China and I attended an expensive dinner for a doctor. The dinner was held on the upper floor of a building owned by China's largest tobacco manufacturer. Apparently, the Chinese have gotten their quality of cigarettes almost on par with American cigarettes - and they have huge base of smokers.

What struck me was the statement from the doctor as we looked up at this huge glass tower as we exited the ground floor, "I imagine how many people died to build this building."


check out lawnranger's link to tobacco production

3/03/2006 09:45:00 PM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

Isn't the real question why does Jay Bennish exist (conceptually not the individual) and what the heck is he doing teaching anything in our public schools?

Is it OK that any other Jay Bennish can keep on doing the same thing and we don't get exercised until some student flips on his MP3 and manages to get a few column inches or some air time?

If Jay Bennish is a horse's ass and everything he said is destructive bullshit then shouldn't we be in every classroom tomorrow to drag every other Jay Bennish out to the woodshed?

What if Jay Bennish is right about everything? Then we're the idiots for standing in the way of progress.

Enough of this bitching and moaning about everything. The American Experiment is that We the People decide what kind of society we're going to have. What institutions we want to keep or junk. If we disagree then let's fight it out. In print, with pixels, or at tomorrow's Gettysburg. Let's get it on. If Lefty Postmodernism is where we want to be then let's do it right. If it's wrong then let's smack the Progressives for screwing things up. Europe is going to disappear because those clowns don't even know what they should believe in or what they should defend. Shame on us if we get to the same sorry state.

3/04/2006 05:19:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Ok, but scratch that Gettysburg part. Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, or Mannassas would be my druthers.

No, I understand what you're saying--that the logic of the anti-Bennish position is flawed. Either this stuff is serious or it's not; if it is, then we ought to be raising holy hell.

3/04/2006 05:38:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Dan, yes interesting how very few of the West-bashers ever contemplate getting out of the Land of the Oppressor, to immigrate to, or back to, any of the myriad nations with the greater living conditions and/or moral legitimacy.

3/04/2006 06:48:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Hang onto yer Thumos and we'll win!

3/04/2006 08:13:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Either we fire the world with enthusiasm, or the world will fire us, with enthusiasm.

3/04/2006 08:19:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

The WSJ begins the Sitzpinkler offensive.

3/04/2006 08:22:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

"Sitzpinkler offensive" is a contradiction in terms--don't you mean anti sitzpinkler (better yet anti-Auntie Sitzpinkler) ?

3/04/2006 08:53:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

pb,
which WSJ piece got them in panties?

3/04/2006 09:00:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

I think he meant the 'Thumos' link 3 or 4 up--

3/04/2006 09:10:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

I'm confused.

3/04/2006 09:15:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

I am not so sure that we aren't tricking ourselves into recognizing trends when, in fact, there are none to be found.

I think 24/7 national cable news has skewed our perception. For instance, there are 94,000 public schools and 27,000 private schools in this country. That's about 5-10 million school teachers and administrators. We're talking about one.

In a sample group of 5 million individuals, you are going to pretty much run the gamut of possibility when you measure for political bent, level of activism in the classroom, etc. You are going to find outliers that shock the conscience, and you are going to find clumps of ordinariness that don't bother anybody. I dare say that yes, you are going to find several Bennishes. But how significant is it--this fact of existing Bennishes?

Insofar as this story shifts the probability of future classroom activism lower, it is significant. Insofar as Bennish's poisonous memes are confronted and exposed as pernicious untruths, we are better off for it. However, insofar as this story indicates a trend or a wide-ranging phenomenon in our school system, I hesitate to judge based on this scant anecdotal evidence.

Just something to think about. I am not to long from public high school education myself. There are many things to lament, and many things to abhor, about our public education system, but--and this is important--at bottom there are just many things.

3/04/2006 09:30:00 AM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

Buddy,

"Hang onto yer thumos and we'll win!"

Buddy, as it happens, I am an expert on thumos, as well as on noos, kradie, and menos, indeed, on all the various ancient Greek manifestations of what we carelessly call mind...


;-)


Jamie Irons

3/04/2006 09:46:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

I think Bennishism hits a nerve because there is an element of truth somewhere in all of those familiar dizinformatzia story-lines.

It's as if your mom and dad took 12 year-old you on the best vacation of your life, and then when you recounted it to them later, the whole story consisted not of Disneyland and the beach and the hotel and the food, and all the great fun, and the sacrifice and cost of the trip to your parents, but only of such true facts as, you got bored in the car, you had to pee and dad wouldn't stop until you really had to go bad, the cheeseburger wasn't what you wanted at McDonalds that day, you got sunburned at the beach, the good rides at Disneyland had long lines, you only had 5 days at the Magic Kingdom and you wanted 6, you wanted to be bigger and stronger and cuter and smarter and richer, Sally Sue won't return your love, you have to die someday, and and and and....

3/04/2006 09:54:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Jamie, a Hellenophile shouldn't miss the link @ WSJ--Achilles gets the first compliment I've seen since Brad Pitt smeared him--
\;-D

3/04/2006 09:58:00 AM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

Buddy,

Thanks, I enjoyed that article very much...

Jamie Irons

3/04/2006 10:10:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

I agree that Bennish's ideas are corrosive and particularly dangerous when communicated to (let's be honest) a mostly black student body that has, in all likelihood, been nursed on counter-narratives of America qua oppressor.

But I think the overall trend skews the other way, towards more patriotism and more conservatism. Demographically this is undoubtedly correct, because conservatives reproduce while leftists un- and under-produce. But it is also true for ideas in general. We are a more conservative country than we were in the 1970's. Most of the Left's ideas have failed, and are on their way to becoming nothing more than esoteric oddities. Victimology will be the last to go, sure, but it will, in the end, go.

We've already passed the inflection point. The singularity is near.

3/04/2006 10:35:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Aristides 9:30 AM,
Why delve in speculation when you can get it straight from the horse's mouth?
See pete speer at 3:46
Particularly the test scores at the end.
Them's the facts, and Colorado ain't as bad as California.
Rose colored glasses do not overcome realities.

3/04/2006 11:37:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

I think you are unaware of the MAGNITUDE of the corruption of the NEA/Dem/MSM complex.
It exists, nonetheless.

3/04/2006 11:39:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"The singularity is near."
---
I'll believe it when I see the Unionized Monopoly Schools of Mediocrity revolutionized.
I the meantime, that's hogwash.

3/04/2006 11:41:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

A whole lot of teachers couldn't teach real academic courses if you offered them a Million Dollars, since they simply don't know the subject.
Notice what pete says about EDUCATION classes.
Pure BS from the bottom of the bottom of the barrel of academia.

3/04/2006 11:46:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

Rose colored glasses do not overcome realities.

Neither does alarmism, nor misplaced concern.

Considering that we need fewer math and science majors, it shouldn't surprise that the production of them is also decreasing. Likewise the consideration one receives by choosing such fields--it is comparatively less than it used to be.

In the goods sector, we are automating design and production precisely because computers are more efficient and more powerful than humans at these processes. The service sector, on the other hand, still needs unautomated agents to interact with other agents, and to perform activities that computers and robots are inherently ill-equipped to perform.

The economy is adjusting to this very rapidly. Much of science now sees human input only at the conceptual level, while computers and algorithms dominate at the experimental and testing levels. Mathematical models are ubiquitous, able to perform 10,000 iterative experiments in the time it would take one math major to do one. And so on.

As for education in general, the trends point the same way. Availability used to be the primary concern, now it is quality. This demand for quality will lead to new entrants in the market, and over time the price of their services will drop below the comparative advantage of free--yet grossly inadequate--education. Education itself will change dramatically, as this shift towards quality exposes new, innovative ways to deliver it.

As a market education may be the most untapped and unexploited in the country. That will change as entrepreneurial costs lower, and innovators realize the possibilities of making a profit by educating particular segments of people in the information age. In thirty years, you will have educational McDonald's, Chilis, Ruth's Chris, etc. Believe me when I say education is on its way towards improvement.

The singularity is the the ultimate empowerment of choice in the marketplace. To disbelieve it is superstition, or self-inflicted myopia. It is near, and America is set to reap the benefits as our organizational structure once again proves to be an evolutionary advantage.

3/04/2006 12:35:00 PM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

Aristides,

If you don't mind, I for one will buy into your optimism...

;-)


Jamie Irons

3/04/2006 12:46:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

I am fully aware of the magnitude of corruption, and I am aware that it is less than it was thirty years ago--when informational bottlenecks kept these corrupt actors in power and prestige. These bottlenecks are disappearing. This means the mongers of untruth no longer communicate linearly, but are forced to do so in an unprecedented non-linear environment for which they are ill-equipped and ill-prepared.

Pressure and feedback envelopes them. The world of the inaccessible Ivory Tower has collapsed forever. This very thread proves it.

3/04/2006 12:54:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Registrars, I read here and there, are increasingly less interested in the "well-rounded" as compared to the "sharp-pointed". This does point to Aristides' observation.

3/04/2006 12:58:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

No more need for much Math and Science.
I'll have to give that one the old smell test.
Whatever will be, will be:
For now MILLIONS of kids are ill-served by the NEA Corruption machine, most especially those whose families can least afford alternatives.

3/04/2006 12:58:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

K-12 has proved invulnerable to this point, as Pete's comment points out.

3/04/2006 01:01:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

And to slough off Nebbish as an aberation when millions of NEA approved History books contain everything but, is absurd.

3/04/2006 01:02:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"I am fully aware of the magnitude of corruption, and I am aware that it is less than it was thirty years ago--when informational bottlenecks kept these corrupt actors in power and prestige."
---
Please point to any evidence of these actors being removed, rather than further empowered in the Ed Establishment, if not in the wider world.

3/04/2006 01:06:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

But Aristides and Doug both can be right--the thing is moving through time, gaining velocity on the leading edge as it degenerates on the trailing edge. Those tossed in the turbulent wake still gain as consumers of the new space, though this means little when the attitude is that there *should* be no such thing as relativity in the first place.

3/04/2006 01:08:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

For instance, think about this small example. You reference the unfortunate inadequacy of many teachers. While there are many reasons for this, one of the biggest is the lack of attractive compensation, without which you will bleed quality minds from an industry. Teacher compensation stays low because the government is in the business of meeting universal demand, which renders quality something of a discretionary cost--and therefore the first casualty of the industry (the same dynamic exists in government healthcare).

To meet this demand the government must employ a minimum number of teachers. This minimum number is incredibly large, diluting the available compensation for each teacher who participates in the system. Also, the teacher himself needs to be local, for the purpose of imparting knowledge and for disciplinary reasons.

What happens if the internet allows "teacher" and "disciplinarian" to be separated? What happens when the "teacher" webcasts to 300 instead of 30 students, while each 30-student unit is presided over by an unskilled disciplinarian answerable to a principal? The number of "teachers" you need decreases, causing the value and compensation of their services to increase. Then you get better teachers.

This is all just beginning, and doesn't even touch on the possibilities of the private sector.

We are riding an upward trend of quality. A little perspective goes a long way.

3/04/2006 01:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The myth of the underpaid teacher, how quaint.
Did you READ Pete's comment?
When adjusted for the 9 month year, the step increases, the retirement bennies, no risk, etc etc teachers are anything but underpaid.

3/04/2006 01:17:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Like I said, the future is the future:
Please point to ANY evidence of the corruption in Education NOW being less than it was 30 years ago.

3/04/2006 01:20:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Employees don't know how to make change, much less enough math to set up a spreadsheet on their own.
---
How can citizens make informed decisions about issues like Global Warming if they are illiterate in Science?

3/04/2006 01:22:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Math and Science teachers may be underpaid, but that is a direct result of the corrupt system being discussed.

3/04/2006 01:23:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"What happens if the internet allows "teacher" and "disciplinarian" to be separated? What happens when the "teacher" webcasts to 300 instead of 30 students, while each 30-student unit is presided over by an unskilled disciplinarian answerable to a principal? "
---
Well and good:
Now tell me how to pry the money and power from the NEA Unionists who want no part of this future?

3/04/2006 01:28:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

My snip of yours at 1:28 PM reminds me that this is a variation of my freshmen classes at Berkeley, with differences:

A real Professor in fron of 300, often the author of the textbook, with a nobel in science, etc.

Instead of willing idiot disciplinarians, in math I had a Genius Indian Teaching Assistant.

In the lower grades this need for a REAL TEACHER is even greater than it is in college.
...not to mention an educated human that cares about the student's education as well as the student himself.

The lower the grade level, the more they are functioning in loco parentis.

3/04/2006 01:42:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"The singularity is the the ultimate empowerment of choice in the marketplace. To disbelieve it is superstition, or self-inflicted myopia."
---
Money, power, and control is not superstition, it is what is.

And Pete's perspective is up close and personal, not myopic:
THEY have the power and Control, and you cannot point to evidence to the contrary.

3/04/2006 01:57:00 PM  

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