I had always assumed it had to do with future behavior. A lion can't find any more gazelles, or he gets too old to run after them any more. To him humans are stinky and nasty but they sure are slow. At this stage in his life, they're beginning to look more and more like dinner every day, until finally he's realizes it's the best dinner around for him. He wanders into the village where there are unsuspecting people, adults and children, not paying too much attention because hey, lions just don't eat humans and we have more important tasks to do anyway.
The lion singles out a reasonably-sized critter, one big enough to satisfy his appetite but not too large to carry. He pounces on the man, breaks his neck, the man goes limp, and the lion carries him off. Wow, that was easy, and yeah, they taste like carnivore, not at all like herbivore, but it's still edible. I know what I'm having for dinner next time.
Similarly, a circus elephant has absolutely had enough of being poked and prodded and generally jerked around. All her life she has been docile and quiet like all the other elephants in the circus. Everyone sets a good example for the other elephants and behaves and does what these humans tell them to. Finally this one snaps and stomps the hell out of her trainer. That's it! Begone! Die! And the trainer does. Wow, that's pretty easy, I got what I wanted, finally. If I keep that up, maybe now they'll stop dragging me around and making me do stupid things for them.
The dog who has attacked a human has learned how easy it is to drag them off or tear their throats out or mangle an arm (yummy, that taste of blood). Not every dog will attack people, but dogs that have attacked people ... have attacked people. Just from their past behavior we know that this dog has a people-attacking capability, therefore we have to assume that the thought of attacking people occurred to this dog at least once, and if the thought occurs to this dog again, he is more likely to act on it than is a dog to whom the thought has never occurred.
These animals are capable of doing the same thing again. It may take a year or three before they do so, but they have had one rewarding experience from the day they got angry and took it out on a human being--which is to say, they learned from experience just how easy it is to rise up against a human and win.
And so the best thing to do with these animals is to kill them, before they kill a human.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
"Mockery is not a response"
No, but it is a reaction, which is why I hate it when Prager uses that word. "When we come back, I'll take your reactions." No, I want their repsonses, thanks. Finally, Prager got the right word.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Raising a good child
If you want to raise a good child, you must first decide that goodness is more imporatant than:
Happiness
Success
Intelligence
What's not to agree with? I wanted my children to be intelligent, of course. More than that I wanted them to appreciate their minds and wish very hard to develop them. Sadly their father didn't see the point; he had his hobbies and his laptop and he while he ignored his kids his intellectual laziness set examples for them. It was easier for them to regard roller coasters as the highest plane of existence, just as their dad did. This may be wearing off; I certainly hope so.
They did not, however, go as low as my first husband did, and claim that "all that matters in this life is to enjoy it" by having a good time. Hooray for shallowness.
Success is nice, too. You can be good on your own personal level but there are people who are good on a very grand scale, and those people do a LOT of good. That's what success is for. But if you're Good on a small scale because your resources are small, you're still good. And God bless you.
Happiness
Success
Intelligence
What's not to agree with? I wanted my children to be intelligent, of course. More than that I wanted them to appreciate their minds and wish very hard to develop them. Sadly their father didn't see the point; he had his hobbies and his laptop and he while he ignored his kids his intellectual laziness set examples for them. It was easier for them to regard roller coasters as the highest plane of existence, just as their dad did. This may be wearing off; I certainly hope so.
They did not, however, go as low as my first husband did, and claim that "all that matters in this life is to enjoy it" by having a good time. Hooray for shallowness.
Success is nice, too. You can be good on your own personal level but there are people who are good on a very grand scale, and those people do a LOT of good. That's what success is for. But if you're Good on a small scale because your resources are small, you're still good. And God bless you.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Do people filter reality through the prism of their agenda?
Absolutely! Why do liberals think that only conservatives do this? People also filter issues through the prism of their psyches.
Actually, I think I know why. When a liberal considers ANY issue, he considers his viewpoint as normative. This line, which is way left of center, is to them the center. Everything to the right of that line is "conservative" (which is how they labeled Bill Clinton "conservative", as well as Barack Obama), the line is "Mainstream", and the few things remaining on the left of that line are just "liberal" to them, never are those things "radical" or "nutty".
Actually, I think I know why. When a liberal considers ANY issue, he considers his viewpoint as normative. This line, which is way left of center, is to them the center. Everything to the right of that line is "conservative" (which is how they labeled Bill Clinton "conservative", as well as Barack Obama), the line is "Mainstream", and the few things remaining on the left of that line are just "liberal" to them, never are those things "radical" or "nutty".
"It's a conservative radioactive cloud."
Good one, Dennis. Very clever. And I expect there really are a few bloggers up at the nutty "Huffington Post" who believe this.
"Conservatives dislike being irradiated just as much as liberals do."
I don't know why liberals can't get this through their heads. We don't want to drink dirty water, either, nor breathe dirty air, but they seem to think we do. But because we disagree (NOT "DIFFER") about how to cure the problems, and even disagree on the extent and seriousness of the problem, well, that gives them all the excuse they need to start throwing all the favorite labels.
I'm reminded of a title. No, I have never read this book. You probably have been told that its author is SIXHIRB. I have listened to him for quite a few hours, and I will vouch for it that he is not. Thus, I want some day to read this book. You can read it now, though.
I'm reminded of a title. No, I have never read this book. You probably have been told that its author is SIXHIRB. I have listened to him for quite a few hours, and I will vouch for it that he is not. Thus, I want some day to read this book. You can read it now, though.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The Male-Female Hour
He comes in and grabs her bottom. How do you react to this?
I love all the wives who have called in and said, "Woohoo! That's fine with me! It's the first thing on his mind, and though it might not have been the first thing on mine, I can turn in an instant and be ready for him!"
This would have been unthinkable in the Seventies among college women. Of course, if you've ever ready "The Total Woman" or "Fascinating Womanhood", both of which were huge sellers in the Seventies, you know that some women aren't so twisted up and made to be foolish as my college-educated sisters.
I'm glad Prager specified that he is talking about good marriages where there is both love and consideration on both parts.
I fully agree with the proposition that men want a lot of sex and their wives need to know that, accept it, and be ready.
Sadly, my marriage was the worst. My husband refused to pay the slightest attention to me. You may argue that I caused this to happen by being too giving and too accepting and too forgiving. My first marriage was the same way, and I just gave and gave and he started beating me and treating me like hell. I lost twenty pounds in the first three months. But we had sex every single night of the first two and a half years, and it was by my insistence. The second marriage, I tried to do the same thing, but he started turning his back on me, and it wasn't for a back massage, either. Eventually I decided I must be putting him off by trying to initiate it as often as I did, and we found he was only interested once every few months. But, since sex with him hurt, I didn't complain much.
Matters outside the bedroom were particularly telling. He'd come home from work without announcing his entrance. If I happened to be in another part of the house where I couldn't see the front door, he could be home for some time before I even became aware of it. I could speak to him from the kitchen and never hear an answer. I could speak to him across the dinner table and he'd ignore me. I could reach out to him and he would leave the room. I could ask him to change the light bulb that was too high for me to reach and that was a 100% guarantee that I'd be changing the light bulb sooner or later.
Put another dish in the dishwasher? I should be so lucky. I could have been doing the dishes naked and he'd have refused to look at me. Sure, I caused this, by not knowing how to make him put me on that Princess pedestal. By giving and giving and giving and asking nothing in return, I got nothing in return.
So when, after three months of silent treatment, he'd reach for me for sex, it was impossible to feel loved or wanted or thought highly of; it was more like "I'm a wad of hamburger; maybe he should go get himself a blow-up doll. He'd probably treat her better."
I actually recommend the above two titles. They were reviled and belittled in the Seventies, which should be recommendation enough. But if you have had your mind twisted by your college education, as mine was, you ought to read the book I'm linking below. She addresses all that crap. I actually joined a "women's support group" and found all the women in it had been brainwashed with the same tired lines about how everything is her RIGHT and he has none. One was approaching a divorse and kept quoting all the same lines that Schlessinger also quotes. "He said to me, 'I try and I try and I try but nothing's ever good enough for you.'" And this was supposed to be evidence of his meanness.
Read this book or else:
Okay, I forgot about this book by the same author. I haven't read it but would recommend it merely on the strength of her name.
I love all the wives who have called in and said, "Woohoo! That's fine with me! It's the first thing on his mind, and though it might not have been the first thing on mine, I can turn in an instant and be ready for him!"
This would have been unthinkable in the Seventies among college women. Of course, if you've ever ready "The Total Woman" or "Fascinating Womanhood", both of which were huge sellers in the Seventies, you know that some women aren't so twisted up and made to be foolish as my college-educated sisters.
I'm glad Prager specified that he is talking about good marriages where there is both love and consideration on both parts.
I fully agree with the proposition that men want a lot of sex and their wives need to know that, accept it, and be ready.
Sadly, my marriage was the worst. My husband refused to pay the slightest attention to me. You may argue that I caused this to happen by being too giving and too accepting and too forgiving. My first marriage was the same way, and I just gave and gave and he started beating me and treating me like hell. I lost twenty pounds in the first three months. But we had sex every single night of the first two and a half years, and it was by my insistence. The second marriage, I tried to do the same thing, but he started turning his back on me, and it wasn't for a back massage, either. Eventually I decided I must be putting him off by trying to initiate it as often as I did, and we found he was only interested once every few months. But, since sex with him hurt, I didn't complain much.
Matters outside the bedroom were particularly telling. He'd come home from work without announcing his entrance. If I happened to be in another part of the house where I couldn't see the front door, he could be home for some time before I even became aware of it. I could speak to him from the kitchen and never hear an answer. I could speak to him across the dinner table and he'd ignore me. I could reach out to him and he would leave the room. I could ask him to change the light bulb that was too high for me to reach and that was a 100% guarantee that I'd be changing the light bulb sooner or later.
Put another dish in the dishwasher? I should be so lucky. I could have been doing the dishes naked and he'd have refused to look at me. Sure, I caused this, by not knowing how to make him put me on that Princess pedestal. By giving and giving and giving and asking nothing in return, I got nothing in return.
So when, after three months of silent treatment, he'd reach for me for sex, it was impossible to feel loved or wanted or thought highly of; it was more like "I'm a wad of hamburger; maybe he should go get himself a blow-up doll. He'd probably treat her better."
I actually recommend the above two titles. They were reviled and belittled in the Seventies, which should be recommendation enough. But if you have had your mind twisted by your college education, as mine was, you ought to read the book I'm linking below. She addresses all that crap. I actually joined a "women's support group" and found all the women in it had been brainwashed with the same tired lines about how everything is her RIGHT and he has none. One was approaching a divorse and kept quoting all the same lines that Schlessinger also quotes. "He said to me, 'I try and I try and I try but nothing's ever good enough for you.'" And this was supposed to be evidence of his meanness.
Read this book or else:
Okay, I forgot about this book by the same author. I haven't read it but would recommend it merely on the strength of her name.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
"I don't understand anyone who thinks all murderers should live."
I do.
They live by this emotional statement that is spoken daily, axiomatically accepted as one of their higher truths: "A human life is so precious..."
Only a really GOOD person would say such a thing. Only a really evil person would say that that wasn't always true. Only a really evil person would advocate that a human life could legitimately be taken away from the human without his permission.
See, first they say that human life is infinitely precious. But just scratch beneath the surface and you'll learn that humans who are inside another human aren't precious, aren't even meaningful, at all. And then there are the humans whose doctors have made a supernatural judgement on what will happen six months out into the future; their lives aren't precious at all. And let's not forget the target(s) of torture-murderers and axe murderers. They weren't precious enough to arouse any moral outrage on the part of the anti-death penalty people.
There are a lot of things going on there. Many, many unstated presuppositions.
Good people love people, and it takes an even better person to love bad people. The anti-death-penalty person (ADPP) is a better person.
Bad people hate people. Anyone who wants to put murderers to death is morally lazy, doesn't have the energy nor the goodness to force himself to forgive the heinous murderer the way the ADPP has. You and I are thus slavering to see someone get executed. The people who don't want to see that are so much gooder than we are. We are very bad, the ADPP is very good.
You're out for revenge. The ADPP isn't. He's good, you're bad.
You can't forgive. The ADPP has already forgiven all murderers. He's good, you're bad.
As with all liberal beliefs, Prager, believing the good beliefs they believe makes them good, while believing the bad beliefs you believe makes you bad.
They will cherish these beliefs forever, unless you can make a crack in them. How to do that, though is very very difficult.
For further information, see "glazed eyes" or "intentional deafness" or "Jehovah's Witness".
They live by this emotional statement that is spoken daily, axiomatically accepted as one of their higher truths: "A human life is so precious..."
Only a really GOOD person would say such a thing. Only a really evil person would say that that wasn't always true. Only a really evil person would advocate that a human life could legitimately be taken away from the human without his permission.
See, first they say that human life is infinitely precious. But just scratch beneath the surface and you'll learn that humans who are inside another human aren't precious, aren't even meaningful, at all. And then there are the humans whose doctors have made a supernatural judgement on what will happen six months out into the future; their lives aren't precious at all. And let's not forget the target(s) of torture-murderers and axe murderers. They weren't precious enough to arouse any moral outrage on the part of the anti-death penalty people.
There are a lot of things going on there. Many, many unstated presuppositions.
Good people love people, and it takes an even better person to love bad people. The anti-death-penalty person (ADPP) is a better person.
Bad people hate people. Anyone who wants to put murderers to death is morally lazy, doesn't have the energy nor the goodness to force himself to forgive the heinous murderer the way the ADPP has. You and I are thus slavering to see someone get executed. The people who don't want to see that are so much gooder than we are. We are very bad, the ADPP is very good.
You're out for revenge. The ADPP isn't. He's good, you're bad.
You can't forgive. The ADPP has already forgiven all murderers. He's good, you're bad.
As with all liberal beliefs, Prager, believing the good beliefs they believe makes them good, while believing the bad beliefs you believe makes you bad.
They will cherish these beliefs forever, unless you can make a crack in them. How to do that, though is very very difficult.
For further information, see "glazed eyes" or "intentional deafness" or "Jehovah's Witness".
Prager: "There are no old newspapers in this house."
I can beat that. Where I'm living--and it's not my family, it's the family of a friend--there are no NEW newspapers, either.
It's amazing living in a culture where reading just does not happen. They know a little bit about the news because they hear the daily gossip from their friends, and occasionally they pause on ABC News on TV. But read a newspaper article? Subscribe to a newsmagazine? NEVAH!
They do, however, have a favorite place to dump those precious dollars that they don't want to spend on written matter. Tanning beds.
That's right, tanning beds.
When the administration wanted to slap a tax on tanning salons, the media were all over that, trying to label it as a tax on the rich, knowing that the public would forgive them for putting yet another tax on those stinky rich people. Indeed, we normal people can't even imagine paying large amounts of money on something so stupid and otherwise free. It MUST be something rich people do, right?
No, not really. The rich go to the beach, or they get out in the sun and play golf, or sail, or lie beside the pool in their own back yards. They don't pay to share skin fungi and dandruff and crabs and headlice with the common grunts who came to the salon before they did.
There are only two tanning salons in Beverly Hills, outside of private clubs. But right next door, in West Hollywood, there are more than a dozen. But here in the redneck part of this border state, tanning salons are one of the most popular businesses in town.
I don't know why I got off on this tangent. This post should probably be on my "Selfishly Therapeutic Blog".
It's amazing living in a culture where reading just does not happen. They know a little bit about the news because they hear the daily gossip from their friends, and occasionally they pause on ABC News on TV. But read a newspaper article? Subscribe to a newsmagazine? NEVAH!
They do, however, have a favorite place to dump those precious dollars that they don't want to spend on written matter. Tanning beds.
That's right, tanning beds.
When the administration wanted to slap a tax on tanning salons, the media were all over that, trying to label it as a tax on the rich, knowing that the public would forgive them for putting yet another tax on those stinky rich people. Indeed, we normal people can't even imagine paying large amounts of money on something so stupid and otherwise free. It MUST be something rich people do, right?
No, not really. The rich go to the beach, or they get out in the sun and play golf, or sail, or lie beside the pool in their own back yards. They don't pay to share skin fungi and dandruff and crabs and headlice with the common grunts who came to the salon before they did.
There are only two tanning salons in Beverly Hills, outside of private clubs. But right next door, in West Hollywood, there are more than a dozen. But here in the redneck part of this border state, tanning salons are one of the most popular businesses in town.
I don't know why I got off on this tangent. This post should probably be on my "Selfishly Therapeutic Blog".
Friday, March 11, 2011
Caller: "There is a permanent exhibit attached to our Natural History Museum..."
It's on global warming, of course. And it features a clip of a scientist explaining this fact as an emergency and appealing to us to take action in a hurry. If we don't stop it now we're going to turn into the planet Mercury...
And of course Prager butts in to get his little joke inserted, to hear himself make noise, to take the thought away from the caller.
The caller was talking as fast as he could to try to get the rest of his story in. But evidently Prager thought he had said quite as much as he deserved, and cut him off. Frankly I don't think the show was improved by that, Prager. I wanted to hear the rest of what he had to say. Probably something about how proud of her exhibit the curator of the museum was, something like that. Maybe he was going to tell us how he started a movement to get the damn thing out of there and after three months of active campaigning he had succeeded? That would have been worth hearing.
There was time. It was 2:39 and they didn't go to break till 2:42. It wasn't as if he had been hemming and hawing, looking for the right word, taking too long. They shoulda let him speak.
And of course Prager butts in to get his little joke inserted, to hear himself make noise, to take the thought away from the caller.
The caller was talking as fast as he could to try to get the rest of his story in. But evidently Prager thought he had said quite as much as he deserved, and cut him off. Frankly I don't think the show was improved by that, Prager. I wanted to hear the rest of what he had to say. Probably something about how proud of her exhibit the curator of the museum was, something like that. Maybe he was going to tell us how he started a movement to get the damn thing out of there and after three months of active campaigning he had succeeded? That would have been worth hearing.
There was time. It was 2:39 and they didn't go to break till 2:42. It wasn't as if he had been hemming and hawing, looking for the right word, taking too long. They shoulda let him speak.
The Happiness Hour
Having close friends.
Prager defines a close friend as someone to whom you can open up. I dunno, sometimes people will open up to someone who's not close and whom they have no intention of getting close. In fact they'll keep the person distant just because they opened up to them.
Okay, this is a magnificent point: "My friends have made me a much better man."
Sounds to me like, "That's what friends are for."
I have a friend who got invoved with (and is still involved with) a rather crappy woman who wants to control him and treat him horribly. She doesn't know that's what she's doing, it's just how she relates to men and she can't be comfortable with a strong, confident man who trusts himself to make decisions and judgements. She found him in the "pool" of nerds who had never had a date in high school, and boy is he needy and desperate--desperate enough to put up with a constant stream of abuse, criticism, and invective. What's more, she's dumped him three times now, but he keeps crawling back for more.
Almost as soon as she met him she started hinting that his old friends were bad for him, that she was his only good thing going, and that he'd be much better off if he dumped us.
So he did.
Why would she do a thing like that? Were we really "keeping him down" or was it because she didn't want him to have a support structure that could tell him how bad for him she was? She's already kept him from enrolling in college, and made it very evident that he'd better get a job so he can move in with her. For six months she's been promising to get on birth control and has consistently refused to make an appointment to do that. By this time next year she will have forced him into moving in with her, marrying her, and siring a child by her. Because he has no friends, no feedback, no one who can help him see what a stinking low-life bitch she is.
This woman is NEVER going to make any man "a better man", she's only capable of making a man into a pile of crap, pretty much like herself.
Prager defines a close friend as someone to whom you can open up. I dunno, sometimes people will open up to someone who's not close and whom they have no intention of getting close. In fact they'll keep the person distant just because they opened up to them.
Okay, this is a magnificent point: "My friends have made me a much better man."
Sounds to me like, "That's what friends are for."
I have a friend who got invoved with (and is still involved with) a rather crappy woman who wants to control him and treat him horribly. She doesn't know that's what she's doing, it's just how she relates to men and she can't be comfortable with a strong, confident man who trusts himself to make decisions and judgements. She found him in the "pool" of nerds who had never had a date in high school, and boy is he needy and desperate--desperate enough to put up with a constant stream of abuse, criticism, and invective. What's more, she's dumped him three times now, but he keeps crawling back for more.
Almost as soon as she met him she started hinting that his old friends were bad for him, that she was his only good thing going, and that he'd be much better off if he dumped us.
So he did.
Why would she do a thing like that? Were we really "keeping him down" or was it because she didn't want him to have a support structure that could tell him how bad for him she was? She's already kept him from enrolling in college, and made it very evident that he'd better get a job so he can move in with her. For six months she's been promising to get on birth control and has consistently refused to make an appointment to do that. By this time next year she will have forced him into moving in with her, marrying her, and siring a child by her. Because he has no friends, no feedback, no one who can help him see what a stinking low-life bitch she is.
This woman is NEVER going to make any man "a better man", she's only capable of making a man into a pile of crap, pretty much like herself.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Prager: "Who has been made a better person after joining a union?"
Yes, but I'm sure Prager would concede that that's not the point of the union. As for its making people into "me me me me me" monsters, I doubt that it does that to more than a limited degree. It does, however, make the total pool into a pool of "me me me me me" monsters, which is bad. The individuals can be credited with teaching for the love of it, but the pool is a hideous thing. What's more, the pool admits renegades who ARE "me me me me me" monsters. They're the ones sitting in the rubber rooms reading comic books.
One of the great moral puzzles of the twentieth and twenty-first century
Prager asks why the left (communism and socialism, he means) does not wear the label of evil that they have so rightly earned.
Stated simply, it's because the left are the ones doing the labeling.
Then he asks if you can name anyone on the left who has lost credibility because of something they said?
There are a few. Generally whenever someone on the left says something horrible, all that is requested of them is that they apologize. Usually when they apologize, they throw in a few "you blockheads misunderstood my wonderful intentions or misinterpreted my innocent words"-type accusations and then all is well, because now it is clearly demonstrated that it's the right wing's evil core that is to blame in the issue.
But let a right-winger misspeak, and we get out the tar and feathers.
Stated simply, it's because the left are the ones doing the labeling.
Then he asks if you can name anyone on the left who has lost credibility because of something they said?
There are a few. Generally whenever someone on the left says something horrible, all that is requested of them is that they apologize. Usually when they apologize, they throw in a few "you blockheads misunderstood my wonderful intentions or misinterpreted my innocent words"-type accusations and then all is well, because now it is clearly demonstrated that it's the right wing's evil core that is to blame in the issue.
But let a right-winger misspeak, and we get out the tar and feathers.
Liberal demonstrators and conservative demonstrators
Demonstrators in Wisconsin made it impossible for the elected representatives to get into the capitol and do their job.
It is apparently the first time the public has ever succeeded in shutting down the functioning of a state government. Six million dollars worth of violence, vandalism, and damage. Who is surprised at this?
Police said they "pleaded" with the demonstrators to leave. Pleaded? I've never heard a police officer plead. I don't think the spokesman was lying, I believe they really were pleading.
How come no one carried them out of the building? I can remember a time when demonstrators blocked access to a third-trimester-abortions clinic. They were beaten and their arms were broken and they were dragged, broken and bleeding, into the paddy wagons.
As Prager said, there is NO CHANCE that the press will portray these people as the thugs that they were.
**************************
I'm delighted to learn that the interviewee was Charles Sykes. I've read some of his writing, notably this one:
His newer book, released in 2007, should be just as good:
And just based on the excellence of his writing I'm recommending both his other books:
and another of his books for which Prager interviewed him:
He's really good, and I especially recommend the first one above.
It is apparently the first time the public has ever succeeded in shutting down the functioning of a state government. Six million dollars worth of violence, vandalism, and damage. Who is surprised at this?
Police said they "pleaded" with the demonstrators to leave. Pleaded? I've never heard a police officer plead. I don't think the spokesman was lying, I believe they really were pleading.
How come no one carried them out of the building? I can remember a time when demonstrators blocked access to a third-trimester-abortions clinic. They were beaten and their arms were broken and they were dragged, broken and bleeding, into the paddy wagons.
As Prager said, there is NO CHANCE that the press will portray these people as the thugs that they were.
**************************
I'm delighted to learn that the interviewee was Charles Sykes. I've read some of his writing, notably this one:
His newer book, released in 2007, should be just as good:
And just based on the excellence of his writing I'm recommending both his other books:
and another of his books for which Prager interviewed him:
He's really good, and I especially recommend the first one above.
"Love your neighbor as yourself is three thousand years old; do you have a better one than that?"
When the Left apply this to their politics ... er, that's a misstatement right there. They apply their politics to their religion. When they apply what they already presuppose to their religion, they come up with, "The government needs to take your income from you and give it to your neighbor."
It usually doesn't apply to their own income. They shelter that from taxation and hang onto it, and what money they do give away goes most often to sociopolitical causes like Amnesty International or PETA. It's left to the conservatives to give to personal aid like the church food and clothing cupboard or Chrysalis.
By the way, they don't need a better moral statement. They'll quote lines from the Bible just as happily as if they understood what those lines really meant and as if they themselves actually believed them. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," drops from their lips constantly. Of course they mean "support welfare programs" when we conservatives, if we were in our neighbor's shoes, would rather that people teach us how to fish than just throw a pound of fish at us after some sixteen bureaucrats had handled it first.
And we would say we had done more good teaching our neighbor than liberals had done throwing the fish around.
It usually doesn't apply to their own income. They shelter that from taxation and hang onto it, and what money they do give away goes most often to sociopolitical causes like Amnesty International or PETA. It's left to the conservatives to give to personal aid like the church food and clothing cupboard or Chrysalis.
By the way, they don't need a better moral statement. They'll quote lines from the Bible just as happily as if they understood what those lines really meant and as if they themselves actually believed them. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," drops from their lips constantly. Of course they mean "support welfare programs" when we conservatives, if we were in our neighbor's shoes, would rather that people teach us how to fish than just throw a pound of fish at us after some sixteen bureaucrats had handled it first.
And we would say we had done more good teaching our neighbor than liberals had done throwing the fish around.
notes on Crossroads School, just for the record
Prager's caller mentioned three nutty things from Crossroads. Just for the record I'm writing them down:
The school required them to call teachers by their first names.
Every year there was a school-wide "coming out" day when boys were invited to wear dresses to school. Mostly it was boys from the drama dept who did so, and the boys from the athletic teams picked on them as a result. So much for "enlightenment".
His senior year, when he was taking an elective on Marxism, the class had to write a 25-page report on the benefits of Marxism.
***
I just wonder how many of the works of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Austen, Milton, Dryden, Johnson, Swift, Fielding, Twain, Hawthorne, and Dickens they ever ended up reading?
The school required them to call teachers by their first names.
Every year there was a school-wide "coming out" day when boys were invited to wear dresses to school. Mostly it was boys from the drama dept who did so, and the boys from the athletic teams picked on them as a result. So much for "enlightenment".
His senior year, when he was taking an elective on Marxism, the class had to write a 25-page report on the benefits of Marxism.
***
I just wonder how many of the works of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Austen, Milton, Dryden, Johnson, Swift, Fielding, Twain, Hawthorne, and Dickens they ever ended up reading?
Crossroads' narrow-mindedness
Boy, I tell you, when leftists get an idea into their heads, there is nothing they won't stop at to save the world from any of its evil, mistaken notions.
Consider a conservative teacher. Yes, there are actually such creatures. They go into the profession because they love learning and they want to pass on a similar love of learning to the next generation. They are far less focused on passing on their ideas and conclusions.
Now let's step inside the conservative teacher's head. When he imagines the child of a liberal parent, he sees the parent in the evenings teaching his child that Marxism is good and that men and women are essentially the same. The conservative teacher shrugs, dismisses this unfortunate situation as "That's their right" and moves on.
Now let's look at the liberal teacher. He has gone into teaching for the sake of "fundamentally changing the world." When he imagines a conservative parent, he sees a toothless hick with values that are not just not well-intentioned but which are evil. Gun-toting, Bible-hugging, religion-clinging, SIXHIRBer, in a position to pass on these evil values to their kids. Far from shrugging and letting these values be passed on to the next generation, the liberal teacher needs to rescue the next generation from their own idiot parents. The kids must be rescued.
This extends to any school run by liberals. Crossroads is known as the artsyfartsy school in L.A. and no, it does not have a gleaming reputation as one of the best schools in the area; it's known to be a school run by nuts. When you think of Crossroads, you instinctively think of the "Tell them what you did in [your progressive] school today, Patrick" scene from the Rosalind Russell version of "Auntie Mame".
Of course, the parents who send their children to that obscene, anti-education school have a choice; they could have sent them to the Mirman School or the Curtis School or any Catholic School. When they chose Crossroads, they thought they were opting for a curriculum with creativity and intellectual freedom. They were wrong.
Consider a conservative teacher. Yes, there are actually such creatures. They go into the profession because they love learning and they want to pass on a similar love of learning to the next generation. They are far less focused on passing on their ideas and conclusions.
Now let's step inside the conservative teacher's head. When he imagines the child of a liberal parent, he sees the parent in the evenings teaching his child that Marxism is good and that men and women are essentially the same. The conservative teacher shrugs, dismisses this unfortunate situation as "That's their right" and moves on.
Now let's look at the liberal teacher. He has gone into teaching for the sake of "fundamentally changing the world." When he imagines a conservative parent, he sees a toothless hick with values that are not just not well-intentioned but which are evil. Gun-toting, Bible-hugging, religion-clinging, SIXHIRBer, in a position to pass on these evil values to their kids. Far from shrugging and letting these values be passed on to the next generation, the liberal teacher needs to rescue the next generation from their own idiot parents. The kids must be rescued.
This extends to any school run by liberals. Crossroads is known as the artsyfartsy school in L.A. and no, it does not have a gleaming reputation as one of the best schools in the area; it's known to be a school run by nuts. When you think of Crossroads, you instinctively think of the "Tell them what you did in [your progressive] school today, Patrick" scene from the Rosalind Russell version of "Auntie Mame".
Of course, the parents who send their children to that obscene, anti-education school have a choice; they could have sent them to the Mirman School or the Curtis School or any Catholic School. When they chose Crossroads, they thought they were opting for a curriculum with creativity and intellectual freedom. They were wrong.
Prager: "They don't have that view."
Calling the president "Dude" has nothing to do with their lack of respect for the presidency. You evidently don't remember how conservative talk show hosts during the Clinton years would get a caller once a week demanding that whether they liked the man or not, they show respect for the Presidency. It was just amazing how on January 20, 2001 all these people vanished from the face of the planet and not one person was left to demand that conservatives show respect for the President.
Snips 'n snails and double standard, of course; that's what little liberals are made of.
Snips 'n snails and double standard, of course; that's what little liberals are made of.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Meaning of "Hindu Kush"
Wikipedia says it means, "The mountains of Hind".
Either:
1. Prager is making a huge mistake because
-he heard this somewhere from some one he trusts to know, such as someone who speaks the language and
-he never looked it up himself.
or
2. Prager is a liar.
or
3. Prager heard some explanation and mis-remembered the information.
or
4. Someone vandalized the wikipedia page and put false information there so as to shine a softer light on whoever would be judged evil
* * * *
I consider (1) to have a fair degree of probability, maybe 25%. Usually Prager checks his information
(2) is utterly impossible. Remember that the word "lie" doesn't mean "making a mistake, repeating false information" without "directly intending to deceive".
(3) is more like something I would do than Prager.
(4) is by far the most likely, given what I've seen of people with an agenda saying whatever they want on articles.
Either:
1. Prager is making a huge mistake because
-he heard this somewhere from some one he trusts to know, such as someone who speaks the language and
-he never looked it up himself.
or
2. Prager is a liar.
or
3. Prager heard some explanation and mis-remembered the information.
or
4. Someone vandalized the wikipedia page and put false information there so as to shine a softer light on whoever would be judged evil
* * * *
I consider (1) to have a fair degree of probability, maybe 25%. Usually Prager checks his information
(2) is utterly impossible. Remember that the word "lie" doesn't mean "making a mistake, repeating false information" without "directly intending to deceive".
(3) is more like something I would do than Prager.
(4) is by far the most likely, given what I've seen of people with an agenda saying whatever they want on articles.
Pragertopia
I wish I could afford a subscription. A nice lady just called up while I was replying to something earlier. She had a brilliant insight from the GPS lady ... but I don't know what it was. I know it was brilliant because Prager just started shouting "that's brilliant" but I'll never know what it was, unless I stay up till 2:45 AM and catch it on WIND, Chicago.
Sigh.
Prager, it's getting obnoxious hearing you constantly chiding us for not getting a subscription. Some of us just don't have seven dollars a month. I've been trying for two years to get enough money for the drive to Louisville so I can meet other Prager fans but I can't afford that, either. And no, I'm no spendthrift.
Sigh.
Prager, it's getting obnoxious hearing you constantly chiding us for not getting a subscription. Some of us just don't have seven dollars a month. I've been trying for two years to get enough money for the drive to Louisville so I can meet other Prager fans but I can't afford that, either. And no, I'm no spendthrift.
Prager: "It is a moral obligation to cite the source of your ideas."
I have gotten much of my worldview, or possibly it should be characterized as "way of looking at certain issues" from my reading. Often I cite the source because I can remember which book I read it in. But all too often it came from someone I was talking to and I can't even remember where, never mind whom I was talking to.
What do you do then? I just say, "I was chatting with someone I used to know, and she said..." That's often the best I can do.
What do you do then? I just say, "I was chatting with someone I used to know, and she said..." That's often the best I can do.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Caller: "You're telling me that air conditioning is moral?!"
"You're telling me that rich people who have air conditioning are moral."
Yah, well, this is one of the finest examples of a liberal nitwit who refuses to hear ONE SINGLE THING you've said for what you've said, but tries to tie you in knots with red herring after red herring. You started to fall for it, answering his silly statements (more like accusations, really, which is why you fall for it, defending what you've said or trying to straighten the poor fool out).
If you go to youtube and look for names like Chris Matthews paired with any conservative name, the video will often be placed there to show how "Chris Matthews rakes Condoleeza Rice over the coals" and yet the video is of the liberal named in the title, doing exactly the same thing, demonstrating himself to be confused and without a case, but he twists the guest's words and restates them, thinking he's "exposing" the guest as a fool, when to anyone who is precise with thought, debate, reason, and logic, the host is the fool, and the sneering respondents are the dupes.
Yah, well, this is one of the finest examples of a liberal nitwit who refuses to hear ONE SINGLE THING you've said for what you've said, but tries to tie you in knots with red herring after red herring. You started to fall for it, answering his silly statements (more like accusations, really, which is why you fall for it, defending what you've said or trying to straighten the poor fool out).
If you go to youtube and look for names like Chris Matthews paired with any conservative name, the video will often be placed there to show how "Chris Matthews rakes Condoleeza Rice over the coals" and yet the video is of the liberal named in the title, doing exactly the same thing, demonstrating himself to be confused and without a case, but he twists the guest's words and restates them, thinking he's "exposing" the guest as a fool, when to anyone who is precise with thought, debate, reason, and logic, the host is the fool, and the sneering respondents are the dupes.
The millitary practicing affirmative action for women
You see that feminists have still not given up on the notion that a woman is just a short man without a penis. They see no difference between the sexes, because a big woman can surely do more than a small man, so why not hire her as a fire fighter, jackhammer operator, or cannon fodder?
When I got out of college I pretty much had bought into this crap. By the way, when Prager talks about leftwing ideas being promulgated in college, this is one of the more prominent and one of the most dearly cherished ideas. There are leftists who would deny that leftwing ideas are promoted in colleges with few exceptions. They are either leftwing themselves, and faced only ideas that made them happy they assumed they were faced with normative, middle-of-the-road ideas; or they were not paying attention and assumed that these leftwing ideas were merely common sense and that any intelligent person would accept them.
Anyway, back to my experiences at UCLA. Many many many of my classes had literally been handed over to specialty departments, most prominently the women's studies department. The professor would come into the class, climb up to the stages as if to address his class of five hundred students (all of them were at least 300 students), and announce that today's class would be taught by two women from the department of feminist studies, and then repeat the announcement ten or fifteen days in a row. Then we would be indoctrinated in the sameness of women's and men's natures, social pressure, indoctrination, psychological pressure, the gross inequalities between women and men in patriarchal societies, the magnificent glories of matriarchal societies,
I especially absorbed the malarkey that the only reason men and women grew up to be different was that their parents pressured their kids into being that way. Mothers in Sparta did that sort of thing (as did all patriarchal societies) and we their descendants have been following in their footsteps ever since.
We were given numerous anecdotal studies involving little boys who lost or were born without penises and then were brought up as girls, and how thouroughly girlish and happy they were. Never were we told about the endings to the stories, how the boys had always felt "wrong" or "out of place" until their secret was discovered and they decided to be male after all.
Through the Eighties I heard again and again about colleges that were shoving this stuff down their students' throats. Orientation at many colleges involved forcing the incoming male students into seminars where they would be bullied and raged at until they confessed to being "a potential rapist". I don't just mean a dozen oddball colleges that had gone nuts, I mean a huge number of them, so that it was getting harder and harder to find one that might leave you to your own beliefs and not try to rescue you from them.
And that leaves me to a whole different subject area, critical thinking ...
When I got out of college I pretty much had bought into this crap. By the way, when Prager talks about leftwing ideas being promulgated in college, this is one of the more prominent and one of the most dearly cherished ideas. There are leftists who would deny that leftwing ideas are promoted in colleges with few exceptions. They are either leftwing themselves, and faced only ideas that made them happy they assumed they were faced with normative, middle-of-the-road ideas; or they were not paying attention and assumed that these leftwing ideas were merely common sense and that any intelligent person would accept them.
Anyway, back to my experiences at UCLA. Many many many of my classes had literally been handed over to specialty departments, most prominently the women's studies department. The professor would come into the class, climb up to the stages as if to address his class of five hundred students (all of them were at least 300 students), and announce that today's class would be taught by two women from the department of feminist studies, and then repeat the announcement ten or fifteen days in a row. Then we would be indoctrinated in the sameness of women's and men's natures, social pressure, indoctrination, psychological pressure, the gross inequalities between women and men in patriarchal societies, the magnificent glories of matriarchal societies,
I especially absorbed the malarkey that the only reason men and women grew up to be different was that their parents pressured their kids into being that way. Mothers in Sparta did that sort of thing (as did all patriarchal societies) and we their descendants have been following in their footsteps ever since.
We were given numerous anecdotal studies involving little boys who lost or were born without penises and then were brought up as girls, and how thouroughly girlish and happy they were. Never were we told about the endings to the stories, how the boys had always felt "wrong" or "out of place" until their secret was discovered and they decided to be male after all.
Through the Eighties I heard again and again about colleges that were shoving this stuff down their students' throats. Orientation at many colleges involved forcing the incoming male students into seminars where they would be bullied and raged at until they confessed to being "a potential rapist". I don't just mean a dozen oddball colleges that had gone nuts, I mean a huge number of them, so that it was getting harder and harder to find one that might leave you to your own beliefs and not try to rescue you from them.
And that leaves me to a whole different subject area, critical thinking ...
Monday, March 7, 2011
Michael Moore, "We have had it!"
Moore (interpreted): "We can no longer hold up state authorities to force more and more non-teachers' union workers to pay more and more money to support ridiculous state workers' pension plans."
Prager: We admire and respect the people who are represented in this.
Me: I'm not sure we should.
"Moore disputed the claims that Wisconsin is broke." That's the way of the radical left, I don't like what you're saying, therefore it's untrue and you are a vicious liar and destroyer. And you're evil, too.
Moore's answer is OF COURSE to take from the rich.
Prager asks how much the man gives away from his own stash. I know he gives a lot, but like all lefties, it goes to political causes, not to personal causes. I can't name the specific groups he contributes to (I'm sure it can be found on the internet) but it would be groups LIKE moveon.org, planned parenthood, greenpeace, or Amnesty International.
Prager read from the New York Times editorial page:
State Workers and NY's Fiscal Crisis
"At a time when public school students are being forced into ever more crowded classrooms, and poor families will lose state medical benefits, New York State is paying 10 times more for state employees’ pensions than it did just a decade ago."
Amazing. Simply amazing.
Of course we can start out with assuming that the number of state employees has quadrupled. I don't know the real number but I sure do have to make that assumption else I would go on rampage. Then there's a hidden fact, that they just meant that the state was contributing more as a percentage of the pensions because the pensions are suffering from recession-induced shortages. In other words, the state guaranteed the pensions so that the union didn't have to behave responsibly and fire managers who mismanaged funds.
The misery is chronicled further, and since it's the NYTimes doing the chronicling, it must be bad indeed.
Please read the article.
And Michael Moore?
How can he get up there in front of the crowd and chant "We have had it!" as if this is the last of a long string of indignities. What were the previous indignities, insults to the teachers' paychecks or pensions?
Prager: We admire and respect the people who are represented in this.
Me: I'm not sure we should.
"Moore disputed the claims that Wisconsin is broke." That's the way of the radical left, I don't like what you're saying, therefore it's untrue and you are a vicious liar and destroyer. And you're evil, too.
Moore's answer is OF COURSE to take from the rich.
Prager asks how much the man gives away from his own stash. I know he gives a lot, but like all lefties, it goes to political causes, not to personal causes. I can't name the specific groups he contributes to (I'm sure it can be found on the internet) but it would be groups LIKE moveon.org, planned parenthood, greenpeace, or Amnesty International.
Prager read from the New York Times editorial page:
State Workers and NY's Fiscal Crisis
"At a time when public school students are being forced into ever more crowded classrooms, and poor families will lose state medical benefits, New York State is paying 10 times more for state employees’ pensions than it did just a decade ago."
Amazing. Simply amazing.
Of course we can start out with assuming that the number of state employees has quadrupled. I don't know the real number but I sure do have to make that assumption else I would go on rampage. Then there's a hidden fact, that they just meant that the state was contributing more as a percentage of the pensions because the pensions are suffering from recession-induced shortages. In other words, the state guaranteed the pensions so that the union didn't have to behave responsibly and fire managers who mismanaged funds.
The misery is chronicled further, and since it's the NYTimes doing the chronicling, it must be bad indeed.
Please read the article.
And Michael Moore?
How can he get up there in front of the crowd and chant "We have had it!" as if this is the last of a long string of indignities. What were the previous indignities, insults to the teachers' paychecks or pensions?
The Fifty-thousand dollar orgasm and Northwestern University
Prager: This is from their NWU's Human sexuality class. You can graduate NWU without ever having read a line of Shakespeare, but you can get credit for a live sex show.
This is the problem I have with most modern education, the garbage they consider important and the important stuff they've dismissed as garbage.
The decline in modern education didn't begin in the Sixties, though most people think it does. I know in the Twenties a new generation of people calling themselves "Progressives" took over the educational establishment and immediately set to changing the definition of the word. Reaching all the way back to Rousseau, they decided that education should be "child-centered", which is to say, the child's own relationship with his world will determine what his education should consist of.
Thus, a little child's world being little, his educational experiences at this young age will be little ones. He will study his clothing and his family and his pets. Since he's never heard of George Washington, he won't study anything about George Washington. Eventually by the Forties, under the title "expanding horizons", this became enshrined by the educrats as curriculum dogma and every enlightened Teacher's College taught it as the only humane way to educate children.
Not only was George Washington banished from the "social studies" books, but so were the Greek gods and goddesses, the legends of King Arthur and his knights, Robin Hood, Orlando, the Swamp Fox, David and Goliath, and every other hero your grandparents loved and you yourself have never heard of. But for some reason, even though great Western stories were banned, the great non-Western stories were pushed into the curriculum, even though 99% of the students had never heard of them. Anansi, Genji, Siddhartha all will pop into the reading lists. Now, I'm all in favor of adding these to the curriculum, but not when our whiny educrats were busy ripping Western culture out.
It needn't be an either-or issue. In fact it never was. "We only have time to teach 125 historical figures, so we'll throw out these 45 Westerners and add these 45 non-western figures" was NEVER part of the debate. And this is where the hippies got their way as the new Progressives. With them it was much more a matter of, "We've been pushing Western culture down the throats of blacks, Mexicans, Oriental* kids, even the white kids are choking on it. It's good to get rid of so much Western culture** which was seen as a throwback to those evil old patriarchal societies. And thus, we are genuine geniuses because only a real genius could be so enlightened.
There were other Western things on the disposal list. Western lit, for one. On yahoo! answers back in 2010 I posted a question about the "classics" of literature and virtually none of the people who post there, neither students nor teachers, could identify a classic work of literature outside the usual seven: The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Animal Farm, and that racist manifesto, Huckleberry Finn. Out they all went, good riddance! And did we replace them? Well, I'm positive children only read a few books each year now, instead of the dozen they used to read. They don't read poetry and they never memorize it. They barely touch plays, though they'll likely read one by Shakespeare (which is now available in sissified English) and maybe "Our Town" or "Death of a Salesman".
*Yes, back then it was still "Oriental", not the very stupid "Asian" substitute.
**They actually denied and still deny the existence of American culture, much less the value of a kid who belongs to the West actually learning about the West. Color became the be-all of culture. If your skin was very dark, you were an "African" child. If your skin was olive, you were Latino and of course in both cases you'd only be interested in learning about Aztec gods or Congolese farming practices. Never mind that your ancestors came from Spain and Uruguay, or were Ethiopian Jews. And thus the hippies disproved their own case about ancestry determining who you are--but don't let that stop you.
Gone are Music theory, Music appreciation, Art history, Art practicum (drawing and painting used to be taught, and yes, they are teachable subjects, contrary to what the disciples of Rousseau preached), history (unless it's history of a part of the world you have nothing to do with), and even "western" math (math based on facts instead of feelings) is being done away with.
You've heard the usual complaints about what has taken the place of these subjects. "Self esteem" and "conflict resolution" are huge among the flakes controlling the curriculum. Yet no one feels that self esteem can be taught in a classroom except by being given challenges that the student has to overcome, which has also been removed from the classroom. "To challenge" has become synonymous with "to pressurize" and pressure is bad. We replaced it with "cooperative groups", since cooperation is a virtue and competition is bad. Now the groups of four students meet together, the three who don't know what they're doing leave all the work to the one bright kid and do nothing. This is not a good thing for our children.
And this is why you'll find courses like "Human Sexuality" at so expensive a college as Northwestern University. What strikes me as dumb about that one is that if left to their own devices these students would learn about human sexuality awfully well on their own. It's not as if there were a shortage of information out there. It seems that it's important to offer it as a "subject" so that some teacher can impart "the right values" to the students. Sorry but that's a mainstay of the educrat establishment, making sure that the students get the right values taught to them.
This is the problem I have with most modern education, the garbage they consider important and the important stuff they've dismissed as garbage.
The decline in modern education didn't begin in the Sixties, though most people think it does. I know in the Twenties a new generation of people calling themselves "Progressives" took over the educational establishment and immediately set to changing the definition of the word. Reaching all the way back to Rousseau, they decided that education should be "child-centered", which is to say, the child's own relationship with his world will determine what his education should consist of.
Thus, a little child's world being little, his educational experiences at this young age will be little ones. He will study his clothing and his family and his pets. Since he's never heard of George Washington, he won't study anything about George Washington. Eventually by the Forties, under the title "expanding horizons", this became enshrined by the educrats as curriculum dogma and every enlightened Teacher's College taught it as the only humane way to educate children.
Not only was George Washington banished from the "social studies" books, but so were the Greek gods and goddesses, the legends of King Arthur and his knights, Robin Hood, Orlando, the Swamp Fox, David and Goliath, and every other hero your grandparents loved and you yourself have never heard of. But for some reason, even though great Western stories were banned, the great non-Western stories were pushed into the curriculum, even though 99% of the students had never heard of them. Anansi, Genji, Siddhartha all will pop into the reading lists. Now, I'm all in favor of adding these to the curriculum, but not when our whiny educrats were busy ripping Western culture out.
It needn't be an either-or issue. In fact it never was. "We only have time to teach 125 historical figures, so we'll throw out these 45 Westerners and add these 45 non-western figures" was NEVER part of the debate. And this is where the hippies got their way as the new Progressives. With them it was much more a matter of, "We've been pushing Western culture down the throats of blacks, Mexicans, Oriental* kids, even the white kids are choking on it. It's good to get rid of so much Western culture** which was seen as a throwback to those evil old patriarchal societies. And thus, we are genuine geniuses because only a real genius could be so enlightened.
There were other Western things on the disposal list. Western lit, for one. On yahoo! answers back in 2010 I posted a question about the "classics" of literature and virtually none of the people who post there, neither students nor teachers, could identify a classic work of literature outside the usual seven: The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Animal Farm, and that racist manifesto, Huckleberry Finn. Out they all went, good riddance! And did we replace them? Well, I'm positive children only read a few books each year now, instead of the dozen they used to read. They don't read poetry and they never memorize it. They barely touch plays, though they'll likely read one by Shakespeare (which is now available in sissified English) and maybe "Our Town" or "Death of a Salesman".
*Yes, back then it was still "Oriental", not the very stupid "Asian" substitute.
**They actually denied and still deny the existence of American culture, much less the value of a kid who belongs to the West actually learning about the West. Color became the be-all of culture. If your skin was very dark, you were an "African" child. If your skin was olive, you were Latino and of course in both cases you'd only be interested in learning about Aztec gods or Congolese farming practices. Never mind that your ancestors came from Spain and Uruguay, or were Ethiopian Jews. And thus the hippies disproved their own case about ancestry determining who you are--but don't let that stop you.
Gone are Music theory, Music appreciation, Art history, Art practicum (drawing and painting used to be taught, and yes, they are teachable subjects, contrary to what the disciples of Rousseau preached), history (unless it's history of a part of the world you have nothing to do with), and even "western" math (math based on facts instead of feelings) is being done away with.
You've heard the usual complaints about what has taken the place of these subjects. "Self esteem" and "conflict resolution" are huge among the flakes controlling the curriculum. Yet no one feels that self esteem can be taught in a classroom except by being given challenges that the student has to overcome, which has also been removed from the classroom. "To challenge" has become synonymous with "to pressurize" and pressure is bad. We replaced it with "cooperative groups", since cooperation is a virtue and competition is bad. Now the groups of four students meet together, the three who don't know what they're doing leave all the work to the one bright kid and do nothing. This is not a good thing for our children.
And this is why you'll find courses like "Human Sexuality" at so expensive a college as Northwestern University. What strikes me as dumb about that one is that if left to their own devices these students would learn about human sexuality awfully well on their own. It's not as if there were a shortage of information out there. It seems that it's important to offer it as a "subject" so that some teacher can impart "the right values" to the students. Sorry but that's a mainstay of the educrat establishment, making sure that the students get the right values taught to them.
Left-wing vs right-wing question
Prager: The Left asks, "How do we screw the rich?" and the Right asks, "What's better for society?"
This is largely true, but Prager needs to understand these questions don't come first. The underlying assumptions do.
With the Left, the underlying assumption is that "wishing to see people be equal is good." No one is "gooder" than anyone else, no one is more deserving than anyone else. If A has money and B does not, then the world is out of fairness, and society must take away from A and give to B. Of course, by "society" they mean "the government". The poor, they assume, cannot be responsible for themselves; if they could they wouldn't be poor, therefore they need a savior to take wealth away from the nasty ugly part of society who never worked for wealth and don't deserve it--which isn't limited to people who inherited wealth, but also to the Gordon Gekkos of the world who got rich by cheating everyone around them. Equally evil are the people who own successful businesses and got rich by cheating everyone under them, both the employees and the consumers. And then we can ask, how do we get them? How can we hurt these people and make things even between the privileged and the oppressed? These are all underlying assumptions, unstated but accepted. If you don't believe it, just start listening to the rhetoric about issues and you'll soon begin seeing and understanding these assumptions.
Now, it happens that the Left have decided that the Right is not to be understood in any light but evil. If you ask most leftists you will be told that the right wing hate poor people and want to starve them all to death, want to consign them all permanently to poverty, want to take all their money away and give it to the rich. In fact, we'd like to see them in chains, pickin' cotton in some field, and living under a lean-to made of car doors. We hate the poor and we dance with glee when children go to bed hungry. You can't deny that's how the Left portrays us. If you've never seen Howard Dean making this claim you need to see the video. "Our moral values, in contradistinction to the Republicans, is, we don't think kids ought to go to bed hungry at night." And Republicans do think that. Nice, Howard.
For the Right, the underlying assumption also covers the idea that doing good is good. It's harder to define because it doesn't focus on a central often-repeated line like equality of wealth. It aims at the individuals, at giving us the chance to do our best, and then leaves us on our own to work hard to get to that place. It doesn't make any promises about getting goodness without trying.
I remember the angst that came from the Left about Reagan and the Republicans. "They think you should pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." I heard this over and over again while I was still a liberal. It was a mark of right-wing viciousness, a description of how much they despised the poor, then oppressed, the disadvantaged. And no one ever challenged it, not even those on the right wing.
One day I heard a woman giving a speech. I don't think she was anyone famous, but for some reason I got to hear her. I must have seen her on the TV or else I wouldn't have known she was African-American. She was a great speaker and a strong representative of the conservative position on this issue. "There are people who complain that conservatives want us to pull ourselves up by our own boot straps," she said. "Well, honey, there is NO OTHER WAY TO PULL YOURSELF UP."
That said it all. If you hand someone a lump of money, they will lie back and stick their hand out and demand more. If you don't respond with the more, you will be accused of meanness. If you had gone to the person and handed them a business, even one they asked for, they would destroy it overnight from not knowing or caring how to run it. No good can come of streaming cash to poor people this way, as they almost always just start looking forward to next month's bit of cash. And if you'll stop to think about it, you'll see that society cannot afford for very many people to fail to be or refuse to be productive.
Had this wonderful woman been white I probably would have written her off as a selfish middle-class Republican s.o.b. but I knew when she said "there is no other way to pull yourself up" she had the best interests of "oppressed" and disadvantaged people at heart. I began asking myself about the sense in what amounts to "tough love" from the right wing, and eventually allowed myself to vote Republican and even to call myself a conservative. Loving someone means keeping their best interests at heart; it doesn't always mean stealing from someone else to give them a handout.
Now, in case you think otherwise, both my parents came from very tough backgrounds and managed as a pair to build some wealth. I was born to poor parents but by the time they divorced, when I was seventeen, they had grown fairly wealthy, and then lost it all. As for myself, for some reason they never taught me to focus, train, prepare, work, earn, build, save, and achieve. I managed to learn some of that from my first husband but right now, I've been severely compromised by my health, my loved ones, and my situation. I have had nothing for a couple of years now, I could probably get a hand-out from the government, but I'm going to go to work or build a business (more likely both) and try to get back on my feet.
The Left would like to see the government just hand me some money, but to be honest I know if they did that I'd never get around to getting a job. It's not that I'm afraid of work (I've always worked like a dog when I get a job) but that I can't stand the thought of looking for work.
This is largely true, but Prager needs to understand these questions don't come first. The underlying assumptions do.
With the Left, the underlying assumption is that "wishing to see people be equal is good." No one is "gooder" than anyone else, no one is more deserving than anyone else. If A has money and B does not, then the world is out of fairness, and society must take away from A and give to B. Of course, by "society" they mean "the government". The poor, they assume, cannot be responsible for themselves; if they could they wouldn't be poor, therefore they need a savior to take wealth away from the nasty ugly part of society who never worked for wealth and don't deserve it--which isn't limited to people who inherited wealth, but also to the Gordon Gekkos of the world who got rich by cheating everyone around them. Equally evil are the people who own successful businesses and got rich by cheating everyone under them, both the employees and the consumers. And then we can ask, how do we get them? How can we hurt these people and make things even between the privileged and the oppressed? These are all underlying assumptions, unstated but accepted. If you don't believe it, just start listening to the rhetoric about issues and you'll soon begin seeing and understanding these assumptions.
Now, it happens that the Left have decided that the Right is not to be understood in any light but evil. If you ask most leftists you will be told that the right wing hate poor people and want to starve them all to death, want to consign them all permanently to poverty, want to take all their money away and give it to the rich. In fact, we'd like to see them in chains, pickin' cotton in some field, and living under a lean-to made of car doors. We hate the poor and we dance with glee when children go to bed hungry. You can't deny that's how the Left portrays us. If you've never seen Howard Dean making this claim you need to see the video. "Our moral values, in contradistinction to the Republicans, is, we don't think kids ought to go to bed hungry at night." And Republicans do think that. Nice, Howard.
For the Right, the underlying assumption also covers the idea that doing good is good. It's harder to define because it doesn't focus on a central often-repeated line like equality of wealth. It aims at the individuals, at giving us the chance to do our best, and then leaves us on our own to work hard to get to that place. It doesn't make any promises about getting goodness without trying.
I remember the angst that came from the Left about Reagan and the Republicans. "They think you should pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." I heard this over and over again while I was still a liberal. It was a mark of right-wing viciousness, a description of how much they despised the poor, then oppressed, the disadvantaged. And no one ever challenged it, not even those on the right wing.
One day I heard a woman giving a speech. I don't think she was anyone famous, but for some reason I got to hear her. I must have seen her on the TV or else I wouldn't have known she was African-American. She was a great speaker and a strong representative of the conservative position on this issue. "There are people who complain that conservatives want us to pull ourselves up by our own boot straps," she said. "Well, honey, there is NO OTHER WAY TO PULL YOURSELF UP."
That said it all. If you hand someone a lump of money, they will lie back and stick their hand out and demand more. If you don't respond with the more, you will be accused of meanness. If you had gone to the person and handed them a business, even one they asked for, they would destroy it overnight from not knowing or caring how to run it. No good can come of streaming cash to poor people this way, as they almost always just start looking forward to next month's bit of cash. And if you'll stop to think about it, you'll see that society cannot afford for very many people to fail to be or refuse to be productive.
Had this wonderful woman been white I probably would have written her off as a selfish middle-class Republican s.o.b. but I knew when she said "there is no other way to pull yourself up" she had the best interests of "oppressed" and disadvantaged people at heart. I began asking myself about the sense in what amounts to "tough love" from the right wing, and eventually allowed myself to vote Republican and even to call myself a conservative. Loving someone means keeping their best interests at heart; it doesn't always mean stealing from someone else to give them a handout.
Now, in case you think otherwise, both my parents came from very tough backgrounds and managed as a pair to build some wealth. I was born to poor parents but by the time they divorced, when I was seventeen, they had grown fairly wealthy, and then lost it all. As for myself, for some reason they never taught me to focus, train, prepare, work, earn, build, save, and achieve. I managed to learn some of that from my first husband but right now, I've been severely compromised by my health, my loved ones, and my situation. I have had nothing for a couple of years now, I could probably get a hand-out from the government, but I'm going to go to work or build a business (more likely both) and try to get back on my feet.
The Left would like to see the government just hand me some money, but to be honest I know if they did that I'd never get around to getting a job. It's not that I'm afraid of work (I've always worked like a dog when I get a job) but that I can't stand the thought of looking for work.
Tonal systems (languages)
The truth is that English is also very tonal. You can give a sentence two completely different meanings simply by emphasizing a different word in the sentence.
A simple example:
Where did you come from?
Try saying that with a slight emphasis on "where" and none on any of the other words. It simply asks the person where they used to be. Now say it with a heavy emphasis on "where". It turns into an accusation of insanity, as if the answer to "where?" were Pluto or something. Now try saying it with the emphasis on "you", and you hear it become an accusation that the You had been skulking around, listening and spying on Me.
Yes, yes, there is a difference between tone and inflection making the difference, but Americans shouldn't get so patronizing about how "silly" Chinese (or any other tonal language) is. We get pretty close ourselves, and if prospective students of Chinese weren't handed a mental block to start out with, they probably wouldn't think much of it.
A simple example:
Where did you come from?
Try saying that with a slight emphasis on "where" and none on any of the other words. It simply asks the person where they used to be. Now say it with a heavy emphasis on "where". It turns into an accusation of insanity, as if the answer to "where?" were Pluto or something. Now try saying it with the emphasis on "you", and you hear it become an accusation that the You had been skulking around, listening and spying on Me.
Yes, yes, there is a difference between tone and inflection making the difference, but Americans shouldn't get so patronizing about how "silly" Chinese (or any other tonal language) is. We get pretty close ourselves, and if prospective students of Chinese weren't handed a mental block to start out with, they probably wouldn't think much of it.
A hundred million a year for bad teachers
This isn't a new story by any means, it was exposed and discussed at length a year ago.
Someone determines that a certain teacher should not be leading or teaching any more. Occasionally the reason is incompetence but it is far more likely to be something rather ugly, such as sexual abuse of students. The union has made sure that these teachers cannot be fired. Dick Morris whips out a chart of the steps that have to be gone through just to get rid of them--and it unfolds to something ridiculous like twenty pages long.
And so they report to work every day they want to get paid (which, coincidentally, is every day) but since they're not allowed to teach, they sit in a reading room or the teachers' lounge. For some unknown reason they don't get put to work typing, filing, or shipping things. This amazes the rest of the country, but never seems to amaze the educrats. It would be "demeaning" to put these bums to work when they had been hired as teachers.
Someone determines that a certain teacher should not be leading or teaching any more. Occasionally the reason is incompetence but it is far more likely to be something rather ugly, such as sexual abuse of students. The union has made sure that these teachers cannot be fired. Dick Morris whips out a chart of the steps that have to be gone through just to get rid of them--and it unfolds to something ridiculous like twenty pages long.
And so they report to work every day they want to get paid (which, coincidentally, is every day) but since they're not allowed to teach, they sit in a reading room or the teachers' lounge. For some unknown reason they don't get put to work typing, filing, or shipping things. This amazes the rest of the country, but never seems to amaze the educrats. It would be "demeaning" to put these bums to work when they had been hired as teachers.
The Left's enthusiasm exceeds inconvenient realities
Ten million dollars' worth of solar panels supply juice to 128 laptops.
How long would it take 128 laptops to burn ten million dollars' worth of petroleum-powered electricity? Exactly the problem with green people. They don't know enough math to figure out the worth of this program; it just satisfies them to know that it's a good thing to do, and in this case "good" means "no carbon dioxide."
Once they've started with "it's good", then the next step is to make up reasons why it's good. That usually means resorting to a cliche. "Since there is so little demand for green energy, there is too little activity going on in developing various forms. Our making solar panels is part of the process."
Sorry, folks, it's not. It's a stupid step in the wrong direction. The contamination garnered by the manufacture of this junk is nasty, durable, carcinogenic, poisonous, and the process of protecting man and nature from it far exceeds the pitiful little gains (mainly existing only in the imaginations of green supporters) that arise from substituting filthy energy sources for our standard sources. But that's another argument I'm not going to deal with. You can look it up at junkscience.com, and in fact I strongly recommend that you do.
Green people are full of chicken-little presuppositions that the sky is falling. It is not. Then they adopt "I'm good because I care; you're bad because you don't care" attitudes. It's not that they made up these attitudes to bolster arguments so much as that they already had this attitude from the first moment they heard about the issue. It's more of an underlying supposition about what's good and what's not, and keeping everyone terrified about an impending disaster is a very good way to separate the sheep from the goats. Sheep care, evil goats want to destroy the world, or kill babies, or keep the poor downtrodden, or trash the planet; you choose your issue.
How long would it take 128 laptops to burn ten million dollars' worth of petroleum-powered electricity? Exactly the problem with green people. They don't know enough math to figure out the worth of this program; it just satisfies them to know that it's a good thing to do, and in this case "good" means "no carbon dioxide."
Once they've started with "it's good", then the next step is to make up reasons why it's good. That usually means resorting to a cliche. "Since there is so little demand for green energy, there is too little activity going on in developing various forms. Our making solar panels is part of the process."
Sorry, folks, it's not. It's a stupid step in the wrong direction. The contamination garnered by the manufacture of this junk is nasty, durable, carcinogenic, poisonous, and the process of protecting man and nature from it far exceeds the pitiful little gains (mainly existing only in the imaginations of green supporters) that arise from substituting filthy energy sources for our standard sources. But that's another argument I'm not going to deal with. You can look it up at junkscience.com, and in fact I strongly recommend that you do.
Green people are full of chicken-little presuppositions that the sky is falling. It is not. Then they adopt "I'm good because I care; you're bad because you don't care" attitudes. It's not that they made up these attitudes to bolster arguments so much as that they already had this attitude from the first moment they heard about the issue. It's more of an underlying supposition about what's good and what's not, and keeping everyone terrified about an impending disaster is a very good way to separate the sheep from the goats. Sheep care, evil goats want to destroy the world, or kill babies, or keep the poor downtrodden, or trash the planet; you choose your issue.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Been out looking for lodging and a job
Prager's show, where I live, comes in the middle of the afternoon and exhausts the 2PM to 5PM time slot. I've been out looking for work and looking for lodging and it has kept me rather busy and unable to post. I've been just busy enough that the show that comes on at midnight my time (WIND in Chicago) is beyond my reach, as I keep falling asleep at 10 or 11.
I'll be back soon.
I'll be back soon.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Male/female hour
I don't comment on this hour every week. I feel I'm handicapped. I'm a woman whose thinking is in the left brain, unlike the majority of women, who are right-brained.
Barbara De Angelis, in her book Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know, said that couples should start by asking themselves, "Do you want to be respected for your thoughts or cherished for your feelings?" and that 90% of men answer "respected for my thoughts" and the same percentage of women answer, "cherished for my feelings."
I'm not sure what that has to do with thinking. Years ago I was astonished when a fiftyish man told me, "men think logically, women use their feelings." It seemed so alien to me, having been a university fmeinist, to hear a man admit to such a prejudicial over-generalization. Eventually, though, I actually took a second look at the women I knew. Some of them seemed to be analytical and logical. The rest seemed to be ... "emotional" is too simplistic. But many of them certainly were counter-logical.
There is a reason why women don't become car mechanics at the same rate men do. Our feminists thought the answer was more counseling for girls--in other words, put pressure on them to become chemists, mathematicians, and mechanics, whether they want to or not. One of my roommates, though, has never once bent down to see what that tube in the dishwasher is for, and so she keeps covering it up because it seems to be a nice bowl holder. In fact it's the pipe that delivers water to the upper fan blade and MUST be left free. She's not just an idiot, she's a female who won't deal with a machine on ITS terms.
I can't explain it. Sadly, I also can't relate to it. The upshot is that I have a very hard time relating to most women. Prager has criticized women who don't have at least a few female friends. I'm one of them.
Barbara De Angelis, in her book Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know, said that couples should start by asking themselves, "Do you want to be respected for your thoughts or cherished for your feelings?" and that 90% of men answer "respected for my thoughts" and the same percentage of women answer, "cherished for my feelings."
I'm not sure what that has to do with thinking. Years ago I was astonished when a fiftyish man told me, "men think logically, women use their feelings." It seemed so alien to me, having been a university fmeinist, to hear a man admit to such a prejudicial over-generalization. Eventually, though, I actually took a second look at the women I knew. Some of them seemed to be analytical and logical. The rest seemed to be ... "emotional" is too simplistic. But many of them certainly were counter-logical.
There is a reason why women don't become car mechanics at the same rate men do. Our feminists thought the answer was more counseling for girls--in other words, put pressure on them to become chemists, mathematicians, and mechanics, whether they want to or not. One of my roommates, though, has never once bent down to see what that tube in the dishwasher is for, and so she keeps covering it up because it seems to be a nice bowl holder. In fact it's the pipe that delivers water to the upper fan blade and MUST be left free. She's not just an idiot, she's a female who won't deal with a machine on ITS terms.
I can't explain it. Sadly, I also can't relate to it. The upshot is that I have a very hard time relating to most women. Prager has criticized women who don't have at least a few female friends. I'm one of them.
ACLU and students' freedom of speech
Yes, well, students are allowed only some freedoms of speech.
If the speech offends the left, it's bad and it's okay to ban it.
If the speech offends the right or offends Christians, that's fine.
"Big Pecker" written on a teeshirt is nearly guaranteed to offend a conservative and would never offend a liberal, so it's protected. However, "Jesus loves you" or "Your Che shirt sucks" will offend liberals on principle, and if the ACLU themselves don't act to sue the school that allows those sayings, it will at least refuse to take a case to defend a kid's right to put up pictures of six-month-old fetuses on the "student issues" bulletin board.
If you don't believe me, please post three examples of the ACLU taking such cases and disprove my assertion that they don't.
Jay Sekulow is a lawyer who runs an organization called the ACLJ and has a radio program during which he takes calls from families about their problems with government violating their rights unequally. Very often they will tell him "We called the ACLU about our kid getting expelled for taking a Bible to school but they refused to help us. They told us, 'We don't take Christian cases.' Can you help us?"
Sekulow had opposed the ACLU before the Supreme Court something like 55 times, or maybe it was 85 times--I haven't listened to his show in years and am telling you in advance that I don't remember the number--before he lost a decision.
On the other hand, I am aware of hundreds of "Protect this atheist student's/Muslim student's/foreign student's rights" that the ACLU has handled. Are they really interested in human rights, or are they only interested in certain rights?
If the speech offends the left, it's bad and it's okay to ban it.
If the speech offends the right or offends Christians, that's fine.
"Big Pecker" written on a teeshirt is nearly guaranteed to offend a conservative and would never offend a liberal, so it's protected. However, "Jesus loves you" or "Your Che shirt sucks" will offend liberals on principle, and if the ACLU themselves don't act to sue the school that allows those sayings, it will at least refuse to take a case to defend a kid's right to put up pictures of six-month-old fetuses on the "student issues" bulletin board.
If you don't believe me, please post three examples of the ACLU taking such cases and disprove my assertion that they don't.
Jay Sekulow is a lawyer who runs an organization called the ACLJ and has a radio program during which he takes calls from families about their problems with government violating their rights unequally. Very often they will tell him "We called the ACLU about our kid getting expelled for taking a Bible to school but they refused to help us. They told us, 'We don't take Christian cases.' Can you help us?"
Sekulow had opposed the ACLU before the Supreme Court something like 55 times, or maybe it was 85 times--I haven't listened to his show in years and am telling you in advance that I don't remember the number--before he lost a decision.
On the other hand, I am aware of hundreds of "Protect this atheist student's/Muslim student's/foreign student's rights" that the ACLU has handled. Are they really interested in human rights, or are they only interested in certain rights?
Prager: "Isn't it odd how the leftwing media are always referring to him as "The Prophet Mohammed" all the time?
And here's where the reality check comes in. Would they speak of "Brother Simon as a follower of the Savior Jesus Christ"? The very idea is laughable.
When the Dalai Lama came to the U.S. we heard him ALWAYS referred to as "His Holiness, the Dalai Lama" but just a couple of months later, when The Pope came here--and yes, he is properly referred to as "His Holiness The Pope", I heard NOT ONE "His Holiness" in reference to him.
Why do you suppose we didn't?
When the Dalai Lama came to the U.S. we heard him ALWAYS referred to as "His Holiness, the Dalai Lama" but just a couple of months later, when The Pope came here--and yes, he is properly referred to as "His Holiness The Pope", I heard NOT ONE "His Holiness" in reference to him.
Why do you suppose we didn't?
The Islamic bloc is going to push legislation to ban insulting religions.
One of the reality checks I give issues is to turn them around and see how it flies when it acts against the people who are supporting or banning or proposing or opposing something.
"When a kid wears a cross on a necklace to school, it might hurt a Muslim kid's feelings, so let's ban it."
"Flying flags on local buildings might hurt an immigrant's feelings, let's ban it."
"Speaking only English in American schools would make Mexican (or "Spanish-speaking") children feel like they don't belong, so we have to add their language too."
Okay, so we just ask ourselves what happens when a Muslim kid wears something to school and a Christian gets offended at it? We have polidies in place for that already. It's called, "Suck it up" or "Learn to stand it," and we make no special policies for the Christian kid, ever.
As for the flag--what do we say when an American kid moves to Belgium and sees a Belgian flag and gets offended? Actually, I think we spank the American kid for having the unmitigated balls to get offended over un Belgique flying his own flag in his own country. But that usually doesn't come up because Belgians and Nederlanders and les Francais aren't as proud of their countries as Americans are of theirs and you don't see 1/10 as many flags flying in Europe as you do in America.
What about the language thing? Well, what happens when an American kid goes to Ukraine and starts school there? They have English class, sure, but they sure don't try to turn their educational system upside down by teaching in English and Ukrainian both.
This latter issue is special and separate. I have discussed it here before. The bilingual ed program wasn't really bilingual and it did a terrible job of teaching a second language to anyone. As a reader of twelve different languages, I'm not at all opposed to teaching second and even sixth languages in school, but the program California had in place wasn't the way to do it.
But the principle applies.
"When a kid wears a cross on a necklace to school, it might hurt a Muslim kid's feelings, so let's ban it."
"Flying flags on local buildings might hurt an immigrant's feelings, let's ban it."
"Speaking only English in American schools would make Mexican (or "Spanish-speaking") children feel like they don't belong, so we have to add their language too."
Okay, so we just ask ourselves what happens when a Muslim kid wears something to school and a Christian gets offended at it? We have polidies in place for that already. It's called, "Suck it up" or "Learn to stand it," and we make no special policies for the Christian kid, ever.
As for the flag--what do we say when an American kid moves to Belgium and sees a Belgian flag and gets offended? Actually, I think we spank the American kid for having the unmitigated balls to get offended over un Belgique flying his own flag in his own country. But that usually doesn't come up because Belgians and Nederlanders and les Francais aren't as proud of their countries as Americans are of theirs and you don't see 1/10 as many flags flying in Europe as you do in America.
What about the language thing? Well, what happens when an American kid goes to Ukraine and starts school there? They have English class, sure, but they sure don't try to turn their educational system upside down by teaching in English and Ukrainian both.
This latter issue is special and separate. I have discussed it here before. The bilingual ed program wasn't really bilingual and it did a terrible job of teaching a second language to anyone. As a reader of twelve different languages, I'm not at all opposed to teaching second and even sixth languages in school, but the program California had in place wasn't the way to do it.
But the principle applies.
Prager: "If a Republican President did this he'd be called a dictator."
It was the issue of Obama's refusing to enforce a federal law because he didn't agree with it. We're talking about DOMA.
My response to Prager's above comment is, "One did, and yes, he was called a dictator." I can't tell you how many times I heard Bush called a dictator, though I would have to say the number and degree of his usurpations of power were fewer and lesser than Obama's. Nah, I'm not going to dig up a list of either man's purported offenses; I haven't been keeping a list so I can't count the crimes. But let me just say, I don't recall Bush ever telling the press, "I won. Get over it."
My response to Prager's above comment is, "One did, and yes, he was called a dictator." I can't tell you how many times I heard Bush called a dictator, though I would have to say the number and degree of his usurpations of power were fewer and lesser than Obama's. Nah, I'm not going to dig up a list of either man's purported offenses; I haven't been keeping a list so I can't count the crimes. But let me just say, I don't recall Bush ever telling the press, "I won. Get over it."
Prager: "When Christians are slaughtered, no one gives a damn."
He's referring to genocides in places like Ethiopia and Eritrea.
It's true that American reporters and usually European reporters don't report on this issue. They didn't report when Muslims moved into the Balkans and started killing Christians there, either, but they sure got busy when the Christians were able to reverse the slaughter after several decades and start killing the Muslims by camping in the hills and taking pot shots at the people they had legally disarmed and who, as Time magazine reported, couldn't defend themselves by shooting back.*
But there is one group that does indeed care, and they care very much. It's American Christians. Groups like Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America often discuss these events on their radio programs, without which the rest of us would have no idea that these genocides are going on. I don't think these people are "nobody" but if by "nobody cares" you mean "the mainstream public shrugs and blows it off" you're quite right.
*This was one of two very serious issues that stripped me of my pacifist pretentions and helped me to understand the point in owning a rifle or pistol that wasn't for sport hunting.
It's true that American reporters and usually European reporters don't report on this issue. They didn't report when Muslims moved into the Balkans and started killing Christians there, either, but they sure got busy when the Christians were able to reverse the slaughter after several decades and start killing the Muslims by camping in the hills and taking pot shots at the people they had legally disarmed and who, as Time magazine reported, couldn't defend themselves by shooting back.*
But there is one group that does indeed care, and they care very much. It's American Christians. Groups like Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America often discuss these events on their radio programs, without which the rest of us would have no idea that these genocides are going on. I don't think these people are "nobody" but if by "nobody cares" you mean "the mainstream public shrugs and blows it off" you're quite right.
*This was one of two very serious issues that stripped me of my pacifist pretentions and helped me to understand the point in owning a rifle or pistol that wasn't for sport hunting.
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