Chris Rowan
Devoted to his lovely wife 30 years, father of two who grew up exceeding his wildest expectations, B.A. Psychology, M. Ed. Counseling, former busboy, journeyman, Church's Chicken cook, purified ice and water salesman, Coca-Cola serviceman, certified public school educator, CCNA, CCNP, Senior Network Admin for a large school district in south Texas
A group of rogue US soldiers that referred to themselves as a “kill team” allegedly killed innocent civilians in Afghanistan and then posed for photographs with their victims. The US Army has now apologized for the incident after the German magazine SPIEGEL published several images from the “kill team” in its new issue on March 21, 2011. The Army has issued a statement declaring that the actions depicted in the photos as ” . . . repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States.” The photos were among several seized by Army investigators looking into the deaths of three unarmed Afghans last year.
Last year–on Obama’s watch.
This is definitely Obama’s Abu Ghraib or, simply, Obama Ghraib. So why are so few people talking about it?
A very unscientific Google search for ‘government education grants’ yields over 4,000,000 hits. There are all manner of scholarships, grants, and loans available for every conceivable category of person, with the possible exception of politically conservative religious white heterosexual males. There is no room on college campuses for hate-filled superstitious racist homophobes.
Not unless they are hate-filled Islamofascist racist homophobes, that is. They apparently go to the front of the Financial Aid line at University. But I digress.
Like many Americans, I am a sucker for technology in education. I even won the Texas State Technology Teacher of the Year Award in 1995 for my efforts integrating technology into the classroom.
But technology is no substitute for good teaching. There is no magical computer-to-student ratio that will guarantee student success. Throwing money at schools to purchase more and more computers and other associated techno-gadgetry will not necessarily produce successful students. But it is easier to throw money at a problem rather than grapple with its underlying causes. Institutional change is painful, and if there is anything that aging baby boomers want to avoid it is PAIN in any shape, manner, or form. And baby boomers are in charge now, at least for the next decade or so.
Happy Meals are now illegal in San Francisco.
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 last week to protect defenseless children from greedy corporate junk food dealers (e.g., McDonald’s) who lure their young prey into a life of unhealthy food addiction by dangling tantalizing free toys in front of them. According to the author of the IBD article “Food Justice in Frisco,” this is just another example of the
. . . machinery of the state mobilizing to save us all from ourselves and the economic choices we make.
Jonah Goldberg defines Fascism as:
. . . a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the ‘problem’ and therefore defined as the enemy.
- Liberal Fascism, p. 23
Eco-fascism is a variant of Fascism that is also totalitarian in the sense that any action by the state to achieve some ecologically-worthy goal is justified. No aspect of human life is off limits. Examples range from bans on smoking in public and the use of cell phones in cars to recent attempts by Congress and the EPA to impose a tax and/or regulatory regimen on our exhalations and emissions made by the burning of fossil fuels. Now it seems we are going to be taxed for the little plastic grocery bags we use to transport our groceries from the supermarket to our cars.
The rationale for the ban is dubious, at best. The cynic in me views the ban as yet one more statist bureaucratic scheme to separate me from my money.
Jonah Goldberg defines Fascism as:
. . . a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the ‘problem’ and therefore defined as the enemy.
- Liberal Fascism, p. 23
Eco-fascism is a variant of Fascism that is also totalitarian in the sense that any action by the state to achieve some ecologically-worthy goal is justified. No aspect of human life is off limits. Examples range from bans on smoking in public and the use of cell phones in cars to recent attempts by Congress and the EPA to impose a tax and/or regulatory regimen on our exhalations and emissions made by the burning of fossil fuels. Now it seems we are going to be taxed for the little plastic grocery bags we use to transport our groceries from the supermarket to our cars.
The rationale for the ban is dubious, at best. The cynic in me views the ban as yet one more statist bureaucratic scheme to separate me from my money.
Read the original post as it was first published here.
It is news to no one that our educational system sucks. American students are consistently out-performed by students in other countries year after year.
Why?
Liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, “compassionate” conservatives (i.e., neocons, RINOs, liberal Republicans) , teacher unions, and other leftist groups would like you to believe that it is some combination of bad schools, teachers, and financing. The solution, as they see it, is to engage in a game of Three Card Monty where students are shuffled from schools that are “failing” them, to schools that will allow them to “succeed” –as though success is a magical elixir of brick, mortar, and fairy dust that is present in some schools and absent in others. read more…
It is news to no one that our educational system sucks. American students are consistently out-performed by students in other countries year after year.
Why?
Liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, “compassionate” conservatives (i.e., neocons, RINOs, liberal Republicans) , teacher unions, and other leftist groups would like you to believe that it is some combination of bad schools, teachers, and financing. The solution, as they see it, is to engage in a game of Three Card Monty where students are shuffled from schools that are “failing” them, to schools that will allow them to “succeed” –as though success is a magical elixir of brick, mortar, and fairy dust that is present in some schools and absent in others. read more…
Barack Obama is the nation’s first-ever Affirmative Action President. It should come as no surprise that President Obama’s pick for Attorney General, Eric Holder, would dispense Affirmative Justice.
Affirmative Action, simply put, seeks to correct past negative discrimination with positive discrimination. Call it “racial preference,” “employment equity,” “smiley-face discrimination,” or whatever, but Affirmative Action is basically a form of government-sanctioned discrimination that favors a particular group of people on the basis of some quality other than merit. This is not necessarily bad. Private employers do it all the time. My own father hired me on the basis of some quality other than merit – namely, the fact that I was his son. But he was not forced to hire me on the basis of some arbitrary federal quota, goal, or “guideline.” Such coercive measures are inevitably harmful both to people and institutions. The rule of unintended consequences applies.
Unrepentant Terrorist Ayers Denied “Emeritus” Status; University Book Sales Unaffected
One of the more comforting aspects of the major religions is the belief that there is justice in the hereafter and the wicked are ultimately punished. One of the reasons why so many people are willing to risk everything to come to the United States is the belief that we have a system of justice that is fair and impartial, so that even the very poor and politically unconnected can expect a modicum of justice in this country.
At least, that’s what I would like to believe. More importantly, that is what I would like to convey – with conviction - to my children. But it is getting harder and harder to suspend disbelief about our “impartial” judicial system. read more…
David Aikman of Townhall.com posted a 1-minute podcast commentary today that should be of great interest to conservative moms and dads out there – “Alinsky: In Your Child’s Classroom?“
According to Aikman,
. . . the nation’s largest teacher organization, the National Education Association, has sent an email to all its teacher members advising them to use Alinsky’s teaching in educating their students – OUR children and OUR grandchildren. Considering that one of Alinsky’s ethical principles was that the end justifies the means, American parents ought to think long and hard whether they want their children brainwashed by followers of Alinsky.
I went to high school in the 70′s, and spent many a night at my friend’s apartment watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus on “late night” PBS. Many of their skits and movies are comedy classics – The Parrot Sketch, The Cheese Shop Sketch, Argument Clinic, plus many others. But one sketch in particular – The Hospital Sketch – has a rather prescient resonance that is both hilarious and haunting.
John Cleese and Graham Chapman are two witless doctors who are more concerned with impressing the Hospital Administrator (played by Eric Idle) by arranging expensive-looking equipment in the delivery room than they are in the welfare of their terrified pregnant patient. I’ve seen the sketch many times over the years, and it has never failed to evoke guffaws of laughter. The Monty Python crew, satirizing the state of (socialized) medical care in Great Britain at the time.
But lately, it just doesn’t seem very funny.
