…elected by morons. Exhibit A: a Democrat county supervisor who thinks that Arizona doesn’t share a border with Mexico. As one commenter notes, Idiocracy
Category Archives: Education
It’s About Time
The Muslim Students Association of UC Irvine has been suspended for a year. I hope that school administrations at other places will start to grow a spine, too. But I think it’s too little, and way too late. Up until now, the behavior of the administration at UCI has been appalling, not just looking the other way, but actually justifying the MSA’s anti-semitic activities.
Zero Tolerance Insanity
Thoughts on the rampant hoplophobia in today’s society.
The way he talks about how “the event” “exposed” how “a policy” can present “an image counter to the work” of the schools, you certainly wouldn’t think he decided on his own to ban the hat. But regardless of whether he can unilaterally change school policy, let’s suppose he accomplishes the revision he seeks so that students may depict “tools of a profession or service such as the military or police.”
Doesn’t that amount to indoctrinating children to believe that guns are only OK (and should only be allowed) when they are in the hands of the police and the military? Is that not contrary to the purpose of the Second Amendment and the founding of this country? If, as Di Pietro says, it is “the work of our schools to promote patriotism and democracy,” such a bias would do just the opposite.
These people are ignorant fools, and they’re responsible for educating our children.
The Thin Skin Of Journalists
Some thoughts. Many are not well adapted to the new media environment.
If Abolishing the Department Of Education Is Extreme
…then call me an extremist, too.
And extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
[Update a few minutes later]
Bring it on, Senator. In fact, that’s a job I wouldn’t mind having.
Interestingly, Brownback is one of the few Republicans to have expressed support for the president’s new space plan. Probably because he asked Pete Worden’s advice.
The Faculty Lounge
…is running (and in the process, ruining) the country:
If you wonder how our present administration’s attitudes toward business, commerce, taxes, finance, race, national security and foreign policy now play out, just drop by a local faculty lounge for a few minutes and listen up — America in 2010 will suddenly make sense, and perhaps scare the hell out of you all at once. It all reminds me of the proverbial first-semester college student who returns home at Thanksgiving to his near-broke parents to inform them of all the “new” things he’s learned at university.
Maybe we can start to mitigate some of the damage this November.
How Far The Fall
California now has the least educated work force in the country. Mississippi can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Eight Reasons
…that the college tuition bubble is about to burst.
No scam can survive indefinitely. Unless, of course, the government continues to support it, at our expense.
You First, Pete
Lileks, on Peter Singer and other misanthropes.
I don’t believe that there’s any inherent good in having people on earth. We’re fond of ourselves, but that’s about it.
Uh huh. Well, here’s a question I find more interesting than Singer’s threnodies: if there was no sentient life on Earth, would Nature still be beautiful? Everyone loves the beauty of Nature, after all. Everyone agrees it’s a Good and Wonderful Thing, although some think some spiritual experience can be distilled from its contemplation. I don’t – I sense the inconceivable depths of time, the wonders of natural systems, and find aesthetic pleasures if they mesh with my own preferences, i.e., I like the colors of a sunset, but do not like the face of a spider. There is no moral component to beauty, no ethics in a great forest. I like them, but they are not my Brother or Mother anymore than the bear considers me a distant relative. I prefer a certain amount of distance from Nature, as in the form of walls and roofs and clothing and medicine and so on, and if this makes our lives “disconnected” from Nature, then talk to the beaver, who gnaws down trees and dams streams. But we cannot disconnect with Nature; we’re part of it. We’re just the clever part that figured out how to arm ourselves against its indifference.
We pay Nature the compliment of being Beautiful, but that’s a hard-fought luxury. Nature requires the application of judgment to be beautiful. It requires people.
That’s just as true off planet as on.
An End To Flight Instructors
…in California. Just as well, all those dang airplanes were killing the planet with their carbon footprints anyway.
The inmates continue to run the asylum in Sacramento. And little hope for improvement, absent districting reform.