Month: August 2003

Dept. of Our Collapsing Schools

AlphaPatriot weighs in on this story about the Tennessee State Board of Education setting the graduation requirement to 60% in order for a school to stay off the “low-performing” list.

Tennessee high schools will need to graduate only 60% of students to stay off the state’s low-performing list.

I can’t do it any better. Go read.

And home-school your kids if it is at all possible.

That’s Not a Walther!

Feces Flinging Monkey once again links to something odd and interesting, the Internet Watergun Museum. But I must quibble. On this page:

the middle gun on the bottom row is labled “pistool Walther.” That’s no Walther, that’s a broomhandle Mauser!

The one immediately to its right, simply labled “pistool” could be a 1902 Browning Automatic.

(Sometimes being the repository for all this arcane knowledge seems lame pays off.)

UPDATE:

And as an example, of the RACIST!™ paintbrush we have this report that Ted Nugent is suing over being accused of making RACIST!™ comments. He’s suing because one of his concerts was cancelled over the accusation, and he’s suing “the City of Muskegon; Mayor Stephen Warmington; City Manager Bryon Mazade; Meridian Entertainment, the concert’s promoter, and others as defendants.” Money quote:

“In a world of political correctness, there is no more reputation-destroying term than racist,” Nugent said in the statement. “And the alleged statements falsely attributed to me could not have been more inaccurate or misleading, completely counter to what I stand for.”

Nugent’s full statement is available here. This story is the only one I found that had any clarification on just what Nugent said:

A May 5 interview on Denver radio station KRFX-FM’s morning show was cut short because DJs Rick Lewis and Michael Floorwax said Nugent went too far when he used several racial slurs.

The interview focused on guitars until Nugent used the word Jap, to which Lewis and Floorwax immediately protested, The Rocky Mountain News reported. Nugent then used another Asian slur and the DJs called him on that.

Nugent next used the n word when talking about comedian Richard Pryor’s humor and said that, years ago, one of the Funk Brothers used the term to compliment Nugent’s guitar playing.

On this topic, let me refer you to Bill Whittle’s most recent essay, Responsibility:

To be Politically Correct these days, you must accept the collectivist belief that words are like weapons, endowed with their own internal, innate power, and this power, like that of a chambered bullet, cannot be trusted to be used responsibly and so must be outlawed and banished from the community.

PC advocates have strict rules for what they call Hate Speech, and using such speech essentially makes you a criminal.

So much for the First Amendment. But the Bill of Rights never meant much to these people; indeed, they see it as an impediment to human progress.

Implicit in this belief is that I have the power to harm you by my use of language. Notice that all the responsibility falls on the speaker; the listener, the subject, is completely powerless, and has achieved the highest status with the group: victim. Note also that this worshipping of the victim, is in essence, the elevation of the most powerless and the least responsible to divine status. It is a very basic sleight of hand, that allows the controlling elites to maintain that they are only trying to help the poor and downtrodden, when in reality their actions are clearly nothing more than a naked grab for power that would shame the most ruthless corporate CEO.

Who decides what is hate speech? The group decides. If one person in the group seriously finds something offensive, then that term or phrase or entire concept is added to the list or proscribed terms, and this is how we get to office memo’s being critical of the term “brainstorming” as being offensive to epileptic co-workers.

If we buy into this idea of Political Correctness, we do several things, all ruinous: we give other people the power to demean us, we remove any chance at reasoned debate on any issue, and most importantly, in a group of 290 million professionally offended people, we come to a vocabulary of perhaps twenty or thirty words that have been so bleached of potential offensiveness and meaning that language itself becomes worthless.

If you have not read 1984 by George Orwell, you have deprived yourself of an entire education right there. There lies the eternal dictatorship, the ultimate all-pervasive Superstate. And how did such a monstrosity come into being? By controlling language. Not only controlling what could be said, but by so simplifying and infantilizing language that entire concepts become literally unthinkable because there were no words for them. Here we sit talking about Freedom, Liberty, Responsibility and all the rest. What if the act of speaking one’s mind was described only as “ungood.” What if the only adjectives applied to a life of subjection and servility were “double plus good,” the very words subjection, slavery, servility, submission banished generations ago?

You look out into the street and see someone tearing down a poster of Big Brother; the offender is hauled away, never to be seen again. How do you describe such an action without courage, audacity, rebellion, resistance and freedom? You can’t. You can’t describe them to others, and you can’t think about them yourself. Ungood behavior. You’re a prisoner of your limited, puerile language, and that is precisely where the Politically Correct movement wants to take us, to a world where language and thought is rigidly controlled – by them.

To those who want to limit speech they see as hateful, I can only utter these simple words of protest: Go straight to fucking hell you miserable authoritarian cocksuckers!

Forgive me, I know that offended some of you. But remember this: words are words. They are encapsulated ideas, and the only harm they can do us is the harm we ourselves allow them to do us.

How much better, how much stronger and healthier are we, when we dare anyone to use whatever terms they chose, and rather than sitting as powerless victims, rise in angry and righteous indignation to fight the human filth that use words like nigger, spick, gook, mick, kike, dago, and all the rest? How much more secure, how much more inoculated, are we when we can hear these words knowing that those who use them are discredited and terrified infants so out of ideas and argument that they must resort to such childish tactics to reassure themselves? What words can hurt us when we refuse to be hurt by words? What simple and powerful wisdom is bound up in Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me?

I have been called a few choice names in the course of these writings, and I have quickly learned that I do not want to be admired and respected by totalitarians, willfully uneducated idiots, smug and jaded suburban revolutionaries, and apologists for dictators. If people like that agreed with me I would be ashamed of myself. I’m proud to anger those people, and whatever names they choose to call me I consider a badge of pride, considering their source. We can indeed judge ourselves by the loathsomeness of our enemies.

The defense against hate speech is not to put our hands over our ears, our eyes, and someone else’s mouth. The way to fight this human virus is to do what we have been doing: hold those who use such language up to ridicule and scorn, to use our own words as a people blessed with freedom of speech, and to let such archaic and diseased notions and epithets die a quick death in the marketplace of better ideas.

It is a far more dignified, self-respecting and adult way to deal with life’s travails than crying and stamping your feet when someone calls you a bad name. Those people will always exist, even within the competing factions of a PC universe. If we have free will, we can control our own hearts. And if we let mere words hurt us, we have abdicated this responsibility, and given it to someone else.

It is tantamount to surrendering an impregnable fortress without a shot being fired.

“Jap” is a slur? I’m married to one! As I mentioned below, my wife and I went to see Bad Boys 2 last Sunday. The scene I commented on where Will Smith and Martin Lawrence haze a young man, Will Smith uses the “N-word” repeatedly. It’s not a slur when blacks use it, but anyone outside that group will be immediately painted RACIST!™ for doing so, regardless of context or intent.

Ah, the power of words.

Is Ted Nugent RACIST!™? I don’t know. I doubt it. He seems to strike me as the kind of guy who takes the measure of the individual, not the group. Is he “insensitive” – Politically INcorrect?

Damned straight.

He’s also a staunch defender of the right to arms.

So of course he’s a RACIST!™, right?

UPDATE to the UPDATE: Dateline 8/25/03 2:20 PM

I found another article concerning precisely what Nugent said here (though how long the link will be valid I don’t know.) Here’s the pertinent part:

The Nuge, never one for his subtlety when it comes to politically incorrect views, recently made some disparaging remarks about Asians while on Denver morning show program Lewis and Floorwax.

Reportedly he began to talk about guitars, complaining that they used to be made by “Japs”. It gets worse.

Kathy Lee, Lewis and Floorwax’s producer, is Korean-American. Instead of an apology to Lee, Nugent said “Maybe she’d prefer the term gook?” and asked her to “Go get me some sweet and sour,” according to host Rick Lewis.

Nugent has said that his words were not harmful as his intentions were only in jest. He then went on to compare his statements to those of other minority artist such as N.W.A. and Richard Pryor – then bandied about a derogatory word about African-Americans.

Ahem. Let me repeat Bill Whittle’s words:

How much better, how much stronger and healthier are we, when we dare anyone to use whatever terms they chose, and rather than sitting as powerless victims, rise in angry and righteous indignation to fight the human filth that use words like nigger, spick, gook, mick, kike, dago, and all the rest?

Nuge? You’re an idiot.

RACIST!™

A recent post on Samizdata brought up a point that gets little attention by gun rights proponents because we get tired of being painted with the “RACIST!” brush. (It’s almost another Godwin’s Law that once someone screams “RACIST!” that all intelligent discourse has ended.) That post linked to this one on the Useful Fools website that discussed the difference in crime levels between the U.S. and Europe, and then it goes into some specific homicide data by ethnicity. The conclusion of the piece is that, while the U.S. is considered by Europeans to be a horribly crime-infested nation, the fact is that we have quite a bit less crime than Europeans do, with the single exception of the crime of homicide. And if you look carefully at homicide, you will find that the overwhelming majority of perpetrators and victims of homicide are – wait for it – black. Specifically, young black males. If we could somehow magically reduce the number of black-on-black homicides in our statistics to the general level, our homicide rates would be the equivalent of the average major European nation. This argues then, that guns are not our problem.

But mentioning this fact tends to get gun rights proponents labelled “RACIST!” for some reason, as this comment to the Samizdata piece illustrates:

“[The US] murder rate is high largely due to the multicultural nature of our society.”

WTF????

I’m disappointed, I never thought such a blatantly racist view would be given support here. What’s gotten into your heads?

“well the crime rate would be lower if it weren’t for the n*ggers”…nah, f__k that.

Posted by: b-psycho on August 15, 2003 11:10 PM

I’ve already discussed the roller-coaster homicide rates the U.S. exhibited through the 20th Century that were unaffected by “gun control” efforts. I touched on the race point (very) briefly here:

But here’s something really interesting that will undoubtedly get me labled as a racist: Who makes up the overwhelming majority of the homicide victims? In 1999 a total of 4,998 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 (inclusive) died from homicide. Of those, 2,453 were black males – 49%. But black males between the ages of 15 and 24 (inclusive) represent only 7.6% of the population of the US of that age. Read that again – 7.6% of all Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 provide 49% of the victims of homicide by all methods for that age group.

Now, is it a “gun storage” problem, or is it something else?

So, let’s look at homicide, shall we?

This site lists a large amount of crime data gleaned from the FBI’s Uniform Crime reports. For example, in 2000 the U.S. suffered 1,424,289 violent crimes: 15,517 murders, 90,186 rapes, 407,842 robberies, and 910,744 aggravated assaults. Just for fact checking, I compared the homicide data with this FBI site, and it agrees. According to this FBI page, of those 15,517 homicides, 51.5% (7991) of them were committed by blacks (I do not use the hyphenated-American terminology, sorry if I offend anyone,) and 46.7% (7,246) of the victims were black. (This assumes one homicide per offender, of course.) According to the table, blacks made up 12.1% of the population in 2000 (and if that rate of homicide keeps up, they’ll be a significantly smaller minority in a few years.) The rate per 100,000 population for white victims was 5.0 homicides per 100k. The rate for black victims was 31.9.

Let’s run some numbers. The total homicide rate in the U.S. was 5.5/100,000 population, and the total number of homicides was 15,517.

15,517 x 100,000 / 5.5 = 282,127,272.

That agrees well with the 2000 Census count of 281,421,906, which is the number I’ll use. To check, 84.2% of the population is white, or:

281,421,906 x 0.842 = 237,000,000

(Per the Census, 211,460,626, but police statistics tend to include hispanics as white, and they are 35,305,818 thus the total is 246,746,444. Split the difference, 240,000,000. Close enough.)

The homicide rate for whites is 5.0/100,000, so:

240,000,000 / 100,000 x 5.0 = 12,000.

Say what? There were only 15,517 homicides in total according to the FBI. Something smells fishy. Let’s continue, though. Blacks represent 12.1% of the population, so:

282,000,000 x 0.121 = 34,100,000

The Census says 36,419,434. Split the difference, 35,000,000. The homicide rate is 31.9/100,000, so:

35,000,000 / 100,000 x 31.9 = 11,000.

Oooookay. 12,000 + 11,000 = 23,000. That’s an error of 48% Something is obviously awry.

Let’s try a different source. I have found the Centers for Disease Control WISQARS Fatal Injury Report tool quite helpful, so I’ll use it again. The latest data is for 2000, so let’s see what it says.

Total homicides: 16,765.

Total population: 275,264,999.

National homicide rate: 6.09/100,000 (Higher than the FBI’s 5.50)

Black homicide victims: 7,867 – Proportion: 46.9%, in agreement with FBI data.

Rate per 100,000: 22.28 – Considerably lower than the FBI says.

Other homicide victims: 8,898 – Proportion: 53.1%

Rate per 100,000: 3.7 – Again, considerably lower than the FBI says, but the ratio of 6:1 does agree with FBI numbers.

Now, if the U.S. had an overall homicide rate of 3.7/100,000 the total number of homicides in 2000 would have been 10,185. The total number of homicides for the black demographic: 1,306. A reduction of 6,561.

Another nice feature of the WISQUARS tool:

Number of firearm related homicides, all ages, all races, both sexes: 10,801

(36% of the total homicides – 5,964 people, were killed without a firearm, for a non-firearm homicide rate of 2.17/100,000.)

Number of black victims of homicide by firearm: 5,699 (53% of all homicide victims by firearm)

Number of black male victims between 15 and 35 years of age: 4,528 (79% of the total black victims of homicide by firearm, 42% of all victims)

Number of all other male victims between 15 and 35 years of age: 3,274 (30% of all homicide victims by firearm)

Number of black male victims between 15 and 35 that died by firearm: 4,343 (84% of the black male victims, 40% of the gunshot homicides.)

Number of all other male victims between 15 and 35 that died by firearm: 2,402 (73% of the white male victims – close enough to parity.)

And note, 62% of all gunshot homicide victims are males between 15 and 35 years of age.

The homicide by firearm rate for males between 15 and 35? Seventeen per hundred-thousand population.

So, does this prove anything? No. But it suggests, and pretty strongly. It suggests that the homicide by firearm problem is concentrated in a small, identifiable group. It suggests that homicide is heavily concentrated in the overall black demographic, and especially in young black men. And it suggests that instead of pursuing wholesale gun control laws that affect everybody, we ought to be pursuing policies that directly address that problem, because “gun control” doesn’t. And it isn’t a case of whites killing blacks, either. The fact is, it’s blacks killing other blacks in disproportionate numbers, and it’s largely restricted to urban (read “gang-related”) violence. See these Bureau of Justice Statistic charts showing the trends in homicide by race of offender and victim. Read this LA Times article to get some kind of feeling for the problem, or this USA Today piece. Money quote, from the second piece:

“Between 1976 and 1999, 94% of black murder victims were killed by other African-Americans. Nearly two-thirds of black homicides were drug related.”

Homicide is an epidemic in the young black male demographic. If it were a communicable disease, we’d be wearing ribbons and spending money on drug research. Instead we’re banning “assault weapons” and trying to pass licensing and registration laws that this very demographic is going to ignore. (See: England, gun bans, “Yardies”, etc.) And the public health organizations and independent groups are trying to treat firearms as if they were the disease vector.

Now, let’s look at some European homicide rates from Interpol. (Interpol puts the U.S. rate at 5.54 in 2000 in agreement with the FBI. All data is year 2000 unless otherwise noted).

France: 3.7

Switzerland: 2.25.

Spain: 2.91.

Portugal: 3.32

Germany: 3.37.

The Netherlands (1998 data): 10.87. (That’s not a misprint, nor an anomaly.)

Norway: 2.66.

Sweden: 10.01. (2001 data, but not anomalous.) (Nope. This data is BS. Apparently Sweden’s rate is about 1.2 and steady.)

Finland: 0.71.

Denmark: 4.03

England & Wales: 1.5

Scotland (same gun laws as England & Wales): 13.3 (also not anomalous.) ERROR! See the bottom of the article. This data is suspect, because it absolutely does not agree with Scottish government data that indicates a homicide rate of about 2.0.

Northern Ireland (if anything, stricter): 9.90. (This does appear anomalous, but the data available is minimal.)

The Republic of Ireland: 1.54 (and historically steady.)

Italy: 3.75.

Poland: 3.4

Luxembourg: 14.01! (But they’ve had three seriously bad years in a row. With a tiny population, a small number change results in a large rate change.)

So, what does this suggest? Well, remember, the USA has a non-firearm homicide rate of 2.17 – about equal to a lot of European nation’s entire homicide rates. I have seen gun-control proponents state that if we eliminated all handguns, our national homicide rate would drop to a level like this. (And if frogs had wings…) But what it does indicate is that the level of homicide predominantly among our black population, and specifically concentrated among young black men skews our national homicide rate significantly. It also suggests something else: that homicide rates are very “culture-specific.” Switzerland, a heavily armed nation, has relatively small homicide rate. Finland, with a large preponderance of personal firearms, has a tiny homicide rate a rate of about 3.0, while right next door Sweden has a rate nearly twice the US’s (depending on which rate you want to believe) of about 1.2 as noted above. And on the other side of Sweden, Denmark’s homicide rate is less than half Sweden’s. (Or not. The Interpol data isn’t reliable.) (The Fins kill themselves at a prodigious rate – primarily by asphxiation – but have yet to take up the bad American habit of killing several other people first.) England, with all its gun control problems still maintains its tiny homicide rate, but Scotland has the same gun laws and its rate is higher than the U.S. rate has ever been, and has been higher still. (15.35 in 1998 for instance.)

It also suggests that our near 1:1 parity of firearms per person in this nation (admittedly concentrated among perhaps 35% of the adult population) is not the cause of our homicide rates. So what about other kinds of crime? The U.S. is almost universally viewed as a lawless wild west. How about it? This question is somewhat stickier, because different countries record crime differently. Homicide is pretty straightforward – somebody died at someone else’s hands. But is slapping someone equivalent to beating them with a tire-iron? (Legally it is here – it’s assault and battery and can be recorded as such.) What about rape? Are the levels recorded affected by how likely a woman in country A is likely to report a rape compared to country B? How about burglary? Well, Interpol records “breaking and entering,” so we’ll look at that:

United States: 728.80/100,000

England & Wales: 1,728.98

Scotland: 1,831.36

Northern Ireland: 933.27

Republic of Ireland: 595.27

Switzerland: 837.96

Spain: 530.40

France: 633.97

Portugal: 87.12

Germany: 1,272.16

The Netherlands (1998): 3,100.40

Sweden (2001): 1,323.90

Finland: 1,690.52

Denmark: 1,868.06

Poland: 943.73

Luxembourg: 1,045.75

(No data for Italy or Norway.)

With the exceptions of France, Ireland, Spain and Portugal (and I’m suspicious of Portugal’s numbers) every other nation listed has a higher to much higher incidence of “breaking and entering.” Property crime seems rampant in Europe. How about “robbery and violent theft?”

United States: 144.98

England & Wales: 160.75

Scotland: 82.83

Northern Ireland: 104.08

Republic of Ireland: 38.53

Switzerland: 30.22

Spain: 229.92

France: 187.69

Portugal: 51.94

Germany: 72.31

The Netherlands (1998): 92.28

Sweden (2001): 95.83

Finland: 53.06

Denmark: 59.14

Poland: 138.49

Luxembourg: 82.44

Italy: 65.35

Norway: 47.47

Assuming this data is collected uniformly for all the nations (a big assumption) it appears the U.S. isn’t all that lawless after all. England’s rate is higher, France’s is higher still, and Spain’s is way out there. These are all considered “First World” industrialized democratic nations. Again, Sweden – straddled by Finland and Denmark, has a significantly higher crime rate than either of its Scandanavian neighbors.

And again, remember that the preponderance of criminal activity in this country is done by a tiny identifiable minority of the population – young black men. Is it racist to point out the facts? Consider this quote:

There is nothing more painful for me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start to think about robbery and then look around and see it’s somebody white and feel relieved. – Jesse Jackson

Yes, that Jesse Jackson, from a U.S. News & World Report story, January 17, 1994. (I’d seen it before, but Clayton Cramer has the cite.) Even Jesse recognizes the cold hard facts.

Crime is epidemic among the population of young black men. Death by gunshot is the leading cause of death for young black men. According to this Bureau of Justice Statistics report, 6.6% of the total U.S. black male population was in prison in 1996, compared to 0.94% of the population of white males. That means that if you’re a white male, you probably don’t personally know anyone serving time, but if you’re a black male you’re quite likely to.

But we’re told that guns are the cause of our crime problems.

No, they’re not. They’re a symptom. A symptom of a much bigger problem – a problem that we aren’t addressing because to do so in any meaningful way is politically incorrect. It’s RACIST!™ to recognize the problem, dont’cha know! It’s RACIST!™ to suggest that perhaps 40+ years of making the welfare safety net a hammock has been destructive to the black family. It’s RACIST!™ to suggest that perhaps “midnight basketball” programs are a sorry joke when it comes to solving the problem of inner-city violence. It’s even RACIST!™ to suggest that the War on (some) Drugs™ has been the fuel for some of the worst violent crime the black community is plagued with. It’s RACIST!™ to suggest that the predominant inner-city black culture is killing its sons. And it’s spreading.

Sit some weekend and watch Black Entertainment Television and tell me that the overall culture being portrayed there as desireable is a good thing. (You can say much the same about MTV’s programming, too, which I do NOT find encouraging.) We’ve set up a negative feedback loop, and that loop is eating the heart out of a generation, and causing incredible carnage and waste. How can wanting to fix THAT problem be bad?

No, it’s much easier to attack guns. They’re only defended by RACISTS!™.

(Note: At the time of publishing, the CDC servers appear to be down, so fact-checking my ass using the WISQARS tools will have to wait until they come back up. WISQARS is back up. Check away.)

UPDATE – RETRACTION

As “Della” (perhaps not a real name) pointed out in my comments, the Interpol numbers for homicide in Scotland are apparently WAY wrong. The Scottish government statistics site reports the following homicide data:

1997 90 victims – rate: 1.8/100,000

1998 97 victims – rate: 1.9

1999 119 victims – rate: 2.3

2000 105 victims – rate: 2.1

2001 107 victims – rate: 2.1

I don’t know why the Interpol numbers are so different. Mea culpa. I should have back-checked the Interpol numbers but did not. Especially because I found the numbers shocking. However, this is what the Internet is good for.

This data does make suspect the other Interpol numbers. What it doesn’t do is negate the point of the article.

I will inform those people who have linked to this piece of the update, and I will do additional research.

Further update: Yup, the Interpol homicide data is apparently crap. Which makes you wonder if it’s all crap. Sweden’s homicide rate seems to be a pretty stable 1.2/100,000. Finland’s is about 3.0.

What good is internation crime data that’s unreliable?

However, I intend to leave this post up. The errors will allow those so inclined to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I still stand by the basic premise which is backed up by FBI / BoJS statistics that I have no reason to doubt.

My apologies for not fact-checking the crap out of this stuff. Mike over at Feces Flinging Monkey advised me while I was working on this:

“Different countries tabulate, and define, crime in different ways. Comparisons are very difficult.

“People lie about this stuff – a lot! Don’t trust anybody if you can’t see their data and their methods.”

Even international police organizations, it appears.

LAST UPDATE: @10:21PM 8/22/03. I’ve left the original text, but struck out most of the stuff based on known erroneous Interpol stats. I stand behind, however, these points:

The data indicates that culture is the primary defining factor in crime.

The data indicates that the preponderance of criminal behavior in the young black American male demographic seriously skews the overall criminal data in the U.S.

The response to these facts has not been an attempt to address the specific identifiable problem of crime in the black community, it has been “gun control.” And it has been – predictably – a failure.

Continuing this path will continue to be a failure.

One significant reason that the specific identifiable problem has not been addressed is “political correctness” – point out that the Emperor has no clothes and you will be branded RACIST!™ Nothing further will result.

I’d like to say this has been fun, but it hasn’t. I don’t like being in error, but sh!t happens. The question now is, will the gun control forces just keep working to disarm people who are not contributors to the crime problem and continue to avoid addressing the biggest part of the crime problem?

WTF?

Ok, I don’t post anything, and I get over 300 hits in one day? Technorati says that I haven’t been Instalanched. What exactly does this mean?

I got up a 2:30 this morning, and I have to get up at 4:00 AM tomorrow, plus Bill Whittle’s finally published his latest essay Responsibility which I intend to read before I go to bed, so this is it for at least another day or so.

My next essay, which will be on the topic of crime, is underway and I’m already learning things. I like it when that happens. Research for these is often fascinating. Hopefully I’ll get it done and posted on or before Saturday. My IHMSA match is Sunday, and that ties up most of the day.

Anyway, for all you readers new and old, thanks for dropping by. If you read anything you really liked (or hated), please feel free to drop a comment either on the site or by e-mail to gunrights AT comcast DOT net.

(Perhaps if I don’t post anything tomorrow, I might get 600 hits!)

I Could Quit Chocolate…But I’m No Quitter!

When I got home tonight I asked my wife how her day went. She said “I think I’m allergic to chocolate.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I gave the kids some this morning, and they drove me nuts all day.”

True story.

No Blog for You! (Again)

I’m going to be very busy the next couple of days. I’m working on a long, involved, link-riddled post inspired by this Samizdata post about international crime rates, but it will be the end of this week at the earliest before I have it completed. In the mean time, I probably won’t be posting at all. Sorry about that. If you’re a new visitor, please read the archives. If you’re one of the six or so regular readers, well,

Nothing to see here, move along. Move along.

Movie Review: Bad Boys 2

Yesterday my wife asked me if I wanted to go out and see a movie. I asked her what she wanted to see. “Bad Boys 2” she said, “I feel like watching a blowup movie.”

Yes, I married the right woman.

We’d actually tried to catch BB2 on the opening weekend, but the theater was so full we couldn’t get seats anywhere but the front row, so we exchanged our tickets and saw Tomb Raider 2 instead (woe unto Hollywood should someone have an idea for an original film. All the money seems to be tied up in making sequels.)

Usually Sunday afternoon is pretty slow at the theater, but BB2 was still pretty full. And now I know why.

I like Will Smith. He doesn’t act so much as be the same character in every role (and he was excellent in Independence Day) but he and Martin Lawrence are outstanding together. The critics panned the movie (for obvious reasons – it is, after all, a blowup movie) but it was a lot of fun.

I just had one problem with it. There is one scene where a boy comes over to pick up Martin Lawrence’s daughter for her first date. He is met at the door by Lawrence, then Will Smith comes to the door. In the subsequent hazing of the date, Will Smith’s character threatens the kid with his pistol – finger on the trigger. Repeatedly.

The audience thought the scene was funny (it was, actually) but the gun handling bothered the sh!t out of me. It reminded me of the scene in Pulp Fiction where the kid in the back seat of the car was killed because the moron in the front seat pointed his gun at him and unintentionally pulled the trigger. Look, I know it was Hollyweird, where there is little to no association with reality, but a lot of people (especially when it comes to guns) don’t. Just another example of “guns are toys” that kids (and there were a lot of kids watching this R-rated movie) will emulate.

Repeat after me: Guns are not toys. Don’t point a gun at anything you aren’t willing to destroy. Treat all guns as if they are loaded. After you pull the trigger, all the “Oh sh!t, I didn’t mean to’s!” in the world won’t bring that bullet back and make the world right again.

Other than that, if you want to watch a good, mindless blowup movie, I recommend it. Best line: “You guys look like you’ve decided to do something stupid. We want to help.”

Our Collapsing Schools Dept. – Humor

(In relation to the previous post.)

Teaching Math in 1950:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.

His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1960:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.

His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1970:

A logger exchanges a set “L” of lumber for a set “M” of money.

The cardinality of set “M” is 100. Each element is worth one dollar.

Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set “M.”

The set “C”, the cost of production contains 20 fewer points than set “M.”

Represent the set “C” as a subset of set “M” and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set “P” of profits?

Teaching Math in 1980:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.

His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment:

Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math in 1990:

By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20.

What do you think of this way of making a living?

Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees?

(There are no wrong answers.)

Teaching Math in 2000:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $120.

How does Arthur Andersen determine that his profit margin is $60?

How many documents were shredded to achieve this number?

Teaching Math in 2010:

El Loggero se habla with the truckero y se ponen de acuerdo con otro driver de la competencia y etc…

Our Collapsing Schools Dept.

Fox News comments on this New Orleans Times-Picayune story concerning the failure of the class validictorian at Alcee Fortier Senior High School to graduate because

(wait for it…)

she failed the math portion of the required exit exam.

Five times.

The exam tests at a 10th grade level.

She got an ‘A’ in algebra.

As Fox put it:

“They were giving her As for being a good kid. But they weren’t teaching her.”

I’m sure she felt good about herself. Until the real world reared up and smacked her in the face as it has a habit of doing.

Of course,

The principal blames the test.

It couldn’t be the fault of the school system, could it?

Read both pieces. The Fox bit has a lot more on other education topics. The details in the Times-Picayune piece will make you want to burn the school down so we can start over from scratch.

Nod to Ravenwood for the pointer.

UPDATE:

Commenter Teri brings up something that I should have noted:

You didn’t point out the absolute worst thing about this situation:

“With the kinds of grades she’s earned, Green said she doesn’t have any doubts about her abilities to do well in college. If she passes a summer retest, Green said she plans to enroll at Delgado Community College and pursue an elementary education degree.”

Makes me want to scream!

Yup. Infinite feedback loop. With the kind of grades she’s received, most people would expect to be able to do well. But earned? I think not. And if she goes to a college that actually requires her to learn, she might discover that those grades she “earned” have less value than the paper they’re printed on.

And she wants to inflict her educational experience on our kids.

You’re right, Teri, I missed that opportunity. Good catch.

And educators wonder about the people who home-school.