Month: August 2004

Dept. of Our Collapsing Schools: Another Commentator

Via Mostly Cajun (again) comes this excellent explanation of the collapsing public school syndrome. I’m going to post his points just so I have an archive of it here:

Every politician seems to feel obligated to come up with a plan to fix public education. Usually this takes the shape of some new program, either funded by tax dollars or as an unfunded mandate. The politician is replaced in some later election, but the program lives on, accreting itself to the school system with other programs like so many barnacles on a ship.

Other barnacles attach themselves: interest groups. The school acquires mandates to be “sensitive” to various issues, including but not limited to learning disabilities, racial history, diversity, science vs. religion, and so on – all without offending anyone or boring the students.

It’s too much. Schools are trying to:

1. Teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. You could make a good case that schools should just do this and then get the hell out of the way.

2. Teach history, which involves thorny questions of emphasis and disagreement over fact hotly promoted or attacked by a hundred different advocates.

3. Bless us all with tolerance and harmony handed down from Washington (cynical laughter here)

4. Teach science, whatever that is, without offending any parents’ or activists’ beliefs.



5. Teach sexual responsibility in a very sexualized society, to young people with sexually developing bodies, without honestly discussing sex in any way that would offend the most prudish constituents.

6. Teach the importance of religion in American history without discussing religion in any way that would offend anyone. Or NOT to do this (Insert rancorous discussion of First Amendment issues and the nature of the Founding Fathers’ religious convictions, if any, here.)

7. On occasion, act as parent to kids whose parents are absent or not functioning.

8. Teach “technology skills,” by which most school districts mean “computers” – a depressingly generic term that translates: “another discipline problem.”

9. Teach nutrition, using misguided information from the USDA food pyramid

10. Teach kids to respect others, while living under rules that don’t respect them



11. Teach physical health using exercise forms (like football) that are unlikely to promote lifelong exercise

12. Teach tolerance for alternative lifestyle choices… or NOT teach tolerance for “alternative lifestyle choices” depending on which angry parent is in your office



13. Teach an abiding love for literature without actually reading any literature that might offend anyone. (Is there such a thing as interesting inoffensive literature?)

14. Teach us how to drive.

15. Teach us how to live with censorship, and not to make waves

16. Oh, heck, forget all about numbers 1 through 14: we’ll lose our funding if the kids don’t pass the NCLB test mandate. Just teach them how to neatly fill in little ovals with pencil and all those TEST STRATEGIES!

The author, George Wiman, has what he thinks is the solution, but you’ll need to read the piece yourself and decide if you think that’s it.

Oh, and George has a blog, too. A pretty good one. Excerpt from one of his posts:

Nevermind immortal literature: clearly written communication drives economically productive action. In business, government, education and military, a few well-chosen words can instruct, motivate, unite, and direct the actions an organization must take.

Clarity and finesse are impossible without well-developed writing skills. This is the biggie for us capitalistic Americans! There is a saying in business – “Nothing happens anywhere until somebody sells somebody something.” Sales is the engine of our economy, and it is supported in turn by customer relations, technical support, and supply-line communications. All require the ability to write clearly.

Writing is at the “Output” stage of the “Input+Processing+Output” capacity that education is supposed to provide. You might be able to gather the data, and even figure out what it means, but if you can’t communicate in some way that is likely to be heard, you’ve just wasted everyone’s time. Writing (and its more freewheeling companion, speaking) are not dispensible.

No, they are not.

I Should Have Commented on this a LOT Earlier

Blame it on burnout.

Remember the six people beaten and stabbed to death in Florida by the four home-invading vermin? The assailants used baseball bats they brought, and kitchen knives they found in the home to kill Erin Belanger, 22 (who received “a beating so vicious that even dental records were useless in trying to identify her”); Michelle Nathan, 19; Anthony Vega, 34; Roberto “Tito” Gonzalez, 28; Francisco Ayo Roman, 30; and Jonathan Gleason, 18. None were armed. The killers were three 18 year-old thugs lead by a career violent criminal out on parole – and in violation of his parole.

Note that not one of these six slayings involved a firearm.

But remember the words of wisdom from Austrailian professor Tim Lambert over the efficacy of laws banning firearms:

1. Using a weapon is not the only way to defend yourself.

2. If the law disarms attackers, then it can make self defence possible where it would have been impossible if the attacker was armed.

Big fucking “IF” there, Tim. If the attackers are armed with baseball bats and carving knives? How does the law prevent that?

One loaded pump shotgun or .38 revolver in that house and someone willing to use it COULD have saved some or all of those victims. Not would – COULD. But without a firearm they had no chance at all, because violent predators don’t give a damn about the law, but honest citizens do.

And I cannot fathom why people cannot understand that simple fact.

I have archived a quote from former Senator Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming that is appropriate to this topic:

The ruling class doesn’t care about public safety. Having made it very difficult for States and localities to police themselves, having left ordinary citizens with no choice but to protect themselves as best they can, they now try to take our guns away. In fact they blame us and our guns for crime. This is so wrong that it cannot be an honest mistake.

No, it can’t.

Troy Victorino, 27 – the instigator of this slaughter – is hardly an atypical example of a murderer. He has a long criminal record with an ever-increasing level of violence. What is atypical is his recruitment of three willing teenage accomplices, but Victorino himself is your typical garden-variety murderer otherwise.

Instead of trying to do something about the real problem – repeat, violent offenders – the “ruling class” instead pursues a strategy of disarming the law abiding public.

Fit me for a tinfoil hat, but I have to wonder why that is? Because to me, too, it’s so wrong that it cannot be an honest mistake.

Hey! Whaddaya Know? The Village Voice IS Good for Something!

From a comment left at The Mudville Gazette comes a link to this Village Voice piece that absolutely RIPS Kerry on his chairmanship of the Senate Select Committee on P.O.W./ M.I.A. Affairs.

Excerpt:

The stated purpose of the special Senate committee—which convened in mid 1991 and concluded in January 1993—was to investigate the evidence about prisoners who were never returned and find out what happened to the missing men. Committee chair Kerry’s larger and different goal, though never stated publicly, emerged over time: He wanted to clear a path to normalization of relations with Hanoi. In any other context, that would have been an honorable goal. But getting at the truth of the unaccounted for P.O.W.’s and M.I.A.’s (Missing In Action) was the main obstacle to normalization—and therefore in conflict with his real intent and plan of action.

Kerry denied back then that he disguised his real goal, contending that he supported normalization only as a way to learn more about the missing men. But almost nothing has emerged about these prisoners since diplomatic and economic relations were restored in 1995, and thus it would appear—as most realists expected—that Kerry’s explanation was hollow. He has also denied in the past the allegations of a cover-up, either by the Pentagon or himself. Asked for comment on this article, the Kerry campaign sent a quote from the senator: “In the end, I think what we can take pride in is that we put together the most significant, most thorough, most exhaustive accounting for missing and former P.O.W.’s in the history of human warfare.”

And dig that graphic:

What does it say for a rag as Leftist as The Village Voice to publish so devastating an anti-Kerry hit piece?

Perhaps I was wrong, and it’s not too late for the Dims to “Torricelli” him! I’m sure Hillary is just waiting in the wings to be “drafted” at the last minute and “save the nation.”

THIS is Important!

Moorewatch is, well, you read what JimK has to say:

I’m so thoroughly disgusted by Michael Moore’s new book of supposed letters from soldiers that I’ve decided to put my money…or more precisely, my time, where my mouth is.

I will assemble a counter to Moore’s book. Unedited, untouched except for the assemblage, a book of letters from soldiers that support the President and do not trust Mr. Moore.



If you are military and you are interested, or you have military family members who would like to participate, please send your letters to letters at moorewatch dot com. All hate mail will be deleted upon receipt, so save your energy, Moore-ons.



If you prefer to write old-fashioned snail mail letters, I will get a P.O. Box and make the address available. Email would be the best route though, since time is of the essence.

I will touch not a word of these letters. Not one. If you send a letter, you must be willing to allow me to publish it AND publish your name and branch of service, so independent people can verify that you are who you say you are and that you wrote what I say you wrote. EVERYTHING will be public and verifiable. I refuse to hide any aspect of this.



If we can’t get anyone interested in publishing it, we’ll publish it our damn selves. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Right-fucking-on. And I bet Regnery will jump all over it. Please pass this around.

(Hat tip, SondraK.)

Here’s an Excellent Piece that won’t make the Major Media

(I’m still not posting much – but at least I’m not not posting at all.)

It’s entitled The Truth About Guns, from AmericanDaily. Teaser:

We recently took the safety course required to obtain a “concealed-carry” permit for a handgun. As residents of the District of Columbia we cannot even legally own a bullet without registering it, and handguns are completely illegal. Yet, since we believe in the Second Amendment, we wanted to have first hand facts.

It’s a short piece, and to-the-point.

Oh, and I also wanted to mention a book I saw referenced over at The Geek’s, called Shooters: Myths and Realities of America’s Gun Cultures that looks excellent. I’m going to have to pick up a copy.

According to John F. Kerry, I’m Obviously a Paid Stooge of the Republicans

Here’s the latest SwiftVets anti-Kerry ad. (Windows Media File, sorry for you Quicktime folks.)

I’m personally very happy that they’re reminding everyone of Kerry’s Senate testimony, since Kerry has decided now that his 4.5 months in Vietnam were “honorably” spent “defending his country.”

BTW, I’ve been registered as a Democrat ever since I moved to Arizona in 1981. They’re welcome to check.



Oh, and Dean Esmay is right:

The Internet has detected the mainstream media as a form of censorship and simply routed around them.

Edited to add: If, by chance, I AM on the RNC payroll, YOU’RE BEHIND A FEW YEARS GUYS!

The Internet Means a Looooong Memory.

(Right after I say “no new posts” I go and prove myself wrong.)

The RNC has a pretty damned good commercial out – 12 minutes long – of Kerry on the war in Iraq, in his own duplicitous words. Highly recommended. Pass it around.

Real Player

Windows Media

Blog Hiatus

Sorry, y’all, but for at least the next few days there will be no posting of note here at The Smallest Minority. Life intrudes. My apologies to my regular readers and to whatever new ones have come lately.

I’ll be back.

After all, you’re entitled to my opinion!

Just another “Gullible Gunner,” I suppose…

Gunner, proprietor of the blog No Quarters sent me the link to this cartoon, in relation to the rather long, drawn-out discussion I had over the previous few months with Tim Lambert of the blog Deltoid. Very apropos, though, as Gunner points out there’s no way to know when it was originally drawn.

The artist, Jim Unger was born in the UK, but started cartooning in Canada in 1974, and retired in 1992. (Must be nice, huh?) So all we know for sure is that the cartoon was 1992 or earlier.