If I’d have known he was going to have this sort of week, I’d have sent flowers.

Only yesterday Victor Davis Hanson attacked mulitculturalism for the bazeenth time. At the crux of the evisceration he found it instructive to drag the Tsarnaevs out into the public square. The problem with the terrorists he claimed was you. Tolerance was what led them to believe that “they could continue to live as Russian Muslims inside the United States.” That’s why they blew up Boston.

I suppose you could call this cry of Hanson’s “Rampart Xenophobia.” He’s implying that the bigger an asshole you are, the safer society becomes. Have you ever seen a terrorist throw a bomb at Victor? Q.E.D.

So having punctured the melting pot, today he takes on the Summer of Love.

Ideas of the 1960s have grown reactionary in our world, which is vastly different from the America of a half-century ago.

Civil rights and feminism and all that bleeding heart crap, they’ve become the cogs and tubes of government. And just what hippy would that be, sopping up its mushy benefits? Which lazy slob has his pockets full of Victor’s cash?

Take well-meaning subsidies for those over age 62. Why are there still senior discounts, vast expansions in Social Security and Medicare, and generous public pensions? Five decades ago all that made sense.

It’s grandma. Though she was no fan of the potheads, they handed her the keys to the treasury anyway. Because why? Kindness and treason. This is fairly obvious, not that it doesn’t require plenty of explaining. Don’t worry, we’re only in the second paragraph.

A heckuva essay. On Victor’s part a towering effort. He throws everything he hates about America into a tie-dyed bandana, knots the four corners and hucks it in the trash. Some decades are useful to a man that way, like a contractor’s bucket. Revenge gets even sweeter when you can slag the Home Depot squishes for giving you the stupid thing for free. People think being a National Review writer is more complicated than this but people are wrong.

And do tell, what is the Sixties’ greatest crime? Awareness.

If Latinos are underrepresented at the University of California, Berkeley, is it because of stubborn institutional prejudices, which, however, somehow have been trumped by Asian-Americans enrolling at three times their percentage of the state’s general population? If women are so oppressed by men, why do they graduate from college in higher numbers than their chauvinist male counterparts?

For three paragraphs Victor goes on this way asking only rhetorical questions about opportunities, minorities and education. As in: ‘If this one big thing is true, then what is this mote from my ass?’ And these points are devastating. Why? Because Victor is the only one allowed to write his column. Otherwise we’d take to it and call him a bitch. The National Review knows what it’s doing in erecting discursive fences high enough to prevent reasonable people from scrambling over and kicking his butt.

But, now, in particular. How to defeat the hippy education? This. Is Good.

In reaction, private diploma mills are springing up everywhere.

Make the system for-profit.

. . there are no “diversity czars” at DeVry University. There is no time or money for the luxury of classes such as “Gender Oppression” at the University of Phoenix. Students do not have rock-climbing walls and are not addressed by Michael Moore at Heald College.

Killer. For-profit colleges are nationwide scams that suck up loans, provide fourth-rate educations and destroy financial lives. Students are left with little hope for employment or for getting out of debt. But at least no one has to suffer through ethnic studies or Jane Fonda, right? Not that there aren’t personal tragedies abounding here. But sacrifices need be made once Victor settles upon the real threat to our existence . .

Scan the government grandees caught up in the current administration’s ballooning IRS, Associated Press, and Benghazi scandals. In each case, a blue-chip Ivy League degree was no guarantee that our best and brightest technocrats would prove transparent or act honorably. What difference did it make that Press Secretary Jay Carney, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, President Barack Obama, and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice had degrees from prestigious universities when they misled the American people or Congress?

College snobs. Feast your eyes upon them. They hand out benefits with one hand and cut down ambassadors with the other. And you can’t find one decent enough to offer a ‘Sorry’ to Victor. But just what did you expect? Our higher institutions have long been overrun with the self-centered and the irrelevant . .

. . now-aging idealists of the 1960s long ago promised us that a uniformly degreed citizenry — shepherded by Ivy League–branded technocrats — would make America better by sorting us out by differences in age, gender, education, and race. It is now past time to end that ossified dream before it becomes our collective nightmare.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His new book, The Savior Generals is just out from Bloomsbury Books.

So it’s time to replace the whole lot. Beginning with the self-aware.

This review is from: The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost – From Ancient Greece to Iraq

Average Customer Review
2.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

1.0 out of 5 stars
Riddled with errors-did anyone fact check this book?
May 23, 2013 By UVAalum

A fan of Victor Davis Hanson’s work, I eagerly anticipated the release of this book. I jumped immediately to the chapter on Matthew Ridgway in Korea. I was very disappointed by the seemingly high number of minor errors (reference to Eisenhower and MacArthur as four-star generals, reference to Ned Almond as a Marine general, etc.). For me, basic errors in a book like this call into question the very tenets of the author’s argument. Don’t publishers employ fact-checkers and editors anymore?

1.0 out of 5 stars
Sherman?
May 23, 2013 By William H. Korman

The Civil War was lost but for General Sherman? There was this other guy named Grant who figured pretty strongly in the final outcome.

Joice, then re-joice. Both the House and Senate in Tennessee have passed versions of Sen. Bo Watson’s anti-science “Monkey Bill.” Get your cameras ready for the celebratory chest-pounding and slinging of leafy branches.

. . SB 893 permits teachers “to help students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories.” Subjects that might invite such debate, according to the bill, include “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”

If the Sons of Breitbart can vet the President, Tennessee surely can double-check science. By all means, let’s have educators engage teens in serious discourse on the scientific strengths and weaknesses of “human cloning.” To be fair, maybe they could invite an expert “cloning” technician to defend the field.

“Mr. Johnson-Honson, have you become aware of any strengths or weaknesses in your cloning of Jeffrey Dahmer?”

“Well, Jeffie just started kindergarten, and he’s eaten the teacher’s hands.”

“Thus, ‘strength’ . .”

(fascinated crowd:) “. . rhubarb-rhubarb. .”

We’re adults here. Let’s us take Tennessee seriously, ‘cuz this is serious grown-up lawmaking. These legislators, who so care for evolution, are trying to make it better. They’d encourage every butt-scratching teen and Jesus yahoo to throw things at it, just to see what sticks. Once it’s a hundred-foot ball of wadded Epistles and jock spit, teachers should locate it in a practical place for everyone to laugh at. This is how public education makes sense of a complex subject.

Imagine if you encouraged the same of mathematics education.

“The distance, class, between Town A and Town B is 100 miles. If a train is traveling from A to B at 40 miles an hour, how long will it take . . ”

“Harry Potter could do it. I saw him walk through this shimmering blargh, and he went to another place. That’s, like, zero hours. Is zero a possible answer?”

“Oh No . . (*pulls legal binder from desk, checks Apples-and-Oranges law*) . . crap. Off the top of my head, Timmy, there are perhaps three metaphysical ways that zero is possible, and one thousand ninety-nine reality ways it’s unlikely. None of this will be on the test, class, so the rest of you can sleep or fart, or what have you.”

(all:) “Yay!” *poot*

This is the destruction of science by rendering it a cloud of nonsense. When students by the tens of thousands can graduate thinking that science accommodates any and all thinking, it becomes as random as anything else. Soap operas, pop culture, greyhound racing.

Science accommodates only the narrowest of thoughts: scientific ones. It’s supposed to be that way. To the uninitiated, it is a vicious, uncaring discipline, but thank Jehu. That’s how it has managed to be so productive — by throwing out anything that stinks even remotely of laziness and stupidity. And look at the results: human beings live far better today than they did even fifty years ago.

But Tennessee wants to break it down, make it more accepting of the Bible, and funny notions, and ‘What if Superman had been on the side of the Nazis?’ This is tragic and brutally stupid.

Hopefully, good Science teachers will save their classes by seeing the scientific in the bill’s “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses” language. That’s its Achilles heel. Because there’s not a molecule of “Creation Science” or “Intelligent Design” that is scientific, in any way, by any perspective, by any means, for all time. Thus, a proper classroom discussion, even after the bill is amended and passed, goes this way:

“Umm, Mrs, Vance? About that thing with the finches. Creation scientists say their beaks were meant to. .”

“Timmy, I can only discuss the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory. As Creationism builds a system of thought around an unobservable assertion — that a rational god exists — it is a system of mythology. Please refrain from violating Tennessee law by bringing it up again.”

And that’s that.

Okay, now I’m beginning to wonder. These abominable stories (here, here) piling up, one after another: is there something going on in the cosmos? Are we floating through a black-hearted nebula? Or are these the glorious consequences of living in a center-right country?

The latest brain-bruiser: a Springfield, Missouri special education middle school teen was raped by a fellow student. The lawsuit filed by her parents details how school officials ended up blaming her:

The suit also alleges that, without seeking her mother’s permission, school officials forced the girl to write a letter of apology to the boy and personally deliver it to him. She was then expelled for the rest of the 2008-2009 school year and referred to juvenile authorities for filing a false report.

Wow. Negligence, punishing incompetence and indifference. And it only gets worse.

She was allowed to come back to school the next year and her mother urged school officials to protect her from the male student. School officials denied the request, the suit alleges . .

In February 2010, the same boy grabbed her, dragged her to the back of the school library and raped her again, the suit alleges.

Raped a second time. How did the school react?

School officials were notified of the incident and allegedly doubted the girl’s claim, saying they’d “already been through this,” according to the lawsuit… she was suspended from school for “disrespectful conduct” and “public display of affection,” her lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.

Disrespectful conduct? My irony meter towers above me in the form of a mushroom cloud. The mother took her daughter to a child advocacy center, and they confirmed the rape. With the recovered DNA evidence entered against him, the boy pleaded guilty to the crime in juvenile court. Rightfully, the school has been served with a monster lawsuit. So district directors took a different tack:

The girl failed and neglected to use reasonable means to protect her self, the response says. Any damages the girl may have sustained, “were as a result of the negligence, carelessness, or conduct of third parties over whom the District Defendants had neither control nor the right to control . . ”

It’s only a shame school officials can’t be charged with crimes. Or we can’t just bury the district in a pit.

This is a bizarre story. Might be a tragedy. Hypnotism is hardly a highly reputable practice, and hypnotists are frequently self-serving crackpots.

George Kenney, Hypnotizing Principal, Allegedly Lied About Putting Students In Trance
HuffPo | 06/30/11

When Wesley McKinley went to his principal George Kenney for help in becoming more focused and outgoing in school, Kenney performed the solution he typically called upon to help students: hypnosis.

But something different happened this time.

Mckinley, 16, committed suicide the next day. The student from North Port High School in Florida’s Sarasota Schools District was found dead in a vacant home near his own on April 8, the Sarasota Herald Tribune reports.

And you thought the boy’s History teacher, Coach Wyzniewski, was a bore for suggesting wrestling would help his grades? George Kenney runs an Amazon business selling his hypnosis CDs and MP3s. When he’s not acting as school principal, or mailing “Maximize Basketball Free-throws with Hypnosis” from home, he’s hypnotizing the volleyball team? This is freaking bizarre.

The hypnosis became public after a student committed suicide one day after a hypnosis session with Kenney.

While no one is linking the death and the hypnosis, the report shows another student who also committed suicide this year and a student who died in a car accident also had sessions with Dr. Kenney.

Originally, Dr. Kenney told his supervisor he did not hypnotize one of the students, but later admitted he lied.

He told investigators he lied because he felt it would be misconstrued by the media.

Principals shouldn’t put themselves in positions that could “be misconstrued by the media.” Right? Frankly, I don’t want teachers interacting with kids in any way that anyone could misconstrue. I don’t want teachers getting inside kids’ heads in any way other than their traditional assholery.

The most damning thing about this story: George himself. Check him out in the introduction to one of his DVDs:

Oh no, folks, don’t try this while operating machinery, it’s too powerful! You’ll die. It’s great for your children, though. Even worse, at 1:08: “som-NOM-blism”? Sumnombilism? Somnommbalism? The guy’s an incompetent ass.

Love this stuff. It’s indoctrination, pure and simple.

Tea party group offers summer camp
By Marlene Sokol | Tuesday, June 14, 2011

TAMPA — . . the [Tampa 912 Project], which falls under the tea party umbrella, hopes to introduce kids ages 8 to 12 to principles that include “America is good,” “I believe in God,” and “I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.”

God shed his grace on me. And crown my good with eff you.

Children will win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the “banker” will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value.

Until the kids start sucking on the ingots. But fear not. They’ll soon be tinkling gold. Beats the hell out of the parents — they’ve been sucking unproductively all their lives.

Another example: Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World).

That Versailles was pretty drab, wasn’t it?

Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kids will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility.

Well, there’s an historical revision. Since when do cowboys bother to bury Indians?

Dear teachers: don’t say . . ‘gay.’ Sshhh! It hurts the little chillins’ ears.

Tennessee bill seeks to forbid talk of homosexuality in grade school
By Sahil Kapur | RawStory | February 28th

WASHINGTON – A Tennessee bill seeks to forbid teachers from speaking about homosexuality in public elementary and middle schools, according to the local WVLT-TV news station . .

“No public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality,” it reads.

This could happen to your school. Let’s not go on this way:

“And then some people, children, they . . uh . . have sex . . err . . with their own . . . kind.”

“Huh?”

“I don’ unnerstand.”

“Like, with their own family?”

“No. Like . . ”

“She means . . like . . dogs. Dogs do it with other dogs, right?”

“. . emm, nooooo. Well, YES, but . . ”

“No, she means like Baptists. They all do it at those picnics.”

“What? NO. I mean like . . men . . who . . ”

“. . . do it with other mommies? Like their first mommy?”

“. . do it . . with . . other . . ”

” . . ??? . . ”

” . . . men.”

(all) “WHAT?!”

*crying* *clothes throwing* *fire drill antics*

“Ah HELL, Cassie, I TOLD you not to tell them . .”

“LOOK at them GO . . ”

“They’re running to the sea, every last one of them!”

“WAAAHHHH MEYE MO MONT DOOO WWWIIIVVVE . .”

This isn’t about you. Or your dirty, dirty habits ( . . might I add: WOW).

“You’re looking at legislation that is going to make sure that when you are talking about sexuality with students that it is age appropriate,” said Matthew Parsons, a father of seven children and founder of the group “Something Better.”

SEE? This is about the children.

“If we’re talking about homosexuality, we are talking about specific acts that are going to be unhealthy for anybody to engage in outside of marriage.”

Exactly.

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BONUS: Whacko blogger is upset by poor treatment of practical virgin:

“USA! USA! USA!”


75 Percent of Oklahoma High School Students Can’t Name the First President of the U.S.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today.

Dutcher said this is not just a problem in Oklahoma. He said Arizona had similar results, which left him concerned for the entire country.

This head-scratching started with digby’s post about a Santa Ana, CA, judge’s ruling. A Christian student in a Mission Viejo public school history class felt insulted by the teacher’s comments, felt they disparaged his beliefs. The student recorded the comments and filed a suit alleging that they violated the first amendment.

How is that possible? Because of the amendment’s establishment clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion“:

The establishment clause has generally been interpreted to prohibit 1) the establishment of a national religion by Congress, or 2) the preference of one religion over another or the support of a religious idea with no identifiable secular purpose. The first approach is called the “separationist” or “no aid” interpretation, while the second approach is called the “non-preferentialist” or “accommodationist” interpretation. The accommodationist interpretation prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another, but does not prohibit the government’s entry into religious domain to make accommodations in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause.

So this means neither in support nor against the establishment of any religion, as far as I can tell (legal experts, feel free to jump in and tweak this assessment if it’s required). This would also include someone, a government official, from even saying ‘Your religion makes no sense.’ Or, ‘You Voodoo guys are out of your minds.’ As a government employee, it toys with what the government could presume to establish (to favor: ‘I dunno–but not yours, that’s for sure.’)

Okay, now the ruling:

California: Ruling Against Anti-Creationism Teacher

A federal judge has ruled that a history teacher at a Southern California public high school violated the First Amendment when he called creationism “superstitious nonsense” in a classroom lecture. The judge, James Selna, issued the ruling after a 16-month legal battle between a student, Chad Farnan, and his former teacher, James Corbett. Mr. Farnan’s lawsuit said Mr. Corbett had made more than 20 statements that were disparaging to Christians and their beliefs. The judge found that Mr. Corbett’s reference to creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause. Courts have interpreted the clause as prohibiting government employees from displaying religious hostility. Mr. Corbett teaches at Capistrano Valley High School.

Okay–it’s not the craziest interpretation of the first amendment, at least on its face. This is the crazy part: Creationists passionately swear that Creationism is pure Science. Otherwise they could never ask it be considered for public school, right? We’d be right back to breaking the same establishment clause. The Christian kids are taught it as a ‘science’, but then they walk into public school and–presto–it’s a ‘belief’. How’s that for nuts? Mind you–of all the comments the teacher made, only the one about Creationism was found to violate the first amendment, and it was the only reason the suit was won by the plaintiff.

So public school teachers, when a student wants to discuss Creationism–can you, constitutionally? If you attack it as Bad Science, are you violating the establishment clause? Do you have to ask if a student believes in it as Religion or considers it to be Science? What if they say they ‘believe it’ either way? What if two students want to talk about it, but each has a different ‘belief’? You could end up engaging only one of them ‘legally’ for the identical discussion.

This is double-brain-melt crazy.
______________________________________________________________

UPDATE: Some pretty good commentary on this over at Oxdown Gazette.

Kentucky High School innovation:

New class brings history home to students

Ernest Walker wasn’t expecting much when he first walked into his ninth-grade civics class this year at Iroquois High School — boring textbooks, droning lectures and lots of memorization about historical dates and figures.
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Superintendent Sheldon Berman, who pushed for the new class, calls it “the single best piece of curriculum that I know of because of its impact on students and its level of sophistication.”

“Tolerance” replaces civic history class in Jefferson County

A Courier-Journal article today announced that 9th graders in Jefferson County schools will be required to learn “tolerance” in the place of regular history and civics curriculum. While on its face the coverage of the holocaust in the course is important, questions remain about who gets to define what “tolerance” is for the students.