The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
—John Locke
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Category Archives: Education
Quote of the Day
An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.
—Stephen Fry
Don’t Know Much Biology
An online survey conducted by WPA Intelligence last month found 22% of Democrats agreed with the statement, “Some men can get pregnant.” 36% of white, college-educated female Democrats concurred.
Perhaps the fertility problems some “men” are having may be one of the sources of dissatisfaction some social and behavioral “science” graduates (especially, gender studies majors) feel about their degrees.
Democracy Dies in Derpness™
Quote of the Day
The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.
—B. B. King
A Significant Windfall
America’s newspaper of record reports that the average lifetime earnings of graduates who have earned a gender studies degree rose sharply to $10,000 this week. The report also notes—
[s]ome college graduates with gender studies degrees are actually hitting up to $20,000 if they received Pell grants, doubling the most common average of $10,000, and being more than $20,000 over the previous average of $0.
His Lips Were Moving
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Quote of the Day
To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.
—Lao Tzu
I’m Not Making This Up, You Know
The Daily Mail reports a child sex abuse center at Johns Hopkins University has hired a trans professor, who was forced to resign from Virginia school for defending pedophiles as “minor attracted persons.” Allyn Walker will start work as a postdoctoral fellow for the school later this month at a center aimed at preventing child sexual abuse.
Forget it, Gentle Reader. It’s Baltimore.
Quote of the Day
Much learning does not teach understanding.
—Heraclitus
A Modest Proposal
The idea of forgiving student loan debt keep resurfacing. I’m sure some folks think it’s a good idea, but is it fair? What about those of us who paid our tuition as we went along? Shouldn’t that be refunded to keep things fair?
Let’s see … I graduated from Vanderbilt in May, 1970, having spent $9600 on tuition. The legal rate of interest in Tennessee is 10 %, so [punches calculator buttons] I’d be due $1,364,000.
Seems fair to me.
Is Reality Intruding On The Narrative?
The WSJ reports that the Xiden administration will resume oil and gas leasing on federal land. The administration’s moratorium on leasing was shot down by a federal judge, and pressure to resume leasing has been increasing since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, the administration is trying to minimize the new leases.
The Interior Department said it would make roughly 144,000 acres available for oil and gas drilling through a series of lease sales, an 80% reduction from the footprint of land that had been under evaluation for leasing.
Companies will also be required to pay royalties of 18.75% of the value of what they extract, up from 12.5%.
On the morning of 20 January, 2021, the United States was a net exporter of energy products. That changed within a few day. These leases will help turn things around, but they’re only a start in the right direction.
A Return to Normalcy
That was Harding’s successful campaign slogan in 1920. He was running in a country turned upside-down by the Wilson’s wartime proto-Fascist government. Wilson, who was no friend of the Constitution, had stuck the government’s nose into too many corners of American life, and the people pushed back against his overreach.
I’ve been writing about the overreach the Democrats have been engaging in since the 2020 election. They’ve sought to impose abnormality on the public, and the public is starting to push back. And the trigger seems to have been what is happening to kids while they are in school.
Forced cosmetic masking and coverups of crimes against students were issues that swayed the election in Virginia last year. Racist propaganda in the form of so-called Critical Race Theory, inappropriate sexual topics in kindergarten, and hidden efforts to promote and enable “gender” transitions have sent parent lobbying at state legislatures this year.
For the most part, it seems their pushback is winning. Several states have outlawed teaching racism. This week, Florida passed a ban on inappropriate class related to sexuality.
Of course, the media and the Democrats (BIRM) are howling, and it looks as if many of them are willing to go into this November’s elections without letting go of their overreach.
Meanwhile, the public is beginning to notice that inflation is at its highest in over 40 years, that the world is tending toward WW3, and that they can’t afford to buy $55k EVs. Things are about to get uglier.
Stay tuned.
First Virginia, Now This
Shortly after Joe Xiden took office, I suggested that we were in for a couple of years of overreach by the Left—and that they would wind up going a bridge too far. It looks as if schools have been the flash point for a rebellion by normal people.
The rest of 2022 will be … um … interesting.
Political Science v. The Real Thing
I made a B in POLSCI101 55 years ago. One of things I learned in the course was Bismarck’s definition of politics: the art of the possible. Another thing I learned was that what is called “political science” has essentially no connection to or use for the scientific method. As Bismarck noted, politics is an art, and the study of it is no more a part of science than is the study of music or any other art.
That’s not to say that politicians don’t claim to be basing their action on science. Marxism, for instance, claims to be “scientific socialism.” The history of the 20th Century shows what happened every time the marxist hypothesis was tested against Reality.
“Scientific” Covidicism has had its test against Reality, and its Narrative hasn’t done well. Indeed, it’s done so poorly, that even the blue states are beginning to return to the Real World.
The science hasn’t change. A bit of pseudoscience has failed, and it’s an election year. The art of politics says that the way to survive an election is to stay on voters’ good side. And the voters have had enough of covid restrictions that didn’t work or were actually harmful.
Honk! Honk!
DO Know Much About the French I Took
Matt Margolis has a post over at PJ Media about the results of a Rasmussen survey that shows that 75% of Americans believe that there are only two genders. Well, if they’re French speakers, they’re correct. If they are English speakers, they are wrong.
In the English language there are four genders: masculine/he, feminine/she, neuter/it, and indefinite/he (informal)/one (formal). In English, gender follows biological sex for animate beings.
There are only two sexes, and sex is not the same thing as gender—not even in the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary.
Political Smash and Grab
The Democrats have managed to build a majority. However, it’s a majority of voters who oppose the Build Back Better tax-and-spend scam.
I’ve been writing since the first of the year about the Democrats’ panic resulting from their unexpectedly poor performance in the down-ballot races in 2020. With their prospects for 2022 looking even worse, the Democrats have tried and mostly failed to get as much of their wishlist passed before they lose control of both houses of Congress, and the Xiden Administration has promulgated a series of lawless regulations. Fortunately, the courts still seem to be in the business of upholding our laws and the Constitution.
At the state and local level, the Democrats’ overreach over the past two years on a range of issues from Covid lockdowns to school curricula been met with popular resistance.
Economic reality is beginning to set in, and Margret Thatcher’s Corollary to the Law of Thermodynamics (The problem with socialism is that it always runs out of other people’s money.) is at work.
Things are about to get even uglier. I expect a flurry of activity from the Democrats to grab as much as they can before they lose what control they still have. 2022 is going to be weird.
Quote of the Day
It is both foolish and wicked to teach the average man who is not well off that some wrong or injustice has been done him, and that he should hope for redress elsewhere than in his own industry, honesty and intelligence.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Quote of the Day
I do not know what meaning classical studies could have for our time if they were not untimely—that is to say, acting counter to our time and thereby acting on our time and, let us hope, for the benefit of a time to come.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Quote of the Day
High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.
—Kurt Vonnegut
A Letter and a Memorandum
AG Garland has testified it was the NSBA’s letter suggesting that parents protesting at school board meetings should be investigate as domestic terrorists that provided the basis for his memorandum directing the FBI and US Attorneys to investigate and prosecute parents for protesting against school boards and teachers who insist on indoctrinating children with critical race theory. Now, that the NSBA has apologized for their letter (see below), it would make sense for the Attorney General to withdraw his memorandum. Given that he has also testified that he sees no ethical problem with ordering such an investigation even though his son-in-law is founder of a business selling critical race theory teach materials, I doubt that he will do the right thing.
Don’t Know Much About History
It’s clear that most of the over-credentialed but under-educated members of many school boards who are allowing (or promoting) the introduction of critical race theory and such ahistorical nonsense as the The 1619 Project really don’t understand Marx or the 20th-century history. If they did, they would not be pursing such foolishness. However, there are some on school boards who do understand what they’re trying to foist on the nation’s children. The first bunch may be persuaded to correct their errors. The second lot needs to be removed from any positions of authority.
Parent’s protests have been surprisingly peaceful thus far, but using the FBI in a attempt to stifle dissent will likely not be helpful. Indeed, an understanding of 18th-century history teaches that heavy-handed government doesn’t sit well with Americans. Imagine the surprise on some school superintendent’s face when he finds that a group of citizens dressed as Indians have thrown the district’s CRT instructional materials into a local body of water.
The protests shouldn’t have to go that far, and I doubt they will if school boards act responsibly. If …
Nothing to See Here. Move Along.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has directed the FBI to investigate parents who are opposing the teaching of Critical Race Theory in their children’s schools. It is reported that Garland’s son-in-law is the co-founder of a company which sells CRT instructional materials to school districts.
I’m So Old …
… I remember when the reason there was an FBI special agent at our school meeting was because his daughter attended the school.
Quote of the Day
Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower
Quote of the Day
No one yet has learned to drive a locomotive sitting in his study.
—Leon Trotsky