A novel way to treat Old Glory

Gateway Pundit has the latest from the University of Maine, where a student art display has spread out across the floor in such a way as to make it difficult for people passing through the hallway to avoid walking on our nation's flag.

This sort of behavior towards the Stars and Stripes is such a bold, daring, and innovative form of art! I can't think why nobody has ever done anything like it before.

Sheesh. That sort of stuff is why I dropped out of studying art and became a history major (for as long as that lasted.) At least I wasn't living in the past, just studying it.

Quo blogis?

A number of my friends have commented on how little of my own personal blogging I have done, of late. It used to be, I'd post ten or fifteen times a week, on any little thing as it came up in my private life or in the headlines.

These days, though, I've pretty much set aside this blog as the holder of the Fortune Teller, a dogblog and a catblog, and very rare other postings. It's not from lack of interest. I do spend an inordinate amount of time online, as usual. It's just that, now I have a far too many side alleys to traipse down, as I search for links to include in those daily birthday posts.

Research is fun.

My friend exSailorette is finding this out, too. She signed up for an online course, to advance her edjamacation (she's heading for a Master's degree in something useful, unlike the studies I undertook in my undergrad years... what does one do with courses in art history, elementary education, and modern foreign languages, if one doesn't pursue some sort of doctorate and propose to teach at a college?). Anyway, exS commented this morning that it was amazing how much more she was learning in the online course than she did in the classroom, on essentially the same topic. While at the computer, doing a quick look-up on a theory or the theorist, she ends up finding all sorts of in-depth analyses, reads them, and easily comprehends the subject. In classroom, she says, the professor mentions a noted person in the field, gives the title of the theory said person is known for, and moves on, without offering anything in the way of real understanding. Online, she can take as long as she wants to noodle around in the deep dark recesses of a given topic.

I wonder if she'll realize this is why I keep accumulating actual paper-page books, too? It's just so totally groovy to open up a new something to find out some morsel you'd have never picked up in regular, day-to-day discourse. For example, Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound helped a MRS. J. B. SAMUDA of Newton Centre, Mass. get rid of her tired, heavy, sluggish feeling, and now she feels fine. She can play base-ball with her children. That's not gonna come up over your average dinner table.

At least, I hope it isn't.

So, anyway, I spend my days doing the very serious task of researching, and that is why I blog so much less than I have in the past. If you miss me, I apologize. If you pity me...

Once school begins, stupidity rules

Yeah, those Boulder-ites and their equally leftwitty neighbors are at it again. It seems that Halloween parties at one elementary school in Broomfield, CO are right out, so kids won't be wearing their costumes to class, for the holiday. But it's not for traditional religious reasons, this time -- oh, no! It's the religion of the left, again. It's for the protection of the wee tots, and by the most obvious egalitarian method -- they don't want anybody to feel left out, so they're going to make everybody feel left out:

“In my class of 26, if I’ve got one kid in the room that doesn’t celebrate Halloween ... if I have to send one kid home because they feel weird or they feel ostracized, I have failed at my job,” said fourth-grade teacher Jim Tingley.

Hey, teach, I hate to break it to you, but every kid feels weird and ostracized at one time or another. It's one of those things which ultimately forces kids to become independent. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but, isn't the point behind education to make a kid less dependent upon others (that is, to prepare him for adulthood and the real world)?

Why do you send a kid home because he doesn't feel as though he fits in, anyway? Doesn't that just encourage more whining and complaint? It would make more sense to give him an opportunity to find another way to spend his time in the classroom while the rest are showing off costumes and playing games. If, because his religion (or lack of it) prevents him from celebrating with the rest of the kids, let him go to the library, or some other space in school, to work on something he will enjoy. Or, is your school too large, and therefore too small-minded to make accommodations for individuals?

Forcing all the other students to abandon a greatly-enjoyed activity because one kid doesn't find the same pleasure in it seems a bit -- well, more than a bit, it's extremely -- counter-productive. All the other kids will know that the reason they can't have the party is because of a kid like Jubal or Mohan or whatever is the name of the one who can't celebrate. Doesn't that make the "different kid" even more of a pariah? So, where do the other kids' energies go -- into opening their minds and learning about why that Rusli boy or Liliana girl doesn't celebrate Halloween, or into torturing the kid for depriving them of their costume party?

But then, I don't suppose any of the supposed grown-ups who run this school ever read Lord of the Flies.


HT: m' brugly other

Oh, fer cryin' out loud! Schools ban playing tag

An elementary school in Colorado Springs has banned the playing of any running games which involve chasing each other, after some kids complained that they were "chased against their will" or "harassed".

I'm sorry, but, when I was a kid, if I didn't want to be chased in a game of tag, I found some other game to play so that the tagsters wouldn't bother me (for me, it was usually something quiet, nerdy, and sedate, like drawing with the sidewalk chalk). Is it really so hard to teach kids today to do the same thing? I mean, I may have been a bright kid and all, but I hardly think it would take an exceptional mind to figure that one out!

First they took away dodgeball, and I didn't speak up, because I was always the first one hit out. Then they took away tag, and I didn't cry out because I'm a klutz and can't run. Then they took away recess, and there was nobody left to play with, and I became a stupid, dull-as-dishrags couch potato who died early from a severe disinterest in life....

Why Kill the Goose?

Once more, I have spent my parents' vast wealth acquiring books at auction -- why, yesterday alone, I spent nearly $45, and ended up with only 300 books to paw through...

I left the majority behind for others to take if they wanted them. I brought home only about 50, many of them to be given away to family and friends. And to the college. Mustn't forget the old alma mater.

Today, I had the pleasure of finding a slim paperback, 6x9 inches by 80 pages, with a picture of a golden egg in a nest on the front cover, and a poor dead goose on the back. The book, Why Kill the Goose?, by Sherman Rogers, is a compelling little work on economics I wish were available for all to read, even 60 years after its original publishing date.

The foreword, titled "Why Mr. Rogers wrote this book", sets it up nicely:

From 1900 to 1917 Sherman Rogers worked in lumber camps, copper mines and on cattle ranches – in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. During twelve of those years he was a relentless worker among the I.W.W., led by "Big Bill" Haywood, a movement aimed at the overthrow of private ownership and the establishment of a communistic state. In other words, Mr. Rogers knows radicals and the notions which turn honest, hard-working men to the ways of socialism and to the use of force to attain it.

According to Mr. Rogers, "Big Bill" Haywood was more responsible than any other American for the widely-held belief that under private enterprise workers get but a fraction of the income they produce and that the owners and employers receive "the lion's share." Specifically, "Big Bill" contended that "under the American system workers get but ten to fifteen cents of each dollar of income produced, that the owners get from eighty-five to ninety cents."

IN 1917, something happened to Sherman Rogers – according to his own admission –"the most militant socialist in the Pacific Northwest." Charlie Schwab made a speech in Seattle to revolting shipyard workers and exposed Haywood's pernicious division-of-income fallacy. Rogers observed the effects of these enlightening facts on himself and on his radical colleagues. They simply ceased as socialist revolutionaries.

These facts about the division of income, although published by the Department of Commerce since 1936, persist in escaping men's understanding – employers' as well as employees'.

Sherman Rogers has devoted thirty years to traveling and speechmaking, in an attempt to remove a fallacy that is more at the root of industrial strife than perhaps any other notion.

This is his book, presented to you as he gave it to us.

The chapter headings are as follows:

1. Why kill the goose?
2. New investment means "Help Wanted"
3. Profit – reward for risk-taking
4. Division of industrial income
5. The misinformed public
6. Some men have what it takes

I'm kinda partial to his Fallacy vs. Fact approach in the first few chapters -- especially this one (John Edwards followers, take note!):

Fallacy

A few ultra wealthy families in the United States own the greater part of its wealth." We hear the story that 2 per cent of the people own 90 per cent of the wealth.

Fact

The National Industrial Conference Board reports (The Economic Almanac for 1946-47) that there were in 1936 ( latest complete figures available) 61 persons in the United States who had incomes (before taxes) of more than $1,000,000 for that year. The combined total wealth of these 61 persons – not their yearly incomes, but their total holdings – amounted to $2,342,000,000. The whole wealth of the nation in that year was $304,000,000,000. Thus, we find that the total wealth of the extremely wealthy in 1936 was but 3/4 of 1 per cent of the total national wealth. It should also be remembered that most of this 3/4 of 1 per cent was comprised of factories and businesses.

Now, let us consider further that in this same year the total annual income which these millionaire owners obtained from their properties amounted before taxes to only 1/6 of 1 per cent of the total payments to all individuals in 1936. After they paid their Federal income taxes they had left an amount equal to less than 1/20 of 1 per cent – or 1/2000 – of the total payments to all individuals in the nation! Since 1936, these figures have been greatly reduced.

There is much more, but, you get the picture.

As I continue to read this, I'm thinking I may have to post this, in its entirety, at Friday's Klips, chapter by chapter. There's just too much worthwhile stuff to cherry-pick from it.

Getting past Galesburg High School's grad stupidity

GHS has been in the national news this past week as a result of their new policy, instituted this year, of denying diplomas to students whose family and/or friends disrupt the graduation ceremony for any reason (I suppose they'd make an exception if Pa fell over from the shock of seeing Sonny actually gradgitate, and needed a paramedic -- but no exception for cheers, whistles, and party crackers).

Personally, I'm thinking there are quite a few people in the wrong, here... but probably not the actual graduates being denied their sheepskins. And, maybe not the school administration.

First of all, let's get a little background on the roots of the admin's policy. Galesburg High School (grades 9-12), according to the city of Galesburg's detailed profile, has a student population of over 1400 students. That puts the graduating class at a likely count of about 350 (give or take a few). It takes a while to walk through a ceremony with that many people walking across a stage to receive a document and a handshake. Any little distraction adds to that time.

Last year, people were celebrating their loved ones' success, as the ostensibly sober occasion progressed, by tootling of horns, roaring of motors and stomping of feets (an obscure reference to a ferry warning -- maybe someday I'll find the old photo & post it), among other disruptive acts. According to several people I know in the city, the event was mayhem and went on "all stinking day." Perhaps that was exaggeration, but, having been to several such events where the guest speakers knew nothing of editing for (a) comprehensible content or (b) time constraints, I can see how they may have developed that impression.

So, the school drafted a new policy. It was put into print. Every student was to read it and sign it. Family members were notified by missives sent to the up-and-coming graduates' homes. Friends knew about the new policy because it was discussed in classes, as well as bandied about in some regular chummy-like conversations.

The policy read simply that a student whose family and/or friends caused any disruption to the ceremony would not receive his or her diploma. Most families understood and complied with the new policy. By and large, the graduation ceremony went well and swiftly.

Except for a handful of thoughtless idiots, whose only concern was to make themselves heard.

Now, the few students, whose inconsiderate friends and families caused the disruption, are being forced to pay the penalty -- and some of the students are taking legal action against the school for its having the gall to do what it said it would do.

In a perfect world, the graduate would be given that diploma -- after those who actually caused the ruckus were punished.

In a perfect world, somebody would have made a recording of the entire graduation ceremony, including the noisy interruptions. That recording would then be remixed, so that after each and every grad received his or her sheepskin, the complete uproar those few made would be inserted. Over and over and over and over again. Then, make the disruptive family and friends stand in a hot, crowded space reeking of sweat and heavily redolent of old-lady perfume and faint traces of cheap beer and sweet wine, wearing those infernal caps and gowns, while they watch the entire re-edited monstrous movie and see how they like the experience.

After the last noisemaker of each party has been put through this, the graduate should be handed his or her diploma with grace -- and a healthier respect from the family and friends for what it is to stand up there and be subjected to graduation speeches and family idiocy.

In a perfect world.

But this is Galesburg, IL, in the heart of Forgottonia, so we'll have to see how things resolve themselves.

An older Dangerous Book

This month, the talk of the 'sphere, here, stateside, is the book, The Dangerous Book for Boys (which includes all manner of useful activities for kids of today, who otherwise are discouraged from behaving like the bold, industrious little b*stards that they so often are). I understand it offers plenty of projects and lore that many kids today would otherwise miss out on.

Well, in spending our day at the auction yesterday, Mom and I discovered an older, possibly equally coooool book, "Integrated Handwork for Elementary Schools." Don't laugh just because they've got a handful of copies, dirt cheap, listed at amazon. It's a neat old textbook for teachers, published in 1940 by Silver Burdett Company, authored by Loius V, Newkirk, Ph.D., of the Chicago Public Schools. And, when they say "handwork," they mean Handwork.

For example, the book includes the instructions on how to make a wooden rubber-band boat:

Boats. The construction of boats offers a valuable medium for manipulative expression, and can be correlated with transportation and science problems in the school. Page 202 shows two simple boats that can be made by primary-grade children and that are well suited to the interests and development of these children. The tools required are a crosscut saw, a sharp knife, a wood rasp, a brace and bit, and a small hammer.

The rubber-band boat, a flat-bottomed type, may be sawed from a flat piece of 1/2” or 7/8” softwood with a crosscut saw. The edges are then filed with a rasp and smoothed with sandpaper. The cabin is made from a block of wood. The funnels and portholes are made from 3/4” dowel rod. Brads spaced around the edge and strung with string or wire form a railing.

The boat is powered by rubber bands and driven by paddle wheels. A length of 3/8” dowel is slit at each end to receive flat paddles sawed from box wood. Two 1/8” holes are bored through the dowel at the points indicated on the drawing, to receive two rubber bands. Two 3/8” holes are drilled through the rear end of the boat and the dowel rod is inserted. A washer is slipped over each end and fastened with brads. The rubber bands are threaded through the dowel and hooked over the two open screw eyes located on the cabin as shown.

The boat may be decorated according to the children’s ideas and be painted with outdoor or deck paint, so as to be waterproof.

I'm sorry, but that's just way too spiffy a project. They'd never allow it in schoolrooms, these days, out of fear that some kid would feel excluded because he didn't live near an ocean so he couldn't understand the usefulness of a boat, or he didn't have a bathtub to float it in or some such nonsense.

This book also includes basic instructions on hammering and cutting metal, electroplating, making and operating marionettes, making cottage cheese (Mom won't let me try this -- something to do with her having had to smell this all the time when she was growing up on the farm), and building your own playhouse, complete with furniture. Not to mention machine knitting, basket and rug weaving, making your own cigar-box "banjo" and dowel-rod xylophone. And the requisite kite. Which toy my nephews bought, rather than try to construct on their own. Sigh.

One can only hope that children of the future will stumble across these kinds of books and ask why mummy and daddy never showed them how to do these things... and then promptly settle in to try them, themselves.

Athletes lose scholarships for becoming mommies

A University of Memphis student has learned the hard way that sex-based discrimination isn't just a political problem. It's a biological reality, with impact in the business and academic world.

Like the other young women who attend U Memphis on a full athletic scholarship, Cassandra Harding signed an agreement that, if she became pregnant, she would lose her scholarship.

She got pregnant.

She lost her scholarship.

Quel surprise.

Of course, One of her teammates is now complaining that the male athletes can have kids and still be on the teams, still get their cash, still attend classes, so why is it that females are singled out?

''There are guys on our team that have babies. Why wouldn't they have to follow the same rule?'' [Gail] Lee asked.

I gather that she didn't have a supplemental academic scholarship, if she thinks guys have babies. Or, maybe Memphis has something going on we should look into...

I don't suppose Ms. Lee ever bothered to look down at her body and d0 the math?

When a woman gets pregnant, her body undergoes dramatic changes in shape and capability -- many are temporary, of course, but nonetheless, a college athletic program usually is expecting your best athletic performance during the academic year. If you've added thirty-five pounds of baby fat and are waddling across the field, it makes most coaches doubt you'll be up to speed this Tuesday for the hurdles.

If you can't play because of something you did that was entirely preventable (and unrelated to the game), the coach and the school should have every right to deem you in breach of contract, and boot you out. If a guy goes out drinking, falls off a balcony and breaks his leg and arm, he's not going to be starting pitcher this baseball season. The position on the team should go to someone slightly more responsible and totally capable, and with the position should go the money.

Fortunately, pregnancy is a temporary condition (in most women). Once Ms. Harris had given birth and sufficiently recovered from the stresses to her body, she was able to rejoin her team. So, all she really lost was a little time.

And, if you're going to fool around while young and fertile, that's a pretty small loss, indeed.



Now, though, comes the end of my heartless moment of young-mommy-bashing. Even though the university was wholly within its rights to make clear and to enforce such restrictions within their athletic scholarship program, it would be nice if more academic institutions were prepared to deal with mothers who wish to continue their educations. Very few colleges or universities in this country have on-campus daycare programs for the babies of undergrads. I realize a big problem with trying to establish such a program costs money -- especially when one has to factor in liability insurance.

Nevertheless, in a society where the so-called liberals in academia keep pronouncing "pro-choice" is the only rational perspective, shouldn't students be given a choice as to whether or not they should carry a child to term? If your options are abort and attend classes to advance your future career or give birth and be stuck in a McJob (or worse) until the adoption papers are signed or until the kid turns 21 and moves out, is that really much of a choice? Where is the "I'll go for educated motherhood" choice? Where is the support for young student mothers, from among the left-academics?

Are these the only people liberal enough to support young mothers' continuing to learn and grow?

Shocker: too much TV may interfere academically

Who could have seen this one coming? A 20-year study in upstate New York shows that excessive television viewing by school-aged children may result in academic failure -- they are markedly less likely to attend college than those who don't watch so much crap on the idiot box.

The 20-year study involving nearly 700 families in upstate New York, US, found that those watching more than three hours of TV a day were twice as likely not continue their education past high school. The researchers say their study is the first to show that attention problems linked to TV viewing could be the cause of academic failure, since they controlled for learning difficulties and behavioural problems at the start of the study.

So, sitting still and staring at a box of shiny little lights for hour after hour turns you into the next Homer Simpson.

But other experts say the link is unclear: teens with learning disorders might simply be more likely to watch many hours of TV because they find activities such as reading textbooks too challenging.

Then again, it may be that the parents who think it's fine to let their kids watch three hours or more per night on that infernal machine are also the sorts who put zero emphasis on education, and it rubs off on the kids. Parents, after all, seem to have a considerable amount of influence on how kids think (or don't think). (Hi, Mom! I blame society.)

Or, there's that possibility that the electronic signals from the device may be directly transmitting messages into your brain from aliens (or from the CIA), turning you into just another Truther...

Resisting Falsehood: a reply to "Resisting Apartheid"

Hooray! John Palmer has, as promised, posted Menachem Kellner's Resisting Falsehood and Protecting Integrity, in its entirety, at EclectEcon! It's a rather lengthy post, but well worth the attention. The essay is a response to Omar Barghouti's "Resisting Israeli Apartheid: Why the Academic and Cultural Boycott?", a call for just such a boycott. Kellner responds:

Mr. Barghouti seeks to convince his readers that Israeli Jews are inveterate racists, and that Israel is an apartheid state. In the space allotted to me, I cannot possibly correct all of the deceptive falsehoods he uses — as the Hebrew expression has it, it is easier to throw mud than clean it up. By characterizing more accurately than Mr.
Barghouti the true nature and history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and then addressing his two main charges, racism and apartheid, I will undermine his call for a boycott.

Central, of course, to the cries for boycott, are the arguments that Israel is racist, cruel and inhumane toward the Palestinians... putting up a wall, and all that, so that suicide bombers just can't get in to play. The double standard is blatant and lethal. As Kellner points out

Israel is held to standards of behavior to which no other country in the world is held, and when it fails to live up to those standards, it is condemned in absolutist, Manichean terms as thoroughly depraved and corrupted. In the eyes of its enemies,[xi] the Israeli cup must be brimming over with goodness; otherwise it is empty of all redeeming value. Palestinians, on the other hand, are consistently forgiven their excesses. Often this forgiveness is on the grounds that the Palestinians, being militarily inferior, have no choice but to use means which, if used by any other group in the world, would be condemned (and rightly so) as uncivilized war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Kellner's essay continues to quite effectively shoot down the primary "logic" behind the current propositions for boycott. (I had a sneak peek at Kellner's piece, when John e-mailed it to me several days ago, & I'd been waiting for him to post it so we could share it around). Please, go read the whole thing. Share it with friends. It's worth it.

EclectEcon: on academic freedom

John Palmer at EclectEcon has linked to a terrific article by Michael Yudkin, explaining why this recent trend in academia to call for boycotting Israel is a demonstration of willful ignorance (a common problem, but not exactly something one wants to see in college professors).

Since my earliest days, I've been a part of the collegiate world (first, as a child of a student, and then as the professor's daughter -- a "faculty brat"). In the intervening years, I've seen professors go from isolated, ivory tower, "there is no room for politics in the classroom or on campus" conservatives to ideologues selling every leftist fantasy, even in hard-science lectures. Both sides, in my view, have incredibly destructive powers as it comes to their own credibility with students and in town-and-gown relations.

I do worry about the value of an advanced education, in this day and age. At least when the old geezers tried to stay out of politics, the effect on the outside world was that the students came out of the school having been left to think for themselves in order to come to any political decision. The modern trend seems to be more dangerous, for the fact that its leftist sanctimony is an activist position, and brooks no argument. Their aim seems to be simple political indoctrination, and that is no education.

Worse, the direction this indoctrination takes is problematic. It can affect the lives of people outside the narrow confines of the campus, and affect them in ugly ways -- as the Yudkin article demonstrates. But Yudkin's conclusion, I think, says it very nicely:

It is a good deal easier to make grand gestures than to engage with the complexities of so intractable a problem as the conflict between Israel and her neighbours.

The university experience is supposed to prepare one for eschewing grand gestures, for learning how to face intractable problems. Too many of today's students are being cheated. Therefore, tomorrow's society is, as well.

Anti-property goofs in control of classrooms (again)

Zo vot else is noo?

Teachers at a Seattle pre-school are indoctrinating kids against property.

I realize this has been bouncing all over the nets this week, but I haven't had much of an opportunity to think much on this, until now. My first response was much like that of a commenter on one of the many blogs I'd surfed through: the irony! a hugely expensive private school is teaching babies to fight against capitalism.


I'm an artist. Not the most successful one, of course, but I still grew up as a bit of an outsider. When I was young, I'd have given my eyeteeth to have been included in the popular circles. And, yet, I could never bring myself to wear the uniform of the day, the disco dress. I couldn't spray my hair into a Dorothy-Hamill-mushroom-helmet or the flippy Farrah-Fawcett-pointy-curled-neck-armor, and blue eye shadow was, in my mind, a worse spread over the eyelids than were I to follow my dog for a sample of his leavings to adorn my face. I chose to dress and act differently from the others. I suffered socially and emotionally for it, but, ultimately, I was a free woman for my decision.

Over the years, I've made plenty of other choices, as well. I traded things for other things, to make my life what it is. Most of the choices have not resulted in my being happy, or rich, or famous, or even healthy. But again, they were my own decisions. I own them, as I own myself.

Now, I have three siblings. Each one of them started out with pretty much the same stuff I did. Our parents raised us well. We had equal opportunities for education, we had comparable health issues (physical and mental). We are all four equally talented on a number of fronts, and test out with comparable IQs. And, yet, my siblings are very successful financially, maritally, and, yes, in health, while I am pretty much a wreck.

Hey, their houses are nicer than mine! They all own their own cars! They have stuff I don't have. They even dress better than I do (well, my sisters do, anyway).

Should I have the right to take, from each and all, a part of what they've earned, just to balance the outcome of our lives? I don't think so. That's theft.

When our parents are gone, do I get to claim everything because I'm poor and nobody else in the family is? I don't think so. That's greed.

I made my choices. I live with my results. They made their choices, and get to live with the results therein. That's the true equalizer.


But there's more to it than simply fighting capitalism, regardless of what these teachers have been taught in their Church of Socialism. This program they're aiming at would squelch all individuality, all individualism, and therefore all humanity.

Destroying the tendency toward selfishness isn't always a good thing, no matter what the nice people say. If it were not for selfishness, art would not have developed. It is the mind of the individual, stressing its own selfish need to express itself, which has given us the greatest inspirational works in the history of the world. We lose ourselves in the moment, as we view Michelangelo's Pietà. But Michelangelo would not have created that magnificent work, had he, as a lad, done the selfless thing and worked as a simple quarryman beside his father. He selfishly sought to expand his own skills, expand his own abilities to shape stone into more than blocks.

Without selfishness, without ego, there would have been no ancient pyramids, no Sphinx, no Roman Colosseum. Without selfishness, there would have been no Declaration of Independence, no Bill of Rights, no Constitution., no settling the New World (not even in the earliest Asian migrations -- the predecessors of the people we called the Indians). We'd have no need for the new lands, because everybody would be happily living -- or dying -- in treetops back at the point of origin. One little forest fire and we'd be a paleontological footnote.

So selfishness is a survival tool, as well.

We develop communities, tribes, so that we can offset the downside to selfishness -- loneliness and a loss of opportunities to propagate. But the communities can not supplant the individual. Just as one can not breed by committee, one can not truly create anything new, vibrant, and inspirational by that committee. Thus, the moderately selfish individual is essential. Killing him dooms us all.

And "teaching" him into a coma is a crime against humanity.

Medieval Mercenaries: meet the author

I just received this message, forwarded to my e-mail:

The Warren County Public Library, in conjunction with OFTA “Old Friends Talk Arts,” reminds you that Professor William Urban, the Lee Morgan Professor of History at Monmouth College will speak about his recently published book titled Medieval Mercenaries: The Business of War on Tuesday, February 27th at 7:00 PM at the Warren County Public Library.

There is no admission charge and free refreshments will be available.

I've mentioned Dr. Urban's book before. And I doubt I've mentioned it, but the good perfesser is also a good lecturer, dynamic and entertaining -- albeit not a stealth educator, as you know from the start he won't let you leave the room with less comprehension of the subject than when you entered.

I am planning to attend, this evening. If you are within a reasonable driving distance of Monmouth, IL, I invite you to join me there. It should prove a fine experience.

Whose brain is better -- his or hers?

John at EclectEcon quotes and links an interview with Dr. Paul Irwing regarding the difference in cognitive abilities of men and women:

All the research I've done points to a gender difference in general cognitive ability. There is a mean difference of about five IQ points. The further you go up the distribution the more and more skewed it becomes. There are twice as many men with an IQ of 120-plus as there are women, there are 30 times the number of men with an IQ of 170-plus as there are women.

I'd love to see Irwing's test data... especially, though, I'd love to see similar cognitive tests performed on pre-school kids, as compared with college students. Doing a comparative analysis of young to older subjects might -- or might not -- indicate where education/culture influences the application of intellect.

We've already seen, in a number of fairly reputable studies, that girls have an inborn adeptness with language (verbal and nonverbal) for which boys have drawn the short straw. Boys, on the other hand, have a more overt, exploratory (read: aggressive... wink wink you wouldn't hit a girl like me, wouldja?) nature and the mathematical bent. These are tendencies which likely have always had some root in necessity, in survival of the species in the wild. However, they are also tendencies which can, with proper upbringing, be overcome.

That is to say, a boy may learn to use language as an art form to become the next Walt Whitman, and a girl may learn to be an astrophysicist. They are not sex-exclusive brain abilities, but merely trends and tendencies in higher brain function.

So, the questions I have to ask are as follows:

1. Do toddlers show comparable sex-based differences in cognitive testing as their adult counterparts?
2. If yes, should this be cause for alarm (shouldn't we accept that genetics might have had a useful function, at least originally, and say "vive la difference!")?
   
3. If no, precisely how is it that our culture/education fails us all, and how can we safely and effectively fix the fault?

I'm not terribly worried about this, for myself. Aside from being nuts, I'm smart, dammit, and comfortably so. I score in the upper-130s on IQ tests. And I'm the slow one in my family -- both my younger sisters score higher than I, as does my older brother. The difference, however, is only about 5 points -- and one of my sisters is at the top. We are, apparently, an unusual family.

There seems to be a fear that the XY/XX difference is writ in stone as the only definition of what we can become. If there are genuine innate partitions, I believe we ought to take advantage of them. They're built-in, so welcome that reality, and use them as support walls for the structure of our souls and minds.

If the divisions are not genetic, but cultivated over time via repetition of observations and behaviors, so be it. Culture is a large part of what we are, and what we will become. Changes in culture -- like changes in biology -- need time to develop safely.

Meanwhile, don't panic. Whatever the outcome, we are all still human beings, aren't we?

America Sings (well, it used to!)

Laura Lee Donoho has, once again, touched on a topic which gets me going. Last time, it was lunch at schools, and now, she's on lost melodies. In light of this week's passing of Betty Comden, I'd say the discussion was timely and worthy.

I have a bad habit or two when I go to auctions (quel surprise!), one of them being things made of paper... postcards, books, sheet music, old photos, card stock, and so on. Note in the midst of this, the mention of "sheet music"

and "books". Often I bring home music books, too. I'm particularly fond of the old songbooks we used to have in the schools. In them, there are patriotic hymns, nonsense songs, and -- gee whiz -- Christmas carols! I've come across "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!" and "Silent Night" in school books published as late as the early 1980s.

My sister and several other good mommies I know have invested in song books and in "Wee Sing!" recordings/books to help them keep their memories fresh. And they sing along with the recordings. But even those recordings fall short, when it comes to the great old tunes I loved to sing as a kid.

And, my brother's sons, now in junior high and high school, know nothing but a handful of pop tunes they hear on the computer, on the radio, in movies and tv shows. I've tried to introduce them to classics such as "Frère Jacques" and "Go Tell Aunt Rhody", but they ain't havin' none of it. The elder of the two can sing along with Kermit, in a croaking version (unintentional, naturally) of "Rainbow Connection". But he never learned the tunes my generation picked up in music class at school, or over the tables at summer camp, e.g. "My Hat, It Has Three Corners" (which, BTW, I was just singing last Sunday at the auction, having just bought a tricornered hat for a dollar), or the half-dozen chanteys, or even Irving Berlin's tunes. And they looked askance at me when I sang "Crawdad" every time they discussed having an uncle take them out fishing. And nobody ever picked up "Donkey Riding", darn them. Still, all hope is not lost. Since giving my cat (Proserpina) the nickname of "Peanut", the younger of my brother's boys has learned "Found a Peanut". (She is spoiled rotten, after all.)

Granted, my own repertoire has more than its fair share of pop tunes, tv theme songs, and commercial jingles, but my mom saw fit to make sure I knew some less-irritating melodies, as well. Dad, on the other hand, taught us the words to Dvořák's "Humoresque":

Gentlemen will please refrain
From flushing toilets on the train
While standing in the station I love you...

as well as "Punch brothers, punch with care". This was crucial for any irrational child's upbringing. I have had the pleasure of hearing Bob Harris, the father of Oscar-winner Ed Harris (and gifted performer in his own right, having been on stage with Perry Como and Carol Burnett, among others), sing the latter... he held a melody in a way Dad never could (Dad's singing sounds like a moose in distress), but I'm torn, choosing a favorite performance. Love does that to you.

I don't read music very well. I've had to reteach myself the very basic stuff I'd been offered in grade school, in piano lessons, in high school chorus. I'm relearning this because I'll be hanged if I'm going to let the little monsters I love go without a sense of musical continuity.

And I hope that Laura Lee Donoho and many others are of the same bent.

Students at CA college ban Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United State of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

I do recall being young and stupid... "SOUTHWESTERN THOROUGHBREDS",
postmarked Preemption Colo. Jul 29 1909

but I can't recall ever being this stupid. At Orange Coast College in California, the student trustees have decided that it's offensive to allow anybody at their meetings to recite the Pledge, so they've banned it.

Really good support for freedom of speech, kiddies!

Further, the excuses for banning its recitation are the most predictable, inexcusable pieces of crap -- the ones which keep coming up from the far left:

“That (‘under God’) part is sort of offensive to me,” student trustee Jason Bell, who proposed the ban, told Reuters. “I am an atheist and a socialist, and if you know your history, you know that ‘under God’ was inserted during the McCarthy era and was directly designed to destroy my ideology.”

Bell said the ban largely came about because the trustees didn’t want to publicly vow loyalty to the American government before their meetings. “Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through performance, not through reciting a pledge,” he said.

Further, they suffer from a really lame interpretation of the actual pledge. Precisely where in the Pledge of Allegiance does it say anything about fealty to the government? Oh, yeah. "And to the Republic..." Let's define that term, shall we? (definition's emphasis mine)

Republic:

1a. A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president. b. A nation that has such a political order. 2a. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them. b. A nation that has such a political order. 3. often Republic A specific republican government of a nation: the Fourth Republic of France. 4. An autonomous or partially autonomous political and territorial unit belonging to a sovereign federation. 5. A group of people working as equals in the same sphere or field: the republic of letters.

In the case of the United States of America, because we are a democratic republic, the "body of citizens" happens to be the voting public. In other words, by refusing to promise loyalty to the Republic, you are not merely refusing to support a government, but refusing to support your fellow Americans whose representative that government is. Duh.

The Pledge of Allegiance isn't about surrendering to the government. It's not about forcing everybody to believe in one single god in one single theological school of belief. It's about promising to uphold the American way of life. The promise is taken in the form of a salute and speech directed at the flag, a symbol of what this country and its way of life long have been. Of course, the silly little leftards were probably raised to think that the American way of life -- rule of law, fundamental freedom, human decency, and all that -- is a load of archaic crap, compared to the ever-successful socialist system that worked so well in Russia for all those years.

But let me try getting this through the thick skulls of those students and any nitwits who agree with them: YOU DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE TO RECITE THE "UNDER GOD" PART WHEN YOU RECITE THE PLEDGE. (Pardon my shouting. It just felt necessary.) I have been reciting the Pledge of Allegiance for nigh on 40 years, and for better than half of them, I've easily omitted the part where a deity is mentioned, because I have had doubts. Nevertheless, I guarantee others the opportunity to express their beliefs, at the same time. Barring another his right to speak these words is, uh, how can I put this clearly enough for these kids to understand? ... "directly designed to destroy [his] ideology."

I'm reading that Orange Coast College is a community college. That implies that it's taxpayer-funded. Hmm. If their students don't like being in our club, they don't have to receive federal money from those they have no apparent use for... try to deny your classmates the right to express their loyalty to their own countrymen, we'll yank your funding. Let the spoiled, silly leftist twits pay full tuition at a private school if they want to play against us.

Or, let them try the Russian/Cuban educational programs, if they dare.