Wrong on so many levels

Go here and watch the (relatively safe for work) video of a German teacher (though teaching in Hungary) ... stripping in front of her students. So very, very wrong. What in the hell is wrong with some people?

More election fallout

Let the teeth-gnashing begin!

Hey, remember back in 2004, when conservative pundits claimed that Bush had a "mandate" to do whatever the hell he wanted because he won 51% of the vote and beat John "I Was a Teenaged Wooden Statue" Kerry by 3.5 million votes? Well, professional douchebag Robert Novak is claiming that Obama's victory on Tuesday was "no mandate." Because winning by 7.5 million votes and getting, what, 53% of the vote is somehow less impressive than Bush's win. As Think Progress points out, Novak specifically said that Bush's margin gave him a mandate. Good stuff, Bob. Shut the hell up, okay?

I hope Obama doesn't consider this election a "mandate." I cringed when I heard Bush use that, because it ignored the half of the country who didn't vote for him. Almost half of the country didn't vote for Obama, either, so I hope he's more intelligent than 43 and realizes that if he treats this election as carte blanche, he's in trouble. You know what a mandate is? Reagan in 1984. When a president wins 49 states, that's a mandate. Obama should remember that, just like Bush should have remembered that four years ago.

Meanwhile, remember all those conservatives who told liberals to "get over it" four years ago when the crazy left-wingers were whining about Bush winning? I'm fairly certain it won't surprise you to know that those crazy right-wingers who wanted to move on are now, well, freaking out. This post is just an example of some of the craziness out there (and that entire blog is, frankly, frightening, just like a lot of crazy left-wing blogs were frightening after Bush won). The best thing in that post: that Obama will implement sharia teaching in the schools. Won't someone think of the children???? The same people who said that we should all unite behind Bush in '04 when he won legitimately and in '00 when he won illegitimately are now claiming that Obama will never be their president. Listen, if Bush didn't destroy this country, I doubt if Obama will.

Finally, on the radio today, a conservative talk show host played a clip from a Swedish documentary in which a teacher in North Carolina humiliated a girl who was voting for McCain in the school's mock election. Fine. That's despicable. I agree. But this dude went nuts, claiming that this sort of thing happens all over the place (with no empirical evidence, mind you). Well, using my own evidence, at the school where once I taught, we hired a science teacher who refused to teach the theory of evolution. Chew on that for a while. And did this guy get all bent out of shape when a 7th-grade teacher used the word "nigger" to describe Obama? If he did, okay. But don't single out one stupid teacher and claim that we're now going to "indoctrinate" our children. School is indoctrination. Parenting is indoctrination. Church is indoctrination. Everything is indoctrination. Deal with it.

We're off to a rousing start to the presidency, aren't we? Conservative talk radio should be a barrel of laughs for the next 4-8 years! (And by "barrel of laughs," I mean "cause for apoplexy while I'm driving," so I might have to keep the dial tuned to sports talk!)

Civilization continues to circle the drain

In Thursday's Arizona Republic, Krys found this story (which was published in the Republic, even though the link takes you to the Chicago Tribune). I'll quote copious amounts because I have no idea how long the story will be on the web site.

Passing notes in study hall or getting your best friend to ask a boy if he likes you or, you know, LIKES you, is so last century. Nowadays, teenagers are snapping naked pictures of themselves on their cell phones and sending them to their boyfriends and girlfriends.

Boy, you knew it couldn't be a good story, what with the title of this post and all. I wonder, could sending naked pictures of yourself to others go wrong in any way?

Many of these pictures are falling into the wrong hands -- or worse, everyone's hands, via the Internet -- and leading to criminal charges.

Shocking!

Some parents are aghast.

"I just don't understand why kids would do a stupid thing like that," said Rochelle Hoins of Castle Rock, Colo., where 18 students in her twin sons' middle school sent around nude pictures of themselves last year. "We did dumb things when we were kids, but not like that," said Hoins, whose sons were not involved.

I bet her sons are disappointed that no girls thought highly enough of them to send them naked pictures.

School administrators in Santa Fe, Texas, confiscated dozens of cell phones from students in May after nude photos of two junior high girls began circulating. The girls had sent the photos to their boyfriends, who forwarded them to others, officials said.

And yet, those girls probably won't dump the boys for doing that. I mean, they need someone to take them to the prom!

In La Crosse, Wis., a 17-year-old boy recently was charged with child pornography, sexual exploitation of a child and defamation for allegedly posting nude photos of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend on his MySpace page. The girl had taken the pictures with her cell phone at her mother's home and e-mailed them to the boyfriend, authorities said.

"They were pretty graphic," said sheriff's Sgt. Mark Yehle. "I think they just do it to impress their boyfriends. When he breaks up, he 'vents,' in his words, by posting them. He apparently didn't think there was anything wrong with it. He didn't know it was illegal."

If the boy is under 18, is he being charged as an adult? I get that it's pretty heinous, but can we really call it "sexual exploitation" when she, under no apparent duress, provided him with the pictures? I mean, can't we charge them both with stupidity?

Psychologists said the phenomenon reflects typical teenage hormones and lack of judgment, with technology multiplying the potential for mischief. It also may reflect a teenage penchant for exhibitionism, as demonstrated on MySpace and countless other Web sites and blogs.

Good thing the parents are around to stop this. Oh, wait - they're probably not around.

In suburban Syracuse, N.Y., several teenage girls sent naked pictures on their phones to their boyfriends, only to learn that another boy had collected them from the Web and was trying to sell a DVD of them.

We can't punish him for that, can we? That's American chutzpah, man!

Some boys are photographing themselves, too. In Utah, a 16-year-old boy was charged with a felony for sending nude photos of himself over a cell phone to several girls. Four middle school students -- two boys and two girls -- in Daphne, Ala., took photos of themselves on their cell phones and traded the images back and forth, authorities said.

Equal-opportunity stupidity!

Some nude photos have even turned up in parents' e-mail inboxes.

Where they chuckled at those rascally kids and went back to getting tattoos and wearing baseball caps and dressing like whores. I mean, they can't stop the kids, so why try?

Oh, I'm sure that the parents are all very concerned about this and have never done anything to convince their kids that the only way to get ahead in this world is to flash some skin. So many adults have no respect for their bodies, so why should we expect children to have any?

I don't want to get all Republican on anyone, because conservatives, it seems, would want to lock kids up in their rooms until they reached 21 as a method to stop this. As usual with kids, you need to start early. We're already concerned about our daughters and the way they act. I have nothing against nudity. I want the kids to be comfortable with their bodies. But there's a difference between being comfortable and having no self-respect. These kids are going to see enough imagery that tells them that sex is the only way to get ahead and that boys will only like you if you take off their clothes for them, and it's our job to teach them differently. Even if I was like these teenagers and turned into that kind of young adult (I wasn't, as I was kind of a nerd), at some point you have to grow up. As I usually think, so many parents don't grow up, and so their kids see immature behavior right in the home. Nothing counteracts the way society presents people, so they don't think there's anything particularly wrong with sending naked pictures of themselves on a cell phone. Even if you have no self-respect, don't you have some idea that these pictures will show up on-line? Aren't kids on the Internet all the time these days? Don't they know all about these stupid celebrities who keep showing up naked on-line? Why should they be any different?

I'm moving to the Australian outback. Or maybe the mountains of Nepal. Or maybe the Amazon rain forest. That might keep the kids out of trouble.

This is a depressing story. I hate reading about stupid things that kids do. All I can do is hope our kids aren't stupid. You never know!!!!!

More education ranting

Don't you just love when I rant about education? Well, then, this one's for you!

It's graduation time around the country, and here in Arizona that means thousands of seniors who didn't pass AIMS (Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards) will get their diploma. If you've followed the news from Arizona (and really, who hasn't?) you might be perplexed, as this year was the first where our state would not allow people to graduate unless they had passed AIMS. Really. This time they were serious. It's not going to happen. Must. Pass. AIMS.

Or, you know, not.

Earlier this year, a representative introduced this bill, which would allow graduating seniors to get a "break." Basically, seniors this year (and probably subsequent years, as this article points out) can "augment" their graduation requirements if they took the AIMS test every time it was offered (but didn't pass) and can substitute good grades in other classes, including electives. The bill, perhaps not surprisingly, sailed through the State Senate with a 22-5 vote (and was signed into law by our governor).

Let's consider this for a moment, without bringing individual cases into it. The graduating class of 2008 is the first one (I think) who has lived with AIMS its entire school lives. Arizona voted for "tougher" standards in 1996, I believe, and since these kids have been in school, they've known they'll have to pass tests on reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. Tenth-grade level reading, writing, and 'rithmetic, mind you. AIMS testing commenced in 2001, I'm pretty sure, so these kids were in fifth grade (or thereabouts) when they first took the tests. They get FIVE (5) chances to pass the test. Yet thousands of our "graduating" "seniors" cannot pass a tenth-grade math test even after taking it five times.

Yes, there is such a thing as test anxiety. I understand that. I also understand that there are different ways to learn and express your learning. But this is ridiculous. First, the test has been dumbed down quite a lot over the past few years, once the first few classes to take it did horribly on it. I'm not even sure if it's really "tenth-grade level" anymore. But let's consider people who want to graduate from high school when they can't do math at a tenth-grade level. That's more than just test anxiety. And shouldn't part of our teaching be to get these kids over their test anxiety? Everyone fears tests, but you can be taught to, you know, get the fuck over it. But that would imply toughness on the part of the teachers and students. We can't have that, can we?

I have sympathy for these kids, I do. When I was teaching, we had big problems with AIMS testing. These are kids who have been moved on through grades without showing the least bit of evidence that they've mastered what they're supposed to have mastered. These graduates should not have been allowed to move on until they proved they knew the material. We are not doing them any service by sending them out into the world without basic skills. But does AIMS do that? Some people argue it doesn't. AIMS is a flawed tool, because it does put so many eggs in one basket. It's ridiculous to ignore years of schooling, but the reason AIMS exists is because the standards in school are so lackadaisical. Schools allow kids to move through the grades without making sure they're prepared to do so. AIMS takes national standards and applies them to what kids should know. It's not a terribly difficult test, but it doesn't take into account the many factors that go into the lives of children. I have no idea if the test is "culturally biased," but we do have many kids who have not been in the school system their entire lives, and therefore have not been trained the way they should be. It's frustrating, because the system has failed these kids, but it also falls on these kids and their parents to take the schooling more seriously. I would bet there were more than a few parents who called their schools and whined about their kids not graduating, and the schools (and the legislature) caved.

Arizona could always ditch No Child Left Behind, of course, and then there would be no need for AIMS. Of course, that would mean giving up a whole boatload of federal money ($600 million), and Arizona isn't about to do that. Nor is the legislature going to grow a spine any time soon and make AIMS a true test of students' abilities and hold some kids back if they don't pass it. One of the students who is graduating has failed the math portion of the test five times, yet has a 3.2 GPA and has already been accepted to Arizona State University. I feel for students like this, but is she worthy to go to college if she doesn't know math?

If we add this problem to the ever-increasing use of text messaging lingua franca in school term papers, it's clear that we are sending kids out into the real world with extremely poor skills. Of course, they may force employers to change so that they accept these lowered standards, but what does that say about us all?

Whenever I read about students getting undeserved diplomas, I get sad. We don't care, parents don't care, kids don't care. The few who do battle through, and they change the world. As for the rest - they're cogs in the machinery of society, but as the level of that society sinks, we all suffer. Look at our government, our entertainment, our news broadcasts. Life demands toughness, but nobody wants to be tough. Nobody wants to sit these kids down and tell them they need to study harder and learn how to accept challenges and defeat them. Instead of "everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die," these days it's "everybody wants to be rich, but they just want to win the lottery to get there." That's all we care about anymore. I don't want to be sad, but hearing about graduates who don't know how to read, write, or add depresses me just a bit. Or should I just get over it?

Yet another fun news story

I don't have a good Top Ten topic this week, so I'm going to think about it for next week. In the meantime, I found another fun news story on yonder Internet. A 15-year-old student in Connecticut is suing the school district because a teacher slammed her hand on the desk next to head ... to wake him up. Yes, he was sleeping in class, the teacher woke him up, and now he's suing because he experienced ... well, who cares - he's freakin' suing the school district! I'm sure his parents are encouraging him in this. People wonder why America is going down the tubes. I don't.

Wow, this is depressing

According to this article, Americans are reading less than ever! Yay!

Some numbers: 54% of 9-year-olds read every day "for fun." 72% of high-school graduates are "deficient" in writing skills, according to employers. That percentage really depresses me, because adults don't care about proper writing (or speaking) skills, so why should they teach the kids? And maybe the scariest number: the percentage of adults with bachelor's degrees and proficiency in reading prose dropped from 40% in 1993 to 31% in 2003. Conservative talk radio people like to bash colleges because of their liberal bias, but the fact that fewer people are getting advanced degrees should disturb even them, even if mouth-breathers would keep their audience numbers up.

This is really sad. We read to the kids every day, and Norah, particularly, loves reading her own books (she has most of them memorized, so it's not really reading, but it's a start). Even Mia has memorized a lot of her books, and we're going to push her hard to read because it's so important.

Explain to me again why we're so upset about gay marriage when are children are growing up stupid?

Yet another reason why I don't read the newspaper

From the Arizona Republic, Thursday, 8 February 2007:

As many as three eighth-grade boys accused of sexually abusing female classmates at Desert Arroyo Middle School committed sexually graphic acts in class, according to a police report released Wednesday.

Victims told police that the 13-year-olds grabbed girls' breasts and told them to touch the boys' genitals during a social studies class, according to Scottsdale police sex-crimes investigators.

...

The boys face criminal charges that range from indecent exposure to sexual abuse. Several students reported that the boys repeatedly groped 13-year-old girls and tried to solicit sex acts in class.

...

Several students told Scottsdale sex-crimes detectives they saw the boys expose their genitals and inappropriately touch girls during teacher Craig Bragg's social studies classes.

Bragg, who remains on paid administrative leave, denied witnessing any misconduct. He told police that students would have to be "sneaky" if they didn't catch his attention.

"I feel bad. I don't feel negligent," Bragg told detectives. "I keep a good rein on the kids. There is not a lot of bad behavior in my class."

...

Incidents reported by students in Bragg's class include:

• One boy exposing his genitals to classmates "at least 10 times" over several weeks, including five times in one class.

• One of the boys putting his pubic hairs on a girl's pen, which she inadvertently put in her mouth.

• During a movie in class, one of the boys masturbated in front of classmates.

According to the report, one girl told investigators that one of the boys put his hand up her pants and groped her during a Spanish class the previous school year. The boy often slapped her rear end and touched her in other inappropriate ways, but she was scared to tell anyone because even though he was a "pervert," he was popular and physically larger than her.

Sigh. Is it any wonder those home-schoolers have the right idea? This is just disgusting on so many levels, and sadly, the boys in the class aren't the most disgusting of the bunch. I hate to say this, but for 13-year-olds boys, a "boys will be boys" mentality prevails. I'm certainly not excusing these kids and if one of my daughters ever told me a boy did this to her, I would hunt that child down and make him suffer (and I don't care if I'm bigger than they are). But a lot of these hijinks, I suspect, were things the boys did because they didn't think there was anything wrong with it. Sure, they knew it would piss the girls off and that they would get in trouble if they were caught, but I wonder if they thought it was any different than tugging on a girl's ponytail or flicking boogers at a girl. Gross and mean, but not psychologically damaging. Maybe they did and didn't care. I'm not sure. The kids I taught, who were a few years older, weren't all that sophisticated when it came to sex (despite the children they bore), so these kids might not have known how awful they were. Again, that's not an excuse.

The people who really piss me off in this situation are the parents and the teacher. First, the parents. Where do you think these kids get their ideas about abusing girls? Sure, they get it from popular culture, but that's filtered through their parents. If these kids hear people in pop culture calling women "bitches" and "whores" and their parents don't say anything about how awful it is, even if it's not to them specifically, then they'll think it's okay. Of course, a lot of these parents call women "bitches" and "whores," which might be even worse. I don't know how we're going to do as the kids get older and get exposed to more of this stuff. We will try to let them know what's right and wrong, though.

The teacher also is to blame for a lot of this. I just can't believe it went on without him catching on, especially the extent of it. Yes, the girls might have been embarrassed to say anything, because the boys were popular and bigger than they were and because they had a male teacher. But how, exactly, does a kid masturbate in your class in front of other kids? I used to show movies occasionally, and there were some dark corners of the room where this kind of thing could have happened, I suppose. I could even believe a kid jerking off without anyone knowing about it. But in front of classmates? Wouldn't that be hard to miss? As for a lot of the other stuff, maybe the girls didn't want to say anything for any number of reasons (although, again, it comes back to parenting, and we're going to try to raise the girls to be the kind of people who would not only report this, but kick the boy's ass in the process), but if a boy whipped his dick out in front of a girl in the class, there would be a reaction - either loud cries of how gross it is or even giggles. Either way, it's something the teacher should have heard and investigated, even if he wasn't sure what was happening. There's a difference between normal goofiness that goes on in class and something like this, which would definitely draw a different reaction by the victims.

I hate to get all conservative, but modern society makes me sick sometimes. What a horrible story. Yet all anyone in the big-time media wants to talk about is the death of a woman who once took her clothes off for money. But that's a whole different post!

Some links I had lying around

For the past few weeks, I have been able on Mondays and sometimes Tuesdays to surf the Internets for those links we all love, and then I read comics on Wednesday afternoon and other things come up later in the week, and I don't end up with many. Well, I've been doing that so often recently that I have quite a number of interesting things. So, in order that they don't get too old, I thought I'd throw them out there and see what you think. Maybe something in them will interest you!

THE INSANITY OF THE UPTIGHT.

Just when you were starting to formulate reasons Arizona isn't the dumbest state in the nation comes this story from Saturday's newspaper. Eight statues of lions with rams trapped underneath them are being removed from the entrance to a children's water fountain park. Not because there's no reason for lions about to devour rams to be featured at a children's water park, but because some people have complained that the position of the animals is too sexual. Yes, you read that right. I'm dying to see if the little ones are upset by things that adults deem too sexual. As someone in the article states, adults with their minds in the gutter are the only ones who seem bothered by this. I think that lions pinning rams to the ground is kind of a weird thing to put there, but not because it's sexual. People are bizarre.

DEPRESSING TRENDS.

Here's a new blog: A Woman Was Lynched Today. It's sad that it is necessary to track crimes against women.

COMIC BOOK STUFF.

Brian Hughes is re-reading Flex Mentallo. Holy crap, is Flex Mentallo excellent. Here's his take on issue #1, and here he looks at issue #2. He hasn't gotten to issue #3 yet.

I'm stealing this picture from Kevin. I hope he forgives me. It's just too glorious:


I found quite a weird story here: the city of Gallatin, TN, is upset because scenes from a movie - Thong Girl 3 - were filmed in the mayor's office. Two things are interesting about this: it's not necessarily the nature of the movie, just that it's prohibited without the city council's approval; and that this is the third Thong Girl movie! And, of course, this wouldn't be the 21st century unless the filmmaker has a blog (with no bad pictures, trust me!) and you can always go the films' official website. Hey, look! Here's Thong Girl right now:

Fightin' crime ... while wearing a thong.

Chris Sims reads Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose so you don't have to! In case you don't know anything about this comic book, this is a typical panel:

In fact, that might be a bit tame for this book.

Speaking of Chris, he also delves deep into the best-selling comic book of all time: X-Men #1. Wow, I own this book and enjoy it, but he's right - it's kind of goofy.

Dave Campbell looks at X-Statix #24, which features Iron Man and Mr. Sensitive fighting each other ... naked. Whoo-hoo!

Scipio brings us ... octopus love!

Oh, Alan, how could you?

Scipio has also managed to interview Aquaman. Not to be missed! And, he gives us the grooviest Aquaman panel ever:


Jake shows what happens when Green Lantern meets Freddie Mercury!

POLITICAL NUTTERY.

Should we partition Iraq into three parts? I'm sure the president doesn't want to hear that!

Speaking of the War on Terror™, remember Afghanistan? Yeah, it's going into the shitter. Good to know that we care.

Sadly, until the election in a couple of weeks, you are not allowed to criticize incumbent politicians. Welcome to America!

In the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, there's only one thing to do: Shut down the page program. Sure, because it's their fault.

Dick Cheney gets grumpy. I know, shocking.

What you don't know about your prescription drugs might kill you. How nice.

One of Andrew Sullivan's readers spotted a bumper sticker. Here it is:

Spotted, of course, in Portland, OR. I miss my old town!

Keith Olbermann is a shameless Clinton apologist, but other than that, he makes some very good points, like here, when he rips Bush a new one:


I'm sure lots of people have already seen this, but it's still worthwhile: the murder of habeas corpus.


Speaking of which, Glenn Greenwald shows why Bush just doesn't get it with regard to the loss of habeas corpus. Silly man. And, of course, Fox News lies to its viewers about the act. Naturally.

Bush Republicans are all for torture! Good to know. This comes from Andrew Sullivan.

Daddy Dialectic had some interesting posts a while back. Here's one about conservative parenting techniques, one about corporal punishment, and one about why conservatives just don't get it when it comes to kids. It's a very interesting blog all around.

And while we're caring about the children, parents in Kansas are concerned about showing pregnant teens and other bad folk in a high school yearbook. Oh, the horror! The kids will be warped if they see girls getting pregnant! I found this at Education Wonks.

Lots more education links here, including a teacher getting hacked to death in Mexico for opposing a teacher strike. That's just wacky.

The United States gets tough ... on space. Take that, space! Dear Lord. I found this at Wicked Boring.

Wicked Boring also links to this, in which a Democrat is forced to apologize for using the word "slavish" to describe a black Republican's devotion to his party. Because people are just so stupid.

You may have already seen this - the new government signs about what to do in terrorists attacks. Funny stuff. I found this here.

ROCK AND ROLL KOOKINESS.

I found this here: Rock album covers go to war! Someone has too much time on their hands!


INTERNATIONAL DUMBASSERY.

As What Would Tyler Durden Do? points out, the government of Kazakhstan gets grumpy because Sacha Baron Cohen, in his guise as Borat, makes fun of them and calls them stupid. They want him to knock it off! They probably shouldn't spell the word "bank" incorrectly on their currency, then.

Thai lingerie workers wave bras to defy martial law! Those kooky Thai lingerie workers! I found this at Dave Barry's blog.

BLOGGING ABOUT BLOGGING.

The GayProf was tired of blogging for a while (he's back), but in the meantime, he listed some fun things you blog about when you're tired of blogging. And there are videos!

Ragnell makes a good point about blogs.

RANDOM WEIRD BLOGS.

I can't remember where I saw this, but check it out: Hot Chicks on Bikes. Totally work safe, I swear. Not enough posts, though. Let's go!

PRODUCTS YOU WANT TO SPEND MONEY ON.

I know you're dying to buy ... Jesus bandages! If you're dead and you slap one on, do you come back to life? It also comes with a Jesus toy. Who wouldn't want that?

Andy Martello found this:

How can this not be the greatest thing ever?

HALLOWEEN MERRIMENT.

Andy also gives us ten Halloween costumes you can make with the old suits in your closet. My favorite one is the retarded monkey!

Is this a brilliant Halloween costume? Deb Geisler thinks so.

MORE MISCELLANY THAT FITS NOWHERE ELSE.

Mr. Gisby's Totally Gay Pet Shop. Yeah, I'm a bit scared as well. Look around the site!

From YesButNoButYes we get: this web site, where you can put your name in and find out how many people in the country share it. I am the only "Gregory Burgas" in the country! You can also go here, which has an astonishing collection of melons. Yes, melons:


YesButNoButYes also points us to unintentionally sexual video games. Lots of fun stuff.

FINALLY, THE CONTINUED SUBTLE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN ... WITH CHEESECAKE PICTURES!

Gregg Easterbrook is always entertaining, and in last week's column he featured his cheerleader of the week, Laura of the Minnesota Vikings. Two things are interesting about Laura and her web page. First, she claims she is NOT six feet tall ... she's 71 inches. Okay, Laura. Second, click on the link and look at the URL to see how the Vikings feel about their cheerleaders. Interesting. This, of course, gives me an excuse to post her picture:

Yeah, I'm a hypocrite. But at least I'm not a powerful organization like the Minnesota Vikings!

That's all she wrote for this week. Have fun with the links, and we'll see what transpires over the next few weeks before I leave. It's always a fine thing to revel in the madness of the web!

"Arizona ranked dumbest in U.S."

That's the headline at the top of today's Arizona Republic. Nice thing to see first thing in the morning.

Of course, it's just a flashy headline, and the actual story is about a survey that compares the way states educate their children. So it's not that we're dumb, it's that we don't care.

And of course, the state's superintendent of public instruction, is grumpy about the survey.

I'd rant more about this, but I've done it before. The article is interesting, so you can read all about it. The "smartest" states, incidentally, are those Commie places like Vermont and Massachusetts. Stupid Commie states, taking all their citizens' money and spending it on education! That's because they don't appreciate good, wholesome values like "truthiness."

Some good reasons why I don't want to go back into education

You know, I enjoy being a stay-at-home dad. It's neat. But sometimes I think I should go back into the job market and start teaching again. The world thirsts for my knowledge and what I can bring to them!!!! And then I read shit like this:

Embraced by PE programs sport stacking combines concentration, dexterity. That's "sport stacking" as in stacking cups. Very quickly.

I'm not going to linger on this story very long, because once cup stacking becomes a "sport," can thumb twiddling be far behind? Read the article. I saw a few kids stacking cups on ESPN a few months ago. Yes, they're fast. Yes, it might improve dexterity. But why don't these PE teachers teach the kids how to tie their shoelaces? I used to teach plenty of kids who didn't know how to tell time, and the day is coming - mock at your peril! - when high school kids won't know how to tie their shoelaces. Mia's speech therapist told me she hated PE, because she was lousy at it and the teacher - the teacher! - would laugh at her. Instead of making the kids who are lousy at sports stack cups, wouldn't it be better if PE teachers taught them some, you know, physical activity? How is cup stacking going to solve the obesity problem in our country? I'm just asking.

Anyway, that's a minor annoyance compared to this story. Schools in Arizona are beginning to offer a teaching model used around the world that "pushes students to become proficient in two languages, think critically instead of regurgitating memorized answers and learn from a global perspective by studying other cultures." So far, there are 11 such schools in Arizona. Beyond this, elementary students are awarded for picking up litter at a school near the Grand Canyon, community service is required for older students, teachers receive extensive training from the International Baccalaureate organization, from which the program is devised, with common planning periods. The IB organization, which is based in Geneva, started in 1968 for the children of diplomats, and they built a curriculum that would be accepted by universities worldwide.

Sounds groovy, doesn't it? Children should learn more than their native language, and they shouldn't have to simply memorize things by rote. When I taught World History, I told the students that I wouldn't make them memorize dates, because you can always look dates up. I wanted them to understand the forces that shape history and why groups act like they do. I did want them to have a general understanding of when things happened, but if they knew that the Hundred Years' War was fought in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, did I really care if they knew that the Battle of Agincourt was in 1415? I did not. As for other languages, that's just common sense. Spanish is the most obvious important one for people here in the Southwest, but any number of European languages are important, as is Arabic, as is Chinese. So it's all good, right?

Well, shit, of course not. Can anyone guess why someone would be opposed to this kind of teaching? If you said "isolationist, xenophobic bullshit," step to the head of the line! Parents and lawmakers are apparently troubled that a Swiss organization is influencing good old-fashioned American education. In the Upper St. Clair School District in Pennsylvania, the board voted to remove the program from schools, which prompted a backlash from parents and students. Students! Gee, who knew students could be passionate about learning when they weren't just sitting around listening to boring lectures? One board member reportedly said the program went against "Judeo-Christian values." WTF? Since when are schools where we learn Judeo-Christian values? Isn't that what church is for? Jesus Christ, I hate being an American sometimes. In Texas, the Texas Eagle Forum, a conservative group organized by Phyllis Schlafly (yes, it's a Phyllis Schlafly mention!) warned legislators that the program has an international focus and philosophy.

Jesus Christ again. It's shit like this that make me glad I'm not in education currently. If my daughter came home and told me that they were stacking cups in PE, I'd go to school and tell them I would much rather she do something that, you know, raises her heart rate. If my daughter came home and told me that they were stopping her language program and going back to memorizing a long list of U.S. presidents instead of, you know, learning anything about those presidents, I'd be pretty pissed. I do like how American education is in the toilet, but anything that might get it out that has a hint of "internationalism" has to be strangled at birth. Why won't these mouth-breathers die off and let someone else try something? If you want your child to be Bible-thumping, narrow-minded, English-only-speaking, foreigner-hating, jingoistic Bush-lovers, then just home school them. Pump into them whatever ideology you want and leave the rest of us alone. Jesus.

Sorry, I get a little bitter when I think about the state of education in this country. And then I think that the only ones I have to care about now are Mia and Norah. So that makes it a little better.

More teaching stuff, because it's been a while

As usual, the newspaper makes me angry. Why oh why do I read it?

Actually, the story in yesterday's Arizona Republic about the lack of male teachers and principals. This just makes me sad. The story is about how almost 90% of elementary school teachers are women, while 60% of the principals are. The principal thing doesn't bother me that much - it's not even 60%, more like 58.something% - but the teacher thing does. It's not surprising, but it is kind of sad. The paper looks at three separate factors that might be keeping men out of grade schools:

1. The nurturing factor - men don't deal well with nurturing little snot-nosed punks.
2. The pay factor - teachers get paid poorly, and men can find better money elsewhere.
3. The fear factor - men are afraid that they will be accused of inappropriate behavior.

The first one, I think, is a bit of a joke. Yes, the stereotype has been that men aren't comfortable with nurturing children, but I think that has changed in the past twenty or thirty years or so. Whether you think that's a good thing or not is your own personal opinion, but it seems like men have become much better at the sort of parenting that women do ever since women started going to work en masse, which occurred in the 1960s and '70s. Sure, there are plenty of troglodytic men out there who still think they should choose a mate by clonking some babe over the head and dragging her home, but they wouldn't go into teaching in the first place. So I don't buy the nurturing factor.

The second one is pretty valid, I think. Part of it, as the article points out, is that men are often stuck in the idea of being the "breadwinner" in the family, and teaching doesn't give them that opportunity. Why it matters who the breadwinner is has puzzled me for a long time, but it comes back to a stereotypical idea about who goes to work and who raises the kids. Women raise the kids, damn it, and men go to work! I, obviously, think this is silly, and would be perfectly happy to never have a job again - I love raising the kids, even though they drive me buggy occasionally. When it came down to decide who would stay home with Mia, however, the pay was a factor. I was making $30,000 a year at my teaching job, while Krys was making almost double that as a mortgage underwriter. We couldn't live on just my salary, so I got to quit. We are able to survive on Krys' salary, but if we had credit card debt, we would both have to work. Teachers can make good money in some parts of the country - my mom whines about the teachers in her area, who go on strike to raise their salaries to $75,000 a year, but the area where she lives is a lot more expensive. Sure, that's a chunk of money, but for the most part, teachers don't make a lot of money. But it's not a lot of money for women, either. The pay is linked to the stereotype that men need to make a lot of money to be successful. It's not horrible, but it's not enough for "real men."

I also read a letter by someone who criticized Matt Leinart's new contract. The letter simply said (and I'm paraphrasing), "$35,000 for a teacher, $8.5 million for a quarterback." The priorities are screwed up. But that's a stupid comparison, because Bill Bidwill, the owner of the Cardinals, is a private businessman - he can give Matt Leinart whatever the hell he wants. If the people support the NFL and give them gobs and gobs of money, then the players will get a lot. A better comparison would be with Congressmen, who give themselves raises while keeping the minimum wage low and, of course, teachers' salaries. Teachers' salaries come, ultimately, from taxes, and the public shouldn't whine about how poorly they get paid unless they themselves want to give them a raise. Which isn't happening.

The third factor - fear - is "overblown" and "more perception than reality," according to a couple of the male teachers in the story. Maybe. I have spoken about this before, but I don't think you can discount it. I didn't consciously think about it while I was teaching, but it was always in the back of my mind, and I know it wasn't for the women. It's something that adds anxiety to the job, and nobody needs anxiety! Sure, it's probably "overblown," but it's something that all male teachers have to be careful about, and that little bit of stress, added to all the other stress that you have as a teacher, is just another brick or so that you don't need. It might not drive male teachers away, but I would bet a lot of people who consider it think it's far worse than it is, and stay away. Two examples that I don't think I have mentioned before: once at a "yard sale" our school had on a weekend, I sat in a chair between two of my female students. We were on separate chairs and nobody was touching each other. We were just talking. At some point I got up and my boss actually told me I probably shouldn't sit there. We were in public, my wife was five feet away, and I wasn't allowed to sit there. It's just the perception, not anything that actually happened. Another example: at my other school, a rumor went around that one of the girls was pregnant. She was a very good student but had been skipping some days, which never happened. I actually mentioned it to a female teacher, who brought it up to the student, because there is no way I would even consider bringing it up to the girl, even if it was just out of concern. The female teacher actually got in a bit of trouble for it, but I would have been canned, I'm sure.

I wish there were more male teachers, and I'm not really sure how to recruit more of them. Teaching is a great job, and it's important for a lot of kids to have positive male role models. As with every teaching job, more money would help, even just a little. The biggest problem, I think, is the continuing stigma against men as teachers. Even though some of my best teachers were men, even twenty years ago, I think that a lot of people still think of teachers, especially elementary school teachers, as women. It's kind of strange that we still can't get beyond some stereotypes. Until society moves forward (like that's going to happen!), I have a feeling there will be a serious gender gap in teaching. And that's a shame.

Every link must go!

For the past month or so, I have started off every week full of vim and vigor and ready to surf the Internet and find links for your browsing pleasure. And then real life interrupts. The one kid is taking up more of my time (Norah, that is) because she is much more likely to get into trouble while she is wandering around, so I can't ignore her like I used to (ha). When I do get some time (while they are both sleeping), I like to go in the pool, because it's so stinko hot, to quote my mom. So my time is limited. And no one's reading anyway, right? Hello?

The upshot of this is that I have a bunch of links from the past four weeks or so, and I'm clearing them out! No categories, just linking goodness. Have a ball!

Jake breaks down an awful comic book, Warrior, based, apparently, on the wrestler of the same name. It's so awful he devotes many posts to one issue and two more to a separate issue. If you're wondering, yes, Jake is quite ill.

Speaking of Jake, he also shows us what happens when Mr. T fights ninjas. Because you were all wondering.

My pal Roxy has posted pictures of her grand European vacation. Even though I hate her because I am mad with envy, you should still stop by and check them out. They are up in four separate posts. God, I miss Europe.

You are, of course, dying to purchase "Walking With Jesus" merchandise, such as this beach ball:

All my good Jesus stuff comes from Tom Peyer.

Mike Sterling found this picture:

He wonders, "What do they mean, 'match'?"

This was an interesting tidbit that you probably have already seen: the Pentagon lists homosexuality as a disorder. I'm glad we're no longer medieval about these things, aren't you?

Ladies! Haven't you always wanted to wear a yarmulke? Sure you have! Now you can, with ... yarmulkebras! You think I'm joking, don't you???? If there's not a special section of hell reserved for the people behind this, something ain't right. I found this at Ace of Spades.

Did you hear about the Massachusetts senator who attacked Fluffernutter sandwiches? Oh, the evil! He later repented his blasphemy. He didn't know what he was getting into!

Scipio discusses the lack of women heroes and villains in comics and thinks it's okay.

Yes, it's a girl on the beach:


In case you were wondering who you should bow down and worship now that God is dead, Oprah might be a good choice. Why? She convinced Harper Lee to write something for inclusion in O Magazine. Yes, that Harper Lee. The same one who hasn't written anything in 40 years. Dare you question the power of Oprah?????

A. David Lewis explains Why Civil War is dumb and why Civil War is stupid. That's the Marvel summer crossover, by the way, and not our war to free the slaves.

Public service announcement:

I found it here via Pharyngula.

In case you're wondering if civilization is ending, it won't be because you worship Oprah. It will be because a robber is suing his victims after they beat him. That asteroid can't hit us soon enough!

We must protect the children from ... Riverdance!

Scipio wonders if more blogs are devoted to DC than Marvel, and if so, why? A lively discussion ensues!

The always-fun Astrid takes pictures of random people blowing bubbles. If I asked people to do this I'd get arrested, but Astrid is far too charming!

As this is a family blog, I can't tell you what the headline of this article says. (Okay, that's a lie. It's just fun to be surprised when you click the link.) I got this at Blah Blah Flowers.

The State Department's annual report on human rights abuses ignores Guantanamo Bay. Well, that's pretty shocking. I thought that when you commit crimes against God's Chosen Democracy you forfeit all rights as a human being. No wonder Gitmo gets no mention!

Byzantium's Shores links to With Your Mom. Every joke is exactly the same (check the title), but they're still strangely funny.

This links to a video of a creepy marionette show. I found this at Hollywood Tuna.

Dorian shows us this picture and asks:

Who hasn't wanted to smack Dick Grayson every now and then?

Speaking of the Caped Crusader, Scipio points out that Batman is quite the swinger:


Australian television is so cool. Chosha tells us about a documentary she watched recently about the perfect penis. It sounds very graphic and very disturbing.

Today is the World Cup Final, and I don't care because the Americans and Germans aren't in it. Sports, of course, can bring us all together in the spirit of competition, and as the adverts on ESPN keep telling us, Ivory Coast stopped its civil war so that everyone could watch soccer. Then there's Somalia, where two people watching a World Cup match on television were killed by radical Muslim militiamen. Seems television is, I don't know, the sign of the devil or something. I think the Iraq war is as disgusting as anything, but I find it sad that some Muslims actually wonder why a lot of Americans hate them. Might this have something to do with it?

Of course, the Christians here aren't all that rational, either. A debate came up in Congress recently because a Christian movie got a PG rating. Oh, no - a movie with Christian themes got a PG rating! This, my friends, is truly a sign of the Apocalypse.

You can read this article if you like, but it might make your head hurt. It's about a national push for simpler spelling rules, but half of the article is written with words spelled phonetically, and it hurts my head. Things like this anger me as an English teacher, because basically these people are saying that some people are too lazy to learn correct spelling, so we have to make it easier for them. Oh, boo-hoo. English spelling will change the way all languages change - organically. I can't do anything about that, nor should I. But changing a language because its speakers are too stupid annoys me. Spelling is not that hard, people!

Finally, somebody found a dodo skeleton in Mauritius. Well, I think it's neat. I got this from Wicked Boring.

That's it for this week (or month, actually). Enjoy the romp around the world wide web!

Resegregating schools, evil feminists, book banning, my stripper song, what David Bowie thinks of you, and a new religion - all in the links!

Well, it's been a week in which I was able to cruise this wild and wacky world we call the Web, and I thought I would bring you all the goofiness I can stand and let you waste more hours on the computer than you really should. Before we begin, however, make sure you all go ask Kait how her dissertation is going. I'm totally envious of Kait - she is studying at Oxford and becoming a doctor. Here I am raising two kids like a sucker!

Moving on, we'll start with the serious stuff and slowly get weirder. Although politics, I suppose, is weird enough.

"WAS IT OVER WHEN THE GERMANS BOMBED PEARL HARBOR?"

The latest issue of Rolling Stone asks the question: Is George Bush the worst president ever? It's a pretty interesting read. I found the link at Shakespeare's Sister.

Wow. The Republicans are blatantly lying to Hispanic voters. Interesting. Why would they lie so obviously? Do they think Hispanics are that stupid?

Here's a story about a black state senator from Nebraska who wants to resegregate the schools in Omaha. Interesting. Well, if the various races never came in contact with each other, there'd be no racism, right???? I got this from Donklephant.

Speaking of racism, white kids are threatened by other kids - presumably black, but the article doesn't say - and the school district does nothing. I hate to sound like a right-wing crazy, but shouldn't we fight against racism in ANY form? It's never going to get better unless we're willing to call out any racist activity. I read this at Rhymes with Right, a conservative blog I don't read but was led to by Donklephant.

In the wake of the arrests of two Duke lacrosse players (and yes, they are innocent until proven guilty, so I'm not going to comment on it), we get yet another person blaming the obvious reason that women get raped: feminism. Ah, it's all so clear now! I got this from Echidne of the Snakes.

It's been a while since Harry Potter was cited as the cause of why everything in America is going straight to hell, so let's get it fired up again: A woman in Georgia wants them out of the public school library because they're destroying the youth of America! She hasn't, of course, read them. And a 10-year-old girl faxed a letter supporting the books to the school board, saying something interesting: "Never at any time did I think the books were true." Wow - kids can tell the difference between fiction and reality? Shocking! I got this fun nugget at Homo Sum.

And because censorship is all-American, a quite graphic book about manga has been banned from a public library. Charming. Instead of shelving it in the adult section, it just gets banned. This is from Dave Ex Machina, although I've seen it elsewhere too.

Here's an interesting post about how the media hated Al Gore and cost him the election. Lance makes the point that they still don't like Gore, even after they've seen what denying him the presidency illegally has done to the country.

Nuclear energy is excellent! It's pretty interesting. We have one incident twenty-five years ago that showed how well the security precautions worked, and we stopped building reactors. Strange.

Well, isn't this nice: Atheists are denied from holding public office according to several state constitutions. How fun. Good to see we don't force people to worship God or anything. I got this at Respectful Insolence.

This is kind of sad: People are using sex offender lists to find people to kill. Look, sex offenders are vile and disgusting people, but using the registries as a hit list? That might be even worse. Good thing we're protecting the children by allowing them to be killed.

Is the United States turning into the Soviet Union? Hmmm.

We all know about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, right? It's the symbol of those who think intelligent design is a bunch of hogwash - why not teach that the universe was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Well, now comes news that a picture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster hanging in a Kansas school has offended a school board member. Can't have people mocking your unscientific and superstitious biological classes, can you??? I saw this at Shakespeare's Sister.

This is an interesting story about medical studies of marijuana and how the FDA doesn't want to hear about it. It's kind of sad how everything is influenced by politics and what people perceive about a topic rather than facts. Oh well.

Speaking of which, it's a good thing the criminal justice system isn't racist and classist, isn't it?

"WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!?"

These are interesting pictures. They're not safe for work, but they're not too bad. More interesting than outrightly pornographic. I found this at 2 Blowhards.

Exactly what is being implied here?

I found the picture at The Great Motorcycle Pizza Tour by way of Dancing the Polka with Miss El Cajon. Actually, that second link has a great conversation between Chris Cope's brother and a Nebraska State Patrolman. Very funny.

Some interesting thoughts about how women are portrayed in advertising (in women's magazines, mind you, which I've often talked about, because they're so sexualized in magazines not marketed to men), with a link to an essay about the ways women pose in ads.

I found this at Republic of Replicants:

Your Stripper Song Is

Closer by Nine Inch Nails "You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you You let me penetrate you, you let me complicate you Help me I broke apart my insides, help me I?ve got no Soul to tell" When you dance, it's a little scary - and a lot sexy.

What Song Should You Strip To?

Thomas discovers something in his pants.

Sarcasmo comes up with her own swear words.

Gaze ... gaze upon the scantily-clad hotties ... You must ... gaze ...

Okay, now that you've done that, I can sell you something and probably rip you off. Yes, the sight of an attractive woman will affect a man's judgment. Shocking, I know. More here and here (which is from where I stole the picture).

Just read the headline. I bet Laura's happy. This is from Shakespeare's Sister.

"THE GUYS AT THE COMIC BOOK STORE ARE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE THIS."

Killer Moth's tools for stopping Batman! They include:

Pussies.

Jake breaks down a comic book called, I kid you not, The Cross and the Switchblade. It includes this awesome panel:

Nicky is awfully full of himself, isn't he?

"THEY SHOULD CALL IT ROUND-TINE."

Laura Bush scares the children at the White House Easter Egg Hunt. Tom Peyer brings it to us and gets mean and nasty comments from conservatives.

You know what? David Bowie judges you! And so does he. I got this from Blah Blah Flowers.

As I surfed around, at Clew's Blues I found a link to You Drunk As Hell: pictures of drunk people with funny captions. Awesome. Like, for instance:

"When the front door is just too fucking far."

From Drink at Work, we get the actual front page of Friday's New York Post:

How can you not love the New York Post?

Help fight the War on Horror! A sample:
"Immediately following the clearing of the body which was notable for its complete transformation back to its human state, a bi-partisan bill entiteled the Freedom of Inquisition Act was hastily drawn up and passed nearly unanimously in both houses, minus three forced abstentions. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Edward Markey (D-MA), and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) were arrested moments prior to voting and tested on-site for their suspected vampirism by having wooden spikes thrust through their hearts. Federal coroners confirmed that the corpses did not disintegrate into infernal ash, but stated that the politicians' not surviving was evidence enough of their [former] undead status."
There are posters, too!

It's the first picture of Suri Cruise! Be afraid ... be very afraid. It will rule us all soon!

Reasons to change the channel.

From Slactivist we get a handy reference to help you find out if this week's episode of Lost is a rerun.

Haiku about movie characters. Succinct and spot-on.

I can't remember where I found this, so if it was you, sorry for not giving you credit: The New Adventures of Queen Victoria. Damn it's funny.

I found something at Dave Barry's blog. I don't want to ruin it for you. Just check it out.


Bwah-ha-ha. I found it here, but he found it here.

This is a funny story: A man discovers a gift fruit cake from 1962. And in perfect condition!

Tom Peyer linked to this somewhat old but very funny post about, well, it has something to do with this:

That post led me to a follow-up post, which is also funny, but it had a link that I don't think is fake and is definitely not safe for work, but is weird because I haven't heard anything about it, and the person is famous enough that I thought I would have. I'm not going to post it because I have some decorum, but you can go check it out! Anyway, the original posts are very funny.

Here's a letter to this guy's (fictional) ten-year-old son explaining puberty. He has a good reason for writing it, trust me.

Lyle shows us a web page listing all the great things about marriage. Not what the authors intended, probably.

Horrible news segues, courtesy of local anchorman Clive Rutledge.

"I LOVE THE SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE MORNING."

An Oregon man complains of a headache, and doctors discover 12 nails in his head. He survived, by the way.

T. points out some new jewelry:

You see, that's a living cockroach. On that woman's hand. Oh dear. The story about it is here. And you can of course buy it here.

Did this poisoned wife predict her own death? If so, what an awful story. Red Hot Mamma has some thoughts.

"FAT, DRUNK, AND STUPID IS NO WAY TO GO THROUGH LIFE, SON."

I read about a couple of cool sites on Catallarchy: NationMaster and StateMaster. On these sites you can find all kinds of statistics about world nations and American states. From them I discovered that the largest city in Lesotho is Maseru, you're more likely to fall from a cliff in Austria than anyplace else, and Arizona has the second-highest student-to-teacher ratio in the country. I could spend a lot of time at these sites, let me tell you.

More schools are eliminating recess. Sad. I've said it before - kids need recess. It burns off excess energy and makes them less obese!

How we would look if we were designed intelligently. This is from the Anti-Corporate Patriot.

Roger has found a list of words we all need to know: animal adjectives. Don't say Bush is quite like a weasel - say he's "musteline." Impress your friends!

In case you're interested, here's some interesting stuff about the Gospel of Judas.

This is a neat post about whether Jesus actually existed.

"A NOBLE SPIRIT EMBIGGENS THE SMALLEST MAN."

Remember the sculpture of Britney Spears giving birth? Sure you do! What Would Tyler Durden Do? gives us the other view - from the back! I'm not about to put the picture up here, but you can check it out here. It's really not that bad, just ... bizarre.

What the hell is this?

Yes, it's a Kate Moss yoga sculpture!

"MISCELLANEOUS."¹

Here's a fun story: The police arrested a carpenter who likes to work naked. A homeowner came home early and found him in the buff. Man, these people cracking down on the nude carpenters! What would that most holy of all carpenters say? I bet he worked in the nude, too.

On 19 April 1927, Mae West was jailed and fined for putting on a play that "tended to corrupt public morals." I don't believe in censorship, but can't we level some of that olde-tyme morality at, say, Paris Hilton? I found the site at Historic True Crime Blog.

You're dying to buy this book:

Actually, now that I know it exists, I'm dying to buy this book. I found it at an older post on The Columnist Manifesto.

Here's a list of the 50 Worst Albums Ever. Unlike the list of the best albums, I'm not going to comment, but I do own two of them - To The Faithful Departed by The Cranberries (which certainly isn't great, but it's not rip-out-your-eardrums awful) and Midnite Vultures by Beck, which is a very good album and its inclusion on this list makes it all very suspect.

Well, this is weird: Swedish authorities found a man floating on a raft in the Baltic Sea and they can't figure out who he is. The guy is talking, either. Bizarre.

FINALLY, A NEW RELIGION WE CAN ALL AGREE ON.

There is a Goat. There is a Pole. The Goat is on the Pole. I found this at Dave Ex Machina.

So that's all for this week. I hope you enjoy wasting your time as much I enjoyed wasting mine! It's the American Way, after all!

¹ Sorry, I just couldn't think of any good quotes to encapsulate the miscellany.

Let's destroy the United States!

I read a lot of conservative blogs, some for their humor value, because the people writing them are so insane that they make me laugh; some so I can keep track of how serious these people are when they talk about a war on Christians even though, what, 80% of the country is Christian, or how the liberals run things in the country when the Republicans control all three branches of government and homosexuals still can't get married and South Dakota is telling women they aren't in control of their bodies; and some because they're truly scary.

And then there's T.

T. is conservative. T. pisses me off, because he posts very intelligent, articulate, interesting things and he always has something insightful and honest to say about it. He comments a lot over at Comics Should Be Good, too, and he has very good thoughts about the heroic ideal and how DC and Marvel are killing it.

So why does he piss me off? Because he posts these really interesting things, and I disagree on almost every single thing he writes. It's bizarre. He seems like a nice guy, he obviously has a lot on his mind, he backs up his arguments - and I disagree with his opinions pretty much all the time.

Like for instance, this post. T. offers no commentary about the link (I'll get to that), but I have to assume, from his other posts and the fact that he doesn't rip this guy a new one, that he agrees with it. Then I read the article at the link and I almost rip out my own eyes in frustration.

Here's the link. Go read it; it's quite interesting. I'll wait.

...

...

This is a speech that was given in 2004 by Richard Lamm, the former governor of Colorado. He outlines eight methods on how to destroy America - "they" are working on it, according to Lamm. Who "they" are is unclear, but because it's a conservative, it doesn't matter - "they" are probably dope-smoking hippies who force Christian women to have abortions while they televise porn during the family hour on network shows as they sodomize each other and invite illegal immigrants into the country. Bastards!

Lamm says that first we need to turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual or bicultural country, because history shows that no country can long survive this horror. There are a lot of examples of countries that have failed at this, but I would like to point out that the Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire, two of the most successful states in world history, were multi-lingual and multi-cultural.

Second, "they" invent multi-culturalism and claim that all cultures are equal. Then he says that "they" say there are no cultural differences and that minority dropout rates are solely because of discrimination and any other explanation is verboten. Do you like what he does there? "All cultures are equal" and "there are no cultural differences" are not antonyms - not necessarily. What conservatives want to do is claim that white American culture is better than any other culture, not different. Of course cultures are different, but "equal" is a loaded term, because it implies a scale of goodness and badness. All cultures are equal in that no one culture is better than any other. Every "culture" has horrible things that should be eradicated from it. White American culture thinks tying gay people to fence posts and beating them to death is okay. White American culture thinks that if you're not Christian it's okay to kill you. White American culture celebrates movie stars, athletes, and performing artists over teachers, scientists, and doctors. Are these things okay? Maybe Lamm thinks so. "Culture" by itself has no value judgment attached to it. So saying that "they" encourage immigrants to maintain their culture is not a bad or a good thing - it's neutral. Lamm, like Lou Dobbs, must want to end all St. Patrick's Day celebrations. Can't have those damned Irish immigrants maintaining their popish culture!

Lamm also says that if we encourage all these various cultures to keep their own languages and that if we emphasize our differences rather than our similarities, that will destroy America. I hate to tell Mr. Lamm, but Americans have never assimilated people very well. Any immigrant group that came here did not necessarily give up their culture of their own accord - they were brutalized until they did. Lamm mentions this, and thinks it's a damned fine idea. Lynchings of Mexicans will commence until they start speaking English, damn it! Sure, the other groups assimilated eventually, but it took a while. Lamm wants it done today!

His fourth point pisses me off to no end, considering I used to teach. He thinks that in order to destroy America, "they" should make our fastest growing demographic our least educated and create a second underclass of "unassimilated, uneducated, and antagonistic to our population." "They" would then have that underclass achieve a 50% dropout rate from high school. I've said this before, and I'll say it again - achievement in school takes a commitment from the federal government, the state government, the local government, the community, the parents, the administration, the teachers, and the students that we simply do not have. Don't simply blame the students. When the damned liberals and their hippie ways take over our government, blame them. Right now, I blame the ruling party - the idiot conservatives. My students were no more antagonistic toward the United States than any other angry, pissed-off teenagers are. They were far more antagonistic toward authority figures, because they were kids. And those authority figures were failing them.

He moves on to the culture of the "victim," and that we should teach minorities that it's not their fault that they're kept down, that it's the fault of the majority. I get so angry at people who think that there is nothing keeping blacks and Hispanics from achieving. It's the same thing with Barry Bonds - there's no failed drug test, but everyone knows he used steroids. There is very little institutional racism anymore, because it's against the law. What's not against the law is a cop pulling over a Hispanic kid for speeding instead of an older white man. He has to choose, right? There are plenty of people speeding on the freeway, and who should he choose? Of course there is prejudice and discrimination in our society, and of course it's leveled against minorities. I used to ask my kids (the good ones, that is) if they ever shoplifted. They said no, and for the most part, I believed them. I then asked them what they had to do with their backpacks when they went into 7-11, and they answered without hesitating, "Leave them outside." That's discrimination, because they were teenagers. To say that discrimination doesn't exist is idiotic. Of course it's not an excuse, and I would hope that my students would work hard and prove the racists wrong. But it's there. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

Lamm then claims that "they" want to celebrate diversity over unity (anyone else notice a theme?) and stress differences rather than similarities. He again claims that no society in history has been successful when celebrating differences rather than unity and that people who celebrate diversity end up killing each other. Well, yeah, but a lot of cultures that were united failed too. Where's the condemnation of unity that brought about Hitler's Germany? Pol Pot's Cambodia? Stalin's Russia? We can go back further into the past, but those three societies were pretty damned culturally united, and that didn't stop them from slaughtering everyone who disagreed with them. Again, I'm not trying to make the point that one culture is better than another. It's all about how you live in that culture and how you interact with each other. Al-Andalus, the Muslim regime in Spain, lasted more or less 700 years, and they welcomed other cultures to share what they had. I know we're not supposed to praise anything those filthy Muslims achieved, but that state lasted longer than the United States has, and they were pretty culturally diverse.

"They," of course, must then censor any talk about this "problem." Anyone who brought it up would be labeled a racist and a xenophobe and "they" would make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. Again, where do we place the blame for that? At the feet of our federal government, which is run by conservatives. Lamm finishes by saying he would censor Victor Davis Hanson's book Mexifornia, which is apparently about immigration reform. I haven't read it, so I can't speak about it, but apparently banning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn wouldn't destroy American, but banning this book would.

This kind of idiotic shit makes me angry, because I doubt if Lamm is, actually, an idiot. Have you ever noticed that the things that are destroying America are the things that one person just doesn't like? Other things that could have destroyed America: giving blacks equal rights, giving women the right to vote, demon alcohol, television (TV is still working on it, so give it time), electing a Catholic president, allowing American citizens of Japanese descent to wander around during World War II, and the Democratic-Republicans of Thomas Jefferson during the 1790s. Oh dear Lord, the horror!

Here's what I think is far more likely to destroy "America" as we know it than "celebrating diversity": Apocalyptic Christians hell-bent on converting everyone to their own brand of Christianity before the Rapture comes; giving a president dictatorial powers and allowing him to continue with them even after it becomes clear that it's a bad idea; making sure that women are once again second-class citizens; ignoring science that says we're killing the planet in favor of accumulating more insignificant green pieces of paper; allowing companies to merge into super-companies, thereby ruining our free-market economy, which was one of the things that made us "great" in the first place.

I'm sure I've missed some things, but the point is that I think those things are a lot more significant than the fact that a bunch of Mexicans don't want to learn English. Listen, countries fail. They always have and they always will. One of my favorite authors, Robert Kaplan (a conservative, by the way), wrote in An Empire Wilderness that he wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. fell apart quite soon. He made the point that Portland and Seattle have much more in common with Vancouver than they do with the rest of the country, and that it would be logical for the Northwest and the west coast of Canada to combine to create a state that was much more Pacific Rim than North American. The point is not that we need to keep the United States together at all costs, but that we need to reach for the ideals of the Constitution at all costs. That doesn't necessarily jive with keeping the country together. The ideals of equality among men is an eternal concept, while the U.S. is an ethereal thing.

People like Lamm make me angry not because I disagree with him, but because he presents his arguments in such apocalyptic terms. We disagree - fine. But how can you debate someone who uses this kind of language? It's the same thing on the left, and I agree with Lamm on that point - how can you debate immigration reform with someone who simply calls you a racist? But in condemning this, Lamm falls into the same trap, and all debate is squashed. It's a shame.

T. is black, by the way. Or at least I'm pretty sure he is. I seem to remember him mentioning it once. I would LOVE to see him do a post on racism and what he thinks about it. I'm sure I'd disagree, but at least it would be thought-provoking!