The American’s Creed

I got a book yesterday, a 1948 edition of the Boy Scouts of America Handbook for Boys. I have a feeling there’s nothing about gay scoutmasters mentioned anywhere in it.
Here’s something I did find:

I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy within a republic; a sovereign nation of many sovereign states; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice and humanity, for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
I therefore believe it is my duty to my Country to love it, to support its constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its Flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

That was by William Tyler Page. I wonder if this is in the newest edition of the BSA’s handbook, if they still publish a handbook. Absent a shared, organic culture, we need these kinds of coalescing creeds and stories that impart values to the children. That serve as a great Moral Compass for us as we wend our way, a nation of many different peoples.
For example, too many people don’t understand our system of government. People who have grown up here and supposedly been taught it at school. People who react with incredulity at the Electoral College and have no idea why it’s in place even though we’ve been electing Presidents that way for ever.
People who don’t understand the difference between a democracy and a republic and what type of government either one engenders. People who don’t understand that we elect democratically within a republic. People, in other words, who have never read or recited the above Creed.
Here’s the answer to the question “what’s the difference between a republic and a democracy” that I just this second read:

one is a form of government where at[sic] the other is a system is the real answer but democracy doesn't exist

The person who wrote this is 23-years-old. A native-born American. If this doesn’t shake what remains of your hope for America, what would I wonder.
A child reading this ex-classroom would be naturally inclined to ask what the line about a democracy within a republic meant and therein lies a teachable moment as the blowhards say. No one reads this kind of stuff anymore. And they all end up like the 23-year-old who thinks democracies don’t exist.

Word Cliff

Look at this list of words:

I, you, me, us, ugly, dumb, power, life, don’t, can’t, will, shall, powerless, are, is, won’t, aren’t, die, live, life.

If all you had were these words, and you were forbidden from using any others or even from knowing there are others available for use, imagine the kinds of conversations you could have. It isn’t hard to see that your cognitive ability, much less your very imagination will be stagnant and perhaps even regress.

It will be impossible to “see” anything not immediately describable by the contents of your word store. You will be literally literally lost, unable to break out of that mental prison and all because your vocabulary is stunted.

Now this is not a post to advocate you increase your vocabulary. No. It is a post to decry—uselessly, I’m sure—the practice in this country of outlawing words by convention. We have been convinced to accept a basket of words with the finger-wagging admonition that the use of any words not in that “safe” basket will result in proscription.

What results is the virtual certainty that no original thought is possible, at least not without paying the price and in a society in which payment—monetary or otherwise—is too high a price at whatever the price, almost no one will pay it. Those who do have their heads stuck on poles around the city’s walls as a warning.

We become suited thus to meander around the veld of our lives, “safe” in the herd. Our outlook of any danger blocked by the close view of the other sheep in the herd. We certainly can’t see the culling of the outlying sheep by wolves, and we’re too far inside the comforting milieu of society to hear the terrifying, dying bleats of those outliers.

Even those who, by dint of natural intelligence—the equivalent of a sheep born with a longer neck, perhaps—are able to see that in the distance, sheep blood is mixing with dust and terror, but their strained gushing comes out packaged and tightly bound in those limited words. Even if they were to find other words, no one around them would understand ‘those’ words and so our Cassandras’ warnings fall into  brains incapable of processing them. It then becomes only a matter of time before the sheep in the middle meet the same fate as their brutalized outlier cousins.

The ingenuity of limiting verbiage—and softly enforcing such limitations by ensuring teachers are worse every year—is that sometimes even those “special” sheep cannot, cognitively, understand what it is they’re seeing. They simply have no suitable words to think with. The very thing that differentiates humans from the lower animals, our ability to think our way out of trouble is impaired. Death results.

Many times, and here truly, is where that evil ingenuity reaches its apex: a few sheep assiduously strive to better their vocabularies, despite the pain of punishment and ostracism. They have gathered enough words and they have honed their cognitive ability. Alas, what they lack is the ability to make words connect to each other in critical ways and so they come to the wrong conclusions, warning about the wrong things if they do at all. This is like hobbling Usain Bolt at the ankles. All those powerful upper-leg muscles become ineffective because the road-meeting feet are incapable of translating potential energy to kinetic, Olympic gold winning energy.

As always, death results.

They Call Me Mr. Bombastic

This is the kind of needlessly fluent, pompous language that makes simple concepts overly difficult to understand:

The FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] defines Aeronautical Decision-Making as a “Systematic approach to the mental process of evaluating a given set of circumstance[sic] and determining the best course of action.”

This sentence is not one that will flow easily through the brain. There’s guaranteed to be a few mental potholes and speed bumps as this tormented sentence stumbles its way through the eyes and up the brain. “Em, Syste-what now?”

Imagine reading sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph of this convoluted English and bureaucratese? I’m tired just imagining about it. Let’s try editing it down to size for comprehension, why don’t we—bear in mind I’m no editor, I’m just confused:

Here’s the FAA’s again:

Systematic approach to the mental process of evaluating a given set of circumstances and determining the best course of action.

Let’s start cutting out the superfluous words:

Systematic approach to the mental process of evaluating a given set of circumstances and determining the best course of action.

I’m still determined to simplify it a bit further. Circumstances is such a gigantic oaf of a word, isn’t it? How about:

A process of evaluating a situation and determining the best course of action.

I still think I could strip out a few words and still keep the idea intact and less wordy. Let’s try this:

A process of evaluating a situation and determining the best action.

There, how about that? Doesn’t it make a tad more sense? By cutting out the grandiose terms and keeping it simple, anyone indeed can read that sentence and come away with a pretty good idea of what the FAA (should have) meant when whichever drone of a technical writer they employed composed that tortured definition.

I charge $300 an hour, FAA.

Manimal

Once upon a time there were two animals …

1. The Great White Shark, Carcharodon carcharias, is an animal.
2. The Human Being, Homo sapiens, is an animal.
3. The males of the species Carcharodon carcharias copulate with the female of the species.
4. The males of the species Homo sapiens copulate with the female of the species.
5. A male Carcharodon carcharias forcibly copulates with a female of the species.
6. A male Homo sapiens forcibly copulates with a female of the species.
7. The male Carcharodon carcharias forcibly copulates with the female.
8. The male Homo sapiens rapes the female.
9. The male Carcharodon carcharias is an animal.
10. The male Homo sapiens is an animal.
11. What is or are the philosophical difference(s), if any, between 7 and 8?
12. If there is or are any philosophical difference(s), what is the grounding for it or them?
13. If there isn’t or aren’t any philosophical difference(s) between 7 and 8, why not?

Latina Pro Populo

This article in the UK Spectator makes a very good case for learning Latin at the “primary school” level—as elementary school’s known in the fair isles.

Here’s a key quote:

“Those kids are learning through Latin what I did: what verbs and nouns are, how to coordinate ideas in speech and writing, all the varieties of ways of saying the same thing,” he says. “I did not and could not have learned that through English, because English was too familiar to me. It was through Latin that I learned how to express myself fluently in my native language.”

Interesting, and of course I agree!

Oh, You Want Reasons?

Reading Verily, Verily, a book which recounts the circumstances around which the translation of the Bible into “vulgar” English that became the King James Version is a true delight for any number of reasons. If you’re a historian, it’s a careful study of the conditions which precipitated the translation, and if you’re a lover of language, there’s a smorgasbord of delights in it.

Here’s an excerpt I just finished this morning, thought enough of it to copy here:

Translation into the vernacular is necessary, they [the translation committee] conclude despite any possible objections. “But how shall men meditate in that which they cannot understand?” they plead. Even if a person reads and understands Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, that person must understand that the vast majority of Christian people cannot. Beautifully, the translators continue their case; it’s easy to see how there were a few poets on the committees:

Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curtain, that we may look into the most holy place; that removeth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water; even as Jacob rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, by which means the flocks of Laban were watered. Indeed without translation into the vulgar tongue, the unlearned are but like children at Jacob’s well (which was deep) without a bucket or something to draw with; or as that person mentioned by Isaiah, to whom when a sealed book was delivered with this motion, “Read this, I pray thee,” he was fain to make this answer, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”

Pretty good, aye what?

By the way, the title of this post is uttered by none other than Samuel (don’t forget the L.) Jackson in Jackie Brown. A good Saturday to ye!

Adverts

Or commercials are you provincials know them. As in: almost all US adverts suck rotten eggs. Luckily, the Brits are incredibly marvelous at producing imaginative and above all, ironic commercials.

So if there are any of you ‘Ad Men’ or women reading this (fat chance, I know), allow me to point you in the direction of the Top Gear ‘Best Car Ads’. Notice the almost effortless, simple, sometimes bizarre way these commercials transfer the need and want to buy via the TV.

Also: notice with what aplomb the accompanying descriptions simply introduce then with that light touch of Englishness, for lack of a better description, snarkily tosses it your way. Now go and do likewise.

Enough jibber jabber, go forth.

Black And Beautiful

I was laughing my lard butt off this morning when I read this article by Jay Nordlinger of National Review:

As I often, maybe too often, point out, we Americans are seldom more ridiculous than in our language, and we are never more ridiculous than when our language is racial. You may remember an instance from the 2002 Winter Olympics. I have written about it more than once. An American woman won a gold medal in the bobsled, and she was the first black woman ever to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics.

But NBC, the network covering the Games, had no way of communicating this fact to its viewers. Why? Because it had banned, at least de facto, the word “black.” So the NBC people were reduced to saying, “She’s the first African-American woman from any country to win a gold medal.” Yes, and that includes the African-American women in France, Nigeria, Australia, and so on.

And sic semper to those idiots who insist on contorting language to make themselves feel better.

(Thanks, Tom)

The Goode Things

Mike Judge’s new cartoon series The Goode Family is a remarkable thing considering its very existence in our political climate. Judge does it again and I can only hope for its continued success in skewering those ninnies on the eco-Left.

As George Will states,

"The Goode Family" does not threaten Jonathan Swift's standing as the premier English-language satirist. But when a Goode child apologizes to his parent for driving too much, and the parent responds, "It's okay . . . what's important is that you feel guilty about it," the program touches upon an important phenomenon: ecology as psychology.

The fact this series even exists points, I hope, to the impending (and welcome!) death to the hyper-surreal Green Movement which has no stake in reality.

ON a completely unrelated note, in clearing out unused files from my computer I found this in a PDF.

i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
iii. If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out.
iv.Never use the passive where you can use the active.
v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

This is of course George Orwell’s famous six elementary rules from his worthwhile and enduring essay, Politics and the English Language, 1946.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Disconnect

Sometimes I forget it's been a very long time since American High Schools stopped requiring the tutelage of the Trivium. For a long time even colleges and universities didn't require the study of Logic except in a breezy, unfocused way!

The products of such schooling now populate the country, wholly unprepared to handle the barest minimum of critical analysis. Heck, let's not even go that far. How about we start with comprehension?

Simple comprehension of a language spoken from childhood?

I can understand missing the point of oral communication. It's difficult, even on the best of days, to grasp meaning and nuance in verbal intercourse. But when that communication is written, when one has the time to read, to closely read and understand… what's the excuse then? I don't understand.

And yet, even more perplexing: when that reader is a playwright. A produced screenwriter. One automatically assumes a fundamental, if not a thorough knowledge of the language. Fuck logic (however sacrilegious the thought), a playwright works with words, sentences, language, syntax. If anyone, anyone, should have the highest standards, surely it would be a writer?

This dying day witnessed one of my intermittent “Inter-rant” arguments with a guy, a writer who lives in New York. What were we arguing about? Oh, the usual (see earlier posts).

However, that bone of contention itself isn't important, nor is it the topic of this post. It's the fact that a writer, a produced writer, a professional writer, could eviscerate the language so. Could quite effectively, barbarously miss the point, a rifleman's shooting equivalent of an incapacity to hit the proverbial barn side from five feet. As if he were trying to miss deliberately! For example, in a comment on his blog, I wrote:

“As for my so-called racism, you really need to understand what it means to be one. First, there’s a huge difference between discrimination, prejudice and racism and one does not follow the others in whatever combination. Second, according to the only dictionary worth its salt (OED), racism is the theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race. Using this definition, it’s easy to state I am not a racist. What I am is biased: I think the philosophy of the modern liberal is defunct, bankrupt, and more than that, dangerous.”

To which he replied:

So I don’t have a “race”? That’s ridiculous. Of course I do. I don’t check “NA” Not-Applicable” on my forms when it asks for race. I am compelled to check Caucasian.

I've analyzed my paragraph a few times. I just don't see how, even high on Peyote, anyone could misinterpret the meaning of any of the various sentences in that paragraph to arrive— more like crash land—at his conclusion.

Here's the first sentence again:

“As for my so-called racism, you really need to understand what it means to be one.”

How many different ways can the reader attach meaning to the above sentence? Chopping off the first clause:

“… you really need to understand what it means to be one.”

One, what? To what am I referring? What is the subject? What am I talking about here? Obviously, racism.

Translation: You really need to understand what it means to be a racist.

I went on to define racism, to gain some common ground. Then, based on that definition, I wrote:

… it's easy to state I am not a racist. What I am is biased: …

Translation: it's easy [for me] to state I am not a racist. To continue the theme, I reinforced it with “What I am is biased.” Perhaps I should have written: “What I am, instead of racist, is biased.”

Again, I don't understand how one could get from that the statement, the conclusion that I meant to say: “You don't have a race!”

I would expect this sort of wild misapplication from a beginning student of English from The Maldives or a five-year-old, but certainly not from a writer.

There are more of these kinds of miscues, I just chose the main one. Perhaps the reader may have been in a turbid state, perhaps. Or experiencing a Grand Mal.

Here's one another example:

This guy claims he’s not racist, yet he then slanders everyone who lives in a certain area. Because, you know, there’s too many of the wrong kinda people who live here, I guess, I dunno.

Admittedly, this one's more of a logical fallacy but it reveals a certain inadequate infantilism with the manipulation of words and their meanings. In this statement he conflates racism with slander then, realizing there's a disconnect, attempts to buttress this weakness with a throwaway statement, which even on its surface, is also illogical. Of course, the sentence's ending with “I dunno” is not meant to be ironic.

Let's break this down a bit:

“This guy claims he's not racist, ...”

Right. Now following, he's going to show why I am indeed a racist because…

“... yet he then slanders everyone who lives in a certain area.”

It doesn't take a breaking stretch of the imagination to know that New York City's (the referenced city) residents are a multitudinous melange of races. He doesn't point out which particular race I'm supposed to be racially prejudiced against, just “everyone” whose only qualification happens to be an unhappy choice of home location, as if racism has everything to do with geography instead of, you know, race.

I say again: incredible.

I'll leave it at that, and chalk this up to a vigorous sharpening of knowledge and will by attrition. I've posted enough for the rest of the week anyway.

Good night!

Pre-plan

I hate that made-up word. It's everywhere now, together with its “pre-” brothers and sisters like pre-pay.

So what does it mean exactly to pre-plan? Planning per se is an activity that is done before activity. So then, to pre-plan is to plan before planning?

Perhaps I'm just obtuse in my old age?

Bah humbug, I'm off to pre-piss.

Choosing A Major

Here is a very important piece of advice: Be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers.

This means you must *not* major in mathematics, physics, biology, or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts. If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with *exactly* the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed on. Scientists are extremely snotty about this.

So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology, and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts. I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a quick overview of each:

ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in *your* paper, *you* say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland. Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English.

PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs.

PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams. Psychologists are *obsessed* with rats and dreams. I once spent an entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing. The rat learned much faster. My roommate is now a doctor. If you like rats or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in psychology.

SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: "Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant.

 

Thank you, Dave Barry. You rock! Heheh…

They're/Their/There

I can only blame the teachers. And the parents; let's not forget the parents, who all to often don't know the difference themselves. The American educational system is profoundly broken, yet the Teachers Unions want to be paid better and furthermore, never be taken to task ever, even as they're graduating students who don't know the difference between these three sentences:

1. They've forgotten their bags.
2. They've forgotten there bags.
3. They've forgotten they're bags. 

In response to the next atrocity of language in re the topic, I'll send the offender the following quiz and require a 100% passing grade before I reply.

I am prepared to make many (more) enemies.

Doublespeak

Layoffs

Micron, the local bigwig company which hitherto employed about 11,000 people in the Boise area (I think that number's accurate), began layoffs this morning.

When asked to confirm, their media relations department gave this statement to a local news site:

“Micron is pursuing a number of initiatives to drive greater cost efficiencies and revenue growth across its operations. These initiatives include developing production cost efficiencies closer in location to Micron’s global customers, evaluating functions more efficiently performed through partnerships or other outside relationships and reducing the company’s overhead costs to meet or exceed industry benchmarks.

With extreme declines in pricing for Micron products, the company must examine its overhead cost structure to effectively compete in key markets. Micron is taking a critical look at what components are the right fit in this business environment. Through this assessment and in line with the company’s initiatives to drive greater cost efficiency and revenue growth across its operations, we’ve determined that some workforce reductions in certain areas of the business will occur as we realign the business. Workforce reductions are always difficult, but these initiatives are being pursued to support the long-term global viability and competitiveness of the company.”

Umm, what?

Why, O why, must these people talk like retards? “Initiatives,” “drive cost efficiencies,” “closer in location,” “evaluating functions more efficiently performed through partnerships.” God help me. No wonder the company's fucked.

They might as well have put out a statement like this: “Blah blah blah, blah, blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah! Blah blah blah,” for all the sense that earlier one made.

How ab0ut doing something refreshing and speak like a human being: “we've had to fire some of our employees because we are having difficulty selling our products, for which the prices have fallen mainly due to severe competition from abroad, particularly Asia. We are sorry to have to do this, but it is the best chance we have of streamlining our operations and reducing operating costs right now. In the future, we will investigate certain other options, such as entering partnerships or opening factories closer to our customers, so that we can be competitive."

Or something. Tossing enough crap words in the air hoping to confuse is like pouring salt on injury.

Old Books And History

I visited a bookstore in Moscow, ID and found two books printed, one in 1959 and the other in 1960 by The Macmillan Company. They are two parts of a series of textbooks on Latin titled, somewhat appropriately, Latin For Americans Books 1 and 2.

I spent almost an hour browsing through the store, but didn't find anything interesting until I saw these two. They were quite used and tattered, the second of the two had a battered, ground-up top right edge, almost like it'd been dropped from a car. They were both cheap enough ($2 and $5) that I didn't think twice about buying them.

The authors were B. L. Ullman, who was the Kenan Professor of Classics and Chairman of the Department, University of North Carolina, and Norman E. Henry, late Teacher of Latin, Peabody High School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Apart from the "curio" effect of buying them, none of my books are just that: every one of my books are to be read, pored over and studied. At least, that's always the original intention anyway.

The introduction to the first book, Book 1, made me glad I bought them. It starts out, as most textbooks do, with the usual "What's new in this edition?" then, like a ray of sunshine, this:

As in the two preceding editions of this book, the title Latin for Americans is based on some of the leading features of the book. Among these are the comparisons between ancient and modern life in the "Glimpses of Roman Life" and in the reading selections; the emphasis on the American way of life, good citizenship, and democracy throughout the book; the prominence of the English word studies, which occur in every lesson; the emphasis on correct grammatical suage in English; the many illustrations of American buildings that imitate the ancient models and of other American material; the quotation of Latin phrases used on American buildings and as American mottoes; and the listing of American towns, firms, and organizations having ancient names. It is firmly believed that this book, by making young Americans more deeply aware of their cultural heritage, will help make better Americans. [My emphasis]

And this is in a textbook for heaven's sakes! Would you believe such wording in any textbook today? This is a book written by tutors who understand that it is the job of academia to instill not only superficial knowledge, but knowledge in and for the greater good, that of making better Americans. This is fantastic!

And just as suddenly, my elation at this suddenly melted into a puddle of gloom when I realized that this book which was printed in 1960, is now no longer relevant. Not only for the reason that it teaches a "dead" language, but that it is no longer "relevant," cast to the great dust heap of History as so much junk. Any textbook author daring to write such ignominy would very likely lose their job and any publisher their reputation.

How dare you write anything positive about American culture? Don't you know, sir, just how bad we all are? All of us Indian killers, world meddlers. Nay, nothing but self-flagellation for us because We. Deserve. Nothing. Better!

How far we've come. How low.

Cousins

In honor of chatting with two of my first cousins today for the first time in a very long time, the definitive cousin chart:

Um?

I am thoroughly confused. There's a school in Seattle called the Hilltop Children's Center. It's an interesting school, to be sure. According to this article, the teachers are using some innovative teaching methods to teach about the supposed evils of private property ownership. Yes, you read that correctly. Here's an excerpt:

According to the article, the students had been building an elaborate "Legotown," but it was accidentally demolished. The teachers decided its destruction was an opportunity to explore "the inequities of private ownership." According to the teachers, "Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation."

The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown "their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys." These assumptions "mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society -- a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive."

They claimed as their role shaping the children's "social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity ... from a perspective of social justice."

Um? It continues:

At the end of that time, Legos returned to the classroom after the children agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that "All structures are public structures" and "All structures will be standard sizes." The teachers quote the children:

"A house is good because it is a community house."

"We should have equal houses. They should be standard sizes."

"It's important to have the same amount of power as other people over your building."

Is Stalin alive and well, and the Principal of Hilltop? Is this a Communist Russia indoctrination camp circa 1949? Shudder!

Reading a page on the school's web site, I understand they have what they called an emergent curriculum, which usually means they give out picture stickies of fruit and animals in lieu of actual grades.

"What did you get in Social Justice Mathematics, Johnny?"

"A pear!"

"Wonderful, Johnny, but you should really try for a Baboon."

Ugh!

According to them:

At Hilltop, we don’t plan our curriculum weeks or months in advance, as is typical in most child care programs. Instead, we grow curriculum in collaboration with children and their families. This approach is child-centered and inquiry-based. We observe children and take cues from them, providing stimuli and provocation to encourage exploration, analysis and reflection.

Child-centered, eh? What if the child--like I didn't--doesn't like reading or maths? Or if all they want to do is play video games? Or smear crap on other children's faces, or eat paste? Just what kind of curriculum guidance does that give these nincompoop teachers?

And if you take curriculum guidance from the children, who exactly is the teacher and who is the student? There's just so much wrong with this picture, I pity the children most of all.

The retardation continues:

At Hilltop, we are committed to growing curriculum from children’s questions and pursuits, and from our understandings of social justice, anti-bias education.

Social Justice, Anti-Bias Education? Whatever happened to English Literature and Grammar, World History, Geography, Mathematics and Science? I'm speechless, the leftist indoctrination camps continue their nefarious work, and I'm speechless.

The Sky Is Falling!

E-E D

I received my copy of the Evasion-English Dictionary today; I liked this small book so much I couldn't see not getting a personal copy. The library's will be going back this weekend. I've already blogged about this book before, but here's another entry I really like:

does = doesn't
Hindsight is 20/20? So is insight

Does this dress make me look fat?

In the history of that question, only a fool has answered yes. Yes isn't an option. "Does this dress make me look fat" is not a yes-or-no question. It's a no-no question. Those are your options.

It's also a classic does question, setting up the listener to be not a yes-man but a no-man: "Nooo, that dress doesn't make you look fat. What? Fat? I can like, barely see you, you're so thin in that dress!"

I always feel glued to the floor when somebody hits me with a does question that turns out to be an end-run around the word yes. "Does this dress make me look fat" is the most trivial of the does questions, so go ahead, ask me the question, I'll tell you the lie. Reassuring you about your looks carries no down side.

But the stakes are higher when the does question comes in the form of "So I made one stupid mistake. Does that make me a bad person?" This question often elicits from the listener reassurance or sympathy about behavior that the listener might consider stupid or unwise or even appalling. The most unsettling does questions come up in our various arenas of confession. Talk shows--our monster markets--give occasion to people who unabashedly confess, apologize profusely, indulge in a good brawl, and then wrap it up neatly with the question, "One mistake! Does that make me a bad person?"

Any heartful person wants to check the impulse to say, "Yes, yes it does," and might prefer to keep silent, but silence isn't an option when you're buttonholed. The does question is faux-rhetorical; the speaker wants a hug, so the listener ends up lying instead of lying low.

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does = doesn't

I thought I could entrust my children with him. He'd been so good with them. Am I a bad parent because I take some time for myself every once in a while? You know, I'm not old; I like to go out too, just like everybody else. Does that make me a bad person?

So I made one stupid mistake. I said I was sorry. Believe me; if I could take back the past twelve years, I would. I wasn't mature enough to handle the responsibility of a family, and I didn't have the brains to think about it beforehand. Things just got out of control. I just made one mistake. Does that make me a bad person?

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"If you don't consider what happened in Oklahoma, Tim is a good person."

--Michael Fortier, former Army pal of Timothy McVeigh, at the Oklahoma City bombing trial.