A POSITIVE 261 - 09-18-09

My brother has issued a challenge to me – to, let’ see how did he put that, “Find something positive in science, politics or world affairs to write about.”  I have surmised that he thinks me a pessimist and considers a challenge might make me take a long look at my personal cynicism regarding our world.  Well, John, I hate to be the bearer of bad news for you, but, as far as politics and world affairs are concerned, you are pretty much out of luck, for there is not much positive to be said for either.  The best I can really offer you there would be the 9/12 project and the fact that somewhere in the neighborhood of a million or more patriots who want nothing more than integrity in Washington and a government truly of the people, by the people, and for the people which should have been a front-page headline and coverer extensively, yet only received a passing glance by the mainstream media, only really covered by FOX.   In a response to your response, Stephen offered ‘science’ and its posture as the means to discover what remains unknown as the best response to your challenge and I concur.  I also received a response from my friend and guest blogger from yesterday, Tim, and he also shared a bit of news from the field of science that I thought was a truly positive thing.  His email informed me that research scientists have now determined that adult stem cells offer as much usable value as embryonic stem cells, thus removing the need to ‘harvest’ embryos and thereby kill innocent unborns.  Tim touched my heart when he concluded his message to me by these words with which I close, “By the way, in case anyone asks you (or tries to throw this argument at you) here's one guy with Parkinson's who would rather bear that cross than see a life destroyed to lift it from him.”  If that is not positive enough, dear brother, I am at a loss.

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GUEST BLOGGER 260 - 09-17-09

As a follow up to yesterday’s blog, I thought I might invite a ‘guest blogger’ to add some emphasis to my observations of Berkeley students’ responses to history related questions (see Blog 259 OUR UNDOING).  Tim Matherly is my former classmate from Wiley High School in Terre Haute, Indiana who is now an Associate Professor at Florida State University, Tallahassee, and he offered the following response to my blog.  I thought you would benefit from the read, so here is what Tim had to say: ‘There is, sadly, a great deal of truth in your observations. Not only do many of our young people know little of American History, and the values that formed the basis for our government and our institutions, but much of what they know isn't true. Was it Elbert Hubbard who said "It ain't the things I don't know as gets me in trouble, it's the thing's I know that ain't so." I personally work these topics into my course, and I am always saddened by the lack of information so many students have, although I am always grateful for the many who have thanked me for the information. There are several things that I identify as major causes of this sad state of affairs. First is the replacement of History in the public schools with Social Studies, a curriculum that was supposed to integrate fields of study to explore the forces that shape history, but which has given way to a mushed up, politically correct curriculum with less intellectual rigor.  A second factor is the fact that too much of our preparation of teachers is given over the Colleges of Education, where students are taught "how to teach." Look at Undergraduate Bulletins from major universities and see how much of a student's program is occupied with Liberal Studies courses and Ed courses and calculate how much time is left for courses in the area in which the prospective graduates will teach.  A third factor, quite frankly, is often in the quality of students who wind up in teaching programs.  These areas simply don't attract the "Best and Brightest" in too many cases.  The prospect of dragging through those boring but easy Ed classes was a major factor in driving me out of an Ed program as a youngster.  As a result we too often have second class minds who don't even know much history (or economics, political science or anything else) teaching our kids. Tie that to the fact that the teachers have had their minds crammed with Cream of Wheat and you get intense young people who cling to bumper sticker slogans as though they were gems of wisdom, and seem incapable of entertaining a thought that can't fit on a t-shirt.  Speaking of which, one of my favorite bumper stickers - "If U Kin Reed This, Thank a Teecher."  I'd better stop before I go all night on what I think is wrong with education today. Thanks for listening.  Oh, what the heck!  I've got to rant about the lack of discipline. Remember at Wiley, if we wore Weejuns without socks (remember that silly fad) or didn't shave (assuming anyone could tell) we'd be sent home. And nobody back sassed the teachers. Sure, some of our classmates got pregnant, but not in Study Hall.  And we had an atmosphere that you could learn in.  OK, I'm done.”

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OUR UNDOING - 259 09-16-09

Glenn Beck just aired a segment on his program in which a sidewalk reporter questioned about twenty students at the University of California at Berkeley.  On the sun-bleached concrete pathways lacing through this venue of ‘higher learning’, touted to be among the ‘most progressive and free-thinking’ of all college campuses, we were shown consecutive examples of ‘the learned’ of the next generation destined to run this sacred nation.  My heart sank in my bosom upon the realization that few, if any, of these beautiful young people, with their entire lives ahead of them, knew anything significant about the real history of America or, for that matter, seemed to care anything about the former heads of our beloved homeland who had fashioned and formed their own republic.  It seems that gone are the days when memorizing all the Presidents and annually recreating the historical emergence of this land had a prominent place in the classroom.  They have been replaced by a more mindless role of social agenda and of meaningless new age tripe designed with conspiratory guile to lead away thinking minds from the midst of our youth all the while weakening precious blocks of historical foundation and support upon which our future depends.  Educational enlightenment, the last bastion of freedom, is absent from the young and now looms as the undoing of us all.

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NEVER RELENT - 258 - 09-15-09

All over FOX NEWS is the scandal surrounding ACORN, exposed by the fearless actions of a twenty-year old student posing as a prostitute and her partner and friend, filmmaker James O’Keefe, who have literally risked life and limb to expose atrocities, all funded by the American taxpayer.  Instantly, two complicit employees of ACORN were dismissed because of the scandal and funding for the agency has been pulled by Congress – one would expect this kind of rapid response to have the desired effect and send the correct signals – the problem is that the deviant agency is so well entrenched in the corpulent corruption at the highest level that it is not really a big deal for them.  ACORN may close hundreds of locations and seemingly disband all operations and tomorrow another identity will pop up from nowhere, completely funded and in place – the agency might actually end up in the same offices so they would not even be required to shuffle their files in the cabinets.  The only way to truly ‘expose’ this kind of operation and to cripple their covert agenda is to have trustworthy eyes in Washington who are constantly searching out the real values revealed in the mission statements of every single funded program – those who will take seriously the mandate to which they pledged all, yes, ALL the weight of their office to “serve, protect and defend the Constitution”.  Character in office is what is needed but is truly lacking.  Write letters, send emails, let your own officials know that you demand a purity of values in your representatives - that will strike fear in the hearts of those who are corrupt but will serve as a clarion call to action for those who are not.  Persistence will produce the desired results – never relent.

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A SUPPLICATION - 257 - 09-14-09

Cynthia and I have been watching a lot of Glenn Beck on Fox News lately – not normally a fan of sarcasm and cynicism, although Beck employs some of these approaches in his unique demeanor of asking the questions that we all have resounding within us, but never seem to vocalize.  His true wisdom and patriotic passion is revealed in his book, Common Sense, inspired by the title of the same name by Thomas Paine written amid the emergence of this great nation and is included as a postscript to Beck’s treatise.  More than a flag-waver, Glenn Beck is a true patriot, one so deeply loving his country that he allows viewers of his program to observe tears welling in his eyes and a lump erupting in his throat to the point of pause.  Mr. Beck is a man whose passion is the restoration of our consecrated values that framed the Constitution, the absolute foundation of America, the land of the free.   He is looking for 56 Senators and Congressmen who will restore America and I join my prayers with him until the goal is realized, for unless this movement is successful and the glorious greatness of the nation is re-established, America’s true presence shall be forever compromised if even existent.  Please join me by adding your prayers as a call to action, a movement, really.  As stated in an earlier blog, the only thing required for evil to prevail is for good men, men who know what is right, to do nothing.  God Bless America is more a supplication than an anthem.

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WE NEED TO PONDER - 256 - 09-13-09

I love Jimmy Stewart in the old movies – the long lanky and backward stuttery way has endeared him to his audiences, among which I am one of his biggest fans.  I still watch every Stewart movie that shows on Turner Classic Movies as they feature all the oldies and goodies.  Today it was the 1941 classic, “Pot ‘o Gold”, co-starring Paulette Goddard, but it really never mattered who the leading lady was or even if there was a leading lady, as in many of his western genre films, where his closest love was likely to be his horse.  He could be funny like he was in “Harvey”, dramatic as he was in some of the Alfred Hitchcock films like “Rear Window” and “Vertigo”, but my all-time absolute favorite was his role as George Bailey in Frank Capra’s, “It’s A Wonderful Life”, a perennial holiday classic called “favorite’ by many.  I think what makes that film so powerful is that it forces us all to look back over our lives and try to imagine what the world would be like if we had ‘never been born’, a wish that George uttered when life events were overwhelming.  We have all been there, but as Clarence, George’s eccentric guardian angle, wrote to him in the flyleaf of the Tom Sawyer novel he had been reading, “No man is failure who has friends”, a thought we all need to ponder.

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