tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post2144474216658319896..comments2023-09-15T08:07:28.542-06:00Comments on Western Hero: Young People Don't Know AnythingSilverfiddlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13541652236676260219noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-50689011819193895762012-05-25T07:03:01.037-06:002012-05-25T07:03:01.037-06:00"Great post, SF..so well written."
How..."Great post, SF..so well written."<br /><br /><br />How patronizing!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-25347984380287391922012-05-25T02:02:22.669-06:002012-05-25T02:02:22.669-06:00OD357 said...
I agree with almost everything here....<i> OD357 said...<br />I agree with almost everything here. (Liberalman and Bill Maher excluded)<b> But just when you want to write off young people you run into our young adults in the military. The young troops returning from Afghanistan are just as mature and responsible as preceding generations. There may be hope yet. Let's hope the cream rises to the top.<br /></b></i><br /><br />There is a reason for that and it has nothing to do with the relative merits of todays' youth vs. any other. It's the military itself. The way we train to fight and how we learn to survive. Conversely, there are some pretty sorry individuals running around the military. It's always been that way and always will be, I suppose.98ZJUSMChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00835592067007059336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-38979537616167933312012-05-25T01:39:08.797-06:002012-05-25T01:39:08.797-06:00Now I don't know what you do and there's a...<i>Now I don't know what you do and there's a solid chance I couldn't do it very well but I do know that RISD has one of the most rigorous programs in the country especially the first year. If you tried to make it you would last a month before you and the other cultural illiterate, Freethinker, were on the freaking bus back home to momma.<br /></i><br /><br />You know, maybe if you post this three or four more times, someone may believe it. Perhaps, even you will.98ZJUSMChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00835592067007059336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-52193719558226584962012-05-24T16:29:07.815-06:002012-05-24T16:29:07.815-06:00AOW, we have a few parents like that at our school...AOW, we have a few parents like that at our school, but very few, thankfully. <br />I loved it today when I read teacher evaluations and one anonymous kid had written "he makes us work TO hard" <br />Not hard ENOUGH, evidently :-)<br /><br />viburnum, everything you say is true about the union and schools.<br />By the way, many schools in LA are being substantially helped financially by PARENTS....in some pockets of this city, parents actually care and buy computers for the schools, clean, etc.<br />If more parents could chip in, we'd sure be ahead of the game.<br />Did you know 30% of our kids don't graduate high school? You can imagine that another 30% can't really read or write like we did at their age, too.<br />SOmething has to be done and it's sure not letting liberals spend time on sex education and environmental threats.....Let's get them READING again.Zhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15989573357446569262noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-2484798704691535992012-05-24T05:33:31.026-06:002012-05-24T05:33:31.026-06:00Also, along the lines of what I mentioned in my co...Also, along the lines of what I mentioned in my comment just above, the numbers in our homeschool group are shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. My rates aren't low enough (about $400 for a full-year, one-credit high school course) -- and never mind that every single one of our graduates gains admission into prestigious schools of their choice (Those perfect SAT scores, you know). Parents would rather spend their money on other things: new cars for their 17 year olds, expensive vacations, clothes, etc., etc. I'm speaking of parents who earn 6-figure salaries <b>IN ADDITION</b> to their investments, BTW.<br /><br />PS: I will probably be joining the ranks of the unemployed next school term. I won't even be able to collect unemployment because I'm self-employed.Always On Watchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08192688822955022541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-5419463906388150082012-05-24T05:33:17.793-06:002012-05-24T05:33:17.793-06:00Anon: "Republican policies have caused school...Anon: "Republican policies have caused schools and libraries to close, teachers to be laid off, classroom size increased. Hard to educate, if you don't invest money to get the job done."<br /><br /> The US spends 5.7% of the GDP on education which based on last years numbers amounts to 831.63 billion dollars. A higher percentage than either France or England, and just under Switzerland and Portugal. Among the developed countries only the Israelis and Scandinavians outspend us by much. We are 37th on the list but the list is skewed by countries with very low GDP's. Cuba for instance is 1st.<br /><br /> As for classroom size, they are now a third to half the size of when I went to school. We're laying off teachers to preserve the jobs of superfluous administrative drones, the problem isn't the Republicans it's the unions.viburnumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15381796879179539552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-1788481407832358172012-05-24T05:28:22.319-06:002012-05-24T05:28:22.319-06:00As a teacher who does hold the line for high stand...As a teacher who does hold the line for high standards, I can tell you that I am not appreciated by many parents. All that a lot of parents care about is their children being handed good grades so that they can get into a "good college." This attitude has now crept into the homeschool group where I work. Very disheartening for me.Always On Watchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08192688822955022541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-23049562843831198752012-05-24T00:44:31.446-06:002012-05-24T00:44:31.446-06:00I agree with almost everything here. (Liberalman a...I agree with almost everything here. (Liberalman and Bill Maher excluded) But just when you want to write off young people you run into our young adults in the military. The young troops returning from Afghanistan are just as mature and responsible as preceding generations. There may be hope yet. Let's hope the cream rises to the top.OD357https://www.blogger.com/profile/13129455581130598040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-29263301469062443122012-05-24T00:42:49.166-06:002012-05-24T00:42:49.166-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.OD357https://www.blogger.com/profile/13129455581130598040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-40732516157186915012012-05-23T23:28:14.542-06:002012-05-23T23:28:14.542-06:00"You could get 20 out of 20 answers wrong and..."You could get 20 out of 20 answers wrong and still get a D for the piece of paper."<br /><br />Seriously? what a terrible disservice to our kids.Zhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15989573357446569262noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-23071439377519357672012-05-23T23:28:11.193-06:002012-05-23T23:28:11.193-06:00Republican policies have caused schools and librar...Republican policies have caused schools and libraries to close, teachers to be laid off, classroom size increased. Hard to educate, if you don't invest money to get the job done.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-69247963417342107162012-05-23T23:05:23.752-06:002012-05-23T23:05:23.752-06:00Of all the classes my son had, the one he hated th...Of all the classes my son had, the one he hated the most was math. Why? Because your answer is either right or wrong. Says alot.<br /><br />Although I swear there were teachers whose minimum grade provided you turned something in was a D. You could get 20 out of 20 answers wrong and still get a D for the piece of paper.Finntannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09234170229108668040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-40029955757811685792012-05-23T22:37:15.786-06:002012-05-23T22:37:15.786-06:00Finntann: "I think it all started when we sta...Finntann: "I think it all started when we started giving A's for effort instead of for quality of work."<br /><br /> Also doing away with grades and going to a pass/fail system where there is no way to differentiate between excellence and mediocrity, and then hand out 'social promotions' so kids can keep up with their age group whether or not they could do the work.<br /><br />Those go a long way to explaining the current notions that no one should be left out, no one should be allowed to fail, performance shouldn't count, only participation and even a half-hearted effort at that should be enough. When they've been carried through the education system for 12 or 16 years why shouldn't they think the world owes them a living?viburnumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15381796879179539552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-57910859711768162982012-05-23T21:00:34.405-06:002012-05-23T21:00:34.405-06:00Good Grief! I posted, then saw that FInntann had ...Good Grief! I posted, then saw that FInntann had posted at the same time, read his, and want to thank him for the illustration of my comment (and SF's point about esteem, of course!) Nice.Zhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15989573357446569262noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-9325458543908229402012-05-23T20:59:29.339-06:002012-05-23T20:59:29.339-06:00The only thing I think Goldberg's wrong about ...The only thing I think Goldberg's wrong about is that we care what youth think today. Who does? I don't even hear that in the liberal media. <br />Sure, they get tons of press when they get rowdy (well, they DID until they started to defecate on doorsteps, have sex in public, and threaten to blow up bridges, but..), but in general? I think most people have written off this generation.<br />From many videos we've seen, they don't even know who the VP is...or where Iraq is.<br />And that's just the college grads!<br /><br />I love your line "esteem powered youth"...when lefties told teachers self esteem is more important than learning, we started to go downhill....just after prayer got taken out of schools.<br /><br />Look at the picture you used for this piece...and look at the young women of 1950. Is this BETTER?<br />I rest my case.<br /><br />Great post, SF..so well written.Zhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15989573357446569262noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-79420018103283659992012-05-23T20:58:15.349-06:002012-05-23T20:58:15.349-06:00@Why have we moved so far from that?
That's a...@Why have we moved so far from that?<br /><br />That's a very good question. I think it all started when we started giving A's for effort instead of for quality of work.<br /><br />I can recall questioning one of my son's teachers at a parent-teacher conference on why he received an A for a short story that he wrote for an English assignment that was full of grammatically incorrect sentences, misspelled and incorrectly used words, etc. and was told "well he tried so hard".<br /><br />I was also told that they only mark down incorrectly spelled words that were on their vocabulary list. I can remember thinking WTF... he's mispelling words that were on his 7th grade vocabulary list.<br /><br />I can't help thinking that those students who do study hard, use a dictionary, and produce a quality product, when faced with students who don't yet who also get an 'A' must think why the hell am I going to all this effort.<br /><br />My son was not stupid, scored well enough on rigorous tests to get put in advanced placement classes, yet had absolutely no motivation to put forth any effort beyond the bare minimum and was rewarded with good grades.<br /><br />I've also reviewed resumes from people with Master's degrees whose resumes looked similar to my son's English paper. Where do you think those went?<br /><br />I have to agree, we need to return to the rigor of a classical education. My high school curriculum sounds similar to yours and my first year of high school (1980) was the year they stopped offering Latin and Greek. My school had 'majors' and I was a science major, took astrophysics as an elective. My son seemed to spend two or three classes a day in minors. <br /><br />Where did we go wrong?<br /><br />Cheers!Finntannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09234170229108668040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-73161947976491777182012-05-23T20:44:46.492-06:002012-05-23T20:44:46.492-06:00Shaw: You begin with a false premise. Unlike soc...Shaw: You begin with a false premise. Unlike socialism, fascism does not seek ownership of the means of production, just control, you know, like telling airplane manufacturers they can't use their new factories to placate the syndicalists, raiding guitar factories for supposedly violating another country's laws even though that nations say the exports were legit, installing your own managers in car companies...Silverfiddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13541652236676260219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-41634820272795822412012-05-23T20:26:46.062-06:002012-05-23T20:26:46.062-06:00@Silverfiddle - I'll join you as well. K-12 s...@Silverfiddle - I'll join you as well. K-12 should be all classical liberal arts. We should be teaching our kids how to think critically, analyze and form arguments, read critically and write cogently.<br /><br />-----<br />Why isn't it? I went to a working class public high school back in the day and the curriculum included physical sciences, ancient and American history, geometry, algebra, trig, four years of foreign language and English plus art.<br /><br />Why have we moved so far from that?Ducky's herehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14608115001116619877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-30987912314911955552012-05-23T20:05:58.505-06:002012-05-23T20:05:58.505-06:00Finntann: "Our higher education system is fai...Finntann: "Our higher education system is failing, producing graduates that can't even meet the expectations of a secondary education."<br /><br /> I recall reading a column years ago by Walter Williams, about giving his freshman classes the entrance exam from a NJ public high school ( Passaic? ) from the early 1900's. If I remember right, something like 85% of them failed.<br /><br /> I'll see if I can find a linkviburnumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15381796879179539552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-47486656132613759982012-05-23T19:50:40.139-06:002012-05-23T19:50:40.139-06:00"...his [Goldberg] essential point was a simp..."...his [Goldberg] essential point was a simple one: fascists believe in state control of almost everything, and so do liberals. <br /><br /><br />There was one small flaw in this argument, though. Liberals don’t believe that at all. They may favor government action to bail out the auto companies, but they don’t favor government auto companies. There are exceptions, and a liberal belief in government-managed health care may be one of them. But there are more than a few self-described conservatives who believe in that sort of socialism, too — about 70 percent of the American public, according to most polls, supports Medicare in its current form. <br /><br />[skip]<br /><br />But most of Goldberg’s assaults against alleged clichés collapse into irrelevance. He devotes a chapter to undermining “slippery slope” arguments — which, in truth, are used by conservative organizations like the National Rifle Association as often as they are by liberals — but he ultimately decides that “slippery slope” arguments are “not so bad,” and indeed, he trots out an absurd one of his own in the very next chapter: “Liberals are uncomfortable with the topic of patriotism because their core philosophical impulses are to make America a different country than it is.” In other words, the reforming instinct — the progressive insistence that meat be inspected by the government, for example — is inherently un-American because it’s a first step down the slippery slope toward government control? <br /><br />After a while, it just becomes exhausting. “Feminism was in no small part launched as a Trojan horse for an older and more familiar Marxist assault.” And “No Jews were tortured in the Spanish Inquisition” (only “former” Jews who claimed conversion to Catholicism were, but Jews were treated far better by the Muslims than by the Catholics, a fact Goldberg neglects). Gandhi evinced “stunning naïveté” and was, occasionally, “incandescently dumb,” without a mention of the impact of his philosophy on the American civil rights movement or the collapse of the Soviet empire. Does Goldberg really believe this stuff? Or is he just being tendentious for rhetorical effect? In the end, his vindictive thrashings have very little to do with the actual practice of politics; the idea that political clichés are banal isn’t exactly a blinding insight, either. Sadly, Goldberg has intellectual resources that might be put to grown-up use. But then, as the liberal cliché has it, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”<br /><br />Well done by Joe Klein, New York Times Book Review, "The Tyranny of Cliches"Shaw Kenawehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08637273000409613497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-24230732545322281732012-05-23T19:46:10.404-06:002012-05-23T19:46:10.404-06:00@Shaw, *cough* never got past the *cough* dust jac...@Shaw, *cough* never got past the *cough* dust jacket, eh?<br /><br />Me? I don't read dust jackets.<br /><br />My bad, I guess.Finntannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09234170229108668040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-15095534244817395752012-05-23T19:36:20.758-06:002012-05-23T19:36:20.758-06:00Ducky, you know as well as I that RISD is one of t...Ducky, you know as well as I that RISD is one of the premier design schools in the world. I doubt you are offering RISD as a compartive degree to say Peru State College.<br /><br />It is obvious that there are good liberal arts colleges out there and programs that actually teach something. It is also obvious that there are liberal arts programs out there that really don't offer much in the way of anything other than a piece of paper.<br /><br />As far as Jersey's comment, I won't get into a chicken vs egg argument regarding behaviour but between 1920 and 2006 the US population grew 2.8 times and the number of inmates increased 20 times. Most of the growth between 1980 and 2006.<br /><br />There is a significant problem with the US justice system when what is supposed to be the freest country in the world also has the highest incarceration rate (.743), when by comparison Russia (second highest) has a rate of .577 and mean old communist China has a rate of .120.<br /><br />As a libertarian I might point out that the incarceration rate parallels the growth and power of the state.<br /><br />As to more erudite and better educated, perhaps that is true if your sole measurement is the number of college degrees. I think if you actually tested them that allegation would fall flatly on its face.<br /><br />Our higher education system is failing, producing graduates that can't even meet the expectations of a secondary education.<br /><br />If your measure of a successful education is the inability to perform simple mathematics, incompetency in your primary language, and the lack of autonomous performance and self-sufficiency, well then sure.... they're better educated. <br /><br />Cheers!Finntannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09234170229108668040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-7936827316721857012012-05-23T19:33:24.722-06:002012-05-23T19:33:24.722-06:00Yeah, kinda like Obama's publisher printing th...Yeah, kinda like Obama's publisher printing that he was born in Kenya...<br /><br />Progressives hate Goldberg for his great work, Liberal Fascism, so they nitpick around the edges because the book itself is unimpeachable.<br /><br />@ Ducky: <i>Sounds like a call for the return of the classical education. I'll join you. </i><br /><br />I'll join you as well. K-12 should be all classical liberal arts. We should be teaching our kids how to think critically, analyze and form arguments, read critically and write cogently.Silverfiddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13541652236676260219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-19978058045735422222012-05-23T19:24:32.841-06:002012-05-23T19:24:32.841-06:00Seems to me that a values neutral medium rushing t...Seems to me that a values neutral medium rushing to fill a vacuum might have had a little to do with it, especially since the values neutral medium has expanded from controlling 1/3 of the economy to 2/3's in the last 50 years.Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-26158843937433114752012-05-23T19:06:08.318-06:002012-05-23T19:06:08.318-06:00“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners,...“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.” <br />― Socrates <br /><br /><br />Jonah Goldberg:<br /><br />"Conservative author Jonah Goldberg has an impressive resume. He is the founding editor of National Review Online and its current editor-at-large. He’s a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.<br /><br />But take a look at the dust jacket of his latest book, “The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas,” and you’ll find another accolade: two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee.<br /><br />The problem? Goldberg has never been nominated for a Pulitzer. His work has simply been entered. “I’ll check it out and have ‘em remove it if you’re right,” Goldberg told msnbc.com, who first reported the story. “Happily. If it’s not kosher, I shouldn’t have it in there. Period.” Goldberg did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment. <br /><br />The book’s publisher, Penguin Group (USA), insisted it was an “honest mistake.”<br /><br />In a statement provided to TPM after the msnbc.com report, Adrian Zackheim, president and publisher of Sentinel, a Penguin imprint, said: “There’s no conspiracy here, just an honest mistake at worst. In casual conversation, whenever a news organization submits one of their writers for a prize, people say that person was nominated. By that standard Jonah Goldberg ‘has twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.’ You’ve brought it to our attention that the Pulitzer authorities don’t approve of that usage, and that technically Jonah was ‘entered’ but not ‘nominated.’”<br /><br /><br />Yeah. An "honest" mistake. He didn't read the dust jacket? I'm friendly with people who've had books published. Believe me, they know EVERYTHING that's going into the dust jacket.<br /><br />Around 2003/04, I had an encounter with Goldberg via email where I brought his attention to a mistake in something he posted on his blog--he misquoted a Democrat on the Iraq war. He finally took the quote down, once it was proved he misquoted the person. I wish I had kept the emails. <br /><br />Anyway, I've found Goldberg is less than *cough* honest *cough* in a lot of what he writes.Shaw Kenawehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08637273000409613497noreply@blogger.com