You know it’s time to homeschool when…the school nurse is named “Ratched.”
Today, blogger Glenn Reynolds wrote, “You know, I’m beginning to think that sending your kids to public schools is starting to look like parental malpractice.” On the way to the decision to home school my son, I reached the same conclusion years ago, and nearly every day brings more evidence to support the decision. Here, for example, are two recent news stories, one alarming, the other horrifying: Continue reading
Go ahead: tell him that recipes are trivial.
The Elizabeth Warren recipe plagiarism is turning into a fascinating study of whether objectivity and fairness can survive partisanship. So far, the results are depressing.
There is increasingly persuasive evidence that the recipes contributed by “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee” to the cookbook “Pow Wow Chow” were not Native American recipes passed down over generations as Warren represented them, and that she 1) knew this and 2) intentionally misrepresented and disguised their origins while lifting them, barely altered, from other published sources. Faced with this, Warren supporters are falling back on classic rationalizations rather than accepting, reluctantly, the obvious import of the data: their candidate is an untrustworthy faker.
Howie Carr, the Boston radio talk-show host who initially uncovered the plagiarism in “Pow Wow Chow,” reveals more details of one of Warren’s apparent thefts in today’s Boston Herald. For her version of the recipe for “Herbed Tomatoes” that she lifted from the September 1959 edition of Better Homes and Gardens, Warren made a few strategic changes, Carr reports. She cut one the “one-half teaspoon monosodium glutamate” from the ingredients ( “Apparently MSG was not available at the Muskogee Stop & Shop in 1856,” writes Carr) and also eliminated the option of using margarine rather than butter, since “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buffalo Grease” was not on the shelves of her elusive Cherokee ancestors. This indicates an intent to deceive by Warren, in addition to her plagiarism.
Central to the defenses offered for Warren by Democrats are the following classic rationalizations: Continue reading
Here we have a video, taken with a North Carolina high school (North Rowan High School) student’s cell phone during class. (yes, it just points at the ceiling. It’s the audio that matters):
Now lets’s play…SPOT THE OUTRAGE!
(There are ten!)
OUTRAGE 1: Does this sound like a class in session to you? Students are laughing and joking, barely paying attention. What kind of learning can occur in such a a chaotic environment? Do parents realize this is what school is like today?
Is the fact that a student is recording the class without the teacher’s consent an ethical breach? Once I would be tempted to answer yes: recording without permission is always unfair and a Golden Rule violation unless there are special circumstances. However, special circumstances were present, and may be present in more classrooms than our fragile sanity will permit us to accept. I now think perhaps all public school classrooms should be videotaped, all the time.Then we would quickly know the extent of our education catastrophe, as horrifying as that would be.
OUTRAGE 2: The teacher of the social studies class presents as the“fact of the day” the Washington Post sliming of Mitt Romney based on his mistreatment of a fellow student in his prep school days. In itself, this is not an inappropriate topic for discussion by a high school class, as the story raises many fascinating issues. How much do the students feel their conduct during their tender years should count against their character 50 years hence? Is it relevant to the presidential election in any way? How have attitudes toward “sissies,” gays and less-than masculine boys changed since the early Sixties, if at all? How have attitudes toward and awareness of homosexuality? What does this story say about the objectivity of the press? Is it fair? None of these legitimate and discussion-worthy questions, however, seemed to occur to the teacher, who was simply trying to show that “Romney was a bully in high school” in a clumsy and transparent effort to indoctrinate her students in her own political views. Continue reading
Michael Patrick Healy, an author and conservative activist, interviewed me today regarding what Harvard Law School’s response ought to be if indeed Elizabeth Warren engaged in plagiarism with her contributions, as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee”, to the cookbook “Pow Wow Chow.”
His article, including the interview, are on the Breitbart Big Government site, here.
“Hey Fred! Here comes your attorney!”
Sergio Garcia was brought across the Mexican border into California, at the age of 17 months, by his illegally immigrating parents. Thanks to the muddled and inconsistent enforcement of its immigration laws, Garcia graduated from Chico State University, a Florida law school and passed the California State Bar exam in July 2009., all while being in the country illegally. Now a special committee of the California Bar has recommended that he be licensed to practice in the state, but the California Supreme Court has reservations, and wants to read briefs on the issue. That issue is also the Ethics Alarms Quiz this weekend, and I must admit, it is a question I never thought would rise to status of a debate:
Should an illegal immigrant be allowed to practice law? Continue reading
Then, after this relaxing break, he returned to his supervisor position in Wayne County…
It appears that no-tolerance policies in the schools may not be alienating students after all. Some of them, at least in Michigan, are learning the no-tolerance way and applying it in the workplace.
Not John Chevilott, though: he just doesn’t get it, probably because when he went to school, they didn’t have no-tolerance policies. A veteran public-works employee in Wayne County, Michigan, he was mowing grass in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood when he found a loaded revolver. He called the police and waited for them to pick up the gun, but they didn’t appear. Chevilott finished the job and took the weapon to the police after work. The gun had been stolen in 2005, records showed, and police told him that he had handled the situation well.
Wayne County, however, has a no-tolerance policy forbidding employees from possessing weapons on work property. After all, there’s no reason for a worker to have a gun, except in the extraordinary situation where one is just hanging around, loaded, and the worker picks it up. But how often would that happen? It’s no wonder nothing about that situation was written into the rule, and rules, as they say in the schools—the schools where kids chew their pizzas into the shape of pistols and get suspended, the schools where kids disarm fellow students of knives and are expelled, and the schools where four-year-old boys kiss girls and get arrested for sexual assault—“rules are rules!”
John Chevilott, who had been on the job 23 years and scheduled to retire in two days, was fired for violating the policy, even though his supervisors understood that the gun wasn’t his, that he had turned it into police, that it was loaded, that it was as much a threat to public safety lying in the grass as any weapon brought to work by an employee, and that he had “possessed it” only to get it into the hands of law enforcement officials. To be fair, they also suspended Chevilott’s foreman, who knew about the incident, for not reporting the infraction. Continue reading
The fun prom…in the parking lot.
When Lexington (Kentucky) Catholic High senior Hope Decker, 18 tried to take sophomore Tiffany Wright, 16, to the school’s senior prom as her date, school officials told the couple that they would not be admitted, because their unholy same-sex coupling violated the Catholic Church’s teachings. Defiant, the couple tried to enter the school’s gymnasium that night, where the prom was held, but as promised, their tickets were refused. So their fellow students held an impromtu protest prom outside the official one, in the parking lot. They played music from their cars, and set up a table for refreshments.
“We had a wonderful night, and we were surrounded by true friends,” Wright said. “I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.”
Here is what else she will remember for the rest of her life: Continue reading
“All right, children: Tell…us…everything!”
This year’s New Jersey ASK test, given to grade schoolers to assess their skills and knowledge, required some third graders to reveal a secret about their personal lives, and to explain why that secret is hard to keep. Surprisingly, many parents had a problem with this.
Here is what Dr. Richard Goldberg, a father of twin third grade boys told reporters:
“…To ask an 8-year-old, a 9-year-old to start revealing secrets in the middle of an exam I thought was really inappropriate. These children, they want to answer the question, they want to answer it correctly, they don’t want to get a bad grade. But at the same time, think about the things a child might know – about themselves or their family.”
Yes, let’s think about that: Continue reading
Amazingly, the real Doug Neidermeyer grew up to be a hell of a nice guy. But by all means, let’s judge him by the jerk he was in 1962. That’s fair.
Occasionally I am genuinely shocked at how blatantly unfair people are on certain topics. Sometimes it is people generally; sometimes the people shocking me are those who I respect, and their unfairness outbreak sets me running to the mirror to check for tell-tale symptoms in my own visage, like a righteousness rash or bias buboes. I am never surprised by the unfairness of the media, politicians, or Lawrence O’Donnell, but even with them, I persist in the silly hope that some shred of decency survives.
The Washington Post’s despicable exposition of ancient recollections of Mitt Romney’s mean-spirited and boorish conduct while being enrolled in that well-known cauldron of mean-spirited and boorish conduct—prep school—has caused me serial episodes of shock. The blatant unfairness of dredging up pre-majority incidents to denigrate a presidential candidate should be so obvious that would expect writers, pundits and readers of all ideological persuasions to toss such swill back in the face of the incompetent waiter who served it…but no. Far and wide, people who should know better, think better and be better are waving the Post’s front page like a bloody flag. I’m embarrassed for them, and for any political affiliation that removes basic ethics alarms so effectively.
The story was offensive and unforgivable enough online, where I saw it yesterday, but on the front page of the Washington Post, where it appeared today, it is beyond belief. The story takes up almost half the front page: you would think the Martians had invaded. My first thought was: “Wow…the liberal establishment must really think Obama’s in trouble!” And so he is. But that’s no excuse.
All the usual suspects have seized on the Post’s hit job to paint Mitt Romney as some kind of a closet monster—again, on the basis of his actions as a spoiled, rich kid with a famous father going to school at a snooty prep school where they breed the kind of creeps represented by Greg Marmalard and Doug Neidermeyer in “Animal House.”
I should mention, in passing, that I am fairly certain that in college I knew personally one of the models for both Marmalard and Neidermeyer, an arrogant, ultra-preppy, ultra-conservative, tall, handsome student who was an outspoken supporter of Richard Nixon and who was known and roundly detested by the Harvard Lampoon types that wrote the “Animal House” screenplay. And guess what? He grew up. He was not “raped in prison” after Watergate, like Greg, or “shot by his own men” in Viet Nam, like Doug. He became a dedicated philanthropist and a courageous father, and has accomplished more good since college than all the fine liberals who ridiculed him combined. Citing his college conduct (when he was older that 17) as indicia of his character today makes about as much sense as—no exactly as much sense as—using Mitt Romney’s prep school actions to judge him now. That is to say, none.
Rick Jones, the smart and sensitive teacher and blogger who sometimes weighs in here, shocked me with his own boarding of the anti-Romney train in the wake of the Post smear. Still, his post on the topic, which you can read here, is more persuasive, fair and articulate than the others around the web written by those with names you might know better, so let me focus on Rick’s well-stated versions of their arguments. Rick writes: Continue reading
This just in: When he was 2 months old, Mitt Romney made boom-boom in his didies!
The Washington Post, which reached its previous nadir of attempted disgraceful and irresponsible character assassination of a GOP Presidential candidate with its “Niggerhead” hit job on Gov. Rick Perry*, sunk lower still with today’s stunningly unfair attack on Mitt Romney. Reporter Jason Horowitz wrote a bottom-of the-barrel story about an incident in which Romney bullied and harassed a gay class mate when Romney was at prep school, and 17-years-old. Naturally, this was published to contrast with President Obama, finally being shamed into announcing his support of gay marriage, in order to embarrass Romney, and force him to apologize for an episode that took place nearly a half-century ago when he was legally a minor.
If you want to read this garbage, it is here. You shouldn’t want to, however. It has no relevance to Mitt Romney or his qualifications for the Presidency. Paying any attention to it at all, even if you are actively trying to torpedo Mitt, is a bright-line violation of the Golden Rule…unless, of course, you never did anything you’re now ashamed of when you were a selfish, hormone-addled, ignorant teen, and are perfectly willing to have colleagues and potential employers judge your current character on the wedgies you handed out in gym class. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 