By Alan Caruba
Those of us who grew up in the 1940s and 50s almost universally look back on those days with great fondness. Born into an era that saw the end of the Depression and living as children through World War II, we were nonetheless somehow shielded from it by parents who took care to ensure that these calamities in the world did not take from us the sheer joy of being young.
By 1945, America emerged from the war as one of the world’s recognized superpowers, plunging immediately into the Cold War with the Soviet Union, a totalitarian regime that, like all Communists, promised a worker’s paradise and delivered a new form of serfdom.
We grew up with school drills in the event of the “bomb” as America helped rebuild Europe, guarding it against the Russians. While the grownups tended to these matters, we kids were treated to television shows free of the salaciousness of too many of today’s programs.
One could not be a teenager in the 1950s and not be aware of the great concern regarding the infiltration of our government by Communist spies and sympathizers. Decades later, thanks to the revelations of the Venona intercepts of Soviet communications with those spies, we learned just how thorough the infiltration had been and how many sympathizers worked at the highest levels of our government. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, it turns out, was right.
In the end, by standing firm against the Soviet Union the United States and its allies would see its end. Its threat has been replaced by a resurgence of a particularly evil Islamic fanaticism and now, as there were then, those of a liberal frame of mind are telling us not to meet it on the field of battle and everywhere else it threatens Western civilization.
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Posted by Walt in Education, Environment Issues, Liberalism categories at 10:42 PM EDT
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by Warner Todd Huston
The story of an Illinois high school making a gay pornographic play required reading for seniors has been reported since March 7th, but it has been ignored for the most part with only a handful of news outlets having taken on this issue. The fact that a public high school that requires such reading doesn’t raise a fuss in the media shows how the media supports the gay agenda, of course.
The book, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” has numerous passages that describes gay sexual encounters in exacting, sometimes violent, detail.
The book, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” has numerous passages that describes gay sexual encounters in exacting detail, some of them violent.
Initially, this book was required reading for college-bound seniors, but a Deerfield community group was successful in getting the book removed from the required list and placed on an opt-in list.
Matt Barber, director of cultural issues with Concerned Women for America, was amazed by the explicit nature of the book.
Barber said, “This isn’t a First Amendment issue. This is about school officials betraying the community trust. Heads need to roll here. Assigning this racist, pornographic smut to high school kids is nothing short of child abuse.”
This same school district has been in hot water before for trying to slip in under the radar homosexual advocacy into the curriculum.
The school district and NSSA clashed last year over a freshman orientation session where students talked about bullying and other issues and included gay students relating their experience in high school.
And yet, the news media stays silent on this issue. It isn’t hard to understand why. The MSM wants neither to alert people who would stand against this effort nor report the success, even if minor, of these people trying to head off the instituting of the homosexual agenda in our schools.
Warner Todd Huston is a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. (www.thenma.org).
The New Media Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass roots media outlets.
Posted by Walt in Education categories at 11:06 PM EDT
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ADF and allies file lawsuit challenging SB 777
SAN DIEGO — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund and Advocates for Faith and Freedom filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court to challenge the constitutionality of California Senate Bill 777. The new law redefines a student’s sex as his or her “gender identity,” relying upon a student’s feelings about whether the student is male or female rather than his or her biological sex.
“State officials are jeopardizing women’s privacy and the safety of women and children. Without any standards for determining someone’s ‘gender,’ school officials have no way to prevent a man from using the girl’s restroom or locker room, for example, and this should alarm students and parents,” said ADF Legal Counsel Tim Chandler.
SB 777 prohibits schools from imposing dress codes or segregating school activities and programs on the basis of “gender.” ADF and Advocates attorneys representing California Education Committee, L.L.C., argue that SB 777 is so vague that it could force schools to permit boys to participate in girls’ sports and run for homecoming queen.
In October, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 777 into law to become effective Jan. 1. The law applies to all public schools and most private schools, including pre-schools, elementary schools, high schools, and post-secondary schools, such as colleges and universities.
A copy of the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in the case California Education Committee v. Brown can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/CECComplaint.pdf.
ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
www.telladf.org
Posted by Walt in Education categories at 1:14 AM EST
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By Jim Kouri
"I shudder to think how millions of California children will be led astray, how marriage will be destroyed, and how immorality will step on the neck of morality if Arnold Schwarzenegger signs five anti-family bills into law. The ‘Terminator’ has less than two weeks to sign or veto very bad bills!" said Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families.
Thomasson is disappointed with California’s Christian pastors and elders. In the last five days, many individuals and several businesses have responded to CCF’s action alert. However, to date, only one church has faxed in veto letters to the liberal Schwarzenegger’s office in Sacramento.
"This is not right, since the majority of pastors in California oppose sexual indoctrination of schoolchildren (SB 777 and AB 394), oppose demeaning marriage (AB 43 and AB 102), and oppose forcing the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda on businesses, organizations, and churches (AB 14)," said Thomasson.
"Distracted drivers cause car accidents; distracted pastors may accidentally assist anti-family bills to be signed into law. The Governor will notice our loud voice or our relative silence. The choice is [ours]," he added.
California’s leading pro-family organizations are urging Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto five bills they believe will harm children, marriage, and religious freedom that are on his desk. And the Governor is taking notice — he’s listed the five bills as among a dozen pieces of legislation upon which telephone callers to his State Capitol office can "vote."
Campaign for Children and Families (CCF), Capitol Resource Institute, California Family Council, and Traditional Values Coalition are all urging vetoes of two school sexual indoctrination bills (SB 777 and AB 394), two marriage-demeaning bills (AB 102 and AB 43), and a bill that forces homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality upon businesses, churches, and nonprofit member organizations such as the Boy Scouts (AB 14).
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Posted by Walt in Education, Family, Liberalism, Social Issues categories at 12:19 AM EST
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by Nancy Salvato
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." — Alexander Pope
Around this time last year I participated in the Center for Civic Education’s National Academy, where Professor Will Harris led a selected group of students in 21 days of intense study on the basic issues of political theory, and the values and principles of American constitutional democracy. Early on, the importance of gaining a "surplus of mind," as a crucial element of the democratic process, was discussed. In order to become thinkers or problem solvers, our citizenry must be taught by teachers who are ambitious in their learning goals. When teachers over simplify learning objectives, this conditions our citizenry to fail at more complicated tasks. Conversely, giving the populace the tools to figure out the world’s complexity enables each person to be more powerful and free. Moreover, this is a necessary component of our system of government.
To elaborate further, a surplus of knowledge is especially useful when dealing with unexpected situations. When weighing the possible consequences of a decision, an intelligent person draws on these reserves. The key to "intelligence" is a capacity to weigh the variables that come into play when assessing individual situations. A surplus of knowledge gives us a reasonable shot at being able to anticipate short and long term repercussions of actions or inaction. Indeed, as a colleague of mine recently noted, every choice comes with regret.
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Posted by Walt in Education, Politics categories at 9:49 PM EDT
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by Thomas E. Brewton
The inconsistency of atheistic materialism. There's more there than Marx allowed for.
Our thoroughly secularized society explains events and behavior, human nature itself, as the product of the material conditions of living and earning a living, in accord with the Marxian thesis.
In The German Ideology Marx and his colleague Friederick Engels wrote:
As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.
Present-day liberals therefore deny the concept of a higher law, of timeless moral truths emanating from God the Creator of the universe. They fancy themselves capable of restructuring society, and human nature in the process. Hence the endless stream of new Federal welfare-state programs. In the liberal view, economic and social problems can be cured only by bountiful application of the most materialistic of all things: money.
School massacres, of which Virginia Tech is the latest and deadliest example, predictably are thought by liberals to result from a material factor: the availability of firearms. In liberal theory, make guns unavailable, and you change human nature.
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Posted by Walt in Communism, Education, Liberalism, Social Issues categories at 5:54 PM EDT
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Shaping young minds…or is it twisting?
by Thomas Lindaman
One of the perks of being a celebrity is being asked to give public speeches, including the occasional commencement address for a high school or institution of higher learning. Of course, I’m not a celebrity, per se, which would explain why I’m still waiting on a high school or institution of higher learning to contact me. But, just in case Pauly Shore or Paris Hilton’s gardener’s first cousin’s manicurist has to cancel, here’s a glimpse at what you’d get if you hired me.
Greetings students, faculty, staff, parents, and significant others. It is a fine day to be speaking to the class of [insert year] of [insert name of school]. It wasn’t so long ago that I wandered through these hallowed halls as a lowly freshman, trying to find [insert name of beloved instructor’s room to take [insert name of class instructor taught]. Boy, wasn’t he/she a tough, but fair teacher?
Okay, I lied. I never went to school here. But this is the first lesson you need to learn before going off into the "real world." People lie. Some right to your face and on a daily basis in the case of politicians, salesmen, and Bill Clinton, but I’m repeating myself with that last one.
I know commencement addresses are all about inspiring you to go out and be the very best you can be, but let’s face facts here. The real world can suck out loud sometimes. There comes a time when the idealism of youth gives way to harsh realities, like realizing that painting your body green and blue for your big Earth Day march/excuse to pick up liberal chicks isn’t going to make things better.
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Posted by Walt in Education, Social Issues categories at 11:06 PM EDT
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High School students in California who use textbooks that include references to Christian viewpoints may not be allowed into the University of Californian system. According to Robert Dynes, UC president, Biblical verses and Christian perspectives in textbooks do not qualify for core requirements, and students applying to the University of Californian system could be denied admission.
A lawsuit has been files against the University of Californian system to reverse its decision.
Officials at the highest levels of the University of California system are stomping on constitutional religious rights by banning Christian perspectives from educational materials high school students may use to prepare for college entrance, according to a case scheduled for trial later this year.
The case was triggered by the university system's decision that basic physics, American literature and biology textbooks by major Christian book publishers such as Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Book wouldn't qualify for core requirements in the state because of the inclusion of Christian perspectives.
The Association of Christian Schools International, which represents schools serving more than 1.1 million students worldwide, brought the lawsuit against the system run by Robert Dynes, UC president, alleging violations of the freedoms of speech, religion and association, and U.S. District Judge S. James Otero has refused the university's demand for a dismissal. (Source: WND.com)
Posted by Walt in Christianity, Education categories at 8:17 AM EDT
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I thought you would enjoy this clever juxtaposition of the way problems were dealt with in 1953 as compared to 2006. I don't know the author, but it's very entertaining. ~ Alan Caruba
1953 versus 2006
Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack
Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack.
1953 - Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack's rifle, goes to his car and gets his to show Jack.
2006 - School goes into lockdown, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.
1953 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best friends. Nobody goes to jail, nobody arrested, nobody expelled.
2006 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.
Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1953 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by Principal. Sits still in class.
2006 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.
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Posted by Walt in Education categories at 10:32 PM EDT
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by Sher Zieve
As we in the Western world have come to expect, many Muslims and Islamic organizations claim "outrage" at almost anything and everything they can find. They rioted, burned buildings and vehicles over cartoons that parodied their prophet Muhammad. Then Muslims rioted, burned buildings and vehicles and even murdered a nun when Pope Benedict XVI quoted a 14th century Emperor who was critical of Islam. Like the Left, apparently, they have little to do—except riot or protest and attempt to silence all of those who have the unmitigated gall to disagree with their tenets of belief. Political correctness has completely taken over the secularists of the West, which has become feckless, jaded and pathetic. Now, all that terrorists and their supporters have to do is complain that they are "being discriminated against" (and threaten to call someone—somewhere—a "racist") and the West caves easily and willingly to all of their demands. Nowhere is this surrender more evident than in the case of Muslims’ latest indignation.
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Posted by Walt in Censorship, Education, Freedom of Speech categories at 10:47 PM EST
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