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America became Tin Pan Alley and this turned into the Golden Years. Now we're becoming a sinking ship signified by rappers and foul mouthed, so called, comedians.. Me
Rand serves more "brand" for Democrats to eat.
They have no idea what just hit them.
According to The Daily Wire, Sen. Rand Paul slammed Democrats stating that their push for former President Donald Trump’s impeachment.
“If we’re going to criminalize speech, and somehow impeach everybody who says, ‘Go fight to hear your voices heard,’ I mean really we ought to impeach Chuck Schumer then,” Paul said. “He went to the Supreme Court, stood in front of the Supreme Court, and said specifically, ‘Hey Gorsuch, Hey Kavanaugh, you’ve unleashed a whirlwind. And you’re going to pay the price.’”
“This inflammatory wording, this violent rhetoric of Chuck Schumer was so bad that the chief justice, who rarely says anything publicly, immediately said this kind of language is dangerous as a mob tried to invade the Supreme Court,” he continued. You can read the full article here.
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After reading the recent WSJ Op Ed: "Mediocrity Is Now Mandatory" (see below) I offer these observations.
Formerly, college provided 4 years to mature but that was when you were able to live among those your own age. The pandemic rid students of that opportunity and now virtual is the way students relate.
In Israel, students go to college after military service, take a year for world travel and thus, are already fairly mature. I believe Israel's approach the "more mature" one.
When one takes into account the cost of most colleges today, and what you receive, it appears there really is little need to attend. Why? Because, if a young person spends four years in the real world they are likely better equipped to compete against a college student whose brain has been filled with tripe fed by socialist and/or communist professors or the student has been allowed to choose a smorgasbord of courses that offer little of cohesive value. For this they are left with a significant debt.
They may come away knowing about rap music or the sex life of bees and the like but I doubt that helps them write an essay, or understand why books are great like at St John's College.
However,there is one possible lesson indebted students can learn if Biden has his way. Government will teach you how to duck responsibility for voluntarily assuming an obligation by off loading on your contemporary who did not go to college, worked diligently, saved some money, and thus, is in a position to bear the indebted student's load.
This is a character building lesson if there ever was one. It should teach you to get into politics so you can spend OPM.
No wonder America has become a sinking ship.
Mediocrity Is Now Mandatory
From stimulus to school admissions, leaders
act as if ease is the only worthy goal.
By Andy Kessler
One high school near me just dropped freshman advanced-standing
(honors) English “to combat the effects of academic ‘tracking” because it
“ultimately separates students of different socioeconomic and racial
backgrounds.” It turns out that middle schools from lower-income areas aren’t
adequately preparing their students for high school. So rather than fix that
problem, they dumbed down high school.
Then again, when the University of California system did away
with racial preferences in 1996, it moved to holistic admissions. What does
holistic mean? Anything you want. The Association of Public and Land-Grant
Universities defines it as “assessing an applicant’s unique experiences
alongside traditional measures of academic readiness.” Grades are only a
suggestion—and SAT scores are biased, supposedly. And here you thought smart
students got into good colleges. Yes, mediocrity has crept into our
self-proclaimed elite colleges. Job recruiters understand this.
Virtually all universities and now many companies have D&I
departments, for diversity and inclusion. Sounds worthy. But as far as I can
tell, the No. 1 job of a D&I department is to hire more people into the
D&I department. No one ever mentions excellence.
Many schools, like Hampshire College, Antioch University and
Reed College, don’t even bother with meaningful grades—feelings might get hurt.
Yes, the same Reed College Apple co-founder Steve Jobs attended for six
months. He took courses in calligraphy, dance and Shakespeare. Reed students do
receive a loosey-goosey grade-point average, but “papers and exams are
generally returned to students with lengthy comments but without grades
affixed.” Out in real life, Jobs was graded every day by customers, employees
and investors.
And why push students to think?
Preferring to mold students’ politics, teachers ban books—from Homer’s
“Odyssey” to “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Scarlet Letter”—even
Dr. Seuss. Oh, the places you’ll not go! And for
as long as I can remember, Brown University has touted its Open
Curriculum—students have the “freedom to study what they choose and the
flexibility to discover what they love.” That sounds like summer camp, not
college.
Government too. Joe Biden is likable
enough, but let’s face it, during the primaries he was the compromise, the
consolation prize. And now he’s quickly perpetuating mediocrity by proposing
$15 minimum wages, $1,400 stimulus checks, and $400 weekly unemployment-check
boosts. Yes, the Covid recession requires assistance, but these programs are
too broad and will likely lead to permanent welfare-state expansions. Why work
when Uncle Sam provides table stakes for mob-trading GameStop and dogecoin?
Redistribution, by definition anti-merit, is about to pick up
steam by way of higher tax rates, ending the special rate for capital gains,
and maybe adding a wealth tax. Similarly, climate “science” is stealing
productive funding. An avowed socialist, mittens and all, is now chairman of
the Senate Budget Committee, in whose hands merit will burn while mediocrity
flourishes.
The Biden administration constantly points out “firsts”—its
gender and racially selected cabinet, vice president and other appointments.
Great, but why not say “best” rather than first? And, Obama-like, shouldn’t Mr.
Biden be receiving his Nobel Peace Prize this year? Another watered-down
accolade. About the only time you hear “great” anymore is with the overused
superlative “GOAT”—greatest of all time—applied to athletes to sell overpriced
sneakers.
Even with “stakeholder capitalism,” when you actually do well,
you’re the problem. Yale law professor Daniel Markovits calls it the
“Meritocracy Trap.” He suggests merit widens class divides. Privilege is
inherited. Merit is “a pretense, constructed to rationalize an unjust
distribution of advantage.” Ah, tuition dollars at work. Now you’re evil for
inventing the future.
You’re hardly allowed to mention American exceptionalism
anymore, but I will anyway. Silicon Valley has made innovation look too easy: A
bunch of geeks sitting in front of big screens—how hard is that? But innovation
is difficult. Most startups fail. It requires smart people of all genders,
colors and nationalities, often with expensive but focused educations, to forgo
many pleasures of life and burden themselves by working long hours to bring the
rest of us life-enhancing devices and services. It mostly happens in the U.S.
because we have families, communities and religious groups that drive and
demand excellence. Markets reward it. Excellence, like Covid vaccines, doesn’t
come from luck or laziness but from hard work and perseverance.
But now it seems,
in the name of “equity,” it’s better to be mediocre than manifest merit. Don’t
stand for this because when everyone gets a trophy, no one gets a trophy. Push
for excellence—hey, maybe that’s a good SAT essay.
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Worth watching……
FDD’s Mark Dubowitz gave a presentation today to the Middle East Forum. “New Year, New Administration - How Will the US Deal with Iran?” is on YouTube and linked here.
Thanks,
Cliff May
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Happy Valentine:
Old Men May Walk Slow . . .
An elderly man in Queensland had owned a large property for several years.
He had a dam in one of the lower paddocks where he had planted mango and avocado trees.
The dam had been fixed up for swimming when it was built and he also had some picnic tables
placed there in the shade of the fruit trees.
One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the dam to look it over, as he hadn't been there
for a while. He grabbed a ten-litre bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the dam, he heard
voices shouting and laughing with glee.
As he came closer, he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his dam.
He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end
One of the women shouted to him, 'We're not coming out until you leave!'
The old man frowned, 'I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get
out of the dam naked.'
Holding the bucket up he said, 'I'm here to feed the crocodile'
Moral: Old men may walk slow, but they can still think fast!
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