Unfortunate Updates on Civility, Homosexuality, and Education

Unfortunate Updates on Civility, Homosexuality, and Education

The following are selected updates on the sad states of civility, homosexuality, and education in America:




CIVILITY. Last year, when President Barack Hussein Obama issued his plea for greater civility in America in the wake of the Tucson shootings, there was a naive hope that liberals–to whom civility is a foreign concept–would heed his impassioned request.



That was not to be, as amply illustrated over the past year by such foul-mouthed reprobates as Bill Maher, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, and their ilk.



Now, it’s been revealed that HBO still harbors such an irrational, uncivil hatred toward a former president of the United States that it featured George W. Bush’s head impaled on a stake in “Game of Thrones.”



Said an HBO writer, banking on the usual liberal contempt for American intelligence, “It’s not a choice, not a political statement!” Yet, when caught in its political viciousness, HBO apologized profusely. (http://tinyurl.com/6mu87qb)



Liberal darling, Joy Behar, never apologizes for anything, least of all when she engages in one of her snarky attacks on conservatives. However, she out-Behared herself Tuesday when she erupted with a show of uncivilized contempt for Mitt Romney and his religion.



Newly chosen as a commentator on Al Gore’s un-watched Current TV, Behar sputtered in a Mediaite interview, ”I’d like to see his [Romney's] house burn, one of his millions of houses burning down,” adding, “Who’s he going to call, the Mormon fire patrol?”



Then, as if that remark didn’t adequately prove she weren’t a nasty bitch, in her usual classy fashion and in a desperate quest for an audience, Behar hurled a challenge to conservatives to come on her show, “If they have the balls.” 



Aside from the fact her gracious invite would exclude dozens of beautiful, conservative women like Sarah Palin, S.E. Culp, Michelle Malkin, et al., her remarks were just a tad extreme even for Joyless Bahar.



HOMOSEXUALITY. Gay people generally seem like joyless people, stuck as they are between normality and abnormality and unable to establish a viable connection with the former.



James Clementi, the gay brother of gay teen Tyler Clementi who leaped off the George Washington Bridge after he was videotaped at Rutgers University engaging in flagrante delicto activities with a homosexual paramour, thinks society failed Tyler.



In a whining critique of bullies and bullying on HuffingtonPost.com, Clementi conceded he himself went along with bullying in order to get along but nevertheless concluded, “The responsibility is on each of us to make it clear that bullying is not acceptable in our schools, our workplaces, our homes, or anywhere else that human beings might find themselves.”



Nice lecture but had James Clementi practiced what he now preaches, Tyler might still be alive.



Over a decade ago, the Supreme Court decided the Boy Scouts of America acted within their First Amendment constitutional right when they restricted membership as scouts or scout leaders to people who abided by the BSA moral code. That code meant that openly-homosexual individuals were not permitted to join in any capacity.



A 20 year old (?) Eagle Scout with two lesbian mothers, Zach Wahls, . . .


(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=25595.)

School Terrors Replace al-Qaeda Terrors

School Terrors Replace al-Qaeda Terrors

Now that “The war on terror is over,” according to a senior State Department Mideast expert, maybe the administration can now focus on winning the war against America’s school kids.




President Barack Hussein Obama never did acknowledge that the struggle against Islamic terrorists ever existed but it’s good to know it’s over and done with. Let’s just thank God he singlehandedly tracked down and executed Usama bin Laden!



Since 2012 is an election year and the National Education Association and the vast majority of America’s teachers sit firmly in his pocket, Obama can’t very well acknowledge that our public education system is in virtual shambles largely due to them, that battle for the hearts, minds, and souls of students may be more of a challenge than whipping al-Qaeda.



Just as with our victorious war on terrorism, the assault on children is taking place on various levels, from violence in schools, to administrators setting unseemly examples, to indoctrination into perversion.



Above all else, parents like to think their kids will be safe and protected when they pack them off to school every morning. Unfortunately, that’s far from the reality of what cherubs and teens encounter daily.



CBSNews.com, not exactly a bastion of conservative alarmism, featured an article on violence in public schools as jointly reported by the Departments of Education and Justice. (The article wasn’t considered sufficiently newsworthy to make televised news.)



The DoE and DoJ estimate that during the 2009-2010 school year some 1,183,700 violent crimes were committed in 73.8% of schools, horrendous figures in themselves although the fact that only a mere 25% or 303,900 of those crimes were reported to the police is even more stupefying.



And the violence is far from confined to minor student altercations.



The government estimates incorporate “rape, sexual battery other than rape, physical attack or fight with or without a weapon, threat of physical attack with or without a weapon, and robbery with or without a weapon.” 



I wouldn’t presume to offer causes for rampant school violence but, as for reporting it, I can say from personal experience that failure is mostly attributable to administrators’ pusillanimity and their fear of having parents discover their lack of control and lack of discipline.



A male principal and a female assistant at the Scholars Academy in Quartzsite, Arizona demonstrated both personal lack of control and discipline at the same time they demonstrated another serious issue confronting America’s students: a lack of decorous professionalism on the part of the people who once were considered role models.

Principal Steve McClenning and assistant Billie Madewell were caught on film at Scholars passionately groping and kissing during school hours in a school office. Both McClenning and Madewell are married, though not to one another; he resigned, she was fired, and the town of Quartzsite was devastated.




Sadly, that public exhibition wasn’t nearly as disgraceful or unprofessional as much more common occurrences: teachers, male and female, seducing kids on school grounds, in parked cars, and in their homes, many of which incidents have been documented on this blog.  .  .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=22806.)

Deflating the Higher Education Bubble by Bill Lalor

Deflating the Higher Education Bubble by Bill Lalor

It’s been refreshing to see higher education given some real scrutiny and focus lately. For my wife and me, something like “focus” happened when we met with a financial advisor before we had our first child, Evan. Or was it blind panic? I don’t remember. The conversation was something along the lines that college will cost us about $500,000 per kid, we’d be working till we die, and we should increase our savings by approximately 673% (assuming an annual ROR of about 8.5%). Or just jump into the housing market, and then cash out those stupendous, easy money gains as needed, which was part of Plan A.

Since then we’ve adjusted a bit, and now the plan is, more or less, to hope really hard that the projections are all wrong, or that my kids’ impossibly cute mugs get noticed by Gerber, or they pick up a bassoon scholarship, invent The Face Book, or whatever.

I’m just kidding, kids. Your mother and I have a real plan, but for posterity’s sake, here are a few meandering thoughts about why I don’t think we really need to have $500,000 in the bank (per kid and net of a few retirement nickels) by the year 2024 (although a few prayers to Saint Jude for good measure may be worthwhile).

First, now that everyone thinks everyone has a God-given right to a college degree, and many folks not fit for higher education are nonetheless taking home college degrees, a lot of these degrees are worthless. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4969)

Education News, None of it Good

Edcation News, None of it Good

Among other understandings, teachers of America’s elementary and high school students were always expected to set examples for their students.

Aside from the obvious of not seducing their students, public school teachers were expected to establish a certain sense of decorum, which mandate in my school district incorporated into the union contract the allowance: “Male teachers are permitted to remove their jackets in the classroom.”

Times have changed. Radically.

Teacher-student assignations have become almost commonplace, student behavior has gone far beyond tossing spitballs and chewing gum, and teacher dress codes have gone the way of high-buttoned shoes. Aside from teachers hitting on students, other behavioral modifications on the part of teachers are much less forgivable, especially when the example they are setting is one of extreme misbehavior and lawlessness.

Teachers and other public servants in Wisconsin have the same rights accorded to every American under the First Amendment to the Constitution’s prohibition against infringement on freedom of speech, interference with the right to peaceably assemble, and the right of petitioning governmental redress of grievances.

What teachers do not have the right or privilege to do is to disgrace themselves and their profession, to break laws, to interfere with government functions, or to shamelessly trash both their profession and themselves by allowing teacher and outside thugs to direct and dictate their criminal activities: http://tiny.cc/2j0b9

In Wisconsin, teachers protesting new Republican Governor Scott Walker’s attempts to clean up the fiscal mess he inherited have reached new lows in their efforts to resist limitations on collective bargaining rights.

Despite Walker’s offers of compromise, Wisconsin “educators” have abandoned their classroom responsibilities by calling in sick in droves, falsifying medical “sick notes,” committing outright slander against their duly-elected representatives, and resorting to the same bullying tactics they decry in their schools, all of which are condoned by the nation’s Bully-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama

Acting more like semi-civilized Third Worlders instead of American student role models, their protests are costing millions. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3839)

Tales of American Miseducamation

Tales of American Miseducamation

There’s nothing wrong with America’s schools that a healthy infusion of common sense mixed with a little patriotism and honesty wouldn’t cure.

The idea of patriotism, of course, has long been passe’ if not considered outright sedition in the liberal establishment that pretends to educate America’s children under the aegis of the ultra-liberal National Education Association which values self-esteem and such policies as diversity and multi-culturalism over actual learning.

Back in November, school officials at the Denair Middle School in California determined that 13 year old Cody Alicea could no longer fly the American flag on his bike which he had been doing to demonstrate his love of country and his appreciation of his grandfather’s service to the nation. Their reasoning? Other students complained and Cody’s showing of the colors could inflame them.

You see, as Denair school superintendent Edward Parraz explained, he was concerned about student safety. He “asked the boy to remove the flag to avoid ‘racial tension’ that he felt would inevitably result from Hispanic students responding to the American flag with their own Mexican flags” which could result in, horror of horrors, “other students bringing even more American flags:” http://tiny.cc/zhnw6

Before you knew it, students could actually join young Cody in his patriotic fervor!

The good news is that Superintendant Parraz got his comeuppance, along with a reminder of what country he lived in, when protests hit the fan and a horde of flag-bedecked bikers escorted Cody to school. See a video of Cody and his biker supporters here: http://tiny.cc/hl3r7

Parraz soon rescinded his flag prohibition under duress. He may get an NEA letter in his file.

Would that all American “miseducamation” horrors ended on such a positive note. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3435)

A Child's Heaven on Earth: The Sunset Sudbury School

A Child's Heaven on Earth: The Sunset Sudbury School

“No more pencils, no more books,/ No more teachers’ dirty looks./ Kick the desks, kick the chairs./ Kick the teachers down the stairs!” Far out of earshot of teachers, we used to chant that bit of doggerel when school was let out for the summer.

You won’t ever hear any of that or anything like it in or near the Sunset Sudbury School in Davie, Florida where kids pretty much rule the roost.

The Sunset Sudbury School, an unfortunate name which suggests ending rather than beginning, “South Florida’s first and only Sudbury model school, . . . on the cutting edge of education reform today,” according to its website, is a non-profit “alternative school” for kids aged 4-18, with annual tuition ranging from $3,300 to $6,600 which would be money well spent because Sunset knows that it is succeeding in its goals.

After all, it’s been in operation since August 23, 2010 and its first-year enrollment is 20 students.

Nevertheless, Sunset Sudbury’s goals are admirable, indeed: “Students of all ages can be expected to be: Self-directed, motivated, and enthusiastic lifelong learners, Creative and self-confident, Responsible, independent, and resourceful, Community-minded, and Highly adept at communication:” http://sunsetsudbury.org/

Dedicated to the idealistic proposition that what America’s children need is freedom and “justice” and, well, more freedom, kids attending Sunset can decide to contemplate their navels, or not, arrive whenever they want and leave whenever they wish, as long as they meet a very minimal number of hours in attendance. Exams are non-existent, even FCATs, as is homework, as are teachers in the traditional school sense, and hence chalkboards and lesson plans.

The kids set their own agendas and establish their own rules, sort of.

Again, according to Sunset’s website, “Rules for day-to-day life at the school are made by School Meeting, where each student and staff member has one vote. All students serve periodic terms on the Judicial Committee, which deals with rule violations.” How much input is received from 4, 5, or 6 year olds or how well those cherubs judge on the Judicial Committee is unclear.

Lord knows, American public education needs a top to bottom revamping but this has all been tried on an adult level any number of times before. Such experiments were all the rage in 18th and 19th century America: the Amana Colonies, Brook Farm, the Oneida Community, et al., all predicated to one degree or another on establishing utopias, perfect societies. Except for those built on strict religious principles, such as by the Shakers and the Moravians, all failed.

Perfect societies tend to function much better with perfect people. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2953)

Gay Educator Watch

Gay Educator Watch

There was something about Mary in the 1998 eponymous film which Ted the doofus ultimately resolved long after his disastrous prom date. There’s something about teachers today, dating back long before 1998, that isn’t even close to resolution.

To say we live in a morally-loose world today would be a gross understatement. To say that what was once a major bastion of rectitude, the teaching profession, is still that bastion would be an absurdity that would make many students and teachers today all but hysterical with a sly laughter suppressed only by the former standards of teacher-student decorum.

America’s schools haven’t, yet, become modern examples of mini-Sodoms and Gomorrahs and this in no way suggests the current phenomenon is universal but the situation seems to have become dire, so dire that TrueCrimeReport.com now features a special section on a “Weird Teacher Watch.”

And the weirdness isn’t confined to the classroom teacher. Administrators also want their share of the action.

Case in point is 37 year old Charles D. Hurst, former vice-principal of the Pennbrook Middle School in the Philadelphia suburb of Montgomery County. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2627)

In Defense of Tony Danza

In Defense of Tony Danza

Apparently, teacher Danza had a number of problems over the course of his year in the educational trenches. He cried a lot, he sweat a lot, and he had disciplinary issues. All of those, except for the crying and the sweating, would be fairly typical for a first year teacher, especially in an inner city school, a euphemism for a school in an urban slum which usually generally poses far more challenges than does a suburban setting.

Crying, sweating, and disciplining weren’t Danza’s most serious problems in the classroom, however. That problem arose from his confrontation with the prevailing educational system, with entrenched NEA thought and dictates, and with the government.

Danza refused to allow three “learning disabled” (LD) students to repair to their “resource room” because he felt they were lazy slackers. Informed by the LD teacher that they were in fact not lazy but learning disabled, he was then hauled onto Northeast Principal Linda Carrol’s carpet and castigated for his job performance and advised he was breaking the law.

Federal and state laws prohibit discrimination against LD kids and refusing to allow them, or even discouraging them from going to their special room for assistance in their school work, constituted a violation of those laws. (http://tiny.cc/ltlnn) It’s doubtful that Danza faces prosecution or other retribution for his actions but, in his defense, he was probably acting ethically if not legally.

I never met the Danza Three and can’t say if they were indeed slackers but I’d probably be in his corner and support his decision. Having been there, done that, having taught, (coincidentally, sophomore English), for some 26 years and having seen resource rooms, LD teachers, principals, and parents in action, I can attest to the fact some kids can be lazy and the entire LD system of resource rooms, etc. is in serious need of revamping. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2344)

Where, Oh Where Has Our Education Gone?

Where, Oh Where Has Our Education Gone?

. . . Of course, colleges and universities, trying desparately to seem relevant and far above secondary school fare, have cloaked their curriculum offerings by gussying them up with grand course titles such as ”Dynamic Exploration Of Radio Talk Shows: A Process Approach,” “Aesthetic Early Cubism In Modern Sculptures,” and “Urban Italian Retrospectives In Today’s Society.”

But the proof is in the pudding and course content and they’re not succeeding very well in concealing the truth that course content, as opposed to course titles, is increasingly sophomoric.

In article on “Crazy College Courses,” Carol Berman takes issue with that contention: ”Study for an exam on Syrah? Take a lab in levitation? How about tuning into TV for credit? All this is possible in college today, even in the Ivy League. Courses not only sound more interesting than “Calculus 101,” they actually are! However, courses that sound fun may not always be easy . . . Easy classes do exist, but don’t get fooled by the creative subject titles. You will have to work.”

That’s a matter of opinion. I took Calc 101. Watching television for college credit could in no possible way be as difficult.

Berman also addresses a serious issue related to dumbing down, binge drinking: It’s difficult to teach hung over–and strung out–students. Nevertheless, despite that serious collegiate issue in one course at least one Ivy League school plies students with alcohol. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2108

America's Schools in a Freefall into the Third World

America's Schools in a Freefall into the Third World

America’s public schools haven’t merely been falling behind. They’re in a freefall compared to other nations, including “developing” nations such as Slovakia, et al. which, almost literally, don’t have a pot to pee in but yet succeed in educating kids far better than we do.

Thing is, it’s not news simply because it’s been going on for a few generations now and, if anyone noticed, they haven’t said much about it and those who try to say much about it are derided as simpleton reactionaries.

The causes of the misedumacation going on in most schools today aren’t complex. They can easily be pinned on the National Education Association, the NEA, which says on its website that, “We’re Fighting for the Right to a Great Public School” when, in fact, it has been the major force behind diluting curriculum, undermining traditional values, endorsing and promoting liberal thought, and pushing diversity, all at the cost of abandoning the primary role of public schools, to provide a good, fundamental education. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1665)

Multiculturalism = Mediocrity

Multiculturalism = Mediocrity

“Multiculturalism is the acceptance or promotion of multiple ethnic cultures, for practical reasons and/or for the sake of diversity and applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, . . . multiculturalists advocate extending equitable status to distinct ethnic and religious groups without promoting any specific ethnic, religious, and/or cultural community values as central:” Wikipedia

All that gobbledegook regarding the multisyllabic, favorite liberal buzzword of multiculturalism can be reduced to a simple declarative sentence: It’s a plan to cultivate mediocrity.

As so many left wing precepts, it all sounds very nice in principle; in practice, it’s a dud that, applied to education, fosters the idea that a Tower of Babel is preferable to towers of learning. In its effort to promote many cultures, it serves to denigrate America’s “central” values.

Take Berkeley High School, located in the belly of the beast, Berkeley, California, home to U.C. Berkeley, possibly the most leftist-infested institution of higher learning in the country.

With that influence so close by and pervasive, perhaps it’s no wonder . . .

(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1429)

"Queering American Education"

“Queering American Education,” and Other Edifying Thoughts

“Nowhere is this failure [of education] more evident than when it comes to antigay prejudice, and nowhere is that particular failure more manifest than it is in our elementary schools.”

“Acknowledging children as sexual beings or allowing males (particularly homosexuals) to teach in elementary grades dislodges the classroom from the ‘safe haven’ of heteronormativity.”

“Boys don’t have to stand to urinate (nor do girls have to sit–they could squat), that’s just how they got conditioned.”

“Assumptions about children’s ‘innocence’ regarding sexuality are outdated.”

All of the above quotations are taken from Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling, a 1999 book for which Obama’s “safe schools czar,” Kevin Jennings, assistant deputy secretary for education who heads the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, wrote a foreword.

Jennings “called for elementary school children to explore their sexual identities, for teachers to incorporate homosexual themes in grades K-5, for discarding a ‘hetero-normative’ approach to education and for ‘acknowledging children as sexual beings:’ ” http://bit.ly/3b3GGU.

Jennings is the founder and president of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

The lead quotation above is also taken from his foreword, the other three from contributors to Queering . . .

If I may be so presumptuous as to summarize the contents of a book I’ve never read, it’s a work intended to subvert the innocence of children in the interests of furthering the agenda of the homosexual lobby.

I base that presumption on a passing acquaintance with Jennings in the sense of knowing his history. See previous articles about this gem of an Obamaczar, http://bit.ly/3kkzGt and http://bit.ly/Loo9u.

Not on his resume’ is his advising a 15 year old boy to wear a condom during his assignations with an adult, male pervert while Jennings was a teacher in Barney Frank’s Massachusetts. . .

(Read the rest at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1301)

A Teachable Moment or an Alinsky Seduction?

On the surface, there’s nothing really inappropriate for the president of the United States to address America’s children on their first day of school, Tuesday, September 8th. After all, he is the president, a role demanding leadership of all citizens, including kids.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan in his letter to the principals of every school in the country writes that the speech represents an ”historic moment” and that its primary purpose “is to challenge students to set goals, work hard and stay in school. This isn’t a policy speech:” http://bit.ly/YPFH2

All well and good, so far, but here the problems start.

First Problem: The text of the 15-20 minute address won’t be released until Monday, September 7th, which just happens to be Labor Day, a national holiday.

That release date smacks of the tactics near and dear to the hearts of this “transparent” administration, . . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)

2008--THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY

2008–THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

As a tumultuous 2008 draws to a lurching close and a turbulent 2009 waits in the wings for the Times Square ball to drop tomorrow night, it’s an apt time to look back on the past year.

However, since every broadcast and cable network is already presenting its 2008 Year in Review, it would be redundant to do so here. Instead, I humbly offer my picks for the best, the worst, and the ugliest ”things” of 2008.

All of those categories feature multiple, worthy contestants although there are far fewer candidates vying for the peak of the good heap than there are for the bad and ugly top spots.

Far and away the best thing to happen to America over the past year would also have to be the choice for the past seven years as well, namely a non-event, the fact that the nation has not suffered another terrorist attack in almost 88 months.

That fact has led to a distinctly blase’ attitude among many Americans who have pushed memories of 9/11/2001 to back burners or have pushed it off the stove entirely, which is extremely unfortunate since those who forget the past historically ended up reliving it in the future.

Despite one’s view of President George W. Bush, he has to be accorded his due. Our national security programs and systems are deeply flawed, as has been pointed out in this space, but they have evidently been sufficiently effective, so far.

What the future holds, what 2009 and ensuing years have in store for us, is speculative at best but, as of now, we are relatively secure as a nation so the best thing not to happen to America in 2008 is easily the absence of another assault. For that, Americans should be deeply thankful and should be praying the situation continues. GWB deserves tip of the hat.

I struggled to choose the worst thing about 2008 because of the more subjective nature of such a choice....
(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)