Education

It's no secret many in the media feel that global warming is a settled scientific controversy. But even some scientists who agree that humans cause global warming think Gore's all wet when it comes to his dire predictions. Even so, The Washington Post showcased a Seattle-area teacher yesterday who was at a loss when it came to finding critics of Al Gore's brand of climate pseudo-science.

See my article at BusinessandMedia.org for more.

Portraying an angry parent as an enemy of sound science, reporter Blaine Harden shared with Washington Post readers the story of Federal Way, Wash., science teacher Kay Walls and her struggle to show “An Inconvenient Truth” to her students.

The New York Times ran a story this morning that details how liberally minded school administrators are seeking ways to circumvent affirmative action bans that have been put on the books by voters in three states.

This is modern day liberalism at its naked best. They are not content to accept the fact that voters of all races have rejected attempts by these educators to apply a racial preference as a means test for admission to public schools. The following lead appeared in this morning’s liberal death star.

With Michigan’s new ban on affirmative action going into effect, and similar ballot initiatives looming in other states, many public universities are scrambling to find race-blind ways to attract more blacks and Hispanics.

First of all the above statement is a lie. Any effort to attract one race over another is not race-blind. The activists at the New York Times may want to characterize it that way but in reality it is just another cute attempt to create the perception of racial neutrality.

Loyal NB readers might recall that on the eve of President Bush's recent address on the new way forward in Iraq, I had the chance to participate in a conference call for bloggers with White House press secretary Tony Snow and Brett McGurk of the National Security Council.

With the State of the Union Address just a few hours away, Tony Snow - after a long day making the media rounds - organized a similar event in which your faithful NewsBuster again took part.

I had a chance to ask a question this time around, and chose to focus on recent events in Iraq. After referring to the headlines that have been made by the recent arrest of some 600 militiamen in Iraq, I noted a lesser-publicized report that the Iraqi army had arrested a senior aide to Moktada al-Sadr, Sheikh Abdul al-Hadi Darraji. He was arrested last Friday in a raid on a Baghdad mosque near Sadr City.

I asked Snow whether those events signal that we have in some way turned the corner in obtaining the willingness of the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki in going after Shia militias, and if so, how have we been able to achieve this?

This one is really waaaay too funny, and will definitely require all drinking vessels, flammables, and sharp objects be safely stowed.

Psychology Today magazine has a long study published in its January/February issue about the differing mindsets and personalities of conservatives and liberals. Who do you think the report praised, and who did it slam? Which ideological group was perceived as smarter, and which was considered more insecure?

If you’re having a hard time answering these questions, read this (emphasis mine throughout). However, please fasten your seatbelts, for you are about to be greatly insulted by one of America's leading psychology periodicals:

ABC News is trying to assure us that young girls who have a "fascination with itsy-bitsy clothing, misogynistic hip hop music and porn star-esque celebrities " is just behavior that "isn't cause for alarm".

Some Say It's OK for Girls to Go Wild -- Though Teens Are Expressing Their Sexuality More Than Ever, Some Say It's Just Part of Growing Up, Not Cause for Alarm

Gee, I feel better already.

Wearing short-shorts and belly shirts, grinding to hip-hop hits, and posting provocative pictures of themselves on the Internet — the behavior of many teen and tween girls has parents wondering if their daughters are bound for a lifetime of promiscuity and loose morals.

One must read the latest AP non-report about the effects of war on people with a big dose of "duh" in mind.

Study: War Trauma May Raise Heart Risks

A groundbreaking study of 1,946 male veterans of World War II and Korea suggests that vets with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are at greater risk of heart attacks as they age.

The conclusion: war is bad for your health.

Wow. Wonder how much taxpayer money was wasted on THAT study!?

At least our veteran's aren't so stupid that they wouldn't have been able to know it all upfront, without a "study".

"It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out," said John Oliveira of New Bedford, Mass., a former Navy public affairs officer and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, I certainly don't want to make light of the problems of coping that our veterans confront upon returning from war. Robert E. Lee once said that it is good that war is so horrible or we'd get too fond of it and he knew whereof he spoke.

People are vastly different and, whereas some may never experience much discomfort or anguish from their war service, others are bothered with the mental images for the rest of their lives. And we, as a society, should be observant and responsive to the needs of our returning heroes even as they advance into old age.

In apparent pursuit of their status as the chief news source for Islam in the west, the AP published a puff piece about how wonderful it is for young Americans to participate in the Muslim practice of the Hajj -- a required pilgrimage to Mecca.

Here is how wonderful and instructive it is...

The 20-year-old American tells his hajj pilgrimage stories ... and saw a man drop dead while circling the Kaaba.

Well, how "inspiring" it is to see a man drop dead at a religious function. Is that the sort of thing that should be praised as a civilized expression of religion?

"Dude, I saw it, the guy had the most peaceful smile on his face," (said) Adil Muschelewicz ... Muschelewicz didn't know the cause of the man's death -- exhaustion maybe, he said -- but it became one of the many powerful religious moments that have shaken him during the trip.

"I looked at his face and I looked at the Kaaba, and it was like he was happy, he'd gotten close to God. It just went boom, like this deep bass line in my heart," he said. "It was so emotional. I was by myself, in this wild place I'd never been before."

WSJ's Opinion Journal has indulged in another round of the MSM's upturned nose to the lowly blogger, another cornucopia of contumelies, a mountain of maligning. We are all fools and imbeciles according to assistant editorial features editor, Joseph Rago in today's Op Ed, The Blog Mob.

Here's the wind up...

Blogs are very important these days. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has one. The invention of the Web log, we are told, is as transformative as Gutenberg's press, and has shoved journalism into a reformation, perhaps a revolution.

I feel a "but" coming!

And the pitch...

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.

A swing and a miss, Mr. Rago.

Few bloggers, Mr. assistant editorial features editor, imagine themselves to be anything like investigative journalists... few even consider themselves journalists at all. A small number may have taken steps into that field, but most bloggers who blog on culture, the news and politics are in it for opinion making. And, I'd lay odds that few would dispute such a claim.

...because you won't find it in Gigi Stone's December 18 "World News" story on teacher merit pay. (Or her write-up at ABCNews.com)

Stone, to her credit, did explain that teachers unions oppose merit pay for teachers because, well, they want more money for all teachers, regardless of how crappy a job they do. Okay, she didn't put it in those words exactly, but, let's face it, that's the reason teachers unions are against merit pay.

So why did Stone insist on presenting the vice-president of the Houston Federation of Teachers as merely a teacher who was concerned that the art of public school classroom instruction under incentive pay would devolve in a race to the bottom, an effort at merely "teaching to the test" or "drill and kill?

Story here.

And here's the best part:

Could multiculturalism be on its way out at the New York Times? Yesterday, one columnist extolled classically Western Hellenic values over those of historical Judaism. Today, another columnist flatly asserts that freedom is "a distinctive product of Western civilization."

In the subscription-required God's Gift, Harvard sociology professor Orlando Patterson criticizes the Bush administration for formulating its Iraq policy on the "erroneous assumption . . . that freedom is a natural part of the human condition."

Continued Patterson: "A basic flaw in the approach of the president and his neoliberal (a k a neoconservative) advisers was their failure to distinguish Western beliefs about freedom from those critical features of it that non-Western peoples were likely to embrace."

Not an Onion article. I solemnly affirm to Scrappleface: New York Times columnist Judith Warner doesn't want social programs to be judged by how much they cost or whether they work.

Disclaimer notwithstanding, I bet you're still dubious. "Come on, Finkelstein - that can't be right. As liberal as the New York Times might be, there's no way one of its regular columnists would come right out and say that."

Wanna bet?

The particular government programs that Warner - the Times's family-issues maven - discusses in The Real Value of Public Preschool [subscription] are what she describes as "free" pre-school for three- and four-year olds. And here's what she says:

"I am finding the rhetoric in the debate over universal preschool disheartening. It’s all the usual stuff about cost-benefit and outcomes."

Did you know that Americans don't want to "live next door to a Muslim", or that Americans want all Muslims to "carry special identification", or that it is but "Ignorance" that is seen as a "Key Problem" to these foolish American's "hatred" and misperceptions?

Reuters knew, if you didn't. And they are happy to let us all know about it, too.

It all stems from a Radio host misusing his audience to make a point that Americans are no different than the Germans who turned a blind eye to Hitler's "Final Solution" against Jews during WWII.

Bolded words are mine:

April 30, 2006 --
John Kenneth Galbraith, 97, Dies; Economist Held a Mirror to Society

November 16, 2006 --
Milton Friedman, Free Markets Theorist, Dies at 94

Economist Friedman accomplished more in reality than Galbraith ever did in theory or in reality.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Liberal comedian Jon Stewart regularly analyzes and criticizes the cable and broadcast news programs. When someone tries to do the same to his "Daily Show," however, the Stewart says he's just a comedian doing "fake news."

That used to be true back in the day when "Daily" was primarily comprised of spoof reports and fake interviews. But since Iraq war started, "Daily" has largely turned into a nightly bash-Republicans program, with the news of the day as the cudgel. In so doing, Stewart has evolved his show into a news program, despite his protestations to the contrary.

Here at NB, we've long thought that "Daily" should be treated as a news show, even if its host is too timorous to want that kind of scrutiny. Now, a new study has come out confirming our point of view:

I am beginning a new, perhaps very temporary, column as a much-needed stress-reliever from my usually ponderous research papers. Lately, I began noticing that the Associated Press is posting many articles with broken or incomplete sentences and poor grammar. After noticing Time Magazine’s April cover entitled “Drop-Out Nation,” regarding the 30% national high school dropout rate, I wondered what happened to all those undereducated victims of our socialist education system. Did they all get hired by AP? So I decided to begin posting their bloopers a la Eats Shoots & Leaves. (Please feel free to join in with your own explanation of what AP meant to say.)

A recent AP story on Fox News ends with:

Call me self-interested, but it seems to me that there is a definite anti-male bias in much of the media. Commercials, sitcoms, and cinema often mock dopey, arrogant male figures while lauding spunky women who can do anything a man can.

This attitude (which got so bad it prompted a book The War Against Boys) also extends to news coverage. Usually the bias consists of cheerleading for girls and women, often to the exclusion of men. Ironically, it's not just female reporters who exhibit such behavior as ABC reporter John Berman demonstrated on Wednesday's "World News."

His report on this year's SAT scores (available in video or a less-biased text version) ignored many key aspects of the high school test and focused more on how girls did better in a new essay portion than boys.

"Comrade. Potato production 70% below target for 4th year in row in five-year plan!"

"True, Kommissar. But we have solution. Will implement training and preparation program for workers!"

"Budem - let's drink!"

The ostensible purpose of this morning's New York Times editorial was to exult at the results of a study finding that 4th-grade charter school students performed worse than their public school counterparts, even when controlling for socio-economic background. Like a tiger on the smallest of mice, the Times pounced on this one result to proclaim that it was "Exploding the Charter School Myth." As an unreconstructed supporter of the union-dominated public school oligopoly, the Times naturally welcomes any evidence that there is no reason to alter the existing paradigm.

On Wednesday's Countdown show, while reporting on a recent Zogby poll which found that more Americans can name two of Snow White's dwarves than can name two of America's Supreme Court justices, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann took the opportunity to joke that Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia are "Dopey and Grumpy." The Countdown host also took a shot at President Bush by bringing up Bush's failure to name world leaders in a pop quiz during an interview with Boston TV journalist Andy Hiller in November 1999, and suggested to comedian Mo Rocca that Bush's lack of knowledge is to blame for "current world affairs." Olbermann: "Can you think of any consequences at all that could have stemmed from that candidate's level of knowledge? Is that being reflected at all in the current world affairs?" (Transcript follows)

Complete this sentence: The American Dream is the notion that all Americans, regardless of race, country of origin or obstacles to overcome can succeed, providing they . . .

I'm guessing that for most people, the answer is along the lines "work hard."

Not for the Boston Globe. In an editorial of this morning, American Dream Hopes, the Globe has managed to stand the American Dream on its head. What is required to achieve the American Dream is not self-reliance, hard work, gumption, etc. No, what we need to succeed are government-provided or inspired "housing, employment, diversity, justice, access to technology, education, and healthcare." The editorial later makes clear it is talking about 'affordable housing.' Yet another element of restoring the American Dream: jail diversion programs. But of course!

President Bush is an even greater threat to our civil liberties than that bête noire of the left, Richard Nixon. That's Morton Halperin's conclusion in a Los Angeles Times op-ed of today, Bush: Worse Than Nixon.

Halperin was once a name in the news. In 1969, then-National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger named Halperin to the NSA. But soon thereafter Kissinger suspected it was the dovish Halperin who leaked to the NY Times the fact that the US was secretly bombing Cambodia. The FBI began tapping his phone, and Halperin was soon gone from NSA. Perhaps Halperin's biggest claim to fame is the fact that Pres. Nixon put him on his 'Enemies List.' A red badge of courage, no pun intended, off which a person can no doubt eat for a lifetime in liberal circles.

Halperin remains active politically, serving as a senior fellow at the 'Center for American Progress.' As detailed by the invaluable Discoverthenetworks, CAP is a George Soros-funded organization founded on the risible notion that American colleges and universities are dominated by . . . conservatives."

Writes Halperin:

"It's hard not to notice the clear similarities between then and now. Both the Nixon and Bush presidencies rely heavily on the use of national security as a pretext for the usurpation of unprecedented executive power.

In theory, we're all pro-assimilation. And in theory, even the CEA agrees that Latino kids ought to be learning English. So naturally, the same education professionals who brought you "whole language" and the New Math oppose English immersion programs:

A proposal to immerse students who don't speak English into intense English-instruction classes for a year before they return to mainstream classrooms is not educationally sound and could be harmful to students, educators and critics say.

"This (proposed state constitutional) amendment is one-size-fits-all, regardless," said Sheila Shannon, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado.

At issue is the "Education of English Learners" ballot initiative proposed by a Weld County-based committee, English for Colorado. It calls for placing kids learning English into language classes for a year, without lessons in math, science, social studies or other topics.

A train wreck of reporting and editing is displayed in Study Casts Doubt On the 'Boy Crisis' by the Washington Post's Jay Mathews on the front page. It's based on a report by a think tank called Education Sector, and tries to refute years of research showing boys' collective disadvantage in education. The logic of this report is illustrated in the following quote from the report itself, written by Sarah Mead:

The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse; it's good news about girls doing better.

In fact, with a few exceptions, American boys are scoring higher and achieving more than they ever have before. But girls have just improved their performance on some meas­­­ures even faster. As a result, girls have narrowed or even closed some academic gaps that previously favored boys, while other long-standing gaps that favored girls have widened, leading to the belief that boys are falling behind.

Got it? Girls narrowed or obliterated gaps that favored boys. They also widened gaps that favored girls. It's time to face facts. Girls are the uber-race. Bow down and accept your fate before girls!

The Drudge Report is reporting that a high school in one of California’s most prestigious neighborhoods is going to be sending 1,500 of its students to go see Al Gore’s new movie concerning global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.” According to the report: “On May 24, 2006, 1,500 Beverly Hills High School students will be boarding 30 gas-guzzling buses across town to see Al Gore's new global warming film 'AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH' at the Arclight Theatre in Hollywood, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.”

Apparently, Drudge got this from a school e-mail message: “‘Sarah Utley, a science teacher at Beverly Hills High School, explained in an e-mail to staff and students: ‘This field trip has been funded by a very generous alum!... You get to see the film for free!!!’"

It appears this teacher has quite a fixation concerning global warming:

The front page of Saturday's Style section in the Washington Post carried an article on commencement addresses by Don Oldenburg. But the really amazing nugget came about 25 paragraphs in: 

Most universities settle for small-splash speakers such as state politicians or captains of local industry, but others aggressively enter the celebrity lottery. Generally this means bestowing an honorary degree and covering travel expenses, rather than paying a fee...But some offer big bucks. Katie Couric, the soon-to-be CBS anchor, will receive $110,000 to speak at the University of Oklahoma's commencement -- all paid for from private funds, the university emphasizes.

Thursday morning's Today contained a few pop-culture nuggets that revealed liberal media attitudes. As Kathryn Lopez noted on The Corner, in the 7:30 half hour, Katie Couric turned the "American Idol" chat into a peek at her feminist parenting habits (and once again, she plugged her love for Helen Reddy):

Couric: "Oh you're so hip. A lot of people expected Chris [Daughtry] to go all the way, but last night. He got sent packing although, you were so funny. I was playing Helen Reddy on my CD player yesterday."

Lauer: "I thought it was weird. I literally, I walked past her dressing room going out of here yesterday and Helen Reddy blaring on the, on the stereo. She's in the thing like this." [Snaps fingers]

You can't say Angelina Jolie doesn't think big - with your tax dollars. In an interview aired on this morning's Today show, Jolie advocated applying the No Child Left Behind Program . . . to every child in the world, courtesy the American taxpayer.

Ann Curry, Today newsreader and NBC Dateline host, had interviewed Jolie during her recent trip to Africa to promote education. At one point, Curry made this somewhat surprising observation to the Hollywood star:

"There is another very famous person who talks about education. And you sound a lot like her: Laura Bush."

Jolie engaged in a, no pun intended, pregnant pause and a nervous chuckle. You could hear the gears grinding as she seemingly asked herself 'just how political can I get here?'

For those that haven’t heard, the female singer Pink (Alecia Moore) – who quite recently joined PETA in a protest against Kentucky Fried Chicken’s alleged cruelty to animals – has joined the ranks of musicians voicing their opinions against George W. Bush. In her song “Dear Mr. President,” Pink attacks, amongst other things, “No Child Left Behind,” his positions on abortion as well as same-sex marriage, his former drug and alcohol abuse, and, of course, the war in Iraq. Some of her more poignant lyrics include:

• How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
• How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
• What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
• And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
• You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

What follows are the complete lyrics of this piece along with a video link to a recent performance of the number courtesy of YouTube.