By Selwyn Duke
When hearing that many “elite” undergraduates “can’t” read books, first coming to mind could be that they’re not actually elite. (The term “pseudo-elite” suggests itself.) As for the word “can’t,” no, it’s not that these college students, often Ivy Leaguers, are illiterate. The issue is something different: conditioning.
Continue reading "Cultural Decay: Now, Even Many “Elite” College Students “Can’t Read Books”" »
By Selwyn Duke
If you saw a book stating that America was not a republic but a democracy, that a role of our government was to “socialize the young,” and with a picture labeled “Muslim scholars studying with the Greek philosopher Aristotle,” you might think it was a work of bad fiction, not an American school textbook. But even though the United States is a republic, socializing the young isn’t a role of American government, and Aristotle died 900 years before Mohammed’s birth, textbooks are exactly where the above misinformation is from.
These are just a few of the shocking facts brought to light after comedienne and actress turned political aspirant Victoria Jackson reported on a review of Tennessee’s school textbooks by the group Textbook Advocates (TA). Writes Jackson, “During August of 2013, scores of TN volunteers reviewed the 72 books on the State textbook list – 39% were declared acceptable for TN classrooms, 12% need major revisions to meet acceptable standards, many more need minor fixes.” Jackson’s characterization is even more damning. She opines that many school textbooks are “inaccurate, revisionist, anti-American, racist ... anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, pro-Islam, Marxist, globalist, pro-Socialism/Communism, pro-homosexuality, pro-abortion, and sexually explicit.” Is this hyperbole?
Decide for yourself. Aside from socializing the young, Government in America (Pearson Education, 9-12) tells students that something else government “should” do is “Preserve order” and then explains, “When people protest in large numbers government may resort to extreme measures to restore order.” In China, yes — but in the United States people actually have to violate the law first.
Read the rest here.
By Selwyn Duke
If there’s one thing that mirrors the decline of America’s image under Barack Obama, it’s the decline of Obama’s own image. The man who once hailed himself and his fellow travelers as the “ones we’ve been waiting for,” and who was hailed by others as a transformational figure, is now the incredible shrinking president. But that’s image, too: As many of us knew all along, he was always small.
Once fancied a paragon of competence, Obama has now spawned perhaps the most poorly crafted bill in American history, ObamaCare. Once considered an honest, outside-the-beltway figure who transcends politics, we now know he employed one of the biggest lies in American history to push that death-care mistake through. Why, even the mainstream media — which has long bowed before the ‘Bama the way he bowed before the Saudi king — has now soured, complaining that the administration meant to be the most “transparent” in history is history’s most insular and “hostile.” And now a little more history may be made or, should I say, revealed — because the long-standing suspicion that “Obama’s” Magnum opus, Dreams From My Father, was actually ghostwritten by another, may soon be confirmed.
That ghost would be ex-Weathermen terrorist, Marxist, and erstwhile Obama ally Bill Ayers.
Read the rest here.
It must be really exciting being a kid today. Denied the strength that “lies in our diversity,” youngsters languishing in the unenlightened 1960s had to content themselves with banal white male superheroes such as Superman, Spiderman and Ironman. But not only has affirmative action created a Hispanic Spiderman (perhaps a white Hispanic?); a homosexual Pink…I mean, Green Lantern; and a Batwoman reintroduced in 2006 as a lesbian (the irony is that she was originally introduced in 1956 as a romantic interest designed to dispel rumors about Batman’s homosexuality); now Marvel Comics is giving us a female Muslim superheroine. Writes The Telegraph:
Marvel Comics is bringing Ms. Marvel back as a 16-year-old daughter of Pakistani immigrants living in Jersey City named Kamala Khan.
Continue reading "Marvel Rolls out Muslim Girl Superheroine" »
By Selwyn Duke
When discussing a new study about liberals’ and conservatives’ favorite television shows recently, pundit Bill O’Reilly and his guests mentioned that liberals like works about “flawed people.” If this is so, they will certainly appreciate Barack Obama’s just published children’s book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters.
Much like Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” (which the author wrote for his 12-year-old son), Obama’s book was penned for his children Malia and Sasha — hence the subtitle A Letter to My Daughters. Unlike Kipling’s poem, however, I very much doubt his kids will be the better for reading it.
The book features 13 American “heroes” whose traits the president sees in his daughters. And it does include traditional figures such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein (I guess a bone had to be thrown to the dead-white-male set) and Neil Armstrong. Yet it also includes the troubled jazz great Billie Holiday; artist Georgia O’Keefe, who sometimes posed nude for photographs; and socialist Jane Addams, who, quite fittingly, was a community organizer.
Read the rest here.
By Selwyn Duke
Many years ago, I was told a
story by a woman I knew whose son had been diagnosed with “A.D.D.” She said that she finally had to take from
her boy a book a therapist had given him about how an A.D.D. child acts. The problem?
Her son was reading it and then imitating the behavior of the child in
it!
Then I remember when someone I know well told me about her 13-year-old’s reaction to being confronted about his misbehavior. He said something to the effect of, “Well, mom, you know, I’m at that age.” But how did he know he was at “that age”?
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