I got myself appointed to the Town of Olive Republican Committee. Chet Scofield, the Town chairman, leads a group of about 10 or 12 committee members. The meetings are held at Chet's bar, Snyder's, which is on NY 28A in between Watson Hollow Road and NY 28. I thought the committee has great potential and there are quite a few great Republicans in the Town of Olive. Robin Yess, who ran for state assembly in our district last year, was at the meeting in June. I was added to the committee and carried my own petition along with several others to voters in the Olivebridge district. I live in a different district, West Shokan, but Town residents are allowed to cross over.
Here are some things I learned:
1. Olivebridge and the Town of Olive constitute an incredibly beautiful district. I have petitioned in New York City and I must say, it is a pleasure to drive around a place as beautiful as the Ashokan Reservoir, Route 213, Brown Station, Beaverkill Rd. Driving around there is like being on vacation.
2. The Olivebridge Republicans are a rather contrary group. I think some of them aren't sure if they're Republicans and I had to pull teeth to get 20 signatures. In part the difficulty is the distance. When New York City gutted the Town of Olive and submerged about three quarters of it in the Ashokan Reservoir, they left scattered streets and roads which now constitute the Olivebridge district. It is a disjoint place. It was probably among the first instances of a community utterly devastated by modern urban planning. New York City still pays the County of Ulster a fee for the use of the reservoir land, and Olive does not get its fair share. Recently, a "large parcel" tax bill removed the payment for Olive to the County, and the good people of Olive are justifiably annoyed.
3. There are a lot of very concerned people here, many of whom are quite unhappy with the nation's socialist direction and the incompetent Democratic leadership in Washington.
4. I think the Republican Committee in Olive and everywhere else has a great opportunity. The Democratic Party advocates a stupid, failed ideology, social democracy. The sorry excuse for American politics that we have seen under Bush and Obama poses opportunities.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Why Do People Still Watch Television News?
My good friend Sharad Karkhanis e-mailed me about a news broadcast on one of the social democratic propaganda outlets. Likewise, blog impressario Larwyn has been up in arms about "media" bias.
If you haven't read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or read about the history of ancient Persia or studied advanced calculus, why on earth are you watching news on television? There are many productive ways to spend your time.
Television news is not news. The people who broadcast it are entertainers and lack the education to determine what's important enough to be called news. Not enough people watch it to use the explanation that "it's important to hear what people are thinking". Nor is watching it a good way to refute the Democrats. A better way is to carry petitions for the Republicans.
The country is full of lazy bones who sit around listening to Rush Limbaugh, cuss at their radio and accomplish absolute zero. Sharad isn't one of those people, and he's devoted a huge amount of his resources to uncovering fraud in the reactionary CUNY faculty union and sending around tens of thousands of copies of his newsletter "Patriot Returns" at his own expense.
Sitting around cussing at some bozo on one of the cable news channels accomplishes nothing. Stop watching them. Carry petitions. Call your friends. Go to a tea party like the courageous Phil Orenstein.
TV news is an anachronism, a thing of the past. It is almost as antediluvian as print newspapers. If you want to see what people are thinking do this:
1. Play "Mafia Wars" on Facebook
2. Read "The Star"
3. Watch Oprah
If you haven't read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or read about the history of ancient Persia or studied advanced calculus, why on earth are you watching news on television? There are many productive ways to spend your time.
Television news is not news. The people who broadcast it are entertainers and lack the education to determine what's important enough to be called news. Not enough people watch it to use the explanation that "it's important to hear what people are thinking". Nor is watching it a good way to refute the Democrats. A better way is to carry petitions for the Republicans.
The country is full of lazy bones who sit around listening to Rush Limbaugh, cuss at their radio and accomplish absolute zero. Sharad isn't one of those people, and he's devoted a huge amount of his resources to uncovering fraud in the reactionary CUNY faculty union and sending around tens of thousands of copies of his newsletter "Patriot Returns" at his own expense.
Sitting around cussing at some bozo on one of the cable news channels accomplishes nothing. Stop watching them. Carry petitions. Call your friends. Go to a tea party like the courageous Phil Orenstein.
TV news is an anachronism, a thing of the past. It is almost as antediluvian as print newspapers. If you want to see what people are thinking do this:
1. Play "Mafia Wars" on Facebook
2. Read "The Star"
3. Watch Oprah
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Sarah Lawrence College Says No to US News Rankings
I am working on a project involving college presidents' pay with my colleague Marc Fox at Brooklyn College. While going through data on the presidents' backgrounds I noticed that my alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, stopped requiring the SAT test and, at the same time, told US News that it would not participate in their rankings. Thus, the college appears as "unranked" in the all-important US News ranking system.
Sarah Lawrence is left wing and I haven't always agreed with their political correctness. I loved it there because of the high degree of autonomy they afforded me and the cool students. While I was there ('73-'75) I took two years of classical Greek, one year of German, two years of philosophy and a course in "legal studies" where I wrote papers on the history of slavery and the Dred Scott decision. The teaching was fine (as was the teaching at SUNY Binghamton, where I spent my first two years of college) and the breadth of the professors, their willingness to be outrageous and think outside the box, and intensely individualized instruction made it among the best academic experiences I ever had. In each course we were required to meet individually with the professor and to write a paper based on our own ideas.
Although I disagree with the ideologies of most university professors, and especially with those at Sarah Lawrence College, I concur with their decision to reject the US News rankings but not the SATs. I think that SATs are a useful measure of potential. IQ tests predict performance. But the US News rankings are ridiculous.
About two years ago I visited my old high school, the Bronx High School of Science. I was supposed to be giving career and college advice, but I realized that the students cared only about getting into a name college, not in developing a great life or a great career. Getting into college and developing a fruitful life and calling are barely related. The fixation on SATs and obsession with admittance to this or that college is a tragic social waste. The SATs should not be a fixation, and the fact that students do study for them and do raise their scores is an imperfection. However, I do not believe that there is no such thing as "G" or general intelligence. Naturally, different people have different strengths and weaknesses, but an approximate measure, while imperfect, correlates with ability.
I give two cheers to Sarah Lawrence College for having the intestinal fortitude to say "no" to the US News rankings. I disagree with their dropping the SAT scores. But I give them three cheers for taking risks and thinking outside the box. It was there that I first thought of becoming a Republican. I wrote a paper on "achievement" in my philosophy class, and although my professor disagreed with it, I am still thinking about that topic today. Although my professors were mostly "liberal" it was the encouragement to think in original ways that helped me reject the left wing ideology.
If you are a conservative and need advice about selecting a college, I would refer you to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which has an excellent college guide for conservatives. US News and World Report is a terrible magazine and its ranking system is a joke.
Sarah Lawrence is left wing and I haven't always agreed with their political correctness. I loved it there because of the high degree of autonomy they afforded me and the cool students. While I was there ('73-'75) I took two years of classical Greek, one year of German, two years of philosophy and a course in "legal studies" where I wrote papers on the history of slavery and the Dred Scott decision. The teaching was fine (as was the teaching at SUNY Binghamton, where I spent my first two years of college) and the breadth of the professors, their willingness to be outrageous and think outside the box, and intensely individualized instruction made it among the best academic experiences I ever had. In each course we were required to meet individually with the professor and to write a paper based on our own ideas.
Although I disagree with the ideologies of most university professors, and especially with those at Sarah Lawrence College, I concur with their decision to reject the US News rankings but not the SATs. I think that SATs are a useful measure of potential. IQ tests predict performance. But the US News rankings are ridiculous.
About two years ago I visited my old high school, the Bronx High School of Science. I was supposed to be giving career and college advice, but I realized that the students cared only about getting into a name college, not in developing a great life or a great career. Getting into college and developing a fruitful life and calling are barely related. The fixation on SATs and obsession with admittance to this or that college is a tragic social waste. The SATs should not be a fixation, and the fact that students do study for them and do raise their scores is an imperfection. However, I do not believe that there is no such thing as "G" or general intelligence. Naturally, different people have different strengths and weaknesses, but an approximate measure, while imperfect, correlates with ability.
I give two cheers to Sarah Lawrence College for having the intestinal fortitude to say "no" to the US News rankings. I disagree with their dropping the SAT scores. But I give them three cheers for taking risks and thinking outside the box. It was there that I first thought of becoming a Republican. I wrote a paper on "achievement" in my philosophy class, and although my professor disagreed with it, I am still thinking about that topic today. Although my professors were mostly "liberal" it was the encouragement to think in original ways that helped me reject the left wing ideology.
If you are a conservative and need advice about selecting a college, I would refer you to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which has an excellent college guide for conservatives. US News and World Report is a terrible magazine and its ranking system is a joke.
Barack Obama: America's Foreign President
I have been busy with my academic research in recent weeks so I was somewhat surprised to receive hate mail from one of Barack Obama's supporters. I have stopped watching television news and reading newspapers, but I gather that Mr. Obama has proposed a scheme to diminish the American health care system. His followers now scan the Internet to vilify any who disagree with their anti-American views. This one accused me of disloyalty to America because I disagree with Mr. Obama. I fear, my friends, that the traitor is in the White House, not on this blog.
The birth certificate issue has not disappeared. I have not pursued it since November. The ever-perceptive Cortes De Russy, for one, argued that it was but a political harassment tactic, an "Alinsky" tactic, if you will. Likewise, the famed David Horowitz argued that the issue was pointless.
But Larwyn, the renowned coordinator of the conservative, libertarian, Jacksonian and anti-Federalist blogs (I can't make up my mind if I'm a Jacksonian or an anti-Federalist) has forwarded an e-mail indicating that the Obama birth certificate issue, which has been carried forward by the courageous Dr. Orly Taitz, is now being covered on a social democratic disinformation outlet, CNN, by the announcer Lou Dobbs. I am not familiar with CNN, but I would reckon that if it is questioning the birth certificate then all sides are.
I missed the segment but Larwyn reports:
"Lou is with us in why won't he show the certif. It was short segment but he put the only one trying to spin it in RACISM in her place. All three on panel have radio shows..."
Moreover, the courageous Sharad Karkhanis, who is being sued by an official of the CUNY faculty union, "Sue" O'Malley, for disagreeing with the union's social democratic foreign and domestic policies, forwarded the above video of a voter questioning her Congressman about the birth certificate. The Congressman, Mike Castle, asserts a position without factual support. He reminds me of the Federal Reserve Bank's board of governors and its open market committee. We have to believe! I guess Castle didn't read the transcript!
I picked up the ball fairly early in the birth certificate story in response to wonderful work by Pamela Geller and Texas Darlin'. I am fascinated that the story is beginning revivify and to pan out, thanks to Taitz, et al.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
