Thinking Right

By jbmlaw

December 21, 2007 8:04 AM | Link to this

Merry Christmas all. No comment on Harvard and Penn – as an alumnus of a low top-tier or high second-tier private school, anything I say would sound like sour grapes.

Ritz-Carlton can forget about my business until they offer Krispy-Kreme.

On ethanol, that’s another reason I am reconsidering McCain – he tells the Iowa audiences that he opposes ethanol subsidies. That’s my kind of an SOB. If McCain had timely supported the Bush tax cuts he might have been my first choice, McCain-Feingold notwithstanding. It may not be fair for me to judge a candidate by a single poor decision, as I judge Arlen Specter on his Bork vote, but I don’t have to be fair when someone screws up on a no-brainer.

Cocaine and its derivatives are one of the few classes of drugs that I think ought to be controlled, but I am not particularly distressed about the shortening of sentences. I have observed some druggie clients, and hypothesize that if one stays off the drug for 90 days or so, he has kicked it (if he wishes to kick it.) Volition and time are the keys on cocaine.

Jim offers many “education industry” notes today; I would supplement those sound arguments with Dr. Williams’s essay this week, “Academic slums.” If you don’t have time, I’ll give you his bottom line: to cure what ails schools, abolish the “education” major. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/archive.shtml A few weeks ago some of our fellow bloggers – think it may have been Glenn and AmVet - offered some amusing aphorisms based on views similar to those expressed by Dr. Williams.

Fulton needs a sheriff to reward the mayor’s cronies. Fulton needs a sheriff to keep political hacks employed and off the street. Fulton needs a sheriff to dispose of all of that extra tax money that we don’t know what to do with. Just use some imagination there Jim.

I figured “No Country for Old Men” was about New Yorkers horrified when Johnny Cash played Carnegie Hall.

Special note to HIDT – your stuff under my name makes me sound a lot more interesting than my stuff under my name. I got a laugh out of your work late yesterday, without regard to whether anyone else did. I perceive this Spears girl (there must be a joke somewhere in the phrase “pregnant Spears girl” but we’ll leave that effort to Tiny Tim) is slightly older than one-quarter my age; it’s not that I don’t remember “how,” but I may have trouble remembering “why.”

Special note to Glenn – your response to our friend TFTT captured my thoughts but said it better than I would have. In fact, after reading your response, I found myself reciting the same lines offered by Slim Pickens in response to the soaring expressions of Harvey Korman in “Blazing Saddles.” As this is a family newspaper, I’ll limit my presentation to the most quotable one: “Ditto!”

By Don

December 21, 2007 8:10 AM | Link to this

NJ ending capital punishment is a moot point. Nobody on death row in NJ has been put to death since the law went on the books. All it did was cost the NJ taxpayer a bundle of loot to keep the inmates on death row going thru innumerable appeals. Better to just give life w/o parole and be done with it.

By TW

December 21, 2007 8:10 AM | Link to this

I apologize to the families of our soldiers for not giving them a Commander in Chief worthy of their sacrifice. The soldiers of a volunteer military are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the electorate. We, in turn, owe them a Commander in Chief whose discretion is sound; whose motive’s are genuinely centered in what’s best for our country. God forgive us.

By ron

December 21, 2007 8:15 AM | Link to this

By Mid-South Philosopher

December 21, 2007 8:23 AM | Link to this

Good morning, Jim,

My, my, we are wound-up about public education and teachers today, aren’t we? Remember, Santa Claus is watching you!

One more hurrah for vouchers before the year’s end! Well, we probably are going to need them! Given the current expectations teachers face in today’s No Child Left Behind No Teacher Left With One school environment, by 2015 we will be lucky to get Juanita and Manuel to come into the schools to work…let alone any home grown Hope Scholarship educated pedagogues!

Then, again, maybe all those out-of-state students, signed-up as in-state and drawing Hope monies illegally, will have a ping of conscience and stay and Teach for Georgia!

Naw! They are not that stupid.

Question: If Roy Barnes, Georgie Bush, and Teddy Kennedy (the three blind mice or three stooges; take your pick) are correct and American public schools are so da*n bad, why are more American students not crossing the borders from the United States to attend classes in Guadalajara or Montreal?

Wait a minute. Wait just a cotton-picking minute. Come to think of it the majority of the members of Congress and most of the members of the Georgia General Assembly were educated in public schools. Maybe Roy, Georgie, and Teddy are right after all!

I am off on Christmas travels, Jim, but I shall return in time for the Wild Hog Supper.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and all the bloggers on this board.

By Another taxpayer

December 21, 2007 8:25 AM | Link to this

Talk about gas and things that get flushed — How many have read the headline in the Whitecountynewstelegraph(dot com). What a pile of sh.. Really!! And, not just a small pile. We’re talking about 100s of thousands of gallons of apparently unregulated dumping for years and years and years. Where are the politicians when the jobs get too smelly?

By Shark Sammich

December 21, 2007 8:30 AM | Link to this

Once again, the passive-aggressive nature of conservative jealousy rears its ugly head.

For some reason, it is A-ok for “conservatives” to get all jealous and envious and covetous and all that other kind of -ous when it comes to high-end sports talent. For some reason, “conservatives” have a serious problem with people negotiating the best deal they can manage for themselves on the open market.

To the extent that our conservative Jim Wooten not only resents A-Rod, but claims that he is a no-show.

I have to assume that the reasoning behind this is that no matter how well-off the talent might become, they’ll never be as well off as those who actually hire them; and the default sympathy among “conservatives” is for the wealthier party in a conflict.

By jbmlaw

December 21, 2007 8:42 AM | Link to this

Dear TW @ 8:10, You must have seen Dan Henninger’s essay on meaningless apologies, http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110011016 . Good irony there. Unrelated, WSJ is going after Huckabee today with daggers drawn – almost looks like a NYT hit job. Even Peggy Noonan is slashing. Maybe this is what Shar was trying to tell me last week. Makes Fox News and Limbaugh look restrained by comparison; even the “anti-Christ” would have less reason to complain about her coverage.

By Jim needs to retire

December 21, 2007 8:58 AM | Link to this

So common are “hate” hoaxes, especially those involving graffiti, that the first question to ask is whether “victims” have agendas

Possibly the stupidest thing Jim Wooten has ever expressed publicly.

The number of notable actual hoaxes can be counted on one hand…hardly common.

They just arrested a man for shooting at a group of people that were mingling in front of a gay club here in Atlanta. Unfortunately this wasn’t a hoax..one of them..a friend of mine..was hit. Yes, let’s ask them what their agenda was…they must have been plotting some type of gay militant strike somewhere.

Jim Wooten is a moron!

By TW

December 21, 2007 8:59 AM | Link to this

jbmlaw - since the murdock purchase, the WSJ only gets opened for the bottom of the cat box. One of the things you’ll learn to do when you become a man is apologize when you are wrong. You’re ability to chuckle at the empty table settings this holidays demonstrates a childish level of ego still alive in your veins. Nonetheless, Happy Holidays to you and your parents.

By jbmlaw

December 21, 2007 9:07 AM | Link to this

Apologies TW, I thought your phony apology was meant as humor. Jim Wooten, a little over a year ago, didn’t you write a funny parody of one of Cynthia McKinney’s faux-apologies?

By Aquagirl

December 21, 2007 9:17 AM | Link to this

Dear Santa, I know Jim’s a close buddy of yours—what with the white hair and all—so I’ll drop my list off here as I head out of town to see my family. Thankfully, there are people who claim me as theirs in this world. Here’s what I want for Christmas:

Jim’s endorsement of Hillary for prez—-we all know he’s a closet fan of hers. Those columns he writes don’t fool anyone.

a reputable job for jbmlaw. The guy seems pretty decent, it’s a shame he has to be a lawyer.

Overflowing Salvation Army kettles, in the remote case Glenn might be too busy to ask you himself.

New meds for TFTT. I’m sure I don’t have to explain that one.

Exterior airbags for Redneck’s beer truck. So when he drunkenly veers into a choir of nuns and orphans, no one will be injured.

A brain and a heart for Dusty. She has enough patriotism to last her a lifetime, so you can skip that this year. :)

Peace in Iraq, in whatever non-partisan way you can do that. like most Americans, I really don’t care if Democrats or Republicans take the credit, I just want things to go as best as they can. And please don’t forget all the folks we have over there. Or the Iraqis, as they try to rebuild their country. Matter of fact, just bring a Merry Christmas to everyone everywhere, except terrorists. Maybe you could bring them a nice landslide to seal them in their caves.

Me—I just want some new swim fins, a Democratic president in ‘08 (so I can swim in clean water again) and…how can I put this? A, um, “donation” from THE Captain. I want a he-man aquababy from the most incredible gene pool ever.

Santa, if you can’t bring any of those things, I’ll settle for seeing everyone relatively unscathed when I return. And maybe a pinch of decency for this blog, Lord knows we could all use it at times, even (gasp!) me.

Thanks Santa!—Aquagirl

By CANCER FACE MCCAIN SCANDAL

December 21, 2007 9:20 AM | Link to this

The only reason Jim and his fellow repuke clowns want vouchers for private schools from us tax paying public school home owners is to subsidize the education of their grandchildren in private schools. You can bet your bottom dollar that if a voucher for special education brats is approved, all those grand brats will suddenly come down with a nasty case of Aspgars sysdrome. Tax the rich at a 99% rate for all income over 100K. Make it retroactive to 1990.

By Lee

December 21, 2007 9:31 AM | Link to this

Headline on ajc.com: “77 Fulton teachers overpaid.” Just 77? I’d say all being paid for advanced degrees unrelated to their teaching field are being overpaid.

I seem to recall an article in the AJC about a PE teacher with a PHD earning $90k per year. Absolute insanity.

Academia places emphasis on how many peices of paper you have on the wall. The rest of us value results. The two are not necessarily in sync.

By CANCER FACE MCCAIN SCANDAL

December 21, 2007 9:37 AM | Link to this

Chaney and Bush: Two draft dodging cowards worshiped by WoodenHead and his ignorant clan.

By TW

December 21, 2007 9:41 AM | Link to this

Lee - no doubt you work for the tobacco industy.

There is no greater abuse of the welfare concept than the $400k we throw at ‘w’ each year.

By Shark Sammich

December 21, 2007 9:44 AM | Link to this

Aw, how nice. Jim got someone to bite on his “Them Yune-yunahzed Teecherz iz overpaid!!1!!” riff.

Anyone here know how much the clerical error in question actually cost these 77 teachers? Or what it comes to per teacher, per year? Or whether or not this amount is planned to be docked from these teachers’ salaries?

I do, because I actually read the story, something I bet neither Jim nor Lee managed to do.

(Answers: $160K, $415, and yes.)

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 9:57 AM | Link to this

Lee,

Actually, the two are rarely in sync, and credentialism is a principle symptom of the problem with education, which problem may be defined as a series of categorical errors, as, per your point, the equating of credential-based teacher compensation with student outcomes;

• or the equating of normed & standardized test scores with actual, worthwhile, retained learning;

• or the equating of schooling with education;

• or the equating of student outcomes with the productive output of a ball bearing factory;

• or the equating of the adults who work within the compulsory school system with the clientele of that system (which clientele, in U.S. law, is a species of “inmate”);

• or for that matter the equating of inmates with a service clientele, schoolchildren;

• or the equating of that industrial sector itself, “education”, with actual child rearing;

• or the equating of the hirelings of that system with parents;

and on and on.

The late Albert Shanker, longtime President of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, made no secret of his considered opinion that fully two-thirds of serving compulsory schoolteachers should be fired for incompetence, and the salaries of the remaining third doubled. I worked for him, and he made it clear that he was quite serious about this. Interestingly, the Carnegie foundations took him seriously too, and put their money where his mouth was.

To no avail.

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 10:07 AM | Link to this

We complain about overpayment of teacher salaries, and here Wooten’s sucking down fried pies at the Ritz-Carlton!

What’s this country coming to?

By Shark Sammich

December 21, 2007 10:12 AM | Link to this

The “problem with education” is that a noisy minority of functional imbeciles want to gut the public educational system, and work tirelessly to encourage middle-class Americans to bail out of it.

A shared-responsibility system only works if you have a critical mass of people buying into it. If not enough people believe in the concept of publicly funded education, then the system degrades.

All but a few “Conservatives” will ever acknowledge this objective, but those who do are loud and obnoxious enough that rational people can and will take steps to keep such stupidity in check.

That’s all anyone really needs to know about the subject. The rest is all window dressing.

(Full disclosure—I do not earn a dime from this system, in fact, I pay a bit extra in time and funds in order for my child to attend a public school out of our district. So I’m fine with the concept of “school choice,” but I’ll fight tooth and nail, and John F#ckin Smoltz, to prevent Jeebofascist scum from taking MY tax dollars to indoctrinate children.)

By Craig

December 21, 2007 10:13 AM | Link to this

Since we’re relying on pop culture to guide our decisions on the death penalty, I ask that anyone in favor of it read “The Innocent Man” by John Grisham.

There are lots of reasons to oppose the death penalty. One that may get the attention of “conservatives” is the cost - as ably demonstrated by the Brian Nichols case, it costs more to prosecute a death penalty case than it would to just lock the perp up for life in a max security prison.

By Redneck Convert

December 21, 2007 10:15 AM | Link to this

Well, I’m downright ashamed of this Aquagirl. Making out like I drink on the job and Lusting in Her Heart after this Captain guy. Getting on this blog has done her no good atall. She started out throwing off on Forsyth County and now she’s turned into a sl-t. Everybody knows this Captain is Gay.

And I’m against letting the crack people out of prison early. Most are Those People and it won’t be no time atall till we got more welfare babys to pay for out of our taxes.

The only thing I got against the Ritz Carleton is they won’t let me in and they don’t serve good grits and red eye gravy.

Me and my buddy Jim Earl went down to the Marietta Conference Center and Resort to try to play some golf oncet. It use to be the Marietta Country Club but when that outfit up and moved we figured we would take the chance to try out the golf course they wouldn’t let us on back then. Well, they acted like me and Jim Earl was from Mars. Said we couldn’t play in t-shirts and overalls, it don’t matter weather we could pay. So we hightailed it back up to Countryland Golf Club out above Cumming and played and never went back.

I wish Wooten would stop harping on vouchers or people getting a free ride in colledge. Its all just a waste of time. I never made it out of 5th grade and it never hurt me none. I think just like tftt and Glenn and Van and Wooten and jbmlaw and other godly conservatives and I didn’t have to waste all those years going to classes. You don’t have to have no schooling to be a conservative. Matter of fact, it makes it harder to get back to where you was in the first place. Thinking will get you into all kind of trouble. Just look at Sister Dusty. This poor woman has turned into a idiot that can only say trader and hate America and such like a parrot. Course, she uses a French word or two oncet in a while to make you think she’s thinking.

Have a good day everybody and Merry Christmas.

By Tom

December 21, 2007 10:19 AM | Link to this

Of the several comical absurdities in Wooten’s maunderings today, the most hilarious is the suggestion that the death penalty should not be abolished. Why, you ask. Well it’s obvious: because of something Wooten saw in an entirely fictional film. Why not suggest that the appropriate film to view is Star Wars? Seriously, look at Darth Vader and the awful Emperor—they were responsible for whole planets being destroyed. If that’s not a clinching argument in favor of the death penalty, then I don’t know what is.

By Shark Sammich

December 21, 2007 10:21 AM | Link to this

There appears to be plenty of backing among NJ residents to eliminate the death penalty. Given that, and given how the death penalty seems to be no solution whatsoever in actually reducing the number of murders in a state that deploys it, and given how Jim is allegedly pro “States’ RATS,” then WTF is his problem?

And no, Jim, I will not go spend my hard-earned money on movie tickets to try to grasp WTF your problem might be. If you want to make a point about why you feel the need to kill prisoners in custody, make the damn point.

By TW

December 21, 2007 10:32 AM | Link to this

Glenn - surely one of your wisdom sees public education for the joke of a political football it has become. The public schools located in the middle of the big houses work just fine - rather well actually. Those on the the other side of the county have a terrible time. They are a reflection of the community. Period. Want to ‘fix’ education? Provide Jobs, clean up the streets, etc., etc. When the child shows up in the morning ‘ready to learn’ they do.

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 10:43 AM | Link to this

TW, my disagreeable friend,

Thanks for the compliment but frankly I don’t see that the schools in affluent districts work just fine. I’m spent too much of my life in “site visits” preliminary to federal and state evaluations of schools deemed praiseworthy, usually for their relatively high test scores. Without exception they have been among the worst I’ve seen, and my paymasters were duly told as much. “It is all of the bunk”, as Henry Ford said of my field, historiography.

This is not to say that Citizen Edwards’ tale of two cities does not apply in spades to the compulsory schools; it certainly does, and scandalously so and on a Dickensian scale, as my friend Jonathan Kozol has endeavored since 1967, and especially since the killing of Dr. King, to prove.

By AmVet

December 21, 2007 10:48 AM | Link to this

Merry KwanzChrismakkuh and a Happy Solstice to all!

I want to offer my sincere apologies to my fellow bloggers.

As some of you know, I reported a few days ago, INACCURATELY, that the beating suffered by the Princeton “conservative” was administered by two freshmen sorority pledges from the Ropa Dopa Con house.

Turns out this GOPher was no Woodrow Wilson, but a common garden variety Princeton prevaricator and made it all up. And to add even more embarrassment to this “unfortunate” episode, his injuries were self-inflicted!

Interestingly, through his own research he apparently discovered that one of his ancestors belonged to the Flagellants sect during the Black Plague and he thought that being an anti-semitic ascetic would be so cool he’d try single handedly to revive the practice in NJ.

But to his credit the young man admits learning from this incident but nonetheless will remain a fervent admirer of Torquemada…

When our current West Wing occupier, heard this news he concurred, saying, “My heart goes out to this disturbed and misunderstood young man, BUT I still say that there is never a BAD time for a crusade!”

By Curious Observer

December 21, 2007 10:55 AM | Link to this

They are a reflection of the community. Period.

Bingo! If you expect redneck children to become scholars, take them out of the home environment in which they learn to scorn education and to be suspicious of anyone with a different skin color or religious creed. If you expect black children to become scholars, take them out of the hip-hop culture in which they learn to scorn education and to be suspicious of “whitey.”

Look at the educational achievement of children of Asian background. They grow up in homes where education is valued, and failure to achieve academically is not viewed as the fault of an underpaid and demonized group of teachers. In these homes, school is not merely an obstacle to planning the family vacation.

I wish I could live 50 more years. I could then observe that Georgia has continued to be among the bottom five in educational achievement in the nation. It’s the culture, folks, not the school.

By TW

December 21, 2007 10:58 AM | Link to this

Glenn - by ‘worst that you’ve seen’, to which schools are you comparing our public ones? And what was your evaluative criteria during these ‘visits?’

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 11:00 AM | Link to this

jbm,

Thank you very much for the ditto. Coming from you it means all the more to me.

Did you ever happen to note the name that Brooks gave to Korman’s character? Do you know of its origins?

Mel friggin Brooks. All that humor and Bancroft too. Sonofabuzzard.

By @@

December 21, 2007 11:05 AM | Link to this

Jim:

I just stopped by to wish you a Merry Christmas and many hopeful New Years to come. Your columns always offer me hope that things are getting better so consider my well-wishes a re-gifting of sorts.

You make me laugh with your humor…”Fried pies” cause you to “sufficiently expand” on vouchers… and on those you sit firmly in favor of. Me as well! My hope is that it will force public schools into a mindset of competition. Allow for more creative methods of teaching. Get those young minds excited about learning. Compulsories don’t work when you’re young and looking to bust loose.

You then leave the table on someone’s declaration that “Fulton needs a sheriff to….”

Please! Could you take Victor Hill with you upon your departure? Use “the turnip” in a creative “dish” for the holidays.

I contemplate the issue of alternative fuels Jim, and I’ve been wondering — In the event that global warming turns out to be a natural phenomenon; is it wise to put our hopes and aspirations into a fuel source which may be impacted by natural droughts? It seems like risky business to me unless of course I’m missing something which is highly probable.

I hope you and your family enjoy the holidays.

Merry Christmas to all and God bless us every one. You too Tiny Tim a/k/a PoliFore wherever you are.

By AmVet

December 21, 2007 11:10 AM | Link to this

Glenn,

One of my numerous favorite Hedley lines was, “Unfortunately there is one thing standing between me and that property - the rightful owners”.

As for the name I always thought it was some sort of veiled reference to the Austrian born actress. To what end, other than in homage her obvious beauty, I could not guess.

And besides, who couldn’t use a Mongo or two on their side?

By Dennis

December 21, 2007 11:29 AM | Link to this

Mr. Wooten says, “I’d say all being paid for advanced degrees unrelated to their teaching field are being overpaid.”

With such an understanding of classroom teaching and transference learning, we can be thankful Mr.Wooten is not a public school teacher.

All we would have is little automatons running around.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By time for the truth

December 21, 2007 11:31 AM | Link to this

Glenn

U have completely, seemingly deliberately, bolluxed up my main argument!!! Which actually is NOT the lameness and much denied blatant systematic pagan rip offs.

The unhinged papist and later proddie/baptist etc dogma and overall shameful genocidal christian history of oppression/sexism/racism/enslavement etc is UNDENIABLE and a matter of indisputable record.

I take your point about the various usages of “church”. But that is just a rather specious ‘red herring’ and of secondary importance here!!

A few days ago the worldwide head of the Anglican Church - and the top clergyman in the UK - the Archbishop of Canterbury stated unequivocally that the nativity was a load of bollocks. See the Daily Telegraph.co.uk earlier this week for the story and his reasoning. Increasingly the less dogmatic, very senior clergy are seeing it for the bollocks it is. He is hardly alone amongst his flock!!

The rest of wot U rote had me in stitches. It was classic sHuckerbee/Robertson/Falwell et al … evangelical bollocks that is quite absurd.

There is NO “Lord” mate!! This is simply an absurd, utterly unsupported assertion and emotional crutch which so many evangelical nutters like Robertson and his ilk depend on and cling to. This is very close to the language of the snake handlers and the wide eyed happy clappy wankers and simpletons who drive around with stickers asserting my boss is a jewish carpenter or in case of rapture this car will be driven over to the state mental hospital!!

It is the HEIGHT of intellectual dishonesty and decidedly arrogant to attempt to utterly speciously discard the teachings/beliefs/practices of all the organised churches/clergy and just blandly assert that they are “wrong” or they have supposedly misunderstood or distorted or twisted or corrupted the “message” or whatever.

Basing this on some seemingly narcissistic rejection of what many hundreds of millions of christians have believed for around 1700 years or so. The essence of what U believe - aside from the varied various church/sect dogma - and what the average church goer believes is pretty much the same.

You talk of “recieved wisdom” - but this can ONLY be processed through the already rigidly programmed ‘lens’ of the reciever. Thus it will be exactly what U want it to be.

Ultimately yesterday’s post from U was little more than emotive unsupported fideistic assertion. There is NO credible, reasoned or reasonable basis for anything U wrote about “walking with the lord”. At least I have backed up my assertions/observations with logic and recorded history.

The christian message, as I have shown in past days to any rational, intellectually honest person - wherever its been peddled - is essentially NOTHING more than an assiduous wilful rip off of numerous earlier saviour mystery cults which was sadly ruthlessly imposed, initially by the papists and the orthodox churches before the reformation and various nutters spun off into their precious little anal puritanical power cliques arguing the toss endlessly about rite/practice/rules/dress etc and who gets the money and power!! The deranged religious nutters who perpetrated the English Civil War are a perfect utterly intolerant (snapshot) example of this inevitable process.

U use the bible as your central framework - regardless of what version - to propagate your views. As we have agreed the bible is deeply flawed (although U are for very obvious reasons less critical than I) with contradiction, mistranslation, lies, misleading-wrong history, utter complete rubbish, interpolations etc. To devote one’s life to the idiocy of the ridiculous bollocks in the NT is very sad. Oral tradition as U agreed is flawed. It is IMPOSSIBLE to know EXACTLY what was changed/edited/lied about/added/tweaked or what was deliberately asserted to simply push the given message etc. All the zealouts who compiled the NT NEVER met the very likely mythical figure jesus. NONE of them WITNESSED directly any of the supposed events written about. ALL of them had a very self serving theological message to push. It is as credible as Harry Potter and even less credible than James Bond.

The book of revelations is just typical gibberish of the time. Such religiously charged delusional ‘poetry’ was very common.

The world’s first risen saviour god was Osiris. ALL the others stemmed from “him” and the ubiquitous unquestioning devotion of the Egyptians and those they ruled. Egyptians were ‘promised’/sought and aspired to immortality with Osiris, drinking his ‘blood’ and eating his ‘body’ in his temples, having at death been through a ‘judgment’ hall. Its all in the historical record.

When U also realise that this all happened in the context of a utterly superstitious world that completely relied on christ knows how many gods goddesses and signs and avoiding the wrath of whatever god by sacrifices and christ knows what other mystical bollocks its little wonder that we ended up this shiite!!! The koran is actually much worse than the bible … but that’s for another day.

Just two superb OT rabid absurdities for ya.

The ark was just 450’ long, 75’ wide and 50’ high (three stories). That’s what cubits translate to in the modern world. With just one door. How the fook did ALL the animals/birds/insects etc fit in there??” Wot about the methane poisoning? And which animals ate each other? Surely this buggered up Noah’s two by two count??!! Is it right that Noah shovelled all the shiite over the side and there it remained until Captain Cook disovered it - and on the five millionth day it was it was named Australia??? As for all that rain … do the maths - 40 days/night and about 4-5 miles deep … WOW … that was a freaking miracle. And no flood insurance either!! NOr any top soil for flora or wood for building afterwards!!

The Israelite exodus was UTTERLY IMOSSIBLE as stated. There would have been @ 3 million people 1 yard apart in a column of 5 to get it done. Historians say U multiply the number of civilians by 5 times the number of adult men (600,000 it says in Exodus) to get the rough total population. PLus all the animals needed to sacrifice to the lord … so at least tens of thousands of sheep. Even assuming the Egyptians meekly handed over all their gold/treasure and had no idea of the moonlight flit the folks would have been travelling at @ 130 mph to make it in the time allowed. I’ve done the journey from Cairo to Tel Aviv by bus and its a long trip - even using the car ferry over the Suez canal.

Oh yeah - one other thought - how the fook did all the folks get lost for 40 years in an area about the size of Wales or a third of Georgia?

Despite all the fine rather specious ethereal erudition I now know that U are essentially just another evangelical type, which of course is your perfect right - and good luck to U. I wish U well mate.

Hopefully the lord (smirk) will graciously allow all this to end here!!

By time for the truth

December 21, 2007 11:35 AM | Link to this

Aquahag

I sincerely hope that Father Christmas brings U some nu batteries for ur’e manky old vibrator … no need to explain that one of course … smirk

By ConservativeDem

December 21, 2007 12:02 PM | Link to this

By TW “December 21, 2007 8:10 AM I apologize to the families of our soldiers for not giving them a Commander in Chief worthy of their sacrifice.” Speak for yourself! I was in during bill clinton’s era and he reduced military intelligence personnel from 2100 to 254. Is that a reason for 9/11/2001. God did bless us by Bill leaving the office and now satan is back with his wife…but I bet you are happy!

By TW

December 21, 2007 12:09 PM | Link to this

ConservativeDem - 9/11 didn’t happen on Clinton’s watch, moron.

By ConservativeDem

December 21, 2007 12:12 PM | Link to this

By time for the truth December Glenn

Your ignorance is bliss. It reminds me of an old saying, “They profess to be wise and thus became fools!” Carry on “wise one!”

By ConverativeDem

December 21, 2007 12:19 PM | Link to this

So TW you can plan, recruit, train and execute a deed such as 911 in eight months? Wow you are a mastermind!

By jbmlaw

December 21, 2007 12:35 PM | Link to this

Dear Glenn @ 11:00, I am with AmVet @ 11:10, except I think the reference to Hedy Lamarr is not so veiled – seems like there is a mocking joke about her inability to sue as the “Tex X” story takes place before she is born. Since she was brighter than the average Hollywood type – held a patent on an active encryption principle, based on music, I believe - and was active in the war effort against the Nazis, I always assumed that Brooks admired her. And her career was dead, perhaps by her choice, in 1971, so it struck me as a nice salute.

By TW

December 21, 2007 12:38 PM | Link to this

ConservativeDem - Thank you very much! Although, truth be told, you strike me as someone who makes everyone around them look like a mastermind…kind of waters down your compliment…

By BS Aplenty

December 21, 2007 12:41 PM | Link to this

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all !!

By time for the devilish truth

December 21, 2007 12:43 PM | Link to this

Your ignorance is bliss.

HA HA HA HA HA HA … LMFAO!!!

now that was damn funny … for christ’s sake stop it - ur’e making my sides hurt like hell!!!

Cheers for the pathetic witless cliches - U’re smug smarmy gimme the collection plate NOW preacher must be very proud!!!

I bless U bubbaturd in the name of Satan, Lucifer and Ashtoreth!!

Might just as well do it though in the name of Banana, Pineapple and Britney - or any other three arbitrary names/nouns or whatever U care to randomly choose.

By Captain Freedom

December 21, 2007 1:05 PM | Link to this

Well, another lesson in “it doesn’t pay to be nice to some people”. In the spirit of Christmas cheer, THE Captain went out of his way to suggest that our yokel philosopher and beer deliveryman might have a good chance with the younger of the slatternly Spears sisters. Knowing the penchant of these inbred yahoos for sex with young children, THE Captain felt He was offering quite the olive branch. And for His trouble, THE Captain is accused by the slack jawed Redneck of being gay. The very idea!!!!! Captain Freedom is 111% heterosexual. Why, He is as straight and normal as any decent God Fearing TRUE Believer, just like Mr Wooten and Sen Lindsay Graham. To suggest otherwise is to heap contumely upon the entire constellation of virile, manly, Right Thinking uber menschen.

While THE Captain will admit to fastidious grooming habits and a affinity for watching What Not to Wear every time it is on, THE Captain rejects any notion that He is “gay”, unless by gay one means carefree and lighthearted, like the word used to mean before the Islamosodomites ruined it for the rest of us. It was a fabulous word, simply marvelous, and THE Captain objects that He is forced to avoid using that once-smashing term of elation.

THE Captain will not stoop to the level of our trailer trawling troglodyte by pointing out the eyebrow-raising realtionship between Redneck and his ever-present “companion”, Jim Earl. Nor would THE Captain lower himself to point out the our John Deere cap-wearing hillbilly friend went out of his way to marry a woman so corpulent that intimate congress is all but impossible. Nor would THE Captain suggest that our Redneck friend hangs around the country store scouting river-riding tourists who might just “squeal like a pig”. No, THE Captain will not suggest that Redneck is a Friend of Cher. THE Captain would not sink so low.

It’s just like Glenn found out when he tried to reason with the faux Brit meth addict. This was covered nicely in a post yesterday by Heywood Jablome, and more truth could hardly be packed into one post that there is there.

However, THE Captain wishes to distance himslef from the coarse tone of this Heywood Jablome fellow. He is beneath our dignity and attention, though his name creates an uncomfortable frisson in THE Captain’s nether bits.

Speaking of which, THE Captain would be honored to Father the offspring of Aquagirl to dilute the apostatic Islamoliberesbianism in her tainted bloodline. However, THE Captain’s seed is trothed to Mrs Freedom, who, should She ever return from Her extended missionary trip to Tuscany (where She is ministering to the needs of migrant vinyard workers from Andalusia), has promised to receive My donation as a late Christmas present to Myself, America, and the Cause of Freedom.

It is truly a heartwarming Christmas tale. First off, imagine the privation this Godly woman is suffering to lend aid and comfort to these strapping and lonely young dagos so far from home and family. One can only pray that Mrs Freedom’s ministerings can help these young men tame the Mediterranean passions that are unable to find expression within the bounds of their own holy matrimony. Yes, the power of prayer is not be denied, despite the atheistic secular humanist tripe peddled by that time for the heresy fellow.

Our last phone call is a good example of her travails, in that She was forced to use a public line in a small cafe overlooking the vinyard in which She toils so. We could barely hear one another due to the cacaphonous debauche raised by alcohol swilling fonrnicators in the background, several of whom were clearly importuning her to join in their Sinful ways. Still, we managed to discuss how, after these 14 years of wedded bliss, it is important that We bring to fruition the Holy plan for THE Captain to sire a younger Keyboard Warrior to carry on when THE Captain dies. (No, don’t cry for Me blogantina. The truth is, I’ll never leave you.)

Why, the Good Woman broke down in tears of joy when She agreed to this promise to accept My seed upon Her return. So enraptured was She that She could barely say the words. Alas, our phone connection went bad at that moment and we have not had a chance to speak again since this last Labor Day conversation.

THE Captain is unsure when the Godly Mrs Freedom will be able to tear Herself away from the panoply of Juans, Javiers, and Pablos that She has been servicing, but THE Captain knows that when She returns, it will certainly be a Night to Remember.

Tis true…THE Captain is a playa. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Redneck.

Merry Christmas, EVERYONE, except the handwringingbedwetteramericahaters, who can all go straight to Hell, as always.

By time for the removal of ALLliberal filth from earth

December 21, 2007 1:43 PM | Link to this

poor old Lance Korporal Syphilis … its growing narcissistic homosexual obsession with its own ever dominant persona inbred redneKKK turd means it has obsessively puked up yet more oafish self absorbed putrid drivel. At least Syphilis still has its well deserved permanent place on cyber Death Row - it just needs to have the requisite confidence in its new Kremlin trained mental health team to avail itself of such a hard won honour.

Syphilis/inbred turd are as close as two sibling hermaphroditic ticks on a rabid stinky c oonhound. Such nihilistic carpet bagging yanKKKee vermin as this congenital turd burgling mo/fo needs to be forced to do an I hate mohammed perp walk outside the dusty shell of the US Embassy in Tehran on a Friday lunchtime offering free bacon and cheese biscuits.

Syphilis/inbred turd came from the same filthy chipped test tube and ‘together’ they/it should be returned ASAP to their happy wanking ground. Safe in the knowledge that such cretinous racist far left fodder for such treasured liberal idylls like the Khmer Rouge killing fields will not be haplessly overlooked next time!!

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 1:51 PM | Link to this

tftt, you execrable chamber pot, of course we can’t go on whith this marathon, so now you’ve stuck me with a felt responsibility to say something valedictory and punchy, which is the creditable province of Jim Wooten but the disreputable province of Mike Huckabee. I can’t do it. You win.

But what have you won, pisbucket? You’re so miffed at what I take to be your backyonder run-ins with Roman Catholicism that you don’t want to accept the extent to which I, a rather poorly trained historian, agree with you. My fidelity is not only to my Lord but also to my guild, which requires above all fidelity to the historical record, when we can find it. What I call fidelity to the record, you call surpassingly arrogant, self-serving and wishful.

Listen, mon, really: it’s not. I’m more a chickens hit than a martyr, but even I have the stripes to prove at least that the great many people like me are not self-serving. It actually pains us to believe many of the things commended to us by the authors of Holy Scripture. Believe it or not it alienates us, and drives us outside the circle to a lonely place where we often have only each other and sometimes not only that, as we’re as screwed up as everyone else. You mustn’t believe, please, that this is for kicks or for candy. The Turks understand us and accord us common respect; likewise the Indians and Pakistanis and Palestinian Muslims and others. Granted, they don’t know what you and I know of tragic ecclesiology, but so what?

Even were the institutional Church the strumpet you and I say she is (cf. the lost Book of Huckabees), nevertheless I, a proddy, am her son—just as I, a timid Christian aspirant, am likewise an unlikely claimant to ancient rabbinic parentage. Little boys aware that their mothers are mercenary strumpets love their mothers nonetheless. But if they’re smart—and for that matter sexually healthy—they don’t deify the hussies.

I am telling you that I am not an Evangelical (as it happens, a milquetoast Scots Presbyterian). I defer to those who have the courage and commitment to evangelize. Even when I worked for evangelicals it was really for the official purpose of smuggling democracy into benighted places, not ultimately to recruit Christians, but rather agents of political change. And truly, tftt, were I ever to lead a soul to Chist I assure you it will have been entirely by accident, which is to say by the unaided agency of the Holy Spirit. I don’t matter at all, much less do I have the nerve to feel arrogant in such departments.

What does matter is the substance of the debate you and I are enjoying a little too much, and if I have misrepresented either side of our substantive discussion, then I apologize. My “evasions” are to me candor, as for example my explanation of how I “filter” your use of the concept of a Xian church. You’re damn straight we employ our own hermeneutical “lens”, our optics and our synoptics; it’s because to the extent that we believe we filter everything through the light of Golgotha, just as postwar Jews, locked in their tragic theodical crises, rightly filter things through the smoke of Auschwitz.

[BTW, I dig the “your manky old vibrator” phrase, which caused me to wake the dog. I tried to explain to him that it was your fault, but he claimed, with a rather suspicious vehemence, that he doesn’t know who you are. Thrice did he so attest.]

Thanks a lot for lumping me in with notorious sham Christians, wanker. Can’t the writer in you summon enough momentary empathy to imagine even fleetingly how it feels to us to have to live with these jackasses, whom we are forbidden to judge but commanded to pray—though not to vote—for? Trust me, it’s worse than the way in which you have to put up with them after you’ve finished milling them for humor.

I most certainly am not tossing off two thousand years of Church tradition. I’m a bloody jack historian, for Christ’s sake! I told you accurately that there is another uninterrupted strain of Christian tradition (one of two others, actually; talk to Pagels about the third way) in which I place myself. Must that be characterised as a convenience, a handy dodge?

What in God’s name am I dodging, tftt? Christmas? Of COURSE it’s a blooming pagan ritual, and a bloody good time too.

I’ve read the Anglican Book of Common Prayer since I was seven years old [much of what you say is to be found in Her Majesty’s 39 Articles, BTW], and I think it delightfully shrewd that the Anglican prelates and their Roman predecessors should think to engraft wintertime pagan rituals into a glorious send-up of the Advent of a certain conquering baby.

Scriptures place the actual birth at the time of the Jewish Festival of Trumpets (Aug-Sept) but that doesn’t matter. If you have any appreciation at all for the potential beauty of liturgics you’ll see how elegantly useful it is to abstract Rabbi Yeshua’s three-year ministry into a twelve-month symbolic recapitulation that seekers can commemorate and learn from. It’s the genius of the Gregorian and later Angican religious calendars that, due to the abstracted compression, the masses of Advent were to be celebrated in proper calendric sequence, which happened to land at the end of December. Hence the shopping spree for off-the shelf fashions, pagan and otherwise. Masses are symbolic, as you know, and so is the Christ Mass. It was not meant as a literal anniversary of Jesus’ birth. My Christian forebears did not celebrate the Naz’s birthday as such, and neither for that matter did the Naz. Rather they upheld the sacraments Jesus told them to uphold. Christmas was not one of them. It is wholly anthropogenic and wholly fun, and it’s also a useful liturgy, in the right believers’ hands.

The little nativity scenes or creches, for instance, were pitched to preliterate ethnic Christians, especially children, as a tableau of the Nativity narrative. It’s all still therein, intact right under our noses. The gifts we over-give so idolatrously are comemorations of the lovely gifts presented to the once and future King of Kings upon His birth. That’s all. No smoking gun. Baptists may wish to stand on no ceremony at all, but they are more disciplined folk than I, who am an honorary Polynesian powerless before any invitation to a good time.

So it’s straight out of the Home for Retired Jewish Comedians that the Archbishop should discover the concoctions in his own prayer book, which concoctions have been well understood as such by your countrymen and mine for a very long time. It’s reminiscent of the Catholic discovery, four hundred years later, of the advantages of the Protestant Reformation. How classically, sluggishly frigging Gregorian can you get? Geologic time?? And since when was Christian conviction a prerequisite for the post of Archbishop of Canterbury, anyway? What a couple of flukes the last two—in sequence, yet!—have been.

Anyway, may God truly bless you this Christmas, wanker, and in the year ahead.

Pax Christi,

glenn

By Tom

December 21, 2007 2:13 PM | Link to this

THE Captain’s 1:05 above takes the grand prize—“Islamosodomites”! Keep up the outstanding work Capt.!

By Jack

December 21, 2007 2:20 PM | Link to this

Remember:

If you are 20 and not a liberal, you have no heart.

If you are 40 and not a conservative, you have no brain.

Merry Christmas!

By time for the truth

December 21, 2007 2:20 PM | Link to this

glenn

keep smoking the frankincense and myrhh bubbaturd!!

U appear to hallucinate/imagine summat that just aint there - but each to their own!!

your persistent choice of pious religious language and imagery is EXACTLY (where it counts) that of the average plebian evangelical. Despite your elitist supercilious flowery sneers and shameless vapid denials U freely and exactly proffer just wot sHuckabee et al puke up. Attempting to do a Kerry/Kennedy/Boxer, looking down contemptuously on those perhaps slightly more simpleton than U doesn’t in any way fool anyone - hopefully least of all yourself.

AS for the fooking holy spirit … that was the laugh of the day!!! Jack Daniels, Beefeater Gin or more likely in ur case Creme de Menthe?

May Satan give U a hefty kick in the bollocks - assuming U have some to kick!!

Enjoy Mithra’s birthday on Tuesday - isn’t it? - and have a great year!!

DEATH TO LIBERALS AND LIBERALISM!!

By Redneck Convert

December 21, 2007 2:21 PM | Link to this

Well, I might of knowed this Captain guy would haul off and attack me. He’s had it in for me ever since I fixed his wife’s pipes a year or so ago while he was off working. I guess its no suprize she is overseas looking for some men. It must be hard to be married to a Gay guy.

And its not a suprize TFTT would attack both of us. It just goes to show what not having the Holy Spirit will do to you. If he spent half of the time getting Right with the Lord that he spends attacking my religion, he wouldn’t go off roaring like a madman and calling other people names and such. Now even this worthless carpetbagger Glenn don’t want nothing to do with him.

I guess Sister Dusty is off emptying bedpans for Indians in her health care job today, so I don’t expect we will hear from her. Anyway, I want everybody to know my trailer ain’t nowhere near Chateau Elan and I didn’t win no snowman contest.

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 2:28 PM | Link to this

Amvet, jbm,

I blew it! It was Brooks’ character, Mayor Petomaine, the stage name of an actual turn-of-the century French stage sensation celebrated for his ability to whistle tunes through his tailcoat, which concealed his, uh, formal chaps. Yes, it’s true. The Parisian officials had to line up ambulances at the Moulin Rouge before his every performance. What Parisian or Parisienne would not faint with pleasure at the sound of Le Marsaillaise performed in such a manner? It’s ineffable. For his final one of inevitably many encores, he’d make a fastidious show of an onstage—unaided by other than a water pitcher and wash basin, after which he would blow out a candle set up at the far end of the stage. And accurate translation of his stage name, which he proudly carried to his death, would be something like Ze Farteest!

Remember what the incomparable Ms. Bancroft said when asked why she would marry such a troll?

“Because he makes me laugh.”

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 2:32 PM | Link to this

Pardonez moi. That should have been *La Marseillaise”.

Oh, and don’t shoot Mongo. It only makes him mad.

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 2:41 PM | Link to this

It is simply smashing of Harvard to finish out a great year for American higher ed. with that full-ride gesture to resuming its important place in our country’s Jeffersonian quest for an “aristocracy of talent”. I spent my academic career, such as it was, in “the other Bay Area”, but any fool in the trade knows that Harvard will always be Harvard, even when it falls on hard times, as it has done of late with the coming home to nest of the white doves of political correctness.

What Harvard’s done is not unique, but it’s Harvard that’s done it, and that makes all the difference. It is truly in the best tradition of Harvard, and the best tradition of Harvard is one of the greatest things this country ever produced. They can easily afford it and they did it to compete with elite publics, of course, but it was a bold move, given the fiduciary responsibility of the Overseers. Because the move is Crimson, it will shift the status factors all institutions must measure up to to remain competitive in the elite divisions.

It’s the second most wonderful thing to happen to USHE this year. The greatest thing was MIT’s complete opening of its curriculum, for free and in real time, on the Internet.

Cambridge has been heard from.

Georgia?

By AmVet

December 21, 2007 2:45 PM | Link to this

Glenn,

Tributes to the tricolore aside, I would have loved to have seen, but not necessarily smelled, that malodorous show!

Mel Brooks - a true American treasure!

By time for the yanKKKee leftist scum hating truth

December 21, 2007 2:50 PM | Link to this

now the inbred rednekkk turd t wat is sullenly and petulantly puking to itself about its rather shrill butchhomo persona Lce Kpl Syphilis.

inbred never got over being used and abused as a choir boy by its uncledaddy the defrocked paedophile papist priest who became the virtuoso minature organ (gedditt??)player in its local snake handling chapel for flat headed yanKKKee mutants.

go choke on a crystal meth moonpie inbred turd!!!

By jbmlaw

December 21, 2007 2:58 PM | Link to this

Dear Glenn @ 2:28, funny story, never heard that one. Makes you wonder how much was Bergman and how much was Brooks. (I know Richard Pryor wrote all of the Mongo jokes.)

By Camus

December 21, 2007 3:03 PM | Link to this

Glenn,

In re: the dustup between you and the faux brit:

That guy is like a one-man Comintern on the Wooten board. Any hint of deviation from his opinion will earn a swift and inchoate diatribe. A few people here suck up to him, but most ignore him.

I’m a long-time rider of public transit in several cities. One can always count on the occasional loon to climb aboard and declaim loudly and incoherently about something that he is sure everyone needs to know. (Kind of like Tom Tancredo!) The recommended response is to move casually away to the farthest corner. One learns to never make eye contact, and on occasion, getting off at the next stop to wait for the next train is the wiser option.

Never argue with a pig. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 3:04 PM | Link to this

jbm,

I seem to remember that Bob Hope and Duke Wayne likewise adored Ms. Lamarr and were quite close to her. How interesting about her war service. Reminds me of Julia Child. Very cool.

By Tiny Smellman

December 21, 2007 3:15 PM | Link to this

Camus, was that you raising your fetid head from the smoldering ashes of debate-defeat to once again swing at the liberal slayer, tftt? How amusing.

Moving to the back of the bus must be gettin’ kinda old for you?

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 3:18 PM | Link to this

Oh well, Camus, I enjoy his irreverent exercise of ballsout free expession of many true things which most people dare not say, lest anyone come to an actual understanding these days. (Suppose that would screw up the service economy or something.) And besides, de gustibus non est disputandum.

Thanks for the considered recommendation.

By jbmlaw

December 21, 2007 3:38 PM | Link to this

Dear Glenn @ 3:04, you have already flown well beyond my font of Blazing trivia, but if you have not listened to Mel’s narration of the making of BS, you need to indulge yourself. Your mention of the Duke reminds me that Brooks invited him to be the Kid, but the Duke - after reading the script - decided he had to decline for the sake of his career. Then Gig Young signed, and washed out - an unbelievably gross story - on the first day of filming, a Friday. As Brooks saw delays destroying his first shot at total control, he simply ran into Gene Wilder over the weekend, pure serendipity (apologies TFTT.)

By time for the yanKKKee leftist scum hating truth

December 21, 2007 3:41 PM | Link to this

I see the flea bitten Norff AfriKan wannabe arab queer Canus has morosely minced its limp wrist over to its stolen badly splattered bathhouse laptop and puked up another envious almost effete sissy fit. Replete with the usual I am nearly a transgendered butch queer now smugness.

Canus - like most of the other worthless far left USAF targets on here simply doesn’t get it!!

But hey - wilful doltish stupidity is reassuringly still just a liberal thang!!

Hilariously these utterly inadequate wankpig pinko scumbuckets are still desperately sicking up the “faux Brit” thang … LMFAO!!!

BTW Canus I can’t possibly be a pig - happily my mother never met your father!!

altogether now folks … GFY Canus

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 3:59 PM | Link to this

Why am I reminded of Bierce’s immortal “Oil of Dog”? “Oil.can”

jbm, looks like maybe this is the time to get serious about Jim’s take on school choice.

BUT FIRST, for something completely different. I can’t wait to exercise that hot tip on-Mel-on-BS. Carlin has a lifelong obsession with that worthy subject, on which he’s occasionally as grimly astute as Orwell was. But back to the scatological Mr. Brooks. I had never heard about Mr. Wayne and Mr. Young. Gig Young must have been one-foot-in a drunkard’s grave by then, and quite ill. Duke was smart to bow out. I reckon Mr. Brooks wanted to do Mr. Young a good turn, but it couldn’t have worked out that way. It’s still sad to see the later, booze-poisoned Keaton working the hustings, even though they were just trying to provide sinecure. If I’m in a mood to stand that kind of sadness I’ll listen to Chet Baker’s farewell and be done with it. (Botti idolizes him, BTW; good man.)

Tell us what you think of Jim’s cheerleading on the sidelines of the choice game.

By time for the truth

December 21, 2007 4:23 PM | Link to this

If U want a reely good but unusual larf then buy a Derek and Clive cd … its actually Peter Cook and Dudley Moore being extremely laddish and sententious way ahead of the times (1970’s).

If U want something just deliciously crude and enormously amusing with at least a decent hint of rib tickling stereotypical jokes that pinkos will likely not snigger at try Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown or Bernard Manning. Both of these feisty chaps are comedic legends on the working mens clubs circuit in the UK.

By Jackie

December 21, 2007 5:02 PM | Link to this

Harvard has one of the largest educational endowments in the country. They can afford to reduce the price of education, as well they should. More schools should follow their lead and get the government out of the business of “loaning” money for education. Incredulous that some kids come out of school with loans greater than that of some homes.

By Camus

December 21, 2007 5:30 PM | Link to this

Hi jbm

Wanted to let you know that yesterday’s Kurosawa was Throne of Blood, and it is well worth the viewing. Basically Macbeth in warlord-era Japan, it has a terrifically over the top performance from Toshiro Mifune.

Probably not as great as Rashomon or Ran, but pretty darn cool.

And if you have not seen Kurosawa’s Dreams, find it with all speed.

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 5:37 PM | Link to this

Yes, indeed! And speaking of drinking oneself to death, I give you the completely charming Peter Cook. But weren’t those wits in the line of Sellars & Miller & Ustinov & co., but with a Swinging London twist?

In any event, the Pythons certainly are indebted to them and have said as much, I believe, whereas Lorne Michaels and the original cast of improvisatirical jesters never to my knowledge paid their debt to Ernie Kovacs. I don’t like plagiarism. It pays, but it’s dirty money. All you have to do is give credit where it’s due, and then proceed to cash in.

And now for something…completely different: a man with three breasts.

No, a columnist of two minds. Vouchers. Jim, vouchers are dead. They are today’s New Math, as old as yesterday’s newspaper, “blowing down Bleecker Street”, as yet another booze burnout put it. They’re as old as PoFo’s sellout pols.

We should brainstorm mightily on how to salvage the essentials of the old stalking horse and then saddle up again, but it can’t happen until we get real about the need for it to happen. We no longer have John Walton, of blessed memory, to match wits and millions with NEA and, well, you can’t beat City Hall.

As for your assertion that “school choice will happen” because the people want it, well, yeah. They wanted Prohibition, too. And that’s what they got. If ten thousand Frenchman can be wrong, then ten million bucks can be misspent with the best of amateurish intentions. This country has a long history of inadvertently destructive, well-meaning plutocrats who think that because they know a lot about their method of money-making, therefore they know a lot about everything that interests them. I give you Citizen Gates.

He’s a very accomplished plagiarist, an extraordinarily wealthy man, and and as it turns out a good guy down deep. Great. I still miss Mr. Walton, who blessedly knew what he did not know but was ready with his checkbook nonetheless and was a quick study to boot because he bothered to remain curious and skeptical. Gates is none of that.

Unless we really do love money to the point of idolatry such that these blessedly wealthy men become somehow sacrosanct, their tenders and very journalistic observers utterly sycophantic, then there’s always the possibility that these philanthropists are throwing good money after bad. As it happens, that’s just what they’ve been doing inadvertently and what they propose to keep on doing, in spades.

I guess it’s my Scots blood, but I don’t like to see money wasted. My homey Andrew Carnegie had much better sense when it came time to plead for his shriveled Presbyterian soul with educational cash on the barrelhead.

It matters not that some of the nation’s largest foundations have banded together on this. Our largest foundations have banded together in various plutocratic combinations for three quarters of a century to address the failure of the compulsory schools, and they’ve only made it worse. Demonstrably so, for anyone interested (because they’re not; on the contrary, try publishing testable data to that effect and you’ll find yourself in line with Ms. McKinney, looking for work).

I worked on California’s SB 813 (Hart; 1984), the bill that introduced the charter system. The problem with it then is the same as today’s problem: what’s good for the goose is not good for the whole gaggle. Don’t allow yourself to be sidetracked by the necessary equal protection concern for who exactly gets to be the goose; that is, don’t miss the gaggle for the geese.

When the compulsory school systems—I prefer not to call them “public” schools, as that’s an especially undemocratic euphemism for “youth reservations”—abandoned demonstrably counterproductive Whole Language instruction (on the flush House of Carnegie, thanks a lot) and returned to phonics, they didn’t say, “Well, you get to opt out of Whole Language, and you and you, and you over there.” No, the thing was either good for children or it wasn’t. As it turned out, it was a “productive learning experience” for the funders and labcoated quacks, but at the expense of frying the minds of an entire generation of other people’s children who had no say in the matter.

You give me a million bucks of John’s or Bill and Melinda’s money and point me to an urban school and I guarantee you I’ll turn it around in one damn semester. If you don’t trust me, I can point you to more than 50 outfits, off the top of my head, that have done and still can do the same. BFD! What’s that got to do with the price of Clintons in China, Mr. Statistician?

Congratulations, you’ve just blown a million of other people’s not-so-hard-earned dollars gold-plating a pipe to nowhere. All the money that Apple and Gates have spent loading up showcase schools with work stations? As wasted as pee in the Pacific. You’re making the mistake that all rookie electeds make: extrapolating quantifiably to the macro level from your own microcosmic experience. In other words, welcome to the world in which million is spelled with a “B”. It’s not just quantifiably different. Those of us who’ve had to whip Freshmen into shape in hopes that they might become the next Pat Moynihan, say, have to administer some awkward tough love to get the job done. Who in hell’s gonna do that with Bill Gates? He thinks in large scale in terms of bits and bytes and bucks and bricks and mortar, but he doesn’t understand what every Kindergarten teacher does: that you’re dealing with children in unmanageable numbers, sorted in irrational and counterproductive ways.

The reason why he and Mrs. Gates and their philanthropic partners are wasting their money on anecdotal irrelevancies is in large part because the Carnegie trusts already got in the way, in 1955. That’s a post unto itself, and it moots their kind efforts entirely and very ironically.

Gates & Co. are as schooled up as most Americans, with the result that they not only are incapable of thinking outside the box, they don’t even realize that there is no box. They are trapped by the mental constraints of their own experience with “education”, and they’re no more aware of it than a grouper is aware of seawater. And so they are drowning, happily. Which is fine with me, as long as they don’t take the little ones down with them, which is exactly what those splendid potentates are doing.

Yes, Jim, the people will get what they wish for, the poor sods. Just like they did with the class-size reduction scam and numerous other multibillion dollar educational long-cons. And they’ll get it because this time it’s not John’s checkbook that’s at the ready.

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 5:48 PM | Link to this

No, wanker, you’re absolutely right; I’m not up on the parapet with the Pharisees, I’m down in the slop house with the rest of them, and it’s often smelly here too.

Do not mistake me for a poseur.

I usually try to use respectful language out of—of all things—respect. It’s not done for effect. When I attend a Muslim wedding I bathe first too, and put on my best. Poseur that I am.

Allow me to offer two observations. The first is the old aphorism, “The corruption of the best, is the worst.” And the other is the arc of the narrative of the Book of Acts: from the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem to the home church in Rome.

By Glenn

December 21, 2007 5:53 PM | Link to this

Also, Camus, it’s doubtless a character flaw, but I cannot do, in my life, without the sort of person who would tease another person about her nonexistent “manky old vibrator”. Can you?

By Camus

December 21, 2007 6:09 PM | Link to this

Glenn,

In this case, yes. Granted that tosser for the truth occasionally drops a nugget in with his offal, but the ratio makes it not worth the effort. The “monkeys typing randomly” image comes to mind, though even chimps are not so mean-spirited. Too many people here who put thought into what they post — both serious and satiric — to warrant humoring the merely logorrheic.

But truly good to have you aboard here. The level of exchange has certainly risen with your participation, despite the unfortunate case of fleas you picked up over the past few days.