HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Our Superficial Scholars:

For most of the past 20 years I have served on selection committees for the Rhodes Scholarship. In general, the experience is an annual reminder of the tremendous promise of America’s next generation. We interview the best graduates of U.S. universities for one of the most prestigious honors that can be bestowed on young scholars.

I have, however, become increasingly concerned in recent years – not about the talent of the applicants but about the education American universities are providing. Even from America’s great liberal arts colleges, transcripts reflect an undergraduate specialization that would have been unthinkably narrow just a generation ago.

As a result, high-achieving students seem less able to grapple with issues that require them to think across disciplines or reflect on difficult questions about what matters and why. . . . I detect no lack of seriousness or ambition in these students. They believe they are exceptionally well-educated. They have jumped expertly through every hoop put in front of them to be the top of their classes in our country’s best universities, and they have been lavishly praised for doing so. They seem so surprised when asked simple direct questions that they have never considered.

And this is not because they’re becoming narrowly focused math geeks.

CHANGE: Cities Too Broke To Bury Paupers.

JENNIFER RUBIN on New Hampshire’s Tea Party and tea leaves.

STANLEY KURTZ: Frances Fox Piven’s Violent Agenda. “A leading light of the Democratic Socialists of America claims she is not a socialist and, after urging the unemployed to emulate the Greek rioters, claims she is not inciting violence. . . . Calls for the escalation and manipulation of violent rioting have long been central to Piven’s strategy.”

CHANGE: Soaring Food Prices Pinch Area Restaurants. “Caught between rising food costs and price-weary consumers, most local restaurants have been slow to pass their costs on to diners. Now, however, they’re finding there’s little slack left to give.”

DAVID BOAZ explains things to Alex Pareene.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Why Does The US Still Give Aid To China?

AT AMAZON, 3D HDTVs on sale.

R.I.P. JACK LALANNE.

Plus, nutrition. Still good advice, and remarkably similar to, say, Gary Taubes’ advice today.

ERIC CANTOR: “Every Dollar Should Be On The Table.”

CHANGE: The Hill: 20 Years Since Desert Storm, Congress Defers To The Pentagon. They told me if I voted for John McCain, we’d have a culture of unquestioned military supremacy. And they were right!

JOHN HINDERAKER: How Not To Create Jobs.

THOMAS SOWELL ON WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN WHEN BIG-SPENDING STATES RUN OUT OF MONEY: “They should go bankrupt. I’m looking forward to it.” It’ll hurt people who have relied on their promises to pay. But so did what was done to the Chrysler bondholders.

RON BAILEY LOOKS AT the science of libertarian morality.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Count me dubious on the idea that government spending can boost competitiveness, since it’s allocated to political favorites instead of market winners.

Plus, proper scholarly opportunism: “Anyway, if Obama’s serious about boosting competitiveness, he might want to read my article Corporate Governance and US Capital Market Competitiveness.”

KAY HYMOWITZ ON Sarah Palin and the Battle for Feminism.

Related: Professor Jacobson: Why I Am So Intolerant.

“YOU FILM ME AGAIN, AND I’M GOING TO KILL YOU.”

BACKERS: “They do not back him because they think he is innocent. They back him because they believe he is guilty.”

WHY THEY’D RATHER TALK ABOUT SARAH PALIN (CONT’D): Higher pump prices coming your way this spring. “Gas pump prices that are around $3 a gallon now may seem like a bargain by the time your kids are on Easter egg hunts.”

LEBANON: We Want Peace and We’ll Cut Off the Hands of Anybody Who Says Otherwise.

RON RADOSH: Glenn Beck, Frances Fox Piven, and how the New York Times Falsely Depicts the Controversy.

The Nation defends Fox Piven, maintaining that she only supports “voter registration drives, grassroots organization, and when necessary, street protest” and “recognizing the leverage that oppressed groups have- and working with them to use it,” which is “her special genius.” But the good professor has gone way beyond this. I had discussed Fox Piven’s article in my PJM blog pointing out her call for unemployed Americans, and those otherwise hurt by the recession, to ‘become more disruptive’” and emulate “the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees. (my emphasis.)”

Although Stelter’s NYT’s article purports to be even handed, Stelter puts the onus not on Fox Piven for calling for violence which she denies, but on Beck for pointing out her statements on his Fox program. And Beck has as far as I have seen not only consistently argued for non-violence in all protest, but has been a strong advocate of First Amendment freedoms, and has quoted Piven’s own words accurately, and without distortion.

To add evidence of Beck’s culpability, Stelter cites a demand made by a group called “The Center for Constitutional Rights” to stop Beck’s “false accusations” against her. While they respect the right of free speech, a letter they wrote to Fox head Roger Ailes says, “Mr. Beck is putting Professor Piven in actual physical danger of a violent reponse.”

The implication of such a statement is that the only way to prevent such vicious attacks by crazed rightists is to censor Beck, whom Fox News correctly noted that “Beck had quoted her accurately and had never threatened her.”

One must also note the identification of The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) as a “liberal nonprofit group,” which comes after Stelter identifies Fox Piven as “a liberal academic.” Fox Piven is an academic, but she is part of the radical far Left, and she is not a liberal. And anyone who knows anything about the CCR is laughing heartily.

Read the whole thing. When leftists call for violence, it’s “hatemongering” to quote them accurately. But actually lying about what people on the right say . . . that’s just journalism, apparently.

And just to keep the record straight, here’s a flashback on Piven’s call for violent riots.

And also, just so people are clear, here’s what those Greek riots she was calling for Americans to emulate looked like:

At the same time, tens of thousands of protesters marched through Athens in the largest and most violent protests since the country’s budget crisis began last fall. Angry youths rampaged through the center of Athens, torching several businesses and vehicles and smashing shop windows. Protesters and police clashed in front of parliament and fought running street battles around the city.

Witnesses said hooded protesters smashed the front window of Marfin Bank in central Athens and hurled a Molotov cocktail inside. The three victims died from asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, the Athens coroner’s office said. Four others were seriously injured there, fire department officials said.

Rampaging mobs and people burned to death. This is what Piven wanted to see in America. So who’s inciting violence here?

I’LL STICK WITH GDP, THANKS: “Buy A Gun” Google Queries Hit All Time High, And Other Off The Grid Economic Indicators. On the other hand, I’d certainly encourage most InstaPundit readers to own at least one gun, and a substantial quantity of ammuntion.

BRYAN PRESTON: Dissing The SOTU, George Will Speaks For Me.

OH, CANADA: Man faces jail after protecting home from masked firebomb attackers. “His surveillance cameras caught the attackers lobbing at least six Molotov cocktails at his house and bombing his doghouse, singeing one of his Siberian Huskies. But when Mr. Thomson handed the video footage to Niagara Regional Police, he found himself charged with careless use of a firearm.”

So the Niagara Regional Police are a bunch of clowns. Or just corrupt. Noted.

UPDATE: Reader Jim May emails:

The problem is not the NRP, it is Canada itself — in particular, its antipathy towards self-reliance in the realm of self-defense. Along with socialized medicine, this topic is one of those where dissent has been quite rare, and has often been derided with comments to the effect that the “anti-Canadian” dissenter should just emigrate to the States. I ended up doing just that.

That being said, your post confirms something peculiar that I noticed on my last two visits home last year: suddenly, I was hearing angry stories about people being brought up on charges after successfully defending themselves at home. That was notable in and of itself, but what was more surprising was the reaction to my expression of gratitude that I now live in the U.S., where I own guns and have the relative freedom to use them in self-defense. Instead of the usual condescension about American “violence” or “gun culture”, I got a surprise; more than a smidgeon of actual envy of that freedom.

After a spate of these stories nationwide, most notably that of David Chen, a Toronto retailer who detained a repeat shoplifter in his store and called police — only to be charged with kidnapping — it seems like Canadians may finally have had enough.

You have to be in my shoes — from Canada, but having been away for some years — to appreciate the significance of this shift.

Americans defending against the Left’s latest spot of gun-control opportunism would do well to take note of where the Left’s road leads, for you’ll find Canadians standing there — disarmed. And not too happy about it anymore.

No reason they should be, but I’m glad they’re waking up.

WHY THEY’D RATHER TALK ABOUT SARAH PALIN (CONT’D): Global Price Fears Mount: As Food, Raw Materials Soar, Europe’s Central Bank Head Warns on Inflation.