Archive for 2019
July 24, 2019
DISPATCHES FROM THE K-12 IMPLOSION: Bill de Blasio Panders To Unions Over Educating Poor Kids. From Matt Welch at Reason TV (Video):
DISPATCHES FROM THE SOCIAL MEDIA VIRUS: Minds Destroyed By The Internet.
My students are unable to analyze, follow and understand written text. To be more specific, they are unable to decipher compound sentences, understand relationship between subordinate and main clauses. They can’t grasp the logical relationship between sentences, let alone paragraphs, which are totally opaque to them.
When I started to teach (only 2 years ago), I prepared material written in normal, rational, technical prose — for adults, or as I understood they would be. Immediately, it became apparent that there was zero comprehension. Well, thought I, let’s make it a bit simpler. So I reduced the paragraphs to bullet point lists.
Still nothing? Hmm.
I started to write step by step, basically cut-and-paste instructions, highlighted the important points, wrote in notes and cross references (like NOTE: you did this in step #2 please refer to #2). Abject failure.
So, especially in the exams, I started to write in answers in the follow up questions, like so: “If you correctly answered #1 as ABC what is the cause of …?”. Basically I give them the answers in followup questions, plus cut and paste documents. My exams are open book, open notes, Internet access.
95% of them fail.
It’s too bad that, despite winning that minor bit of unpleasantness called World War II, Churchill has become an unperson in the academy due to doubleplus ungood badthink on issues of colonialism. There’s much to be learned from how he crafted his speeches, as his latest successor at No. 10 Downing Street points out in this 2014 video:
(Classical reference in headline.)
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: 3D printing transforms rocketry in Florida.
THERE’S A TRISCUIT COMMERCIAL WHERE A WOMAN SAYS SHE’S NOT GENETICALLY MODIFIED. MY RESPONSE: “I WANT TO BE GENETICALLY MODIFIED!” A Transhumanist’s Genetic Modification Wishlist. At present, though, the list is pretty crude because we just don’t know enough.
DEMAND FOR HATE CRIMES FAR EXCEEDS THE SUPPLY: If America Is A Racist Country, Why Do People Have To Constantly Invent Fake Hate Crimes?
IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Today is the 20th anniversary of Strategy Page going online; here’s how it looked in the Wayback machine, way back in 1999.
WHEN YOU’VE LOST CHUCK TODD: Todd calls Mueller hearing an optics disaster for Democrats. “The sentiment echoed remarks earlier by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, who called the hearing ‘a disaster for the Democrats’ and ‘for the reputation of Robert Mueller’ during a discussion on the network that was retweeted by President Trump.”
Related: Ken Starr: Mueller has done a ‘grave disservice to our country.’
UPDATE: Robert Mueller Was Not Interested in Serving as the Democrats’ Performing Monkey, and It Showed. “If lawmakers want to impeach Trump they’re going to have to deal with the politics of it all and not use the Justice Department as a shield.”
WHEN BLACK DEMOCRATS TELL CUBAN IMMIGRANTS TO “GO HOME,” IT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP.
According to information in a police report, it was the accuser–a Georgia state legislator–who uttered an allegedly racist phrase to a fellow shopper at a grocery store.
That news from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Rep. Erica Thomas originally claimed a “white” man confronted her when she had too many items in an express lane and hurled racist insults at her including “Go back to your country” or “Go back where you came from.” . . .
A Publix employee told a Cobb County officer that she witnessed part of the conversation and heard Thomas “continuously tell Eric Sparkes to ‘Go back where you came from!”’ but did not hear Sparkes utter those words to Thomas.
Democrats project more than an IMAX theater.
PAUL KRUGMAN HARDEST HIT: S&P, Nasdaq soar to record highs, unfazed by Mueller testimony. Well, I don’t think anyone expects the Mueller report to lead to impeachment at this point.
BEFORE JIM ACOSTA, THERE WAS MIKE WALLACE: Mike Wallace Is Here: New Documentary Exposes 60 Minutes Reporter’s Theatrical Shtick.
How he nailed those wingtip-wearing bastards, those human-rights-violating tyrants, those smarmy politicians! He destroyed every one of them, such as . . . er, well, such as . . . I mean, you know. But you don’t, really. Did Wallace nail . . . anybody important? Even anybody we remember? Or was he just really good at playing the role of a truth-seeking, take-no-prisoners, holy-man-on-a-mission journalist?
Avi Belkin’s new documentary, Mike Wallace Is Here, tries to make the case for Wallace’s importance but pretty much comes up empty. If Wallace, 60 Minutes’s attack dog on so many Sunday nights, did in fact line his trophy room with the skulls of the men he’d vanquished, you would think a documentary would provide the evidence. It doesn’t. There isn’t a single shot of Wallace really nailing anybody you’ve ever heard of, though there is a bitter exchange with the Vietnam War general William Westmoreland, who sued Wallace and drove the reporter to depression and a suicide attempt before dropping the case. If Wallace ever got a scoop that mattered, it isn’t in this film. One time he exposed a small-time dirtbag who was selling kiddie porn. Lots of times he managed to get shoved aside on camera, or to have people dramatically stalk off the set or try to put their hand over the lens. But that’s all theater, not journalism.
Kyle Smith doesn’t mention in his review whether or not the documentary mentions this infamous moment in Wallace’s career, as described by the late Roger Ailes, someone else who understood the blending of theater and journalism:
Recognize that any time you are in the presence of a newsperson, the conversation is fair game for the record. Jimmy Carter’s famous confession that he sometimes had lust in his heart for women other than his wife was uttered to a Playboy magazine journalist as he was leaving Carter’s home at the conclusion of the formal interview. Even Mike Wallace, big-game hunter of the unguarded moment, got caught in this snare. As recounted on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal by TV critic Daniel Henninger in March of 1981, Wallace:
was interviewing a banker in San Diego about an alleged home improvement fraud involving mainly black and Hispanics, who supposedly had signed contract they couldn’t understand, which led to foreclosures on their home mortgages.The bank hired a film crew of its own to record the interview with Mr. Wallace. The bank apparently left its recorder running during a break in the CBS interview, and the tape has Mr. Wallace saying, in reply to a question about why the black and Hispanic customers would have signed their contracts, “They’re probably too busy eating their watermelon and tacos.”
When the Los Angeles Times got wind of this indiscretion and reported it, there was at least a minor uproar from reporters and others about Wallace’s “racially disparaging joke”. Wallace ultimately pleaded “no bias”, admitting that over time he’d privately told jokes about many ethnic groups but that his record “speaks for itself”. Henninger added, “Needless to say, this has to be the most deliciously lip-smacking bit of irony to pop out of the oven in a long time. Here we have the dogcatcher cornered. The lepidopterist pinned. The preacher in flagrante delicto. This is the fellow who has imputed all manner of crimes against social goodness to a long lineup of businessmen and bureaucrats. From here on out, all future victims of Mr. Wallace can take some small comfort in knowing that although they may stand exposed as goof-offs, thieves and polluters, he’s the guy who made the crack about the watermelons and tacos.”
Eventually, as the cost of the equipment Wallace used for his stings became affordable to all, James O’Keefe and others on the right would begin to employ the same investigative techniques that 60 Minutes pioneered, only aimed at Wallace’s fellow leftists. As I wrote in 2011: Investigative Journalism: It’s All Fun and Games until the MSM Gets Stung.
WELL, THEY HAVE PLENTY OF EXPERIENCE WITH BOTH: Ukraine’s Constitutional Court Upholds Law Equating Communism To Nazism.
ROGER KIMBALL: The painful, pointless testimony of Robert S. Mueller III. “If only his legs could reach that far, Rep. Jerry Nadler would be kicking himself now. Whose idea was it to indulge in this pathetic geriatric festival featuring antique G-Man Robert S. Mueller III?”
Related: Confused performance by Mueller raises questions about handling of investigation.
THEIR TEARS TASTE LIKE CHAMPAGNE: MSNBC Analyst: Mueller ‘Sucked The Life Out Of The Report.’
ANALYSIS TRUE: “Politicians are proof that God has a sense of humor and wants us to laugh.”
As they say at the American Spectator, “Politics Is Too Important To Be Taken Seriously.”
TO BE FAIR, ALL-SEASON TIRES ARE PRETTY AWESOME THESE DAYS: The Base 2020 Corvette Comes with All-Season Tires. Here’s Why. “The C8’s standard Michelins promise 1.00 g of grip and three-season capability. . . . While it might seem counterintuitive to specify all-season tires on a mid-engine sports car, the goal for these tires is 1.00 g of lateral grip, which is higher than what the C6 Corvette could manage on summer tires.”
AT AMAZON, save in Blu-Ray and DVD.
“TIME TO DIE”: Glenn just noted the passing of Rutger Hauer at the age of 75. Here’s the You Tube of the “Time to Die” scene from Bladerunner. It’s still haunting after all these years.