The Nature of Things

Poor Mitt Romney. He just keeps sticking his foot further and further into his mouth, repeatedly proving that he doesn't really have a clue about how average people live in this country. His latest clumsy effort at "connecting" with his audience was at Otterbein University last week where he told students,  “Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business,”  In advising them to borrow from the Bank of Mom and Dad, he cited a friend of his who took out a $20,000 loan from his parents. Never mind that $20,000 wouldn't even see a student through most (if not all) public universities today, I guess if you don't have parents that are rich enough to front you the money, you would just be out of luck in Romneyworld. Students who are poor or middle class who have dreams of a college education need not apply.   When did investing in educating our young become considered poor social policy and poor pol...

Honestly, I do not sift through the news each day looking for stories that will outrage me. Nevertheless, as I do my morning reading, they just jump right out at me and tend to spoil the rest of my day. Often, all I can do is shake my head at the utter and complete stupidity of some people. Like some of the parents of children in the Mansfield school district in Texas. The Mansfield Independent School District had been offering classes in Arabic in a program funded by a federal Foreign Language Assistance Program grant. The classes covered not just the language but Arabic culture as well. This would seem to be a good use of the Foreign Language Assistance Program funds since federal agencies, including the military services, always have a shortage of Arabic speakers. But then some 200 parents showed up at a meeting about the new curriculum and some of them were irate at the idea that their children might actually learn something about Islam. Apparently, they were terrified that...

The militantly ignorant State Board of Education of Texas has struck again. They have barred children's book author Bill Martin Jr. from being included in the state's social studies curriculum. Martin is the writer of such books as Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and another book which taught kids how to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Pretty dangerous stuff, wouldn't you say? We Texans certainly don't want our kids exposed to anything that subversive! The capital crime for which Martin was expunged from Texas' list of "acceptable literature," though, is that he has the same name as a philosophy professor at DePaul University who wrote a book called Ethical Marxism and it seems that the members of the "bored of education" are too lazy and incompetent to do the research that would reveal to anyone with access to Google that these men are two different people. Instead, they just barred all authors named Bill Martin. This group of peo...