Weekend Geography Quiz

What capital city is this?

Clue: This bridge leads into the city:

Back in the U.S.A.

It was terrific this weekend getting away from the foreign country of the Washington metropolitan area and going to Real America. I went to the Coca Cola 600 in Charlotte on Sunday.

NASCAR fans are the best Americans around, and they exemplify the characteristics that have made America such a great country: common sense, patriotism, intolerance for political correctness, competitiveness, devotion to country, honor towards the military, personal independence, and Christian values. Though you see different races and ethnic groups, there is no bogus multiculturalism; it is unity for the values that have made the greatest country in the world. No wonder liberals cannot stand NASCAR fans.

What a refreshing change to see true America that liberal traitors despise. The opening ceremonies featured a moving rendition of taps with reverential silence by the crowds, "God Bless America" on bagpipes, a rousing rendition of The Star Spangled Banner by LeAnn Rimes, and an excellent opening prayer by a chaplain at the awesome, conservative Catholic college of Belmont Abbey that (horrors to liberals) featured the phrase, "And we ask this your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen." I noticed throughout the prayers the fans had bowed their heads.

Best of all were the many troops who had come over from Fort Bragg in uniform. It was heartwarming to watch NASCAR fans approach the troops, give a word of thanks and appreciation, and then shake the troops' hands.

Despite what liberals believe, a study of the history of Western Civilization will easily show that the defenders of civilization have always shared these values that NASCAR fans hold and have been very similar in character. It has always been the elites who have caused problems for society, which have to be rectified by the nonelites who hold traditional values. Elites may call NASCAR fans "rednecks," but these loyal Americans--far more noble and less barbaric than liberals--are what hold America together.

H.W. Crocker III, in his excellent survey of Western Civilization Triumph: The Power and Glory of the Catholic Church, states about the knights who held Europe together through the assaults of the Vikings, the Huns, and Islam:

But their hearts were in the right place. One can usefully think of them as rather like the motorcyclists who descend on Washington D.C, every Memorial Day wacing American and MIA flags. Only the "Bikers for the Bishop of Rome" would be waving the papal flag or the white flag with the crimson cross of the Crusades. The best of them would be staffing monasteries, designing cathedrals, and creating the cultural tapestry of the Middle Ages.

The effete East, where almost every heresy to threaten Western Civilization arose, did not have the values to withstand these assaults. The West did, thanks to those who were loyal--just as NASCAR fans are loyal to American values--and held together the West to bring about the flowering of cultural, intellectual, scientific, and military superiority over all other cultures. While liberals gleefully and stupidly embrace every fad antithetical to Western values--liberalism, multiculturalism, socialism, etc.--conservatives have held the country together, built it up, defended it, and made America into the great country it is.

Weekend Geography Quiz III

What capital city with 80,000 inhabitants in less than one square mile is this? Clue: The country has a huge tourist industry. The following is the international airport:

El Condado de Fairfax

Where would you guess this school is located? Texas? California? Mexico?

Wrong. It is in Fairfax County just 10 miles from the White House.

Fairfax County Public Schools are generally a barometer of trendy "progressive" fads that spread throughout the nation, so watch out!

Two questions for Fairfax County Public Schools and, in particular, the principal of this particular school:

1) What kind of message does this send to Hispanic students trying to learn English?

2) Is it fair to privilege one ethnic group above others in the United States?

We have always been a multiracial melting pot with English as the unifying language. Students from all over the world from Asia to Africa, Europe to South America learn English as their first foreign language. They expect that English will be national language of America.

Except hare-brained liberals who have been indoctrinated in socialist multiculturalism. They feel that "career day" and "PTA meeting" are far too difficult for Hispanics to understand. Therefore, they must translate everything for them. At the same--a real plus for liberal education leaders like this principal of Bucknell--they feel they come across as elite, sensitive to foreign cultures, and oh so much more understanding than those Americans who wish for Hispanics to learn our national language and assilimilate for their own good and the good of our country.

There is a huge disconnect going on here: The elite liberals want to show their sensitivity for all the world to praise; Hispanic parents simply want their children to learn English and would rather their children be immersed in the English language, something that liberals are loathe to accept. After all, without bilingual education and multiculturalism, they cannot demonstrate how much they care and receive promotions and kudos from other elites.

Bilingual education is a dangerous multicultural trend that is both harmful to students and society.

Here are some suggestions for further research. Check out:

1) Linda Chavez's think tank Center for Equal Opportunity. They have excellent resources for combatting harmful bilingual education.

2) Matt Sanchez's editorial about bilingual education and his experiences with it, despite being born in the U.S.A.

3) Mexifornia, the terrific essay by Victor Davis Hanson.

4) Articles about bilingual education from Education Next, the terrific education magazine by the Hoover Foundation.

If liberals in Fairfax County Public Schools are going to go ahead and show their sensitivity by translating everything into Spanish for Hispanic parents, there would be one thing I would like to have them translate: a message by the Diocese of Arlington telling parents about their pledge to not turn any parent who wants their children to be educated in Catholic schools, no matter what the financial conditions or legal status of the parents.

One thing all Hispanic parents should do: Pull your kids out of "progressive" Fairfax County schools and place them into solid Catholic schools, where your kids will get an excellent American education, great universal Catholic values, and valuable character education, and they will be much more likely to achieve success and avoid joining gangs. They will learn Catholic ritual and not feel a need to get the ritual and values they lack in nihilistic Fairfax County schools from gang members.

Weekend Geography Quiz Question II

From these pictures, which city is this?

Clue: The following ancient city destroyed by the Mongols in the 1200s is down the great river that passes through the above city:

Think of a famous poem by Rudyard Kipling, and you will definitely know the answer. I'll post the answer in a couple of days.

Liberals' Favorite Religion: Themselves

During my studies for a B.A. in Asian Studies at UMUC while I was working in Korea, one of my most difficult but rewarding classes was the required Asian Philosophy. It was taught by a Canadian professor with a PhD in philosophy who lived in Seoul, and the textbook was the excellent Asian Philosophies by John M. Koller (highly recommended but expensive).

The class was challenging because for the average American, the material is completely foreign. Furthermore, the religions and philosophies of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Confucianism (more a philosophy than a religion), and Taoism have a highly developed tenets and thousands of years of writings. Imagine learning Catholicism and Protestantism for the first time in a semester class having only had a superficial exposure to Christianity. I thought I would never survive the term. However, my effort paid off and I ended up with an "A" in the class, and living and traveling around Asia helped me with my comprehension of the philosophies. I also took another class in Anthropology of Asian Religions by the terrific Janice Sacherer Turner, the foremost authority in the world of the Himalayan Sherpas, who got her doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris.

As a Catholic not at all interested in converting to Eastern religions (although I have great respect for the traditions)--Catholicism has the fullness of truth-- I was always interested in how many similarities there were with Buddhism, particularly the Mahayana version, with Catholicism. In addition, both Theravada and Mahayana have strict moral and ethical codes with the Noble Eightfold Path.

For example, premarital sex, homosexual sex, and contraception are wrong in Buddhism. There is a hell in Buddhism where the wicked go. The boddhisatvas are very similar to Catholic saints. There are many aspects with Catholicism. In fact, in the amazing and wonderful movie Into Great Silence, there is a definite Eastern feel that is 100% Western in culture and tradition. It is just that people are not familiar with this aspect of traditional Catholicism that it feels foreign to them.

From a Catholic theological perspective, there are reasons for the similarities. The great Asian religions were created before the Incarnation of Christ, so they do have some revealed truths, and these truths are the ones that find their similarities with Catholicism, the fullness of truth.

What always is comical about liberals, though, is how they almost always reject the rich and noble tradition of Catholicism (or other Protestant religions) and our beautiful language Latin and turn to Eastern traditions and philosophies.

There is a common Catholic saying: "Heresy always begins below the belt." Almost always, liberals reject Catholicism because the teaching about proper sexuality is too much for materialistic liberals interested in instant self-gratification to handle. They coolly state, "I will not serve" and either (1) continue to think of themselves as Christian but attempt to reformulate the religion in their image by dumbing it down (see God is Love's comment on Matt Sanchez's post "Scaling Terrorism," a perfect example, or (2) reject Judeo-Christian philosophies altogether and turn to exotic and fun religions and spiritualities that conform to their sexual proclivities.

The second always has comic results for those who actually know the Eastern religions and philosophies--either by living in Asia or having studied firsthand the actual philosophies-- because liberals almost never follow the true Eastern religions, such as Buddhism or Taoism, the latter particularly in vogue with shallow liberals these days. They rejected Catholicism for its strict moral rules in rebellion over the sexual rules that God has in fact ordained for our own true happiness, yet they then reject the exact same aspect in the Eastern religions. Self control and restraint below the belt is extremely difficult for these adolescent liberals (think Richard Gere), which is why, of course, they rejected the dignity of Western religion in the first place.

For instance, study the history, beliefs, and actions of Taoism, and witness how far shallow liberals have bastardized this great Chinese tradition. From a newletter advertisement I received in the mail "Healing Tao Retreats" about the wonders of the liberal Tao:

What does Tao teach about sexuality?

The principles of energy flow are nowhere more pleasurable and downright fun than in the bedroom. Single or married, straight or gay, the Daoist arts of the bedchamber profoundly improve sexual health. From strengthening your glandular and hormonal systems, to experiencing truly mystical full-body orgasms, the ancient chi science of sexology will allow you to merge spirituality with sexuality. In alchemy, this sexual play occurs deep inside your body-mind--very dynamic fun meditations.

Strange--this is a very novel form of Taoism, one that bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Taoism I studied in my Asian Philosophy class and which was described in Asian Philosophies, the text we used. Come to think of it, the Buddhism that liberals often practice (e.g. Hollywood stars) bears no resemblance to the Buddhism in Asia. Liberals just pick and choose superficial aspects of these exotic religions and philosophies and mesh them to themselves, of course never conflicting with their liberal sexual lives. After all, that is why they left Western traditional religion: They wanted to get away from anything that limits their pursuit of sexual and material fulfillment. The emptiness that arises, they then try to fill with Eastern philosophy, rejecting the exact aspects that they reject in Catholicism.

In the end, liberals simply do what they do best: Worship themselves.

Geography: What City Is This?

Geography used to be an important field of study for students; unfortunately, with the ascendancy of the education philosophy of John Dewey in the 1920s and 1930s, it became a field subsumed under "social studies." For obscurant, anti-academic matter liberals like Dewey and his disciples, a subject like geography, as with all subjects, has no value unless it serves a political means to advance a social agenda, in Dewey's case socialism. To these "progressive" oafs, if academic subject matter does not promote correct social attitudes and politically correct behavior, it is only "trivia," hence the hostility by "progressives" to subject matter.

Geography, as with art and architectural history, literature, and history, needs to be taken back from these liberal, utilitarian educationists who, in the name of "social correctness," have stripped these noble fields of any inherent value, thus effectively killing interest in these subjects.

One example: As I was flying from Bangkok to Singapore, I sat next to an interesting young guy from England, and we chatted throughout the two hour flight. He majored in geography, which I stated was a fascinating subject. He stated he thought so too when he first decided to specialize in it, but the "geography of feminism" and other deadly postmodern courses killed his interest. That is postmodernism for you and typical of so many subjects that clinical, utilitarian liberals, who are so wrong politically, economically, and ethically, are out to destroy through their tiresome and misguided activism.

Therefore, in the spirit of Richard Halliburton's wonderful classic travelogue The Royal Road to Romance, perhaps the best of its kind ever written, I will attempt to help take back this subject of geography by getting back to what the subject of geography is supposed to embody: a study of the adventure of mankind in various lands, topographies, and cultures. The study of geography should inspire a joie de vivre, wanderlust, and desire for adventure and romance. In addition to this inherent interest in and of itself, by studying geography and traveling to other lands and cultures, one can hopefully understand one's own land and history better.

In honor of the great subject of geography, which literally means "to describe the earth," every weekend I will post a picture of a city or region around the world. From the topography and architecture in the picture above, does anyone know which city this is? Clue: It is a city with a population of two and a half million.

I will post the answer in a couple of days.

Liberal Revision of History

The overriding problem with history textbooks used in public schools today is that so many left-wing pressure groups within the education establishment must approve the sensitivity and political correctness of the books that the end result is banal and insipid nonsense that leaves students with no comprehension of what makes the West and our freedoms and way of life unique.

The only concepts students are left after 12 years of public education are that (1) the West is racist, imperialistic, and socially unjust; and (2) anything exotic (outside the Western culture) is wonderful, fresh, and morally superior. They have no understanding for their own Western heritage and savor an uncritical, Pollyannish exuberance for exotic non-Western cultures.

A nation with this kind of collective amnesia with never be able to defend its values and way of life, which is fine with socialists opposed to our Western religious heritage, capitalism, and military power in defense of freedom and liberty, often the very same people writing the texts. Terrorists often know our history much better than we do. Quiz question: What was the significance of September 11, 1683 that noted Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc stated in 1938 in The Great Heresies was a "date that ought to be among the most famous in history?" Well, at least Osama Bin Laden knows his Western history.

For The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, Diane Ravitch reviewed the most popular history textbooks widely used in public schools. Most textbooks follow what she terms the "cultural equivalence" narrative approach, which teaches gullible students that all cultures are equal:

All the world's civilizations were great and glorious, all produced grand artistic, cultural, and material achievements, and now the world is growing more global and interconnected. Some bad things happened in the past, but that was a long time ago and now the cultures of the world face common problems.

In keeping with the imperative of avoiding ethnocentrism, no culture is "primitive." The idea of progress has disappeared, because no culture is more or less advanced than any other. Even those that had no literacy and only meager technology are described as advanced, sophisticated, complex, and highly developed. These are comparative terms, but cultures are never compared to one another.

A variation on this goofy "all cultures are equal" theme is the more malevolent theme that the U.S. is a horrible country filled with injustice:

In a significant variation on the cultural equivalence theme, Houghtin Mifflin's world history text for middle school students, To See the World, implies that every world culture is wonderful except for the United States. It lauds every world culture as advanced, complex, and rich with artistic achievement, except for the United States. Readers learn that people in the United States confront such problems as discrimination, poverty, and pollution. Those who came to this country looking for freedom, the book says, found hardship and prejudice; the immigrants did all the hard work, but the settled population hated and feared them. Despite these many injustices, people kept trying to immigrate to the United States, but many were excluded because of their race or ethnicity. Compared to the other cultures in the world, the United States sounds like a frightening place. Why people keep trying to immigrate to this unwelcoming, mean-spirited culture is a puzzle.

Two examples of the false history most uneducated students (future liberals) will have been inculcated with by obscurant liberals in the public schools:

1) In school textbooks, Islam is promoted as a wonderful, exotic religion that "spread" (how?) throughout the southern and western Mediterranean Africa and east through Asia that produced a highly sophisticated, peaceful, tolerant civilization with scientific geniuses and wealth and prosperity for all until the wicked Crusades which ransacked with no provocation whatsoever a great civilization.

This history is patently false. The Crusades were the direct result of Islamic terrorist expansion that threatened numerous times our Western civilization. The religion's goals have not changed; however, our textbooks and mainstream media refuse to criticize this religion. Result: Stupid children who grow up to be Hollywood producers.

Father Mark Gruder, PhD, in a talk at Christendom College, has countered this false history. His speaking the truth is anathema in most college campuses today, who like to stay in the "cultural equivalence" and "every culture better than the West" la-la land. The Christendom College news article describes his talk:

"The mainstream media likes to paint a picture that Islam is peaceful and that it is just extremists who hold this point of view,” he continued. “But that simply is not true. While I was working on my Doctoral Dissertation, I spent a year in Egypt and other Muslim countries. During that time I got to see first-hand what the Muslim children were learning. And it was pretty enlightening! Parents would teach their children songs about killing the infidel—songs about death and destruction. Cars, with loud speakers attached, would drive through the streets repeating the message, ‘Let their woman be raped, their men be killed, and their children enslaved.’

“To be able to accurately judge a religion, we have to pay attention most importantly to what it teaches its children, not to what it says to the outside world,” Gruber said. “No progress will be made unless we speak to each other with self-respect and honesty. There is hope for peace, but we must face the facts and use common sense.”

Unfortunately, for far too many schoolchildren, they gain no common sense about history and cultures because they are ignorant of the facts, lack any foreign travel experience, and being uneducated, thanks to the "cultural equivalence" textbooks, have no understanding of the West or other cultures, just the gloomy cynicism of the West and cheerful, credulous, uncritical picture of foreign cultures and societies.

2) The glorious Aztec empire, a highly sophisticated civilization with great education and science (the same people who love Cuba love the Aztec empire, which like Cuba didn't have a particularly high regard for human rights), existed in Central America until the Catholic imperialists Hernan Cortez and his cruel crew demolished it, forcing the conversion of the Indians. Historian Warren Carroll tells it like it is, in a recent talk about the great Holy Roman Emperor Charles V:

This period as a whole is the most dramatic in the history of Christendom; it’s not surprising that Shakespeare lived during it,” Carroll quipped. “It was under Charles that Cortés and Magellan were sent,” Carroll said. “He sent Hernán Cortés to smash the Satanic Empire of Aztec Mexico, built on human sacrifice, making it a place which the Mother of God could visit, as she did in Guadalupe. It was Charles who sent Magellan and his men to make the first voyage around the world.”

This kind of open, honest, and true presentation of what makes the West and our heritage unique and the kind of values that led to democracy and human rights is not at all explored in the vast majority of schools and universities today. In fact, despite being among the foremost scholars in their fields, don't bet on Dr. Carroll or Father Gruder being invited to mainstream campuses any time soon.

Why the U.S. Scores Poorly on International Achievement Tests

As an addendum to the post below on Singapore:

Here is a copy of the results of the TIMSS exam given in several nations around the world on page 9. The study is worth printing out. Singapore ranks at the top, all of the Confucian Asian countries are at the top of the rankings, and the U.S. ranks at the bottom of the industrialized nations, thanks to "progressive" techniques employed by the left-wing education establishment.

Three recommendations--I found each of them invaluable in my Master of Education--for every person interested in education policy and history of American education:

1) The Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing and What We Can Learn from Japanese and Chinese Education by Harold W. Stevenson and James W. Stigler. This book explains why the East Asian countries are doing so well in mathematics and science achievement tests. Hint: It is not because they use "progressive" techniques of education, like ruthless "progressive" professors attempt to trick young, gullible future teachers with very little foreign experience into believing.

It also explains why the U.S. is doing so poorly, despite our powerhouse economy and all the money in the world to throw at schools. Hint: It has to do with liberals' "progressive" teaching techniques that have been in public schools for the past 80 years or so.

2) The Schools We Need: And Why We Don't Have Them by E.D. Hirsch Jr. This is a wonderful gem of a book. Thankfully, the excellent Social Foundations head of the UVA academic center in Northern Virginia, Bernadette Black, though a Deweyan liberal herself, was fair and balanced in providing students with all perspectives (just as education schools should be but rarely are; the UVA Social Foundations program at the Northern Virginia academic center because it can draw from all the Washington think tanks is an exception).

In The Schools We Need, a highly influential book that "progressives" detest because it is so accurate, Hirsch argues clearly and persuasively that the U.S. is failing students and parents because "progressives" have a suspicious view of academic matter. They think schools are for everything under the sun except academic achievement. As such, they then actually perpetuate social inequities because their bogus "progressive" techniques that have failed and have been recycled under different names for the past 80 years or so are the dominant forms of teaching in the public schools. Because so many students lack "intellectual capital" from early on in elementary schools, they have nothing to build upon in higher grades. These "progressive" theories of education have harmed American children's desire and ability to learn.

Very valuable glossary of "progressive" terms and jargon that often fools Americans into thinking the terms mean one thing, e.g. "discovery learning" when the terms mean something completely different is in the back of The Schools We Need, and is worth the purchase price itself.

3) Finally, a fantastic 20th century history of American education by Diane Ravitch, Columbia University PhD, foremost authority on the history of American education and, in particular, the New York City public school system, and scholar at several think tanks: Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform. This is an invaluable tool for anyone interested in the history and philosophy of our education system here in America and why the schools have had so many problems and have not lived up to their promise.

Most libraries should have the three books, but each is definitely worth purchasing as a reference.

Singapore as a Model

In education departments across the country, comparative education is the hot new field. The top two education schools in the nation--Columbia's Teachers College and the Stanford University School of Education--have entire programs dedicated to it. You can specialize in comparing America's education system with others from around the world and even specialize in a particular region, such as Asia, Africa, or Europe. The trend is spreading throughout the country. For instance, in my Education Policy specialization at UVA, we had to take a least one course in comparative education. Having lived in Asia for several years, I chose Asian Education.

In this spirit of diversity, I nominate Singapore as a model that we can learn from here in the United States. When I lived in Asia, I always flew Singapore Airlines, not only for the great service, but also because I loved to get free stopovers in beautiful, fascinating, orderly Singapore. This prosperous city-state, just two degrees north of the equator at the tip of the Malay peninsula, is a staunch U.S. ally in the War on Terror, has one of the best economies in the world, and is the most orderly and well-run country in the world. The city is stunning, with so many fascinating places to visit: Sentosa Island, a terrific zoo and night safari, beautiful gardens throughout the city such as the Botanical Gardens, great museums, terrific transportation system, and excellent colonial architecture. There are no drugs and very little crime, and the people are friendly and well-cultured.

Our education system could learn many things from Singapore:

1) English as the national language, the medium of instruction from primary school on in order that no one ethnic group has to learn the language of another. There is no "bilingual education." Singapore acknowledges that English is the world language of commerce and having students not learn it puts them at a disadvantage.

Why here in the U.S. should we put signs in Spanish when we are a multiracial and multiethnic society like Singapore? English, like in Singapore, should be the unifying language.

2) A very low tolerance for leftist antics, such as the methods used by "social justice" professors and the teachers they have trained.

3) Pride in one's heritage that transcends ethnic divisions. The relationships and tenets of Confucianism are prized as well as a healthy pride in its Western colonial heritage. This pride is for all ethnic groups and promotes a common cultural Singaporean identity.

All ethnic groups in the U.S. should have pride and an identity with our Western, Christian, and classical heritage, even if the mother countries were not influenced by it. Like Singapore, we have always been and should remain a multiracial society, not a multicultural, balkanized society that the "social justice" advocates want.

4) Excellent, low-cost textbooks that stress academic achievement and facts instead of "discovery learning" and "constuctivist" learning techniques, such as the dumbed down "fuzzy math" curricula popular here in the United States.

Singapore has consistently scored in first place for math and science in the TIMSS (Trends in Mathematics and Science Study) tests, as compared with the United States which consistently scores towards the bottom of industrialized states. The Singapore Math series (and its other subjects), used in the schools, has become so renowned that it is even commonly used in homeschooling in the U.S. Would only our public schools use these kind of texts (and save a heckuva lot of money too). As Harold W. Stevenson and James Stigler state in their classic comparative education study The Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing and What We Can Learn from Japanese and Chinese Education, "American textbooks tend to excessively long, repetitive, and distracting and underestimate what children can understand."

In fact, much of Singapore's philosophy towards education is guided by its Confucian attitude. We could learn a lot from Singapore and the East Asian nations, and the recommendations in The Learning Gap--high national standards, defined academic goals of education, not labeling or tracking students and teaching towards the majority, not relying on money to solve problems, teaching to the whole class instead of small individual groups, and not underestimating what children are capable of academically--would be ideal for the United States. Catholic schools in the U.S. have been doing these things for years, hence the much higher achievement in Catholic schools, particularly in the inner city.

Thus, comparative education would appear to be a very noble field that could highly enrich the United States and make us continue to be at the top of the playing field economically, scientifically, and culturally. The descriptions of comparative education programs and classes make sense, such as this from Stanford University:

ICE is a multidisciplinary, international, cross-cultural program of training that places educational problems into an international and comparative framework. Core courses explore how education is related to economic, political, and social development in both developed and developing countries. The program provides a strong theoretical and empirical base for studying education in a rapidly changing global context and for understanding the how and why of successful policy-making to improve educational practice in different social settings.

And this Spring 2007 course description from UVA at the Falls Church academic center:

This interdisciplinary course examines education issues in selected countries
and focuses on the relationships between education and society and the role of
education in national development. Education topics, which transcend national
boundaries and have implications for American schools are also addressed.

Sound good so far? Enter "social justice" professors and "progressives" who so dominate all education departments thoughout the nation.

The studies such as The Learning Gap, which demonstrate the truth about why Confucian countries so outperform the United States, will generally not be made available to students in comparative education courses taught by "social justice" professors and "progressives." After all, these studies are a threat to "progressive" techniques.

Instead, these professors often amazingly convince students that "progressive" techniques that have been used in public schools in the U.S. since the 1920s and have consistently failed and been recycled numerous times (which is why we rank so low in comparative academic achievement) are actually the reason that the Asian countries score so high. (The real reasons are highlighted in blue above.) As this narrative (George Orwell calls it doublethink) unfolds, it turns out that we are not successful compared to the Asian countries because (have you heard this before?) the "progressive" teaching techniques have not yet been implemented correctly to the degree "progressives" and "social justice" professors would like, thanks to conservatives. Never mind "progressives" have had 80 years of virtual domination of the education establishment to do whatever they like.

Thus naive, gullible young students with little foreign experience and who have been taught all their lives by "progressives" actually will believe that Singapore has high achievement in math and science because it is a "multicultural" society with several different languages--therefore, we have proven that the U.S. is strong because of diversity and multiculturalism. In other words, gullible and poorly educated students will emerge from these prestigious M.A. and PhD programs with not a clue as to what the truth is.

The worst is when these education departments with sister programs at universities abroad actually convince other countries that their successful education systems need to be reformed, such as Japan's, in order that these countries gain more societal individualism that has made the U.S. so successful. (It is always comical when liberals attempt to take credit for our success which has come despite our mediocre school system not because of it.)

The U.S. could also learn from what happens when successful countries with conservative education systems attempt to adopt U.S. style failed practices such as "discovery learning" and "student centered" learning. American "progressives" actually convinced Japan that their education system needed "progressive" techniques, and in 2002 Japan embarked upon a radical overhaul of its system. The result since then has been plummeting international test scores.

In order that countries do not make mistakes such as these, comparative education is a valuable field of study--if only you can escape the dominance of the "social justice" and "progressive" obfuscation that so dominates today's education departments.

Democratic School Choice versus Autocratic "Social Justice" Professors

Matt Sanchez has another good post, this one about liberal classmates and professors blaming Hispanic failures in the public schools on--surprise--America's racism, imperialism, and capitalism:

"Not in my Latino Studies course, where everything is someone else’s fault: biased schooling, racial profiling, polarization of the economy, the weakness of labor, the list goes on and we constantly have to regurgitate this gripe before touching on something that barely appears anywhere—the ability of the individual to control his or her own life."

Of course, the real solution to this failure would be to give poorer parents a choice to opt out of the Godless, dumbed-down, moral relativist public schools by offering them vouchers to send their kids to parochial or private schools.

Two great articles. Don't miss these:

Sol Stern, education scholar at the Manhattan Institute has a book about the miracles Catholic schools are doing with students the liberal education establishment cannot handle. Nevertheless, "social justice" professors don't want your kids going here. They might actually be successful and prosperous, have an absolute sense of right and wrong, and gain an appreciation for capitalism, freedom, America, and Western Civilization.

Another new pamphlet also by Sol Stern, appearing in Front Page Magazine, about the new recycled fad in education and the biggest threat to our freedom and prosperity: Public school education not for learning facts and our American and Western heritage but rather for learning "social justice." "Social Justice" professors are indoctrinating young teachers, who in turn feel public schools with their captive audience are perfect grounds for bringing forth a new socialist utopia, in which all the crimes of Western Civilization will be rectified by destroying it and replacing it with a socialist utopia filled with diversity of unassimilated peoples from around the world.

Of course, this brave new world cannot come about if parents are allowed to decide what is best for their own children. They might (horrors) send their kids to Catholic schools, which will undo everything "social justice" professors have worked so hard for. For a typical "social justice" professor, the writings of one of the brightest and most celebrated young "Social Justice" professors, Dan Butin, graduate of UVA and professor of Cambridge College, e.g. "Service-Learning," are instructive. Here is Dan Butin's website.

Oh Wonder!
How much diversity and justice is there here!
How beautious social justice professors are!
Oh Brave New World
That has such people in it!

Nikki Giovanni's Violent "Poetry"

Thanks to the commenter in the "Bad Poetry" post below who sent me the terrific link to "The Professor of Hate" article by Steve Sailor on Nikki Giovanni that appears in Front Page Magazine.

From that article, here is one of Nikki Giovanni's more famous "poems." Considering how she tutored Cho Seung-hui, I wonder how much her "poetry" influenced the killer. It is a real gem:

The True Import Of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro (For Peppe, Who Will Ultimately Judge Our Efforts) by Nikki Giovanni

Ni**er
Can you kill
Can you kill
Can a ni**er kill
Can a ni**er kill a honkie
Can a ni**er kill the Man
Can you kill ni**er
Huh?
Ni**er can you
kill
Do you know how to draw blood
Can you poison
Can you stab-a-Jew
Can you kill huh?
Ni**er
Can you kill
Can you run a protestant down with your
‘68 El Dorado
(that’s all they’re good for anyway)
Can you kill
Can you piss on a blond head
Can you cut it off
Can you kill
A ni**er can die
We ain’t got to prove we can die
We got to prove we can kill

They sent us to kill

Japan and Africa

We policed europe

Can you kill

Can you kill a white man

Can you kill the ni**er

in you

Can you make your ni**er mind

die

Can you kill your ni**er mind

And free your black hands to

strangle

Can you kill

Can a ni**er kill

Can you shoot straight and

Fire for good measure

Can you splatter their brains in the street

Can you kill them

Can you lure them to bed to kill them

We kill in Viet Nam

for them

We kill for UN & NATO & SEATO & US

And everywhere for all alphabet but

BLACK

Can we learn to kill WHITE for BLACK

Learn to kill ni**ers

Learn to be Black men

"Huh?" definitely is the most notable line, one that aptly sums up the literary merit of the "poem." I'm still scratching my head wondering how this woman could be so praised (and also how this is poetry). Cho Seung-hui sure proved he could kill. Way to go, Nikki! If liberals can complain nonstop that guns cause killers to kill, can we not also question whether campus celebrities tutoring unstable students can also influence them to go off the deep end?

Gotta love her anti-semitic propaganda. But of course, most on-campus liberals do seem to be anti-semites these days with their anti-Israeli posing and fascination with radical Islam. I question how Virginia Tech can award a woman who has written this type of hate trash "University Distinguished Professor" status, considering that she only has a B.A. and that much of the critical praise for her came from her lesbian lover Virginia Fowler (fashion note: the loose ties are getting really old), who pushed Virginia Tech to hire her.

Then after one of the worst massacres in modern history (the worst being in a country with strict gun control, South Korea. A deranged policement shot and killed 58 people and no one could stop him because no one had guns), Virginia Tech asks a noted anti-semite and advocate of massacres to pen a poem commerating the dead? Amazing. I analyzed the mediocre result in my post below.

Judging from my friends who graduated from Tech and the comments in the post below, many people are not pleased with Giovanni's political "poem."

Yet when I wrote Carolyn Rude, head of Tech's English Department, complaining about the poem by the "University Distinguished Professor" (despite only having a B.A.) Nikki Giovanni, I was told in a polite email response that I was virtually the only one not to like the poem. Here is her response:

I am responding to you as an alumnus. I am sorry that you do not like Nikki Giovanni's poem. By a margin of about 250:1 according to responses that have come to the English Department, most people are grateful for its words of courage and hope.

Not everyone can like every poem, and I respect that. I hope you are finding other ways to come to terms with this tragedy. In the department, we are mourning deeply. A number of the students killed were in our classes. The tributes to them by faculty and classmates are heartbreaking. That's another side of the department for you to ponder in this time of deep sorrow.

Carolyn Rude
Professor and Chair
Department of English (0112)
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg VA 24061

If the margin of people claiming to like Nikki Giovanni's poem is 250:1, then the professors in Blacksburg are really living a sheltered life. We need to let ourselves be heard. Please email Dr. Rude at Carolyn.Rude@vt.edu.

One point in her response cannot go unanswered. Exactly where are the words of "courage and hope" in Nikki Giovanni's "poem?" One line from the "poem" states: "We are brave enough to bend to cry." That is hardly brave.

In fact the true heroism and bravery in the massacre was shown by the heroic and noble Liviu Lebrescu, the Holocaust survivor that Nikki wanted stabbed in her above "poem" solely for being a Jew. Again, this woman is "University Distinguished Professor?"

Here is another "poem" written shortly after the massacre. It is just as good (so to speak) as Nikki Giovanni's "poem" and it is by none other than the Termagant Rosie O'Donnell. (termagant n 1. a violent, turbulent, or brawling woman. 2. (cap.) a mythical deity, understood in the Middle Ages to be worshiped by the Mohammedans, represented in some morality plays, etc., as a violent overbearing personage.)

Actually, I would consider Rosie's poem to be far superior to Nikki's because while both poems are incredibly narcissistic, Nikki's shows no talent, structure, or originality, whereas Rosie's is deliriously bad in the sense that Plan Nine From Outer Space becomes a very good movie because of its sheer awfulness.

Into Great Silence

I saw a most amazing movie this morning in downtown Washington: Into Great Silence. It is a stunning and incredible film, and if you live in a major metro area, you cannot miss this film. It has received terrific reviews by critics, and I would rank it as one of the best and most powerful movies ever made. It knocked me out emotionally and spiritually.

The power in this magnificent movie is all the more amazing in that there is virtually no dialogue in the entire almost three hours. I initially thought it would be an interesting, off-beat movie, but it was far, far better than I imagined it would be. It simply is one of the most powerful movies spiritually ever made.

Into Great Silence is never boring and trite; you initially get a calm, tranquil feeling and an awe at the ordinary that builds as the movie (one year in the life of the monks) into an insight of just what is God and what is Truth.

The movie takes place in a French Carthusian monastery high in the Alps, and it details the everyday ordinary activities of the monks and two novices in the monastery. The insight one gets is that the everyday spiritual activies are actually extraordinary in the spiritual realm, and that the monks, while outside of society, are truly the heart and soul of Western Civilization.

There is a meditative, almost Oriental aspect to the film that I used to feel while living and studying in Asia while in the mountains or traditional gardens, such as those in Japan. Many Westerners search out this feeling mistakingly embracing Oriental religions, when in fact this simplicity, traquility, and truth is at the heart and soul of our Western, Catholic traditions. You do not have to leave Europe and the West to seek it. Of course, many Westerners are in ignorance of the greatness of Western civilization because liberals have so often replaced our simple, dignified, and beautiful traditions in the liturgy and music with crass, vulgar, and lame modern aspects. Liberalism destroys.

To sum up: Go see this movie! It is a great film.

Not to degrade this post with liberal culture which seeks to destroy the best of Western society, but I could not help comparing Into Great Silence to some of the other films that were also playing at this cineplex in downtown Washington that caters to independent and foreign films . If Into Great Silence represents the best of tradition and the soul of Western society, compare it to the trailer and description of a movie--playing at the same cineplex--that represents the "best" of liberal and gay culture. The difference between traditionalists and preservers of our heritage and shallow liberals, destroyers of the same heritage who replace it with shallow pop nothingness, is stunning.

Can liberals now understand why so many people are against postmodern aspects that destroy our heritage, such as gay "marriage," that replace our wonderful heritage with demeaning pop culture and a false multiculturalism?

Why Liberals Dislike No Child Left Behind

The landmark No Child Left Behind Act, which liberals in the education establishment through the MSM have tried to discredit, is actually an excellent law. Don't let the liberal media influence you without researching the law yourself. No Child Left Behind is based on four key principles:

1. Accountability for results
2. More choice for disadvantaged children
3. Greater flexibility for federal funds
4. Teaching methods that work

Notice the dreaded words for liberals: accountability and choice. NCLB requires states to test in two subjects in grades 3 through 8, and the test data given to the federal government must be broken down into five categories:

1. Race.
2. L.E.P. (Limited English Proficiency)
3. Poverty level
4. Disabilities
5. Ethnicity

The report cards given by the schools to the government have to demonstrate how well the students are doing on meeting the standards, but most importantly (and this is why NCLB is such a good law and the real reason so many in the educational establishment abhor the law) on how these disaggregate groups are making in closing the achievement gap.

By the year 2014, 100% of students are to be proficient in language arts and math, including the subgroups. Schools must set targets and meet AYP or Adequate Yearly Progress, for all groups and subgroups of students. The techniques to measure AYP are not unreasonable. Up to 1% of students can be exempted (or more as long as the no more than 1% of all students in a school district are exempted) for strong disabilities. If schools do not meet AYP, then schools are subject to the following consequences incrementally:

1. Tutoring assistance
2. Restructuring
3. Corrective action

Can anyone guess why the education establishment, including wealthy school districts receptive to "progressive" techniques in teaching and methods "social justice" professors promote, would find NCLB to be hostile to their interests?

For far too long, wealthy school districts, like the county I live in--Fairfax County--have hidden behind averages when reporting test scores from their district. Fairfax County is a great example of the problems NCLB needed to address. Here you have a suburban Washington D.C. county that has a population of about one million people and is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation. Naturally, with all the wealth from property taxes and money wealthy parents have to afford tutors allowed for very high average test scores.

Of course, there are pockets of poverty and low income students, mostly African-American and Hispanic in certain parts of the County, especially around the Route 1 corridor of Alexandria near Mount Vernon. These students were being failed by the "progressive" methods being used in Fairfax County and were considered expendible because their numbers did not affect the average test scores. Not any more with No Child Left Behind.

Wealthy parents can afford phonics books, grammar computer programs, and tutors for their children who cannot learn from the "progressive" techniques. Less wealthy parents cannot. With AYP measuring not only the school as a whole, but rather all groups within the school, wealthy school districts like Fairfax County can no longer claim to be successful if they are not meeting the needs of all the children, rich and poor alike.

Wealthier, more "progressive" districts are often hostile to No Child Left Behind because the law will expose the inadequacies of their constructivist, "child-centered" learning techniques that have never been scientifically proven in studies to be effective, especially on minority children. It is commendable that proponents of No Child Left Behind, such as the Education Trust, are not backing down amid calls of increasing the numbers of students exempted from AYP, such as ESL students or students with "learning disabilities."

As many educators throughout the nation such as Marva Collins have shown (terrific book recommendation: Marva Collins' Way), who are often ignored by the MSM, traditional, academic-centered education benefits students from lower socioeconomic levels (and all students in general) far more than "progressive" education does. Many students labeled "learning disabled" are simply students who cannot learn with these "progressive" teaching methods and have no other recourse. With the AYP provisions, schools most likely will have to change ineffective construtivist techniques in order to meet AYP. This accountability threatens the interests of the liberal education establishment.

Liberal Narcissism

Father Paul Scalia of the Diocese of Arlington has a devastating critique of liberal narcissism in the Adoramus Bulletin. He demonstrates how the liberal tendency to throw out the past--in this case the beautiful and traditional Latin music, Gregorian chant, and Catholic hymns--and replace them with more "relevant" expressions has dumbed down the liturgy. In its place, insipid, boring, lame music that liberals love has led to a narcissitic tendency to worship ourselves instead of God:

The Cult of Conceit: Why Are We Singing to Each Other?

A conversation demands that we include the other in the discussion. If someone speaks to you about himself, about you, about himself and you, but never really with you, you would call that person conceited. So have we become in our conversation with God: He humbles Himself to dwell among us under the form of bread and wine, while we ignore Him and sing about ourselves and to ourselves.

Of course, many traditional hymns also address the other believers rather than God. But a close look at such hymns (for example, "Now thank we all our God", "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven", or "Ye watchers and ye holy ones") reveals a crucial difference: the traditional hymns address others only to invite them to worship God, while most contemporary songs invite us to glorify ourselves.

The narcissistic tendencies of liberalism can be seen not only damaging religion but also education, with the same effect of turning our perspective from our heritage, tradition, and common culture crudely straight back onto ourselves. Diane Ravitch, in her wonderful book The Language Police, describes in the chapter "Literature: Forgetting the Tradition" how meaningful classics have been replaced by mediocre teen literature and god-awful multicultural pap that bores instead of stimulates:

There are so many superb novels, short stories, poems, plays, and essays to choose from that it is impossible for any student to read them all. But this fact makes it all the more important that teachers amke the effort to identify the writers and works that will broaden their students' horizons beyond their own immediate circumstances and reveal to them a world of meanings far beyond their own experiences. Great literature is "relevant" not because it echoes the students' race, gender, or social circumstances, but because it speaks directly to the reader across time and across cultures. A child who is suffering because of the death in the family is likely to gain more comfort from reading a poem by John Donne or Ben Jonson or Gerard Manley Hopkins that from reading banal teen fiction about a death in the family.

"Banal" is a great description for the multicultural and feminist trash taught in schools and the lame folk music sung in parishes led by liberal priests. Not surprisingly, as Father Scalia describes, it has led to a generation that is cruder, less educated, and more narcissistic, and recent studies have confirmed this. It has also led to balkanization instead of unity under the common languages of Latin (in the Catholic Church) and English (in America).

Fortunately, conservatism and a return to tradition seems to ascendant in the Church today. Young Catholics are turning back towards the beauty and dignity of Latin and the timeless Latin hymns. Is it any wonder? Compare the following Latin hymn (in translation):

Ave Verum Corpus
Hail, True Body, born of the Virgin Mary,
Who has truly suffered, was sacrificed on the Cross for mortals.
Whose side was pierced, whence flowed Water and Blood:
Be for us a foretaste (of heaven) during our final examining.
O Jesus sweet, O Jesus pure, O Jesus, Son of Mary,
Have mercy upon me. Amen.

To a narcissitic "hymn" popular with liberals:

Anthem

We are called, we are chosen. We are Christ for one another. We are promise to tomorrow, while we are for him today. We are sign, we are wonder, we are sower, we are seed. We are harvest, we are hunger. We are question, we are creed.

Liberals: "Me, me, me, we, we, we." Thank God I live in the conservative Diocese of Arlington. But I have heard this self-centered liberal song in more liberal dioceses, such as the Diocese of Richmond and the Archdiocese of Mobile.

Is it no wonder that Generation Y is more narcissitic than other generations? They have had hymns like the above in church. They have had multicultural literature celebrating their ethnicity and race instead of their common national traits. They have been told that literature is more relevant if it relates directly to them, and they have given teen literature instead of classics. They get Judy Blume instead of Charles Dickens. They have had self-esteem classes nonstop since kindergarten.

Father Scalia says:

The myth of Narcissus provides a good lesson for modern liturgy. The handsome young man, so enchanted with his own looks, sat gazing at his reflection in the water. He could not bring himself to leave his image and so grew rooted to the spot, admiring himself. Too many current songs encourage us to do the same. We talk to ourselves and sing love songs to ourselves. Just as Narcissus's self-adulation rendered himself incapable of a relationship and therefore of love, so also these hymns of conceit cripple our ability to speak with God. If God sees that we are so smitten with our own presence, He may judge us unfit to enter His.

The solution, of course, is to get back to a time-tested tradition and heritage both in the Church and in society. In the Church, we need to return to Latin and traditional hymns (already many parishes are doing this especially in conservative dioceses). Latin is a great unifier in liturgy, especially with the diverse immigration. In schools, we need to return to our e pluribus unum values that have made our country prosperous and free and eschew divisive, banal multiculturalism. Let's return to classics, tradition, and renewed emphasis on our heritage both in schools and in the Church.

Bilingual Education: Bad Idea

There is a corollary that never fails in education: If "social justice" professors want something to be done in American schools, then it is bad for American values and prosperity.

It is no different with bilingual education. Matt Sanchez has a great post up right now detailing his observations and negative experiences with bilingual education.

The term "bilingual education" is referred to by the education establishment as making Hispanic students learn certain subjects in their native language, instead of placing them in ESL classes or mainstream classrooms. It is not learning a foreign language in schools. The former is a cruel and horrendous experiment promoted by "social justice" professors that has never been shown in any scientifically-based studies to increase student achievement. The latter makes sense. Everyone should know foreign languages.

For the low down on bilingual education, it is best to start with the website of Linda Chavez, an expert and activist against bilingual education. If you have had a bad experience with bilingual education, e.g. arrogant, liberal educationists telling you that your child should be in bilingual education because he or she has a Latin surname, she would like to document your experience.

Linda Chavez states:

Bilingual programs are also wasted on children who do need help learning English. Studies often confirm what common sense would tell you: the less time you spend speaking a new language, the more slowly you'll learn it. Last year, bilingual and ESL programs in New York City were compared. Results: 92 percent of Korean, 87 percent of Russian, and 83 percent of Chinese children who started intensive ESL classes in kindergarten had made it into mainstream classes in three years or less. Of the Hispanic students in bilingual classes, only half made it to mainstream classes within three years. "How can anyone learn English in school when they speak Spanish 4 1/2 hours a day?" asks Gail Fiber, an elementary school teacher in Southern California. "In more than seven years' experience with bilingual education, I've never seen it done successfully."

"Social Justice" professors are very clever and authoritarian at the same time. They push for bilingual education that will force Hispanic children to be segregated from Americans of other races and ethnic groups in the hopes that they will not be assimilated, as every other ethnic group has been in America's history. At the same time, they fight Hispanics every step of the way by insisting that they should not have the right to be able to choose where their children can go to school. They hope that America will change from its e pluribus unum values, from a multiracial society to a multicultural society. The latter has never worked and there are no examples in history of successful multicultural societies lasting. America is and has been a multiracial society, not a multicultural one.

In any case, Hispanics should not be used as experimental subjects to bring about a bogus socialist utopia for "social justice" professors. Capitalism, freedom, integration have been proven to work; socialism never.

The vast majority of Hispanics, like everyone else, want their children to go to school and learn English.

Excellent article from Education Next on the disaster of the bilingual education experiment in California: "The Near End of Bilingual Education."

At CEOUSA: "The Case Against Bilingual Education."

What is No Child Left Behind?

Surprisingly, there is a lot of ignorance--even by those, such as bloggers, who keep up with most domestic and foreign policy issues--about education policy, a subject that is so important to our nation.

No Child Left Behind will be considered one of President George Bush's most important legacies. In fact, I would consider the three most important legacies of his presidency thus far to be (1) The robust response towards terrorism with the War on Terror that moved the front from our country abroad; (2) Two solidly conservative Catholic Supreme Court justices; and (3) the landmark education reform, No Child Left Behind.

This day and age there is no excuse to rely on information from the MSM without researching it yourself.

To research the No Child Left Behind act, I would suggest printing out and studying the following in order:

"Facts and Terms Every Parent Should Know About NCLB;" "Four Pillars of NCLB;" and "Executive Summary" from the Department of Education.

"The ABCs of 'AYP': Raising Achievement for All Students."

"Do We Repair the Monument? Debating the Future of No Child Left Behind."

Finally, as a reference purchase Dr. Frederick Hess' No Child Left Behind Primer. I usually check books out of the library, but this one is definitely worth having as a reference.

So is No Child Left Behind a good law?

Well, take a look at how much liberals and socialists (including most Social Foundations of Education professors) "love" No Child Left Behind:

The math conference is backed by another "social justice" teachers' group, the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE). I attended an NYCoRE public meeting last October. About 80 public-school teachers gathered on the NYU campus to discuss approaches to social-justice teaching.
The meeting was chaired by Edwin Mayorga, a fourth-grade teacher at PS 87 on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and NYU education professor Bree Pickower. Mayorga urged his fellow teachers to "be political inside the classroom, just as we are outside the classroom. The issues we are up against as we teach for social justice are the mandates of [Mayor] Bloomberg, Klein and No Child Left Behind." (from "Math and Marxism: NYC's Wack-Job Teachers" by Sol Stern in the New York Post, March 20, 2007).

If that is not an endorsement of No Child Left Behind for those who care about American values and success, I don't know what is.

In short, No Child Left Behind is a good law with some flaws, but one that should definitely be renewed. Very few Americans actually know what is contained in No Child Left Behind, and relying on the MSM for accurate information these days is unwise. I'll have more commentary on No Child Left Behind in the future, so study up in the meantime!

Today's Catholic Education

Terrific and highly recommended article about the history and state of Catholic education in the current issue of the Hoover Institution's magazine Education Next:

Such Catholic rigor was part missionary zeal—to spread “the word”—and part defense against the encroachments of an increasingly secular world. And secular, for Catholics, meant a certain slackness in moral and academic discipline. In the United States, the so-called “wall of separation” between church and state, between order and freedom, eventually forced Catholics to build their own school system, the only country in the world where they have one (see sidebar). The battles to safeguard order, and academic excellence, were fought early and often. At the turn of the 20th century, for example, Catholic school leaders refused to follow their public school counterparts into a vocational and utilitarian tracking system. “Catholic youth should not be the ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water,’ but should be prepared for the professions or mercantile pursuits,” went one early protestation by the Association of Catholic Colleges.

It goes on to explain why Catholic schools have been so successful. To answer the last question in the article: There are many great things happening now in Catholic education, which the MSM doesn't cover too much.

For example, a great new order of holy, conservative, orthodox nuns with a teaching apostolate is the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It has been a real success story and definitely worth giving a donation to.

Father Duesterhaus in Iraq

Here is a great story about Father Duesterhaus, a Catholic marine chaplain, and his extraordinary experiences in Iraq. He describes life in Iraq with our heroic soldiers and how life is getting much better for the Iraqis.

A good education means seeking out the truth and understanding what goes on in the world. A good knowledge of history, geography, and government are three subjects needed to analyze and discern what makes nations prosperous, free, and good like the United States of America.

Unfortunately, too many "social justice" professors want to train an entire cadre of teachers that will impart on a captive audience of schoolchildren that our nation is not a force for good but rather of oppression and tyranny. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here are some great quotes from from the article about Father Duesterhaus:

He’s found that his definition of stress has changed as well as what he classifies as a “real emergency.” He noted that many people get worked up about things that aren’t incredibly important.

“I don’t understand why Americans drink bottled water,” he said. “Most Americans don’t know how good they have it.” American tap water is perfectly safe. As he left Iraq, 60 percent of the nation had clean water for the first time.

On a whole, the Iraqis are seeing several lifestyle improvements. When Father Duesterhaus traveled by air, he saw the villages lit with electricity.

“They never had electricity before,” he said. “Saddam destroyed a lot.” This included the culture. The society was broken down, and now they are just beginning to rebuild, which will take time.

Despite it all, Father Duesterhaus is hopeful for a better future in Iraq. He has seen ex-patriots returning to Iraq to take leadership roles in the new government. The education system is greatly improved.

The marine Father Dusterhaus married my sister and my brother-in-law at UVA in 2001. He has never had one single divorce with any couples he has married--perhaps because his threat to come after them his gun if he should ever find out the commitment was not to "death do us part." He's great guy: conservative, orthodox priest, great shot--he's was reverently called Father "Dust His Ass" by seminarians in the Diocese of Arlington after he shot a night burgler at the parish that led to an article in the Washington Post--and patriotic American whose has done terrific things for our troops in Iraq. A real hero.