We Have Rounded a Bend in the Road

Some of us know that; some of us don't.

David Warren knows.

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 05/01/03 09:21:23 PM
Categorized as International.

Our Enemies in Academia

Many thanks to Margaret for calling my attention to this brilliant blog by Steven den Beste at USS Clueless, on neo-Marxism in the academic greenhouse:

.... Much of this was below the radar but the onset of war forced them, like everyone else, out in the open because the political issues were too large and too important to ignore. They couldn't stand silent.

But that also means that they had to come out of their caves and attempt to apply their ideas in the real world. Instead of dealing only with themselves and with powerless students, they had to deal with fellow citizens over whom they had no coercive power. Whether they agree or not, students are forced to parrot the professor's line because otherwise they won't graduate. But out here in the real world, these academics have no ability to force fellow citizens to listen at all, let alone to listen respectfully and to nod their heads in passive agreement without any argument.

They had to try to persuade other citizens to their point of view (opposing the war, opposing nationalism as such and America in particular, opposing capitalism and globalization, and all the other opposings we've come to know and love about the academic left's political activism). It means that their ideas, previously developed and spread largely in hermetic isolation, were necessarily subjected at long last to empirical test, and didn't pass that test.

And they failed miserably. It's hardly surprising; after 20 years of intellectual masturbation they didn't produce any babies. Their ideas were revealed as being empty. What they mostly reaped was ridicule. Their proposals didn't pass the horselaugh test.

But as a result of this, they're also out in the open, and they are now revealed as being a pernicious force in this nation who have tried to hijack the educational system to colonize the future by indoctrinating young people into their own political beliefs. The backlash is already beginning and it's only going to get stronger now, because critics are no longer letting themselves be shouted down and silenced and because the general population of the US has now taken note of what they've been doing.

BTW, as somebody with a B.S. in Math & Computer Science, and many years' experience in the business world, I can tell you that the quotation with which the blog commences is right on target.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 05/01/03 03:41:36 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

Why Hollywood Isn't America

Dorothy Rabinowitz has a moving column at OpinionJournal today:

.... Neither of the McPhillips was surprised at Brian's choice of a military career. His father had served, his great-uncle had fought at Guadalcanal; and Julie and David McPhillips had been the sort of parents who wanted to imbue their children with a consciousness of history -- that of their country's not least. So they took them to places like Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg and other national shrines.

David McPhillips nevertheless used all his powers of persuasion to keep Brian from enlisting in the Marines right out of high school. Heeding his parents, Brian went off to Providence College, a Catholic institution, where he thrived, compiled an academic record most people considered enviable, his father included, and looked to the future. Shortly after graduation in 2000, it arrived, with the commissioning ceremony that made him an officer in the Marines. He would go to war, his father reported, carrying his rosary and his Bible....

Read it all.

(Thanks, Matthew.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 05/01/03 12:45:13 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

"Persistence Is Futile"

Claudia Rosett writes about North Korea, in yesterday's OpinionJournal:

.... In prestigious journals such as Foreign Affairs, analysts have been churning out discussions of various nuanced ways in which the Free World might render up favors to try to calm Kim's nerves about his own "security." Never mind that Kim's reign, from its personality cult to its plutonium-uranium-missile-famine-and-gulag program, is based on lies, huge lies and more lies. We have legions of experts parsing every offensive, bullying syllable of North Korea's diatribes, seeking any opening to which the U.S. might congenially and eagerly respond. After U.S. insistence on a broad Asian conclave of multilateral talks with North Korea degenerated into a bilateral North Korean extortion attempt last week in Beijing, Mr. Powell has now examined Kim's latest nuclear-blackmail proposal and lost no time in pronouncing it "useful."

The madness of such tactics resides, alas, not in the cold calculations of Kim's camp, but with America and its allies. The truth is that there is no deal the U.S. or its friends can strike that Pyongyang can be trusted to honor. There is no aid we can offer North Korea's famished people that Kim will not abuse. And there will be no decent peace until he and his regime are gone. The reason is simple. North Korea's system needs enemies; take that away, and the entire ideological foundation of the Kim cult starts to crumble. There would be no one to blame for all the misery and militarization but the actual source: the Pyongyang regime itself.

As for the theory that with just a little more talk, aid and understanding, Kim would be so gullible as to try to truly reform his ways, well, forget about it. Unless Kim is willing to risk his own welfare for the greater good of his fellow citizens -- and there is zero precedent for that -- he cannot for one instant leave himself vulnerable to anything even approaching free choice among his subjects. Whatever the mythic status of the country's 22 million or so brainwashed citizens accord the dead Kim Il Sung, too many North Koreans these past nine years have tried to survive under the younger Kim by eating rats and dirt; too many have seen their loved ones die under Kim's guiding hand.

At a recent Prague symposium on human rights in North Korea, U.S.-based democracy activist Suzanne Scholte estimated that Kim, on average, every day, "is murdering 42 people in his political-prisoner camps and 391 children and adults by intentionally starving them to death." This, Ms. Scholte added, is a conservative estimate. Based on testimony from international humanitarian groups and North Korean defectors, she suggests the real figures may be three or four times as high. In other words, it's a good bet that given any genuine opening in North Korea, whether by way of liberalization or unplanned loss of control, the only reason ordinary citizens might hesitate before toppling the statues of Kim Jong Il would be the desire to first dangle the "Great Leader" from the highest outstretched arm of the nearest outsized replica of himself.

About the only sane note in all the recent furor surfaced last week, with reports of a classified memo sent around inside the administration by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, advocating diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang with the aim of bringing about -- yes -- regime change. But it's not just Kim who stands in way. The pity here is that if anyone seems to fear the possibility of regime change almost as much as Kim himself, it's the negotiating establishment of the U.S. and its allies.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 05/01/03 08:19:42 AM
Categorized as International.

St. Joseph the Worker

And a prayer to the saint.

In the Roman Church, today is the feastday of St. Joseph the Worker. Today also begins my parish's year-long centennial celebration, with a special mass this evening.

Please say a prayer for my employment, and for blessings on my small-town parish, St. Joseph Church, Roscoe, Pennsylvania.

Glorious St. Joseph, example for all who are engaged in toil, pray with me please to obtain the grace that I may work in the spirit of penance and so make atonement for my sins; that I may work conscientiously, keeping devotion to duty before my personal feelings; that I may work with thankfulness and joy, holding it an honor to use and develop by my labor the gifts I have received from almighty God.

Pray with me that I may obtain help to work with order, peace, moderation, and patience — and never shirk duty because of weariness or because of difficulties encountered; and that, before all else, I may work with a right intention and with detachment from self, keeping always in mind the hour of my death and the account I must give then for misused time, for neglected talents, for good not done, and for any foolish pride in my success — a fault so fatal to the work of God.

All for Jesus, all through Mary, all in imitation of you, Joseph most faithful! This shall be my motto in life and death. Amen.

(Source.)

See St. Joseph the Worker: May 1.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 05/01/03 07:58:27 AM
Categorized as Religious.

John Milton: Song on May Morning

     Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
     Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
     The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
     The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
     Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
     Mirth and youth and warm desire!
     Woods and groves are of thy dressing;
     Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

[Norton Anthology of Poetry (Revised Edition) p. 299]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 05/01/03 07:43:10 AM
Categorized as Literary.