Raina Kelley and the "Harlem Miracle"

Well, it's time for another article by Raina Kelley, the prime illustration of OneSTDV's Law of Black Intellectualism. This week, Ms Kelley details her plan for fostering success amongst impoverished blacks.

If we want to make black history every month, we must do a better job educating the millions of impoverished black children in America. For many of them, school will be the only way out from under the federal poverty line. The 35 percent of African-American youth living in poverty are the most visible victims of what is often called the achievement gap. But black children of all socioeconomic levels perform worse on national tests and graduate in fewer numbers than their white middle-class peers.

First, why is such an inordinate amount of energy spent on reducing black poverty? Why aren't poor whites worthy of such empathy. Second, the final statement indicates she understands that the achievement gap exists despite control of socioeconomic status. Of course, she then completely dismisses this rather important fact, focusing her attention on only poor blacks for the remainder of the article.

Some say, as Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and American Enterprise Institute political scientist Charles Murray did in their 1994 book, The Bell Curve, that the cause is genetic. And though The Bell Curve has been discredited in scientific circles, the idea that IQ is somehow linked to race has been slow to retreat. Others, like Cornell University researchers Gary Evans and Michelle Schamberg, believe that "physiological stress is a plausible model for how poverty could get into the brain and eventually interfere with achievement"...

Do liberal creationists actually believe The Bell Curve is the only source of material on race and intelligence. As for the allusion to yet another take on Occam's Butterknife ("physiological stress"), are poor whites and Asians, the latter lacking parents who even speak the language, not privy to the same detrimental effects of poverty. I'm surprised Ms. Kelley didn't regurgitate a spurious interpretation of the infamous "Stereotype threat" studies.

But locally, there are now signs of hope. At the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Promise Academy charter schools, at least 97 percent of third graders scored at or above grade level on a statewide math test in 2008, outperforming the average scores of both black and white children in New York City and New York state.

Ms. Kelley either found comprehensive research too taxing or figured her risible dissimulating would go unnoticed by her credulous audience. As Charles Murray notes amongst a litany of other possible sources of error, the Harlem Children's Zone 8th graders scored at only the 33rd percentile on a nationwide exam, a result that should temper the ample optimism Ms. Kelley and others exhibit.

But ignoring this, Ms. Kelley promotes the HCZ model as evidently tractable on a larger scale. Don't worry, it doesn't seem like much work (it's a long excerpt, but worth it).

What the HCZ does is first recognize that the amelioration of poverty does not begin and end with an excellent education, but also requires a full belly, parental education, safety, advocacy, and the expectation that every student will succeed. "We help parents and kids through the system," HCZ founder Geoffrey Canada says. "We get them past every hindrance put in their way, whether it be at home or with social services. We can advocate on a child's behalf, whether it be at home or in the classroom or with the juvenile justice system." It provides new parents with a Baby College to teach parenting skills during the crucial first three years of a child's life and a preschool Gems program, where kids learn not only French and Spanish but healthy eating habits to combat childhood obesity. The Zone also offers the HCZ Asthma Initiative to provide medical care and education to families, thus drastically cutting down on the number of school days missed by students suffering from asthma. And it has a network of afterschool programs that teach media literacy, karate, and computer skills. It's called the pipeline—once familes enter, it's hoped that they'll stay until their child graduates from college. The idea is to create "a safety net woven so tightly that kids can't slip through," according to Paul Tough.

And yet, the epitome of a Big Brother program does little to actually reduce the achievement gap. I will laud this program for possibly undermining the number of anti-social pressures these kids will face as well as offering them an outlet for productive activity. But Ms. Kelley presents this program as a cure-all for the achievement gap, a contention that lacks a cogent statistical backing. She then blames the "system" (might as well have said "The Man") on the failings of black youth in achieving social ascension:

Local, state, and federal governments have poured billions into educating our kids but have not yet found a way to fix failing schools. Many parents of poor children feel that public education has let them down and have stopped trying to improve the system. Others simply do not have the time or resources.

It is misleading and punitive to blame the achievement gap on parents in poor neighborhoods, especially when the current education department recognizes, as it did in its plan to spread the idea of the HCZ nationwide, that "providing both effective schools and strong systems of support to children and youth in poverty, and thus meeting their health, social services, and education needs, will offer them the best hope for a better life."

What exactly is Ms. Kelley advocating here? Does she envision as government system that imposes in every aspect of life, of course offering services to people who lack the means to reimburse the system. She views government largess (well, she'd consider it magnanimity) as economically viable and a better option than, ya know, having parents, ummm, parent.

I am still amazed that the achievements of the Harlem Children's Zone don't make bigger news. Think about it as a headline—POVERTY DEFEATED—and you'll see where I'm going.

I think she didn't even use Google to research this article. David Brooks dubbed this the "Harlem Miracle" and discussion of it pervaded the education blogosphere for quite some time. But by downplaying this, she can more easily concoct a narrative suggesting black underachievement is the result of externally pernicious forces.

Finally, Ms. Kelley keeps alluding to "the defeat of poverty" and children of color rising, en masse, from the dredges of poverty. Does she not understand that in a capitalistic, free society there will always be winners and losers. There are only enough high paying jobs available, which ensures that only a select few will prosper. In parallel, some members of society, perhaps due to them lacking genetic gifts or simply their own slothfulness, will have to subsist on the wages of menial labor. But in Ms. Kelley's world, every individual, especially NAM ones, are capable of an Ivy League degree. And, on top of that, everyone can find a law, medicine, or diversity columnist position if they so desire one.

Readers using Internet Explorer

I just realized this blog might look messed up in Internet Explorer. Anyone use it? Does the right hand sidebar show up at the bottom?

More of the "War on Childhood"

The raging "War on Childhood" continues. Now we need Occupational Therapists to teach children how to use their hands. Yes, how to use their hands.

Twenty-five years ago, pediatric occupational therapists primarily served children with severe disabilities like spina bifida, autism or cerebral palsy. Nowadays, these therapists are just as focused on helping children without obvious disabilities to hold a pencil. In affluent neighborhoods in and around New York, occupational therapists have taken their place next to the army of academic tutors, psychologists, private coaches and personal trainers...

Many kindergartners in his community have taken music appreciation classes or participated in adult-led sports teams or yoga. And most have also logged serious time in front of a television or a computer screen. But very few have had unlimited opportunities to run, jump and skip, or make mud pies and break twigs.

I know it might sound crazy, but I spent my childhood playing wallball, "chicken" on the monkey bars, and making my own obstacle courses. If only I had spent that time in Pilates class or doing worksheets on the environment while hopped up on Adderall. Darn.

Do You Drink?

Saturday Audience Participation

The last time I had any alcohol was in August 2005. In the past 6.5 years, I've had exactly two drinks of alcohol (some fruity mixed drink and a beer). I'd estimate about 99% of liquid I imbibe in is water, with the other 1% comprised of a glass of milk for occasional low-protein meals and a rare soda.

So clearly, I've never understood the global pervasiveness of alcohol. I did previously think that drinking was the consequence of mass delusion and/or widespread peer pressure, as in the Emperor's New Clothes (everyone hates it, but no one will admit as much). Yet the reality is that drinking is an important cultural aspect of essentially every society on Earth, spanning all socioeconomic and racial classes. It serves multiple functions, including a depression treatment, a social posturing indicator of class, a stimulant for confidence-building, and a relaxant partaken during social events.

But let's be honest, it tastes horrible. Yes, I'm aware that experienced drinkers attest to one acquiring a taste, but is something intended for pleasure supposed to have a steep learning curve. After all, does it take multiple unpleasant sessions for one to start enjoying soda, Oreos, or M&M's? Though, I do partly understand using alcohol to ease awkward social interactions and as a catalyst for hedonistic activity.

So the question is: Do you drink? Why do you drink? And how did you overcome the undeniable fact that alcohol tastes bad?

Rhode Island Schools Fires ENTIRE Staff

In Rhode Island this week, the entire teaching and administrative staff of Central Falls High School was fired in an effort to "clean house". These firings could be a harbinger of an increasing trend in the increasingly competitive market of school reform.

Such dramatic moves are likely to multiply as “an increasing crop of no-excuses superintendents and state commissioners” take the view that “it’s essential to clean house” to improve persistently failing schools...

The school was classified in the lowest 5% of Rhode Island schools and thus a number of mandatory changes were proposed.

The turnaround model, which includes improving instruction as well as replacing staff; reopening a school as a charter or under an approved management organization; closing a school altogether; and transforming the school through such measures as intense teacher development and extended learning time for students.

The firings came following an impasse in discussion between the superintendent and the teachers unions. I'll deal with the unsurprising presence of an intransigent teachers union first, then comment on how this reflects liberal political policy on a wider scale.

In almost any situation, teachers unions oppose metrics designed to quantify their performance. They oppose standardized tests, merit pay, and layoffs based on inefficient teaching. Most conservative commentators conclude these positions derive from a desire to circumvent justifying their individual merit. Thus, the unions exist as collectivist entities using their numbers to motivate policy.

But instead of interpreting unions as protection for the incompetent, perhaps teachers understand that only a union can protect them from the anti-HBD proclamations of the displaced elite. Teachers are on the front lines of HBD; the young idealistic ones may cherish a romantic idea of raising the "slow", but almost all the jaded teachers realize their efforts will likely prove futile. They understand that aside from imposing control and maybe a moral lesson or two, most students are simply unable to grasp the material. So in this case, I support the unions.

It's unfair that school districts and educational institutions, run by Ivory Tower intellectuals completely removed from the realities of the common mind, demand teachers achieve the impossible. We should lionize teachers simply for taking the job and preserving through such an arduous task, all the while being pressured by an unattainable standard.

Second, the decision to completely remove all the teachers mirrors the liberal view of our society. Instead of understanding the stark and immutable realities of man, primarily his aptitude distribution, liberals dismiss these supposedly cynical facts and continually propose gross changes that will finally stop the interminable cycle of failure. The rejection of intelligence realism leads liberals to view our entire society as failed. Because there exist disparities amongst the races, income levels, and other collectives, liberal reason this non-Marxist hierarchy must imply society needs to be leveled and reborn. That's liberalism: extirpating efficient, meritocratic systems in the hope that destruction will lead to progress (progress defined as uniformity). This view pervades the health care debate, education reform, global warmism, and immigration policy.

Newsweek Article Sympathetic to Duke Rape Accuser

Who is more sympathetic than a twice false rape accuser, stripper, prostitute, destitute mother of three children by the age of 25, attempted murderer? This week, Newsweek writer Susannah Meadows penned an article lamenting the "sad" final chapter in the sordid tale of one Crystal Magnum, the Duke lacrosse stripper. The title: "Duke Lacrosse Accuser's Tragic Life".

Just before midnight on Feb. 17, in Durham, N.C., police responded to a call about a domestic dispute. The voice on the line was a child's. "Please hurry," she said. "My mom is going to die." Authorities arrived to find a woman fighting with her boyfriend. She'd lit his clothes on fire in the bathtub and, according to police, was threatening to stab him.

Of course, this woman was a paragon of virtue four years ago.

the woman happened to be Crystal Mangum, who falsely accused three members of the Duke University lacrosse team of rape and assault four years ago. The case, of course, exploded into a national news story and brought down the Durham district attorney.

Notice the structure of the bolded fragment. The author frames the situation as if that nefarious, opportunistic DA intent on burnishing his reputation amongst a black lower-class and a liberal elite was merely an innocent victim too credulous and empathetic in believing her lies.

Mangum was the woman who'd faced public scorn for putting the families of three innocent young men through hell. And yet, after the case ran into the sand, she seemed to have the least chance of all those involved of moving on and leading a productive life.

I guess receiving the support of 88 Ivory Tower professors and an entire media bent on using her plight to illustrate the inequities caused by "white privilege"constitutes enduring "public scorn". Also, note the absurd belittling of the Duke 3's hardship as their predicament is inconsequential compared to Ms. Magnum's. Disgusting.

Students I spoke with at NCCU's campus soon after the rape charges were filed had no doubt that the lacrosse players were guilty but would beat the rap. Another student said, "It's the same old story. Duke up, Central down." He said he wanted to see the Duke students prosecuted whether they were guilty of not. "It would be justice for things that happened in the past," he said. For me, it was one of the more eye-opening moments of the whole case.

This passage needs little comment. I love how the author experiences shock at such overt ire directed at Duke from these black students. Is the fervor surrounding the "Epic Beard Man" gradually disabusing whites of this ignorance regarding common black attitudes?

Duke students have little incentive to leave the lush grounds of their "Gothic Wonderland. But if they did, they'd be faced with a stark reality: In 2007, almost a fifth of Durham residents were living in poverty.

Notice she uses "reality" instead of an alternative word like conflict. As I've written before, liberals have such a distorted and despondent view of the West that they perceive the independent appropriation of wealth as somehow "unreal".

One night in 2002, she lifted a taxi driver's keys while giving him a lap dance. With a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit, Mangum then stole the cab. Police chased her through the city; she was eventually arrested, but not before nearly running over a cop as he approached her car.

As grim as it was, the windowless storefront [of a strip club where she worked] was perhaps better than her more recent work as an escort with a busy schedule of appointments at various motels, according to police documents. Life seems to have been a struggle for Mangum for years. At 17, she told police that three men had raped her when she was 14, but the case was dropped when she didn't follow through with the authorities. Her father later told reporters that he didn't believe that she'd been raped then.

So let me get this straight. Choosing to work as a stripper and a prostitute (notice she uses the euphemism "escort"), committing DUI in conjunction with grand theft auto, and engaging in false rape accusations is a "struggle". I'd call it being a horrible person. But with liberals, individuals have no responsibility; they're merely victims in a fixed society.

Remember that racial slur? When the two black strippers left the lacrosse party in a huff, a white freshman on the lacrosse team yelled out to them, "Thank your grandpa for my nice cotton shirt!" Case or no case, the epithet still hangs in the air.

What is the point of including this? Clearly, she intends to paint Duke whites as the bad guys.

Back when she'd just accused wealthy white Duke students of rape, lawyers were volunteering to work for her pro bono should she want to sue for damages. This time around, with a case that's less financially promising, she's relying, according to WRAL.com, on a public defender. She's under house arrest on a $250,000 bond.

I'd deem this deserved kismet. In the mind of the author, this is supposed to represent the "sad" and "tragic" end.

Princeton Hires Van Jones

Van Jones will have an appointment at Princeton next year.

Princeton University announced Wednesday that Jones has been appointed as a visiting fellow at the Center for African American Studies and at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs' program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy. During the one-year appointment, Jones will teach a spring course on "environmental politics."

Well, I guess when you've already got Paul Krugman, Cornel West, and Michelle Obama, this won't make a big difference.

VDare Looks like Crap

Social posturing weighs heavily in the decision-making of many individuals. HalfSigma regularly blogs on these indicators of social class, such as the "right" brands of apparel and the appropriate musical choices for one's wedding. Are these entrenched aspects of class somewhat arbitrary? Of course, as one notes the metamorphosis of Tommy Hilfiger from a yachting brand to a prominent component of 90's rapper fashion. In marketing anything, whether that be a tangible item or a foundational ideology, one must couch the "product" in the language of the intended market class. Now these characteristics are sometimes hard to pinpoint, though certain patterns generally appear, as evidenced by Christian Lander's perspicacious profiling of the effete, urbane white middle class.

Conservatism has an image problem, partly due to its most prominent constituency and partly due to the smearing tactics employed by the Alinsky left. While populist movements can gain traction, they always require the partnership of elites. Elites run the country and if they shirk a particular movement, nothing of grave significance will arise. This elite class, even those coming from humble beginnings, will generally adopt the norms of high social classes. They may profess a waffling belief in young-earth creationism or maintain their rural dialect, but they can't fully divest themselves from the pressures of appearing dignified and enlightened.

So what does have to do with VDare? If VDare intends to broaden the scope of its message, if it intends to bring forth discussion of the immigration issue on a wider scale, they have to fix their website. It looks like utter crap, seemingly designed by a dilettantish rube with nary a meaningful thought. Is this fair? Of course not, but the left will seize any opportunity to depict non-PC opinions as fitting only for those of a low social class: the bitter, the angry, the losers of society who have only their jingoism and not a rational, coherent philosophy underpinning their political ideals.

VDare publishes nuanced thinkers like Peter Brimelow, Nicholas Stix, Steve Sailer, John Derbyshire, Marcus Epstein and academic scholars like Rushton and Lynn, yet their visage implies such reasoned discourse is absent from their site (Note: I don't agree with everything published there). Other conservative outlets should take heed of such a vapid, yet potent counter to promulgators of the un-PC. Specific to VDare, we mustn't allow conservative messages to be undermined simply because the visual presentation is bad. One notes how impactful shallow things like visuals can be.

Botox, Sadness, & Western vs. Eastern Medicine

In an article last week, Newsweek columnist Sharon Begley discusses research by a Wisconsin graduate student illustrating the depression damping effects of Botox.

Called the facial feedback hypothesis, it implies that forcing your lips and cheeks into a smile can make you feel happy and scowling can make you feel annoyed, at least a little. Building on that research, graduate student David Havas of the University of Wisconsin-Madison decided to study people who had received Botox treatments that paralyzed one pair of their corrugator muscles, which cause the forehead to constrict into a frown.

[After reading an emotionally charged sentence]...The emotions just did not compute as easily as before their sadness and anger muscles were paralyzed.

Clearly, this implies the mind and body are inextricably linked, especially in the context of pathology. One aspect of illness that Eastern practitioners understand far better than their Western counterparts is the importance of the patient's mental state. Of course, I'm not contending the efficacy of Western science pales in comparison; rather, I believe the West too readily dismisses how the mind exacerbates what one would presume to be solely physical ailments. Stress, that universal, yet vague ill affecting everyone, is occasionally the root cause of chronic pain. Perhaps such an impersonal approach to medicine stems from our capitalistic culture and medical training that emphasizes science over patient care (the latter often seen as the undignified domain of nurse staff).

Of course, much of Eastern medicine constitutes physical, quantifiable processes that the West simply can't explain with current science. For example, take Buddhist monks who live in freezing conditions with nary a blanket to regulate the cold. While the East attributes this to drivel like chi, energy meridians, and yin/yang, it's rather obvious these monks have somehow trained their brains to modulate any response to extreme cold. The metrics of Western empiricism can't quite formulate a satisfactory explanation, but it surely can measure the underlying physically-based processes.

OneSTDV's Law of Black Intellectualism

In the spirit of Sailer's Law of Female Journalism, I've decided to christen my own rule. I dub this law: OneSTDV's Law of Black Intellectualism a.k.a. the "Raina Kelley rule".

Compared to their peers, almost any member of the black intellectual class will expend an inordinate amount of energy on activities pertaining to racial issues.

This phenomenon spans the entirety of the political and academic domains, including the eponymous Raina Kelley and Ellis Cose of Newsweek, Charles M. Blow of the NYT, all these other opinion columnists, this conservative Townhall.com columnist, conservative Thomas Sowell's recent book on the genesis of black culture, right-leaning websites like Booker Rising ("news site for black moderates and black conservatives"), black mathematicians, black professors like Cornel West and Skip Gates, black lawyers, any blog written by a black person (a reference usually included in the heading), and Michael Steele as the GOP chairman.

And just for fun, here's a clearly intelligent black woman with a Master's in math from Penn. The main core of her work is in ethnomathematics, including this recent tutorial on teaching geometry using black hairstyles.

Here's a quick gauge of how often this occurs. In honor of Michelle and Barack Obama, two embodiments of this law, 19 out of 45 total black professors (over 40%) at Harvard are faculty in the Department of African-American studies.

I'd wager this occurs primarily as a result of white liberals not only accepting, but actively promoting black racialism.

[Ms. Kelley's most recent article on the need for affirmative action inspired this post.]

Update (2/24/10 3:19 AM): I've slightly changed the wording of the rule so that it applies to more general cases not limited to pundits and social commentators.

Millenials Eschew Traditional Religion

Do today's youth (the so-called "Millenials") harbor an increasing antipathy towards traditional religion? According to a recent Pew poll, one in four of today's Millenial generation consider themselves unaffiliated with any religious faith. This gradual shift away from observance in the context of traditional religion isn't surprising, as the tides of secularization have been compounding for years. One would presume this reflects a growing intellectual atheism amongst the young, a movement that eschews religion in conjunction with embracing empiricism. After all, the online atheist movement is dominated by bombastic, youthfully exuberant voices proclaiming the dawning of a secular utopia.

But such an extrapolation proves inaccurate. Instead, the fact that young people are abandoning religion isn't indicative of a growing rationalism, but rather merely an opposition to traditional mores. According to this recent Marist poll, Millenials have replaced traditional religion with a nebulous "spiritualism", which in practice equates to an amalgamation of liberalism, religious pluralism, and the edicts of New Age. For example (page 13), Millenials embrace moral relativism at a rate of 64% compared to Generation X at 54% and the Greatest generation at 52% (surprised the final one is so high though). Also, a full 63% of Millenials found some truth in the statement, "I'm spiritual, but not religious," a clear reflection that they do not abjure religion for reasons of philosophical objection.

It's reasonable to conclude that the decrease in religious observance amongst Millenials reflects a growing trend against absolutism and objectivity. Christianity, with its overt and stringent condemnation of immorality, is replaced by an offshoot of political liberalism containing all the trappings of social Marxism. Millenials, inundated with the ideals of modern liberalism, seek institutions that will support these same norms. Thus, they discard religion in favor of "spirituality" (note: if you encounter a girl really into this, she probably has an STD), prurient behavioral norms, and the "anything goes" approach of relativism. Millenials aren't actually less religious; they've just increasingly adopted liberalism as a guide for life.

90's One Hit Wonder Harvey Danger, Galton, and Shockley

I was watching American Pie last night. In one of the montage segments (sadly, I think the movie montage is slowly dying), they play the one-hit wonder song Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger. If you don't recognize the name, you surely have heard the song. I found the following lines rather intriguing (@ 0:56 in video):

been around the world and found
that only stupid people are breeding
the cretins cloning and feeding

The Moral Duty of Private Industry

Saturday Audience Participation

Elite colleges, especially graduate programs, have a large percentage of foreign students. This is especially prevalent in the engineering and sciences, as every American math or science student has had to endure a TA with a minimal grasp of English.

Ostensibly, education represents an important facet of political power and technological proficiency. It's necessary that the best students are identified and properly nurtured, (especially given the rigors of highly esoteric study in graduate STEM programs) therby continually creating a productive class of industry innovators. We need American citizens that will maintain our scientific, medical, and technological eminence as these bolster our economy, quality of life, world prestige, and defense. But instead of aggressively cultivating American citizens, elite colleges covet foreign students, many of whom will return to their native country.

This situation is attractive to elite colleges for a number of reasons (inconsequential what they are exactly), yet it represents a net loss for the country. Elite American citizens are denied the opportunity for admission. Further, an American university educates and nurtures a foreign citizen who will use this in order to benefit his own country.

So the question is: Do private institutions and companies have a moral duty to act in the best interests of their nation-state even if it conflicts with their own personal interests? As a strong capitalist, I generally favor libertarian-leaning policies, yet as a passionate citizen of the West, I note the importance of collective morality. What say you?

[Mangan discussed a similar conundrum concerning the Swiss minaret ban.]

Liberalism: The Undermining of Kin

I've offered several overlapping theories concerning the philosophical underpinnings of liberalism. I've argued that liberalism is a de facto religion, holding diversity, tolerance, and equal outcome as the preeminent values. Additionally, as noted in regards to almost any leftist educational initiative, liberals seek to engineer a humanity absent of outliers and totally uniform in all characteristics.

A rather uncommon theory is that liberalism, the kind propagated by an avaricious elite, represents the undermining of kin. This occurs on both macro (nations and races) and micro (family, communities) scales. The kind of liberalism that doesn't view itself as a tool for promoting a global utopia, but rather as a means for appropriating wealth and power uses this pernicious strategy to accomplish their objectives.

What the power elite do is enervate the strength of kin bonds, replacing these elements of self-governance and value with those of a larger community more easily manipulated through public coercion. To illustrate this let me give a brief summary of how this works:

Micro:

• Family: Liberals detest the nuclear family, seeing it as a vestige of our bucolic past. As in the Murphy Brown controversy, they glorify single motherhood as an honorable and viable situation, one that of course often leads to government or communal assistance. Further, they champion birth control and exaggerated theories concerning global warming as a means to depress birth rate and thus decrease family bonds.
  
  
• Homosexuality: Related to the above. Homosexuality is generally a childless relationship. The codification of homosexuality implies liberals undervalue reproduction and family as an important facet of life.
  
  
• "It takes a village": Hilary Clinton's famous remark represents how liberals view child raising as not the sole responsibility of parents. Instead, it's the larger community, one inevitably affected by widespread social mores, that must impact a child's development. In addition, the inclusion of women in the workplace has lead to significantly more time for babies and young children in daycare under the supervision of adults not part of their family.
  
  
• Religion: Religious communities used to provide a sheltered social sphere for families. With the advent of megachurches (not necessarily liberal though) and the continuing secularization of the West, the church no longer functions as a restricted social space where certain behavioral (usually conservative) norms are championed.

Macro:

• Globalism: The current global warming controversy illustrates how liberals will engage in rather overt equivocation in order to advance globalist initiatives. In doing so, they aim to dissolve national boundaries that strongly correspond with traditional culture and ethnic bonds, replacing these with a central system of decision making and control. Memes such as the recently revived "We are the World" song and nomenclature such as "mankind" and "one people" promote the idea that all nations have a moral duty for sharing. This inevitably weakens Western states, allows a central governing body to dispense orders, and undermines national and ethnic loyalty amongst peoples.
  
  
• Race: Boasian anthropology, supported by fallacious arguments such as Lewontin's fallacy and other duplicitous ideas, holds that race is merely a social construct with no biological basis. We're inundated with the specious claim that races are only 5% different, thus implying that any kin bonds are not supported by a rational appeal to science. As race often acts as the primary demarcation for social groups, this allows liberals to formulate a Marxist conception of humanity. By dismissing race as a biological entity, they attempt to classify any inequity as the result of oppression and any loyalty or commonality as unreasonable. This aids in their globalist vision, as without racial divisions, wealth redistribution, third-world charity, and central government become more tenable.

Global Warming: Romance of a Great Idea

Awhile back, I asked readers for their opinions on global warming. Most expressed a degree of vacillation on the matter, with some strongly denouncing this so-called "climate science". Since Obama derisively alluded to global warming apostates during his State of the Union, I've become increasingly irked by the smugness these "scientists" exhibit. For the past week or so, Auster has really been beating the drum on this issue, including a link to this damning condemnation of global warming doctrine from a former expert in the field.

Reading through these articles, I'm gradually veering into the camp defining this as bad science and a hoax. But are the purveyors of this obfuscation guilty of deliberately misleading the public? Maybe, but I think the main basis of global warming zealotry is from what I'll call "the romance of a great idea".

Anyone with a background in experimental science has encountered such a phenomenon. All researchers have experienced that impactful and exciting "eureka" moment where one makes some conceptual breakthrough that merely requires providing rigorous support through carefully collected experimental data. To the eager scientist, the latter part, the part where one appropriates the proper evidence, becomes an almost trivial exercise. Once one thinks of this "great idea", many wrongly consider the experimental data will surely buttress their idea.

But that's not always the case. Sometimes, as in cold fusion, the light-bearing ether, and Kepler's crystalline spheres, wonderfully elegant, abstract ideas can be completely wrong. One can't underestimate the potency of such a letdown, especially if the relevant work encompasses a person's entire academic career, funding opportunities, ambitions, or their hopes for engendering widespread change. Scientific theories need real-world evidence because our limited understanding of nature causes us to ignores its complexities, numerous hidden variables, and the relative weight of physical parameters. Some systems are so complex that they lack an analytical answer, so numbers are the only thing we can go by.

Global warming seems like an elegant proposition: a feedback system of greenhouse gases that should work in a certain manner. It's actually quite an insightful idea: that all these factors, geological happenings, solar energy, atmospheric phenomena, and human activity, can coalesce into a system with a predictable outcome. But that's the problem, it's not that simple. The data simply doesn't corroborate the theory. Most global warming data, as illustrated by Climategate, is a subjective appraisal of the numbers. Scientists outright expunged data that didn't support their claims, cherry picked time periods to show the "correct" trends, and ignored potential uncertainties in the data collection. See the famous hockey stick (circled in red) graph above for an illustration.

So that's where global warming comes from. It's comes from human scientists betrayed by their own idealism, hubris, and premature excitement.

Political Correctness is Killing People: Denying Racial Medicine

This is an old article on racial medicine, but it represents the lengths liberal creationists go to in promulgating their delusion. Specifically, these liberal creationists have such passion for wholescale racial uniformity that they'll ignore potential life-saving cures in order to maintain this chimera.

Experts within the research community say a small but stubborn streak of racial profiling has long persisted in the medical literature, borne out in studies that attribute health disparities between blacks and whites not to socioeconomics or access to health care alone but also to genetic differences between the races — a concept that implies that a biological category of race exists.

But even while Albain's and other similar studies don't do much to shift the prevailing medical opinion — that disparities in health are fueled mainly by socioeconomics and access to care — they remind us that antiquated and unscientific ideas about race are alive and well in medical research in America.

The article portrays racial medicine as contained within a piddling, heretical percentage of the medical community. Later, in this same article, they cite a study of 600 doctors on this topic, 81% of whom believe race is an important consideration in treatment. How are these people journalists? Then, the author reminds us that looking into race, even for the purposes of medical understanding, represents antiquated and biased science that readily leads to "misinterpretation" (read: whites are racist). Here's the study in question:

...in which researchers analyzed more than 19,000 patients who participated in clinical trials involving treatments for a variety of cancers. The paper found that all other factors being equal, black patients had on average a significantly lower cancer survival rate than whites. Researchers said also that even after adjusting for patients' socioeconomic status, the survival gap between black and white patients remained for three of the cancers studied: breast, ovarian and prostate. That something [causing the disparities], the authors concluded, must be some unknown biological or genetic factor that differs by race.

Oft-repeated criticism is offered next, with my responses in bold (mirrors Dr. Jonathan Marks response awhile back).

"Race is a sociological concept, not a biological category," says Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. [Just keep repeating it...]

According to the Human Genome Project, people are indeed well over 99% identical; at the molecular level race is imperceptible. [Chimps are about 98.5% the same with humans. I guess the differences are thus null.]

Every few years, in fact, a new study like Albain's materializes, each following a remarkably similar logic: Researchers identify a disparity in health outcomes (cancer survival or response to treatment, for example) that falls along racial fault lines; investigators then adjust for socioeconomic status, and, when the disparity persists, conclude it must be genetic. [I wonder why this keeps happening. Maybe because the genetic hypothesis has validity?]

And race in America, as it is socially defined, constitutes such broad categories that it is a crude — arguably useless — proxy for genetics. [And so are climate zones. Miami will be 70 degrees tomorrow. Western PA will be snowing and 24. But climate zones are so vague and broad, so how about everyone in Pittsburgh wears short sleeves.]

Still, geneticists point out that hereditary traits follow ancestral lines, not racial ones. [Author's thought process: Say anything, just don't use the word "race".]

"If you are trying to make the argument that [different health outcomes] must be genetic by exhausting other possibilities and saying what is left over must be genes, well, that's never going to work. There are a million things that affect people's lives. If you think it's genes, then measure genes."

The notion that we can't identify people by race is ludicrous. We can easily pinpoint someone's continent of origin using only their DNA and, further, these continental groups are divided by discontinuities. And as shown at the end of this post, race provides a useful metric for dividing groups.

The last quote above is classic anti-HBD. I included it in this chart on liberal creationism. They demand an absolutely unattainable level of proof by forever shifting the goalposts and never yielding that the genetic hypothesis is plausible. She wants every single ("a million") possibilities dismissed and then every gene categorized until she's even willing to consider race. Admittedly, they do rightly advise cautiousness in always attributing disparities to race.

whites had a nine times higher rate of HPV infection than blacks...It could have to do with the fact that young white men practice oral sex more often and earlier — a common way young people acquire HPV — than black men.

Good observation, but do they have editors at Time? While not for young people, Inductivist found only 5% more of whites engage in oral sex than blacks. As for condom use, I found one study saying blacks used them more and one study saying whites used them more. So, while the author presents this as a counterexample to the racial medicine hypothesis, it seems to be a rather ambiguous result. She also points to the black heart disease drug BiDil working for some whites. OK, but no one claimed BiDil works by directly mutating a gene only present in blacks. It probably affects a particular gene's manifestation and thus, it's reasonable that a small percentage of whites could have the same problem caused by something else entirely (i.e. Studies have found the Chinese have a unique gene for intelligence, but that doesn't preclude those of African descent also being intelligent.)

Here's a few medical problems that follow racial lines: cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, hemochromatosis, and lactose intolerance. And here's a recent plea for more black bone marrow donors. Funny, I thought all races were subsets of Africans?

It is more likely that a donor who comes from the same racial or ethnic group as the recipient will have the same tissue traits. For African Americans, this is particularly true, as some African American tissue types are rarely found in donors from other ethnic backgrounds...

A final note: Right now, in regards to how we give medicine, a person's race will likely do little in regards to treatment. But, as for understanding the propagation and genesis of disease, and more practically important, screening for those at high-risk, race is surely a central factor.

NC Schools Degrade Early American History

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has concocted an innovative way to advance the leftist rewrite of American history. Instead of focusing on certain events, glorifying particular individuals due to their race or gender, and depicting Europeans as the epitome of evil, they've decided to essentially forget any of it ever happened. After middle school, students will not be exposed to early American history in history classes, including such trivial incidents like settling an entire continent or formulating the Constitution.

A group on the social networking Web site Facebook with the name “History Did Not Begin in 1877” had more than 4,500 fans late Friday afternoon.

Most likely, that title makes sense only to people who have followed the controversy surrounding an examination of how American history is taught in the state’s public schools.

The N.C. Department of Public Instruction says there’s no effort to eliminate teaching about American history through the Civil War and Reconstruction period. Instead, potential changes would have incorporated earlier American history into other classes and earlier grade levels so that students have more time to focus on recent American history in high school.

Despite my cynicism, I'll admit those proposing this radical idea might not be acting with dishonorable intentions. Nonetheless, the mere existence of such an idea implies that the education system harbors increasing apathy towards the founding and conservative principles of this country. Children as young as nine can't fully comprehend the material and thus teaching it without subsequent rigorous rehashing in later years represents a futile effort.

Students will likely receive only the revisionist history of recent America, replete with all the leftist memes like presenting Marxism as merely an alternative way of economics. Further, the heroes of pre-Civil War America are inevitably those boring dead white males; while the enlightened post-Civil War America sees the wresting away of power from this oppressive class. The demi-gods of leftism like Susan B. Anthony will have center stage, unencumbered by the presence of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. But does it really matter though? Even pre-Civil War era history education most closely parallels yellow journalism. Ever heard this quote from Lincoln:

I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.

[Note: Administrators claim their proposition has been misconstrued by the national media. This may be true, but still, early American history should be an impliable requirement of high school history courses and it doesn't seem they offered this material its due respect.]

Feministing.com on Gender Differences in Luge

I found Feministing on Gucci Little Piggy's blogroll awhile back (OT: see this fantastic post on the John Mayer Playboy interview). Despite being a great illustration of just how deluded some women can be, there is some hope. I just read this article about recent changes to the luge event. The Olympic officials have moved the starting lines forward for safety concerns, with the men's line behind the women's line.

Did the officials make this decision because there's an ingrained idea that the women and doubles riders can't possibly start at the same position as the men, even though I don't understand the reasonsing for that either? Is it because women are just not as strong as men and therefore unable to control the luge in the same way as men are? It just seems to be based on misogynistic ideas about how men's sports should relate to women's.

So this women actually believes men and women are essentially identical in athletic ability and strength. I figured the comments would parrot this gender egalitarian idiocy. Surprisingly, several commenters supported the idea that men were actually stronger and thus the change was justified and not the result of misogyny.

from my understanding it is a sport that requires a good deal of physical strength. The best male athletes are stronger than women, so that would explain the difference.

it's related to weight ratios. it's the same reason that women who compete in ski jumping start at a higher point than male competitors.

the different starting points are decided due to a weight/strength ratio that they've decided is different for men and women - which has always seemed to me to be more realistic than sexist.

A welcome shock I must say.

"Scientism" and the Undermining of Religion

For anyone unaware of it, there's an ongoing atheist billboard campaign nationwide. It follows a similar initiative with bus ads in the United Kingdom. The billboards don't engage in the anti-theism tactics Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris have used to foment the "New Atheist" movement. Instead, the campaign focuses on the pervasiveness of disbelief and the basic humanist ideal that morality exists independent of divinity. The slogans read something like:

Are you good without God? Millions are.

Don't believe in God? You're not alone.

The uprising of a "new atheist" movement about five years ago illustrated that a significant percent of the population lay dormant in supposed exile from mainstream discourse on religion. Spurred by a strong online presence, atheism attained at least a minimal profile in the larger political and social spheres. But the basic problem with atheism, one that humanist summer camps and Unitarian Universalist churches seek to solve, is that it exists as merely a lack of something, thereby providing its adherents with little substantive benedictions besides satisfaction in unadulterated rationality.

Basically, atheism as a social institution must replace the embedded cultural aspects of religion, in addition to the supernatural assurances that successfully temper our fear of death and chance. And this is probably where atheism as a collective movement fails: it demands either one impose an internal meaning to one's life or extract purpose from the seemingly impartial facts of nature. The former commences a slippery slope to nihilism and relativism, so most atheist proselytizers have gone the second route, attempting to fashion an inspiring narrative out of science.

Carl Sagan, using the vastness of space as his framework, and Richard Dawkins, popularizing the intricate processes of evolution, are the foremost pioneers of this tactic. They aim to replace the mystery and majesty of the divine with the wonder and beauty of natural order. And such an approach has had a moderate amount of success, as who can't experience the romanticism of the picture above. Who doesn't marvel at the scale of the quantum world or wonder about the expanses of the galaxies? How can one not be in awe of humanity's pursuit of knowledge, including Newton's command of stellar phenomenon, Einstein's explanation of the heavens, and string theory's musings on multi-dimensional universes? For anyone who has watched Sagan's Cosmos, his excitement is palpable, his connection to the material rivaling that of the most pious theists.

But that's the problem: it's science. First, one must hurdle the notion that science is wholly disentangled from human emotion. The pursuit of science is supposedly a judicious examination of data, the kind of work that avoids the sullying from man's wants (doesn't always happen). How can one present science as both a disinterested epistemological activity and simultaneously, a means for defining meaning in a chaotic world? Second, this "scientism" method at courting converts has little sway with almost the entirety of the population. People are simply too stupid for these cerebral ideas of science to make an impact on them. Most lack the mental acuity to understand the foundation of the material. Or they find such academic topics boring and lacking a semblance of humanity.

The masses don't want verbose ruminations on the complexity of the universe, they want a bumper sticker with a pithy catchphrase. They want simple messages that mirror their personal lives. Cogitating on cosmic events doesn't resonate with them because the terse lessons espoused on Sunday just make more sense. Is there anything wrong with that? No, not at all. Some people don't like science; even some scientists don't like other sciences (e.g. chemists who abhor math). So the "scientism" strategy will undoubtedly fail because it's potential market is limited to a small portion of the population. It's idealistic delusion to believe that science can ever wholly replace religion as an institution providing a guide for how to live.

Meghan McCain: "Tea Party is Racist"

Meghan McCain, a self-proclaimed "progressive Republican" and a blossoming "like..um" pundit, was on The View this week vilifying the Tea Party movement. Ignoring the rather clear nepotism undergirding her authority as a political commentator, McCain represents a class of young people who adopt a pseudo-conservatism, rife with all the facets of the PC. In essence, her positions make her indistinguishable from a campus liberal, with the only possible demarcation being a token conservative position like pro-life or anti-stem cell research. Here's what she said on The View (@ 4:37):

Whoopi: There are some things about the Tea Party that have been bugging you.

McCain: People are saying that this is a new movement in the Republican Party and the first...I - I didn't want to go...I - I have very much ideological (big word!) differences with them. Congressmen Tancredo went on TV and he was the first opening speaker and he said that, 'People who could not even spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House named Barack Hussein Obama'. And then he went on to say that people at the convention should have to pass literacy tests in order to be able to vote in this country, which is the same thing that happened in the 50's to prevent African-Americans from voting. And it's innate racism and I think it's why young people are turned off by this movement. And I'm sorry revolutions start with young people, not with 65 year-old people talking about literacy tests and people who can't say the word vote in English.

First off, is it outlandish to demand that voters have a basic fluency in the country's language? If they have not achieved any literacy, how can they plausibly understand what's going on. Second, notice how Meghan automatically characterizes the movement as "innate racism". She's not entirely wrong, but of course, in her worldview ultimately defined by leftist rhetoric, the inherent racial element of the Tea Party movement implies a pernicious motive. For those indoctrinated with post-60's multiculturalism, the demographic makeup of the Tea Party is both a necessary and sufficient condition for racism.

The Tea Party is clearly a movement comprised almost entirely of whites. It attracts these individuals not because it advances some racialist white collectivism, but because these individuals are exasperated with the anti-white policies that dominate the political and social zeitgeist. They're angry that money is funneled out of their communities, that an empty black suit with a Muslim background eschewed any scrutiny during the campaign, that globalism, anti-Western sentiments, and an America-denigrating multiculturalism pervade the social landscape, and that the pursuit of unfettered immigration seeks to redefine this country, both culturally and demographically. All of these initiatives are championed in the spirit that to be of European ancestry is to lack a cultural vigor, that whiteness bequeaths one with a vastitude of guaranteed opportunity, and that the only positive ideals to support are those of diversity and wealth redistribution to the laziest, least capable members of society.

And of course, these hallmarks of leftism are bolstered and justified by an idealistic notion that all races have equal average ability. Further, the elites propagate the notion that equal collective achievement, that of blacks vs. whites and men vs. women, is the moral imperative of our time. So when the productive white class has their culture degraded, their freedom of speech muted by an overly sensitive media, and their country besieged by an antagonistic, crime ridden, unproductive class, how should they react? Should they merely await the multicultural utopia that our current elites envision? To Meghan McCain, if one doesn't sit idly by as population shifts completely unravel the fabric of our nation (HBD-supported of course), then one is a racist. To those of Meghan McCain's ilk, a demographically homogeneous event attended by whites constitutes racism, yet she offers no excoriation of the Congressional Black Caucus, La Raza, segregated housing at elite universities, or the multitude of other explicitly NAM racialist organizations out there.

I will admit that the Tea Party movement is rather coy in addressing these obvious racial issues, using obtuse language to broach these topics. But voicing displeasure with a social and political system that opposes our meritocracy, our equality, and our tradition (IMO, America represents the bastion of civilization, a beacon of progress that should be revered like Athens and Rome) should NOT be reduced to racism. Auster likes to brag about his prescient observation concerning Obama spurring a traditionalist renaissance. And Auster is right, Obama's presidency has done this, as Barack Hussein epitomizes the leftist memes that could ultimately destroy the West.

[While I didn't do so explicitly, these arguments are mostly based on HBD and not mere jingoism. A few links should clarify: here, here, here, here and here's a great article from Heather MacDonald on Hispanic immigration.]

The Consequences of Porn

Saturday Audience Participation Post

I've generally eschewed discussing the scurrilous and lascivious aspects of society and culture. I do occasionally comment on Game and the sexual marketplace and while these topics inevitably involve the lurid activities of the private domain, vulgar discussion hasn't graced this blog's front page. Well today, I slightly bend that self-imposed restriction as I delve into the world of porn.

Porn is, always has been, and likely always be an embedded institution of society. It's been an oft-ignored catalyst for early film technologies, a prominent cause of VCR attaining market share, and was one of the first industries to capitalize on the burgeoning Internet revolution. The porn industry is worth more than all four major sports leagues combined, a fact made even more stunning considering almost all users imbibe in these taboo delights for free. And if one doubts porn's pervasiveness, this study should squelch that skepticism.

The question is: Can porn actually impact one's sexual expectations, choices, arousal, etc...? I know there have been numerous studies claiming porn has an inconsequential effect on these factors, but I never trust studies laden with feminist rhetoric. I can't imagine that daily porn use does not somewhat alter one's view of sex, dull one to the merits of regular looking women, or imbue one with at least an unconscious desire that all women act in such a manner. Roissy has argued that porn represents a moderately efficacious proxy for sating the most desperate of men's sexual appetites and I do agree. But I can't imagine such a powerful tool as porn (power corresponding to how easily it affects one's impulses) doesn't minimally alter one's perspective.

So what do you think: Does porn objectify women as objects of man's sexual wants? Does it dull men to arousal from women of less than physical perfection? Does watching porn constitute an immoral act? What about fetish porn or even the more mainstream porn memes that imply some rather sinister things about men (I won't get into specifics)? Or is porn just a harmless, cathartic act that supplements a healthy pursuit of real-life encounters? Perhaps, men readily distinguish between life and the fantasy represented in these videos, easily compartmentalizing the contrasts.

[Note: Most discussion of porn pertains to men as they comprise the vast majority of porn consumers. This large gender disparity implies that the construct of porn and the manner in which it presents sex most appropriately corresponds to man's sexual paradigm.]

Settling for Mr. Good Enough: The Underpinnings of Feminism

As Roissy shows in this complete evisceration of a NYT article on college sex ratios, the mainstream media populated by servile beta males and cantankerous pseudo-feminists doesn't understand the current sexual marketplace. And here's yet more evidence of their glib pontifications on the basis of female attraction.

Lori Gottleib has put out a book entitled Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, or more appropriately: Marry Him: The Case for Settling for a Supplicating, Nice Guy Beta. Feminist zealots and their mainstream enablers, those female journalists forever confirming Sailer's Law of Female Journalism (ironically, I'm the first Google result), are none too pleased with Ms. Gottleib's advice. But they don't see it the way those aware of female hypergamy do:

and compromise their desires and values in a partner by putting their ovaries before their own happiness.

telling women to settle for men with shortcomings like bad breath—and not hold out for a big, heart-clenching love.

But it's a leap of illogic to suggest that the answer is for women to settle for humdrum marriages with men you tolerate so you can have a father for your children.

I have high standards when it comes to men I would share my life with and so do most of my female friends and family. But those standards are based good values.

These women actually believe female attraction is based on common interests, values, and all that other stuff. This was true of our grandparent's generation, but the sexual liberation movement has allowed female hypergamy to flourish and thus undermine the social capital corresponding to these positive personality traits. What Gottleib advises is a socially palatable way of saying: "Settle for Mr. Nice guy who treats you well, but isn't the alpha cad you really want."

And she blames this on feminism and to an extent, she's right.

The problem, as Gottlieb sees it, is that women were told they could have it all, which meant not compromising in any aspect of life, including dating (which is odd because people who can't compromise aren't feminists, they are just generally unpleasant people). Then women got so fussy that they "empowered themselves out of a mate."

Feminism represents both an economic initiative and a social one. But the two are entangled and both derive from the same female objective. Feminism started out mostly amongst ugly women eager for a more libertine sexual environment where they'd have a better shot and lesbians eager to undermine any traditional concept of sexuality in order to norm their irregular preferences. The movement morphed into what Gottleib describes above: a generation of empowered women eager to assert their independence, free from the economic burden of joblessness, and able to pursue sexual freedom without restriction. The mainstream deemed this a pursuit of equality, but it's actually a reflection of female hypergamy.

Feminism, by enervating the social stigmatization of late marriages, ultimately represents an audacious attempt to civilize the alpha male cad. Women no longer "settle" for a man of lesser value, a man who doesn't ignite their carnal desires (read: beta), instead delaying marriage in an attempt to wrangle a member of the alpha male class. Females are no longer encumbered by an early (beta) marriage merely for social and economic support; they are now self-sufficient and thus free to pursue any man of their choosing. Marriage, children, traditional homes, and the nuclear family are all obstacles in the pursuit of the alpha male fantasy. Fittingly, they delay these mainstays of the responsible female in a tortured quest to meet their alpha prince charming. The notion of equality is but window dressing for the true objective that underlies feminism.

But, of course, we can't expect the mainstream to accept or voice such stark representations of the sexual marketplace.

NYC Schools Change their Rating System

In the unending struggle to make dumb people smart, the New York City public school system has found a way to once more undermine the highest achievers. Last year, they imposed total equality by just telling everyone they were great.

Months after handing out A’s and B’s to 97 percent of New York City elementary schools, education officials plan to change their methods for grading the city’s public schools, making it harder to receive high marks.

The new rankings will gauge improvement instead of absolute achievement. I won't be overly oppositional here. I admit this is a welcome and just change for those teachers and administrators straddled with "low-achieving" students, but there also must be some absolute measure of aptitude. After all, you don't win American Idol just for improving. But in a stupefying move, the City officials will actually grade individual students relative to their previous year's performance.

Rather than simply measuring how many students improved on state exams, the new system would use what researchers call a “growth percentile model.” Students would be compared with others who scored at the same level on the previous year’s test, and improvement would be measured on a percentile basis. So a student who scored a 3 on the test in the third grade and 3.7 in the fourth grade could be in the 95th percentile, while a student who did not improve might be in the 35th percentile.

This might be the dumbest educational initiative I've ever seen. Instead of just bashing smart kids with a hammer, let's instead convince them they're just not smart. With such persistence failure in engendering change, the educational reformers can only justify their existence by providing exceedingly spurious statistics. Of course, the collateral damage, emotionally and developmentally, experienced by the smartest students is inconsequential in pursuing their goal of cognitive Marxism.

How did any Movies in the 90's actually get Greenlighted?: Sidekicks starring Chuck Norris

I was looking through this fantastic list of 100 Corniest Sports Movies of All Time. Some highlights include Teen Wolf, Airborne, Air Bud, and Over the Top. Or basically, TBS' late 90's movie queue. But one of my "favorites", and perhaps a slightly lesser known one, is an early 90's, blatant Karate Kid ripoff entitled Sidekicks. It stars Jonathan Brandis (who later committed suicide after failing to transition to adult roles) as a nerdish, asthmatic teen whose extreme veneration of Chuck Norris manifests in constant daydreaming sequences, a source of hilarious unintentional comedy throughout the movie. The story is predictable: old, Asian man with surprising karate skills who can barely converse in English takes nerdy white kid under his wings, girl storyline, training montages, beats nemesis in karate tourney.

The movie is quite unique in that it includes a romantic storyline between a white nerd and an Asian girl. Actually, I believe there are two such relationships in the movie. Other than the standard multicultural "look at my chopsticks" scenes, the interracial pairings aren't analyzed further. But in Hollywood, common situations in reality are often absent. Ironically, the "Asian" girl is played by The Wonder Years' Winnie Cooper, who in real life, is actually Portuguese and a mix of other European ethnicities. The actress would later have her UCLA senior mathematics thesis published. And she grew up to look like this (almost SFW). (She's also written two books with the intent of diminishing the gender math disparity, thereby implying she ascribes to the tabula rasa view of sex differences.) The trailer is below for anyone curious or desiring to reminisce about this "masterpiece" of 90's cinema.

The Undermining of Conservatism

I posted about the "notorious before it ever aired" Tim Tebow ad last week. It appeared very early on during the Super Bowl and if one didn't know the implicit message nor the sponsoring organization, the ad's ambiguity would have made it completely moot in stirring debate. Here it is for anyone who hasn't seen it:

First off, why does a commercial championing the importance of family show a son violently attacking his mother? I understand the action was in jest, but it represents an incongruity in regards to the message. Second, and perhaps this is a result of CBS' oversight, but the ad completely avoids mentioning the actual subject matter. Everyone was aware of the intended message ("don't abort your potential Heisman winner"), but the ad really did nothing to buttress the pro-life platform.

I imagine CBS would have allowed a slightly more obvious appeal to the pro-life message than what actually aired. Assuming this is the case, one notes how mainstream conservatism undermines their own initiatives by blunting honest and overt discourse. Liberals have no problem with explicit accusations of all sorts of social pathologies, like racism, sexism, or a total lack of empathy. So why do conservatives dissimulate on or completely obscure their actual beliefs. [Individuals like Savage, Beck, and Limbaugh aren't guilty of offering such weakened rhetoric.]

Conservatives too often adhere to the same limitations of the socially acceptable PC. They couch their ideas in coded language, often skirting saying something that could be construed for what it actually is. Conservatism demands that the polite rules of our society, the ones brandished and buttressed by a restrictive liberal order, be opposed with fortitude. That means not allowing the PC to define how conservatives promulgate their ideals nor the reality that defines our nation. Conservatives can't engage in petty arguments such as policing speechcrimes, like Sarah Palin on "retards" and Michael Steele criticizing Harry Reid, as such yielding ultimately represents a capitulation to liberalism. They can't play by the rules of liberal society because those rules are inherently biased against reality. An honest and open discussion of the facts is the only means by which conservatism can succeed.

Henry Gates' PBS Special: Race Doesn't Exist

Tomorrow night on PBS, Skip Gates, the notorious victim of good policing, will host a show entitled Faces of America. He's recently been promoting the show and advancing the notion that traditional race categories obscure the blending of disparate peoples. The quotes in this article come from an interview conducted by our favorite Newsweek writer, Raina Kelley, (does she cover any other topics?) and another one from the Colbert Report (H/T: Hoste).

This is a celebration...This is my attempt to celebrate what I think is the true triumph of American democracy, which is our diversity.

America was about the blurring of bloodlines in the creation of a new people. I realized how connected, how inextricably combined we were.

I can't even fathom someone believing this, let alone voicing such a perverse belittling of the unique American system in public. He's reduced the greatest, most innovative civilization in the history of humanity to but a mere catalyst for "diversity", that ever important linchpin of the modern liberal religion. And of course, we get the incessant pontificating on race not existing as a biological concept. He claims to show this as follows:

...our diversity, which we can now measure through geneology and genetic analysis.

Colbert: You didn't just use family records, you also used DNA.

Quite ironic that he used DNA analysis to obtain these results. Gates, a man notorious for race-baiting, can prance around the media as a distinguished guest, but the man's work on which Gates' documentary is based, lives in a van down by the river (H/T: Geraldo). Gates continues, noting the ethnic and racial blending of a number of prominent individuals.

I have never [DNA-]tested a black person who was 100 percent African. Everybody had some percentage of European blood. Elizabeth Alexander [the chair of the African American Studies Department at Yale] is 66 percent European. Even Stephen Colbert, a proud son of Ireland, discovered that the oldest relative we could find on his family tree was German. Meryl Streep thought she was Dutch, but it turns out she is also descended from the English founders of this nation.

Some of these concern ethnic demarcations, so it has no repercussions for race. But in general, Gates and others use this information as evidence that we're all linked and that racial categories are thus null. Yet, has anyone ever thought to qualify such a presumptuous assertion? This says nothing of the rate of miscegenation; it merely implies that every family has a token individual who strayed from the group. No one has ever contended that miscegenation was completely absent from any society, so it's surely reasonable that everyone has ONE distant cousin who engaged in interracial relations. He's found nothing provocative here, yet he seems to believe this undermines the concept of (somewhat blurry) racial categories. Gates then gives this thought:

Ya know what it proves? It proves that no matter what the laws were in the daytime, no matter how society has tried to enforce sexual segregation, when the lights came down, everybody was sleeping with everybody else.

While this could be construed as merely a continuation of his earlier discussion, I think there's a clear implication concerning sexual attractiveness and race here. In the never-ending pursuit of racial egalitarianism, the media attempts to convince us that this and this (SFW) are only considered the epitome of attractiveness due to imposed Western standards. The trite allusions to "slaveowners mixing it up with their female slaves" is repeated in order to champion the attractiveness of black women. It's saying that white men were secretly coveting black women despite their public opposition. The same meme put Michelle Obama, with the body of a linebacker and the face of a [Whiskey: got something witty?], one spot ahead of her and one spot behind her in the Maxim Hot 100 list. Maybe we need a new law to describe this phenomenon, akin to Sailer's Law of Female Journalism.

[For what it's worth, Gates does come off as quite likable in the Colbert interview. If I didn't know of his personal opinions on race, I'd have found him quite charming.]

China Is not a Suicidal Teenager

Some economic and political pundits have prognosticated on Asian domination of the 21st century, focusing on China's burgeoning power and global positioning. Yet, it seems China may avoid embedding themselves into the globalized mesh of Western nations and instead brazenly forge its own path to success. A Newsweek article, entitled Why China Doesn't Care about America, explains:

China's America watchers have fallen on tough times. [I]n the 1980s and '90s, they were able to spend years in the United States learning about the place, and both Washington and Beijing were eager for them to report home on what they'd discovered in the New World. Chinese leaders were trying to integrate their vast country into a world system dominated by America, and they took particular interest in how Washington viewed their country. ...and Beijing shows little interest in the United States except to complain, threaten, or refuse to work together on global problems.

China has shifted from an eager, callow newcomer to a cavalier entity tired of its subservient status.

The Global Times, a People's Daily affiliate often critical of the West, attributed the "shift in tone" to two factors: "First is changing Chinese public opinion, which long ago got fed up with America's hedging games … The second is China's growing power."

The article digresses into an analysis of China's purported insecurity, then returns to the nation's increasing insistence on insular political strategies intent on realizing their own ends.

The danger is that the regime may be losing sight of how much animosity its actions are creating overseas. But that has only increased demands for Beijing to play a more constructive role internationally. Instead, China appears to be the lone holdout among major powers over levying new sanctions on Iran. At the Copenhagen climate talks the Chinese delegation was widely criticized for playing an unhelpful role, undiplomatically snubbing Obama at one point. And Beijing continues to resist calls to revalue its currency, sure to become a fierce political issue as job losses mount in the West.

The paragraph above perfectly illustrates China's unwillingness to acquiesce to the demands of the suicidal West. They remain stubbornly removed from initiatives Western elites push to aggrandize their moral standing, like globalism, climate change, and immigration reforms. With a uniform ethnic population socialized to accept the unpalatable truths of individual differences in ability (any other country have mandatory tracking programs?), China will not waste endless amounts of money on some idealistic notion of egalitarianism or an in vogue concept of the modern liberal religion.

China's rising power means they will demand more respect on a global stage. It also means their growing economic holdings will have grave consequences for the global economic landscape. The West's censure of China's isolationism stems from the elites' feeble hold on engendering mass globalism. Asians haven't inculcated their constituency with guilt nor do they revere the ideals of diversity, tolerance, and third-world charity. Fittingly, notice China won't partner up in these globalist efforts, the kinds of implementations that only work if all nations agree, like global climate change, the United Nations sanctions, and the global economic crisis. China's the ardent capitalist unwilling to relinquish his hard-earned share of the wealth in order to aid the clamoring socialists.

Will China eventually yield to the West's demands for increased cooperation? I'm not sure. If the West continues its degradation due to leftism, they will have no incentive to pursue dealings with enervated nations. On the other hand, a more independent public, comprised of online young people engineering an hippie-like resistance against Big Brother, may result in a Chinese political sphere moving to the left. Chinese scholars are cautious concerning their future predominance.

But China's old America hands say it's far too soon to write off America. "If the U.S. is lucky and China makes mistakes, the U.S. could stay [on top]," says Yan Xuetong, the head of Tsinghua University's Institute of International Studies.

The Most Rage-Filled Member of the "Priveleged Class"

Last week, I linked to a Raina Kelley article that illustrated the interminable "rage of a privileged class" spewed from the likes of Ms. Kelley, Skip Gates, and Michelle Obama. To this class of individuals, the ones benefiting from the spoils of the diversity racket, no amount of placation, contriteness, or magnanimity will moderate their ire towards the dominant whites. Here's yet another example of this tiresome phenomenon, included in a scathing review of Precious:

The blacks who are enraged by “Precious” have probably figured out that this film wasn’t meant for them. It was the enthusiastic response from white audiences and critics that culminated in the film being nominated for six Oscars by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, an outfit whose 43 governors are all white and whose membership in terms of diversity is about 40 years behind Mississippi.

Is the enthusiasm of such white audiences and awards committees based on their being comfortable with the stereotypes shown? Barbara Bush, the former first lady, not only hosted a screening of “Precious” but wrote: “There are kids like Precious everywhere. Each day we walk by them: young boys and girls whose home lives are dark secrets.” ”

Notice how the author twists these obvious gestures of compliance into ones of malice. Ms. Bush and other white commentators offered sanctimonious, positive appraisals of the film, replete with "we understand your struggle black people!", because they intended to appease blacks. But, to individuals like Mr. Reed, such offers of understanding must be the result of white oppression and hatred.

Given the news media’s tendency to use scandals involving black men, both fictional and real, to create “teaching tools” about the treatment of women, it was inevitable that a black male character associated with incest would be used to begin some national discussion about the state of black families.

What world is he living in? Watch Law and Order and note the rush to judgment concerning the Duke lacrosse case. Two recent national scandals involving black men were Gatesgate this summer, where the President actually weighed in with hasty support, and the Jena Six case that saw a town flooded with thousands of protesters for kids most of whom had prior criminal records. I've previously argued against this absurd characterization of our supposedly anti-black media. Further, we have crime reports that regularly exclude the perpetrator's race. And imagine if one advertises the facts about racial crime disparities.

Such stereotyping has led to calamities being visited on minority communities. I’ve suggested that the Newseum in Washington create a Hall of Shame, which would include the front pages of newspapers whose inflammatory coverage led to explosions of racial hatred.

I can't imagine where all those nasty stereotypes come from. Once again, liberal creationists imbue every statistic with intent and emotion; the stereotypes concerning crime and other black pathologies must result from media bias and not simply black behavior.

Black films looking to attract white audiences flatter them with another kind of stereotype: the merciful slave master. In guilt-free bits of merchandise like “Precious,” white characters are always portrayed as caring. There to help. Never shown as contributing to the oppression of African-Americans. Problems that members of the black underclass encounter are a result of their culture, their lack of personal responsibility.

Has he ever considered the racial makeup of teachers and social workers is overwhelmingly white? No, he contends these movie portrayals are yet another ploy by dominant white society to undermine the black race. This article is verging on Nation of Islam territory.

Redemption through learning the ways of white culture is an old Hollywood theme.A more recent example of climbing out of the ghetto through assimilation is “Dangerous Minds,” where black and Latino students are rescued by a curriculum that doesn’t include a single black or Latino writer.

All those dead white males with their brilliant literature. This tripe was difficult to stomach. One of the most transparent anti-white, anti-West screeds I've ever encountered. There's so much objectionable content in that article, from a facts perspective and in regards to the general tone. But luckily, a mainstream newspaper didn't publish this slanted, hate-filled diatribe. Oh wait.