UC Tuition Hikes and Public Employee Pensions

At Wall Street Journal, "California's College Dreamers: When Will Students Figure Out the Politicians Have Sold Them Out?":

In 1999, the Democratic legislature ran a reckless gamble that makes Wall Street's bankers look cautious. At the top of a bull market, they assumed their investment returns would grow at a 8.25% rate in perpetuity—equivalent to assuming that the Dow would reach 25,000 by 2009—and enacted a huge pension boon for public-safety and industrial unions.

The bill refigured the compensation formula for pension benefits of all public-safety employees who retired on or after January 1, 2000. It let firefighters retire at age 50 and receive 3% of their final year's compensation times the number of years they worked. If a firefighter started working at the age of 20, he could retire at 50 and earn 90% of his final salary, in perpetuity. One San Ramon Valley fire chief's yearly pension amounted to $284,000—more than his $221,000 annual salary.

In 2002, the state legislature further extended benefits to many nonsafety classifications, such as milk and billboard inspectors. More than 15,000 public employees have retired with annual pensions greater than $100,000. Who needs college when you can get a state job and make out like that?

In the last decade, government worker pension costs (not including health care) have risen to $3 billion from $150 million, a 2,000% jump, while state revenues have increased by 24%. Because the stock market didn't grow the way the legislature predicted in 1999, the only way to cover the skyrocketing costs of these defined-benefit pension plans has been to cut other programs (and increase taxes).

This year alone $3 billion was diverted from other programs to fund pensions, including more than $800 million from the UC system. It is becoming clear that in the most strapped liberal states there's a pecking order: Unions get the lifeboats, and everyone else gets thrown over the side. Sorry, kids.

Get ready for more. The governor's office projects that over the next decade the annual taxpayer contributions to retiree pensions and health care will grow to $15 billion from $5.5 billion, and that's assuming the stock market doubles every 10 years. With unfunded pension and health-care liabilities totaling more than $122 billion, California will continue chopping at higher-ed.

Mr. Schwarzenegger has routinely called for pension reform, but the Democratic legislature has tossed aside the Terminator like a paper doll. Last year, he proposed rescinding the lucrative pension pay-off for new employees, which he estimated would reduce pension pay-outs by $74 billion and health-care benefits by $19 billion through 2040. More recently, he called for doubling state worker contributions to their pensions to 10% from the current 5% of their pay. But these propositions have little traction in the legislature.

Image Credit: Indy Bay, "Low Wage UC Service Workers Continue Pressure on Richard Blum."

Doug Hoffman Declares Race for Congress

Great news that's no surprise, given the turn of events last fall: Doug Hoffman will run for Congress in New York 23rd district. Robert Stacy McCain, who covered the November election on the ground last year, has a report at the Washington Times, "'Tea Party' Favorite Set for Rematch in N.Y.: Hoffman Seeking GOP Nod":

Last year's underdog became this year's front-runner Tuesday when Doug Hoffman - whose 2009 congressional race became a rallying cry for the "tea party" movement - announced he would seek the Republican nomination in New York's 23rd District.

Mr. Hoffman's Conservative Party campaign last fall in the upstate district ignited grass-roots supporters, but fell 4,000 votes short of an upset victory in the three-way special election won by Bill Owens, who became the first Democrat to represent the district in decades.

"I'm just an average citizen, standing up to say, 'We're fed up. We're not going to take this any more,' " Mr. Hoffman told The Washington Times in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I don't think anybody should expect to inherit political office ... . I'm going to work very hard to earn the respect and support of all the voters in the district."

An accountant from Saranac Lake, Mr. Hoffman became the first Republican to officially declare his candidacy in the largely rural 23rd Congressional District, which sprawls across upstate New York from Lake Ontario on the west to the Vermont border on the east.

Several other potential candidates, including Assemblyman William Barclay, have expressed interest in entering the Sept. 14 Republican primary, but a January survey by pollster John McLaughlin found support for Mr. Hoffman among more than 70 percent of the district's Republican voters.

In a statement to the Plattsburgh (N.Y.) Press Republican, a spokesman for Mr. Owens said, "There is a time and place for politics, and Congressman Owens's main focus is to create more jobs in upstate New York and help our local economies grow."

Also, at Washington Wire, "NY-23: Hoffman Runs Again":

Hoffman’s renewed entry into the race, this time hoping to win the Republican as well as Conservative and Independence party nominations, reaffirms that hard-hitting fiscal conservatives and candidates supported by the tea party movement intend to play a big role in the upcoming election. What their impact will be is less clear.

Hat Tip: Sir Smitty at TOM.

Carry Each Other...

I've never played U2 at the blog. I mentioned the band previously, noting for example that I caught U2 at the US Festival in 1982. But Bono and Co. are so associated with leftist causes it's ridiculous. Bono did praise President Bush for his Africa initiative, although he was then repudiated by abortion-rights extremists as part of a sweeping slur on the Bush administration for selling out the African continent. It's pretty convoluted. Mostly, I can just dig U2's sound without all the politics.

Plus, I wanted to get a couple of more links up for friends overnight, to make up for my own errors previously. So check out Camp of the Saints and Ruby Slippers as well. I'll be back tomorrow for my regular rounds across the blogosphere. And enjoy U2's "One":

Bono described the song's theme as such: "It is a song about coming together, but it's not the old hippie idea of 'Let's all live together.' It is, in fact, the opposite. It's saying, We are one, but we're not the same. It's not saying we even want to get along, but that we have to get along together in this world if it is to survive. It's a reminder that we have no choice ...

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much?
More than a lot.
You gave me nothing,
Now it's all I got
We're one
But we're not the same
See we
Hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love is a higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't keep holding on
To what you got
When all you've got is hurt ...

Blazing Cat Fur in Israel!

Along with Kathy Shaidle, "Touch Down in Tel Aviv":

We arrived in Tel Aviv at 6pm after a 12 hour direct flight & met up with our guide Uri and our Mossad controller, from there we drove straight to Jerusalem, checked in to the hotel and on to dinner where we met with Yossi Klein Halevi of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies. Yossi gave a brief talk followed by a wide ranging dinner discussion that had absolutely nothing to do with the subject of his presentation. Everyone enjoyed the evening immensely.

Pictures at the link.

These folks are great blog buddies, so look for updates ...

National Biometric Identification Cards

It's the discussion at the video that's particular interesting. National identification cards are probably long overdue, but Democrats think this will grease the wheels for amnesty, it looks like. And that's obviously a no go. See, Wall Street Journal, "ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan":

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.

"It's the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking," Mr. Schumer said in an interview. The card, he said, would directly answer concerns that after legislation is signed, another wave of illegal immigrants would arrive. "If you say they can't get a job when they come here, you'll stop it."

The biggest objections to the biometric cards may come from privacy advocates, who fear they would become de facto national ID cards that enable the government to track citizens.

"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We're also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."

Mr. Graham says he respects those concerns but disagrees. "We've all got Social Security cards," he said. "They're just easily tampered with. Make them tamper-proof. That's all I'm saying."

U.S. employers now have the option of using an online system called E-Verify to check whether potential employees are in the U.S. legally. Many Republicans have pressed to make the system mandatory. But others, including Mr. Schumer, complain that the existing system is ineffective.

Last year, White House aides said they expected to push immigration legislation in 2010. But with health care and unemployment dominating his attention, the president has given little indication the issue is a priority.

Rather, Mr. Obama has said he wanted to see bipartisan support in Congress first. So far, Mr. Graham is the only Republican to voice interest publicly, and he wants at least one other GOP co-sponsor to launch the effort.

An immigration overhaul has long proven a complicated political task. The Latino community is pressing for action and will be angry if it is put off again. But many Americans oppose any measure that resembles amnesty for people who came here illegally.

Cool graphics at the link. (Via Memeorandum.)

The True Cost of Public Education

From A Conservative Perspective, "The True Cost of Public Education":

WaPo's 'Two Men Kissing'

The Washington Post has published an ombudsman's response to the reader reactions to this photo. Frankly, I'd expect homosexuals to be kissing, so front-page photos like that are mostly uncontroversial. In contrast, LAT's aggressive gay-male gender-bender shot last March was way problematic. Such imagery is something that's way out there on the cultural left, and it was mostly nihilist trolls here at the blog defending the Times' editorial decisions. That said, what's really offensive about Andrew Alexander's piece is his linkage of homosexual rights to interracial marriage. The comparison is a scam. See, "Same-Sex Marriage: Hijacking the Civil Rights Legacy."

Meanwhile, a reader responds to the Washington Post's editorial policies. What bothers people is not so much homosexuality per se, but the left's program of radical social engineering, from the elite-media editorial boardrooms to the Stalinist show trials to the racist gay-rights street protests of the International ANSWER cadres:

Big, color photos of homosexuals hugging and smooching shows pure contempt for the values of the vast majority of Americans.

The publishers of the liberal media wonder why they are losing readers and circulation. One reason is that old line papers such as WaPo dish out a bland, liberal diet of Democrat propaganda. Another reason is its obvious devotion to all things homosexual.

Most of us are totally disinterested in homosexuality and its manifestations. Many are downright hostile to it. Homosexual activists have their own publications. That's where their affairs belong.

I'm sure WaPo honchos think they are supporting a good cause. That's their opinion only. It just does not reflect America, as a whole.

By doing this thing they are merely driving more and more people to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck.

Unintended consequences, I'm sure.

Nigeria's Killing Fields

Via Theo Spark, and at the Times of London, "500 Butchered in Nigeria Killing Fields":

Dozens of bodies lined the dusty streets of three Christian villages in northern Nigeria yesterday. Other victims of Sunday morning’s Muslim rampage were jammed into a local morgue, the limbs of slaughtered children tangled in a grotesque mess.

One toddler appeared fixed in the protective but hopeless embrace of an older child, possibly his brother. Another had been scalped. Most had severed hands and feet.

Officials estimate that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids by Muslim gangs near Jos, the city that bestrides Nigeria’s Christian-Muslim fault line.

Local journalists and civil rights organisations who toured the area yesterday told The Times they had counted at least 200 victims shot and hacked to death in apparent revenge for sectarian violence in January that claimed about 300 lives from the two communities. Mark Lipdo, a co-ordinator for the Stefanos Foundation, a Christian aid group, confirmed at least 93 dead in one village. “But there are corpses charred beyond recognition,” he said.

RTWT at the link.

And, oh, it's the "religion of peace."

HAT TIP: Theo Spark.

'Planet War' @ Foreign Policy

Take a few minutes with this absolutely phenomenal photo-essay at Foreign Policy, "Planet War." This screencap shows a portion from the eighth slide, "Pakistan":

Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are two of the world's most volatile war zones. Located along Pakistan's porous, 1,500-mile border with Afghanistan, the two regions have, since 2001, seen fierce battles between Islamist militants and the Pakistani Army. Al Qaeda's top leaders are thought to reside here, and U.S. drones patrol the skies in search of terrorist and Taliban leaders. Above, a Pakistani soldier stands guard while an Afghan-bound NATO oil tanker burns in Peshawar after being destroyed by militants on Feb. 1, 2010.

Unbelievably awesome pictorial. Check out the whole thing, here.

The Exploited - 'Hitler's in the Charts Again'

One of the great "second wave" British punk bands. Often lumped in with skinhead Oi! bands, The Exploited are actually one of the earliest anti-authoritarian, anti-racist, anti-fascist punk outfits. See, "We Are Against Facism!"

And from the "B-Side" of "Dead Cities," here's "Hitler's in the Charts Again":

Listen to the sound of the soldiers dancing
Armageddon time on the firing line
Don't know what they're doing
Looks like trouble's brewing
Wunderbar, auf wiedersehen
Hitler's in the charts again
You look like a tramp - put you in a camp
Join the shower queue in your dancing shoes
Be the dancing champ of your concentration camp
Keep on movin' fast, remember Belsen was a gas
Hitler's in the charts again
Moving in a trance, watch the soldiers dance
Bloodstains on their feet, scared of everyone you meet
Army's on the street, can you feel the heat
Watch the soldiers fall - it couldn't happen here ...

The Swedish Model

From the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, "Learning From Sweden's Free Market Renaissance":

Cited at the video is the Washington Times, "The Swedish Model: More Than Just a Saab Sister."

Hat Tip: The Real Revo.

Tom Campbell and the Al-Arian Letter

Here's a partial screencap of Tom Campbell's letter on behalf of Islamist jihadi Professor Sami Al-Arian. The full copy is here, and it's provided by the Investigative Project on Journalism. See, "The Letter Dogging Tom Campbell":

Plus, the Los Angeles Times has a report, "Letter on Muslim Radical Roils GOP Senate Race":

Terrorism and the Middle East are continuing to roil the Republican Senate contest after a letter written by former congressman Tom Campbell emerged that appeared to contradict statements Campbell and his aides had made about his dealings with a radical Muslim professor.

The professor, Sami Al-Arian, contributed to Campbell's unsuccessful campaign in 2000 for the U.S. Senate. On Sept. 26, 2001, when he was teaching at the University of South Florida, Al-Arian gave an interview to Fox TV host Bill O'Reilly in which he conceded that he had said, "Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution. Revolution until victory. Rolling to Jerusalem."

Those statements quickly generated a furor and the university moved to discipline Al-Arian. Campbell, by then a law professor at Stanford University, wrote a letter to Judy Genshaft, the president of the University of South Florida, protesting any punishment.

Campbell had previously conceded that he wrote a letter on Al-Arian's behalf, but had said during a candidates' debate Friday that he did so before Al-Arian's interview with O'Reilly. His campaign's website also said the letter was written before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The text of the letter showed otherwise. Dated Jan. 21, 2002, it said, " . . . I respectfully wish to convey my sincere alarm that Professor Al-Arian may be treated harshly because of the substance of his views."

Campbell went on to write that "I have formed this fear because of the paucity of evidence supporting the purported reasons for this discipline against him. I read a transcript of the 'O'Reilly Factor' interview last autumn, and I did not see anything whereby Professor Al-Arian attempted to claim he was representing the views of the University of South Florida."

Carly Fiorina, one of Campbell's opponents in the primary race, called on him to release the letter last week. The text of the letter was first disclosed by the website of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Campbell's aides, who had said the candidate no longer had a copy of the original letter, then posted a link to it on the campaign website.

On Monday, Campbell said in an interview that despite the language of his letter, he had never read the full transcript of the O'Reilly interview, specifically the "Death to Israel" language. If he had seen it, he said, he never would have written the letter.

"That's too zealous," he said. "Unacceptable. Calling for death to a country or individual is unacceptable."

Campbell has previously said that Al-Arian never contributed to his 2000 Senate campaign; Campbell later admitted that he had.

In 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to providing aid to a terrorist group.

This controversy has compromised Campbell's credibility, and permanently discredited his candidacy for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.

Powerline has a post on this as well, "Tom Campbell and the al-Arian test":

Given his manifest gifts, Tom Campbell makes a contribution to our public life by his service in the House of Representatives. As a candidate for the Republican nomination to run against Barbara Boxer for the United States Senate, however, Tom Campbell flunks the al-Arian test.

But see Jennifer Rubin, "The Los Angeles Times on the Case":

As Chuck DeVore’s campaign spokesman said, “Whether it’s absent-mindedness or deception — the only person who knows that for sure is Tom Campbell — there’s a pattern of inaccuracy whenever Tom Campbell ventures into these subjects. … We have to double-check everything he says about his past associations with these radicals because we can’t trust him to give us the whole truth.”

And when the issue migrates from Israel to terrorism to credibility, there’s a problem. California voters have much to consider, it seems.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Ruby Slippers at Philadelphia Obama Speech!

I should have known, when I posted on the event earlier, that a blogging buddy would provide a first-hand report on President Obama's Philadelphia healthcare speech yesterday. Of course, this is slightly more intense than photo-blogging a tea party! Mary Sue at Ruby Slippers attended the Obama speech in Philly and has a personal report, "Field Trip to Obama''s Health Care Speech in Philadelphia":

When we were through security, we were told to move to the floor beneath the podium. I had an unbelievable view of the stage. I must say that in person, Obama looks more like Fred Armisen than you would think. Here is Kelly's picture of the SEIU people directly in front of the President. The group was in a roped off area and they weren't all dressed in purple but they broke out in a chant together while we were waiting for the arrival of Obama. This was the only group that was able to shake hands with Obama at the conclusion as well.

More pics at the post. And Mary Sue's daughter's friend Kelly has a guest post at the blog, "A Young Conservative's Reaction to Obama's Health Care Speech":

I must say that is was pretty cool to see the President of the United States, especially given how close he was. But that wore off pretty quickly. I don’t think I clapped at all during that speech (which was giving the Secret Service Agent near me the willies). The level of frenetic excitement in that gym was amazing. The way that President spun the speech was masterful though. The bit about the Congressional Budget Office will make a particularly lovely sound bite, particularly if no one looks behind the smoke and mirrors presented for the CBO to score. President Obama isn't likely to present the harsh truth that this plan will result in a $2.7 trillion increase not the decrease in the deficit he claimed.

Great stuff -- and a golden reminder that there's hope for the youth of tomorrow!

From 'Hurt Locker' to 'Green Zone'

From Kyle Smith, "Hollywood's Weapon of Matt Destruction":

I can’t believe what I just saw, so I’ll think about it some more before I go into detail. But if I were the kind of excitable guy who believes in boycotts, I’d say “Boycott NBC-Universal” for its appalling new anti-American flick “Green Zone,” an absurdly awful would-be actioner that stars Matt Damon as a US warrant officer in 2003 Baghdad.

I would never have accused director Paul Greengrass, who made the astonishingly powerful “United 93,” of being simplistic. But he has made a $100 million war film in which American troops are the bad guys ...

More at the link.

The movie's based on Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a book on the initial occupation by the Washington Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran. I did not read it, because I did not trust the media elite's left-wing reporting -- and that's notwithstanding the genuine U.S. failures in Iraq after the toppling of the regime. And when reading this review by Kyle Smith, it reminds me that I have no regrets as far as Chandrasekaran's concerned.

Testing, Choice, and Education

I'm only posting the conclusion, but the full essay, from Diane Ravitch, is essential reading, "Why I Changed My Mind About School Reform":

The current emphasis on accountability has created a punitive atmosphere in the schools. The Obama administration seems to think that schools will improve if we fire teachers and close schools. They do not recognize that schools are often the anchor of their communities, representing values, traditions and ideals that have persevered across decades. They also fail to recognize that the best predictor of low academic performance is poverty—not bad teachers.

What we need is not a marketplace, but a coherent curriculum that prepares all students. And our government should commit to providing a good school in every neighborhood in the nation, just as we strive to provide a good fire company in every community.

On our present course, we are disrupting communities, dumbing down our schools, giving students false reports of their progress, and creating a private sector that will undermine public education without improving it. Most significantly, we are not producing a generation of students who are more knowledgable, and better prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship. That is why I changed my mind about the current direction of school reform.

Arianna Packard Slams Carly Fiorina!

At the New York Times, "Fiorina Files for Senate; Gets Slammed Arianna Packard":

Even as Carly Fiorina officially filed papers on Monday to run in the Republican primary for the Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer, the Democratic incumbent, Ms. Fiorina faced a broadside from a Packard relative who’s supporting a rival.

The filing itself was no surprise — Ms. Fiorina, a former chief executive of Hewlett Packard, had announced her candidacy last year and is engaged in a three-way battle for the G.O.P. nomination.

But the formality has been overshadowed by the release of a scathing letter written by Arianna Packard, the granddaughter of David Packard, a co-founder of the technology giant HP, to Republican senators who had endorsed Ms. Fiorina.

“I know a little bit about Carly Fiorina, having watched her almost destroy the company my grandfather founded,” wrote Ms. Packard, who is backing Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, a Republican and Tea Party favorite. (RedState posted the full Packard letter online.)

Ms. Fiorina has made her business experience a central tenet of her campaign. Ms. Packard wrote the letter in response to an endorsement of Ms. Fiorina by Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and James Inhofe of Oklahoma that touted Ms. Fiorina’s “real-world business experience and the guts and moxie to take on Barbara Boxer and win.”

The letter, indeed scathing, is here.

And at Red State, "The Packards Want Carly Fiorina to Pack It In."

Patriotic Blogging

It's been a busy week or so of blogging, especially on education issues. I had the Tom Hayden event and the Long Beach education rallies, etc., but I'd be remiss if I didn't throw my hat into the ring for some of my blog homies' FMJR activities. And keeping with the education theme, I doubt too many would complain about a little political science-themed hotness via GSGF. How's that for some American political culture:

Anyway, Glenn Reynolds has been gracious enough to link my blog, so a big thanks to Instapundit!

And Theo Spark's been super generous as well, so check it out! And that's not to mention Blazing Cat Fur!

Frankly, I don't recall hottie Brinke Stevens, but Three Beers Later's got the details.

That's Right blog is a regular visitor here, and I need to acknowledge my readers. And that goes for Grandpa John and Bob Belvedere as well. And Troglo's got something strange posted called, "Caligynephobia Therapy." Plus, at WyBlog, "Fat bottom girls you make the rockin' world go round!" And go to Gator Doug's page here, and the Classical Liberal here.

My good friend Jason's got a new blog running, and I LOVE the title: 'American Maxim'.

And the Rhetorican keeps plugging away, even with myriad other commitments, "Blogging With a Vengeance."

My good freind Ken Davenport's staying hip with some serious blogging as well. See, "Demystifying the Left's Denial on Obamacare polling." And at Astute Bloggers, "LEFTIST GEORGE GALLOWAY DEFENDS IRANIAN THUGS." Plus, check Snooper's blog too, at Snooper's Report.

And for your additional blog-viewing pleasure, don't miss Sir Smitty's weekend roundup, "Rule 5 Sunday."

Bonus: At Saberpoint, "Victoria Jackson: 'There's a Communist Living in the White House'."

Double Hotness Bonus: "Hollywood Tuna's Top Ten Babes of 2009 – #1 Blake Lively."

P.S. I'll do a roundup for the ladies in an upcoming entry.

Anarcho-Communist Mobilization Schism: 'Victims of Capitalism' at Hunter College

Check out this hardline reaction to the Hunter College progressive students who repudiated the violent anarchists working to occupy and destroy college facilities:

There have been a host of sickening statements unleashed on the Internet, mostly via Facebook, over the past few days. Most of these attacks accuse “private school kids” from “downtown private universities” of being “outside agitators”, often hinting that those involved in the walkout were all privileged white kids with no understanding of Hunter College. They talk of “Anarcho-Imperialists”, apparently a new strand of left libertarian thought popular amongst “rich white kids”, whose dogma apparently involves putting less privileged people at risk.

There is even a Facebook page called "Don’t Fuck With Hunter" which states:

…”A planned protest by Hunter students against the recent tuition hikes and budget cuts was marred by NYU and New School students storming into our school and vandalizing it. Yes, of course they came from schools that could afford to repair damages…Thanks, private school trust-funders! As if we weren’t financially screwed enough. This is only bound to make matters worse, and doesn’t prove anything to anyone.”

With no mention of the police occupation of our school, and only a brief mention of the reasons why Hunter is in dire financial straits, it seems that the writers of this statement see the Hunter students and their supporters who took part in the March 4^th actions as responsible for the deterioration of public education. What a stellar analysis of capitalism!

It is highly offensive to the entire Hunter student body that these ‘activists’ fail to assume that Hunter students could, or would, be involved in actions on their own campus. Those who participate in such territorial reactions to the walkout act as if the school actually belonged to us Hunter students! Cops are freely allowed to walk our halls harassing students, CUNY bureaucrats are given raises as they cut our services and raise tuition. Even as students at a public institution, many of us are left strapped with debts. And don’t for a second think that the administration is not aware of how they attack us. That is why as they attempt to cut childcare and other services they find the money to install systems of social control such as surveillance cameras and the new security turnstiles.

This further shows the lack of understanding of those who decry the ‘random acts of vandalism’ that occurred on the 4^th. Whatever you think about property destruction, it is clear that the shattering of the financial aid office’s windows and the smashing of the security turnstiles is anything but random. Instead these attacks can be seen as clearly targeted gestures by angry students who understand the stakes that we face as victims of capitalism’s current crisis and who wish to strike back.

Textbook Wars

I saw Duane Lester's rock-and-roll roundup yesterday morning and said, "Hey, where's the love, yo?" (See, "Weekend Link Love: Aerosmith Edition.") Just kidding. Actually, I wanted to highlight another one of Duane's entries, "My First Pajamas Media Article: Homeschooling vs. Howard Zinn." Duane's a home-school dad, and he writes:

If my child were in a public school, what would they be learning from?

One of the more popular texts is The People’s History of the United States by the late Howard Zinn, a radical Marxist.

As noted on Big Hollywood, Zinn not only admitted his text is biased, he said he wanted it to be “part of the social struggle”:

I wanted my writing of history and my teaching of history to be a part of the social struggle. I wanted to be a part of history and not just a recorder of history and a teacher of history. So that kind of attitude towards history, history itself is a political act, has always informed my writing and my teaching.

For an example of how bizarre Zinn’s accounting of history is, consider his take on World War II. According to Zinn, America was at fault. We provoked Japan.

Zinn also fails to mention “Washington’s Farewell Address, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Reagans’ speech at the Brandenburg Gate.” D-Day’s Normandy Beach invasion isn’t covered by Zinn, but he dedicates several pages to the My Lai Massacre. His efforts to paint America as an evil country are visible on every page of the text.

I have no idea how widely assigned is Howard Zinn's book at the individual level, although his ideological program is certainly widespread across the progressive school industry (as noted at Big Government above). As I wrote in January, upon Zinn's death:

I can't imagine any other public intellectuals who've contributed more to the soft-thinking destruction of generations of young Americans. Michelle Malkin has some background. See, "Hollywood & Howard Zinn’s Marxist Education Project," and "'Social Justice' for Grade-Schoolers: The Howard Zinn Education Project."

That said, I'm suspicious of blanket claims suggesting that the textbook curriculum is universallly left-wing. This Fox News report actually includes my current American government text, George C. Edwards', Government in America. Yet the book is explicitly neutral, and in fact, when I reviewed the material for the publisher I actually asked for more advocacy. The Edwards design (overtly balanced) is basically a model for how textbook authors should design their books. Also at the clip is Charles Hauss', Comparative Politics, which is a bit more left-leaning. Still, Hauss does NOT mount a radical left-wing indoctrination campaign in his writing. Perhaps it might be included in coverage on the "textbook wars," but that book is nothing at all like the curriculum of the Marxist Education Project, so folks should be aware of distinctions and act accordingly. A good teacher might well use moderately biased book to good advantage, by providing counter examples based on logic and empiricism. The Zinn program is, of course, an another story.

Rating the 2010 Academy Awards

More on the Academy Awards, at Los Angeles Times, "The Oscar Telecast: Worse Than Ever?":

The direction of the show was especially awful. It felt like whenever there was a potentially dramatic moment happening on stage, Hamish Hamilton, the show's director, managed to miss it, starting with seeing Jim Cameron's reaction to Kathryn Bigelow winning best director. Hamilton did an especially inept job of shooting the John Hughes tribute, which felt surprisingly flat and unemotional, in large part because it was staged so awkwardly, with Hughes' old actors (now actually starting to get old) lined up on stage like beauty contestants. And when Mo'Nique finished her full-throated supporting actress acceptance speech, Hamilton cuts away to -- ouch! -- Samuel L. Jackson, who had nothing to do with the movie and presumably was picked for a cutaway after someone in the booth yelled, "Find me a black person for a reaction shot!"

And the Times links to Ken Levine:

The Oscars were very elegant this year all the way up to the opening number. Then Neil Patrick Harris sang about sodomy, masturbation, and prison and Hollywood’s classiest night was underway! But the hosts were good, there was some genuine suspense for a change, and if you could make it all the way till the end, a very satisfying ending.

The Oscars are always kinda uncomfortable to watch. It's mostly leftists at the events, for one thing. Besides that, the shows seem to draw on an entertainment style that's fifty years out of vogue. I love big magical dance numbers, etc., but even this year seemed a little more strained than usual. Neil Patrick Harris? I like him, but sheesh! And what's up with George Clooney? His scowls were scripted, of course. But that didn't make them any easier to watch. And watch we do, can you believe it?