God Save America

By Ken Marrero

We used to talk like that when we were ambushed. We used to know the difference between a legitimate disagreement, or even a conflict, and a deliberate, unannounced act of war. We used to have the will to see through to the end what had to be done to ensure the threat that revealed itself in that act of war never threatened us again. We used to think we’d always be able to do that. Sadly, it would appear that we are not.

Hawaii is 4 hours behind us here in Tennessee. At 7:55AM, December 7, 1941 the Japanese conducted a surprise attack on the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor. It was 11:55AM here in Tennessee. Over the next 2 hours that attack would claim the lives of 2,403 Americans and wounded another 1,178.

Time Magazine has an excellent timeline of the events. Here are a few excerpts.

07:55 The raid begins at Pearl Harbor as the Raleigh, Helena, Utah and Oklahoma are struck.

07:56 There are two explosions on the Arizona. Pfc. James Cory: "The bridge shielded us from flames … Around the edges in these open windows came the heat and the sensation of the blast. We cringed there … I think that at this moment I wanted to flee, but this was impossible. You’re on station, you’re in combat."

08:06 A 1,763-lb. missile fired by PO Kanai Noboru hits the Arizona. It demolishes the forward magazine and kills nearly 1,000 men. "It was so vivid in my mind," says Private Le Fan, who saw the action from the Marine barracks. "[The Arizona] just quivered, buckled and then settled. It looked like … well, that killed it … It was so devastating."

8:08 Two bombs strike the West Virginia, whose captain, Mervyn Bennion, is mortally wounded by a piece of shrapnel that flies over from the Tennessee.

08:10 (13:40 E.S.T.) In Washington, President Roosevelt is informed by Navy Secretary Frank Knox that there has been a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. This is "just the kind of unexpected thing the Japanese would do," says FDR. "[A]t the very time they were discussing peace in the Pacific, they were plotting to overthrow it."

08:12 The Utah capsizes.

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by Carey Roberts

Why are men reflexively treated as the fall-guy in the abortion debate?

Recently National Review Online convened a group to opine what would happen in a post-Roe v. Wade world to women who might obtain an illegal abortion. The panelists reveal that before 1973, women who sought an abortion were not subject to criminal prosecution. So overturning Roe v. Wade would not fill our jails with post-abortive women. [http://article.nationalreview.com/?=ZjkwNWQ4ZDQ2NTljNDg4MjUyYWIxZWQ0NDVjMTkxYjg=]

One theme surfaces repeatedly in the commentaries: feckless boyfriends who abandon their partners in their hour of greatest need.

Hadley Arkes of Amherst College describes women having an abortion as routinely "Abandoned by the man." And Dorinda Bordlee from the Bioethics Defense Fund obliquely refers to fathers as "those who should be caring for [the mothers] and their unborn children."

So does research back up these broad pronouncements of male abandonment?

In their book Men and Abortion: Lessons, Losses, and Love, Shostak and McLouth report that 44% of single men offered to marry the woman, 18% of the couples had discussed adoption, and half the men accompanied the woman to the abortion clinic >– hardly the image of wholesale male abandonment.

When these men show up at the clinic, they are met with a chilly reception. Two-thirds of the fathers want to accompany their partner throughout the experience, and nine out of 10 hope to hold the hand of their partner in the recovery room. But in most cases abortion clinics prohibit men from such expressions of support.

But the NRO panel reserves it harshest criticism for men who force their girlfriends to abort.

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By Alan Caruba

If you want to witness the most blatantly un-Constitutional and un-American laws at work than just take a walk through your local schools. They are currently under the control of the federal government.

Why any town or city bothers to hold an election for members of the local board of education is a mystery to me. Between the U.S. Department of Education and a union, the National Education Association—masquerading as just a group of concerned teachers—local boards have no real power to reverse the subjugation and destruction of the nation’s education system.

Since the Constitution does not even mention education, it is a continuing mystery why the federal government has a department devoted to it. Well, it’s less of a mystery if you consider that its purpose is to indoctrinate the children passing through it to accept a whole range of values and ideas that lots of Americans think are wrong.

From the Head Start program to the International Baccalaureate, the whole purpose of “education” today is to create new generations of Americans who think that the United Nations should govern the entire planet and who uncritically accept politically correct beliefs about gender issues, diversity, multiculturalism, and environmentalism. To insure this occurs, Congress and some States are ready to sign off on programs that would evaluate the mental stability of every child from pre-school on through graduation. That’s Big Brother!

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by Nancy Salvato

The word that most aptly describes the momentum behind education reform going into 2007 is disenfranchised. This can be applied to students in grades P all the way to 16. It can also be applied to adults who want to go back to school, who never completed school, or who are learning English as a second language. It can be used to describe those who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. This word can be mixed and matched with pretty much any type of person that is deserving of more opportunity; and who isn’t? To be sure, the word disenfranchised will inevitably be used to call for more education funding, to fight for more equitable education and to appeal for universal education. Disenfranchised is the sort of descriptor that can be mixed and matched by any education reformer for any type of reform because it appeals to the conscience; it begs the decent person to look out for those amongst us who might need a little action on their behalf. "It is the right thing to do." But be forewarned; those whose heartstrings are being pushed and pulled in every direction must try and be discerning about the various offerings and work through the maze of rhetoric so that the disenfranchised are truly helped by our efforts. Like it or not, sometimes the solutions can become part of the problem.

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by Nancy Salvato

Coaches must produce winning teams or they will be terminated. Managers must make their quotas or they will not be retained. Teachers must ensure that students…oh, wait a minute. Tenured teachers will receive an increase in salary every year based on their level of education and years in the classroom.

Mike Antonucci, writing in the Education Intelligence Agency Communiqué says that, "Student enrollment in the United States will grow this school year by a total of 349,452 students (0.7 percent). The number of classroom teachers is expected to grow by 62,443 (2.0 percent)."¹ This translates to, "one new teacher for every 5.5 new students."2 Although most enrollments will be at the secondary school, "49,965 more elementary school teachers (2.8 percent)," are expected to be hired in our schools.³ "That's one new K-8 teacher for every 1.⁸ new K-8 students".⁴ I’m left wondering how this can happen.

Antonucci explains that there will be significant teacher turnover in the coming years through retirement and layoff of probationary teachers. Tenured teachers, in all likelihood, won’t be affected.⁵ Retirements and layoffs cannot be the only way to accommodate all these new teachers. There will have to be additional ways to add more staff.

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by Erik Rush

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

- Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels

It's a no-brainer that the Republican leadership in this country blew it big time, and though President Bush was certainly not wholly responsible, the buck as they say, always stops there. If Bill Clinton could take credit for an economic boom that was initiated before he took office, Bush had to know that he'd never escape blame for any and all shortcomings in fighting this war - which was looming for decades - despite its modern challenges and unconventionality.

The RINO (Republican In Name Only)-ridden GOP, quivering with fear of the politically-correct, the media, and in some cases its members' pocketbooks, completely neglected its base. High-profile scandals reeking of immorality and greed originating from within the Party of The Moral High Ground certainly didn't help; they were understandably seized upon by the opposition and the media, and further alienated the base. In the case of Iraq and the border issues, the Bush Administration gave Republicans and Independents alike nothing to look toward. Bush's firing of Donald Rumsfeld (which Bush, loyal to a fault, should have done two years ago) and his tough talk of the last month was way too little, way too late. It is unfortunate that Americans' shake'n'bake perception of geopolitics forgot to remind us of the price we paid for nearly 50 years of a Democrat-controlled Congress.

"One-party rule wasn't good for the country."

- Angie Paccione, defeated candidate for Colorado's 4th Congressional District, on the retaking of U.S. House of Representatives by Democrat Party.

"Rule"? Excuse me?

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Father God:

You are truth. And you have called us as journalists to a profoundly important task. To tell the truth. But to do that, we must find it.

And as we pursue it, it comes in many parts. One group tells us one thing. Another, just the opposite, another something else. Give us the wisdom and understanding and skill to know which parts are true… and then to put the right parts together in the right order.

As we do our jobs, we are often manipulated, misled, managed and maligned. May we not be discouraged. Gift us with patience, guide us with common sense, guard us from pessimism.

Help us to be a voice for the voiceless… To be skeptical but never cynical… Righteously angry at the wrongs we expose, but never revengeful.

Keep our hearts from despair and give us the courage and steadfastness to go to places and ask the questions and shine the light that our readers and viewers need to make sense of this all-too-fallen world.

Keep us safe from harm as we do our jobs. But may we also realize that in doing our jobs, we often cause harm. Make us humbly aware of the power of words and pictures and help us to choose them carefully, always seeking to minimize harm, never exploiting the facts, slanting the story or preconceiving our prejudices to push a personal agenda.

May we admit and correct our mistakes promptly, learning from them.

But O God, may we especially realize that all news is not bad news. That love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – what your word calls the fruit of your sprit – are all around us and part of the Good News we are also responsible to tell.

May our reports inform, not inflame.

May they encourage not discourage.

May we be sensitive instead of sensationalistic… Reflect reason not ridicule… Be balanced not bitter.

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School choice can transform the teaching profession, study finds

WASHINGTON – Public schools shun the best and brightest teachers, claims a study released today by the Cato Institute. Indeed, the study finds that the best teachers fare worse than their mediocre colleagues due to biases in hiring and compensation practices.

In the study "Giving Kids the Chaff: How to Find and Keep the Teachers We Need," Marie Gryphon, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, reveals serious flaws in the teacher training, selection, and retention practices of monopolistic state school systems, and argues that market-driven personnel policies produce a far superior alternative to the status quo.

In public schools, "teachers are chosen and compensated on the basis of criteria set by teachers' unions and other entrenched interests," Gryphon explains. "Because those criteria do not focus on the qualities that define good teachers, they often favor less-qualified applicants over applicants whose skills could dramatically improve educational outcomes for their students."

While many policymakers advocate across-the-board salary increases, Gryphon finds that such pay raises do not, in fact, improve teacher quality. In actuality, "untargeted, across-the-board teacher salary hikes may lower the overall quality of the teaching workforce, because they may attract more low-quality applicants," she states. "Only new hiring policies that effectively separate the wheat from the chaff can transform the teaching profession."

Give parents school choice, and give schools the autonomy and incentives they need to hire the best teachers, Gryphon recommends. School choice will foster competition among schools, and in turn, "public school administrators seek out higher-performing applicants and work harder to retain them." This effect, Gryphon finds, is "especially pronounced in low-income districts and can meaningfully improve educational outcomes for poor students."

Source: CATO Institute

By Thomas E. Brewton

Progressive educators today proudly declare that they don't warp students' minds by teaching specific bodies of knowledge, by teaching to the test; they teach students how to think.  That concept is a meaningless and dangerous abstraction.

Commenting upon a recent posting, a reader wrote:

"…. Now, if you go to college, you learn how to analyze information critically as opposed to reeling with whatever gut, emotional response you get. You learn not "What to think," but "How to think." The only way that education will ever succeed in our times is if it raises a generation of children who can not only read, but read between the lines."

No one would disagree with the sentiment that children should be able to understand the context of what they read and have a sufficient breadth of knowledge to bring critical judgment to what they read.

But the concept of learning how to think, as a stand-alone pedagogy, is meaningless.  One has to think about something, and, in order to understand what one is thinking about, is is necessary to learn a great many facts about that something.  In many cases understanding comes only with much practice and drill.

One might as well hand an oboe to an untutored music student and lecture him on how to think about playing the oboe, without benefit of being able to read music and without practice to master the mechanics of producing correct notes from the instrument.

This is particularly true, for example, in mathematics.  When a teacher presents a concept with a blackboard demonstration, keener students may be able to follow each step of the process.  But only later, working alone at home on assignments, will the student discover what he doesn't know and in the process learn the concept sufficiently well to solve similar problems in the future.

When students are allowed to use electronic calculators to solve problems, their minds are not engaged in any meaningful way with mathematics itself.  They might as well be playing a video game.

But they are learning how to think about mathematical problems.  They just don't really understand what they are thinking about.

Even teachers' unions dominated by progressive liberalism have begun to admit that the various genres of new math fail to teach mathematics to students.  When it doesn't matter whether students can solve problems and get correct answers, when it is believed sufficient for students to have some conceptual idea about a problem, we have a nation of students falling each year farther behind Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian students in real scientific accomplishment.

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Our hunt for Bin Laden has slowed, but his deadly terrorist activities continue full speed. When the CIA had a fighting chance to capture him, they never received the military ground support to complete the mission back in 2001. He escaped to Pakistan and continues to gather more strength commanding increasing deadly terrorist attacks.

In an interview with CNN Michael Scheuer spoke openly about Bin Laden:

Michael Scheuer, who once headed the CIA's bin Laden unit, says bin Laden has been given permission by a young cleric in Saudi Arabia authorizing al Qaeda to "use nuclear weapons against the United States … capping the casualties at 10 million."

"He's had an approval, a religious approval for 10 million deaths?" I asked him.

"Yes," Scheuer responded. (CNN)

Unfortunately, Bin Laden has been using videos to tell th world what he will be dong, and the proposed death of 10 million Americans.

We have been warned.