Nicholas Kristof writes in the New York Times:
Why Let the Rich Hoard All the Toys?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Yet you gasp: one avaricious little boy is jealously guarding a mountain of toys for himself. A handful of other children are quietly playing with a few toys each, while 90 of the children are looking on forlornly — empty-handed.
The one greedy boy has hoarded more toys than all those 90 children put together!
“What’s going on?” you ask. “Let’s learn to share! One child shouldn’t hog everything for himself!”
The greedy little boy looks at you, indignant. “Do you believe in redistribution?” he asks suspiciously, his lips curling in contempt. “I don’t want to share. This is America!”
And then he summons his private security firm and has you dragged off the premises. Well, maybe not, but you get the point.
That kindergarten distribution is precisely what America looks like. ...
As I see it, the best way to create a more equitable society wouldn’t be Robin Hood-style redistribution, but a focus on inner-city and rural education — including early childhood programs — and job training. That approach would expand opportunity, even up the starting line, and chip away at cycles of poverty.
Wouldn't the most effective ways to reduce the percentage of people in America living in poverty be:
A) Not let in so many poor foreigners?
B) Encourage American poor people to have fewer children, especially not at young ages?
C) Encourage American non-poor people to have more children, especially at younger ages?
Granted, my ideas will take years to work. On the other hand, the government, the schools, the foundations, the universities have all been working on Mr. Kristoff's plan for about a half century now. How's that working out for you?
Moving Beyond Affirmative Action
By THOMAS J. ESPENSHADE
ON Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, the latest in a long line of conservative assaults on affirmative action that dates to the late 1970s. ...
To be clear, I believe that race-conscious affirmative action is necessary, and often beneficial — though I am not hopeful that the court will agree. Our study showed that eliminating it would reduce the number of black students by about 60 percent, and the number of Hispanic students by about one-third, at selective private schools. We also showed that there is no substitute policy, including preferences based on socioeconomic class, that would generate as much racial and ethnic diversity as affirmative action, given the large numbers of working-class non-Hispanic whites and Asians in the applicant pool.
In other words, working class whites are the main losers from race/ethnic preferences, which may explain why it is so out of fashion to complain about it, you loser, you.
... The racial and socioeconomic gap in academic performance is America’s most pressing domestic issue. When they enter kindergarten, black children are about one year behind white children. When they graduate from high school, black teenagers are four years behind white teenagers.
So, The Gap is relatively small at younger ages, and bigger at older ages. That suggests that the environmental differences in the early years aren't that important, right?
Despite the No Child Left Behind law, the Race to the Top initiative and endless debate over K-12 school reforms — accountability, standards, smaller classes, more effective teachers, better pay, charter schools, extended day, yearlong schools — the performance gaps have persisted, especially at the later ages.
"Especially at later ages." So, it must be differences in the environment at later ages that matter, right?
If affirmative action is abolished, selective colleges and universities will face a stark choice. They can try to manufacture diversity by giving more weight in admissions to those factors that are sometimes close substitutes for race — for example, having overcome disadvantage in a poor urban neighborhood. Or they can take a far bolder step: putting their endowments and influence behind a comprehensive effort to close the learning gap that starts at birth. Higher education has a responsibility for all of education. The job of those atop the academic pyramid is not over once they’ve enrolled a diverse freshman class.
We need more research into the impact of factors like diet and nutrition, the amount of time parents talk and read with their kids, exposure to electronic screen time, sleep routines and the way stress outside the home affects family life. But we already know that an expansion of early-childhood education is urgently needed, along with programs, like peer-to-peer mentoring, that help low-income families support their children’s learning. The first few years of life are the most critical ones ...
Huh? I realize that's the conventional wisdom -- we need to take small black children away from their moms for every single waking hour of the day and have them raised by college educated professionals (thus giving their moms more free time to hit the clubs and get knocked up some more) -- but how does it work that the "first few years of life are the most critical ones" except that the effects of Mom not reading Goodnight Moon only show up in a major way a decade later when the child can't handle Algebra?
We need "a comprehensive effort to close the learning gap that starts at birth." But, you might almost think that The Gap starts nine months before birth ...
'Non-Hispanic whites' is my favorite racial term...
ReplyDelete"The first few years of life are the most critical ones."
ReplyDeleteThen it will be, actually, it is the first year that is the important one. Then it will be, wow, it looks like the pre-natal environment is more important than we thought! Then it will get quiet.
Regarding income inequality, Chris Hayes wrote Twilight of the Elites recently. He is liberal and has his own Sun morning CNBC TV show. The book kind of says the process of meritocracy creates an insulated, corrupted elite that uses the meritocracy rationale to justify keeping all the toys for themselves.
ReplyDeleteBut on p.224 Hayes says,"The higher the taxes in a given country, the less inequality" and in the same paragraph he says, "Total tax revenue as percentage of GDP in the United States is at 24.8 percent down from 29.5 percent in 2000. You can compare that to Denmark which has the highest level of tax revenue as a percentage of GDP(48.2 percent) and the most equality out of any OECD country."
This seems to contradict the maxims of Republican Lord and Emperor, Grover Norquist and I was wondering if there is any truth to this?
I would add that on his TV program Hayes did refer to Debyshire as a "white supremacist" which seems incorrect considering who Derbyshire is married to and I believe Derbyshire has acknowleged, many times, East Asians better stats than whites.
The gap between Europeans/East Asians and Africans is less early on because blacks mature earlier. In fact their whole life cycle seems faster- shorter pregnancy, earlier puberty, shorter average lifespan.
ReplyDelete"Or they can take a far bolder step: putting their endowments and influence behind a comprehensive effort to close the learning gap that starts at birth. Higher education has a responsibility for all of education. "
ReplyDeleteI can't stand this sort of argument, where person A sees that person B's got money, and then A demands that B spend it on something that A wants. If nothing else, it's rude - like when everyone had some creative proposal for Bill Gates's money in the late 1990s. In this case, it seems that private colleges are being asked to support public education! But the reason why these colleges have assiduously collected large endowments over the years is because they DON'T have access to public funds. Imagine sending your endowment into the great roaring maw of public education. Talk about throwing good money after bad.
So Mr Kristof does not confine himself to fanning social unrest in the Middle East. He's an equal opportunity rabble-rouser. At least he's not a hypocrite. Because that would be bad.
ReplyDelete" That kindergarten distribution is precisely what America looks like. ...
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, the best way to create a more equitable society wouldn’t be Robin Hood-style redistribution, but a focus on inner-city and rural education — including early childhood programs — and job training. That approach would expand opportunity, even up the starting line, and chip away at cycles of poverty."
- Yeah, like 'revitalizing inner-city education to expand opportunity!!!!' is a new idea instead of the same brain fart the libtards have been fleecing American's pockets for since at least the 60s. How exactly is this not Robin Hood redistribution? The broke inner city families aren't exactly the people paying for it.
The kindergarten analogy is deeply flawed too. The kid in the kindergarten hoarding the toys is hoarding a lot of something that belongs to the school with the explicit purpose of being used by all the children. The kindergartener didn't work 60 hr weeks and delay having a job, a family to sweat through college and a professional degree with top honors. The vast majority of the wealthy are first generation- they made it themselves.
A more appropriate analogy for these liberal ideas would be a kid hoarding all of those A's that he earned on his report card through dutiful study. How dare he, when poor LaShawn has so many D's? His teacher should be more mindful of inequality and should have given them both a mixture of B's and C's.
Wouldn't the most effective way to end poverty in America would be to turn America's back on 40 years of free trade free markets dogma (ie competing against billions of subsistence rice paddy peasants made good in Asia)and pay the laborer the worth of his hire?
ReplyDeleteOf course I'd be labelled a dumb schmuck by the intelligensia for raising that.
But at least I'll spare Steve a rant involving the catch phrases 'Republicans/plutocrats/Hades connection' - though there's a lot of very interesting treacle for Steve's readership to mull over, there and 'doing the privates'.
It's time to retire the word poverty. low income is not poverty.
ReplyDelete" If affirmative action is abolished, selective colleges and universities will face a stark choice. They can try to manufacture diversity by giving more weight in admissions to those factors that are sometimes close substitutes for race — for example, having overcome disadvantage in a poor urban neighborhood. Or they can take a far bolder step: putting their endowments and influence behind a comprehensive effort to close the learning gap that starts at birth. Higher education has a responsibility for all of education. The job of those atop the academic pyramid is not over once they’ve enrolled a diverse freshman class."
ReplyDelete-God forbid, merit be the criteria. How is the job of those atop the academic pyramid to enroll a diverse class again? And if we take on face value, the bs that they use to justify it- diversity is to enrich the student body with scintillating conversations of life experiences in different backgrounds, how is the life experience of a negro from the ghetto who got in by AA anymore enriching to a typical college student than the life experience of a poor white kid from a trailer in West Va. who got into a good school by working his butt off through high school to earn solid A's while working a job after school to help his family make ends meet? Anyway, what would all of this 'enriching life experience of one's peers' crap have to do learning Differential calculus or organic chemistry? Its all nonsense, a smokescreen to cover up for what's really going on.
This guy Espenshade is hilarious. The learning gap "starts at birth"? Wow, those kids are behind already even as they lay in the hospital nursery. Is he aware of Operation Head Start, a program that's been around for decades and was supposed to usher in the golden age of no gaps? Actually, it's not the tiresome dolts like him who should act as the lightening rod for the ire his sort of pap produces since there are many many millions of dopes and charlatans in this country, all of whom are interchangeable. It's the big, corporate media that picks and chooses these sorts of people and gives them the podium and the megaphone. What's their interest in all this?
ReplyDelete"A) Not let in so many poor foreigners?
ReplyDeleteB) Encourage American poor people to have fewer children, especially not at young ages?
C) Encourage American non-poor people to have more children, especially at younger ages?"
I have been thinking this for years. So simple, so obvious but perhaps too hurtful to point out?
It's always fun to watch someone set up all the evidence for a conclusion -- and then reach the exact opposite conclusion. I understand why it happens, denial, bias, and all that. But why wade into counter evidence that you'll have to work to ignore in the first place?
ReplyDelete… The racial and socioeconomic gap in academic performance is America’s most pressing domestic issue. When they enter kindergarten, black children are about one year behind white children. When they graduate from high school, black teenagers are four years behind white teenagers.
ReplyDeleteSo, The Gap is relatively small at younger ages, and bigger at older ages. That suggests that the environmental differences in the early years aren't that important, right?
The "years behind" metric is misleading. In fact, the gap changes little with age. From the Philips et al. article ("Does the Black-White Test Score Gap Widen after Children Enter School?") in the book The Black-White Test Score Gap:
Which view people take on these issues depends partly on how they measure the black-white gap. Roughly speaking, black six-year-olds’ vocabulary scores match those of white five-year-olds, so one can say that black children are one year behind whites. Black seventeen-year-olds have vocabularies roughly comparable to those of white thirteen-year-olds, so one can say that at age seventeen blacks are four years behind. But if one compares blacks and whites by asking, for example, what percentage of whites score below the average black at different ages, the percentage will change very little with age. Likewise, if one uses the conventional metric of the social sciences and expresses the black-white gap as a percentage of the overall standard deviation, the gap does not change much with age.
I had MTV's 16 and Pregnant on TV when I opened your blog today. I was thinking it was a bit ironic and wondered how much affirmative action was going to support their kid (they appeared to be latino).
ReplyDeleteThe theme of their prom was Monte Carlo. There were giant dice all over the place. Time horizon warp anyone?
And then they went trick or treating with pregnancy decorated as a pumpkin???
Finally, I realized that the soon to be great grandma wasn't all that old. My grandparents (Dad's side; not great grandparents) were 80 when I was born. When I eventually make it to a point in life where I'm able to afford kids, those kids may never know their grandparents. There's something deeply wrong about that.
The ironic thing is, the family I'm close to is (genetically) strictly from my mom's side. These 7 relatives have an average IQ of about 105 with similar time horizons. As a group they have likely been screwed over by AA. If La Griffe is right, they will lose over 1/2 M over the course of their life, maybe closer to 1M. I don't know how to process this. But I'll tell you theres not much faster way to create a real racist than to forcefully shuffle huge amounts of money from someone's family to other people because of their race. Of course, the people who do the thinking for everyone aren't related to average people.
"A) Not let in so many poor foreigners?"
ReplyDeleteEnd family reunification visas.
"B) Encourage American poor people to have fewer children, especially not at young ages?"
Give young Latinas iPads and vouchers for Macy's in exchange for receiving Norplant.
"C) Encourage American non-poor people to have more children, especially at younger ages?"
Let white parents write off private school tuition on their taxes.
That fake kid in the story will eventually get bored playing alone and invite more kids to join. First they have to play as the bad guys but eventually they can work their way on to his team and more kids can join as the bad guys and eventually they don't care cause most of them are playing.
ReplyDeleteSame thing in economics. The rich guy realizes the money's worth nothing if not used and will find a way to use it by doing new things and bringing more and more people into the efforts.
Problem is communist liberals like the writer don't realize there's a natural path for things to happen and would rather just be "nice" and give everything to everyone because it's "not fair" for one person to have more than others.
What do you think about testosterone and puberty as a contributing factor in the growth of the gap in later years? The levels spike around age 13, and blacks have been shown to have much more testosterone than whites. Even true for females. And testosterone makes you loud, noisy, unwilling to sit still in class, more likely to join gangs and indulge in risky behavior.
ReplyDeleteits such a difficult decision. i wonder what is the right way to bring up my child
ReplyDeleteRight. We need more money for education. Ever heard of diminishing returns, Mr. Kristof?
ReplyDeleteAnd more college grads, too - even though there aren't enough jobs for the current number of grads.
Also, Kristof's imaginary 90 empty handed kids (the poor forlorn waifs) is pure fantasy. Has he ever met any poor people in the US? Or heard of Section 8, SNAP, TANF, Medicaid, free cell phones, etc?
America may well be a nation of babies, but very few them are empty handed.
" Wouldn't the most effective ways to reduce the percentage of people in America living in poverty be:
ReplyDelete...B) Encourage American poor people to have fewer children, especially not at young ages?
C) Encourage American non-poor people to have more children, especially at younger ages?"
And how, Steve do you think that you will encourage people who have nothing interesting to do but have sex to stop having sex, while simultaneously encouraging people for whom having sex could severely infringe on all of their interesting 21st century hobbies, to start having sex?
St. Augustine states the following in his preface to Book VI of City of God:
ReplyDeleteStupidity glories in never yielding to the force of truth; that is how it effects the ruin of anyone who is under the dominion of this monstrous moral fault.
MDR
The Local Lefty Book Club last night hosted the author of a new biography of General Alexandre Dumas, the half-black who became one of revolutionary France’s most successful generals, fathered the most popular novelist in France and was grandfather to the Dumas who, arguably, co-invented modern realism in stage, film and television with his play, “La Dame aux Camelias.”
ReplyDeleteGeneral Dumas came up through what might be called Reverse Affirmative Action. His white father pawned young Alex back into slavery in order to finance the father’s return to France. He later redeemed his son and gave him the rudiments of a gentleman’s education in France, teaching him swordsmanship and other military skills. All this made Alexandre only a corporal of dragoons until the Revolution came along and sought ruthlessly ambitious officers to lead French armies against the gathering force of Europe.
So Dumas rose during a brief window of equal opportunity in desperate war. He then went to Egypt as Napoleon’s cavalry commander, but got off on the wrong foot when some Egyptians mistook the tall, powerfully-built and dark-skinned Dumas for the French expedition’s commander and the pale, scrawny Napoleon for a staff officer.
On his way back from Egypt, General Dumas was captured and kept in a solitary cell in an Italian prison for years. When he finally returned to France, the days of racial equality were over. Napoleon had restored slavery in French colonies and reestablished racial segregation in France. The General’s last years were poor and humiliating.
But his memoirs of his days of solitary prison confinement gave his son the idea for, and his treatment in his last years gave his son the motivation to write, the best revenge novel of all time.
Novels that last a couple centuries tend to come from someplace real, not a clever idea in a creative-writing class. Perhaps lasting racial progress will also come only from a little dose of reality, not endless Op-Ed sophistries.
Young whites are now moving away from Affirmative action
ReplyDeleteA year ago or so, a majority of White Millenials(ages 18-34 roughly) agreed with the statement that "discrimination against Whites in this country is now as big, if not bigger, than against blacks".
Surprisingly, 25 % of blacks agreed.
40 % of Hispanics did(Asians weren't polled).
This caused all kinds of concerntrolling and hysteria among left-liberals like Yglesias or Chait.
Now, here's the followup study:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/1004/Poll-57-percent-of-Millennials-oppose-racial-preferences-for-college-hiring
Key Quote:
“The racial differences on this question are striking. Less than one-in-five (19 percent) white Millennials favor programs designed to help blacks and other minorities get ahead because of past discrimination, while nearly two-thirds (66 percent) are opposed,” the report says."
A lot of those who make up the difference between 66% opposed and only 19 % for are the so-called "undecideds".
Most of them are probably leaning against but are too scared to admit it, perhaps even to themselves.
After all, being pro-AA carries no social stigma and in fact is a badge of honor in contemporary culture, even if it's a racist policy(it's racist against the right kinds of people).
So while there are probably quite a few of genuine undecideds among the group, past polling have shown that many who claim not to know, if given a specific question(e.g., "do you 'lean' any specific direction?") tend to skew towards the less culturally accepted option.
So we're talking about 70+ % of young white millenials, growing up in the hayday of liberal cultural hegemony who reject a key tenet of liberal cultural dogma.
This again shows that the main problem for the GOP is its attachment to religious fundies, it's pro-Wall St bent(which Romney is now trying to desperately make people forget).
If the GOP returned to it's more secular, pro-science, socially moderate and ecnomically pro-working class(as opposed to just throwing them a few bones, but screwing them economically), as well as return to it's more sound foreign policy past, then it could probably get a majority of the young white vote, people like me.
But instead we get crazies and nutjobs like Santorum, Akin or sellout pro-Wall St 1%ers like Jeb Bush and his odious neocon warmongering buddies.
Still, this shows potential.
Although, as we all know, potential isn't enough. In the end, if it is not tapped and organized, it remains spoiled milk.
I continue to believe that whites post-1965 have gotten into an impossible position since it's a modern myth that most American whites don't like a society like a strong, Northern European welfare state(like Germany, but with moderation, not like France).
But that can never happen because it would be too popular. And it would also be by now impossible because there would be too much drainage on the system.
That's why this unionbashing is delusional.
America in the 1950s was this culturally conservative but economically left-leaning society and most whites prospered.
California was very left-wing, and its public schools was the envy of the nation.
Today, Finland wins all the prizes for its school system. But guess what? It is exceptionally unionized.
A lot of people, even here, have internalized this cultural marxism which the GOP these days espouse.
But, according to the surveys, the younger white folks seems to have a slow, ongoing epiphany.
Actually, the gap seems to remain pretty consistent if viewed as a percentage of years lived. 1 year behind / 5 years lived = 20% behind. 4 years behind / 18 years lived = 22% behind.
ReplyDeletePerhaps one day these notions will get through and we'll have some real solutions to address poverty in the long run.
ReplyDeleteFor some steps we can take now to perhaps bypass some of the popular opposition against these ideas, see my blog:
Solutions, Again | JayMan's Blog
A Success Story? | JayMan's Blog
Oh, to give a bump to another blogger, I am not the only person of color who blogs about HBD.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Nelson, a Hispanic (Dominican) HBD blogger:
“Affirmative Action” for NYC’s Specialized High Schools? Just Say No « Concourse Expressions
Snippet:
"'The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which is filing the complaint, said the highly competitive, 2-1/2-hour, multiple-choice Specialized High School Admissions Test [SHSAT] was at fault for the disparity.'
Oh boy – another “achievement gap” dilemma. So according to NAACP, the disparities in specialized high school demographics mean the SHSAT must be flawed; after all, these schools should represent the City’s overall demographic – right? As I will soon show, this line of reasoning is wrong."
Must be a thing about the Caribbean guys... ;)
Steve, your normal attitude of bemusement seems strained here.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not that we give blacks money, preferences, and lower standards for their behavior. The problem is that we've imported a new underclass to do the jobs blacks will no longer do and give them the same benefits.
ReplyDeleteIdiots who forget the real reason we keep blacks in organized activities from cradle to graduation from high school are the problem here. We're not going to close the borders. Neither candidate supports that. We're not going to elect an honest government. That ship sailed long ago.
Get used to it. You don't have to embrace the fact our government is actively hostile to Americans but you need to understand it. No legal means available to Americans can change that.
I guess we can vote for whomever will inflict the least pain while they screw us. But no third party will ever gain national power unless the tea party co-opts the republicans like the socialists did the democrats.
"B) Encourage American poor people to have fewer children, especially not at young ages?"
ReplyDeleteA difficult task. Many NAMs have the Cuckoo Bird reproductive strategy. Drop the offspring in the benefit padded nest and your work is almost done, after that, just keep badgering the host to give more and more.
OT, but you might review Robert Kaplan's The Revenge of Geography. C-Span had a good Book-TV episode about it this morning:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/TheReve
Why do you think diversity is pushed so hard by campus administrators?
ReplyDeleteIs it:
-- A well-meaning albeit muddle-headed desire for racial equality?
-- A marketing ploy, since college students think they want a diverse campus and the parents paying the bill want to see Upstanding Tokens when they flip through the brochure or visit?
-- There's federal, state and foundation dollars to be had by playing the game?
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the government, the schools, the foundations, the universities have all been working on Mr. Kristoff's plan for about a half century now. How's that working out for you?
That plan is working out GREAT....for people like Kristoff and the class of people who pay his salary--the upper class: the people who own and operate the major institutions of america.
Mass immigration of third worlders is doing wonders for fat wallets. But it is decimating working class americans. You have to understand that there are differing interests in a society with great wealth differences. If you BUY labor, this "mass immigration of poor third worlders" plan you refer to do is doing wonders for your fat bank account.
If however you SELL labor, it is destroying your quality of life, in general.
Why is it that you paleocons always pretend that everyone in america has the same common interests?
We don't. Don't pretend like what benefits the upper class also benefits the working class. Is this willful ignorance/blindness of yours just coincidence? Or something else?
Why can't you understand that the USA was set up from the start to protect the interests of the rich? Right from the secret notes to the constitutional convention, as written by James Madison, father of the constitution, where he writes that the American governmental structure, as outlined in the constitution he designed, was meant to 'protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.' That lays it out pretty plainly, in my opinion.
My "a priori" assumption when reading about domestic federal policy is that every little thing done by the federal govt is done to protect the interests of the rich. And federal policy on immigration of third worlders does just that. Big surprise.
Meanwhile, Thomas J. Espenshade writes in the NYT:
ON Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, the latest in a long line of conservative assaults on affirmative action that dates to the late 1970s. ...
It's not a 'conservative' assault--it is a working class assault. The conservatives are the GOP. The GOP started affirmative action back in the 70s, and they only give lip service to ending it. The conservatives were in charge of the fed govt for much of 2000-2008, yet they did nothing to stop affirmative action. The working class tries to fight back, with no allies in sight. The paleocons pretend to be on the side of the working class. But, strangely, they seem to ignore some vital parts of the Big Picture. Just like the Dems and GOP do, but different parts....
To be clear, I believe that race-conscious affirmative action is necessary
of course he does: you are not going to get published in the mass media if you do not support affirmative action (AA). AA puts lots of money into the wallets of the upper class by 1) increasing the supply of labor faster than the demand for labor and 2) fragmenting the unity of states, cities, neighborhoods and workplaces. Diversity is strength...for Capital, but it is weakness for Labor because it fragments the unity of Labor.
....and often beneficial — though I am not hopeful that the court will agree.
Of course SCOTUS will keep AA in place. The judges there have never worked a real job in their lives and have been immersed in elite-friendly ideology propaganda from a young age, and therefore are of that culture. Everything they do springs from that immersion in elite ideology from youth. The supreme ct judges are of a certain culture, and that culture has nothing to do with working class white majority america.
In other words, working class whites are the main losers from race/ethnic preferences, which may explain why it is so out of fashion to complain about it, you loser, you.
Shaming the dissidents against the diversity/multiculti propaganda regime is a primary tool for thought control. Obvious, much?
Read Orwell...etc....
The FT's Simon Kuper, who, the week before wrote about the importance of stigmatizing right wing parties, had a column last week about the importance of early childhood intervention, Why three is the magic number.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Nicholas Kristof just an avaricious little boy jealously guarding his prestigious, no doubt highly lucrative position at the New York Times? If he believed his own crap, wouldn't he have stepped down long ago in the spirit of sharing?
ReplyDeleteI just looked him up on the Wikipedia and it turns out that his wife used to be a vice president of investment management at Goldman Sachs. Wow!
"Kristof is a member of the board of overseers of Harvard University..." Wow.
So this is just a breathtakingly hypocritical person. He IS that avaricious little boy. Nobody just ends up on top. Goldman freaking Sachs, the New York freaking Times! The only way to get that high up is to claw your way there. And then to mercilessly push down any comers as they try to claw their way to your position. Speaking of toys, it turns out that both he and his wife have received Pulitzer Prizes. Why didn't he turn down his prize? Why should one family have two of those? I'm just trying to use his logic.
Oh, and the picture of him in the Wikipedia, the only picture that appears on his page, shows him speaking in Davos, with the "World Economic Forum" logo behind his head. It's like a joke. To look at him is to stare the global elite directly in the face. It appears that an invitation to Davos was just one of many, many toys that this avaricious little boy has kept to himself while shaming other, overwhelmingly less elite people, for hoarding.
ReplyDeleteSteve (if I may), did you read the big new article by James Heckman in the Boston Review? It's here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.5/ndf_james_heckman_social_mobility.php
There are several responses, including one from Charles Murray, and a response to the responses from Heckman.
In answer to your question, "So, The Gap is relatively small at younger ages, and bigger at older ages. That suggests that the environmental differences in the early years aren't that important, right?", Heckman would probably respond,
"No, it doesn't suggest that. One reason that gap gets bigger as people age is that cognitive differences aren't the most important part of the gap. The most important part of the gap are non-cognitive differences (which I have sometimes also called 'character'). So, when poor children don't get inculcated with the proper character, this makes it much more difficult for them to have successful lives as they get older."
I'd be very curious about your response to Heckman.
Shades of that murderer Vladimir Lenin!
ReplyDeleteI really hate idiots like Kristoff. They blithely trot out these tired, evil, bratty old proverbs, and they actually seem to feel that they've made a compelling, reasonable, but radically brilliant new insight that we can all get behind as long as we are reasonable people. it's the old hippy tactic; commit some horrible, selfish, immoral outrage and then just say, "Hey man, be cool!" when somebody objects.
It reminds of of the old Robert Crumb strip starring Shuman the Human (with his fine mind). "Hey, everybody (looking all sanctimonious), I've got an idea. When I count to three let's everybody stop playing mind games!" Of course he is then revealed to be a hopeless pinhead, but Kristoff will probably go through his entire life spouting leftist lies, advocating leftist tyranny and feeling all smug and happy like the twit that he so obviously is.
"Giving their moms more free time to hit the clubs." Truer words were never spoke. I read this piece and at first the stuff about how the Rich have so much got my attention;buut the answer is always the same:Blacks blacks blacks blacks blacks blacks blacks. The amswer to everything is blacks.
ReplyDeletePeople don't understand that our elite have convinced themselves that by making white middle class americans and europeans poorer, they are actually making the world more equal. What you see as failure, they see as success
ReplyDeleteSo, The Gap is relatively small at younger ages, and bigger at older ages. That suggests that the environmental differences in the early years aren't that important, right?
ReplyDeleteYou're not taking into account the exponential rate of growth of the human brain in the first few years of life. The younger the child, the bigger the difference in a single year of life. A child coming into kindergarten not knowing any colors, shapes, how to count to 10, how to print his name, etc. is at a huge disadvantage over those who do. The difference is roughly equal to being years behind at a later age.
How to cut the poverty rate. Easy. Do it like they cut the unemployment rate.
ReplyDeleteUnder the old way, today's unemployment rate would be 15%. But under the new system, it's 8%.
So, if we wanna cut the poverty rate, just change the meaning of poverty.
Poverty would be making less than $1000 a yr. There, I cut poverty to near zero.
control puberty to cut poverty.
ReplyDelete... When they enter kindergarten, black children are about one year behind white children. When they graduate from high school, black teenagers are four years behind white teenagers.
ReplyDeleteSo, The Gap is relatively small at younger ages, and bigger at older ages. That suggests that the environmental differences in the early years aren't that important, right?
Assuming a kindergarter is 5 years old and a HS graduate is 18, one year behind in kindergarten would mean blacks are at 80% (4/5) of the white level. Four years behind at HS graduation would mean blacks are at 78% (14/18) of the white level.
So percentage wise the gap remains about the same.
"We need more research into the impact of factors like diet and nutrition, the amount of time parents talk and read with their kids, exposure to electronic screen time, sleep routines and the way stress outside the home affects family life."
ReplyDeleteIt makes me wonder if he's read any of the research that already exists. The Bell Curve, which contains a pretty good summary of it, was published almost 20 years ago, and to my knowledge none of the conclusions there have been radically overturned since.
I'm open to arguments on biology, but I truly believe that culture is the problem. There is an anti-intellectual strain in the black community, where the 'nerd' section is derided as acting white. Single mothers (which seem to make up the majority of black mothers) are overwhelmed by their own decisions, and the consequences of keeping it real are no worse than the status quo.
ReplyDeleteI see this as a the real problem in the black community. Until you can guilt them into thinking long-term, there won't be a change.
Maybe, so that there aren't so many poor foreigners who want to get in, we should quit bombing them in their native countries and stop Goldman Sachs from bankrupting teir countries to.
ReplyDeleteHerrnstein probably wasn't the first one to notice this idea but it is conventionally associated with him so let's just call it Herrstein's insight.
ReplyDeleteHe noticed that when you eliminated environmental inequities that the inborn factors became more important. This means that in Midieval times probably 90% of IQ differences were environmental. Very few got education, indeed very few even got enough to eat. But in our society today where everyone has an education and everyone has enough to eat, there are still big differences in intelligence but now 90% of those differences are genetic. Fighting environmental inequality soon makes every difference a genetic difference.
Herrnstein's insight is a bitter lesson for liberals, especially now that Lynn and Vanhatten have also shown that IQ differences are the principal cause of wealth differences.
This is Occam's razor with a vengeance. We are approaching the point where everyone is born to be rich or born to be poor.
As long as there is a normal curve of genetic differences in IQ there must be a left hand tail of poor people. If you don't like this conclusion, go relieve some remaining social inequity. Alas you will find that the remaining differences are then even more a function of genetics.
I wrote above that IQ had a .90 heritability. Who knows? It doesn't really matter what the real figure is. With social leveling if it isn't 90% yet it soon will be.
Albertosaurus
We need "a comprehensive effort to close the learning gap that starts at birth." But, you might almost think that The Gap starts nine months before birth ...
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's the sentence in the whole thing that grabbed my attention the most. The author almost stumbles on the truth, accidentally. The Gap started generations upon generations before birth.
Why, oh why, do they regard diversity as an inherent good when all evidence shows that it is a decided weakness wherever it's encountered.
So, OT, I happened to watch Jared Taylor's Towson appearance last night. The man's got the patience of a saint to politely respond to so many moronic assertions and questions.
Cutting the poverty rate by stopping the importation of poor people?
ReplyDeleteSounds kinda crazy Steve.
I bet your one of those loonies that when your boat is taking on water, first plugs the hole in the boat. The correct solution of course, is to ignore the hole in boat and buy more pumps or even a new boat.
The whole point of AA is to make those who redistribute money from middle and working class Whites to Blacks/Hispanics more powerful and wealthy, and away from CHANGE and DISRUPTION caused by said middle and working class Whites.
ReplyDeleteThe story of European/American civilization from say 1500-1950 is one of MASSIVE disruption and total destruction over and over again of dynasties and aristocratic control over resources. Just when a new group of aristocrats have ensconced themselves, along comes a new disruptive technology to destroy everything.
The whole point is to crush that technological change by importing a mass of Third World people and create the redistributive class since guys like Kristoff cannot make money doing what say, Mark Zuckerberg does. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple are crushing the NYT. Thus Kristoff and people like him need a way to be important and make lots of money.
B) Encourage American poor people to have fewer children, especially not at young ages?
ReplyDeleteC) Encourage American non-poor people to have more children, especially at younger ages?
So Jay-Z should have more kids than an engineer who makes 50K a year?
Selecting for wealth is dysgenic.
The Supreme Court will kill the particular AA program that is before it and claim to impose a new very tough standard for AA. The anti white lobby will claim this is a huge defeat for them.
ReplyDeleteIn reality, nothing will actually change the fact that NAMs will continue to be admitted with much worse test and academic records. This has happened time and again. Since Bakke affirmative action loses again and again, but has never been significantly scaled back. The Supreme Court's moderate republican block refuses to accept that actual academic administrators will never implement their rulings against AA in faith.
If you read Bakke, Adarand, Gratz, and Grutter, you'd think there would be very little left of AA by now. The only way to actually stop AA is a strict and bright line bar on considering race in admissions.
Kennedy's dissent in Grutter refused to go that far, saying that race could be considered only is extra special exceptional rare almost never very very very limited circumstances. Maybe he realizes by now that this will be read by academia as "whenever we want" but I doubt it.
I am sure that the Times reporters do pretty well financially. I want Mr. Kristof to share his toys with me.
ReplyDeleteRe "Hernstein's insight", might Quayshawn Spencer be a living example of it? His first name suggests that his mother might not have been exactly a Tiger Mother, and yet he has succeeded in a field that requires high intelligence. Which suggests his success is due largely to innate ability.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we assume the rich are 'hoarding' the wealth? They may just as truly be creating it.
ReplyDeleteWhiskey,
ReplyDelete"The whole point of AA is to make those who redistribute money from middle and working class Whites to Blacks/Hispanics more powerful and wealthy..."
You seriously believe that? You write all the time about women, and then when you write a comment about AA, most of the beneficiaries of which are white women, your mind goes blank?
In a more rational world, more African Americans would wonder how a program designed to remedy historic discrimination against them, specifically, could diffuse into one that benefits everyone from affluent white women to newcomers to this country with no history of discrimination here. On the one hand, this diffusion is deeply cynical, but on the other, agitation of the haves against the have-mores (such as Change the ratio) may offer relief from thinking about intractable problems at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale.
Adding an Ivy-educated white gal to the board of a public company, or throwing some seed money at her start-up is painless compared to, say, making Google's level of racial diversity match America's.
They may just as truly be creating it.
ReplyDeleteGoldman Sachs?
"Truth said...
ReplyDelete" Wouldn't the most effective ways to reduce the percentage of people in America living in poverty be:
...B) Encourage American poor people to have fewer children, especially not at young ages?
C) Encourage American non-poor people to have more children, especially at younger ages?"
And how, Steve do you think that you will encourage people who have nothing interesting to do but have sex to stop having sex, while simultaneously encouraging people for whom having sex could severely infringe on all of their interesting 21st century hobbies, to start having sex?"
-Truth, Truth, Truth... you disappoint me. You do it by returning things to the natural order of things, the way they've been through most of human history. Scale back gov't, Get rid of artificial supports like welfare that enable the incompetent and lazy to have far more kids than they could support on their own.
Barbara Grutter is a white woman -- she didn't seem to get affirmative action points.
ReplyDeleteIt is not true white women are big AA beneficiaries. The most obvious evidence is a quick look at the employees of any government office. The only time you really see them get a big boost is where they are very scarce, like the navy or in sciences, but by definition there will be few actual beneficiaries. Further, since most white women have white husbands and children, the economic effect of it is fairly small. Further, a lot of schools that don't have big STEM programs are now more than 60% female and have been giving AA to make applicants. There was a long article a out this and UNC's lower standard for male applicants a few years ago. Further their GPA and SAT scores are competitive enough they don't need any AA except at the big six: HYPSMC, where their lower IQ SD starts to become significant. And those schools need some women to attract the best male applicants, few 18 year olds want to spend 4 years at a sausagefest.
ReplyDeleteWhiskey is once again an uninformed misogynist.
Also I checked out JayMan's blog and it is great. In one respect he is the best HBD blogger I've seen: very data rich, no weird ideological ticks like antisemitism, and very focused on public policy solutions rather endless recitations of problems and no realistic suggestions.
I don't know why he is in Maine though, as Derbyshire says the demand for really smart black men is gigantic, he'd clean up socially and economically in any big city.
According to the census, the top 5% of households have an income of about $160k and the median number of income earners is 2. Basically, it is just a married couple earning on average $80k each. Not exactly the ultra wealthy. These people pay a substantial amount of tax. Similarly in the bottom quintile the median number of income earners is zero. So, long story short, married couples that have jobs are okay, singles, especially single moms not so much. Shocking, just shocking. Thanks, feminist ho's.
ReplyDeleteI fail to see how a SCOTUS decision against Affirmative Action will affect admissions at selective private schools such as the ivy league?
ReplyDeleteIt is my understanding that it would only affect admissions at selective public schools.
Can someone clarify this? Because, if striking down AA affected selective private universities in their admissions criteria, Stanford would demographically be close to Berkeley. This is certainly NOT the case.
"As I see it, the best way to create a more equitable society wouldn’t be Robin Hood-style redistribution, but a focus on inner-city and rural education — including early childhood programs — and job training..."
ReplyDeleteYeah, Michael Lind has his number.
The “New Democrats” of the last three decades adopted a completely new economic orthodoxy: supply-side liberalism...
The neoliberal Democratic mantra of more investment in education and R&D is irrelevant to the present crisis, which, as we have seen, is a crisis of private consumer demand.... The economy did not collapse in 2008 because the job market suddenly required a much more educated workforce.
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/11/obamas_a_supply_sider_too/
ReplyDeleteWhy, oh why, do they regard diversity as an inherent good when all evidence shows that it is a decided weakness wherever it's encountered.
"They" don't regard diversity as good inherent or otherwise. They want us to think it is good, so that we will accept it, and so be burdened by the consequences that we can't effectively challenge them.
"The first few years of life are the most critical ones."
ReplyDeleteThen it will be, actually, it is the first year that is the important one. Then it will be, wow, it looks like the pre-natal environment is more important than we thought! Then it will get quiet.
Not so sure about that. Blacks do very well in the first year. Asians are slower the first year. On general development of the kind doctors look at in check ups, blacks do very well. They are not behind at all physically.
ReplyDeleteTruth:"And how, Steve do you think that you will encourage people who have nothing interesting to do but have sex to stop having sex, while simultaneously encouraging people for whom having sex could severely infringe on all of their interesting 21st century hobbies, to start having sex?"
Gosh, Truth, I guess that you are unaware of a little thing called contraception? See, that allows people to have sex (the fun part) without having kids (the not so fun part).
Geoff Matthews said...
ReplyDeleteUntil you can guilt them into thinking long-term, there won't be a change.
Guilt.. long term thinking. These are matters of biology
Mr. Troof sez: And how, Steve do you think that you will encourage people who have nothing interesting to do but have sex to stop having sex, while simultaneously encouraging people for whom having sex could severely infringe on all of their interesting 21st century hobbies, to start having sex?
ReplyDelete**NEWSFLASH** "having sex" doesn't have to lead to no babies, think about it, sport.
"Novels that last a couple centuries tend to come from someplace real, not a clever idea in a creative-writing class. Perhaps lasting racial progress will also come only from a little dose of reality, not endless Op-Ed sophistries."
ReplyDeleteYou're just making stuff up.
Geoff Matthews said... I'm open to arguments on biology, but I truly believe that culture is the problem. There is an anti-intellectual strain in the black community, where the 'nerd' section is derided as acting white.
ReplyDeleteThis is a circular argument. What kind of culture thinks that being smart is nerdy? A culture created by people that aren't very smart.
I've heard Jews use a similar argument, that Jews do well academically because the Jewish culture has always valued learning. Okay, but why did their culture value learning instead of regarding it as nerdy? Because Jews tend to be intelligent.
It would be a lot simpler to just encourage the old black churches to return to their former glory. A permissive culture is a disaster for those with low IQs; they need a good deal of social structure to keep out of trouble. You'll notice that the murder rate shot up in the 60's at the same time all the forms of soft social control collapsed.
ReplyDelete"As I see it, the best way to create a more equitable society wouldn’t be Robin Hood-style redistribution, but a focus on inner-city and rural education — including early childhood programs — and job training. That approach would expand opportunity, even up the starting line, and chip away at cycles of poverty." - If educated young people had an employment rate of 95% this might make sense. given that they don't, he is just trying to recycle the old tired meme of more education.
ReplyDelete"so sure about that. Blacks do very well in the first year. Asians are slower the first year. On general development of the kind doctors look at in check ups, blacks do very well. They are not behind at all physically."
ReplyDeleteThis has been noted widely. Black babies are more developed at birth. One American doctor in Africa saw a newborn try to rub off some application that had been put on his head. The doctor's surprise indicated he'd not seen this behavior in other races. They develop faster socially and physically. It is well known (and well observed) that black kids exhibit little of the clinginess or fearfulness of other race tots. Asians and American Indians are the most reticent. Whites in between. Blacks the least. There are countless stories of black three year olds (even younger), leaving their dwellings at night or when no one is around to stop them, and walking along a busy street. I also heard of a black seven year old who had the presence of mind to drive her father's car to the hospital when he collapsed. Can't remember how she got to the steering wheel. This social, and perhaps neurological, precocity, combined with a lower intellectual capacity on the average, has always seemed distinctive to this observer. The earlier physical and social progress makes the slower mental develoment more enigmatic, and is why some people (SWPL) just can't accept it. A six year old with a five year old's development, is MUCH slower than a 17 year old with one year delayed develpment.
So it's true. The gap in intellectual prowess is there, on the average, as early as can be measured, and does not really change. I was shocked to read an article in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, about skull bones closing earlier in blacks (age about 11), than in whites. Didn't mention other races. The concensus at that time--unacceptable today--was that this precluded further development of the brain, which could continue to grow in children whose skull bones had not yet closed over, and would not do so for another couple years.
The generally smoother brain surface, less deep fissures, is also generally noted in black anatomy.
These are facts that have been known for over 100 years. They are now as forbidden as Galileo was in the Vatican, 500 years ago.
Still, while these are facts, it is still worth remembering that they are generalizations, and not every single individual would display them. However, judging from what blacks have done to every environment they have infused themselves into in any numbers, in the past 60 years, despite pretty near everything done for them that can be done, I'd say facts are facts. The "generality" really is the majority.
"A difficult task. Many NAMs have the Cuckoo Bird reproductive strategy. Drop the offspring in the benefit padded nest and your work is almost done, after that, just keep badgering the host to give more and more." - cutting the benefit padded nest to make middle class family formation more affordable is what he's getting at.
ReplyDelete"So Jay-Z should have more kids than an engineer who makes 50K a year?
Selecting for wealth is dysgenic." - Come now, How many Jay-Z's are there? how many engineers are there? Likewise, among each group's grand children, how many of those will go on to be Jay-Z's and how many of those will go on to be engineers respectively?
"Why do we assume the rich are 'hoarding' the wealth? They may just as truly be creating it." - The literal record shattering cash hoards that businesses are sitting on rather than investing in the future, to, you know, create wealth, somewhat hurt such a perspective that they are creating rather than hoarding.
"Despite the No Child Left Behind law, the Race to the Top initiative and endless debate over K-12 school reforms — accountability, standards, smaller classes, more effective teachers, better pay, charter schools, extended day, yearlong schools — the performance gaps have persisted, especially at the later ages."
ReplyDeleteNCLB's flaws catalyzed several cheating scandals; take note of where some of these scandals occurred and why. As I contend, things like AA don't do "minorities" (of which I am one) any lasting good; indeed, they do more lasting harm due to stigmatization.
On things like higher-quality education (e.g. better teachers, materials, extracurricular programs, access to tutoring/test prep, etc.), these have some effect and should be pursued (as opposed to more AA - though I wouldn't pursue year-round schooling); even so, these "performance gaps" will remain - only way to eliminate them is to cheat. Then they wonder why administrative cheating cases are on the rise...
"If affirmative action is abolished, selective colleges and universities will face a stark choice. They can try to manufacture diversity by giving more weight in admissions to those factors that are sometimes close substitutes for race — for example, having overcome disadvantage in a poor urban neighborhood. Or they can take a far bolder step: putting their endowments and influence behind a comprehensive effort to close the learning gap that starts at birth. Higher education has a responsibility for all of education. The job of those atop the academic pyramid is not over once they’ve enrolled a diverse freshman class."
Diversity über alles? I find it amazing that there seems to be no concern for actual Black/Hispanic educational outcomes in that NYT piece. Is getting in better than making it?
@JayMan: Thanks for the shout-out! Shoot, if NYC's specialized schools really had it out for minorities, they could've "revised" my SHSAT score down a few points and say I missed the mark (I made it into BTHS by 2 points yet managed an 88.95 cumulative average over my 4 years there - class of '03).
Now, concerning one of your points on poverty reduction, Mr. Sailer:
"A) Not let in so many poor foreigners?"
Start by tackling illegal immigration. The windfall alone would benefit our nation's poor.
"B) Encourage American poor people to have fewer children, especially not at young ages?"
As others have said (and I presume you already know), welfare reform and family planning could help.
"C) Encourage American non-poor people to have more children, especially at younger ages?"
Methinks this will be difficult. The huge responsibility of parenthood (time, finances, resources, etc.), especially among those actively pursuing education/career, is enough of a deterrent. For those with ability struggling to make it, this is especially true; having children when one is not financially stable is not a wise move, IMHO.
o/t Could you post a link to the talk by Jared Taylor at Towson University? So far it has only 4,000 viewers. and I think it deserves a little more attention.
ReplyDelete"-Truth, Truth, Truth... you disappoint me. You do it by returning things to the natural order of things, the way they've been through most of human history. Scale back gov't, Get rid of artificial supports like welfare that enable the incompetent and lazy to have far more kids than they could support on their own."
ReplyDeleteWelfare does not enable anyone to have any children in any cushy and enjoyable way. It's not enough money, no, poor people have children generally because they like having sex, and have the attitude that "we'll just deal with the consequences later." That is unaffected by "artificial supports."
"**NEWSFLASH** "having sex" doesn't have to lead to no babies, think about it, sport."
ReplyDeleteNo, and drunk driving doesn't have to lead to car accidents, but it certainly does make them more numerous.
"Gosh, Truth, I guess that you are unaware of a little thing called contraception? See, that allows people to have sex (the fun part) without having kids (the not so fun part)."
Yes, I've heard of contraception somewhere before; now what you must be unaware of is that contraception (especially the male version) tends to compromise a bit of the fun part.
Let the children without toys play charades.
ReplyDeleteOr tag.
Or let them go climb a tree, or run through a field, or hide behind rocks, or swim in a lake. Or sit and take turns telling each other stories.
Never was a child made unhappy by lack of toys. Children are made unhappy by lack of excitement, of discipline, and most of all - love. Toys do not love.
We ought not to encourage anyone to avoid having children. Instead people ought to be encouraged to have children whom they love. The problem is not that people are having too many children, it is that people are having children they do not love. They have children as a means of self-aggrandizement, or as the mere consequence of sexual gratification. Were all children loved, they would be ushered into this world by parents already prepared to care for their material, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual needs so as to help them grow into capable, responsible, happy adults.
The reason to limit the immigration of the poor is not because it is bad for Americans. It is because it is bad for immigrants. To rip a people from their ancestral homeland, to divorce them from all the emotional, spiritual, and material support human beings derive from being amongst their own people, from the spirit and memory of the past generations who lived and died in their homeland - to induce them to leave all this behind merely by paying them a little extra for their labor - this is to economize the human soul, to objectify humanity as a mere automaton worthy of no respect greater than the value of an individual's capacity for economic work. It is soulless, it is despicable, it is hateful, it is unloving. It is wrong.
- ChevalierdeJohnstone
"For instance, there are only four Whites on the Supreme Court, and no White Protestants."
ReplyDeleteWell, if you are going to exclude Jews from being white, then I think Italians should be excluded as well. So that leaves us with Roberts and Kennedy.
"So Jay-Z should have more kids than an engineer who makes 50K a year?
ReplyDeleteSelecting for wealth is dysgenic." Anon, /6 1:15p
You're kidding? You might disagree with him politically, but Jay-Z is brilliant. I would take him over a (necessarily mediocre) 50k engineer anyday.
"We ought not to encourage anyone to avoid having children. Instead people ought to be encouraged to have children whom they love." Anon /6 10:54
ReplyDeleteWhile I do think it's probably a good idea for everyone to have one kid, to motivate higher future orientations, love alone doesn't solve the exponential population growth we've been experiencing for the past 100 years. As Bob Shaw would say, "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."
"You can try to change, but that's just the top layer. Man, you was who you was 'fore you got here." Jay-Z, The Black Album
ReplyDeleteHBD friendly rap?
How to cut the poverty rate
ReplyDeleteCosta Mesa Mayor Proposes To Shut Down Soup Kitchens To Deal With Homeless Problem
October 5, 2012 6:03 PM
losangeles.cbslocal.com
COSTA MESA (CBSLA.com) — The mayor of Costa Mesa proposed to get rid of soup kitchens to deal with the area's homeless problem at a city council meeting on Tuesday.
"My belief is that if we manage to put the soup kitchen out of business that will go a long way to addressing the attractiveness in our city that’s creating a huge negative impact," Eric Bever said.
According to Bever, the "negative impact" is homeless people who like Costa Mesa because of services that offer food to less fortunate individuals...
"You're kidding? You might disagree with him politically, but Jay-Z is brilliant."
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the few commenters here who is familiar with Jay-Z's body of work. A co-worker of mine blares hip-hop radio all day. He's been doing that for years. Jay-Z is an absolute moron. If you doubt me, look up some of his "lyrics" online.
Jay-Z is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteThis is based on what exactly? Do you have an example or do you just feel dazzled by his art?
ReplyDeleteTruth:"No, and drunk driving doesn't have to lead to car accidents, but it certainly does make them more numerous."
I guess you really don't know anything about contraception..
Truth:"Yes, I've heard of contraception somewhere before; now what you must be unaware of is that contraception (especially the male version) tends to compromise a bit of the fun part."
Only for the, shall we say, sexually inexperienced, dear boy.You really need to get out more.
For that matter, there are a host of highly pleasurable activities that reduce chances of reproduction to zero.
Truth:"Welfare does not enable anyone to have any children in any cushy and enjoyable way. It's not enough money, no, poor people have children generally because they like having sex, and have the attitude that "we'll just deal with the consequences later." That is unaffected by "artificial supports.""
ReplyDeleteActually, dear boy, it's called lack of executive function..Poor people, being stupid, simply can't plan their lives properly.
As for "artificial supports," well, I would tend to imagine that lots of these low-class brats would probably end up dead, sans public assistance... A fairly effective way to reduce the surplus population.
Well, the new report on dropped of birthrates made me happy since it mention about a 6 percent drop in hispanic births. This means that it is true that some of the illegals immirgants are returning and newer groups coming in are smaller since the hispanic birthrate is finally dropping in the us.
ReplyDeleteActually, a more less equal tax system would force illegal Latins and others to pay income taxes. Get rid of the income tax credit and still keep the rates for the rich not increase. Texas has grown and if Texas would go ahead with a remittance tax on money sent back to Mexico a new regression tax then they would make some money from their illegal immirgants.
ReplyDeleteWell, its a myth that California had good schools because it spend more money like New York in the 1950's, actually most school systems spend more money today because of different special ed programs. A lot of the slow learners were placed in classes for the Mentally Retarded in the 1950's and 1960's. Los Angeles school district placed thousands of blacks and hispanics in classes for the Mentally Retarded to get higher stats. Actually California education was already pretty medocre in 1975 when tax payers were paying high property taxes I know because I graduated in 1975 and the education was already not that great.
ReplyDeleteTruth:"Yes, I've heard of contraception somewhere before; now what you must be unaware of is that contraception (especially the male version) tends to compromise a bit of the fun part."
ReplyDeleteGuess you, dear boy, aren't aware that sterilization (the, ahem, most effective form of contraception) has no effect whatsoever on the "fun part."
Offering, say, 10,000 dollars to every person who agrees to undergo sterilization would certainly diminish the numbers of the "marching morons."
The problem is that no one is willing to talk about the other obvious gap in American schools: something like 90% of scholarships for football and basketball (and track and any number of other sports) go to blacks. Why is there no giant social undertaking to close the sports gap in America? If we were, collectively, to admit that blacks are better (on average) athletically, at least in the attributes that matter for many sports, we'd have to stare the reality of biological differences in the face. And then we couldn't get away with any more wishy washy theory of mind wherein we pretend the mental gap has nothing to do with biological brains.
ReplyDeleteWe'd get the same futile results trying to close the athletic gap. Give white kids a more ghetto like environment, feed them junk food and we'll get more Honey Boo Boos, not Lebron James. The white kids will not get taller no matter the intervention, they won't jump higher, they won't develop earlier. The sports gap will prove impossible to close because, gee, it is written in the DNA. Even still, the liberal half of the population would tie itself into logical knots attempting to explain how neurons are something entirely different than fast twitch muscles, exempt from genetic reality.
As far as Steve's suggestion for the well-off to increase reproduction (and at earlier ages), I'm not sure how you manage this with the current culture. Well-off girls go to college and start careers--getting them to delay that (or even lengthen their years at school) so that men can dominate the workforce again would take a rather massive reversal of culture that doesn't seem to be on the horizon. Moreover, even were such a situation to occur, do we really see the white ruling class going back to using the white lower class as nannies? They are still going to want their Mexican nannies (or European au pairs for the very wealthy), as they view the white lower class with such contempt.
Now assuming there was somehow social will to enforce "A", then maybe we get "B" and "C" naturally (albeit painfully). But I don't see that as any sort of naturally progression, more like the after effects of a cultural phase transition from a major culturally disruptive event.
the statement that "discrimination against Whites in this country is now as big, if not bigger, than against blacks".
ReplyDeleteSurprisingly, 25 % of blacks agreed.
I suspect a large percentage of blacks misunderstood the statement as worded and answered randomly, with the usual bias towards agreeing.
Wouldn't the most effective ways to reduce the percentage of people in America living in poverty be:
ReplyDeleteA) Not let in so many poor foreigners?
B) Encourage American poor people to have fewer children, especially not at young ages?
C) Encourage American non-poor people to have more children, especially at younger ages?
Yes, yes, yes. Tyler Cowen recently posted a vapid piece on reducing hunger in Africa.
The truth is there are two ways to eliminate poverty: (1) people can decide to stop having children they can't provide for and (2) someone else can make that decision for them.
ReplyDelete" It is not true white women are big AA beneficiaries. The most obvious evidence is a quick look at the employees of any government office. The only time you really see them get a big boost is where they are very scarce, like the navy or in sciences, but by definition there will be few actual beneficiaries. Further, since most white women have white husbands and children, the economic effect of it is fairly small"
Also look at who get promoted to administrative positions in schools. Usually when it's a woman, it's a minority woman. In fact I've noticed there are hardly any white female administrators.
Many of the religious poor will balk at the idea of breaking the first commandment "be fruitful and multiply". Even atheists have to concede that there is something morbid and pathetic about looking inward and coming to the conclusion that, although my genes have survived to to this point, they are not worth passing on.
ReplyDeleteOnce a person decides not to reproduce what is their motivation in life, a comfortable retirement? And what will they do with that retirement? When the "golden" years arrive, who will wipe the drool from your chin? In whose basement apartment will you spend the last 10 or so years? Who will make sure the nursing home is providing decent care?
Socially, when everyone else is talking about their children's accomplishments and little else, what will you have to offer, an account of how you won a battle for the position as Assistant Cleaning Supervisor by being available nights, weekends and holidays?
Let's face it, when you start wearing diapers again, and retelling stories every 5 minutes, the only people who will care about you will be your children, even your close friends will leave you when you start retelling stories every half hour - your company will only depress them and remind them of their own mortality.
If we are going ask anyone to live a eusocial, childless life, we will be obliged to offer them the compassionate out of assisted suicide.
Take it from an old altar boy who served dozens of funerals, most childless people die without anyone shedding a single tear.
"If affirmative action is abolished, selective colleges and universities will face a stark choice. They can try to manufacture diversity by giving more weight in admissions to those factors that are sometimes close substitutes for race — for example, having overcome disadvantage in a poor urban neighborhood. Or they can take a far bolder step: putting their endowments and influence behind a comprehensive effort to close the learning gap that starts at birth. Higher education has a responsibility for all of education. The job of those atop the academic pyramid is not over once they’ve enrolled a diverse freshman class."
ReplyDeleteThere's another choice. They can give up their fetish for diversity altogether. Contrary to what the author implies, it is not the job of a university to promote diversity.
"Truth said...
ReplyDelete""...B) Encourage American poor people to have fewer children, especially not at young ages?
And how, Steve do you think that you will encourage people who have nothing interesting to do but have sex to stop having sex,......"
Quite simply by NOT paying for it anymore. Society needs to get dickensian on their asses. No TANF, no SNAP, no anything of the kind. He who shall not work, neither shall he eat. The poor will then have other things to occupy them, perhaps not interesting to them, but of paramount importance none-the-less.
Welfare does not enable anyone to have any children in any cushy and enjoyable way. It's not enough money, no, poor people have children generally because they like having sex, and have the attitude that "we'll just deal with the consequences later." That is unaffected by "artificial supports."
ReplyDeleteThe poor should be paid not to have kids (or to have fewer kids). You can still pay them if they do happen to have kids. You just need to pay them more if they don't. That way the incentives are aligned with the result you want to achieve. And at least with this form of welfare you get a return on your investment, in the form of fewer helpless and hopeless hungry mouths to feed, lower future crime levels and, out into the distant future, widespread cultural acceptance of population control/demographic management as a core necessity of sustainability.
Many of the religious poor will balk at the idea of breaking the first commandment "be fruitful and multiply".
ReplyDeleteIt can be made clear to them that humans (including Christian humans) have already accomplished that, we've already been fruitful and already multiplied. It won't please the hardcore fruitcakes among them but this explanation should satisfy the milder types, who can then duke it out with the hardnuts themselves.
I think there are things that would improve education for poor blacks children, but they are things like stricter discipline, fundamentals based curriculum with more memorization and vocation training. I don't think liberals will be advocating these things anytime soon.
ReplyDelete"'Jay-Z is brilliant.'
ReplyDeleteThis is based on what exactly? Do you have an example or do you just feel dazzled by his art?" Anon 10/7 7:25a
http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Oprah-Interviews-Jay-Z-October-2009-Issue-of-O-Magazine/3
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_jayz's_IQ_score#ixzz28e8ZI2x5
"Oprah said that he tested to a 12th grade level as a 6th grader, and he agreed. Assuming he was 12 in 6th grade, and the average 12th grader is 17, his iq is (17/12)x100 =141.66667."
Sounds reasonable. Not exactly brilliant, but IQ doesn't necessarily capture creativity. I don't know where that comes out on an adult scale, with potentially higher black maturation rates, and regression to the mean if we're still considering the question of Jay-z vs 50k/yr engineer having kids, but I bet Jay-Z's kids would be quite competitive.
Personally, I like Jay-Z's music and my impression is that most engineers making 50k have a credential, often for pushing papers, and aren't doing anything particullarly innovative; so I'll roll the dice on creativity and whatever else else has made Jay-Z who he is. Move the line to 100k-Engineer, and I might make the same choice, but I wouldn't try to defend it.
think about it, sport
ReplyDeleteBut my sister the PP manager says black girls tell her black men won't allow birth control.
Re: Jay-Z ... The man has done pretty well for himself in the marriage department.
ReplyDeleteKind of like how I keep reading denunciations of Marcus Mumford of the quasi-Christian alt rock band Mumford & Sons as obviously uncool. Mumford just married leading lady Carrie Mulligan.
"Also look at who get promoted to administrative positions in schools. Usually when it's a woman, it's a minority woman. In fact I've noticed there are hardly any white female administrators."
ReplyDeleteGranted, I've yet to meet a white lady principal, but if we're talking top administrators- the assholes who don't even have to be in the same building with kids- it's a whole different story. Compared to the US demographic stats, the number of white women in top education administrative positions is smaller than that of the minority men and women (in fact, in might be smaller in the absolute too), but there's still a whole army of them.
And they are the most vile ones there. Most of the minority admins are either spiteful, but comically stupid or stupid in that nice, nurturing way. Not so with the white women admins. They tend to be intelligent enough to not say or do anything unintentionally funny, and they are sadistic voltures. Not only do they enjoy forcing elderly teachers jump, skip and squat during their useless professional development classes, but they also require everyone to come up with unique compliments for them (about a third of the time is designated to taking turns telling these "leaders" how great their insight is, how and why exactly you personally think it is great and how it will change the way you teach and improve your outcome) and grade teachers on their perceived enjoyment of the degrading ordeal. I once got a bad grade and was required to repeat the "class" because I offered to do the weird jump squats instead of the 60 year old. Apparentely, I ruined the game or something.
Oh, and I've never seen any other type of a professional give a speech that was nothing but self praise at a conference or motion for the subordinates to continue clapping in his/her honor. Btw, these were not isolated incidents.
And did I ever mention that the process of becoming a better teacher involves having these thing observe us in class for 20 minutes (or until they get bored or want a cup of coffee) and then listen to them "debrief" us, an activity during which we are literally not allowed to say a word, not even to explain the context of what had been observed? The grand finale of this activity is, by protocol, the expression of gratitude by the teacher and a detailed explanation of how and why exactly the teacher and her students will benifit greatly from this administrator's important work.
The minority admins tend to seem very happy while receiving all this praise and are easily satisfied that we mean it. The rare white guy usually seems like your typical ultra liberal awkward dude who just wants to be liked. But the white female administrators tend to be sadistic sociopaths about the whole thing. Not only do they grade everyone down, but they make us work hard at the stage where we are supposed to assure them of their monumental importance. It can go on for 30 minutes. They are also the only ones who remember the incredibly bad advise that they'd given last time ("Why don't you partner this huge violent retard with that tiny ultra shy girl who is mourning the death of her mother? They could learn from each other." or "The out of control kids would behave a lot better if you conducted math class ouside! Be creative!") and they get pissed off that their suggestions aren't implemented enough.
I have nothing against women and nothing against white people. In fact, I think that a lot of us white women are pretty great, as far as people go. But there must be some mechanism that selects for harmful personality disorders when it comes to white women advancing in education administration. These people are certfiable.
"For that matter, there are a host of highly pleasurable activities that reduce chances of reproduction to zero."
ReplyDeleteYeah, Sport, but most don't involve another person.
"something like 90% of scholarships for football and basketball (and track and any number of other sports) go to blacks"
ReplyDeleteThat's completely false.
"Quite simply by NOT paying for it anymore."
ReplyDeleteYeah, no one in Africa has kids.
"I'm one of the few commenters here who is familiar with Jay-Z's body of work. A co-worker of mine blares hip-hop radio all day."
I bet you stand at the edge of the guy's desk all day with your cigarette lighter extended overhead.
What you need to close is the damn gap btwn these womens' legs....
ReplyDelete"And how, Steve do you think that you will encourage people who have nothing interesting to do but have sex to stop having sex, while simultaneously encouraging people for whom having sex could severely infringe on all of their interesting 21st century hobbies, to start having sex?"
ReplyDeleteMay I give it a try?
1. First and for most, the most dysfunctional shouldn't be given a choice. I'm talking about the women who keep showing up the hospital to give birth to a drug addicted or FAS child. It wouldn't be too Orwellian to tie their tubes after they give birth to the third such baby. Where I currently live, these types of women often have over 10 children.
2. How about a vasactomy become a part of anyone's SECOND conviction for violent crimes. Again, not too orwellian. Lower class women seem to love thugs, so let them love without bringing little children into the mix to suffer.
3. Require any woman recieving any type of government aid to get a birth control implant. This should include those receiving federal education grants.
4. Sinse so many functional people delay having children due to concerns about neighbirhood safety and quality of schools, perhaps a few things shoukd be done to address these concerns.
Firstly, from where I'm watching the world right now, not enough people are jailed. Those who threaten physical safety and property of others shouls be rounded up more aggressively, punished harsher and kept away longer.
People with history of violent crime should be descriminated against more and they should absolutely not be allowed in jobs that would place them anywhere around normal, respectable human beings and their children.
As far as quality of education, a voucher system I could get behind is one in which parents would form co-ops, pull their vouchers together and create learning institutions for their children with like-minded individuals. Nobody would be forced into a co-op, and no one would be able to force their way into one either. Anyone would be able to leave and everyone could be voted out. Currently, the US government spends just a little over 11,000 per student, on average. If parents had access to, say, 6000/year to spend on their kids' education as they see fit, a group of 12 families could easily find an eagger, capable teacher with high test scores, stellar recommendations and a good vibe, secure a space and find all the necessary equipment. They would even be able to afford sports and music instruction or educational travel, if that's what they wanted. I imagine, some of these co-ops would grow to 100s of participating families and they would come to resemble well-run, functioning public schools in today's rich suburbs. As a result, good, functional people who plan for their children' future wouldn't have to save for 15 years just so their children wouldn't be ignored, underserved and downright attacked by a system that caters to the violent, emotionally disturbed and differently abled children of the unprodoctive parents whose values are directly opposite to those of the good people who we'd like to have more children.
I am biologically childless by choice. I am also a dedicated white nationalist who wants more white children, so long as they are GOOD white children.
ReplyDeleteMy genes suck. I have diabetes, 20/200 vision uncorrected, and one leg one inch shorter than the other. No kid should be born with my genes, so I had a vasectomy at 28.
I have a sister who is in and out of the bug house and will be for life. I have a brother who is a medical retiree at 47 due to diabetes and two colon surgeries. Our family tree should come to an end, and it has, because we have all been fixed.
I am married with a wife and two children conceived by artificial insemination. My kids are great and will not suffer from our family genetic issues. My wife was glad to do this. She is a nurse, we got the semen from men we know and I inseminated her with a syringe. (Both were doctors, one an eminent neurosurgeon.)
There should be powerful incentives for low IQ, violent, or physically impaired people to be sterilized. Not only should their genes not survive, they can't do a very good job of raising kids either.
Well, if you are going to exclude Jews from being white, then I think Italians should be excluded as well. So that leaves us with Roberts and Kennedy.
ReplyDeleteI exclude Jews from certain definitions of white, but not Italians, because Italians do not have the qualities that led me to exclude Jews from whiteness:
Jews Are Not White
"May I give it a try?"
ReplyDeleteI think you succeeded very well. That is the kind of America that I, and I think everyone who reads this blog, dreams about.
"May I give it a try?
ReplyDelete1. First and for most, the most dysfunctional shouldn't be given a choice..."
Let me guess, you're a libertarian?
"I am biologically childless by choice. I am also a dedicated white nationalist who wants more white children"
ReplyDeleteSorry Sport, the two are mutually exclusive; you don't get to play golf on the weekend while chastising others for not changing diapers.
"Let me guess, you're a libertarian?"
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure where you're going with this, Truth. To answer your question, I would say that I consider each issue separately instead of aligning myself with a particular political party.
But getting back to the topic, is there anything specific that you see wrong with the measures I propose? A woman who has degenerated so far into alcoholism that she gives birth to 3 FAS babies in a row is clearly not in control of her faculties and can't make adult decisions. As a society, we take it upon ourselves to step in and prevent this woman from dying a hungry death while doing what we can to promote the compromised health of her children. We do so because we see suffering of any living creature, above all that of human beings, to be a very bad thing that needs to be stopped. In cases such as this, wouldn't preventing further suffering (without destroying existing lives) be the humane thing to do? The same goes for the repeat violent offenders. Clearly, such a man is either unable to control himself or the welfare of his children simply isn't a priority for him. Either way, such a criminal is neither good father material nor is he likely to ever help raise his children in any way. Plus, the women who tend to be attracted to repeat violent offenders are the same women who smoke throughout their pregnancies and neglect their children's medical appointments. Why subject innocent beings to such parentage? Whose rights are you protecting and at whose expense? Have you ever been in a room full of FAS kids? Ever seen a 6 year old with both eyes swollen shut? We shouldn't put more children in these situations. We have the foresight
My genes suck. I have diabetes, 20/200 vision uncorrected, and one leg one inch shorter than the other. No kid should be born with my genes, so I had a vasectomy at 28.
ReplyDeleteI have a sister who is in and out of the bug house and will be for life. I have a brother who is a medical retiree at 47 due to diabetes and two colon surgeries. Our family tree should come to an end, and it has, because we have all been fixed.
I am married with a wife and two children conceived by artificial insemination. My kids are great and will not suffer from our family genetic issues. My wife was glad to do this. She is a nurse, we got the semen from men we know and I inseminated her with a syringe. (Both were doctors, one an eminent neurosurgeon.)
Man, reading this post made my day.
These aren't steps that EVERYONE should have to take, nor the majority of people, but it'd be a damn fine thing if this sort of behavior was widespread, socially accepted, and respected as the height of prudence.
Maya, you sound very bitter. It's quite possible that you, personally, are teaching excellence personified, but if most teachers in those schools are drawn from the dregs of the pass-them-at-all-costs modern credentialist university system, isn't just possible they require the careful monitoring that so flusters you, you know, just to keep from doing something seriously stupid or cruel? Just thinking aloud.
ReplyDeleteTruth,
ReplyDeleteSorry Sport, the two are mutually exclusive
There's nothing "mutually exclusive" about it. Stop using big words. You could accuse him of hypocrisy. You would be wrong, but at least you wouldn't sound like such a fool.
"is there anything specific that you see wrong with the measures I propose?"
ReplyDeleteSpecific, well, we can start with it probably being illegal, as any member of the supreme court would rule contrary to the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The document uses as its cornerstone the concept of unalienable rights:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unalienable_rights
The libertarian thing was a joke, what you propse, Maya, a system of forced surgery and the rest is basically facism at the simplest definition of the word. Hitler would have left Eva Braun for you!
"There's nothing "mutually exclusive" about it."
ReplyDeleteActually you have a point; I should have written "should be" mutually exclusive rather than "are."
Well, Costa Mesa could really deal with poverty by stop hiring illegal immirgants for jobs. The homeless problem is small. Almost most of the schools in Costa Mesa are the children of illegal immirgants or grandchildren of people legalized by REagan.
ReplyDelete"Truth said...
ReplyDelete""Quite simply by NOT paying for it anymore.""
Yeah, no one in Africa has kids."
Well, we help pay for them too, don't we? Anyway, this isn't Africa. It takes money to live in America, and with less of it, the lower orders will produce fewer children. They will still produce them, as you point out, but fewer.
"Hitler would have left Eva Braun for you!"
ReplyDeleteSo you see your own cruel attitude towards children born with predictable severe defects and children suffering predictable abuse as some sort of a fight against Hitler?
Or is anything that Hitler might have liked or done evil by definition? Including having sex with women, being nice to puppy dogs, eating lots of veggies and wearing funny hats? If your reaction to what I wrote were based on real values, you'd be able to voice it without resorting to proxies.
As far as forced surgeries go, that happens all the time in America. The whole reason we have the Supreme Court debating over various issues is that The Declaration of Independence isn't all that clear when it comes to certain situations. It's not self-determination when it comes to medical decisions, but reproductive rights that are held as sacred in America, for some stupid reason. Parents can make all kinds of decisions regarding their daughter's treatment for cancer or lupus, but they can't force her to have an abortion or keep the baby. Legal guardians make all the arrangements and decide everything including that which is health-related for the mentally disabled, yet sterilizing these types of people violates some sort of a human right in America. Of course, any child that might result from such a person being fertile doesn't deserve consideration, the poor bastard, right Truth? Btw, in most of the civilized world, those who are either permenantly institutionalized or require a legal guardian into adulthood due to mental disability are usually sterilized as a rule. It's the humane thing to do- make these beings as happy and comfortable as possible while preventing further human misery.
Honestly, though, Truth. From the little you revealed about yourself, I hesitate to believe that you support what you claim to support here, and reject what you seem to reject. I'd guess that you're a compulsive devil's advocate. After all, you're just a normal, functional middle class guy with values that are much closer to those of...heck, those of Whiskey than to those of an average thug. Your or your son's chances of being convicted of a violent crime even once are roughly zero (it would be something like what happened to the main character in Shawshank Redemption, I imagine) while the chances that either of you will be attacked by a disturbed creature who started out in a womb of a neglectful, abusive drug addict are much, much higher.
"Maya, you sound very bitter. It's quite possible that you, personally, are teaching excellence personified, but if most teachers in those schools are drawn from the dregs of the pass-them-at-all-costs modern credentialist university system, isn't just possible they require the careful monitoring that so flusters you, you know, just to keep from doing something seriously stupid or cruel? Just thinking aloud."
ReplyDeleteThinking is good.
I'm nowhere near perfection when it comes to teaching. In fact, I could use some helpful advise, and I really, REALLY could have used some seriouse mentoring in my first year. Too bad these "education leaders" aren't there to provide anything of the sort. They are useless, overpaid cogs who spout political propoganda. And I am not sure where you got the idea that anyone is being monitored carefully? The admins show up at irregular intervals (some of them are MIA for months), they change often and their observations are usually very, very short. They never ask any questions and they don't allow questions to be asked of them. I remember my first time I couldn't wait for one of them to come see me. Silly me, I thought these were the people who were supposed to help me become a better teacher, and I had a bunch of personal shortcomings that I wanted to air out in hopes that these "professionals" would have some ideas regarding things I could do to improve. No such luck. I wasn't allowed to talk at all, and the creature droned on about how wrong it was of me to segregate the kids by gender (actually, she mistook more than several girls for boys, but I couldn't correct her). Then, when I thought it was my turn to talk and attempted to bring up somethings that seemed important to me, the creature sternly redirected me to stick to the proceedure outlined in the handout and come up with 4 reasons why this whole ordeal was helpful to me and my students. And so it went from then on, and so it goes for every other teacher I know in my district.
Btw, I'm not saying it's impossible that some teachers do cruel and stupid things to kids. What I find funny is your belief that admins are incapable of cruel and stupid advise. The only directions they've ever given me would have resulted in cruelty and stupidity. At the very least, teachers know the kids that they deal with while the out of school admins only know what the kids are supposed to be like according to their political ideology. Hint: their political ideology causes broken noses, wasting time and severe bullying of the kids who are actually academically inclined. It's very telling that the admins who lead forced PD classes for teachers never ever agree to demonstrate their methods on a class of actual kids. In fact, they tend to get pissed ff when some new teacher suggests it.
And you're damn right I'm bitter. I have to watch as self-important jerks only a decade older than me torture the elderly by insisting that they clear the ground multiple times doing bunny hops or by ordering them to squat over and over again, and I'm powerless to stop it.
Truth:"Specific, well, we can start with it probably being illegal, as any member of the supreme court would rule contrary to the Declaration of Independence:"
ReplyDeleteMight want to refresh your memory on constitutional law, dear boy. The Supreme Court (in theory) judges laws according to their constitutionality (i.e., according to the Constitution). The Declaration has no legal force in American law.
Syon
Svigor;"I exclude Jews from certain definitions of white, but not Italians, because Italians do not have the qualities that led me to exclude Jews from whiteness:
ReplyDeleteJews Are Not White"
Ah, the Rassenpapst is back in action. Sadly, dear boy, no one cares about your definition of Whiteness....except, perhaps, as a source of amusement.Well, I, at least, found your site to be hysterical.
Syon
Truth:"Yeah, Sport, but most don't involve another person."
ReplyDeleteDear boy, you have been with a girl, haven't you? There is more to sex with a girl than just inserting prong (A) into hole (B).Try going to the library; they must have some old copies of THE JOY OF SEX lying around.
Syon
"For that matter, there are a host of highly pleasurable activities that reduce chances of reproduction to zero."
ReplyDeleteTruth;"Yeah, Sport, but most don't involve another person."
MMM...Are NAMs actually that uncreative in bed? Do they really think that the only activity that a man and a women can engage in is the old in-and-out?More proof, then, of their lower mental capacities.The "paying them 10,000 dollars in exchange for sterilization" plan looks even better now.
Syon
A woman who can carry 3 babies to term with 'FAS' (a mostly subjective diagnosis, incidentally)while nourishing an appalling alcohol habit is actually more genetically robust than the weird dude who chose to ART-cuckold himself for loltastic reasons.
ReplyDeleteWomen who can consistently carry to term despite doing rough stuff to their bodies are robust and warrant a bit more than blanket dismissal or sterilization.
"Women who can consistently carry to term despite doing rough stuff to their bodies are robust and warrant a bit more than blanket dismissal or sterilization."
ReplyDeleteWell, I think it would be inhumane to study such a woman in a laratory like a rat, but maybe you could talk her into it by offering ample financial compensation.
Does these women's ability to carry to term despite raging alcoholism/drug addictions indicate superior genes? Perhaps. However, they choose to make sure that their kids don't benefit from this genetic gift. Three women are respinsible for the majority of my school's special ed population. The children have facial deformities, are mentally retarded, have eyes that vibrate from side to side, very poor vission overall, severe problems with digestion, problems with incontinence and so on. However, it should be noted that in one such group of siblings, only 10 are afflicted while the 11th (he is the 3rd born) is in the gifted program and he won the school's spelling bee. I remember that day. Mom promised to come watch him spell, but she didn't show. The boy was overjoyed anyway.
"weird dude who chose to ART-cuckold himself for loltastic reasons."
I understand this is surprising or even disgusting to you, but some people are more than reptiles and aren't driven primarily by the need to pass on their genes, no matter the cost. Some people are compassionate and would rather their children be happy than genetecally related to themselves.
"Well, we help pay for them too, don't we?"
ReplyDeleteNo, with the cheap labor they provide in the oilfields, coffee farms and diamond mines, they pay for yours.
"These aren't steps that EVERYONE should have to take, nor the majority of people, but it'd be a damn fine thing if this sort of behavior was widespread, socially accepted, and respected as the height of prudence."
If he are so genetically inferior as that you don't feel comfortable conceiving children, what makes you sure that he is genetically qualified to raise them?
"As far as forced surgeries go, that happens all the time in America"
ReplyDeleteIt does?
" Btw, in most of the civilized world, those who are either permenantly institutionalized"
They are?
" I'd guess that you're a compulsive devil's advocate."
I am.
"After all, you're just a normal, functional middle class guy with values that are much closer to those of...heck, those of Whiskey than to those of an average thug."
Thanks, I guess.
" The Declaration has no legal force in American law."
ReplyDeleteThen why'd they write it?
"Professor John Eidsmoe writes:
"The role of the Declaration of Independence in American law is often misconstrued. Some believe the Declaration is simply a statement of ideas that has no legal force whatsoever today. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Declaration has been repeatedly cited by the U.S. Supreme Court as part of the fundamental law of the United States of America..."
http://www.nccs.net/newsletter/jun98nl.html
"[I]f we're talking top administrators- the assholes who don't even have to be in the same building with kids..."
ReplyDeleteI really, really wish I could add "Maya's Education Blog" to my blog feed.
Then, when I thought it was my turn to talk and attempted to bring up somethings that seemed important to me, the creature sternly redirected me to stick to the proceedure outlined in the handout and come up with 4 reasons why this whole ordeal was helpful to me and my students. And so it went from then on, and so it goes for every other teacher I know in my district.
ReplyDeleteSee, you're an intelligent and reasonable young girl and the whole thing strikes you as ridiculous. I don't blame you for feeling that way. But stop and think for a moment of the kinds of teachers with whom rules like this were dreamed up in mind. I have to believe it was decades of experience with some real hardcases (teachers, not kids) that made it this way. My guess is that long experience has taught administrators that teachers like this can't be dealt with in any way but sternly and firmly. (They could be wrong about that, but you can see how they'd reach that conclusion.) I can sympathize if some of it spills over to you, where it's probably undeserved, but ah, such is life now isn't it. Just think: if it weren't for these experiences would your support for eminently sensible measures like sterilization be so enthusiastic and heartfelt?
If he are so genetically inferior as that you don't feel comfortable conceiving children, what makes you sure that he is genetically qualified to raise them?
ReplyDeleteTruth, you are seriously, seriously blinded by bitterness. It's just unreal. Why otherwise would you resort to such an absurd non sequitur? The reasons he prefers not to pass on his genes have nothing to do with his abilities to raise children, sheesh. If you've learned anything from this blog (an open question, if you ask me) it's that nurture matters, but nature matters more. However much it may sting each or any one of us personally to contemplate it, superior genes+inferior parenting is better for society as a whole than inferior genes+superior parenting.
Truth:"Then why'd they write it?"
ReplyDeleteMMM...., Maybe to declare their independence?
Truth:""Professor John Eidsmoe writes:
"The role of the Declaration of Independence in American law is often misconstrued. Some believe the Declaration is simply a statement of ideas that has no legal force whatsoever today. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Declaration has been repeatedly cited by the U.S. Supreme Court as part of the fundamental law of the United States of America...""
Hey, Truth, you picked one hell of a legal scholar:
"John Eidsmoe is an attorney and a professor of constitutional law and related subjects. He has previously taught at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, Faulkner University, Montgomery, Alabama, and at the O. W. Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University.[1]"(wikipedia)
Seriously, who could argue law with a man who actually taught at such a revered institution as Oral Roberts University.Perhaps a another peak at this legal titan would be illuminating:
"Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has described Eidsmoe as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me", "a wonderful man", and "absolutely brilliant." She worked for him while a law student at Oral Roberts as a research assistant on Christianity and the Constitution.[6] In 2011, he said he felt Bachmann's views were in agreement with those taught at ORU and expressed in his book that she worked on."(wikipedia)
Words of praise from michelle Bachmann...what more could anyone ask for?
Seems that your chosen legal genius seems to hold some rather interesting view, Truth dear boy:
"Eidsmoe has stirred some controversy in his outside lecturing. In 2005, he spoke to the national convention of the Council of Conservative Citizens and in 2010 he addressed an event commemorating Alabama's Secession Day where he told an interviewer that it was Alabama's “constitutional right to secede,” and that “Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun understood the Constitution better than did Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Webster.”" (wikipedia)
Truth, I had no idea that you were so chummy with Confederate apologists.
Syon
Call me a cock-eyed optimist but I think the Supreme Court will eviscerate Affirmative Action this session.
ReplyDeleteIf not this session then soon. Perhaps if Romney wins he will appoint another strict constructionist to the highest bench. A significant segment of the judiciary has been unhappy with the manifest unfairness of AA ever since Nixon introduced it.
In a way it's like the issue of slavery at the Constitutional Convention. The Founders decided to just tread water for a while. They put off trying to resolve it. That is what America has done for decades now with Affirmative Action. It's obviously an idea at loggerheads with basic American values but everyone hesitates to correct it.
I just hope that the Civil War doesn't get renamed as the First Civil War.
Albertosaurus