Indoctrination or Stupidity?...

...Is there a difference? Well, yes, there is. But I'm not certain I'd run this opinion piece by my students, no matter what the tetrad. On the other hand, perhaps it might be advisable to occasionally remind students that there are indeed a few supporters of the Dred Scott decision here and there -- even in good, old, enlightened 21st Century America. (Or am I going too far?)

The piece begins provocatively enough:

I'M WHITE, and I'm not voting for Barack Obama...

And from there on, it's all downhill. At one point, we are told:

...Obama is in so many ways the Great Black Hope...

The author is Christine M. Flowers. She is a lawyer. This opinion piece was published in the Philadelphia Daily News. And if someone confronts me with that tired jive about Obama as "the darling of the Eastern Establishment liberal media," I'll have them attempt to explain Christine M. Flowers.

Invention or Indoctrination?

Assuming one were teaching a composition class in the History/Political Science tetrad, how would the instructor facilitate the subject of the post below?

I'm not sure I would want to; my tendency to hide my political leanings from my students might well evaporate. I am constantly en garde with reference to a teaching strategy that might very well resemble indoctrination. Even if students happen to present an argument that I am in agreement with, I challenge them with a counter-argument.

And there are counter-arguments that could be presented to establish a justification for AIG's week of partying at the St. Regis Spa in California. (Among the revelers, there were actually only 10 AIG representatives present. Besides, the week had been planned and scheduled before the bailout had been requested and granted. Et cetera.) And there are counter-counter-arguments. (Whether there were 10 or 20 AIG employees, what difference does that make? And even if the big, expensive celebration was already scheduled, why could it not be cancelled?) And there are, of course, counter-counter-counter rejoinders...

The first strategy that comes to mind would be an in-class debate. Fine, but how would you set that up? What would the rules be? Would the teacher serve as judge and evaluator, or would a panel of students serve in that capacity? Would the format include both uninterrupted vocal delivery as well as a verbal free-for-all among all participants? What about readings beforehand? Not just recent news articles, but one concerning the ethics of business practice in a global economy, or a Paul Krugman or David Brooks op-ed piece.

And oh yes, where would writing come in? Oh, well. Just thinking out loud...

Party Time!

If I had it to do over again, I would have majored in business. Here's why. It's a bill from a fashionable spa in sunny California. Note the grand total. 443,000 smackeroo's. Whew!

And who's being billed all that money?...Why none other than AIG. You've heard of them, right? They're a big Wall Street outfit that was about to go belly-up last month, until the government rode to the rescue with $85 billion of taxpayer moolah.

And what's the first thing AIG does with all that brand new inflow of bail-out capital from Uncle Sam? Why they throw a big shindig for the boys in the sales department for a job well done.

Oh, brother! Did I ever get in the wrong racket ?!

UPDATE!

Even after all the hullabaloo created by AIG's half-million dollar weeklong post-bailout vacation, Treasury Secretary Henry "Swifty" Paulson has decided to award the troubled company an additional $37.8 billion in federal subsidies.

All of which gives more and more credence to conspiratorial claims on the part of some observers that Bush and Paulson and Wall Street have successfuly engineered the greatest bank robbery in history -- and with the sanction of Congress to boot. The result: a sudden and massive redistribution of wealth under the guise of a $750 billion loan.

...Or is there an alternative interpretation?



NO. NOT IN A MILLION YEARS!

Montaigne's Medallion

Viewed my old VHS copy of "Quiz Show" last Sunday afternoon. It's the film about the Columbia U English prof who gets caught up in the NBC quiz-show scandals of 1957-58.



At one point in the film, the prof is seen lecturing his students on Michel Montaigne, informing them that the essayist used to sport a medallion with the words, "What do I know?" Interesting -- and an irony too, in light of the fact that the prof himself will soon be challenged by a Congressional investigator with regard to that very same question.

Why Did I Despise the Dallas Cowboys?...

...Because it was fun. Great fun.

Years ago, I used to follow professional football religiously. I don't use that adverb lightly either. To many in this state, the 'Boys were a religion. What was it the Cowboy fanatic said about their stadium in Irving with the "hole" in the roof?:

"Well, y'see, that hole was put thar so God can watch His team play."



For years, the Dallas franchise advertised itself as "America's Team." It didn't matter that no one but Texans actually swallowed that drool. Because when you discuss football in the Lone Star State, you'd better not diss the boys with that lone star on their helmets. That star is no mere pentigram; it's the equivalent of a halo.

Now admittedly, Texas actually had not one, but two NFL teams. But Cowboy fans were loathe to admit the reality of anything other than the legitimacy of their own obsession. And as far as that Houston team went? Well, sheeeeeeee. That lowly football club down in the Bayou weren't nothin' to talk about. To local sports fans, they were about as interesting to follow as a ladies' field-hockey expansion club.

One summer, a hurricane just brushed the city of Corpus Christi, and the local TV station that carried all the Cowboys games was knocked off the air. The station could have fixed the problem in a day or so....if it weren't for the fact that their nifty, conscientious maintenance department didn't stock the spare part to repair their transmission problems. The part had to be back-ordered from the factory. As a result, it took over two weeks for them to reestablish a signal.

Fans of "Knot's Landing" and "Dallas" and "Falcon Crest" didn't mind; after all, it was the re-run season. The daytime soap-opera fans didn't mind; the stories moved so slowly, who could possibly notice the difference if two weeks were missing? And what about the news junkies? No, they weren't put out by the missing TV station either. They all thought Cronkite, the network anchorman, was a "pinko" anyway. Besides, there was always HBO and the other 5 stations on cable.

Now losing one out of five local TV stations was not exactly the Tragedy of the Century. It certainly didn't rank right up there with the Depression or the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. So did Cowboy fans take it all in stride when they were denied their weekly fix of meaningless Dallas exhibition games? No sirree, they did not! And for the next fateful 14 days or so, the owner and the general manager of the station were snowed under with a blizzard of invective and hate-mail and phone calls from anonymous fans who swore the station owner would meet his fate one night soon, in a dark, deserted alley. You see, when you mess with fans of God's team, you also risk suffering His wrath.

I was probably the only sports fan in the city who didn't miss those 2 games; I had ceased devoting myself to Cowboymania in 1977, after they drafted a running-back from Pitt, Tony Dorsett, in the first round. A real character, this Dorsett. Immediately after signing his contract, he called a press conference to announce he was changing the pronunciation of his name, from DOR-sett, to Dor-SETT. Amazing! What was Tom Landry smoking the day he settled on this guy?

So I began dissing the 'Boys. I did it in public too. Despite the number of Cowboy-hotheads in the vicinity, no one challenged me to a fistfight. Nothing that drastic. After all, these 20-something macho Dallas fans were also my friends from high-school and even long before. And it amused me no end to go to their homes or apartments and munch their snacks and guzzle their beer and watch all the games on their sets and thank them for their hospitality by laughing out loud every time Roger Staubach was sacked by a 300-pound defensive lineman, or when Drew Pearson fumbled a Hail-Mary bomb in the end-zone, or when the speedy Tony Dor-SETT ricocheted off a noseguard and was dropped behind the line of scrimmage to set up a fourth-and-26. To most Texans, dissing the Cowboys was like taking a dump in the middle of a Papal Mass. You simply didn't do it. It wasn't accepted behavior.

Predictably, the invitations from friends to watch games on Sunday afternoon trickled down to nothing. But I didn't mind. I discovered new obsessions to keep me occupied. But more about those later...