Never mind the cartoon’s irony, that bin Laden had for years mocked America as a “paper lion” and himself been aggrandized as a “Lion of Islam.”

Never mind Leftists screeching against President George W. Bush’s “triumphalism.”

Never mind the First Amendment, or that President Obama had publicly exploited “The Lion King” narrative to ridicule the “Birther” movement in general, and Donald Trump in particular only four days prior at the annual gala dinner event for White House Correspondents, April 30:

—–

Political Correctness grievance-mongers from the university’s African American Student Services (AASS) stormed into action, labeling the cartoon “culturally insensitive, racial propaganda,” and demanding retractions and (show trial) apologies from the newspaper and its editor, Chris Quintana, who hastily and cravenly complied.

AASS’ Christina Foster shouted to a group of 30-strong protesters:

“This is a continual use of racial propaganda… And I stand here today to tell you that is not what we’re going to stand for. This racial propaganda was used to justify the use of slavery and to keep the institution of slavery alive in this nation.”

Christina & Co., how exactly do you believe an obscure political cartoon in a university newspaper can have the power to subvert the fact that it’s 2011, and America has elected a black president, members of Congress, confirmed black Supreme Court Justices, Secretaries of State, etc., but will cause the nation to regress towards slavery? Ridiculous soft bigotry.

Out of curiosity, one could ask where AASS et al. stood when such truly racist political cartoons as this were in circulation? Silently by, one presumes.

The big picture is, of course, that we live in a time of groupthink race-arsonists – coddled by academic/media/governmental nannies — desperate to retain their heckler’s veto power to stifle legitimate and varying viewpoints in the arena of ideas.

First they came for the Danish cartoons… What now?

“Intellect loses its virtue when it ceases to seek truth and turns to the pursuit of political ends.” – Robert H. Bork

Mr. Guzzardi writes:

…population control [is] the ultimate green practice. As long as the most environmentally enlightened Americans ignore the relationship between population growth and environmental sustainability, then America will lose the green fight. In the 1970s, reducing population was so mainstream that biologist and Stanford University Professor Paul Ehrlich regularly appeared on the Johnny Carson Show as an advocate. Today, it’s rarely mentioned…  

[A] solution to slowing America’s population… advocate for limiting family size. Having two or more children is not an obligation.

In a stunning display, Mr. Obama echoes Guzzardi’s “solution” in a recent town hall appearance. During the question-and-answer, Mr. Obama singled out for Alinsky-ridicule at least two attendees for their dissent in driving “Big SUV/Monster Trucks,” and having too many kids:

Obama has also championed abortion and callously mocked the Special Olympics and “water heads.”

The Urban Dictionary defines “water head” as “a person with mental health problems, i.e. downs syndrome, or retard.”

Paul Erlich’s Malthusian indoctrination, taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger’s targeting of the “feeble-minded,” or maybe even daddy issues, during these men’s formative years likely explains their eugenicist synergy.

Coincidentally arises the vile “humor” of Jack Steuf at Wonkette, a website that is to internet satire as Westboro Baptist is to churches.

Stuef targeted for ridicule three-year-old Trig Palin — whose mother, Sarah, is a political enemy of Stuef and Obama. Stuef called Trig “retarded,” “born somewhat alive,” and incapable of dreaming. Wonkette is now reaping the moral and financial consequences of the Stuef publication.

While the term “retarded” itself is not a cause for offense, as pointed out by K. J. Adan in her Open Letter to Jack Stuef, his assertion that retarded people cannot dream is an unwitting admission of ignorance. Adan points out, “The new politically correct term is ‘mentally challenged’ or ‘intellectually disabled’, but mentally retarded is a correct way to describe [her brother],” so “The issue is that you don’t know what retarded people can and can’t do.”

Stuef “apologized” on his blog, apparently in shame for the use of a non-PC term, but not the degrading things he said about a Down Syndrome toddler, his family who loves him, or the images he used before Adan’s post went up. He later sent a tweet of thanks for her perspective, so an outreach for understanding at least made his radar.

Why Leftists feel compelled to dehumanize their fellow man in order to make political hay is easily explained. They need control over others to perpetuate their anti-humanitarian ideology. An ideology whose own intellectual disability agitates for, and all too often has achieved the prior restraint of centralized population control, economic control, even thought control (i.e., Political Correctness “hate crime”).

As much as Leftists covet other people’s money, they seem to detest other people’s children — unless of course those children can be exploited as political props; human shield victim-mascots used in pursuit of narcissistic political ends.

Although many Leftists detest children altogether, those who do have children of their own proudly hold them up as an example of the proper family. The Obamas have their two, and that fits into the Leftist paradigm of the intellectually responsible family. Obama, Erlich, Sanger, Stuef et al. ridicule and denounce the natural family — which may or may not include the intellectually disabled — as irresponsible.

One can read the subtext plainly. Smart (i.e., socially conscious) people ought to perpetuate their genes, while the stupid (bitter clingers to guns, God, and individual Liberty) ought to be limited. Genetic diversity is forsaken for the leftist code word “diversity,” which means “You idiots wouldn’t know a balsamic reduction if it dripped on your can of Bud.”

History proves how truly evil governments must be to limit genetic diversity.

And, as per Greg Gutfeld, if you disagree with them, you’re fair game to be demonized as “unsustainable,” “retards,” or worse… aborted before ever having the chance to learn about and fight against Leftism’s retarded, bankrupt, anti-humanitarian creed.

Walt Kelly’s propaganda poster premiered on Earth Day I, 1970. 

It now conjures a circular firing squad of misanthropes in light of Franny Armstrong & co’s radical environmentalist 10:10 campaign’s evil, child-snuff fantasy film “No Pressure.” 

Revealed by the film is the wicked heart beating within the apocalyptic religion of environmentalism; a self-loathing, anti-capitalist, anti-Western-civilization political haven for deracinated communists, anarchists and their useful idiots after the fall of the Bolshevik utopia. 

The anti-scientific wave of contempt and rage cresting within these totalitarians since the revelation of the infamous East Anglia University Climate Research Unit’s “Hide the Decline” e-mails now crashes, Humpty-Dumpty, shattered and exposed on the rocks of their great Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change fraud.  

Unable to contain their emotions, environmentalists have apparently abandoned all hope and entered an intellectual hell, in which they demonize their fellow man, not just as polar bear exterminators but child-killers. 

Of course, it can’t be kindly teachers’ fault for Pushing Junk Science on Children, no. She’s just exploding her dissenting students because “climate denier” parents, of Fox News have alienated the little malcontents from Green partiinost orthodoxy. 

Another indication of the depths to which collective salvation environmentalists have sunk to fulfill their destructive ends is an Act-Responsible advertisement, also promoted on Discovery Company’s Treehugger subsidiary in 2009:

Act-Responsible agitators preached: 

“Humankind is at the center of our planet’s equilibrium.
By protecting our planet, we protect ourselves. The Expo mobilizes each of us to ACT to preserve our future.” — Isabel Kurata 

“The ads featured, in majority new to the public, were produced for NGOs and public institutions, as well as for companies committed to corporate social responsibility. The Expo allows the general public and professionals to grasp the complexity and vast issues of Sustainable Development, making it accessible to all and giving keys to start acting and adopting behaviors respectful of future generations.” — Sophie Guerinet 

“Sustainable Development,” a.k.a., “responsible development,” is a UN wealth redistribution boondoggle designed to destroy American sovereignty. 

Writing this week about 10:10’s “No Pressure,” Treehugger’s Sami Grover: “found the whole thing kind of funny.” 

On the other hand, “Look at this ad and ask yourself… What Kind Of Person Thought This Was A Good Idea? — The Environmental Movement: Pro-Environment, Or Anti-Human?” 

Still others take the crisis of faith deadly serious: 

“Speaking about climate change is not a matter of intellectual luxury – the phenomenon is an actual fact. All of the industrialized countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility for the global warming crisis.” – Osama bin Laden, October, 2010 

Saul Alinsky would of course denounce and reject rhetorical radicals such as the producers of this film, its ideological defender-apologists and creators of like-minded, hanging-children ads because their clumsy hubris — with its slash & burn tactics — hurts the revolution’s progress. 

Facetious gallows humor relativism: “TreeHugger / ChildStrangler, to-may-to / to-mah-to“. 

During his latest Weekly Address, President Obama, in true believer Alinsky realistic radical form, stated: 

We’re putting Americans to work producing clean, home-grown American energy that will help lower our reliance on foreign oil and protect our planet for future generations… We know the choice that’s right for America.  We need to do what we’ve always done – put our ingenuity and can do spirit to work to fight for a brighter future.  

Pictures are worth thousands of words, or even thousands of unread legislative pages. 

So, perhaps a debt of gratitude is owed Franny Armstrong, et ilk for their unintentional failure to carefully toe environmentalism’s one party line. They have unwittingly provided powerful imagery to recall whenever self-anointed world savior politicians, judges, bureaucrats, or propagandists with their celebrity spokesmen advocate or attempt draconian legislation like “Cap & Trade/Tax”, EPA policies and regulations designed to kill American jobs and economy, or dangerously unscientific rulings that CO2 is a “pollutant.” 

Even if the Supreme Court was correct ruling that CO2 is a pollutant, Lord Monkton places in stark reality the demands of the AGW agenda:

To mitigate just 1 C (2 F) of warming, one must forego the emission of 2 trillion tons of CO2. The world emits just 30 billion tons a year. So the analyst, as a thought-experiment, would shut down the entire world economy, emitting no CO2 at all. Even then, and even on the incorrect assumption that the UN’s exaggerated projections of the effect of CO2 on temperature are correct, it would take 67 years to mitigate 1 C warming.

Do the math.

“A brighter future,” Mr. President… at what cost? 

Ready! Aim! Fire!

Some of the activities observed in the video not only push the boundaries of the appropriate role of schools in facilitating religious understanding, but they introduce elements of blatant discrimination that could be especially challenging to the average ten or eleven year old. It’s an angle to this story that does not appear to have been discussed to date.

Before the prayers commenced, the field trip attendees were religiously segregated. As seen on the video, the parent describes that the women chaperons, female teachers and schoolgirls were asked to leave the prayer area, while the boys were invited to stay and participate in prayer with the men.

Such religious and gender discrimination arguably violates Title IX and Massachusetts state education codes, as reflected in the Wellesley Public School anti-discrimination policy:

Discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, national origin, religion, age, sex, gender identification, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, ability or disability in any form will not be tolerated. (Page 1, Intro Paragraph)

Any student or staff member who, after an investigation, has been found to have engaged in the discrimination or harassment of a student or staff member in any school setting or at any school-sponsored event will be subject to disciplinary action. (Page 2, Bullet H)

‘Discrimination’ for the purpose of this policy is conduct or speech which conveys discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identification, race, color, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, religion, national origin and/or disability in any educational programs, activities, or employment. (Page 3, Paragraph 6)

In response to complaints and public backlash to the video, Wellesley School Superintendent Bella Wong issued an apology letter to parents and community members which states, in part:

On the second scheduled day, a representative of the Mosque told students they were welcome to join in the prayer that was occurring. Five students chose to participate… The fact that any students were allowed to do so was an error.

…Students only participate in these events with parental permission.

The school’s superintendent and members of the school’s staff are required to know the policy & regulations governing discrimination. Ms. Wong seems to have successfully evaded this detail in her “apology” letter. Either that, or she simply is not concerned about the legal or psychological impacts to the gender discrimination in Islam having being forced on adolescent school children during school hours. Why doesn’t Ms. Wong’s letter include an apology for that?

In addition, the superintendent seems to place some of the blame on the parents who unsuspectingly allowed their children to participate in the experience, pursuant to the content of the parental permission slip for the field trip:

During our visit, we will get a chance to hear from Islam from members of the Cultural Center, learn about the architecture of the mosque and observe a midday prayer.

Parents who allowed their children to attend the event did so based on their understanding of the permission slip. Any activity that occurred outside of those boundaries should have warranted intervention from the teachers on behalf of the students in attendance. The field trip should have been ended as soon as the girls were segregated from the boys. The boys being allowed to pray with the men in the mosque should never have occurred because the teachers, who are rigorously trained in discrimination policy & practice, were responsible to end it there.

In contrast, parents are typically not trained in such policy. Therefore, Ms. Wong’s attempt to share blame with the parents via her “Parents Permission” ploy is inadequate and nothing short of despicable. The permission slip violation essentially abrogated In Loco Parentis (in short, this includes a teacher’s legal “parental” responsibility over children during school).

For this reason, it’s equally important not to let the superintendent and site principal and social studies chair off the hook. Just as we emphasized in this post from our “Academia-Gate” series, educators have enormous power over children. Unfortunately, the opportunity for negligence and abuse does exist.

What’s far more dangerous is that the ideological academic, in his capacity as a professor, actually possesses the power to control. The power to influence students’ minds, to mold the students’ way of thinking…this is a frightening weapon.

The same concerns apply to primary education in many aspects. Perhaps this incident was a completely unintentional act of negligence; in other settings, there have been circumstances where an over zealousness on the part of one or some school officials to develop religious tolerance has overstepped the boundaries of the school’s role. Parents therefore should be made aware of and offered training in the policies that affect them and their rights to not be discriminated against.

Many who support the superintendent’s decisions may be looking at this solely from the perspective of religious tolerance. For instance, the Boston Globe published a follow-up story titled, “Wellesley parents seem to support students’ mosque trip,” which described one such example among others:

Hind Rakin, a Muslim, is the mother of a Wellesley sixth grader. She said she plans to allow her daughter to attend interfaith field trips and had already allowed her to experience services at a Jewish temple.

‘If we don’t help kids learn to love each other despite their differences, how are we going to stop all the anger over religion?’ Rakin asked. ‘There needs to be more respect and love in the world.’

Most will agree that encouraging children to embrace one another’s differences, including religious differences, is a positive thing. However, unless we consider the overall experience in which these children are participating, this is merely a naively Utopian quest for respect and religious tolerance. The potential for unintended, long-lasting consequences is a reality. By utilizing the methods practiced in Wellesley’s religious curriculum, could educators and parents alike be overlooking or ignoring the more basic premise of protecting children against religious and gender discrimination?

Watch the above video again. Put yourself in the place of one of these 10 year old schoolgirls, as you are asked to leave the prayer area and separated with all of the other female attendees, excluded from prayer for no other reason than your gender. Imagine observing the males in the next room, as they participate in prayer together. At 10 years old, does a young adolescent girl comprehend the religious rationale behind their exclusion? And are there lasting consequences to such an exercise?

In a country that has taken such pride in advancing civil rights and equality for women, how do you reconcile these stark contrasts, as the parent of a 10 year old?

Ms. Wong invites questions in her letter. As a parent, I would ask a few questions of the school superintendent:

• Upon observing the video, did you and the school district’s counsel not see the girls being segregated from the boys?
• Is religious gender segregation during a school-sponsored event something that you accept as appropriate?
• Who is responsible for administering policy in the Wellesley School District, and who trained the staff?
• When drafting your apology letter, did you and the school district’s counsel discuss your district’s discrimination policy?

In the end, one important question remains for parents across the country who are concerned after seeing this video and the response from school officials. How did Wellesley school teachers allow this to happen?

In Loco Parentis entitles parents to their children’s protection while at school from discrimination of any kind, regardless of what any specific religion demands. Trading in that protection at the expense of non-discriminatory treatment under the guise of religious tolerance is not only unacceptable, it’s un-American. There are other ways to educate children on various religions, including Islam, without violating anti-discrimination policies. Parents in the Wellesley Public School District would be wise to demand that the superintendent reassess the school district’s educational approach to this program, as well as its policies.

If Islam and the mosques that preach its doctrine are fundamentally in conflict with religious and gender discrimination policies, then immersing young students in this environment is clearly not the most beneficial or appropriate method of teaching religious tolerance.

Unless of course the next time students from the Wellesley Public School District visit a mosque, the girls and women will be invited to pray with the boys and men.

—–

Red’s musical variety program enabled him to perform a wide range of lovable characters such as the “Mean Widdle Kid,” “Clem Kadiddlehopper” and “Freddie the Freeloader.” His iconic muses made audiences laugh, cry, and more often than not, think.  

Red Skelton loved America. 

In one of his most famous soliloquies, Red Skelton re-enacted a lesson about the American Flag taught to him by his childhood teacher, Mr. Laswell. [See the video above and please visit Red's website here for more.] 

Lesser known perhaps are Mr. Skelton’s 64 symphonies and 8,000 songs, including the patriotic standard “Red’s White and Blue March.” [listen below]

—–

Alas, CBS ended its association with the program in the spring of 1970. This apparently marked the beginning of one of several attempts by CBS to downplay programming whose primary appeal was to “Middle America,” an audience more rural and also somewhat older than that generally desired by network television advertisers. Marketers were moving towards a younger, “hipper,” and more urban audience. 

An ironically capitalist end to a more innocent television era consumed by the emerging radical cultural degradation. 

Red Skelton was awarded the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors Award for lifetime achievement in 1986. 

In 1993 Mr. Skelton was inducted into the Comedy Hall of Fame with a wonderful tribute presented by John Ritter & Michael Richards:

—–

Truly an honorable man, and an honored American individual. 

From Bob Hope and Red Skelton, to John Wayne to Gary Sinise, and all in Hollywood who step up today, let us pay our respects to these great patriot entertainers as they themselves have paid tribute to our nation and especially to the men and women who have fought and continue to fight to secure our Life, Liberty and Pursuits of Happiness as our Founders intended. 

Let us also pray there are many more where they came from… Lord knows we’re going to need them. 

In closing, as Red Skelton would say, “Good night, and may God bless.” 

Happy Birthday America!

Patrick Courrielche’s kickoff article exposing major university faculty and graduate students’ Cry Wolf Project is alarming. Each installment in the series has only made it more so.

CWP’s solicitation for policy briefs designed to construct politically driven narratives is a confession of academic malpractice. As Kurt Schlichter has pointed out, its participants’ intentions are unethical, insubordinate, and potentially illegal.

The CWP email shows its players to be intolerant of varying viewpoints in the pursuit of their ideological ends. The fact that they are offering colleagues and grad students money to predetermine outcomes proves their intent: to tell partisan political stories:

Drier-Email –

What are they afraid of?

We pay the bills. We want our children to receive comprehensive, legitimate educations as advertised by the schools we choose; educations in which multiple viewpoints of issues are honestly presented, empirically considered, and respected by professors. We do not want our schools to act as political parties and centers for ideological indoctrination.

But, the Cry Wolf Project is in violation of joint policies adopted by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU). From the Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure:

As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.

From the Statement on Professional Ethics:

Professors, guided by a deep conviction of the worth and dignity of the advancement of knowledge, recognize the special responsibilities placed upon them. Their primary responsibility to their subject is to seek and to state the truth as they see it. To this end professors devote their energies to developing and improving their scholarly competence. They accept the obligation to exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in using, extending, and transmitting knowledge. They practice intellectual honesty.

In soliciting the creation of political propaganda through their schools and the facilitating organizations that receive public funding, CWP scholars abandon their ethical principles.

Nationwide university regulations, education codes and tax law strictly prohibit the unauthorized use of school resources for partisan political purposes. There are formal complaint procedures that can and should be initiated immediately against the Cry Wolf Project.

The project’s Request for Proposals was sent from Professor Dreier’s Occidental email address, and presumably communicated to and from the other schools’ servers. This creates the impression that Occidental, UCSB, Harvard, Yale, et al. endorse the plan by which Dreier & Co. intend to carry out the project. How prevalent is it that our tuition and tax dollars fund similar activities?

The Zinn Education Project is a notorious example. Its ‘guerilla-warrior’-in-chief, the late professor Howard Zinn, publicly instructed participants to violate education codes as he channeled Saul Alinsky:

Don’t obey the rules. You have to play a kind of guerrilla warfare with the establishment in which you try not to be fired. You have to depart from the curriculum… outside the lines that are set for us by the school administration, or the politicians.

With the high cost of tuition, people must practice due diligence in choosing schools. Universities not only promise an excellent education, but also the practice of good, legitimate intellectual values and principles we want to instill in our students’ young minds so that they can be successful, productive citizens in our American civil society.

The actions of the Cry Wolf committee and the schools associated with its participants should cause parents and taxpayers to reassess their very dear investments in these institutions.

President Obama, touted as one who “embodies diversity,” attended three CWP schools: Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard, where he was recalled as being an “even-handed leader.”

I got into politics at Occidental. I made a conscious decision to become involved in public policy.

That decision would lead him to Columbia University and his first exposure to community organizing, “I really wanted to see New York and become more involved in politics.”

Obama of course later enjoyed his own teaching stint as a University of Chicago law lecturer; the same university’s alumni association once awarded CWP coordinator Peter Dreier a distinguished Public Service Award.

In his Hampton College commencement address last month, President Obama stated:

[So that] all those checks you or your parents wrote to Hampton will pay off… now that your minds have been opened, it’s up to you to keep them that way. It will be up to you to open minds that remain closed that you meet along the way. That, after all, is the elemental test of any democracy: whether people with differing points of view can learn from each other, and work with each other, and find a way forward together.

Mr. President, as an even-handed leader who embodies diversity, do you believe the Cry Wolf Project meets your elemental test of democracy? Or is it “just words? Just speeches?”

“Intellect loses its virtue when it ceases to seek truth and turns to the pursuit of political ends.” – Robert H. Bork

Sara Hartman (IRR), the boy’s Ridgeview Charter Middle School special education teacher and Principal Karen E. Cox’s administration deemed the boy’s stick-figure doodle a purposeful threat of violence.

—–

Using the Fulton County Code of Conduct and Discipline Handbook, Ms. Hartman requested a hearing and Ms. Cox referred the child to the Office of Student Discipline.

A hearing tribunal will be selected from a list prepared by Superintendent Cindy Loe, Ph.D.-[  ] and must be approved by the Board. A ruling will then be made on the validity of the allegations against the student. 

If found guilty, the child faces expulsion and possible criminal proceedings.

Title 16, Section 11-37 of Georgia Code:

(a) A person commits the offense of a terroristic threat when he or she threatens to commit any crime of violence… with the purpose of terrorizing another. 

That is the fundamental test. Was the child’s doodle an intentional, purposeful act? 

Common sense would indicate otherwise. 

Had the school done it’s job responsibly, it would have instead called for a Disability Manifestation Determination Meeting under the 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Sec. 300.530 to determine whether: 

The conduct in question was caused by, or had a direct and substantial relationship to, the child’s disability; or the conduct in question was the direct result of the Local Education Authority’s failure to implement the child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). 

Why didn’t Sara Hartman and Karen Cox first call the mom, and convene an IEP team meeting? 

What was happening in class between the boy and Ms. Hartman prior to her discovery of the offending stick-figure doodle? 

Did the school assess whether the curriculum and teacher covering the book “The Outsiders” was an appropriate set of supplements and services for this child to access his placement goals and meet state standards?  

Who would scrub Sara Hartman’s name from Ridgeview’s staff list over the weekend, and why? 

—–

(An inquiry to Ridgeview’s administration has gone unanswered). 

In the meantime, summer break looms over a special needs child unjustly accused, and a family is now threatened with extensive paperwork, legal bills and ostracism by a once trusted school system. 

When we as parents say we want our children to be safe when we send them off to school, we don’t just mean safe from potential harm by a nearby sex offender on parole, or hoping they cross in the crosswalk at the bus stop. 

We also want the teachers and administrators watching over our kids to make rational decisions.  We want to know that reason and common sense are exercised en loco parentis. Not the sweeping intolerance of draconian ‘zero-tolerance’ policies run amok. 

Perhaps Hartman and Cox’s taking such extreme action against this child was more about convenience than terror.  Children with special needs require patience, care and yes, extra spending even in hard fiscal times. 

Ironically, Ridgeview Assistant Principal Angelo Umoh states: 

I believe as educators, it is our responsibility to assist in the development of the “total” child and I operate from the premise that all children can learn if given the needed support. 

That’s kind of hard to believe now, isn’t it?

—–

Supt. Smith claims the incident was “not about whether our students can wear patriotic clothing,” but was “about ensuring that our campus was orderly and safe.”

Any school superintendent, staff or school board that determines its students wearing patriotic American clothing should ever be deemed ‘disorderly’, or ‘unsafe’ is an incompetent superintendent, staff and board.

Bad acting as Special Champion during his “apology,” Supt. Smith repeatedly exploited his High School student-body-at-large as somehow the victim of evil unnamed straw men, i.e., politically motivated “bloggers, talk shows and social networks [e.g., Twitter].”

Ignoring the American Flag behind him, he scolded in PC-mode about “race, relationships, how to get along, solidarity and peace,” and demeaned the free speech of citizens that cast the light of truth and justice upon his administration’s own injustice.

Supt. Smith failed, or refused to mention even once the importance of American patriotism education. He failed to commend the students that spoke truth to unjust government power.

In so doing, his mismanagement keeps the District’s students, parents, teachers, community members and School Board in the national spotlight. He failed to man up and provide a simple, honest apology that accepts full responsibility, without equivocation and offensive blame-shifting.

The lesson here is not, as Dr. Smith stated, “to turn down the rhetoric and turn up the listening.” The lesson is that American patriotism and inculcating patriotic values in students are both good things and should be strongly encouraged — not undermined — in public schools on a daily basis.

All too many educators (not to be confused with teachers) have abandoned professionalism and the business of actually educating students, instead they kowtow to groupthink, and the viewpoint discrimination veiled in Orwellian linguistic deceits such as “Tolerance,” “Diversity,” “Multiculturalism/Global Citizenship” (a.k.a., “America=racist/sexist/bigot/oppressor, etc.”).

Presumably, some MHUSD school board members such as Board Trustee President Bart Fisher et al. and District legal counsel collaborated and approved of Dr. Smith’s public statement. They should be held accountable at any disciplinary reviews and election time.

Supt. Smith has a dubious history with the education system’s modern culture of discrimination. According to the Anderson Valley Post, Dr. Smith resigned in disgrace last November from Cascade Union Elementary School District in Anderson, California for, among other things, a Special Education discrimination lawsuit.

Regarding Dr. Smith’s scolding of bloggers, talk-shows and social networks (to which upwards of 90% of his community belong, including Board President Fisher: he seemed like a John Edwards would in complaining about the National Enquirer; or a Bill Clinton lamenting the lost journalistic discretion in the JFK/Marilyn Monroe era; or even how some Fourth Estate watchdogs puzzle and decry the clichéd biases of the so-called ‘state-controlled’ media; or President Obama’s recent odd criticism,  “information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.”

Welcome to a wonderful 21st century teachable moment Dr. Smith, wherein your incompetence — for which you’re receiving a $190,000 payment package —  your patriotism (or lack thereof) and personal agenda are now on full display for the entire world.

In Spring, Texas – Klein Collins High School Associate Principals Shellie Dick and Steven Matheson suspended student Nick Morris for three days because he removed and disposed of an unlawfully displayed Mexican flag from a walkway railing in the school’s main hall. 

• Title 4 United States Code, § 7 [Flag Code] states:  

(c) No person shall display the flag of the United Nations or any other national or international flag equal, above, or in a position of superior prominence or honor to or in place of the flag of the United States. 

Atta boy Nick, way to speak truth to power! 

Finally, a Santa Rita, California art teacher derided as “offensive” a middle-school student’s drawing of an American Flag with the words ‘God Bless America’ on it, while in the same class the teacher praised another student’s portrait of President Obama. The art teacher stubbornly refused to explain when asked by the student and her parents what was “offensive” about her Flag drawing.

The discrimination against this child is so wrong. Just last year, in a nationally televised public school assembly to hundreds of young students, President Obama proclaimed in front of Old Glory herself, “God Bless America.”

Perhaps our President can now contribute to this teachable moment by proudly and publicly reinforcing the meaning, heritage and significance of what our Flag stands for, and the importance of inculcating those patriotic values upon our public school educators.

The students in these stories are way ahead them.

“I’m not against marriage, but it’s just not for me…” 

That’s an entirely reasonable position. Not every person is suited for marriage. 

But then she pitched intolerance: 

“I think it’s gross and [bleep]-ing crazy.” 

Not a follower of gossip tweets, I do however recall a not so private break-up from a certain late night talk-show host that may have played a role here. 

We can presume President Obama and family would object.  During his campaign and term as president his proud advocacy of traditional marriage and family has coincided with the vast majority of Americans. 

Any honorable married person could easily find Ms. Silverman’s remark offensive.  To be labeled as both “gross” and “F-ing crazy” by a vulgarian is ironic. Perhaps irony was the comedienne’s intention, then again maybe not.   

Exploiting the “gay marriage” hot button, she said, “If you’re getting married today, it’s the equivalent of joining a country club that doesn’t allow blacks or Jews.” That fashionable meme crudely diminishes the centuries of slaughter, persecution, desperate hardships and struggles of both blacks and Jews the world over. 

The analogy is also clumsy and humorless. 

Ms. Silverman would’ve done better to echo Groucho Marx, who once famously quipped: “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.” 

Our family of five has for years found Ms. Silverman’s R-rated humor mostly hilarious, and we will continue to be fans of her work. 

On a personal note, I once had the pleasure of meeting her while participating in an informal screenplay “table read.” She was nothing short of charming and professional. 

There’s no accounting for taste when it comes to humor, but it’s nearly impossible to see how this politically charged insult against marriage by Ms. Silverman will endure. 

Hopefully she’ll reconsider her anti-marriage bigotry, or come up with a better punch line.

‘Race hustlers’ are commonly known as shakedown artists and/or smear merchants who expertly deploy the “R-word”, and it has somehow garnered them credibility to preach the gospel of social justice — and reap the ill-gotten gains of equality-of-outcome Statism — to the intellectual wreckage left below them. 

Tragically, such rhetorical abuse damages the appropriate use of the term – and leaves actual victims of “traditional” racism with a neutered descriptor that is quickly beginning to make the accuser sound like a whining name-caller. The sad irony is that abusers harm the very people they claim to be defending, most often for selfish political and financial profit. 

Of course, follow the money… 

Thomas Sowell:

Being a race hustler is a very lucrative business for people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. But such people can extort money and power from white business and political leaders precisely because it is easier to pay off a relative handful of noise makers than to be bothered fighting them. But tens of millions of blacks cannot duplicate what a small band of extortionists do. 

Chasing a will o’ the wisp like reparations cannot produce what blacks most want — respect, including the self-respect that comes ultimately from one’s own achievements. This is something that whites could not give blacks if they wanted to. 

That fading race-business model is likely depressing its intolerant participants’ financial outlook. 

Time-out to play Spot the ‘Racists!’ (*NSFW*): 

A true classic, no? 

Moral-crusaders on self-congratulatory, highly profitable missions exploit and perpetuate the ‘soft bigotry of low expectations’. They are now desperate to keep their minority mascots in political servitude to one political party’s destructive ideology, i.e., dependence. 

Ironically, Candidate Obama’s denunciation and public divorce from his long-time racist pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, played a pivotal role in accelerating the loss of race-hustler credibility in the current American zeitgeist; this cultural good fortune – secured for now by new/alternative media success — is likely to continue its progressive course into the foreseeable future. 

Addressing his former pastor’s failures and “mistake” in his famous March, 2008 campaign ‘Race Speech,’ President Obama characterized our nation’s “racial divisions” as being in a “stalemate.” He asserted a firm conviction “rooted in [his] faith in God and [his] faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds.”   

Later, elected president, Mr. Obama acknowledged his careless rush to judgment – which some deemed as reflexive reverse racism — that the Cambridge, MA Police “acted stupidly.” The president manned up and provided leadership at a healing “Beer Summit.” Ben Franklin, no stranger to beer, would’ve likely approved this gesture. 

Rhetorically speaking, thank God that from now on when thought-terminating clichés such as “racist!,” “sexist!,” “bigot!,” “xenophobe!,” “homophobe!,” “hypocrite!,” “chicken-hawk!,” “Uncle Tom!,” “white supremacist!” etc. are hastily concocted (Max Blumenthal call your office), Americans are no longer intimidated by these divisive, intellectually-stifling smears. 

Fearless rhetorical engagement in the modern cultural/political arena of ideas is a good and necessary component of our vigorous and successful Republic. 

With principled firmness, a solid rejoinder to race-hustler-ridiculousness: “What hard evidence do you have other than clumsy guilt-by-association character assassination, and/or sins-of-the-father attacks and innuendo?” 

Too often Modern Liberal arguments amount to nothing more than self-anointed moral rulings that certain people don’t at all have standing on various issues, especially race. These rulings are never ideologically neutral but, rather, are the notorious political weaponry of Saul Alinsky. 

Once exclusively reserved for very effective use against unarmed conservatives, Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” is now self-defeating his radical ideological progeny. Now those are ‘chickens come home to roost’ that can benefit America! 

Ridicule is, according to Alinsky, man’s most potent weapon. 

Highly effective also is Andrew Breitbart’s approach of keeping the pressure on by freezing the target and making them live up to their own book of rules:

It’s time to hit back at these people — that these people keep calling you a racist… Instead of slinking into the corner and crying or saying ‘I don’t like that,’ you walk straight towards them and confront them; and they’re bullies, they’re just bullies and bullies crumble when you hit them back. 

Unity is overrated… Saddle up. Let’s Roll!