It was the summer of 1996, and I remember it like it was yesterday. HBO aired Chris Rock in concert, “Bring the Pain” the one-hour special was titled, and I was sure after it was over that the future of standup comedy was in the best of hands. Rock stalked the stage like a leopard about to pounce and his gazelle was most every sacred cow in the area of race relations there was at the time: O.J. Simpson, Marion Barry, white bigots, prison, and most famously… “I love black people, but I hate niggas.”

At the time I had just turned 30 and had also just dropped out of college after only three semesters (it was time to pick a major and I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up), but what an eye-opening experience those three semesters were. Political correctness was everywhere, infesting everything. I actually had a professor who used the term “herstory” instead of “history.” There was the criminal justice professor who insisted we abolish prisons and enough enviro-nonsense taught as fact that I sometimes wondered what country I was living in. Nice people, just not very bright. Well, that’s exactly fair. They weren’t all dumb, but they weren’t all nice, either.

At the time I was writing a weekly column for the student newspaper. Being the only conservative and a budding rabble rouser, I’d been run through the Orwellian PC grinder more than once. Hate mail, marched into the editor’s office over this and that, suspended due to trumped up charges of plagiarism, and my crowning achievement: the threat of a protest from the Black Student Union because of my defense of Clarence Thomas when Anita Hill came to speak. Thankfully, the union was headed by a genuinely decent guy who let me appear at their next meeting and confront the racism charges head on, but as right as I was this stuff was still incredibly bruising. It’s Alice in Wonderland where you’re all alone in a world where right is wrong and up is down and you lose nights of sleep second guessing yourself. 

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So students (a.k.a dirtbags) took to the London streets to protest the government’s plans to let colleges raise their tuition. They broke into the Conservative party’s offices, set off flares and started fires – while painting the universal symbol of the jobless, Starbucks hipster (the anarchy sign).

Here’s a rule to remember: someone who still thinks the anarchy symbol is an edgy sign of revolutionary bravado, is also someone who still sponges off mummy and daddy – and yet never pays for a drink. In short, they are babies.

So, yeah – tuition limits are going up to 9,000 pounds – in our money that’s $14,500. Which, as Americans can attest, ain’t much. That’s a used Jetta with 70 thousand miles. Or three hours with Ashley Dupree.

The gov also wants to scrap some subsidies for students, which will definitely cut into their hair gel.

So, how did this happen?

Well, the West is witnessing the continuation of the first real global tantrum – stretching from Greece, to France, to Berkeley, to London. The babies in every country – so used to entitlements – are now being told that the piper must be paid. But because no one taught them the basics of finance – their only reply is “wah, wah,” and “wah.”

Thanks to education fetishists, there’s a belief that there should be no price tag on classes like “Lady Gaga’s Effect on Transgender Truckdrivers,” and that the only limits to your education is your desire to be educated. (more…)

So Campus Progress – whatever that is – released a new video featuring college students, naked, whining about lack of health care.

It’ll tickle the back of your throat:

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So let me get this straight: you’re young, healthy and unemployed – and your solution for lack of health care is …THIS?

You know – There’s another option: getting off your asses, stop sponging off your parents and your government, and look for a damn job. That’s what people do in order to pay for things they want.

I mean – listen to this whine:

“For decades we were left wondering if we’d ever get covered.”

Really – you were wondering about health care before you were born? I don’t know what’s worse: your lack of initiative, your mindless dependence on handouts or your sulky expectations that obliterate any desire for achievement. (more…)

So, despite high unemployment, a crappy economy, and double-digit inflation affecting the cost of therapeutic massage, recent college grads aren’t sweating it. Nope, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (losers), 41 percent of job seekers this year turned down employment offers – which is like 41 out of a 100.

Yep, instead of joining the work force, grads are turning their Ipods up, and flip flops homeward, to sponge off mom and dad, because, according to the Times, “the work offered doesn’t match their self-assessed market value.”

Meaning, they’re special, so their jobs must be special. I mean, you can’t have a precious one-of-a-kind snowflake working in the mailroom! Snowflakes can’t open packages! Snowflakes can’t make coffee! Snowflakes are there to be appreciated, as snowflakes!

And so the job becomes another spoke in the wheel of self-fulfillment, something to accentuate the belly button ring and Asian lettered tattoo on your pelvis (which reads “stupid white person”).

You could say this is the ultimate consequence of self-love buoyed by a safety net. It’s not the kid who’s doing this, but the parents who indulge them. Kick ‘em out, they’ll find work. (more…)

Children are uniquely malleable beings, readily convinced of magically colorful tales – Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are the first that come to mind. This innocence is beautiful, but it is a quality that can easily fall victim to radically foreign ideas if taught consistently and pervasively at an early age. One need only look at the birth of fascism or socialism to see a recipe for how radical ideas become ubiquitous among a nation’s youth.

Enter Howard Zinn – an author, professor and American historian – who, with the help of Hollywood and the History Channel, intends to change the way our pre-K through high school children learn American history. His current curriculum suggestions, like introducing three-year-olds to the lynching of African-Americans, or quizzing seven-year-olds on which Presidents owned slaves, should be a red flag to parents.

Zinn has spent a lifetime teaching college students about the evils of capitalism, the promise of Marxism, and his version of American history – a history that has, in his view, been kept from students. His controversial 1980-book The People’s History of the United States paints traditional American history as a façade – one that has grotesquely immortalized flawed leaders and is based on principles that victimize the common man. In 2004, Zinn wrote a companion book entitled Voices Of A People’s History Of The United States, which includes speeches and writings from many of the people featured in The People’s History.

These two books have now become the basis for a new documentary, entitled The People Speak, to be aired December 13th at 8pm on the History Channel. The trailer portrays the documentary as a collage of compelling one-person readings, told through the words of “ordinary” people who have struggled throughout American history against oppression. Produced by Zinn, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Chris Moore, the documentary appears to be cloaked, ironically (given Zinn’s admitted socialist agenda), in many of the traditional ideas that were behind our founding. The verdict is still out on the doc, but it is not for the books that inspired the film as well as the educational initiative associated with it. (more…)

So over at Depaul University – allegedly a college – students and faculty are up in hairy arms over the denial of tenure to Melissa Bradshaw, a professor of “women’s and gender studies.” In case you don’t know what tenure is, it’s a guaranteed lifetime job. And in case you don’t know what “women’s and gender studies” are, join the club – neither do I.

And here we have a magnificent collision of two idiotic practices: tenure, which relieves professors of trying altogether, allowing them instead to pursue ideas that would fail miserably in a world of measurable achievement; and gender studies, a fuzzy field where earnest types angrily analyze the “phenomenon of gender.” Usually while wearing underwear made from hemp.

First, let’s tackle gender studies. The gist: being female is a social construct, internal sex organs be damned. The relationship between men and women is not about love, but power – a struggle between the powerless female against evil patriarchal man. (more…)

I’ve got to admit that I set out to create this video expecting the finished product to be nothing more than tomfoolery as per usual. When I sat down to review the final version however, I realized just how sad/scary this is. These people are our future. They’ll be building our airplanes, teaching in our schools and possibly… running our country. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t trust 90% of these kids with a pair of scissors.  All of this begs the question: how did they get into Berkeley?  More importantly, what the heck are they teaching over there?

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So I think we can all admit that what happened Sunday off the African coast was kinda awesome. Of course, it’s not that I needed to be reminded that we have the most badass military alive – it’s that I like being reminded of it.

But last week, as I watched the situation unfold from Studio D (a comfy perch protected by armed security) I couldn’t help but be reminded of one simple fact that led to this event: the unarmed are always vulnerable to the armed.

And that made me realize that this ship is no different than a shopping mall or college campus – it’s a place where people congregate or work – all operating under the assumption that we live in a sane world where if you just live your life, people won’t kill you. (more…)