Curtis Dahlgren
College Orientation Week II (and the first frost of August)
By Curtis Dahlgren
"If our government is not going to hold our taxpayer-supported academic institutions accountable, then we must." — Chuck Norris ("Black Belt Patriotism")
"Send me men to match my mountains." — inscription on State Capitol complex in Sacramento
THOSE KINDS OF MEN SEEM TO BE FLEEING CALIFORNIA THESE DAYS. As a "laboratory experiment," the state of California is the end-result of a system of Higher Education that has been out of control ever since S.I. Hayakawa left it. The protesters who used to sit in the gutters of the street now seem to be sitting on the benches of Federal courts of appeal. Even the U.S. Supreme Court will soon be filled with people whose primary qualification is knowing the politically correct definition of "empathy."
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist . . . What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think."
Years ago, a college professor in Chicago used to tell his students on the first day of class that their goal should be to become really educated — and that they could not consider themselves really educated unless they could answer "yes" to the following questions:
- "Can you look an honest man or a pure woman straight in the eye?"
- "Will a lonely dog follow you down the street?"
- "Do you think washing dishes or hoeing corn is as compatible with high thinking as piano playing or golf?"
- "Could you be happy alone?"
- "Can you look into the sky at night and see beyond the stars?"
[excerpted from "Leaves of Gold," 11th edition (subtitled "An Anthology of Prayers, Memorable Phrases, Inspirational Verse and Prose from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern")]
MAYBE if we had more good "Prose" in our lives, we wouldn't need so much Prozac or so many sleeping pills. Many tears have been shed since we stopped looking "beyond the stars." If tears were "telescopes," September 11, 2001 should have brought God into very sharp focus, but instead, our "popular culture" and the media have moved us totally in the opposite direction.
Higher education considers itself the very avant-garde, or vanguard, of "societal evolution," but radio host Michael Savage says that society has "sunk to a point lower than Rome or the Wiemar Republic in Germany." I agree, and so would the writers in "Leaves of Gold":
"Few things could be culturally more deplorable than that today the average college graduate, who fancies himself educated, should never have read the book of Job, should be unfamiliar with Isaiah, and should be hardly able to identify those mighty men of valor, Joshua, Gideon, [etc.] . . . For this is nothing less than a loss of racial memory, a forgetfulness of our cultural heritage that is as serious in the life of nations as is for the individual the loss of personality attendant upon neurotic disease."
Higher Education is simply a modern twist on the so-called Inquisition and "Crusades." The agenda of Academia is a jihad against anyone who refuses to sing PC doxologies such as "there are no differences between the sexes." A sheepskin from Harvard these days is no longer worth the paper it's printed on, given ex-president Larry Summers' capitulation to political correctness, with apologies, plus his firing for contemplating both sides of an issue.
Other examples are too numerous to mention in one column, but much of "higher learning" is now worth no more than a clock that's right twice a day. It's not WORKING! So, the word-for-the-day, boys and girls, is "heresy":
"Etymologically, a heresy is a 'choice' one makes . . Greek hairesis 'choice' [is] a derivative of hairein 'take or choose.' This was applied metaphorically to a 'course of action or thought which one chooses to take,' hence a school of thought,' and, ultimately, to a 'faction' or 'sect.' . . .
"Another derivative of hairein, incidentally, was diairein [meaning] 'divide' . . ." — John Ayto (Dictionary of Word Origins)
In the earlier history of the "university," there had almost always been "two schools of thought" — except under totalitarian governments or monolithic P.C. faculties. Today, although "choice" is a popular catch-word, real freedom of choice, the right to one's own thoughts, is now deemed "divisive" by the powers-that-be.
MY "CONTROVERSIAL" CONCLUSION?
The word "division" does not equate with "evil." Normally it equated with "academic freedom" — now a long-forgotten concept.
P.S.
Articles are being written about the summer's "winners and losers" at the movie box office. I think the biggest loser of the summer was Mr. Al Gore, Jr. We had to scrape frost off our windshields in August this summer in the U.P. of Michigan. Except for a handful of days, it was too cold to go swimming all summer. And Nashville, Tennessee set some record lows this summer. But the current Administration in Washington blindly presses on with its politically correct agendas, including cap-and-tax on "greenhouse gases."
I SAY, "WHAT GREENHOUSE YOU TALKIN' ABOUT, WILLIS?"
PPS: Up here, it's time to repaint the old ice fishing shanty and get her ready for winter.
© Curtis Dahlgren
September 2, 2009
"If our government is not going to hold our taxpayer-supported academic institutions accountable, then we must." — Chuck Norris ("Black Belt Patriotism")
"Send me men to match my mountains." — inscription on State Capitol complex in Sacramento
THOSE KINDS OF MEN SEEM TO BE FLEEING CALIFORNIA THESE DAYS. As a "laboratory experiment," the state of California is the end-result of a system of Higher Education that has been out of control ever since S.I. Hayakawa left it. The protesters who used to sit in the gutters of the street now seem to be sitting on the benches of Federal courts of appeal. Even the U.S. Supreme Court will soon be filled with people whose primary qualification is knowing the politically correct definition of "empathy."
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist . . . What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think."
Years ago, a college professor in Chicago used to tell his students on the first day of class that their goal should be to become really educated — and that they could not consider themselves really educated unless they could answer "yes" to the following questions:
- "Can you look an honest man or a pure woman straight in the eye?"
- "Will a lonely dog follow you down the street?"
- "Do you think washing dishes or hoeing corn is as compatible with high thinking as piano playing or golf?"
- "Could you be happy alone?"
- "Can you look into the sky at night and see beyond the stars?"
[excerpted from "Leaves of Gold," 11th edition (subtitled "An Anthology of Prayers, Memorable Phrases, Inspirational Verse and Prose from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern")]
MAYBE if we had more good "Prose" in our lives, we wouldn't need so much Prozac or so many sleeping pills. Many tears have been shed since we stopped looking "beyond the stars." If tears were "telescopes," September 11, 2001 should have brought God into very sharp focus, but instead, our "popular culture" and the media have moved us totally in the opposite direction.
Higher education considers itself the very avant-garde, or vanguard, of "societal evolution," but radio host Michael Savage says that society has "sunk to a point lower than Rome or the Wiemar Republic in Germany." I agree, and so would the writers in "Leaves of Gold":
-
"Educate men without religion and you make them but clever devils." — Duke of Wellington
"True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt the whole fabric cannot be stable or lasting." — Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
"Learning is not wisdom: knowledge is not necessarily vital energy. The student who has to cram through a school or college course, who has made himself merely a receptacle for the teacher's thoughts and ideas, is not educated; he has not gained much. He is a reservoir, not a fountain. One retains, the other gives forth." — J.E. Dinger
"Few things could be culturally more deplorable than that today the average college graduate, who fancies himself educated, should never have read the book of Job, should be unfamiliar with Isaiah, and should be hardly able to identify those mighty men of valor, Joshua, Gideon, [etc.] . . . For this is nothing less than a loss of racial memory, a forgetfulness of our cultural heritage that is as serious in the life of nations as is for the individual the loss of personality attendant upon neurotic disease."
Higher Education is simply a modern twist on the so-called Inquisition and "Crusades." The agenda of Academia is a jihad against anyone who refuses to sing PC doxologies such as "there are no differences between the sexes." A sheepskin from Harvard these days is no longer worth the paper it's printed on, given ex-president Larry Summers' capitulation to political correctness, with apologies, plus his firing for contemplating both sides of an issue.
Other examples are too numerous to mention in one column, but much of "higher learning" is now worth no more than a clock that's right twice a day. It's not WORKING! So, the word-for-the-day, boys and girls, is "heresy":
"Etymologically, a heresy is a 'choice' one makes . . Greek hairesis 'choice' [is] a derivative of hairein 'take or choose.' This was applied metaphorically to a 'course of action or thought which one chooses to take,' hence a school of thought,' and, ultimately, to a 'faction' or 'sect.' . . .
"Another derivative of hairein, incidentally, was diairein [meaning] 'divide' . . ." — John Ayto (Dictionary of Word Origins)
In the earlier history of the "university," there had almost always been "two schools of thought" — except under totalitarian governments or monolithic P.C. faculties. Today, although "choice" is a popular catch-word, real freedom of choice, the right to one's own thoughts, is now deemed "divisive" by the powers-that-be.
MY "CONTROVERSIAL" CONCLUSION?
The word "division" does not equate with "evil." Normally it equated with "academic freedom" — now a long-forgotten concept.
P.S.
Articles are being written about the summer's "winners and losers" at the movie box office. I think the biggest loser of the summer was Mr. Al Gore, Jr. We had to scrape frost off our windshields in August this summer in the U.P. of Michigan. Except for a handful of days, it was too cold to go swimming all summer. And Nashville, Tennessee set some record lows this summer. But the current Administration in Washington blindly presses on with its politically correct agendas, including cap-and-tax on "greenhouse gases."
I SAY, "WHAT GREENHOUSE YOU TALKIN' ABOUT, WILLIS?"
PPS: Up here, it's time to repaint the old ice fishing shanty and get her ready for winter.
© Curtis Dahlgren
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