Curtis Dahlgren
You can't tell the professor much if he thinks he's funny (part 2)
By Curtis Dahlgren
"It's not that our liberal friends are ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." — Ronald Reagan
MEMO TO THE PROFESSOR-IN-CHIEF, IF I MAY:
- Don't telegraph your passes.
- Don't force your shots.
- Don't diss the Israelis.
- Don't make jokes about asteroids or earthquakes.
- Don't mischaracterize the loyal opposition.
WE NEVER SAID that an asteroid, or hemorrhoids, would hit the moment you signed the FedMed HELLth Bill. What we said was that the pot with the frogs in it would now be put on the front burner.
To more accurately put down your opponents and their religion, you should have said: After I signed the bill, I looked around and I didn't see a pot of water simmering, nor any frogs!"
Speaking of frogs, the first time Moses and Aaron went to visit the Pharaoh ("Let go of my People"), the Pharaoh said:
"I hear birds singing; I don't see any frogs. And my friend Janet says you guys are dangerous. Get out of my house."
Your mission, Mr. Professor, should you choose to accept it, is to review some of my previous columns. For example, my 4th of July column of 2008, "My annual classic: College orientation week" [ www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/080704 ] Excerpts:
• "Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious . . . That which discloses the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding." — Ambrose Bierce
• "There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in." — Will Rogers
• "I have never let schooling interfere with my learning." — Mark Twain
• "An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't." — Anatole France
• "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." — Will Durant
• "Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know." — Daniel Boorstin
• "The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." — Robert Hutchins
• "Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. — John W. Gardner
• "Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another." — G.K. Chesterton
As Aristotle said, however, "Man is by nature a political animal," so — sadly — education has been much politicized. We have stupidly left our children's souls in the hands of "professionals" who have no intention whatsoever of saving our roots or passing on society's soul to the next generation.
As I have said once or twice, any old tree surgeon could tell you that an attack on your roots is an attack on you. Someone else just said that it's strange that the working stiffs of this country are now being called on to "bail out Ivy Leaguers" (I guess they're "too smart to fail" besides too big for their britches).
Solzhenitsyn said, "For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor [mediocre] ones."
Lady Margaret Thatcher said, "Be warned. A powerful, radical left-wing clerisy is bent on destroying what every past generation would have understood to be the central purpose of education — that is, allowing (in the words of Edmund Burke) individuals to 'avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages.'
"A society needs only one generation to abandon the task of learning and transmitting its culture, for that culture to become an alien, lifeless irrelevance . . [and] the cultural revolutionaries will drown out what Lincoln called 'the mystic chords of memory' with jarring cacophony." [Whom the gods wish to con, they first make illiterate] www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/030921
P.S. We are two or three generations late in waking up! The story of the unique American Revolution was first "minimized," then demonized, and finally more or less ignored. Our most highly "evolved" professors like to tell this "most highly evolved," hip, generation that the geezers who believed all that old stuff just weren't very smart (modern test scores notwithstanding). It may be too late now to turn the hearts back to our forefathers, but in closing, here are some very "interesting" quotations:
"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness' . . The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vanity [while] . . professing themselves to be wise." — Paul, the Apostle
"The [true] wise man's words are like cattle prods that spur to action. They nail down important truths . . .
"But be warned my son; there is no end of opinions ready to be expressed ['many books']. Studying them can go on forever and become wearisome to the flesh.
"Here is my final answer: fear God and obey His commandments, for this is the entire duty of mankind." — Solomon (Living Lessons of Life and Love)
PPS: Just a few more thoughts for the Tea partiers, Independents, and other geezers:
My mother used to love asking "dumb questions" at just the right moment. Right now I'd like to ask one of those dumb questions:
"Did you ever notice that the recent "health reform" bill was written by the same people who gave us the Zero Population Growth movement of the 1970s?"
"What's really in that bill — and WHY?"
The slicksters who rammed this down our throat are now in maximum P.R. mode, even though they claim that it already passed! So "WHY?"
Your homework assignment, should you accept it, is to "think on these things" until next time. You will be quizzed on these questions.
© Curtis Dahlgren
March 27, 2010
"It's not that our liberal friends are ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." — Ronald Reagan
MEMO TO THE PROFESSOR-IN-CHIEF, IF I MAY:
- Don't telegraph your passes.
- Don't force your shots.
- Don't diss the Israelis.
- Don't make jokes about asteroids or earthquakes.
- Don't mischaracterize the loyal opposition.
WE NEVER SAID that an asteroid, or hemorrhoids, would hit the moment you signed the FedMed HELLth Bill. What we said was that the pot with the frogs in it would now be put on the front burner.
To more accurately put down your opponents and their religion, you should have said: After I signed the bill, I looked around and I didn't see a pot of water simmering, nor any frogs!"
Speaking of frogs, the first time Moses and Aaron went to visit the Pharaoh ("Let go of my People"), the Pharaoh said:
"I hear birds singing; I don't see any frogs. And my friend Janet says you guys are dangerous. Get out of my house."
Your mission, Mr. Professor, should you choose to accept it, is to review some of my previous columns. For example, my 4th of July column of 2008, "My annual classic: College orientation week" [ www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/080704 ] Excerpts:
• "Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious . . . That which discloses the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding." — Ambrose Bierce
• "There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in." — Will Rogers
• "I have never let schooling interfere with my learning." — Mark Twain
• "An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't." — Anatole France
• "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." — Will Durant
• "Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know." — Daniel Boorstin
• "The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." — Robert Hutchins
• "Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. — John W. Gardner
• "Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another." — G.K. Chesterton
As Aristotle said, however, "Man is by nature a political animal," so — sadly — education has been much politicized. We have stupidly left our children's souls in the hands of "professionals" who have no intention whatsoever of saving our roots or passing on society's soul to the next generation.
As I have said once or twice, any old tree surgeon could tell you that an attack on your roots is an attack on you. Someone else just said that it's strange that the working stiffs of this country are now being called on to "bail out Ivy Leaguers" (I guess they're "too smart to fail" besides too big for their britches).
Solzhenitsyn said, "For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor [mediocre] ones."
Lady Margaret Thatcher said, "Be warned. A powerful, radical left-wing clerisy is bent on destroying what every past generation would have understood to be the central purpose of education — that is, allowing (in the words of Edmund Burke) individuals to 'avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages.'
"A society needs only one generation to abandon the task of learning and transmitting its culture, for that culture to become an alien, lifeless irrelevance . . [and] the cultural revolutionaries will drown out what Lincoln called 'the mystic chords of memory' with jarring cacophony." [Whom the gods wish to con, they first make illiterate] www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/030921
P.S. We are two or three generations late in waking up! The story of the unique American Revolution was first "minimized," then demonized, and finally more or less ignored. Our most highly "evolved" professors like to tell this "most highly evolved," hip, generation that the geezers who believed all that old stuff just weren't very smart (modern test scores notwithstanding). It may be too late now to turn the hearts back to our forefathers, but in closing, here are some very "interesting" quotations:
"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness' . . The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vanity [while] . . professing themselves to be wise." — Paul, the Apostle
"The [true] wise man's words are like cattle prods that spur to action. They nail down important truths . . .
"But be warned my son; there is no end of opinions ready to be expressed ['many books']. Studying them can go on forever and become wearisome to the flesh.
"Here is my final answer: fear God and obey His commandments, for this is the entire duty of mankind." — Solomon (Living Lessons of Life and Love)
PPS: Just a few more thoughts for the Tea partiers, Independents, and other geezers:
My mother used to love asking "dumb questions" at just the right moment. Right now I'd like to ask one of those dumb questions:
"Did you ever notice that the recent "health reform" bill was written by the same people who gave us the Zero Population Growth movement of the 1970s?"
"What's really in that bill — and WHY?"
The slicksters who rammed this down our throat are now in maximum P.R. mode, even though they claim that it already passed! So "WHY?"
Your homework assignment, should you accept it, is to "think on these things" until next time. You will be quizzed on these questions.
© Curtis Dahlgren
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