Whatever did we manage before the N.E.A.?

I recently read Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' and wondered why isn't this book required reading in American Public Schools. Then, an afterthought so epiphanous that a light bulb should have appeared over my head accompanied by the sound of a very loud slap. Our Public School system in America has been overtaken by the government, which has been overtaken by the progressive Fabian Socialists through the Department of Education and the N.E.A..

Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals' can be readily and easily found near the top of the list of reccomended reading in almost every school. Besides not having any vile directions toward opposing all authority, parents, church, police, military, and even generally each other... there are no really cool cartoons to reinforce the ever popular cultivation of low individual expectation and high collective entitlement.

And then, theres that ugly little fact that they just can't understand and benefit by all those old concepts and atiquated ideals. The teachers are too over-burdened with AYP (average yearly progress) standards and 'No Child Left Behind' testing requirements.

I read today in my local newspaper that... Though our schools have missed the standard, again... our schools are improving. Through the hard work against all odds and back-breaking budgetary pressures, our teachers are embracing the United States federal government's economic comfort within the new standard of "less worse."

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas, U.S.A.

It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895
Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie, 'play,' and 'run.'
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6. What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1 hour 15 minutes)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. - For tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft.. Long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour)

[Do we even know what this is??]

1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, and syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: tri graph, sub vocals, diphthong, cognate letters, and linguals.

4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks
and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)

1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall, and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
7. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
8. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
9. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete. Gives the saying 'he only had an 8th grade education' a whole new meaning, doesn't it?!

It also shows us how poor our education system has become.

......and by the way, the title of this post was intentionally... un-brilliant.... After all, I received most of my education in American Public Schools.

Where’s that switch?

I enjoyed what Ed Bradford posted in the TCOT Action Projects Constitutional Classroom, today.

Ed posted, in part:

"We're soon going to have too much to talk about. Cap and Tax is another interesting "issue". I have declared it to be a "law respecting an establishment of religion". I say that because CHIGW (pronounced "chig-wa") is the Church of Human Induced Global Warming as established by the EPA Administrators beliefs! I found this in the EPA reports on CO2.

Since a known relationship between CO2 emissions and weather is missing, any actions (laws) based in that have to be based on simple beliefs. When this country was in its infancy, governments paid the salaries of local church leaders. It wasn't until the early 1800's that most of the paid positions were eliminated in rewritten state constitutions. Note, however, the US Constitution was silent on the issue at the time."

I like the thinking on the establishment of religion issue, but I think that the collusive association of media, Wall Street, and Government has sufficiently watered down direct accountability. They are all hiding behind the other. I like the premise though and feel it might resonate with voters if added to the enumerable reasons to demand Al Gore be tarred and feathered. If only the "green" thing could have been somehow associated with Jesus Christ. California's willing embrace of "green" gimmickry will someday be its most egregious folly and "gift" to the rest of the Union, along with wide open borders and antichristianity.

Allan Hampton, another fellow classmate queried about what part of TCOTUS provides specifically language to enforce and punish elected officials that violate their oaths of office.

I'm afraid if you are seeking an on/off switch or a silver bullet solution to enforce or correct unethical behavior from within TCOTUS, you will have spent a lot of time and energy for naught.

Generations of politicians have normalized hubris and have developed traditional violations of ethics. That is the real reason they have perpetuated the wall between church and state. Wiggle room. Mercurial issue positioning to pander to special interests and total avoidance of personal accountability or responsibility have become "savvy politics."

Gerrymandering, government enabled voter fraud, electronic voting with no paper trail, elections decided by a compromised judicial system… all being played out in real-time play by play live broadcasting TV among burger commercials and gadget pitchmen have mesmerized a nation.

It will take more than a single obscurity within the Constitution to set this all even close to right. It will take a many-pronged and orchestrated methodology of education and activation of the citizenry, made aware of how governmental exploitation of carefully cultivated fear has divided them one from another, preventing them as a whole from expecting oaths of office to be honored by the elected and appointed.

Most importantly, it will take leadership from within the body of this nation to emerge from outside of the existing political establishment, armed with the commitment to ALL of the principles and purposes written into the construction of the Constitution of the United States. It will not be because they have been chained to an oath. It will be because they have made an oath within themselves.

I watched the current president stand before the original documents of the Framers to read a speech from Teleprompters to a national audience. More was said by the media about his "stagecraft" than was said about his self-serving content. I found myself wishing that he'd just turn around and read the real news to the nation.

Tear Down That Wall!

Liberty over Tyranny

"When the citizenry fears its government, there is tyranny. When the government fears its citizenry, there is liberty."

This statement must be understood, realized, and affirmed by every citizen wishing to regain control of an out-of-control government! We really do have the ability and the right to constructively influence and therefore change the course of our government. Force a return to the Constitution of The United States of America as our future, not merely our history. Consider the following ideas.

Repeal the 16^th Amendment of the Constitution

Each state's citizens must join other states' citizens in developing and promoting the demand that our State Congress petition the Federal Congress to legislate the repeal of the 16^th Amendment of the Constitution and dissolve the government's system to collect Federal Income Taxes. Grass roots movements like the recent "Tea Parties", are looking to distill their message of discontent into real action that will be worth their participation and individual contribution.

Am I right in my understanding that If 2/3 of the states of the United States do likewise, the federal Congress is forced to address the petition. Even if they do not write legislation amending the Constitution, the power of the proposed concept would affect restraint on the government.

Term limits

In my opinion, we must remove the attraction for corruption and graft by halting the pursuit of a career of professional politics. Priorities of career professional politicians are in direct and absolute conflict with representation of, by, and for the people of this nation. There exists a self-sustaining and self-perpetuating wall of insulation and isolation between the government and the citizenry that has made void the checks and balances in the three branches of government. I think that wall would be wrought asunder by the institution of term limits.

America, "Tear down that wall!"

...Unless...

Unless following this sort of logic would by its very nature be the trap that is always at the end of meddlesome hands. It's said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Herein lies an example of that sentiment.

Ask yourself what might happen as unintended consequence, once any part of the Constitution is chipped away by whatever populism prevails, at whatever time, in whatever State, county, or parish, no matter how well-intended the proponents are... and envision surely well-intended wedges driven into imagined cracks in all parts of the Constitution of The United States... and therefore, the Union and its very future.

We are not wiser, nor better equiped by our generation, than the Framers were in theirs. The Constitution is not to be so trifled with that any portion of it be made premise to attack and bring asunder any other portion, part, or purpose of the whole of it.

Pretenders to The “Thrown”

The GOP's recently professed appreciation for fiscal responsibility, while welcomed, is insulting to the very conservatives that have felt kicked to the curb, thrown under the bus, and generally abandoned over the last 20 years, and especially during the last presidential election. The insult of disdain heaped onto the core of intelligent members of what once was the last bastion of political, social, and fiscal conservativism in order to embrace and pander to "moderate" demographics begs one wonder which party was steering that bus.

Republican Senators and Congressional Representatives that are now coming out of the proverbial Washington woodwork, complaining loudly against government spending of taxpayer money and for budget restraint, are like someone finding religion on their deathbed. While admitting their past sins aloud might ease their consciences, it will not buy them what they want. They're still going to die. And until they do, even if forgiven… will never be trusted again.

The GOP has effectively neutered itself by separating itself from what the democrat party, MSM, and Obama appointed DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has defined as its "radical right-wing" nuts.

The Republican Party has compounded its recent swan dive into the abyss by killing its own brand; propelling a pendulous shift toward a nearly fascist power grab and to the liberal left-wing fringe of the democrats, who are systematically infiltrating anarchists and statists into every apolitical agency in government that previously had, at minimum, made an effort to represent a semblance of protecting America.

Who knows how much irreparable damage will have been done to political parties, the Republic, and the American free market by the time another election can bring yet more change?

Anyone who has read the "The Federalist Papers", or The 5000 Year Leap, quickly and completely understands that both parties of U.S. Government have systematically idled the bus away from The Constitution of The United States of America throughout its history, but seemed to have floored the accelerator in the last few years.

One wonders if America, having been bitch-slapped awake after her long sleepy dream of freedom, will stand together in Union to demand the re-ratification of The Constitution of The United States and commitment of each member of the body politic and every legal citizen.

Every online social networking site, blog, chat room, online newspaper feedback section, coffee shop, and bulletin board is filled with comments by people that are fed up and looking for ways to communicate their frustration and anger. The "silent majority" is rising out of isolation again. They want another hero like Ronald Reagan.

The "Tax Day Tea Parties" that sprang up across America on April 15, whether grassroots, Astroturf, or media-driven were a wake-up call. No matter how they happened, the reality that they happened is resonating throughout the nation. It must not be allowed to die on the vine.

It is from within movements like this one that heroes and heroines emerge. That said; keep a weathered eye on the political horizon. Wannabes will dance gleefully to the fore all sparkly and anti-rightnow, professing to be the answer to whatever everybody is mad about. Just laugh at them and keep looking… but do keep looking. Do not again let the "good enough" be the enemy of great!

Hear Your Own Voice

To be fully appreciated, information presented by the majority of what has become commonly referred to as the “Main Stream Media” should begin with, “Once upon a time...”

I wonder, from what origin or place perceptions like this are born. How can truth become a variable perspective to some? For what purpose do these premises seek purchase among the realities derived of facts that we all are taught? Can we all be taught the same history, and learn different realities? What reason compels perversion of truth? My heart feels no comfort by any answers my mind can assign compatibly to these queries.

It insults intelligence and common sense to proffer that bearers of subtle revisionisms fashioned from willfully wrong-headed perceptions of the true actualities of historical life have good intentions. The creation of fear, for fear’s sake provides opportunity to divide and manipulate the weak from our midst. The weak are always targeted by aspiring predators. Predators exist for their own purpose, only.

If history has taught humanity anything, it is that dangerous and violent agendas spring from occasions promoted as benevolence that afford some power to persuade the good and honorable among us to acquiesce while naked ambition is foisted over good reason; upon the backs of, and at the expense of others.

Consider a recently stated, though not originated, proclamation: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” – Rahm Emanuel. While ridiculous to most of us to embrace as actually wholly intended, the sentiment is real and as insidious as your first impression of the statement implied it was when you first read it or heard it spoken.

Will you wait until the predator is at your own door before looking away from whatever distraction pacifies you and obstructs your concern for others? Are you willing to accept whatever is presented to you in trade for your integrity; your morality; your humanity?

I will not! My soul, though imperfect, is intact. I refuse to acquiesce in the face of self-serving subtle aggression of revisionist historians that would set themselves as more “properly educated”, and therefore to be valued above others, by presenting and promoting their own perspectives and interpretations as more pertinent than what I know in my heart. My knowledge, faith, and belief is the wisdom inside of me that cannot be diminished by argument.

Whether you know it or not, you have that same wisdom. It is the wisdom that God placed of himself within all humanity. It is that internal voice you’ve heard that makes you survive and protect others that you care about. It is not of any specific religion, education, or up-bringing. This wisdom is your connection to the universe. While you are unable to deny its existence, you may be able to convince yourself or be convinced by others that some other wisdom is more relevant than yours. But in doing so, you become accomplice to your own devaluation.

Bob Dylan said in a song, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Just because we all can agree on the inherent reality of that statement, doesn’t mean that there aren’t some that receive weather reportage as if it were delivered upon us all as from some all-seeing and magnanimous oracle. All I’m saying is, avert your gaze from the “drug with a plug”, lift up your eyes, hang your head out of a window, and look for yourself. You might be able to reach some conclusions on your own that may surprisingly be in stark conflict with what you thought you knew just moments ago.

Selling Slime

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). –From Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. That's exactly how I find myself way too often, of late.

Either I've become inclined toward quasi-conspiratorial departures from reality or... in reality, am becoming aware of a whole lot of difficult to ignore batches of insane items that if listed, says one of two things about me… Either I'm nuts or I'm not. Both are equally troubling to me.

I really didn't notice when it happened exactly, but satellite television stopped transmitting "raw feeds" that had no commercials with unregulated international content and up popped Dish Network and DirecTV. Cable TV providers also now make you pay to have more commercials selling needless crap perpetually, shoveling it into every living room in America. Both seem to have been created and produced by someone directly out of whatever daydream inspired Orwell to write "1984"; more interested in indoctrination than entertainment. In America, TV has become "the drug with a plug" and like all reinforced addictions, it presents merely the illusion of value and satisfaction.

Its programming has openly and unapologetically presented and pronounced itself oracle-vision from on high which all sheeple should gaze slack-jawed into in order to receive the very foundation of their state sponsored entitlement to magical knowledge without learning. The bountiful trough of revisionist history set forth before our lambs, heaped with fuzzy theory, supposition, speculation, fantasy, and outright historical fallacy.

I remember how the words in an old Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention song entitled "I Am The Slime" seemed funny, exaggerated, and entertainingly absurd back in the early 1970's when I first heard them, but now have proven to have been prophetic. Thanks Frank!

I am gross and perverted
I'm obsessed n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little had changed
I am the tool of the government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you

I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin out
From your TV set

You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't got for help...no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold

That's right, folks..
Don't touch that dial

Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin along on your livinroom floor

I am the slime from your video
Cant stop the slime, people, lookit me go

This year, analog TV reception was eliminated and replaced with digital, making obsolete everybody's older equipment and eliminating real public (underground) broadcasting.

Recently I heard it announced that libraries were destroying children's books because they may have been printed with lead-based ink. Really? Are kids eating books nowadays?

I find that I am unable to make excuses for my perceptions. Saying "It must be the same with every generation" just doesn't wash. Grasping for, and clinging onto what's remembered of "the good ole days" may be an easy dismissal to hang around the necks of people, but it only really works to marginalize them if they really did eat those lead-laden books I mentioned earlier. I don't remember eating any books… and I really think I'd remember something like that. After all, it's not like misplacing your car keys if one day you wake up to find volumes H-M and W-Z of the Encyclopedia Britannica mysteriously missing, leaving voids on the bookshelf in the family den.

Truth is, government has grown to never before seen size, power, and dimension with more tentacles co-opting a media and medium that is no longer bound by truth, ethics, morality, civic value or pertinence.

Dynamic sales methods that I learned how to employ while training to sell "home improvements" when I was working my way through college have become the new standard for unabashed and popularly practiced political prowess. I remember them as vividly as the smarmy guy that taught them. He was the original Leisure Suit Larry, except his name was Harold. Harold was a movie quality character. He had no patience or value for shame, ethics, or moral fiber. Greed and "the sale" were his religion. To Harold, aspiration to achieve the absence of those "character flaws" was the highest form of artistry and the only thing about mankind worthy of admiration by the practitioners of selling. If Harold were here now, he'd surely recognize that the world is full of mooches and marks for the fleecing. Hell, I think he'd be a prominent pillar of society nowadays. Probably a political powerhouse! He was definitely a man ahead of his time.

I see and hear Harold in nearly every government talking head, pundit, and media "star" blabbering slime from the video onto my living room floor. The media perpetuates whatever salaciousness they think might keep the viewer from switching channels. The government's professional politicians have become adept at little more than developing their own brand of artful salaciousness, custom-made to appeal to both the transmitting and receiving mouth-breathers that surround us.

I once learned that TV commercials were intentionally designed so that a third grader could understand, comprehend, and most importantly appreciate them. I used to only think that was to employ first brain imprinting like that of animal training, but sadly, I've come to realize that they design TV commercials and programming that way in order to communicate more effectively to about 60% of America. Equally as troubling is that from that 60% come way too many registered voters. The exception has become the rule.

Recently, I began reading The Federalist Papers, having been so terrified by the nation's recent government's lurch to somewhere so far to the left of reality that I needed to reassure myself that what swirls around in my head representing itself as an understanding of history was not just some warped shadow of a memory of a teenage hallucination leftover from some bad four-way from way back in the day.

I made it to just about the middle of the introduction written by Alexander Hamilton when a couple of things occurred to me.

One was that our Founding Fathers were brilliant and completely committed to The United States of America. Personal greed and self-aggrandizement were nowhere to be found within their agendas. They were true and honorable leaders of free men and women.

Another thing that occurred to me was that the true history and memory of them, as well as the future they crafted for this nation has been not only abandoned by our present government, it is being redefined, edited and adulterated.

How can this be allowed to happen? Is this what the beginning of the end of America looks like? Where is the counter-balance that checks this wrong? Who will listen? Why is nobody standing against the obvious destruction of America's identity? What can I do, and who will stand with me to demand this stop happening. What bright light can be wielded to illuminate the truth about the trick; the gimmick; the scam?

Prey... or Pray!

There are predators. They walk among us and go unnoticed most of the time because they look just like you or me. They may or may not speak the same and dress the same as you do but pretty close. They probably eat the same food from the same stores and restaurant's. By all outward appearances, they are the same, except...

Except there is no place for empathy, sympathy, or compassion within them. Oh, they know what those things are. They recognize them better than almost anyone. Those are weaknesses to them. They see them as "tells" or signature signs of vulnerabilities that can be exploited. Like a wolf locks onto the slightest limp of a single spring calf out of a whole herd.

You may think I'm talking about monstrous robbers, rapists, or murderers... and I am. Maybe not the kind you're used to seeing on TV or in the movies that eventually take the perp-walk in belly chains and handcuffs, just before the last commercial break. Yes, they are predators too, just not the most dangerous predators.

The most dangerous predators prey on society as a whole, not just one at a time. They rob, rape, and murder the whole of society. They count on civilized tolerance and accommodation for diversity. They learn what you hold sacred, in order to manipulate you and the others that share your beliefs. They know that you value inclusivity and they know that is a tendency that compels each member of the group to make excuses before asking questions. Within that span of time is when they strike. Questions are not polite. Questions by two or more people, are conspiratorial. Conspiracies are bad. You don't want to be bad, do you?

Questions indicate perception. Perception is the product of thinking and theorizing. Theories happen when you try to explain why everything you know doesn't answer all your unanswered questions. Theories are supposed to make you ask questions until you have answers. If your gut is telling you that what you are being told, is crap... It's probably crap.

The most dangerous predators are quick to deflect questions. They expect to be questioned much sooner than they usually are. The scoffing smirk accompanied by a lighthearted inference about conspiracy theories is usually enough to deflect and delay. After all, who wants to be associated with such fringe loons, like the ones that think the moon landing and international space station are staged on a movie set somewhere in California?

Question everything and everyone that conflicts with your principles, especially the government. The professional politicians in the government really don't care about your happiness. They care about their own happiness and the happiness of deep-pocket supporters of... you guessed it, themselves. When they smile a well-practiced smile and tell you they are different, and only want you to be happy, doesn't your spidey-senses go off out loud? Even a little bit?

I don't have to name names here. You can plug in almost any name of almost any professional politician, lawyer, salesman, or actor. They are all paid to lie to you. Some of them are better at lies than others. The better they are at lies, the better they are a predation. We now have new and better tellers of lies telling old lies better to a whole new tide of first-time believers (prey).

The phrase "there's a sucker born every day" is the watchword of the day, every day for them and they are always on guard against being found out. Some of us recognize them for what they are and actually thought they were way too easy to see through, before discovering at our total disbelief and sheer terror, that half of the voters and all of the world's media believe nearly everything they say. I remember when it dawned on some of the newest predators and they actually realized that they were pulling it off. You could almost see the light bulb light up over their heads.

You don't have to subscribe to my personal brand of conspiracy theories but, at least decide to not be easy prey. Pray for ethical clarity. Pray for specific answers. Pray for simple and principled truth.