Opus 2019-090: College Replacement Exams, Part 1 of 2

Maybe it is time to totally reject the modern idea of a college education and our university system.  Actually there is no “maybe” about it.  The recent addition of an “Adversity Score” to the SAT testing should be the final nail in the coffin of “advanced” education.  Add that to such majors as “Gender Studies”, the classes on diversity training, coed dorms and totally left wing professors and you come up with the question of “Who needs them?”

In the interests of destroying excellence and making America mediocre, the left has pushed the idea that everyone should go to college.  I taught in middle school for almost 30 years and the mantra was that everyone needed and deserved a college education.  It doesn’t really matter that most people are not qualified.  The sad result is that the standards have been reduced so that everyone can feel good about what they are doing.  There was a day when a high school diploma meant something and a college degree was a mark of achievement.  No longer.  Now everyone graduates, thus making the honor meaningless.

So how could we deal with the need for quality doctors, top notch engineers and trained scientists?  We think we need them to have a government endorsed degree or attain a government license.  Not really.  Let the free marketplace take care of the qualifications.  Remember the mark on appliances, UL approved?  Remember the Good Housekeeping seal of approval?  Remember that the AAA sign on a motel used to mean something?  We need to expect people to be responsible for their own choices and the results.  Caveat emptor. 

I don’t need the government to tell me a barber is licensed.  If he gives me a bad haircut, I won’t go back.  I don’t need the city to tell me if a restaurant has a clean kitchen.  I don’t need the government requiring me to wear a seat belt.  I am a big boy.

So how do we get the qualified people we need.

To be continued....

homo unius libri

Opus 2019-089: Election 2020: Hugs

I am not a hugger.  I guess I was.  My mother used to say I was quite the hugger until I was around ten years old.  I don’t remember that but I will take her word for it. 

In spite of not being a hugger, I know how to hug.  I have no problem with hugging family and I have learned that some close friends are huggers.  I deal with it.  When I get introduced to some people and they get that look in their eye, I will ask them, “Are you a hugger?”  If they are I go ahead and join in the ritual, but I avoid it if I can.  Germs, you know.

So when Joe Biden says he came from an affectionate family, I can accept that.  You have seen them.  If it moves they hug it, unless it moves fast enough.  If it doesn’t move, they hug it anyway.  That may be how tree huggers got started.  He could be simply a hugger but he is also a fool.  Many people do not want to be hugged.  Many children do not feel comfortable with strangers touching them.  Many adults don’t want strange men touching their little girls.  If he would simply accept that and modify his behavior I could deal with it. 

His ideas and foot in the mouth scorched earth comments are another issue.  That is a serious defect that disqualifies him from the presidency in my opinion.  I think we should focus on his left wing ideology rather than his huginess.

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Opus 2019-088: Headlines: Congressional Investigations

Why is congress investigating Donald Trump Jr. and not Hunter Biden?

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Opus 2019-087: Term Limits

One of the complaints we have about our political leaders is that they become career politicians and have not sense of who we are as a people.  They live in their beltway bubble and only come out to campaign.  Look at people like Joe Biden who has been in political offices for 50 years.  That doesn’t leave a lot of time to have worked a real job.  One of the reasons people in power don’t like Donald Trump is that he has been forced to meet a payroll and produce results.  He does not have the mindset of career politicians.  He does not fit in.

One of the solutions to this is term limits.  Term limits is legislation that limits the number of times a person can be elected to an office.  The only such limit in the Constitution has to do with president and that was not in the original document.  It was added in the 22nd Amendment as a response to the four terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  His long run put people in fear of a popular president setting himself up for life as has happened so often in the world.  America has not wanted a king, at least in the past.

The Founding Fathers were not big fans of term limits.  If they had been then we would see it in the Constitution.  They seemed to feel that the arbitrators of length of service should be the voters.  They deliberately made it easy to vote out members of the House of Representative by having them all run for reelection every two years.  Since they were the authors of spending bills this made it easy for people to get rid of them and find a replacement.  The Senate, on the other hand, served for six years.  It was supposed to give them time to deliberate and not be so sensitive to the emotions of the people.  The Senate was originally elected by the state legislators which further isolated them from the fickle nature of the masses.  But there were no term limits.

Keep in mind that term limits work both ways.  It gets rid of dead weight but also dumps people who are doing a good job and have the experience to get things done.  Usually we have different people we want thrown out, depending on our political party.

At present I am against term limits.  Members of Congress are elected to represent the people they serve.  If the people don’t like them then vote the suckers out.  The fact that most people are not paying attention is no excuse.  As much as I would like to see Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer depart the scene, that is up to the people who elected them, not me or my cronies. 

The answer to the fools in Congress is to have fewer fools in the ballot box.  That means more discussion in the public square by you and me.  That means educating ourselves and plugging along.  That is why Face Book, Twitter and Google are so set on driving conservative voices out of the public conversation.

Keep talking while you have a chance.

homo unius libri

Opus 2019-086: Baby Talk: Skill Sets

I am developing my one hand skills.  It only requires one arm to hold a baby, but surely there is something you can do with the other.

Have you ever tried to blow your nose with one hand?  For that matter have you ever had trouble getting a tissue out of a resistant box with only one hand?  This is something that we don’t think about a lot.  Try to use a can opener with one hand.  How about tying your shoes?  The list goes on and holding a baby forces you to grow.

Of course some of us have trouble doing some of these things with two hands. 

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Opus 2019-085: Election 2020: The Mud Settles More in the Water

The lust to destroy Western culture is in the process of removing another hurdle from the race.  The Progressives are experts at getting the camel’s nose under the tent using the American desire to be fair.  They then keep pushing, redefining the terms, moving the goal posts until they reach the point of cutting off the head that offends them.

It seems to me that another milestone has been reached as we see women’s sports being destroyed.  I refer to the growing trend to allow “transgenders”, men claiming to be female, to compete as women in women’s sports.  We now even see the leader of the culture smashers, Nancy Pelosi, introducing legislation at the federal level to add these people to the list of those protected against discrimination.  These are the people who brought you the spectacle of men walking into women’s bathroom, boys taking showers in the girls locker rooms and the removal of gender pronouns from textbooks. 

It starts with a claim to treat all people equally.  The Declaration of Independence has that concept but the Founding Fathers expected it to be applied with a little common sense and a common sense of morality.  It makes sense that if a boy is racing his hot rod against a lady in her souped up racer that both would get the same speeding ticket and fines.  It does not make sense to allow a testosterone loaded guy to put on a wig and win a wrestling competition against someone with estrogen conditioned muscles.  Not only does it not make sense, it is stupid.  Not only is it stupid, it is evil.  Yet that is where the Democrats (Liberals, Progressives, Communists, Rinos, elites) are at. 

And they keep coming.

If you are one of those people who has been intimidated into perpetual silence as this attack against our culture goes on then enjoy the world your fear is building.  The attack based on gender differences is just one prong.  Eventually these people will get to where you live.

Elections matter.  Values matter.  Morals matter. 

homo unius libri

Opus 2019-084: On the Street: False Advertising

It is hard to go through the blogs on the internet without constantly being barraged by guys trying to raise their viewer stats by posting pictures of babes.  One I appreciate is Theo Spark.  I think he has the pictures but he forces you to click on a link and draws you with words like “skin”, “topless” and “nipples”.  I appreciate the fact that the site allows me to decide whether I want to go voyeur or keep my mind out of the gutter. 

For some reason my thoughts went to a major source of revenue for governments.  The pictures I have seen make me think that we could generate a lot of money if we put a special tax on silicon.  I am not saying that these ladies are a bit out of balance but I somehow think that a lot of what they are showing off is false advertising.  It is kind of like making a large soft drink by adding water to a medium.

In Japan many of the restaurants will have pictures of the items up for sale.  Some even make up plastic models that look very real.  Rarely did the actual product live up to the hype.

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