Category Archives: English

On Parrot Power & Other “Deep Technical Skills”

English, Human Accomplishment, Intelligence, Labor, Outsourcing, Parrots, Politics

I just had to correct the first error I found in John Derbyshire’s terrific book, We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism. (Read it!)

It’s an analogy that occurs on page 108: “Parrot-brained politicians.”

As you know, the author of the much-reviled columns, “In Defense of Michael Vick,” Parts One and Two, loves parrots and has two (T. Cup and Oscar-Wood). Parrots are enchanting, highly intelligent creatures.

Besides, can any politician problem-solve as this magic macaw does? Tan’s Japanese admirers are enthralled. As well they should be. Watch:

Jokes aside, Derb has a list of “deep technical skills” required to power a modern economy (p. 112). Other than the “structural engineer,” whom you would hope has a considerable facility with theory/math too (if those bridges are to stand), I don’t see how trades such as “TV studio lighting,” or “orthodontistry” (as opposed dentistry), horticulture, aircraft maintenance, crane operating, or bond trading quite qualify as “deep technical skills.”

(Where do electrical engineers and computer scientists fall? These are the people who supply the dumb, difficult and dispensable young—the twittering twits—with the playthings that keep their brainwaves from flatlining.)

A minor query, a magnificent book. I guess I was looking for an excuse to chat about and recommend We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism.

Barefoot In Bollywood

Barack Obama, Business, English, Free Markets, Outsourcing, Regulation, Technology, Trade

That’s our First Lady, Mrs. Michelle Obama. “Almost immediately after arriving at the university [of Mumbai’s] library, she kicked off her flats and joined in a game of vocabulary-building hopscotch with the 8- to 13-year-old orphans and runaways who receive English-language instruction from Make a Difference volunteers,” reports CBC.

“I love dancing. Oh that was fun!’ Mrs. Obama said after they danced to the theme song from the Bollywood movie ‘Rang de Basanti.'”

A grass skirt and a pail of water on her head would have completed Mrs. Obama’s regal regalia. (What horrid “music” she’s bumping and grinding to.)

It’s interesting that these kids are receiving English-language instruction. Hardly something Michelle would be fighting for back at home. She’d be the “English as a Second Language ‘Program” advocate.

Meanwhile, Michelle’s less earthy husband is talking a good game against outsourcing, and doing what he does best: central planning, promising tax breaks to companies that create jobs in America.

Strange: the president visits India, which is outsourcing central, only to tell his put-upon hosts that he wants to discourage their bread-and-butter industry.

Obama would do better to ponder the following: In the U.S., companies endure endless, punishing, government-imposed regulations, which make doing business and staying competitive increasingly difficult. Foreign investors in China and India are not subject to more than 180 federal labor laws; to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an IRS and an EPA; or to a work force where merit is marred by affirmative action. To the cost of the assorted alphabet soup of regulatory agencies a corporation must pay off in the U.S., add exorbitant corporate taxes and expenses like workers compensation insurance … as well as the cost of a government rape known as Social Security.

Factored into the wage price the corporation pays are, thus, large government-imposed costs. The company’s before-tax wage package must offset the cost of the income-tax burden as well as the cost of Social Security. Without the onerous government taxes, this American employee would cost the firm 30 to 40 percent less.

Consider that the annual Social Security burden alone on an American high-tech employee, borne by the employer, is the equivalent of the annual salary of a high-tech worker living well in India—and the logic of outsourcing is self-evident!

Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and author of the book “Outsourcing America,” knows how corporate America works. Via the WaPo:

“They have successfully built a business model where not only do they offshore large numbers of jobs, but the fraction that remain in the U.S. are filled by lower-paid foreign guest workers … They are often also forced to train their foreign replacements.”

This is indeed the model. You have to be at the top of your game to retain viable employment as an engineer in the US.

UPDATE II: Beware Of Wolves In Bipartisan Clothing (But When He's Good …)

Barack Obama, Bush, Democrats, Education, Elections, English, Iraq, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Politics, Propaganda, Republicans, Socialism

The following is from my latest WND column, “Beware Of Wolves In Bipartisan Clothing,” now on WND.COM:

“… MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has more street cred than most. The host of ‘Hardball’ spent the first two years of the Obama presidency in a state of delirium bordering on the sexual. Famous for experiencing something akin to a (daytime) nocturnal emission during Obama’s coronation – ‘thrill up the leg’ Matthews called the incident – Chris later begged Barack to be his ‘Enforcer,’ in the matter of sacking Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Understand: When a liberal like the president shows a bit of that manly magic, ‘girlie boys’ like Chris get giddy.”

Given Chris’ well-known carnal affections for Barack Obama, it is unfortunate that the op-ed segment with which he ends the ‘Hardball’ program daily is called ‘Let Me Finish.’

Yesterday, Matthews finished off by surmising that the ‘kick in the pants’ the president has sustained means that it was now up to Obama to make the Republicans an offer they could not refuse – especially with the entire country watching. The challenge for Obama, advised Matthews, is to force Republicans to join him, or look like creeps if they fail to join him. …

Yes, The 2010 midterm elections were a bloodbath for the Democratic Party. Because there are no mollifying messages to be had from such a political massacre, liberal pols, pundits, and other dominant interests, hastened to soften the “shellacking” by framing it in terms more tolerable. …”

The complete column is “Beware Of Wolves In Bipartisan Clothing.”

If you have not yet purchased my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society, it’s not too late to do so.

The Second Edition features bonus material and reviews. Get your copy (or copies) now! And do petition the publisher for Broad Sides on Kindle.

UPDATED I (Nov. 5): BUT WHEN HE’S GOOD HE’S VERY GOOD.

Now how good is the following editorial by Chris Matthews?! And how good am I for being capable of seeing a good argument for what it is?! Why can’t Chris be as good at distilling the truth? In any case, this time “Let Me Finish” is a proper climax to the show (read “Beware Of Wolves In Bipartisan Clothing” to get all the sexual connotations):

Matthews: Does George W. Bush live in a house of mirrors? Hardball’s Chris Matthews reacts to some of the excerpts released from George W. Bush’s new memoir.

Behold the transcript of this fabulous editorial. See the quality of intern/ignorant millennial (most probably) these large organizations are forced to hire (they love youth, and shun older, more literate workers). It’s one thing not to know the fine word “solipsistic”; it’s quite another to be bereft of the brains, the initiative, and the work ethic to look it up on an online dictionary before typing/transcribing the sentence.

Instead of “solipsistic,” which is what Matthews said, the moron MSNBC has hired to transcribe the audio (and do related work) wrote “solid cystic.” This is the kind of word salad one is treated to when watching the simultaneous translations offered up on the TV screens at the health club. The transcribing is being done by individuals who’ve almost no facility with the English language. That describes most American school and university graduates. Enjoy:

“Let me finish tonight with george w. bush. you know years ago a member of the british cabinet got caught in an embarrassment and of course denied it, to which his accuser said, well, he would, wouldn’t he? denial is the norm of political life especially of the awful. president bush says the iraq war was justified because it prevented another 9/11. well, 9/11 was a network operation involving cells in germa germany, heavy recruit in the saudi arabia and of course flight training down in florida. the one country not involved in 9/11 was iraq, the attack of 9/11 was conspired among a web of jihadists religion phanatics without loyalty to a particular state. saddam hussein was a baathist. so how would a war in iraq prevent another attack from elements of al qaeda? or is bushauring something that logically cannot be denied for the simple reason it has nothing to do with logic with the discernible cause and effect with anything tangible. is he saying that the war which caused 77,000 lives was justified because he thought it would prevent another terrorist attack like 9/11? in other words, if the connection between 9/11 and iraq, which no one else’s ever been able to substantiate, was in his own mental wiring, he’s guiltless before history. there’s a reason that bush lives in this solid cystic world. cause of effect or of tangible fact even, but of what george w. bush sees out there…”

UPDATE II: More on “compromising” from Diana West (who, I am sure, would have lots to say about the ill-educated non-adults who’re, increasingly, running this country):

If our new Republicans are as gullible as our old ones, instead of cutting taxes across the board, they just might “compromise” with Democrats, and that’s the end of that. Or instead of refusing to raise the national debt ceiling another trillion dollars, they just might “compromise” with Democrats and up it goes. Or instead of repealing Obamacare, they just might “compromise” with Democrats and fine-tune a few colossal programs. When all the votes are cast and backs patted, of course, “compromise” is a poor substitute for principle. But all we can do now is hope for change: that the GOP, backed by the tea party, stands strong this time even in the face of Democratic accusations that it is playing “politics as usual,” or acting like the “Party of No.” Because it’s a sure thing that such accusations are on their way. Indeed, even as voters were still heading to the polls on Tuesday, Michelle Malkin noted the Democratic National Committee had already released talking points that attacked Republican leaders who “are not willing to compromise.

[SNIP]

I would change “gullible to “venal” and “power hungry.”

UPDATE II: My Oppression Is Bigger Than Yours (Postmodernisms)

Education, English, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Multiculturalism, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

“Self-anointed Jewish leadership,” I wrote “has managed to cast Jews as a mere faction among a multicultural mob, a position Jews (being liberals) love.”

That describes Jon Stewart—who is a member of the liberal, Jewish glitterati—and his fight with a CNN reptilian brain by the name of Rick Sanchez.

FoxNews:

Sanchez said that Stewart is bigoted toward “everybody else that’s not like him.” He said Stewart “can’t relate to what I grew up with,” saying his family had been poor and he had seen prejudice directed at his father.
Sanchez dismisses it when Dominick points out that Stewart, who is Jewish, is also a minority.
“I’m telling you that everyone who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority?” Sanchez said, adding a sarcastic “yeah.”
“I can’t see someone not getting a job these days because they’re Jewish,” he said.

I stopped watching Stewart long ago. However, I have never heard him refer to himself in other than a self-deprecating tone. In fact when, in 2005, the barbarians of the banlieusard were rioting in France, Stewart mocked his status as an “alienated” minority thus: “Do you know what it’s like to be sent to a Christian school every Passover with a hardboiled egg?” (Italians would have similar stories of “survival.”)

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe: whose side am I on here? I’ll go with the the Jew, just because he’s brainier than the other oaf. I’m glad Rick is gone, but look who the dog dragged in instead: “Put evil and supercilious together and what do you get? ‘Parker Spitzer.'”

YAWN.

UPDATE (Oct. 2): THE STEWART INSTITUTION. I’ve changed my mind about this weighty matter (NOT) currently occupying the debtor nation’s news headlines: I’m now on the side of Sanchez. I believe that the ratings for his “Ricks’ List” show were good (for CNN, at least). Why fire him if this is the case? Besides, a slight against Jon Stewart: Is that enough to get you fired? Perhaps I’ll change my mind again, as is my wont when such a hugely important issue is at hand.

Ridiculous, isn’t it?!

UPDATE II (Oct. 3): ALEX AND THE POSTMODERNISTS. Young Alex is a long-time friend of BAB and contributor to my blog. His trials and tribulations are familiar to this writer. I have known Alex to be brash, on occasion. But he is nothing like the typical millennial I’ve described in “Your Kids: Dumb, Difficult And Dispensable,” and who I encounter in my professional dealings. These are horrible, hubristic youths, egged on to heights of narcissistic grandiosity by their infatuated, errant and idiotic (naturally) elders. In another age, in another time, Alex would be a leader. I find his plucky attitude towards his cretinous tutors to be inspiring. Older men participating on this blog should support this young man, and any like him.

For heaven’s sake Alex, when do you complete your interminable degree? The sooner you qualify and go out and do what the dead wood can’t do; the better you’ll be. You’re mired in an intellectual cesspool.

Alex asked about critical race theory, an artificial, political construct with which the postmodernists in the academy rape reality, art, literature and music and roger western culture, in general. We’ve discussed these matters before, so I am reproducing an earlier blog post titled “Avoid The American English Department”:

It is old news that the academy has been contaminated by postmodernism.

For example, academic historians and their acolytes have worked overtime to replace the impartial, non-ideological study of American history and its heroic figures with “history from below.” This postmodern tradition regularly produces works the topics of which include, “Quilting Midwives during the Revolution.” Or, “Hermaphrodites and the Clitoris in Early America.”

As you well imagine, the libidinized annals of the “Hermaphrodites and the Clitoris in Early America” is not flying off the printing presses.

The deconstruction of fields of study has engulfed universities, not sparing the hard sciences. Women’s Studies courses and English departments are most likely to be littered with the ideology’s lumpen jargon. There, text is routinely deconstructed and shred. Subjected to this “academic” acid, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and T. S. Eliot are whittled down to no more than ruling class oppressors, their artistry reduced to the bare bones of alleged power relationships in society.

Easily the worst offender is the American English Department. Phyllis Schlafly wrote the following in “Advice To College Students: Don’t Major in English”:

“In the decades before ‘progressive’ education became the vogue, English majors were required to study Shakespeare, the pre-eminent author of English literature. The premise was that students should be introduced to the best that has been thought and said.”

“What happened? To borrow words from Hamlet: ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.’ Universities deliberately replaced courses in the great authors of English literature with what professors openly call ‘fresh concerns,’ ‘under-represented cultures,’ and ‘ethnic or non-Western literature.’ When the classics are assigned, they are victims of the academic fad called deconstructionism. That means: pay no mind to what the author wrote or meant; deconstruct him and construct your own interpretation, as in a Vanderbilt University course called ‘Shakespearean Sexuality,’ or ‘Chaucer: Gender and Genre’ at Hamilton College. …”

“Twenty years ago, University of Chicago Professor Allan Bloom achieved best-seller lists and fame with his book The Closing of the American Mind. He dated the change in academic curricula from the 1960s when universities began to abandon the classic works of literature and instead adopt multicultural readings written by untalented, unimportant women and minorities.”

“Bloom’s book showed how the Western canon of what educated Americans should know – from Socrates to Shakespeare – was replaced with relativism and the goals of opposing racism, sexism and elitism. Current works promoting multiculturalism written by women and minorities replaced the classics of Western civilization written by the DWEMs, Dead White European Males.”

“Left-wing academics, often called tenured radicals, eagerly spread the message, and students at Stanford in 1988 chanted ‘Hey hey, ho ho, Western civ has got to go.’ The classicists were cowed into silence, and it’s now clear that the multiculturalists won the canon wars.”

“Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton have been replaced by living authors who toe the line of multicultural political correctness, i.e., view everything through the lens of race, gender and class based on the assumption that America is a discriminatory and unjust racist and patriarchal society. The only good news is that students seldom read books any more and use Cliffs Notes for books they might be assigned.”

[SNIP]

In its December 12, 2008 issue, the Times Literary Supplement has some fun at the expense of a pompous graduate of this pathetic tradition. The incomprehensibility factor, as they call it:

“Once the habit of writing comprehensible English has been unlearned, it can be difficult to reacquire the knack. Here is an example of a sentence which purports to be written in English, but which, we propose, is incomprehensible to all but a few. It is taken from Coincidence and Counterfactuality: Plotting time and space in narrative fiction by Hilary P. Dannenberg”:

Historical counterfactuals in narrative fiction frequently take an ontologically different form in which the counterfactual premise engenders a whole narrative world instead of being limited to hypothetical inserts embedded in the main actual world of the narrative text.

About Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park Dannenberg the dolt writes that it “undertakes a more concerted form of counterfactualizing, in which both the character and the narrator separately map out counterfactual versions of the concluding phase of the novel’s love plot.”

In studied contempt, the TLS marvels that Coincidence and Counterfactuality “is published by the University of Nebraska Press. Just think: someone read the book and endorsed its publication, someone edited it, someone else set it in type, designed a cover, compiled an index, read the proofs—yet hardly anyone can understands what’s in it.”

Now that’s good, clear English everyone gets.

A good friend of mine, also a fine and successful novelist, relates this amusing incident:

“I once got hired by the U of Chicago to edit their academic press. The manuscripts were atrocious. I could not understand what was written, and used a red pen heavily in the margins of the manuscripts. After my corrections arrived, I was fired immediately. They told me I was not ‘intellectually sophisticated’ enough for the job. To which I replied: ‘You’re right: Fuck you.'”

Would I have, like my friend, responded so confidently and cleverly, as our reader suggests? I don’t think so. I’d probably become defensive, and return an analytical evisceration, which would have been wasted on the these literary offenders. My friend’s repartee is much more effective: it’s economical and intellectually apt, given its targets.