Comments on: Update VI: Sonia A-Shout-Out-To-My-Mom Mayor

By: Van Wijk

Van Wijk — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:23:43 +0000

The American attitude toward higher education is identical to our attitude toward democracy: everyone must have it in order to live a meaningful and fulfilling life.

Barbara Grant has it right. America needs technicians, not more deluded children with degrees in post-colonial Asian lesbian theory. And perhaps if dedicated trade schools returned we wouldn’t have to import quite so many Bengalis and Poles to be technicians for us.

By: robert

robert — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:58:00 +0000

Barbara,
Please forgive me if I insinuated anything about The Ivy League other than a place that one of my sons wanted to attend. I live in Oklahoma and attended the University of Kansas. My eldest daughter is also attending my Alma Mater, my eldest son is at Chicago. Nothing exclusive or priggish here just insinuating that the Ivy League, like so many other aspects of our current culture is a crap shoot. Helps to be weird, effeminate if you are male, masculine if female, don’t own any guns, don’t be raised in the country, might be better to have five or six step parents, helps to have written a book at age 15 about overcoming some great tragedy or else some inane experience involving one or none of the above. Personally, I believe we live in a polyglot culture with all standards of merit and measurement except quantity extinct. You are preaching to the choir here, dear.

By: Barbara Grant

Barbara Grant — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:10:29 +0000

Speaking as a native of the U. S. West (actually, CA) I think far too much importance is being attached here, to the “Ivy League” and East Coast schools. Sure, we see it in the Sotomayor hearings; but there is so much more out there, that can work and has worked to change things for the better. Consider, please, this list of “distinguished alumni” from a _community college_ in my area. The two “Steves” mentioned on the list didn’t even graduate from community college, but their innovations were superb: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Anza_College

Higher education, and numerous degrees, are not all they’re cracked up to be, in my viewpoint. Too bad that so much emphasis is placed by our culture on the “Ivy League,” and so little on substantive achievement, regardless of where (or whether) an individual has gone to school.

By: robert

robert — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:47:19 +0000

Ilana,
Your link to “Older guys are manlier in their interests,” was an excellent article written back in 2006. Introspection is indeed the vice of an alienated people best exemplified in the psychological novels of Henry James and exposed with detail in Eliot’s poem, J. Alfred Proofrock. Thank you for the link and your excellent article on the subject. It is a quite a contrast from the old Greek historian Herodotus and the older english poets,such as Kipling, who believed that young men should still be taught to ride, shoot and speak the truth.

By: robert

robert — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:25:17 +0000

Myron, my son was recently rejected at Princeton but he made the cut at UPENN which was his first choice. The "Ricci Effect" extends deep into our cultural framework so it is hard to know nowadays why one is rejected and another accepted. I am of one mind with you when it comes to asking the most beautiful woman in the room to waltz before going off to war--- "If I’m going to be turned down, it might as well be by a gorgeous woman." Yes, this wise turn of the phrase has the humility of a true paleo- libertarian type. Now the true neo-con see it differently. In regards to beautiful women we like to say loudly in a crowded room that: "I try to give them all a chance to dance with me." With neo-cons it always about them, that is why it is safe to say with Paul Gottfried, "If they are supporting something or somebody, we should instinctively oppose -- may G-d someday in his mercy grant eternal rest to their ever living, lying, arrogant souls! Amen [I'd argue that the inward-looking narcissism pervading the culture is apolitical. It used to be that men eyed women on the street; now they eye their reflections in shop windows. Older guys are manlier in their interests.]

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:20:07 +0000

Regarding Princeton University:

I’m quite happy for Sonia that she met a nice mensch of a Professor Peter Winn (who was later denied tenure at Princeton) who really mentored her along:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/…/AR2009070902391.html

In my one day of my life wasted visiting PU, while I met two nice elderly professors, I had the great “pleasure” of being berated by a pompous future Nobel Laureate**: “[you like] Nuclear Physics – that’s … that’s chemistry!” and “Oh you’re a ‘computer nut’ … our work is SO FUNDAMENTAL that we don’t [stoop down to] use computers”. Well, I got the distinct honor (in hindsight) of being rejected by that eminent mental institution and attended my first choice, MIT, and got to be treated as dog manure by different professors. Incidentally, the two black theoreticians at MIT were really nice professors who treated graduate students as if they were (gasp!) human.

But I’m glad you (Robert) like my idea for the made-for-TV movie even if I am a PU reject.

** As I once remarked about having the guts to ask my future wife to dance with me – if I’m going to be turned down, it might as well be by a gorgeous woman.

By: robert

robert — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:18:18 +0000

Myron, The following skit should be played in every High School before Labor Day and substitute for a years worth of AP World History and Us History since 1865. You should submit it to the department of education for publication immediately with an apology to Dr. Seuss. You are a real gem when it comes to keeping a small light on after dark. Many thanks for your priceless participation. I assume you were only second in your class at Princeton? "Soon enough, we will get the made-for-TV movie on Sonia’s life with the obnoxious fat bigot kid who taunts her as “Spic” (played by Frank Ricci!), the stuck-up head cheerleader who won’t allow Sonia on the pom-pom squad (played by Palin), and the kindly Princeton professor mentor who puts diabetic Sonia on his knee and reads her Seuss’ “Hop on Pop” (played by Obama). Encouraged by affirmative action and her kindly mentor, our heroine learns English, becomes the #1 student at Princeton, and winds up on the court as a wise Latina woman. Tears sob-sob." [Our Myron is related to Nobel Prize winner Wolfgang Pauli of the "Exclusion Principle" fame. A Judge (you), a genius (Myron): those are the kind of people BAB draws. Oh, we haven't heard from Prof. Hayim for a while. He designs some dreamy lunar structures. Barbara Grant is also an engineer in some impossible field.]

By: Barbara Grant

Barbara Grant — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:31:35 +0000

The idea of the state controlling a woman’s uterus is so abominable to me that it makes me want to vomit. I am also sickened when I think about the murder and mayhem our government has inflicted on the people of Iraq, for no substantive reason. And it appears that in many cases, cheerleaders on the first issue remain oblivious to the second. I don’t understand it.

I do, however, agree with your assertion that if abortion is to be regulated, it must be done at the state level—as per the Constitution.

I also note a link here to some recent advice former Supreme Court Justice nominee Robert Bork has given to current nominee, Sonia Sotomayor: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/07/bork_has_some_a.html

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:21:36 +0000

(1) On Sotomayor – When it is convenient, she turns into an automaton reciting precedents and “law” for denial of rights to private property, guns, etc. When it is not convenient, she then becomes a compassionate wise Latina who can “understand the living Constitution”. On the other hand, if she is a relatively dim bulb, this may be as good as it gets. No sense having some Obama-appointed genius Stalinist able to manipulate Anthony Swinger Kennedy. Replacing the pathetic Souter with mediocre Sotomayor is probably a wash.

(2) On property rights – Obviously, one cannot look to the courts for redress. Which means that citizens must INSIST on state constitutions that prevent takings for private purposes and defeat legislators who disagree.

By: robert

robert — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:06:36 +0000

Ilana,
This is a classic left we win, right you lose, charade. Even the dunderheads were probably leftists plants used to provide cover fire to disrupt the difficult questioning concerning the Federal Govt’s taking powers under the old constitution. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. The most revealing answer is the nominee’s “claim that Kelo upheld a taking in an ‘economically blighted area.’” In other words, as long as the government is taking from poor people it’s fine; when they start taking from the rich it might be OK or not OK “depending on facts.” But be assured that according to this view of our “living” Constitution, the government can do and will do what the government pleases, constitutional restraints be damned!! This is typical liberal cant.
The idea of the real Constitution with very limited powers at the national level is so rare that everyone and their dunderheads are there in Washington either nursing their grievances or seeking the feds for more help in making life better. After all, isn’t this nominee the perfect example of what the Government can do for people just like you… and other minorities like Sonia? What an ironic twist on the meaning of words for a liberal justice to say today –some one hundred years after the loss of states’ rights and local government: “The task of a judge is not to make the law — it is to apply the law.” Oh, for Heaven’s sake!!!!