Monday, November 07, 2005

PC HYMNS?

I personally love all the great old Protestant hymns that I grew up with -- despite my now being an unbeliever. So I felt that the cartoon below (backup here) really hit home:




Maybe I am a sentimental old fool but, as a tribute to the wonderful original, I am going to reprint the whole of it below. You can hear one rendition of the music here. If certain unhappy souls in Paris at the moment had grown up with this hymn, the world would be a better place:

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, Who called me here below,
Shall be forever mine.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.



NO "FRESHMEN" ANY MORE

Another example of just how laughable and useless our public education system has become just occurred in the state of New Hampshire. Amherst Regional High School has banned the term "freshman" from the school's lexicon. Apparently, the so-called educators at the school are more concerned with politically correct lunacy than with preparing their students for an increasingly competitive job market...But what else is new?

The reason behind outlawing the term "freshman" is it contains the word "man." This is the same reason policemen and policewomen are now referred to as "police officers" and firemen have become "fire fighters, and the mailman has become a "mail carrier." Of course, none of those name changes actually mean anything, they simply make liberals feel as though they have accomplished something with their useless pursuits.

Effective immediately, freshmen students at Amherst Regional High School will be referred to as "ninth-graders." Amherst social studies teacher Samantha Camera said of the change: "This is 2005 and the word 'man' or 'men' no longer refers to all people." Evidently Ms. Camera has never opened a Webster's dictionary, which defines the word "man" as: "a human being; person" and "the human race; mankind." However, it is 2005 and expecting a public school teacher to refer to a dictionary is apparently asking too much!

The movement to ban the word "freshman" from the high school was begun by Assistant Principal Marta Guevara. She credits inspiration for the action to her experience with a production of The Vagina Monologues two years ago...Not kidding!

Guevara said: "We want conversation, we want for kids to bring forward their thinking. It's a great conversation to make them aware of the possible misogynistic, oppressive or non-inclusive language."

The assistant principal who seems to have difficulty stringing together a proper sentence, has also eluded to her to desire to ban the words "junior," "senior," and "upperclassmen."

This example of left wing insanity is only the latest in a long string of efforts by teachers' unions (which are controlled by the Democratic Party) to politically indoctrinate U.S. children. Unfortunately, too many public school teachers are more concerned with creating more Democratic voters, than with teaching basic math and language skills. After all, more Democratic voters mean a continuation of low standards for students and lazy teachers.

The feminization of America is largely contributing to the destruction of this country. How unfortunate it is that most of our men are too pre-occupied with pornography and video games to care.

Source

Update

One of my female readers emailed me the following comment on the article above:

I was completely on-board with this guy's article until the last sentence. HUH? Sure, as a society we're not often as willing to stand up and speak out as we probably "ought" to be. But that comment seemed harsh to me..... and almost as if this man (I checked the source to see who wrote it, because that line caught me so off-guard) ironically shows clearly what a "victim" of liberal/public school/feminist indoctrination HE is.... to automatically blame men only for this being allowed.

The men I know are mostly what I'd consider "good men".... hard-working, responsible "regular guys" (although "regular guys" doesn't seem to be as "regular" as it once was.) They are not unaware of what feminism has robbed from BOTH sexes, but if they have "done nothing" about the situation, I'd have to say it was more because they've been busy trying to BE hard-working, responsible, regular guys-- trying to have strong marriages and raise intelligent and insightful sons and daughters DESPITE the indoctrination of school, media, politics, etc. THAT's where they have their only "soapbox".... they don't get six hours a day of their kids' and neighbor kids' time in the schools or all-day-long on the TV to make their voices heard.

Porno and video games? Seemed like a pretty cliched and "feminist" slap at American manhood to me.



A PATHETIC EXCUSE TO ELIMINATE CHRISTIAN HOLIDAYS

There was no reason to start a holy war in Hillsborough County over school holidays. For that reason alone, the school board should reconsider its misdirected decision, which has evoked some ugly outbursts and is pitting one religion against another. That's not what local Muslims wanted when they sought a school holiday that would coincide with Eid Al-Fitr. The board's decision in attempting not to offend anyone has offended most everyone and created an unnecessary backlash against Muslims.

Here's what happened: Muslims raised the holiday issue because they wanted to make sure their children weren't penalized for missing school to mark the end of Ramadan. The district already had a policy of allowing students to miss school for religious observances. And principals and teachers were properly reminded of it.

But the school board, at the urging of a committee, voted to move holidays that had coincided with Good Friday, Easter Monday and Yom Kippur, an overreaction. The outbursts and the histrionics began.... Still, the board needs to admit its mistake. Plenty of reasonable people feel the board went too far in disregarding family traditions.

Chairwoman Candy Olson acknowledges the board should have been aware that its move would be seen as a further breakdown of society's traditions. The board intends to study attendance patterns under the 2006-07 calendar, which has no religious holidays, but those numbers will now be skewed by those who believe they have to defend their faiths by keeping their children out of school. The only way to fix this mess is to restore the holidays that were taken away and then study which religious holidays unduly affect school attendance.

If in coming years the school district and the local Muslim community can document large-scale absences that keep schools from functioning, there would be no harm in considering a holiday for Eid Al-Fitr. If anything good has come out of this fight, it is that it has highlighted many residents' passion about raising children of faith and tradition. That is something to be encouraged, not undermined by politically correct policies or grandstanding.

Source

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