Day: February 19, 2007

I keep asking myself the same questions today. Why are our political leaders unable to see the handwriting on the wqall? Why is the electroate continually bamboozled by lies from Mass Media Podpeople and politicians *spit*? And even, are the people bamboozled sheeple or complicit in the crimes against society perpetrated by Mass Media podpeople, politicians *spit* and their ilk? And if wittingly complicit, why? Perhaps one portion of the answer can be found in this 2005 post from the old Blogspot days

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On biblical illiteracy

If the cornerstone is crumbling, what of the building it once upheld?

Interesting piece in The Weekly Standard . In his article “Bible Illiteracy in America,” David Gelernter outlines the historical impact the Bible has had on America and hints at what the future may hold for a biblically illiterate people. Thought-provoking. A taste:

“THE GENEVA BIBLE became and remained the Puritans’ favorite. It had marginal notes that Puritans liked–but King James and the Church of England deemed them obnoxious. The notes were anti-monarchy and pro-republic–”untrue, seditious, and savouring too much of dangerous and traitorous conceits,” the king said. Under his sponsorship a new Bible was prepared (without interpretive notes) by 47 of the best scholars in the land. The King James version appeared in 1611–intended merely as a modest improvement over previous translations. But it happened to be a literary masterpiece of stupendous proportions. Purely on artistic grounds it ranks with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare–Western literature’s greatest achievements. In terms of influence and importance, it flattens the other three.”

Oh, and Gelernter also briefly points out where to lay the axe to the common lies about Puritans, as well. Of course, since most Americans are as historically illiterate as they are biblically illiterate, little of what Gelernter says will have much context for most folks.

A society with no sense of its own history will lurch from one faddish thought to another without any genuine critical faculty to assess what is good or ill. Gelenter’s article points out one of the important anchors we have cast away, resulting in just that very cultural character: rootless, we are “blown by every wind of teaching…”

Monday doldrums or simply recognizing the fact that my children will have to survive as adults in a land of illiterate pagans?

*sigh*

Buried deeply in the (very lengthy) afterward to the article are gems like this one:

“College students today are (spiritually speaking) the driest timber I have ever come across. Mostly they know little or nothing about religion; little or nothing about Americanism. Mostly no one ever speaks to them about truth and beauty, or nobility or honor or greatness. They are empty–spiritually bone dry–because no one has ever bothered to give them anything spiritual that is worth having. Platitudes about diversity and tolerance and multiculturalism are thin gruel for intellectually growing young people.”

Indeed.

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By Heidi Thiess of Euphoric Reality

Mexico.

That’s who.

Yes, you read that right. The latest information has uncovered the undue political pressure that Mexico put on our government, and how the White House easily caved. They didn’t even ask questions it seems. Here’s what happened:

After Aldrete-Davila was shot, he complained to someone who brought the “crime” to light (not his mommy, as Sutton has previously told us). That person contacted the Mexican government, which is currently in overdrive trying to portray a situation wherein the poor downtrodden people of Mexico are being brutally shot by cruel, evil Americans at the border – when all they want is a better life for their families. Wah. The Mexican government, seeing a golden opportunity to bring some pressure to bear upon the big, mean U.S. Border Patrol, immediately mobilized their diplomats to exert pressure on the American Consulate in Mexico City. The Consulate, in turn, contacted the State Department, who then informed the President. With me so far?

Bush then called in the Department of Justice and his old Texas buddy, the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. Alberto Gonzales called in his hired gun, Johnny Sutton, who then crafted a prosecution virtually from thin air. Sutton’s agenda was furthered immeasurably by Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof, who has previously shown no compunction about fabricating fraudulent cases, lying and suborning testimony in her cases, and manipulating the media. Kanof has played an integral part in undermining the integrity and fairness of the criminal proceedings in multiple cases, the most prominent being the Border Patrol case. And she has done so with impunity, under the direction of Johnny Sutton.

We were lied to (surprise, surprise) when we were told that the only reason this case came to light is because DHS uncovered evidence that Ramos and Compean tried to “cover up” their “crime”. That, as we now know, is a lie. What really happened is that the White House is kowtowing to political pressure from Mexico, no doubt aided by Bush’s own personal agenda to erase the border. This rotten, trumped-up case against Ramos and Compean goes all the way to highest levels of our American government. Donald Collins ventures to say that this case has all the potential of Watergate to bring down this Administration. I agree.

Continue reading “Guard the Borders”

[a re-run from the old Blogspot days, very lightly edited… WARNING: it’s a little long, and the literacy-challenged may find it too wordy to finish, thus providing support for part of my assertion. *heh*]

The NALS was distressing when I first read the report in 1999 and today’s version of the NALS is no more encouraging.

Private correspondence stemming from a bibliophilic meme led me to think on literacy in general again.

I have what some might consider an idiosyncratic view of literacy. Perhaps I should define terms before going any further. Here’s a spectrum of definitions for the word “literate” as offered by the Random house Unabridged Dictionary:

1. able to read and write.
2. having or showing knowledge of literature, writing, etc.; literary; well-read.
3. characterized by skill, lucidity, polish, or the like: His writing is literate but cold and clinical.
4. having knowledge or skill in a specified field: literate in computer usage.
5. having an education; educated

When most people talk about being literate, it’s my experience that they center in only on the first definition given. Well and good. That a person be able to decode the printed page and write words themselves is no mean accomplishment when set against most of human history of the past seven thousand years or so. (Or against the 80% to 90% illiteracy–in the sense of the first meaning–of today’s Muslim societies.)

The next step, it seems to me is for the person who is able to decode/encode printed words to actually be able to understand what is encoded/decoded. And it is at that stage that the 1992 NALS begins to reveal a disturbing set of information about America society.

A simple (all-too-brief) digest of the survey can be found here, and reveals, among other things that

Continue reading “Literacy in a Democratic Society-I”

[This is both a linkfest and a re-run of a post from 02-16-06. I am reposting it because of a trend I have long noted: every negative comment I have recieved when I have posted anything anti-Islamic or anti-illegal alien has been from folks who have apparently determined that their best chance for success in life is to beat themselves over the heads enough times that, regardless where they started out on the Bell Curve, they end up firmly fixed on the lower lefthand side… ]

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If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE!

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Some will recognize the title of this post as the title of a book by Arthur C. Clarke written in 1948 in a serialized version–IIRC–and issued in one volume in 1953. And those who recognize both the title and the book will immediately recognize the meme and fill in the gaps of this post rather readily, even though this post will address only one of many issues that would fit with that meme.

Those who have never read the story, will simply not “get” this post quite so fully (which, now that I’ve mentioned it, makes that lack of a shared meme a meta-comment in itself… )

That’s just one of many values of shared memes: the ability to invoke a broad concept and trust that the reader or hearer will have a fuller understanding of what’s going on than the plain text of the article or story in which the meme is embedded says.

Continue reading “Re-run: Against the Fall of Night”