Idyll Reflections

Against Summer Reading

When seeing my (much younger cousin) a few days ago, she spoke about required summer reading (five books) for her upcoming year in fifth grade. Granted, she is in a private elementary school, but the trend of required summer reading is gaining more and more popularity among the public schools; my own local district recently has added the program. Of course, it is not that I object to reading in the summer or in any other season--indeed, I think it to be a very profitable and enjoyable endeavor--but I do very much do object to it being mandated. Children in contemporary American suburbia have far too much structured time as it is; young people must have the free time to develop themselves without the looming pressure of formalized scholasticism.
Our continued desire to "micro-manage" our children will lead to an increased motivation to "micro-manage" our adults: that is, an increased pull towards tyranny. If we refuse our children some opportunity to think for themselves, we are woefully under-preparing (in fact, we are disabling) them for the lifeworkings of a democratic republic. We must allow children to become informed of and secure in themselves if we wish them to healthfully mature. I do not believe that the increasing encroachment into their "free time" by the tentacles of our present schoolmen and schoolwomen will encourage such salubrious tendencies. While some aspects of the Patriot Act and other forms of technological surveillance may offer some ominous portents of Big Brother, much of our current schooling develops tendencies which will only lead to it.

Economy in Flux

It looks like high-tech companies are more and more looking to "offshore outsource" computer programming jobs. A great number of traditional companies are sending labor to more "cost effective" (that is, more justice defective) countries. While such policy may be of transitory value to the shares of stockholders, I very much wonder if such a policy may be good for the economy and liberty of America and the world as a whole. I think the examples of communist China and Germany of the Third Reich show that economic modernization and modern liberty need not go hand-in-hand.
One of the finest scenes in the Disney movie The Rocketeer is when, just when all seems lost for the protagonists, a gangster antagonist realizes that his employer is, in fact, a covert servant of Hitler's Germany. The gangsters change alliegance, turning to fire on the Nazis. In response to our hero's puzzlement, the boss says, "I may be a criminal, but I'm an American." (At least, that is the testament of my memory.) I wonder if our contemporary businesspeople would answer the same way or if they would instead say, "I might be hurting prosperity and liberty, but I'm profitable." I do think that liberty and prosperity can go together but believe that we must acknowledge the price of liberty as worth paying.

Springer Sprung?

According to this story, many Senate Democrats are less than believers in Jerry Springer leaving his talk show and instead becoming a staple on CSPAN2, the cable news networks, etc. Politics and Springer's colorful history aside, I must congratulate him on one point: his defense of a life beyond politics. A few weeks ago, I was channel surfing and saw Springer on NewsNight with Aaron Brown, and Springer said that he believed his life should be spent on more than politics; hence his job as a news anchor, hence the Jerry Springer Show. Of all the ills plaguing our republic and liberty, legislative careerism is one of the most damaging. For his anti-careerism, Jerry Springer deserves a quarter-tip of my hat. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!

A Silver Bullet?

The Werewolf problem of late- and post- WWII Germany does indeed bear some resemblance to the current difficulties faced by Coalition troops in Iraq. A warm thanks to Alan E. Brain for this piece of research (and to Andrew Sullivan for drawing my attention to it).
Of course, there are great differences between Berlin and Baghdad. Whereas Germany under Hitler was industrialized and had a (relatively) long tradition of economic and cultural cohesion, Saddam Hussein and his fellow Ba'athists did a horrifyingly good job at transforming a country with more economic strength than Portugal into an economic wasteland. Furthermore, Iraq has been continually divided along a number of ethno-cultural lines. I think that it remains to be seen if Iraq has enough internal integrity to flourish along the lines outlined by President Bush, Tony Blair, etc. Certainly, Saddam himself may have given an impetus to some cohesion; hopefully, the Coalition will not be taken as another force to react against, but as a partner in stability.
Of course, there are also great and telling differences between the America of WWII and of the early twenty-first-century. Still partially infected with the post-Vietnam baby-boomer quagmire mentality of distortion, Americans today may be unwilling to have a casualty a day or even a week. Moreover, Americans today have great trepidation about causing casualties ourselves; those Americans marshaled against the Axis were willing to suffer greatly and give great suffering in return. The extent of our own national will remains to be determined.

Types, etc.

Thanks to Matt Drudge for this link. For those without the initiative to follow that link, here's a quick synopsis of the story:
Due to "scheduling conflicts," Oberlin High School has considered assigning a white teacher to teach a black history class in place of the usual black faculty member. This consideration has caused the requisite uproar.
A group of parents have vowed to fight this possible decision. Professor A. G. Miller of Oberlin College has said that such a switch in faculty would be an unwise decision: it would imply that the school cared more about scheduling conflicts than historical background. Meanwhile, the interim director of Cleveland State University's black studies program has said that the decision should be based on qualifications other than that of skin color.
However, it is under the banner of progress that the most vile claim is put forth. Phyllis Yarber Hogan, a member of the Oberlin Black Alliance for Progress, insists that white people are not "well-suited" to teach a subject such as slavery. Black students need to be reassured that slavery is not their fault: what good would it do when the teacher is "the same type of person who did the enslaving" (i.e. when that person is white)?
Statements like Ms. Hogan's prove yet again the ascendancy of racism within some so-called "progressive" circles. I confess the crime of being white; does that necessarily make me of the same "type" as those who owned slaves? My ancestors never owned slaves--they were not in this country to do so--and, indeed, they were themselves from oppressed people: Irish, Polish, Portuguese, and others. Is my own historical background to be thus ignored on account of the hue of my skin?
Is Abraham Lincoln of the same "type" as David Duke? Men may be imprinted with the same ink, but the book of each man's life is written by his own hand. We are each more than colors, and shared appearance does not lead to shared essence.

A BRIEF AND TEDIOUS ANNOUNCEMENT

I have begun this blog with some hope of offering both political and cultural commentary that will prove to be of some value to our contemporary rhetorical climate and my own fellow citizens. This is both an exercise in rhetoric and, I hope, thought. I wish this blog to be a forum for both hopeful thought and thoughtful hope. And, dear reader, I thank you very much for your attention and (one final time!) hope that these thoughts will give you at least some slight pleasure.