It was that Kewpie doll Kellyanne Conway who coined the term alternate facts. I think the term was too intellectual for Trump who favors Fake News because it sounds more like you are calling the other guy a liar. Insulting the other guy is always preferable to not doing so. Has anybody else noticed that Trump never insults anybody to their face? He has meetings with foreign dignitaries or other politicians and all is second helpings of chocolate cake, but the minute they are gone he is calling them names to the press, who are the exceptions that prove the rule, he insults them whenever he sees them.
If you're going to teach creationism and intelligent design in the schools then you are going to have to teach flat earth, and that some people think pi should be rounded down to three, and that LBJ killed Kennedy and that Elvis is still alive. You can differ with whether FDR was a great president, but you would have to agree on the dates he was born and died and the bills he signed. Of course nobody is loved by all, but how did your teacher account for his landslide victories? Some things are facts like that the Sears Tower is the tallest building in Chicago, and some are opinions. like Javy Baez is the greatest shortstop ever and Rosie O'Grady who tends bar at Al's Tap is the prettiest girl in Lakeview.
Old Dog brings up a good point in what is the purpose of education, The current and generally prevalent theory is to help you get a job. Hey nobody cares if I can prove that there are an infinite number of prime numbers, I need to add and subtract so I can run this here cash register. Another theory, spoken of by the philosophers of the time of implementation of public schools was to have an informed populace to democratically guide the ship of state. If the voters are better informed won't they make a wiser decision at the ballot box and won't that profit all Americans?
In our climb to civ we have learned a lot, we have accumulated quite a body of knowledge, we also have created a vast tapestry of literature and arts. Wouldn't it be a better world if we exposed our public school students to that? Does everything that doesn't directly result in getting a job have to be branded useless and cast into the ash bin? Gentlemen, I beseech you.
I can see marching and drilling as useful. In the movies when somebody is raising an army it seems like the first thing they do is get them out on the parade grounds where our hero can glimpse Rosie O'Grady out of the corner of his eye slipping him a wink as he executes a snappy right turn. It gets the guys to moving as a unit, something that helps on the battlefield. Speaking of the battlefield don't all the soldiers say when they get to the front, well I might get killed here, but at least I don't have to worry about my fucking brass and shoeshine. Polishing and spitshining are tedious, but they aren't the worst part. The worst part is standing in front of some dickwad and having to take shit from him because of the condition of your ornamentation. The army runs on Authority, but whenever you give out authority people will abuse it. I hate that shit.
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