May 30, 2006

Into The Wilds---Sort Of

It is done. The best year of my life is done. The best students at the best school with the best colleagues. Done for the year. Now what?

Well, I have ten weeks off---one of the very cool things about teaching. And why complain about the pay if teachers get three months off every year? Actually, I do not complain at all. Like I said, I just had the best year of my life. So: Now what?

Tomorrow I leave for Oregon, there to hang out and enjoy Tim, Kristina and David, just about the finest people on earth. Food. fellowship and conversation beckon there. And of course, backpacking. Walking alone in God's creation seems a fitting way to end one school year and prepare for another. And without the wilds I would go mad.

I have walked a bit---ten days all told---on the Pacific Crest Trail. I now have the time to wander about for 300 miles on the thing both in Oregon and Washington. One goal is to break my record of 15 days alone on a walkabout. That occurred some years ago in the Andes of Peru. And yes, of course the Pacific Crest Trail is not as demanding or risky as walking through the Peruvian jungles, but the climes of South America will just have to wait.

As will writing. I have no idea if I will have access to the software I need to put thoughts to my blog.

In the meantime will come the forests and mountains and lakes of Oregon. I am certain that God made them just for me.

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May 24, 2006

China Does the Melian Dialogue

It is almost summer, and so it is time for the yearly scary report from the Department of Defense about the military dreams of China. It covers the usual ground: China is an 'emerging superpower' whose ambitions include hegemony in the Pacific, conquest of Taiwan, a spreading influence in Latin America and control of the world's resources. The earth must be made ready to tremble before the awesome specter of one billion Chinese marching to the military fantasies of an all-conquering Politburo.

We have heard all of this before. We will hear about it again next year at this time. And the next year after that. And every year until reality does to the dreams of China what it did to the dreams of Athens.

It was in the Mediterranean some 2500 years ago that Athens had the Chinese-type of grandiose visions, of an all-conquering Athens dominating the Aegean, controlling Persia, defeating Syracuse---the infamous 'Sicilian Expedition'---crushing Sparta and eventually moving on Carthage and Italy. Like China to Tibet, Athens was especially murderous to those weaker states who would not dance to her imperial tune. Such was the case of the little island of Melos. Her people refused to join in Athens' crusade. In a famous speech put into the mouths of Athenian delegates by Thucydides, we read of the uses of political power as seen by the Greek city-state.

The standard of justice depends upon the equality of power to compel and that in fact  the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.

Our opinion of the gods and our knowledge of men leads us to conclude that  it is a general and necessary law of nature to rule whatever one can. This is not a law we made ourselves nor were we the first to act upon it when it was made. We found it already in existence and we shall leave it to exist forever among those who come after us.

In an eerie echo we read Lt. Gen. Liu Yazhou of the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force:

When a nation grows strong enough, it practices hegemony. The sole purpose of power is to pursue even greater power...Geography is destiny...when a country begins to rise, it should first set itself in an invincible position.

Here again is the philosophy of the slave-state, a concept of power practiced from Sumer to Babylon to Assyria to the Greeks, and on and bloody on to Nazi Germany, the USSR and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The business of Athens was slavery, and so it is with China.

And what happened to those brave inhabitants of Melos? Why, the Athenians executed every male of military age and enslaved the women and children. Which is more or less what the Chinese did to Tibet. And what they plan to do to Taiwan. Thus says the China Daily:

 Taiwan independence means war.

Ah yes, just what the Athenians said to Melos if that island refused to bend the knee. Four thousand years of history, and the best that China can do is ape the hubris infected Athenians of 2500 years ago? Are death and slavery all that China can offer?

Well, yes.

Here is more on China's fantasies concerning Taiwan.

(Update: Here is Mark Steyn's latest piece on China.)

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May 23, 2006

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

I have been teaching for 14 years, and yet always I forget how much there is to do before students and teachers scatter thither and yon for summer. A short summary of things undone: grades, graduation, 8th grade activities, parent conferences, yearbook signing, book collection, supply lists, painful goodbyes. And my classroom is a disaster, simply all a-clutter with the detritus of one year of stuffing American History into adolescent minds. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes not. Sometimes the results do not come in for years.

Perhaps the Christian life is like that. One succeeds. One fails. The results come later.

So there is much ado these days. Not a lot of time for writing about this, that and the other---though my mind is always a-whirl with the trivial and the oh-so-clever. I strive to find time to put these to cyber-paper. Perhaps it is a good thing I cannot.

And then of course there is planning for summer, part of which will be 40 days and 40 nights spent in one of my myriad tents walking some 300 miles across the state of Oregon. This walk---as all my walks---will be done alone. Wondering about in God's creation begs solitude. Christ Himself sought aloneness far from the maddening crowd. I seek to be like Him, though failure always follows close at my heels. But the struggle is the thing.

The results come later.

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May 17, 2006

Random Immigration Thoughts

The fix is in. The new immigration policy will be to have no immigration policy. None that would really control the borders of our Republic anyway. El señor Bush has neither plan nor desire to send back to Mexico those who have repeatedly broken our laws. No, our jefe politico will reward them all for their crimes by granting them in due course---denials notwithstanding---the most precious document on the face of the planet, an American passport. The president's speech was so much squishy goo masquerading as policy, all emotion and little action.

It really seems as if the White House wrote a speech to just pacify their critics instead of actually responding to their concerns. If this is how seriously the administration takes border security, then we need to bring a screeching halt to the immigration reform bill until that attitude changes.

Bush said much about the plight---self-induced, let us remind ourselves---of the illegals living in the US. What of the plight of the Americans who must tolerate higher crime rates all around, Latin American gangs infecting our cities coast-to-coast, higher taxes upon citizens to pay for the freebies---welfare, medical care, schooling---demanded by the illegals? There was scarcely a word about Americans and their interests.

Bush mouthed the usual pap about America being 'a nation of immigrants.' No she is not. Almost 90 percent of us were born right here. If nothing is done about our border, though, we will at last become what Bush claims we already are---a nation of (illegal) immigrants.

And please stop saying that, "At last we will be able to control our borders with National Guard." Nonsense. Such men can be removed as easily as they can be emplaced. A wall once built is there forever, however. Look at the one in China, now over 2200 years old. Walls work.

If Bush meant to placate his own base he failed. If Bush meant to placate Mexico, he again failed. He has called Mexico an ally, which is an odd thing to say. Mexico votes against us in the UN and floods our border with drugs, impoverished humanity, criminal gangs and forged documents. And the Mexican government---if that grotesquely corrupt and incompetent enterprise can be termed such---routinely sends armed raids across our frontier to deposit drugs and illegals. And our great ally responded to the speech as soon as Bush left the podium.

Mexico said Tuesday that it would file lawsuits in U.S. courts if National Guard troops on the border become directly involved in detaining migrants.

Any question about which way and how high Bush will jump? It is painful to say that Bush's policies serve the interests of Mexico rather than those of America. It is also painful---and more than a little unseemly--to realize that the president of the US consults with the president of Mexico before he forms an immigration policy to be presented to the American people.

Some determined Honduran chimed in:

In Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, Honduran Antonio Auriel said he would make it into the U.S.

"Soldiers on the border? That won't stop me," he said. "I'll swim the river and jump the wall. I'm going to arrive in the United States."

I believe him. This fellow is most certainly more trustworthy than our own government.

There was not a peep about the devastation brought about in our marvelous friend Mexico by the flight of so much of her manpower to El Norte. Abandoned wives and children litter the already littered Mexican landscape. That nation is being hollowed out economically and socially. One result will most certainly be even more Mexicans fleeing to the American border.

If these rootless Mexicans stayed in their own nation they might eventually force that dreary state to reform. They might actually improve the place. This is the reason why the government colludes in shipping ten percent of its citizenry across the American border. The Mexican elites run Mexico as their private fiefdom. Their policies are purely extractionary. No wealth is created and the citizens are treated as what they really are, serfs. Mexico is run in the same way that Al Capone ran Cicero, Illinois.

Ask any Mexican you meet anywhere of his opinion of the Mexican government. Be prepared for an earful.

And it looks as if even the watery Bush proposals will not even pass the Republican-controlled Senate.

The Senate defeated, 55 to 40, a proposal by Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia, that lawmakers demand that border-security measures be in place before beginning a guest-worker program of the kind envisioned by President Bush.

Eighteen Republicans voted against Bush. Perhaps President Bush should attempt to control his own party before he attempts to control our own border.

Taxes, education, 9/11, Iraq, the economy and the tiresome though always present treason of the Democrats could not split the Republicans in six years. Bush has done this in a few weeks with his immigration follies.

So of course there are those who bleat that unless we continue to support the Republican Party---no matter what it does or does not do---we might be faced with the vacuous and trivial Pelosi and Reid as congressional leaders. Perhaps so. But I recall that in 2000 we were told to support the Republicans because America could be so much better. Now we are told to support the Republicans because America could be so much worse.

And at last, from the venerable and staid Heritage Foundation. Perhaps it is a good thing that Bush's program will have a hard time becoming the law of the land.

If enacted, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611) would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years, allowing an estimated 103 million persons to legally immigrate to the U.S. over the next 20 years—fully one-third of the current population of the United States.

How well do you speak Spanish?

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May 14, 2006

Fickle Muse

Those who have blogs love to write. The ones I read are updated more or less daily. I admire such energy and devotion. I wish that I had those things always at my beck and call. Sometimes I do and sometimes I do not. These past few days my ink-well has been rather dry. I could think of nothing clever or thoughtful to say---or at least no reason for doing so.

The Greeks believed that there were nine Muses---they called them goddesses---who oversaw the inspiration for the Arts. Poetry, dance, song, history and all things creative each had her own Muse. If an artist failed in his inspiration he would pray and sacrifice to the particular muse who represented his art. Were I pagan I should invoke Clio, the Muse of history, as an aid to my writing. One such invocation was written by old Dante:

O Muses, o high genius, aid me now!

O memory that noted what I saw,

Now shall your true nobility be seen!

Here are those nine Muses:

Of course I could not pray to any pagan deity today without insulting the Son of Man. And anyway, those Muses could be fickle and more than a little shabby. But there is a patron saint of writers. His name is Saint Francis de Sales. He well-deserves his sainthood. I could never be such, alas. But I will call upon him. Soon, in fact.

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May 8, 2006

An Abundance of Whores

Years ago I read P. J. O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores. Funny it was---O'Rourke is nothing if not funny---yet maddening at the same time. While reading it I kept asking myself how humanity could keep making the same mistakes time after time even though examples abound in history of perfidy, incompetence, corruption, demagoguery and slavish sycophancy and how these have always spelled the doom of civilization. Why cannot a nation escape this Hindu-like Dharma wheel of degeneration and collapse? Must America go the way of Assyria? of Rome? of Athens? of 10th century Baghdad?

Short answer: Yep. Once enough whores burrow into and infect the political system there seems to be no escape. The end might come slowly or it might come in a fortnight---read of the fall of Nineveh---but come it will. We watch and marvel as the entire things falls apart and hope that we are not buried in the rubble.

Such musings grabbed hold of me this morning as I wandered about the web. Here was Karl Rove himself---the Right's own anti-Christ for the spittle-flecked Left---pleading with those whose support should come automatically.

Rove Is Using Threat of Loss to Stir G.O.P.

The ambitious second-term agenda he helped develop has faltered even with a Republican Congress. His once-grand plans for creating a broadened and permanent Republican majority have given way to a goal of clinging to control of the House and Senate.

The prospect of Democrats capturing either, however, may be one of the best weapons Mr. Rove has as he turns to what he has traditionally done best: motivating his party's conservative base to turn out on Election Day.

What's that you say, Karl? The goal is now merely to 'cling to control of the House and Senate'? That is to say, your goal is simply to maintain power. Well Karl, once your goal---at least you claimed it was your goal---was to make conservative principles---in education, spending, taxation, social policy, immigration reform, the judiciary---a permanent fixture of American government. And after 6 years in power most of these have been abandoned and now you wish to emulate the Russian czars, who 'wield power so that they could wield power.'

Karl, every two years at election time you and your bootlick Ken Mehlman try to frighten us with the scary scenario of Democrats taking the reins of government from the Republicans. Here is always reliable Mehlman with his usual shtick:

Republican National Chairman Kenneth Mehlman went to Capitol Hill last Tuesday to warn the party's House and Senate campaign staffers of dire consequences unless Republicans break the current legislative deadlock.

Mehlman stressed the necessity to pass a budget resolution and an immigration reform bill, dealing with two issues that seriously concern the Republican base.

Ken my boy, what might these 'dire consequences' be? A Kennedy-approved education bill? A horde of illegals swarming across an unprotected US border? Out-of-control government spending? A liberal controlling judicial appointments? Traitors escaping punishment ala Sandy Berger? Ken, all of these happened with the Republicans in power. Would the Democrats be worse? And now you pretend to be seriously concerned with the Republican base. You whore. You ignore us until you need our vote so that you can maintain yourself in power.

Hey Ken and Karl, I have two words for you. You know the ones.

And of course there is the prince of whores and media sycophant, John McCain. Every conservative's liberal and every liberal's conservative, he is in a race for the White House. He spent much of the last six years insulting both conservatives and Christians, but now he needs them. So he is going around whoring after their vote. His latest foray into whoredom involved his attempt---successful as it turned out---to make up with old Jerry Falwell. Here is a classic example of politics over principle that well-demonstrates the loyalty of whores:

When McCain ran for president the last time, he denounced Falwell as one of America's "agents of intolerance." But now that McCain is gearing up to run for president as the GOP's establishment candidate, he has told Falwell that he spoke "in haste" in 2000.

And such pandering was duly rewarded by Falwell, once a man of principle but now a man who, in Cal Thomas' term, is blinded by might.

In a sign of their improved relationship, McCain has agreed to be the graduation speaker at Falwell's Liberty University on May 13.

Falwell is using his own Christian university to promote the political ambitions of a man who insults Christians. Hey Jerry, Christ drove the money changers and wheeler-dealers out of the Temple yet you invite them in. Just who is your master, God or mammon?

But enough! Writing about such things at length leads to madness.

With such pandering and whoring all around in the American body politic, what is one to do? Well, stock up on whiskey and ammo, and head for the hills. And that is exactly what I will do come summer. You see, there is this 350 mile hike across Oregon that I will be on---my own 40 Days and 40 Nights, all alone in God's creation. No McCains or Mehlmans or Roves or Falwells out there. Call it a whore-free environment.

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May 7, 2006

Dressed to Kill

Ever wonder if you are good enough to get into Heaven when you die? Easy answer: You are not. I am not. No one is. Heaven cannot be earned. It is a free gift.

But---and there is always a but---there are things you can do to guarantee that you do not get into Heaven, that you go right to the other place. Let us call that place Hell. (I will leave out Purgatory for now. Sorry all you Catholics.) You can think of some of these things yourself. I can too. But we must not dwell on them as it is not healthy to do so.

While perusing the web and checking in with Dawn Eden I found a damned way for bringing up baby. It occurred to me that the folks who thought this thing up are on the fast-track to Hell. I wonder about those who purchase such things for their little ones. Anyway, here it is.

My favorites:

What is a M.I.L.F? See here.

And of course we have this:

And to make sure your precious darling carries the proper logo:

In the words of the company:

Pimpfants... it's more than a name, it's a movement!
Our clothing bridges the generation gap between parents and kids,
allowing babies and tots everywhere the opportunity to
hit the playground with fresh gear and street cred.

Pimpfants uses only the highest quality products, so
your shorties can represent in style and comfort.
If you want puppy dogs, ducks and frogs, you'll have to visit a zoo.
But if you are looking for
children's clothing that defines a generation,
look to Pimpfants!

It really is true that it would have been better for some people never to have been born.

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Told You So

Alas! The sexually impure have had some bad news. It seems their giddiness over the Vatican's alleged change of opinion concerning the grave sinfulness of condoms was entirely misplaced.

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said the Catholic Church would not change its position on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, reported the Catholic News Agency this morning.

The enemies of the Catholic Church are nothing if not consistent. They tried the same tactic back in 2000, couching their hatred of the Church's moral teachings behind a false humanitarianism concerning AIDS and Africa.

Over the last few days world news media have been rife with reports suggesting falsely that the Vatican has made "a theological U-turn" with regard to condoms. Quoting an April 19 issue of L'Osservatore Romano out of context and with gross errors in translation, various papers and newswires suggested that the Catholic Church might now accept the use of condoms in AIDS prevention programs.

And what does the Catholic Church think of AIDS in Africa? Glad you asked:

Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau, a member of the Pontifical Council on the Family, slams the promotion of condoms as a safeguard against AIDS and suggests that condom programs actually put people at greater risk of contracting the AIDS virus...

"...if people really want to prevent AIDS, they must be convinced to change their sexual behaviour," which he stresses, "is the principal cause of the infection's spread...The most radical prevention of HIV/AIDS, the one which is absolutely effective and which no one can deny, is sexual abstinence for adolescents before marriage and conjugal chastity in marriage. This is the Church's message."

No! You mean that the Church teaches that abstinence and virginity before marriage and chastity after prevents AIDS? Who would have guessed!

Any questions? If so please consult The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

And not just the concupiscent and foolish wasted time and ink dreaming of things condom and Catholic. A conservative sort of girl, Kathleen Parker, embarrassed herself on the opinion page at Townhall. Her on-line bio says she is "a popular syndicated columnist and director of the School of Written Expression at the Buckley School of Public Speaking and Persuasion." But she must have missed a few classes. Here she rants about the Catholic Church and condoms.

While some may prefer the higher ideal of abstinence in fighting AIDS, even the Vatican seems to recognize that the lowdown reality demands something else. You can't change the hearts and minds of dead people.

Meanwhile, arguing to withhold help from people ravaged by disease because someone somewhere might have sex using a condom - now that's "wicked."

So according to Miss Parker the Church cannot deal with 'lowdown reality' and that the Church's position on condoms is 'wicked.' And this girl claims to be conservative? My oh my, have standards changed!

She might have checked in on the latest grotesqueries of the Episcopal Church, which is nothing if not trendy. Condom lovers have a home there, where the debate is whether to elect an openly homosexual bishop in California. Three years ago a sodomite was made bishop in New Hampshire, so this is not a new thing. In fact, this fellow, one Gene Robinson, heads up a program he began, called Outright. Its purpose is to be 

a support group for "gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning" youth. Nancy Sheltra, a Republican legislator in neighboring Vermont, says the Outright chapter in her state promotes a lifestyle that is very dangerous to young people. She says the organization brings together minors who plan group get-togethers, and supplies them with "condoms and other devices" that are used in the homosexual lifestyle.

I shudder at what those 'other devices' might be. Anyway, the Episcopal church has joined the world and continues its Gadarene rush toward oblivion. And it brags about it no less!

The church has long prided itself for including liberal and conservative ideologies.

One might have hoped that a putatively 'Christian' church might boast about preaching the Words of Christ rather than concern itself with political blather. And just what might those Words be? Glad you asked:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate , nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

I guess the entire US Congress is damned---but you knew that already.

Anyway, while the Episcopal church busies itself with shedding its last vestiges of Christian teachings the Catholic Church busies herself with holding them firm. She always has. She always will. And neither the gates of Hell nor the wailings of condom lovers will prevail against her.

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May 3, 2006

Wishing and Hoping

They are at it again. Actually, they never stopped---they being the sexually impure who wish to spread their concupiscence and immorality throughout the church founded by Jesus Christ, His very own supremely lovely Catholic Church. The headlines are giddy with excitement:

Is Pope Poised to Sanction Condoms?

Vatican's rethink on ban signals historic move to cut the spread of Aids

 

Short answer: No, Pope Benedict XVI will not 'sanction condoms.' He has not the power to do so. (But more on that momentarily.) The article is breathtaking in its ignorance.

The Catholic Church is on the brink of a historic change of approach over condoms which could bring hope to millions in Africa and other parts of the developing world devastated by Aids.

Condoms bring hope? When did that occur? This fantasy is just the usual tired attack on the Church, blaming it for all the evil in the world. The 'all sex all the time' crowd has been raging against the light of the Catholic Church for 50 years. It particularly despises the moral doctrines of the Church, rightly seeing them as interfering with the joys of sodomy, masturbation, fornication and abortion.

At a time when more than 40 million people are infected with HIV, and there are 13,000 new cases every day, the Vatican has been accused of contributing to the spread of the epidemic by forbidding the use of prophylactics.

The assumptions here are vast and unproven yet have assumed the status of received wisdom among the elite. To believe this nonsense you first have to take it as a given that:

1.    There is an AIDS epidemic among heterosexuals in Africa.

2.    Condoms prevent AIDS.

3.    Condoms can therefore stop the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

None of this is true. To believe that there is an AIDS pandemic in Africa that only condoms can prevent is to be wholly free from any desire for truth. AIDS in Africa is defined differently than it is anywhere else. What 30 years ago was called TB, malaria and a host of other killers of Africans has now been miraculously redefined as AIDS. There is much more to this, but you can do the research yourself. You might begin here. And then continue to The Duesberg Hypothesis.

If the elite of the world were really concerned with the spread of AIDS it would make an all-out assault against homosexuality, for AIDS began with that disturbingly unhygienic perversion and has largely remained among its practitioners. The reason why the sexually impure wish Catholic sanction for condom use has nothing to do with AIDS or saving lives.

What is really desired here is for the Church to abandon her position on sexual morality. The standard patter runs something like this: Sex is good. Anything that stands in the way of good is evil.  The Catholic Church stands in the way of good. Therefore the Catholic Church is evil.

Ever since Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, contraception has been taboo within the church. But, in 1968, there was no Aids pandemic. The church's policy on condoms has remained one of rigid rejection for more than a generation, while a disaster that could at least have been mitigated, critics charge, by the approval of condom use, hit the developing world.

Actually, the Church has been against artificial contraception since Christ walked the earth. Judaism for 2000 years before that taught this morality as well. (Genesis 38:8-10) Even Protestant churches, so many of which today cannot be called 'Christian' in any real sense of the term, were once solidly against birth control. Baptists and Evangelicals mostly remain so today.

At any rate, the desire of the media and sexually perverse of the world (pardon the redundancy) to have the Catholic Church abandon her moral teachings is a forlorn hope. The pope will not change the dogma because he does not have the power to change the dogma. The moral teachings of the Church fall under the heading of papal infallibility. Briefly, when the pope teaches ex cathedra ('from the throne') he is speaking with the authority of God. The doctrines and the morality of the Church are ex cathedra teachings. They are perfect and not subject to human alteration. The pope may restate or refine such a teaching but he cannot change it.

The position of the Catholic Church concerning birth control---condoms included---is an infallible teaching. Deal with it.

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May 1, 2006

The Worthless Generation

The disease began to worm its way into our body politic sometime in the early 60s. I was in high school then, and though a callow youth I could detect symptoms of something. Once at some sort of 'demonstration' it shocked me to see a college kid climb up a downtown building and tear down the American flag planted there. I protested to a cop but he simply ignored me. The guy who had taken down the flag then displayed it as if it were a trophy of war. The crowd roared its approval.

Such adolescent antics continue today of course. Then as now they show little more than ignorance, childishness and an absolute lack of seriousness. I always wonder when these young dolts will grow up and take on the responsibilities of adulthood. From some accounts, never.

At the University of Santa Cruz recently there was an anti-war and anti-military demonstration. Military recruiters there decided to vacate the campus rather than engage in what was becoming violent confrontation. They were pushed, spat upon and animal blood was tossed about. Those college children who participated did so of course knowing that the military recruiters would not respond. Would these 'demonstrators' have been so bold if they were Chinese involved in a face-off against the Chinese military?

It is the hallmark of such imbeciles as walk the halls of Santa Cruz---and who teach there---that they claim the right to this and the right to that but refuse all responsibility for such claims. One such simpleton wrote Rick Moran over at Right Wing Nuthouse and described UC Santa Cruz as

a school filled with young, idealistic kids determined to save the world, feeling their way through uncertain thickets of ideology and unfamiliar collections of ideas, and naive about the dangers of direct political action outside a university’s protected confines. That, after all, is what college is about—providing a protected space for young adults to experiment, learn, try out ideas and identities.

Good God, what a fool. His description of university students---who in a former and tougher age would become leaders of our nation---would fit that of bubbly and precocious 6 year olds. It would not at all fit my college experience.

Here was a typical classroom at Portland State University in the late 1970s: veterans, retired business people, housewives whose kids were in school, an exchange student from the Middle East, second generation immigrants. Class discussions were lively, informed and filled with personal anecdotes. It was an adult environment. Truth was sought and sometimes found. We had no desire to 'save the world,' or 'try out new identities.' By and large we knew who were we and what was required of us.

UC Santa Cruz resembles nothing so much as a intellectual petting zoo staffed by highly paid babysitters. Its students have not the moral, physical, intellectual and emotional capacity to wear the uniform upon which they so readily spit.

Imagine such creatures at Lexington and Concord. At the Battle of New Orleans. At Gettysburg. At San Juan Hill. At Château-Thierry. On Omaha Beach. At the Chosin Reservoir.

And please imagine if United Flight 93 was packed with Santa Cruz students instead of Todd Beamers.

Those grotesque children at Santa Cruz protest against things beyond their understanding, beyond their knowledge, beyond their capacity. Unlike the US military they so bravely insult, no enemy of America would possibly fear them or any government run by them. A civilization that relies upon such worthless flotsam to carry on its traditions of freedom and self-government is doomed.

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