College Student Whiners

This little list of the top 5 reasons why its bad to be an engineering student sure shines a lot of light on today’s generation of snot-nosed whiners:

5. Awful Textbooks
Thick, dry, black and white manuscripts are rarely a source of inspiration and sometimes can cause loads of confusion. 

 No nice pictures to keep my attention.  Why in the world did I try to become an engineer?

4. Professors are Rarely Encouraging
During each class, a professor that would rather be tending to his research will waltz up to a blackboard or overhead projector and scribble out equations for an hour without uttering a single sentence to create some excitement.

Why won’t these people entertain me?  I’m expected to know what they are talking about without them patting my peaked little head every 2 seconds?  The horror!

3. Dearth of Quality Counseling
College students may not have a sense for how to build their resume and they might be clueless about the variety of career opportunities that await them. Unfortunately, some academic advisers do little more than post fliers about internships and hand out a checklist of classes to take.

 Here I is – a college student – and I don’t even know how to pad my resume with useless stuff that might sound good to some poor employer who will be responsible for actually educating me once I’m done with my fun-filled college days.  But these counselor people are supposed to soothe my fevered brow with individual understanding of MY situation and give ME all the answers to how the rest of my life is supposed to work out.  All those other students?  They are on their own.

2. Other Disciplines Have Inflated Grades
Brilliant engineering students may earn surprisingly low grades while slackers in other departments score straight As for writing book reports and throwing together papers about their favorite zombie films.  Many of the brightest students may struggle while mediocre scholars can earn top scores because they have a larger group of supportive friends to or more time to dedicate to studying.

I want my gold star!  This stuff is hard, and I can’t stand it any more!   I’ll tell my mommie on you.

1. Every Assignment Feels the Same
Nearly every homework assignment and test question is a math problem. Only a few courses require creativity or offer hands-on experience.

They actually expect me to learn this stuff.  What unmitigated gall.

Sad But True

Illegals Registering Voters

Of course, its happening in the area around the Communist Democratic People’s Republic of San Francisco:

Buoyed by Super Tuesday’s record Latino voter turnout, a San Jose State University student group — made up of both legal and illegal residents — is planning a widespread, grass-roots campaign to register voters, especially those who can speak for them at the polls.

“I don’t need to live in the shadows anymore,” said Ruiz, a 24-year-old San Jose State student whose mother brought him from Mexico on a tourist visa when he was a child.

Live in the shadows?  Since when does anybody in California actually have to worry about living in the shadows.  Brought here illegally as a child?  Not a problem.  You can attend a state university (wonder if he’s getting instate tuition rates?  not even a bet – I’m sure he is), you can register people to vote, you can give an interview to a local newspaper.  No one will even come check on your illegal butt.

  It’s unknown how many illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition in California, officials said, because the information isn’t tracked to protect students’ privacy.

Because of their status, the students are not eligible for financial aid, and most must earn tuition — more than $2,000 a semester — on their own.

Ruiz and Cardenas don’t hold their status against their parents, saying their time in the United States has given them opportunities they wouldn’t have had in Mexico.

“You can’t just live in a place and not became a part of it,” Ruiz said. “If I were still in Mexico, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”

Just another example of Mexico dumping its problems on the US.  Otherwise they might have to actually fix their own third-world toilet of a country so they don’t export their own citizens.  But little chance of that happening any time soon.  All our Presidential candidates just want to either turn their backs or actually beckon them to come.

Whiny CU Twits Protest New President

Apparently because he’s a) not educatered enuff:

State House Majority Leader Alice Madden, a Democrat and CU law school graduate, declared that Benson would be “the least educated president ever considered in modern history.”

And because he actually knows the value of a buck:

He has chaired a $1 billion fundraising campaign for the school, successfully lobbied for a state law to give universities more money, and served on several education boards.

But how in the world can we have an actual Republican (eww, yeech) as the President of the People’s Republic of Boulder University?

A “Boycott Benson” Web site questions the selection process and criticizes his background as a conservative Republican activist. The student government has voiced complaints, and a campus portrait of Benson was defaced with graffiti that said, “I’ve given CU enough $ for an individual right-wing nut like me to be CU’s president.”

And I resent the fact that any of my tax money is going to support a campus full of idiots and traitors, too.  Where do I get my refund?

Venezuelan President Threatens to Nationalize Universities

Here’s a thought – why don’t we just swap with him? Send all our university profs down there and bring theirs up here. He would get socialist, communist, gender neutral pinkos, and we might get someone who would actually teach our young skulls full of mush the threats to liberty posed by jerks like Chavez and Castro and Kim Jung Small, etc.

clipped from chronicle.com Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president, has threatened to nationalize any educational institution that does not adopt his socialist government’s new curriculum. “All of the schools in the nation must apply this curriculum,” Mr. Chavez said this week during his regular call-in show, Hello, President. “Any school which does not comply — to be nationalized! Any university which does not comply — to be nationalized!” Mr. Chavez has said that the nation’s educational system should promote socialist, anticapitalist values and that a new curriculum would replace “colonial, Eurocentric ideological education.” That curriculum was supposed to be instituted in elementary and secondary schools last month, but its details have not yet been released.

Only Liberals Need Apply

For a history professorship at University of Miami Ohio – and everywhere else, of course:

Mark Moyar looks like the perfect fit to teach history at Miami University: first in the history department and summa cum laude at Harvard; Ph.D. at Cambridge; speaks French and German; two successful books and a third on the way …

But wait a minute – what’s this on his resume about teaching at the Marine Corps University and the George Bush School of Government and Public Service? And whoa, don’t choke on your green tea, but look at the title of his book: “Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965.”

Triumph? Vietnam? In the same sentence?

“Your qualifications are fine,” he was told. But Miami’s history department had “its own priorities, its own gaps, its own desires.”

Yet among the dozen candidates the faculty chose to interview were two who did not have doctorates, one whose dissertation was on “Race, Identity and Gender in the Panama Canal Zone,” and another whose scholarship focused on “American Radio in East Asia.”

Moyar wrote to the president of Miami: “Only a person divorced from reality would argue that the history of gender in the Panama Canal Zone or the history of American radio in pre-World War II East Asia are more germane to U.S. foreign policy than my wide-ranging work on the Vietnam War.”

Maybe his work on Vietnam was a bit too wide-ranging.

“The only explanation I can find for the search committee’s extraordinary decision is that the conclusions of my research are inconsistent with the ideological views of members of the search committee,” Moyar wrote.

And the university explanation?  Complete justification by the administration of their rejection of a qualified conservative:

President James Garland backed the history department. When Garland retired, new President David Hodge told Moyar that Miami promotes “diversity of ideas on campus,” but said the faculty had properly picked four candidates to hire, but none accepted. The search was closed. So was the investigation of Moyar’s complaint.

So they end up hiring no one, rather than take the risk of tainint their students with someone who might actually believe in America and American values?  This country needs to clean out these sewers of liberalism.

The Numbers

Just taken at face value, this little bit from Pravda by the Bay doesn’t seem to say too much:

On April 20, 1999, it was Columbine High School: 15 dead, 23 wounded. On April 16, 2007, it was Virginia Tech University: 33 dead, 29 wounded.

Only if you know that 15 dead includes the two pukes who murdered everyone, and 33 dead includes the murderer himself.  They don’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence (even indirectly) with the people who they destroyed.  But you can be sure that in every single story from now to the end of time, Pravda and its kin will note that there were 33 dead at Virginia Tech.  In their small way doing their best to make sure that the murderers are considered victims.  And destroying the memory of all those lives taken.

One Place With No Guns

As reported by John Tabin at the American Spectator:

In January 2006, Virginia Delegate Todd Gilbert introduced House Bill 1572, which was meant to guarantee, with a few exceptions, that students with concealed handgun permits would be allowed to carry guns on college campuses. The bill died in subcommittee later that month. Like many schools, Virginia Tech had a policy prohibiting guns on campus, and Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker expressed pleasure at the bill’s defeat. “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions,” said Hincker, “because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.” (emphasis mine)

Colorado Springs – White Privilege Conference

Oh boy – do we have a good one in our own back yard. And I appreciate James Taranto of the WSJ for bringing it to the world’s attention. This is a target rich environment – a sample ofsome of the liberal guilt to be served up medium warm:

Taking Apart the Matrix: Multiple Systems of Oppression

This experiential workshop provides an opportunity to explore the multiple privileges and oppressions we experience daily and to gain deeper understanding of our own position in the many interrelated oppressive systems we all inhabit. Recognizing that we are not alone in these experiences can create a sense of connection to a wider community. The workshop is intended to inspire conviction that creating social justice requires a commitment to dismantling multiple systems of oppression simultaneously.

Lots of theory on how to make classrooms oppressively non-discriminatory and diffused of white privilege:

Towards a critical theory of liberation: Enacting liberatory consciousness in classrooms, communities and collective spaces

Eliminating white privilege can increasingly happen as we create a theory which enables daily action toward liberation. It is not enough to be against oppression. It is necessary that we be for liberation. Clarifying a theory of liberation provides the mechanism through which each of us can ratchet ourselves toward daily enactments of a liberatory society.

This highly provocative and challenging session requires participants to articulate a theory of liberation and a set of specific practices that can be enacted on a daily basis that results in the dismantling of white privilege and the creation of classrooms, communities and other collective spaces characterized by equity, fairness, and justice. Participants will develop a protocol for monitoring implementation of their critical theory of liberation through specific liberation enactment strategies.

Of course, some things are only allowed for non-white people (I assume that’s what’s mean by “attendees who identify as people of color”) , although are white, transsexuals considered people of color and are allowed to attend this one?

People of Color Caucus

WPC attendees who identify as people of color are welcome to join this daily discussion. This caucus will provide a safe, supportive environment for people of color to process information, feelings, experiences, and interactions that occur during the conference, and to explore avenues of mutual support and empowerment.

Nope – wait – found the place for those transexuals

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, and Ally (LGBTQIA) Caucus
WPC attendees who identify anywhere on the LGBTQIA spectrum are
welcome to join this daily discussion. This caucus will provide a safe,
supportive environment for “queer” folks to process information, feelings,
experiences, and interactions that occur during the conference, and to
explore avenues of mutual support and empowerment. Recognizing that WPC
attendees have more than one identity, caucus participants can flow in and
out of this group as well as bring up the intersections of many social
identifications as well process the day’s learnings.

Lots and Lots and Lots of racism questioning- are Jews a race?

Complex Positionality: Jews, Whiteness, and Identity

Looking over the historical emergence of the concept of “race,” critical race theorists and geneticists tell us that “race” is an historical, “scientific,” cultural, and biological myth; a social construction used as a justification and rationale to persecute those constructed as the “other.” Though Jewish people are members of every so-called “race,” due to historical, social, and economic circumstances, dominant groups have constructed Jews across a wide continuum on the racial divide.

Asians are a race, but are they also white? even though they might not have white skin?

The Model Minority Myth; Removing the Shroud of Silence

This workshop is about the systems of privilege and institutional barriers that have been shaped in part by the model minority myth discourse. In order to assist in the building of collaborative relationships, increasing global understanding and promoting solidarity within educational institutions, organizations and communities, we need to address the oppressive effects of the model minority myth beyond its influence on Asian and Asian Americans, to include the broader societal population.

I thought Latino was a racist word? Wouldn’t this exclude people from South America?

Ending Internalized Racism: African-American and Latino Alliances by Alysia Tate & Maria Franco

As our country’s Latino population experiences record growth, and social safety nets disappear, a wedge is increasingly being placed between African-Americans and Latinos. Though the situation is often described as one of two groups competing for scarce resources, these communities are positioned to be each other’s staunchest allies in the fight for the elimination of racism and other oppressions. This workshop will explore using the tools of listening and putting attention on these challenges through Re-Evaluation Counseling as one method for bringing our communities closer together in an effort to frame, and work together, on common agendas.