IN HIS 2011 book, School-Induced Dyslexia and How It Deforms a Child’s Brain, the late author and education reformer Samuel L. Blumenfeld argued that the whole language or “progressive” method of reading instruction had caused a massive increase in illiteracy, especially among blacks, and a skyrocketing number of diagnosed cases of “dyslexia.”

Elementary school children in public schools are taught to read today by memorizing a few dozen “sight,” mostly one-syllable, words. The traditional phonics method involves sounding out the letters and gradually progressing to bigger words.

According to Phyllis Schlafly:

The change from teaching school children to read by phonics and replacing phonics with the so-called “whole word” or “look-say” method was fully debunked in the landmark book “Why Johnny Can’t Read” by Rudolph Flesch in 1955. Unfortunately, the truth had no impact on public schools, which stuck with the new method because it was part of “progressive” education. It was brought to Teachers College at Columbia University with a $3 million grant from John D. Rockefeller Jr., who then sent four of his five sons to be educated by Dewey’s progressive ideas.

Blumenfeld was thus not alone in contending that the whole language approach had been a disaster, causing “learning disabilities” and behavior problems. Literacy rates among black students especially declined. His 2011 book includes this testimony from the teacher, Paul Lukawski:

I have been a high school English teacher for 14 years. I remember in college wanting to know how to teach children to read. I went to a teacher college established in 1910. The school had one of the oldest teacher colleges in the country. Its College of Education enjoyed an excellent reputation. I asked three different professors how do you teach reading. I received three different vague responses.

After I completed my second year of teaching, I realized that my students could not read. I taught grades nine through twelve. The second year, I had three classes of ninth graders. I assigned the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird for them to read. I realized that most of my students could not read the novel’s literate narrative. (more…)

    MIKE KING offers ten reasons (warning: vulgar photos) to hate the Super Bowl, including the excessive commercialism, the degeneracy of the halftime show (whatever happened to marching bands?), the mindless militarism, the psychotic narcissism of the players and the "misguided passion" of fanatical fans: Nothing wrong with a little diversion and fun cheering for your hometown team; but many of these "fans" display a passion so intense that a straight-jacket is warranted. If only they would get as agitated about Obongo and Fed robbing them blind, or their children's future in a permanently depressed economy, or the innocent people in faraway lands being killed by the US-Israel led Axis of Evil, or the never-ending flood of "migrants" being pumped into America, or the potential coming wars with Russia and China, or the fact that their elementary school kids are being forced to learn the joys of homo-anal sex and cross-dressing. What pathetic losers these people are!

WHEN PEOPLE who don't believe in God come before God, He will not believe in them. When people who believe God exists, but act as if He doesn't exist, come before God, He will act as if they don't exist. When people who reject the rights of God come before God, they will have no rights. When people who are ashamed of God come before God, He will be ashamed of them. Those who stone prophets will eat the dust of their own hatred for all eternity.

  IF "toxic masculinity," to borrow a phrase from the opposition, is the display of unprovoked aggression, then Trump has had a week of it. Issuing a sudden ban on travel from a country that has not been responsible for terrorist acts in America (Iran); conjuring the phony script of 9/11 that has already dragged us into unnecessary war; justifying the detention of a five-year-old boy at an airport; overseeing drone strikes in Yemen that killed innocent people, including children, and supporting the aggression there by Saudi Arabia; engaging in outright war-mongering against a nation with which we have concluded a non-aggression pact (Iran)? Trump better get his act together. He's looking like a bully. This isn't what those who voted for him wanted, especially those who were alarmed by Hillary's war-mongering. Let nationalists not be fooled by his talk or actions against abortion. Real men don't pick fights.

ALAN writes:

In “The Baby Philosopher,” you wrote:

                “The baby is not capable of conceptual thinking. But still he acquires an important philosophical premise early on through all this investigation. He is mostly a scientist, but he starts to become a philosopher too….”

Entirely correct. Few people understand that what is often dismissed as “just playing” is not always play and is never “just” anything, but rather the most earnest endeavor by an infant to make sense of what he sees, hears, and feels.  No endeavor in life could be more earnest or less corrupt.

But your essay also struck a chord in my memory because of that phrase about “the baby is mostly a scientist…” In a letter printed by a St. Louis newspaper in 1971, I wrote:

       The claim that very few children would acquire any more than a very superficial grasp of science if artificial motivations were not used is a ludicrous conjecture. Actually, all evidence indicates the opposite.  Indeed, every baby is a scientist and remains such until the schools have mutilated his natural love of learning by turning it from an active into a passive process. 

The occasion for my remarks was a clash of opinions with a philosophy instructor about Charles Silberman’s book Crisis in the Classroom (1970).  The instructor contended that Silberman’s critical assessment of mindlessness in American public schools was unfounded.  He also made the common mistake of confusing schooling with learning.

I contended that Silberman’s assessment was valid and that schools are not about learning but about training for docility.  I argued that the most important things children learn, they do not learn in school or because of school.

Silberman’s work was funded by a private company.  The philosophy instructor was employed by a tax-supported “community college.” People who feed at the public trough are not likely to welcome suggestions that what they do can be done better and at less cost by private schools, companies, or families.

In 1971, I was quite young and my views on the matter of education vs. schooling were not fully formed.  Nor was I exempt from being influenced by a few writers who leaned Leftward but also echoed my sentiments against compulsory school attendance laws.  Some of what I wrote then was poorly expressed or just plain wrong.  But I stand by the essence of the paragraph quoted above. (more…)

Democrats and liberals accuse Republicans of conducting a war on women. Assault, rape, and murder are the worst things that can be done to a woman. I would bet a lot of money that most of the assaults, rapes, and murders of women are done by people who identify as liberals, and if they voted or had a party affiliation, it would be Democratic. -- Walter Williams

FORTUNATELY, we know the status of women has vastly improved. Otherwise, judging from the history of Western art, we would be tempted to conclude otherwise. A few examples:                    

  And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; and thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.  (Lk. 2: 33-35)

The misuse of military force has only spread violence and chaos across the Muslim world and spawned an explosive mix of political disintegration, rule by militias and warlords, a dizzying proliferation of armed groups with different interests and loyalties and, ultimately, more blowback for the West. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Israel, Qatar and other “allies” have been only too eager to exploit and redirect our aggression against their own enemies: Iran; Syria; Libya; and different ethnic groups, minorities and political movements in what was, for centuries, a diverse, tolerant region of the world. The U.S. has become a blind giant stumbling through a thick forest of shadows and unseen dangers, striking out with its devastating war machine at the instigation of self-serving allies and the same dark forces in its own “intelligence” bureaucracy who have stirred up trouble, staged coups and unleashed war in country after country for seventy years. --- Nicolas J S Davies, author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq

FROM The Independent Institute:

According to the Cato Institute, the United States admitted 3,252,493 refugees between 1975 and 2015. Twenty of them were terrorists. This represents some 0.00062 percent of all refugees. Only three attacks carried out by these refugees were successful.

In total, in a span of forty years, “terrorist refugees” have killed three people in the United States.

But what about the attacks in San Bernardino, the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting, the Boston Marathon bombings, and 9/11? [False flags all.] Are these not “proof” that such a ban is warranted? After all, the individuals responsible for the attacks had some connection to foreign countries.

In reality, the current executive order would have stopped exactly none of these attacks. (more…)

DANIEL McADAMS wrote yesterday:

It wasn’t hard to see this coming. President Trump’s National Security Advisor, Gen. Michael Flynn, delivered a clear threat to the government of Iran today, ominously stating that “as of this day, we are officially putting Iran on notice.” What is less clear is the General’s rationale for issuing the threat.

Flynn cites two justifications for bringing the US on war footing against Iran. Both are dubious. First, he blames Iran for a recent attack on a Saudi naval vessel carried out by Houthi forces in Yemen. According to Flynn, because the Houthis are backed by Iran — itself a specious claim — it is Iran that is actually responsible for the attack.

Even if it were true that the Houthis are Iranian proxies, this kind of guilt-by-association reasoning gets quite awkward when considering what some US-backed rebels in Syria have done with US-provided weapons and training. Like beheading young boys. (more…)

THE beast in Disney's new version of Beauty and the Beast has horns -- like Baphomet. See the report at Fellowship of the Minds, where Dr. Eowyn writes: The message of Disney’s new Beauty and the Beast movie is this: The Devil is just misunderstood! He just wants your love! The Devil loves you and wants to give you riches and finery. All you gotta do is tell him you love him, and he’ll turn into a handsome prince, and you’ll live happily ever after.

A CLERK OF OXFORD, a blog about medieval England, has a number of interesting posts about the celebration of Candlemas, or the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, which brings to a close the 40-day liturgical Christmas season and marks the occasion when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem. On this day, candles are blessed and carried in procession. From the day’s Gospel:

At that time: After the days of Mary’s purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they carried Jesus to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord: Every male opening the womb shall be called holy to the Lord; and to offer a sacrifice according as it is written in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons. (more…)

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS writes: The easiest and surest way for the Trump administration to stop the refugee problem, not only for the US but also for Europe and the West in general, is to stop the wars against Muslim countries that his predecessors started. The enormous sums of money squandered on gratuitous wars could instead be given to the countries that the US and NATO have destroyed. The simplest way to end the refugee problem is to stop producing refugees. This should be the focus of Trump ... [and his critics.]

  PLANNED. Carried out. Orchestrated.

  THE BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION says it is offensive to "transgenders" to refer to "expectant mothers," Breitbart reports. They should be referred to as "pregnant people" instead. This seems crazy -- even crazier than usual in a crazy time, but the progressive elimination of "mother" and "father" is nothing new and has been well underway for some time. The promotion of transgenderism is one more stage in the ongoing destruction of the family.

ANN CORCORAN has been following the refugee resettlement “humanitarian-industrial complex” in America for ten years. She reports on the abuses, and is not opposed to all help for refugees. She writes today at her website Refugee Resettlement Watch:

Over the years I have concluded that the program is out of control and is desperately in need of reform. 

I am paid by no one to write RRW, this has been a charitable effort on my part. I have no office, no staff, no interns!

I fully support President Trump’s EO on a moratorium on the US Refugee Admissions Program and have no comment on other aspects of the so-called ‘ban’ because many issues raised are outside of my area of expertise.

That said, although I support the short moratorium, it does not go far enough. It is an insufficient amount of time to fully investigate how the program has been administered since it was signed in to law by Jimmy Carter in 1980.

The USRAP has operated in virtual secrecy for the ten years I have followed it where local communities are kept in the dark until refugees start arriving.  Largely driven by nine major federal contractors*** who along with the US State Department collude to keep citizens from knowing what is planned for their communities.

When citizens learn what is happening and start asking questions about costs, security, cultural upheaval they are unfairly labeled racists and haters.

The USRAP as a multi-billion dollar a year industry is unsustainable and it is time Congress performed a much needed review. (more…)