THERE are many bright spots in yesterday’s elections and one of them is that some of the newly elected Congressional representatives have raised the possibility of eliminating the Department of Education, which has been spectacularly expensive, as well as a massive failure at improving education in this country. Richard W. Rahn of The Washington Times advocates at least a serious reduction in the department’s funding. He writes:

The U.S. Department of Education was created with the primary stated goal of increasing students’ test scores, but test scores for 17-year-old American students have remained essentially flat since 1970. The department’s budget has grown to a whopping $107 billion this year. Per pupil, taxpayer-financed education spending (adjusted for inflation) has risen by more than 200 percent since 1970 (and 150-plus percent since 1980). Clearly and unambiguously, the department deserves a grade of F. (more…)

  THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL candidate Kristi Noem, who never went  to college, has three children and is pro-life, won the lone House seat for South Dakota yesterday over the Democratic incumbent, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. Herseth Sandlin is a Georgteown law school graduate whose family has been active in South Dakota politics for many years. Noem's penchant for speeding on country roads, and her failure to pay her speeding fines, was the only issue that seemed to even slightly threaten her increasing popularity in recent months. Herseth Sandlin was booed and yelled at during one public meeting when her support for Nancy Pelosi came up.

  IN FEBRUARY of 1892, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the suffragist and woman's rights advocate, spoke before the U.S. Senate Committee on Women Suffrage. Her speech that day, "The Solitude of Self" is a chilling forecast of the world of the modern liberated woman. First and foremost, she has herself and herself alone. Stanton proclaimed: The isolation of every human soul and the necessity of self-dependence must give each individual the right to choose his own surroundings. The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education, for the full development of her faculties, her forces of mind and body; for giving her the most enlarged freedom of thought and action; a complete emancipation from all forms of bondage, of custom, dependence, superstition; from all the crippling influences of fear-is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life. The strongest reason why we ask for woman a voice in the government under which she lives; in the religion she is asked to believe; equality in social life, where she is the chief factor; a place in the trades and professions, where she may earn her bread, is because of her birthright to self -sovereignty; because, as an individual, she must rely on herself. This "self-sovereignty" Stanton advocated required the freedom to divorce. More than 20 years earlier, in 1871, Stanton advocated liberal divorce laws: When husbands and wives do not own each other as property, but are bound together only by affection, marriage…

  SCIENTISTS have gotten wind of the startling claims made here regarding homemade pizza versus the commercial product. They are now secretly working on homemade pies and getting paid for it. News has leaked out to the scientific press and the initial findings are no surprise. They say it's even healthier if you let the dough rise for an extra day. This is nature's ancient way of making the best of human laziness. It may take many billions of dollars in scientific experimentation before the world rediscovers many of the things the average housewife knew a hundred years ago.

DAVID LEE MUNDY WRITES:

I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia this past month. In all my travels to Islamic countries, I’ve never seen such a stark contrast of Islam and the West. For example, in one shopping mall, I was shocked to see ladies in burkas walking past lingerie stores. The city was littered with slutty European and trashy westerner tourists. I’ll tell you what, if I’ve got to pick between the hijab and the whores, I’m going with the hijab. (more…)

  SOME SEEK knowledge for the sake of knowledge. That is curiosity. Some seek knowledge to be known by others. That is vanity. Some seek knowledge to serve. That is love.                                                                -- BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

SARAH WRITES:

Creating an award for a children’s book about homosexuality is obviously immoral. But there is an additional problem with this award, namely the fact that it is named after the Stonewall riot of the 1960s. The riot occurred when police tried to arrest patrons at a homosexual bar in Greenwich Village known as the Stonewall Inn. Here are some choice Wikipedia quotes describing what transpired:

“The police tried to restrain some of the crowd, and knocked a few people down, which incited bystanders even more. Some of those handcuffed in the wagon escaped when police left them unattended . . . As the crowd tried to overturn the police wagon, two police cars and the wagon—with a few slashed tires—left immediately, with Inspector Pine urging them to return as soon as possible. (more…)

  LAWRENCE AUSTER WRITES at VFR: Never, never forget what the Democratic Party is and what it has done. They are not a legitimate American party. They are a criminal, leftist party that is alien to this country. In the name of meeting a national economic emergency, they passed one of the biggest spending bills in history, and then loaded it with gifts for their favorite special interests, thus showing that they weren't spending that unprecedented amount of money and putting the country in unprecedented debt for the sake of the country, but for the sake of their corrupt constituencies. For that breach of faith alone, the Democratic Party deserves to be, not just defeated, but destroyed.

JANE writes:

The Gawker story about Christine O’Donnell and her one-night stand with a 25-year-old seems to be helping her campaign; people see her as a victim of sexism. While a similar story might be political suicide for a man, somehow it’s a boost for a woman candidate. Surprise. Surprise. The following is the opening statement from her campaign Communication Director in response to the Gawker story. (more…)

  A FULL LIST of candidates who have pledged to repeal Obamacare can be found here. These candidates have promised to vote for all bills leading to the "defunding, deauthorization and repeal" of Obama's heath care bill.

HERE is a news story that horrifyingly confirms complaints about the decline of the public library.  The American Library Association announced today that along with the prestigious Caldecott and Newbery awards it will now honor an annual award for a children’s book about homosexuality. (more…)

LINDA MCMAHON, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, is one of many smart, engaging, and well-spoken female GOP candidates making last-minute pitches today. Here’s a three-hankie ad by McMahon (click the rally ad on her main page) in which she talks of being approached by a “single mom.” (more…)

JAMES LEWIS in the American Thinker, predicting most Jews will vote Democratic tomorrow despite Obama’s hostility to Israel, ponders the question “Why do Jews Vote for their Enemies?” The comments section is worth reading. One commenter writes: (more…)

  A COMMENTER at VFR writes this excellent description of Barack Obama: Obama embodies the worst of all the modern liberal political pathologies--intellectual bankruptcy, boundless arrogance, embrasure of the "transgressive" as a virtue, the postmodern critique of the concepts of objective reality and absolute moral values, contempt towards and demonization of political opponents, the elevation of self-gratification into the highest human aspiration, active hostility towards America's British and European roots, and Chicago-style zero-sum-game political sensibilities. He is the least-qualified man ever elected President of the United States--he can't give a speech without using a teleprompter, and even screws that up from time to time--and is in fact our first affirmative-action President, elected on the basis of the color of his skin, rather than the content of his character. His presidency is a textbook example of how racial preferences end up placing unqualified minorities in situations in which they are guaranteed to fail; only this time, the failure has consequences from which we as a nation may never recover. May each and every candidate wo has supported this man be voted out of office on Tuesday.

  MORE THAN 50,000 people are expected to gather in the Olympic stadium in Montreal today to celebrate the recent canonization of André Bessette, popularly known as Brother André. Bessette died in 1937 at the age of 91 after a humble and fascinating life. An uneducated man who worked as a doorman for Notre Dame College in nearby Côte de Neiges, he possessed extraordinary gentleness and was believed to have healing powers. He was drawn to the sick and poor and many claimed they had been cured by him. His continuing popularity in modern-day, post-Catholic Montreal is especially remarkable. Brother André was one of ten children of a lumberman and carpenter. Both his parents were dead by the time he was 12 years old. He supposedly refused to take credit for any cures and denied he could heal the sick.

AS I WROTE in this entry, there is a basic misunderstanding about the public library’s democratic mission. The library now strives to be all things to all people. Technological change is also rapidly altering the library’s role. The library of the past is gone, but books are still the main purpose. Traditionally, a library preserves the highest. In the way, a local nature center or arboreteum protects precious wildlife or flora, a library should protect the rare and the beautiful. When the giants of the past no longer hover in the shadows, a library has all the charm of a bus station.

Kristor writes:

Any institution that orders itself in respect to the lowest common denominator will end up like the DMV. The only way a public institution can avoid the eventual heat death of utter disorder is to aim at, and insist upon, excellence: excellence in its employees, and excellence in its clients. This is true also for private institutions like churches, business enterprises and universities. The only way they can succeed over the long run is to aim at excellence. The elite universities are pretty good examples of how this is done, although they have fallen far since they began to value diversity and political correctness more than excellence and truth. Another good example: the Rangers, or for that matter any of the special forces.

Excellence is essentially inegalitarian. If a society has anything good in it, it is to that extent inegalitarian. (more…)

THE MATURE TULIP POPLAR (Liriodendron tulipfera), if given the space to spread and more than 75 years of growth, is a magnificent tree. Its truncate-retuse leaves look like heraldic emblems. They turn lemon yellow in the fall and make a splattering sound as they hit the ground, as if someone is pouring splotches of yellow paint. A few days later,  the leaves are brown. They bring to mind these words from Robert Frost's poem "Reluctance:" Ah, when to the heart of man      Was it ever less than treason To go with the drift of things,       To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end       Of a love or a season?

GARY NORTH, an economist and social conservative, posted some interesting reflections on the Tea Party at his site. The movement lacks a real leader, he writes, and that is an asset. Its libertarian side will probably fade with time and it will become a growing force in politics. He predicts that it will be led by the best and brightest of homeschooled adults who are accustomed to rejecting the mainstream.

He describes ten key facts about the Tea Party. I reprint the article in its entirety below: (more…)