Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

OBAMA AIRBRUSHES HIS PERSONAL HISTORY

In an important article, former assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew C. McCarthy (author of Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad ) analyzes what we know and don't know about President Obama.  For my money, McCarthy is totally reliable and a stickler for facts.  He says "we know that his [Obama's] life story is chock full of fiction."  McCarthy describes, for example, the fictional account of Obama's first job out of college and comments:

What’s unnerving about this is that it is so gratuitous. It would have made no difference to anyone curious about Obama’s life that he, like most of us, took a ho-hum entry-level job to establish himself. But Obama lies about the small things, the inconsequential things, just as he does about the important ones — depending on what he is trying to accomplish at any given time.

In the above fairy tale, he sought to frame his life as a morality play: the hero giving up the cushy life of the capitalist “enemy” for the virtues of community organizing. But we’ve seen this dance a hundred times. If Obama wants to strike a connection with graduating students in Moscow, he makes up a story about meeting his “future wife . . . in class” (Barack and Michelle Obama met at work). If he wants to posture about his poverty and struggle in America, he waxes eloquent about his single mother’s surviving on “food stamps” so she could use every cent to send him “to the best schools in the country” (Obama was raised by his maternal grandparents, who had good jobs and were able to pull strings to get him into an elite Hawaiian prep school). If he wants to tie himself to the civil-rights struggle of African Americans, he tells

A PICTURE THAT SPEAKS VOLUMES

Rich Lowry asks, "Who would you rather have a beer with?  The conscientious guy, concerned with helping those around him? Or the oblivious guy, striding majestically alone?

Thomas Lifson, over at American Thinker writes:

I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped  Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is

"HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH" - STRONG BIAS AGAINST ISRAEL

Noah Pollak lays out the facts in the Wall Street Journal:

Over the past two weeks, Human Rights Watch has been embroiled in a controversy over a fund raiser it held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. At that gathering, Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson pledged the group would use donations to “battle . . . pro-Israel pressure groups.” . . .

From 2006 to the present, Human Rights Watch’s reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict have been almost entirely devoted to condemning Israel, accusing it of human rights and international law violations, and demanding international investigations into its conduct. It has published some 87 criticisms of Israeli conduct against the Palestinians and Hezbollah, versus eight criticisms of Palestinian groups and four of Hezbollah for attacks on Israel. . .

WHAT'S IN THE OBAMA HEALTHCARE BILL (HR3200)?

Click here for an overview with specific references to the full text of the bill itself.  Do visit the overview and be aghast.  It's even worse than conservative news outlets have explained.  And don't forget:

Members of Congress will be exempt from being forced into this plan. They will have their own. The liberals, Democrats and some Republicans - while forcing you to join the plan - refuse to include themselves. Members of Congress will have a better plan which gives them freedom you will be denied.

OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY: "FRIENDLY TO FOES, TREACHEROUS TO FRIENDS"?

Cliff May surveys Obama's foreign policy to date.  To my mind, Obama's policies illustrate how deeply and  happily he has drunk at the well of Leftist thought.  Sooner or later one hopes his positions will be denounced for their wrongheadedness and a new path charted.  I see that today Drudge notes Sen. Lugar of Indiana has asked Secretary of State Clinton for an explanation of the Obama administration's policy towards Honduras.  Good!  Unless things change fast, the slow recognition of Obama's domestic amateur hour will fade against the dramatic revealing of a catastrophic foreign policy.  I hope Sen. Lugar and others will exercise a moderating influence on Obama and his State Department.   P.S. see also Cliff May's notation on what's on the website of the Consulate General of the United States in Jerusalem.

THE HYPOCRISY OF THE ELITES

Victor Davis Hanson takes a look at the glaring contradictions between the messages and  lifestyles of Al Gore, Thomas Friedman, Prof. Henry Lewis Gates, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Chris Dodd, and former Sen. Tom Dashle.  VDH concludes:

Here’s a little advice for all of America’s aristocratic critics: a little less hypocrisy, a little more appreciation of your good lives — and then maybe the rest of us will listen to you a little more.

"STIMULUS" EARMARKS FOR NANCY PELOSI'S DISTRICT - SAN FRANCISCO

Update 7/30/09 - Michelle Malkin  lists National Endowment of the Arts "smut-ulus" projects, some of which are included in the original post below.

(Original Post) - You won't believe this.  It gives a new meaning to Naked Politics.  Drawing on Mark Kelly's research, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reports:

Mark Kelly of the Heritage Foundation did some digging on where the House Speaker funneled her District's dollars, and the list of projects is enough to send taxpayers through the roof. Let me put it this way: Nancy Pelosi is trying to stimulate a lot more than San Francisco's economy. While the average American is worried about losing his shirt, Congress is funding actors who aren't wearing any!

According to Kelly, $50,000 was sent to an initiative called CounterPulse in San Francisco that just sponsored a "Perverts [Sleep Around]" event on July 25, urging people to "Join your fellow pervs for some explicit, twisted fun!" Another $50,000 went directly to an entertainment group called Frameline that concentrates on promoting the "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community" in the arts.

Over at "San Francisco Cinematheque," organizers raked in $25,000 to promote documentaries like "Thundercrack," of which a reviewer writes, "Witness if you dare, the world's only underground kinky art porno horror film, complete with four men, three women and a gorilla." A company called Jess Curtis/Gravity, Inc. will receive $25,000, presumably to help boost their Symmetry Project, which features nude couples in compromising positions.

Other programs are too crude and embarrassing to even mention. But shouldn't that say something to the third most powerful leader in America? If these projects are too obscene to talk about, what business does the U.S. government have funding them? This isn't just waste--it's reckless, indecent garbage sponsored by Congress and paid for by you. If these are the priorities of America's new leadership, then we should definitely get a second opinion on their vision for an issue as significant as health care. For more on Pelosi's "waste" line, visit Mark's blog at markkelly.posterous.com.

Additional Resources
Mark Kelly: Stimulus spending links for Speaker Pelosi's district. 

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA (NCLR)

I've not been on top of NCLR.  Mark Krikorian reminded me of NCLR in his post today:

The National Council of La Raza [this link offers a good introduction] has just wrapped up its annual conference in Chicago. While I think Tom Tancredo was engaging in hyperbole when he described La Raza as "a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses" (that describes instead MEChA and the Brown Berets), there's more to the comparison than people might realize.

La Raza's attempt to explain away their name as meaning "the people" or "the community" instead of "the race" notes correctly, and approvingly, that the phrase was coined by former Mexican secretary of education Jose Vasconcelos in the 1920s as "La Raza Cosmica." But maybe they didn't look closely enough at the theoretical underpinnings of the concept. Here's what Guillermo Lux and Maurilio Vigil wrote about it in Aztlan: Essays on the Chicano Homeland:

The concept of La Raza can be traced to the ideas and writings of Jose Vasconcelos, the Mexican theorist who developed the theory of la raza cosmica (the cosmic or super race) at least partially as a minority reaction to the Nordic notions of racial superiority. Vasconelos developed a systematic theory which argued that climatic and geographic conditions and mixture of Spanish and Indian races created a superior race. The concept of La Raza connotes that the mestizo is a distinct race and not Caucasian, as is technically the case.

In other words, La Raza really is the Master Race, but rather than based on notions of racial purity, La Raza's inherent, biological superiority is based on its hybridity, on the mixing in Latin America of, in Vasconcelos's words, "the black, the Indian, the Mongol, and the white." La Raza tries to whitewash (you should pardon the expression) this by writing that "this is an inclusive concept, meaning that Hispanics share with all other peoples of the world a common heritage and destiny." Not really; what it really means is that Hispanics, and specifically Mestizos, are superior to those of us unfortunate enough not to be part of the cosmic race.

So, "der Nationalrat des Volkes" is not so far off after all.

NORTH CAROLINA JIHAD

Robert Spencer reports:

Six American citizens and one U.S. permanent resident were charged in North Carolina with, according to the Justice Department, “conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad.” The indictment centers around the activities of an American convert to Islam, 39-year-old Daniel “Saifullah” Boyd (a drywall contractor who was apparently the ringleader of this group). It reveals yet again the international scope of jihadist activity – giving the lie to the common Leftist assertion that various jihads around the globe are isolated nationalist insurgencies with no connection to one another.   [more. .]

MOVIE - "THE STONING OF SAROYA M."

- On the suffering of women under Islam (including honor killings), Phyllis Chesler remains a good source.  She comments on the Muslim mass murder in Canada currently under investigation.

 - As for the movie, "The Stoning of Saroya M." good background video can be found here.  Article excerpt:

The creator of The Stoning Soraya M. hopes the film will open the world's eyes to a brutal practice  that is still taking place today.

Zahra is an Iranian woman who meets a French journalist and exposes a brutal tradition in her village.  Her niece Soraya was stoned to death.

The gripping story is the focus of the feature film directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh.

"In modern-day Iran,  the victim is accused of a crime.  Usually it's adultery or sex-related crime, for which stoning is the punishment," he explained.  "And it is usually women who are the victim."

In this film the victim is Soraya.

Her husband, Ali, wants to dump her and marry a 14-year-old.  He then falsely accuses Soraya of cheating.  The punishment is being buried waist deep while the men in the village throw stones at her.

And this is a true story based on an international best-seller first published in 1994.    

Zahra is the brave woman standing up to the men.

She's portrayed by Shoreh Aghdashloo -- who actually left Iran 30 years ago, shortly before the islamic revolution.

Turning the light on a dark injustice is what moved big name stars like Jim Caviezel to be a part of the independent film.

Some reports suggest 1,000 women have been stoned in the last 15 years in a number of countries including Iran, Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

DENNIS PRAGER - "10 QUESTIONS FOR SUPPORTERS OF OBAMACARE"

Update 7/29/09: The Acton Institute has produced a short video worth seeing: "The Problems with Socialized Government Healthcare."  (HT: Hugh Hewitt)

- Prager demonstrates his usual clear-headed insightfulness. Click here.

Update:  The Family Research Council has begun airing a TV commercial.  View it here.  FRC issued the following press release:

CHICAGOLAND CONFERENCE: "THE FALL OF CAPITALISM AND RISE OF ISLAM"

You may have heard of this conference held in Oak Lawn, Il. a suburb of Chicago.  Steven Emerson, Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, reports:

While Hizb ut-Tahrir, a pro-jihadist group which met openly near Chicago last weekend, is surprisingly candid about its desire to re-establish an Islamic Caliphate, literature available at its conference shows the group also views Christians and Jews as untrustworthy enemies of God.

More than a dozen issues of a Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) newsletter called The Shield were obtained from the conference by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. The publication repeatedly condemns interfaith "outreach initiatives" and shows HT believes in the death penalty for Muslims who leave the faith.

HT pushes a radical ideology that is similar to Al Qaeda, although the organization claims it does not carry out terrorist attacks. It has glorified jihadism and excoriated the terrorist organization Hamas as being too soft on Israel. In a leaflet posted on its website July 1, HT argued that if the Caliphate were in existence, all of "Palestine" would be rid of "the usurpation of the Jewish occupiers" and brought "to the fold of the Islamic state."

Turkish authorities meanwhile, arrested more than 200 HT members Friday, although it is unclear what prompted it. The group is banned in Turkey.

Last week, U.S-based HT members gathered at the Hilton Hotel in Oak Lawn, Ill. for a conference called "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam." In addition to speakers' calls to fight "to

MICHELLE MALKIN'S NEW BOOK - "CULTURE OF CORRUPTION"

- Update 7/29/09:  Click here for Matt Lauer's Today Show interview with Michelle.  In it Michelle pointedly refers to Michelle Obama's history of cronyism, much to the dismay of Lauer!  Also see her latest column, "Bully boys: A brief history of White House thuggery."

(Original Post) - Before I get to Malkin's book, are you aware of yet another expose of Obama's hypocrisy?  In a 2004 interview Obama accused the Bush administration of ramming through bills without sufficient time for reading and deliberation. Obama would never do that!!!  Click here.

- The full title of Michelle Malkin's book is Culture of Coruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies. Sean Hannity's video interview with Michelle can be found here.    (Update:  Now #1 at Amazon.)   From the blurb:

* Why the Obama White House has more power-hungry, unaccountable "czars" than any other administration
* How Team Obama's first one hundred days of appointments became a litany of embarrassments as would-be appointee after would-be appointee was exposed as a tax cheat or had to withdraw for other reasons
* How Obama's old ACORN and union cronies have squandered millions of taxpayer dollars and dues money to enrich themselves and expand their power
* How Obama's Wall Street money men and corporate lobbyists are ruining the economy and helping their friends.  In Culture of Corruption, Michelle Malkin lays bare the Obama administration's seamy underside that the liberal media would rather keep hidden.

Michelle writes powerfully and skillfully.  Excerpt here.

Note also Michelle's post: "Unscrupulous borrowers: Democrats Dodd & Conrad knew about VIP treatment."

GEORGE GILDER'S NEW BOOK - "THE ISRAEL TEST"

George Gilder's new book,  The Israel Test, has just been published.  David Pryce-Jones reviews it saying Gilder "can be relied on to say striking and original things."  For sure.

Nobody but Gilder could have written this book. Israel of course has its defenders, but they use arguments based on nationalism, territory, ethnicity, defence of minorities, rights, historicism, and so on. Gilder sees Jews since their emancipation as the vanguard of human achievement. They may be few in numbers, but their creativity has brought prosperity to themselves and those around them, and that prosperity in turn has brought freedom. Thus Jews spearhead capitalism and the democracy indispensable to its proper functioning. Marxists, Nazis, and now Muslims and their apologists envy Jews because they cannot emulate them, and so set out to destroy the success that shows up their failure. The attitude you take towards Israel and Jews decides whether you love or hate freedom, and beyond that, mankind — that’s the test he is proposing in the book’s title. And just in case the reader risks failing this test by jumping to a false conclusion, Gilder has a portrait of his very non-Jewish ancestry, saying, “We were classic WASPS all.”

Me: It seems Gilder is something of a Renaissance man.  I recall his book on Wealth and Poverty and his book on marriage.  I'm making note of this book to give it a browse next time I'm in a bookstore.

SHOULD CHURCH PULPITS BE A FOCAL POINT AND ELEVATED?

Doug Groothuis thinks so and writes passionately:

I have noticed that as churches embrace more of popular culture, especially in worship forms, the pulpit disappears or is lowered in elevation. . .  We need a theology of the pulpit. The Word of God is above us. The preacher should explain and proclaim and defend Scripture as true and holy. He or she is a servant of the Word and should be a deep student of its truth (2 Tim 2:15). There is, therefore, good reason for the pulpit to be central and raised up, since Holy Scripture is central and exalted. . .

We are creatures of place and symbol. A low, small, pulpit (or even a music stand, which I hate with a perfect hatred) does not communicate authority or transcendence. Of course, a bad preacher in a good pulpit is a bad preacher still. Yet, the pulpit itself speaks, both to

ANTI-OBAMA RALLY IN JERUSALEM

- Update 7/29/09 - Ralph Peters writes:

The only hope -- albeit a slim one -- for peace in the Middle East is to make it clear that our support for Israel is steadfast and unwavering, that Israel will endure and its enemies must accept its existence.

The current rift between the Israeli government and the Obama administration isn't about expanding settlements in the West Bank. It's about declining courage in the West.

- Update - The Jerusalem Post covers the rally here.   WorldNetDaily reports Obama slammed as racist:

President Obama's policies against Jewish construction

in eastern Jerusalem and the strategic West Bank were slammed as "racist" today by participants in  a rally drawing about 2,000 Israelis in front of the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem. "George Mitchell go home!" yelled protestors in front of the U.S. government building.

- (Original Post) - Story here.  (HT: Drudge)   Totally understandable.  If I lived in Israel, I would participate. 

HEATHER MACDONALD ON "RACE RELATIONS" (S0-CALLED)

MacDonald offers politically incorrect observations triggered by the Obama- Gates-Crowley incident.  Excerpts:

 . . . Nothing Obama said on Friday retracts his assertion that it is a “fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up more frequently and often time for no cause.” That charge is the real outrage of the president’s reckless entry into Cambridge Burglarygate; the back-and-forth over who dissed whom is a sideshow. Even if Obama announced tomorrow that Sergeant Crowley had in this case acted appropriately, his previous assertion that “we” need to “improve policing techniques so that we’re eliminating potential bias” would still be the takeaway from this surreal episode.

On Friday, Obama declared that he wants to have a “teachable moment” about “relations between police officers and minority communities.” Here’s a good place to start teaching: expose the reality of black crime. It is preposterous to talk about urban policing without talking about crime, yet that is what anti-cop activists, politicians, and reporters have managed to pull off for years. They focus public attention on police-stop and arrest data while keeping crime rates carefully offstage. But

WORLD CHRISTIANITY

Gene Veith writes:

Matthew Kratz at Sola Fide posts some factoids from Mark Noll’s new book, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith:

 This past Sunday it is possible that more Christian believers attended church in China than in all of so-called “Christian Europe.” Yet in 1970 there were no legally functioning churches in all of China; only in 1971 did the communist regime allow for one Protestant and one Roman Catholic Church to hold public worship services, and this was mostly a concession to visiting Europeans and African students from Tanzania and Zambia.

This past Sunday more Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the United States combined—and the number of Anglicans in church in Nigeria was several times the umber in those other African countries.

This past Sunday more Presbyterians were at church in Ghana than in Scotland, and more were in congregations of the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa than in the United States.

The past Sunday more people attended the Yoido Full Gospel Church pastored by Yongi Cho is Seoul, Korea, than attended all the churches in

ECKHART TOLLE'S "A NEW EARTH" UNDER REVIEW

Steve Cable offers a review of Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth.  He titles his review, "Oprah's Spirituality: Exploring "A New Earth".  - I've not read Tolle's book, but the review looks substantive to me.

NORTH KOREAN WOMAN EXECUTED FOR DISTRIBUTING BIBLE

Associated Press report here.

RUSH LIMBAUGH ON OBAMA: "HE'S ANGRY AT THIS COUNTRY, HE'S NOT PROUD OF IT"

Click here for Rush's 10 minute TV video interview with Greta Van Susteren.  It's worth watching. Update: Additional segments of the interview with Greta have now been posted at the same link. 

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON ON THE "GATES INCIDENT"

VDH adds (update):

Somehow the president in the last few hours, in his now characteristic stereotyping, has managed to  insult the nation's police with his "stupidly" comment, the nation's surgeons with his reference to greedy tonsil-cutting, and the nation's elderly with his aspirin quip — all reminiscent of the "typical white person" castoff, Pennsylvania clingers speech, and the Special Olympics one-liner. Given his propensity to apologize abroad for the purported sins of other earlier Americans, can we expect some "I'm sorry"s  for his own clumsy generalizations? No wonder Robert Gibbs and Joe Biden have little worries that their own logorrhea will have any consequences.

Original post:

. . . if the public comes away with any lasting impression, it will be that an impromptu Obama, for all the post-racial rhetoric, still sees controversies in prisms that reflect stereotyped us/them racialism rather than looking at each incident empirically.

 

There were no winners in this comic tragedy — but one clear loser: last night, the president of the United States.   [MORE . . ]

Sidenote: Roger Kimball isn't impressed with Gates' vaunted scholarship.  Click here.

Update: "Anonymous says," Dr. Gates' behavior a product of the Ivy League Effect

Update: VDH on the Obama presidency: what might have been if Obama had not chosen to govern from a neo-socialist, hard left position.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS - "WHO'S INTO INTELLIGENT DESIGN?"

Tim, over ar Random Observations blog, offers a fascinating post contrasting the scientific backgrounds and qualifications of the pro-Intelligent Design scholars with those opposed.  Tim writes:

Here are the academic credentials of some of the prominent scientific supporters of Intelligent  Design I've encountered:

Michael Behe - Chemistry (BS), Biochemistry (PhD, Professor)
David Berlinski - Philosophy (PhD), Mathematics (post-PhD), Molecular Biology (PhD)
William Demski - Psychology (BA), Statistics (MS), Mathematics (PhD, post-), History and Philosophy of Science (post-PhD), MDiv
Steve Fuller - History (BS), History and Philosophy of Science (MS, PhD), Sociology (BS, Department Chair)
Donald Johnson - Chemistry (PhD), Computer Science and Information Sciences (PhD)
Rebecca Keller - Biophysical Chemistry (PhD)
Dean Kenyon - Physics (BS), Biophysics (PhD), Chemical Biodynamics (post-PhD)
Stephen Meyer - Physics (BS), Geology (BS), Philosophy (PhD)
Bradley Monton (sympathetic) - Physics (BS), Philosophy (PhD)
Jeffrey Schwartz - Philosphy (BS), Neuroscience & Psychiatry (MD)
Jonathan Wells - Religious Studies (PhD), Molecular and Cell Biology (PhD)

And now let's compare with the credentials of some of the most vocal scientific opponents of Intelligent Design that I can think of (let me know if I've missed anyone, or one of their significant degrees):

Richard Dawkins - Zoology (MA, DPhil)
Daniel Dennett - Philosophy (BA, DPhil)
Barbara Forrest - English (BA), Philosophy (MA, PhD)
PZ Meyers - Zoology (BS), Evolutionary Developmental Biology (PhD)
Kenneth Miller - Biology (BS, PhD)
Robert Pennock - History and Philosophy of Science (PhD)
Victor Stenger - Electrical Engineering (BS), Physics (MS, PhD), Philosophy (Professor)

Noticing anything?

Long before I encountered this debate, I was taken by Richard Feynman's adage that there were only two branches of science - Physics, and Stamp Collecting. In other words, scientists either do lots of hard math with predictable results (Physics, Chemistry) or they tend to collect, enumerate, and describe things (Zoology, Sociology, Anthropology, much Biology).

I used to assume that vocal evolutionary atheists like Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and Daniel Dennett were heavy hitters, academically. But no, I recently discovered, Dawkins and Myers are just Zoologists, and Dennett's a philosopher with no hard science background.

In contrast, I'm being blown away by some of the credentials (and more importantly, lucidity) of those advocating ID. For example, David Berlinski, who appeared in Expelled, is off the charts: Mathematics and Molecular Biology? A research fellow at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis? Wow, that's some seriously hard stuff. (Systems Science and Mathematics was known as the hardest engineering degree when I was in school.) And most those which have Philosophy degrees are actually Philosophy of History of Science (I didn't always write that out), and many have serious backing and overlap with hard sciences (e.g. Physics).

So it seems most the prominent scientific IDers tend to fall closer to Physics, and most the outspoken anti-ID scientists tend to fall closer to stamp collecting. But most people aren't aware of this. They've been told, mostly, that prominent IDers have bad motives (the "Wedge Document") (as if Dawkins and Dennett have no ulterior religious motives of their own, and as if motives invalidated arguments), that ID proponents know almost nothing of science, that don't do science, etc. From what I've seen, nothing could be further from the truth.

Go over to the original post and take a look at the comments.  Tim rebuts one scorner into silence.

COLLEGE CLASSROOMS: WHICH IS MORE EFFECTIVE, POWER POINT or HANDOUTS?

Perhaps surprisingly, handouts seems the clear winner.  Alan Jacobs, Wheaton College English professor and New Atlantis blogger, writes:

This fits with what I hear from students all the time:

A study published in the April issue of British Educational Research Journal found that 59 percent of students in a new survey reported that at least half of their lectures were boring, and that PowerPoint was one of the dullest methods they saw. The survey consisted of 211 students at a university in England and was conducted by researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.

Students in the survey gave low marks not just to PowerPoint, but also to all kinds of computer-assisted classroom activities, even interactive exercises in computer labs. "The least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions," said the report. In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging.

I think when slide presentations are used well the story isn’t quite so sad, but they are almost never used well — and, as Edward Tufte never tires of saying, there are few lecturing situations in which a paper handout is not considerably more useful than a set of PowerPoint slides.

I consider The Handout a great pedagogical art form, and devote a lot of time to preparing handouts for classes. The keys are to (a) provide as much information as possible on the page (b) without overcrowding and (c) in a format that gives clear differentiating structure to the different points, ideas, and quotations. One of my minor fantasies is to be asked to give a seminar in handout preparation for my fellow teachers. Alas, it’ll never happen.

Me:  I found this observation encouraging, especially since I've never learned how to use Power Point!

C.S. LEWIS' RECORDINGS IN HIS OWN VOICE

Grateful thanks are due Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds for the following post:

If you've never heard C.S. Lewis speak, here are some free samples online.

The first two are from the BBC:

Beyond Personality: The New Men (14:05 mins)
March 21, 1944
Length: 14:05
(This talk later became a part of Mere Christianity.)

An Introduction to The Great Divorce
Date: May 9, 1948
Length of clip: 1:58

You can hear a few samples from his lectures on The Four Loves on this site

• Introduction (0:29)
  
• "Agape Love" (0:20)
  
• "Is Creation Necessary?" (0:35)

DAVID FRENCH: WHY I AM QUITTING FACEBOOK

David French's post makes me feel better about my reluctance to join Facebook (still haven't done so).  French writes:

 . . . I just can't take it anymore.

I can't take the "discussion groups" that contain such insightful comments as "ROFL."  I can't take the idea that I'm somehow "maintaining relationships" by reading status updates like, "OMG, I love my kidz!" or "That Derby party was so great!" or "I'm shopping for shoes and just hate the prices!"  I also can't take the positively insufferable idea that Facebookers are somehow changing the world by talking about themselves at great, great length.

Now you could say that I'm just one of those grumpy old guys still cracking the whip on his "horseless carriage" while the rest of the world zooms past on their shiny Model T's, but not really. I’m actually just

HOW CAN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION BE SO STUPID REGARDING ISRAEL?

Daniel Pipes, Middle East expert, brings readers up to date on the effect of Obama's bumbling foreign policy towards Israel and the Palestinians.  Incompetence would be a mild word to describe administration pronouncements.  Pipes writes:

. . .  Insisting that Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem "cannot be challenged," he [Prime Minister Netanyahu] noted that "residents of Jerusalem may purchase apartments in all parts of the city" and pointedly recalled that "in recent years hundreds of apartments in Jewish neighborhoods and in the western part of the city have been purchased by – or rented to – Arab residents and we did not interfere.

"This says that there is no ban on Arabs buying apartments in the western part of the city and there is no ban on Jews buying or building apartments in the eastern part of the city. This is the

DENNIS PRAGER: OBAMA ILLUSTRATES THE LEFTIST MINDSET

 Prager lays out the governing principles of the left:

. . . Principal One: The left, as distinct from traditional liberals, is not, and has never been, interested in creating wealth. . .  The left is interested in redistributing wealth, not creating it. The left spends the wealth that private enterprise and entrepreneurial risk-taking individuals create. . .

Principal Two: The reason the left asks why there is poverty instead of why there is wealth is that the left's preoccupying ideal is equality -- not economic growth. And those who are preoccupied with equality are more troubled by wealth than by poverty.  . . .

Principal Three: The left everywhere seeks to make as big and powerful a state as possible. It does so because only the state can redistribute society's wealth. And because only a strong and powerful state can impose values on society. The idea of small government, the American ideal since its inception, is the antithesis of the left's ideal. . .

Principal Four: The left imposes its values on others whenever possible and to the extent possible. That is why virtually every totalitarian regime in the 20th century was left-wing. Inherent to all left-wing thought is a totalitarian temptation.  People on the left know that not only are their values morally superior to conservative values, but that they themselves are morally superior to conservatives. . .    Therefore, the morally superior have the right, indeed the duty, to impose their values on the rest of us: what light bulbs we use, what cars we drive, what we may ask a prospective employee, how we may discipline our children, and, of course, how much of our earnings we may keep. . .      [Read the whole thing...]

OBAMA - PRESIDENT OR KING?

In the midst of a useful post on the appropriateness or inappropriateness of bringing back the word "Fink," (especially to describe Kings), the Anchoress writes some sentences that bear repeating:

So, by my lights, anyway, a king may be a fink, but not a president. A president, after all, must answer to his electorate.

That’s true, isn’t it, that a king rules, while a president leads? That a king demands service, while a president serves?

Hmmmmmm. Feels like lines are blurring, doesn’t it?

True: President Obama is the president, and not a king.

True: President Obama holds majorities in both houses of congress, and will soon own the SCOTUS as well.

True: President Obama has 32 “czars” working for and reporting directly to him, absent congressional oversight or accountability.

True: President Obama owns the press, who will do anything for him.

True: A president without checks and balances to rein him in or overrule him, with powerful minions answerable only to him, and with control of most information venues is a president who can decide he’s going to just do as he damn pleases, is an unprecedented sort of president.

True: A president who can arbitrarily decide to take taxpayer money by the greedy mittsful, without at least giving them a receipt – why, that’s a president who is barely acting like the leader of a republic at all. That’s a president who is acting more and more like…well…kinda like king.

And as we all know, “The King is a Fink.”

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN LEADERS SEND AN "OPEN LETTER" TO THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Read the letter here.  (HT: Jonah Goldberg)  My concern is that the Obama administration has amateurs at the helm who don't know what they are doing.  It would be tragic if U.S. foreign policy failed to undergird the fledging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe, and likewise failed to support them vis-a-vis Russia's aggressive actions and strategic plans. The new generation of leaders need to be engaged, not ignored.   They plead, "Don't give up missile defense."  NATO needs significant strengthening.  Signers of the letter include Vaclav Havel and Lech Welesa.

FEMALE SUDAN JOURNALIST INVITES FRIENDS TO HER FLOGGING

Muslim women are routinely mistreated.  Here's an attempt to draw public attention to that fact.

Facebook is one of the top social networking sites, and probably sees millions of invitations posted each day, but one put up by a journalist in the Sudan probably is unique: It invites her friends and the public to her flogging.

According to a report today from the Middle East Media Research Institute, Lubna Ahmad Hussein posted the invitation to her friends and supporters to "stir up a scandal around her case."

As WND reported just days ago, she was among the women – including many Christians – arrested and flogged for wearing trousers.    [more . . .]

G.K. CHESTERTON ON "THE INNOCENCE OF SEX"

I've been having a friendly little go-round with a recent post from Wintery Knight Blog.   My latest reply is to quote a passage from G.K. Chesterton's St. Francis of Assisi in which GKC offers some astute observations on the "innocence" of sex.  GKC writes:

“What had happened to the human imagination, as a whole, was that the whole world was coloured by dangerous and rapidly deteriorating passions; by natural passions becoming unnatural passions. Thus the effect of treating sex as only one innocent natural thing was that every other innocent natural thing became soaked and sodden with sex. For sex cannot be admitted to a mere equality among elementary emotions or experiences like eating and sleeping. The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant. There is something dangerous and disproportionate in its place in human nature, for whatever reason; and it does really need a special purification and dedication. The modern talk about sex being free like any other sense, about the body being beautiful like any tree or flower, is either a description of the Garden of Eden or a piece of thoroughly bad psychology, of which the world grew weary two thousand years ago.” (From ch. 2, “The World St. Francis Found")

DESPICABLE: WOMEN RAPED BEFORE EXECUTION IN IRAN

From the Jerusalem Post (by way of Mark Steyn):

In a shocking and unprecedented interview, directly exposing the inhumanity of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's religious regime in Iran, a serving member of the paramilitary Basiji militia has  told this reporter of his role in suppressing opposition street protests in recent weeks.

He has also detailed aspects of his earlier service in the force, including his enforced participation in the rape of young Iranian girls prior to their execution. . .

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a "wedding" ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her "husband."

"I regret that, even though the marriages were legal," he said.

Why the regret, if the marriages were "legal?"

"Because," he went on, "I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their 'wedding' night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

"I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over," he said. "I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her."  [more . .]

Steyn:

"It is illegal to execute a young woman ...if she is a virgin": Must be convenient to have a legal code that obliges all your pathologies.

DEVELOPED COUNTRIES AS OLD FOLKS' HOMES

Mark Steyn links to writers belatedly discovering what he has long written about, namely, the birth dearth in developed countries spells looming disaster for those nations.  Countries under review in his post: Japan and Canada, with a glance at European countries.  Steyn concludes:

The transformation of developed societies - either into old folks' homes (like Japan) or semi-Islamized dystopias (like Amsterdam, Brussels, etc) - will lead, in fact, to emigration. A young German or Japanese circa 2040 will have no reason whatsoever to stay in his native land and have most of his income confiscated in a vain attempt to prop up an unsustainable geriatric welfare system. So many will leave. Where will they go? At one time the obvious answer would have been America - but Good King Barack seems determined to saddle us with the same unaffordable entitlements that have scuttled the rest of the west.

Me:  "Good King Barack"? - I hadn't heard that terminology before.  Problem is, the fairy tale ending will be a dystopia and we'll need (for reality's sake) to drop the "good" and substitute something else.  Fairy tale?  I used the wrong terminology.  We're now in a developing theatre-of-the-absurd nightmare from which there may be no waking.  Scary.

ROT AND CORRUPTION IN THE GOP

Michelle Malkin chronicles the disheartening moral breakdown saying:

The rotten American Conservative Union/David Keene pay-for-play scandal underscores a point I’ve made over and over and over again:

The GOP can’t attack the Democrat culture of corruption (my new book comes out July 27) until it cleans its own house first.

The John Ensign mess keeps getting worse.

Stubborn, selfish, prevaricating Mark Sanford keeps embarrassing himself and conservatism.

And there’s another sex scandal on C Street.

Grass-roots conservatives are livid and lashing out.

We’ve got major battles on the Hill and fundamental principles to defend.

Show the corrupted, Beltway-infected, power-drunk Republicans the door.

And get back to work.

"YOU DON'T LET ANYONE SUFFER ALONE" - THE HEROES OF CAR 1079

I just read Mark Early's Breakpoint column which recounted the heroism of two men riding in Car 1079 on the Washington, D.C. Metro transit train that collided with another Metro train.  Then I went to the original Washington Post story written by Eli Saslow:  “Three Minutes to Fort Totten” (28 June 2009).  It's rare that a newspaper account can be considered "literature," but this story qualifies.  It is worth your time to read it.  Early points out, rightly, that "worldview" matters.  It was Chaplain Bottoms, with two tours in Iraq under his belt, who stayed by the dying.  See also Terry Mattingly, “A Chaplain in the Right Place,” (GetReligion, 1 July 2009) who adds journalistic comment.

BIZARRE ANGLE OF OBAMA'S CEREMONIAL FIRST PITCH AT THE ALL-STAR GAME

The Anchoress asks the right question when she wonders

 "if David Axelrod had negotiated the bizarre angle (there is no other word for it, if you’re a baseball-watching fan) used to showcase President Barack Obama’s ceremonial “first pitch.” I have never seen a president throw a pitch, before, where the angle left out the catcher at the plate."

She has produced a brilliant comparison of Obama and Bush, not only in throwing ability, but more importantly in their style (and modesty).  Her post is definitely worth reading, as is her link to Andy McCarthy.

Rush Limbaugh plainspeakingly says:

Obama's pitch did not make it all the way to the plate. . .  The guy throws like a girl.  I'm sorry.  He throws like a girl, he had a girlie toss.

The video he posts substantiates his point.   Further down Rush's post you can compare President Bush's 2001 World Series toss.

Is throwing ability small potatoes?  Yes.  What's significant are the larger points made by the Anchoress and McCarthy.  The media will stand on its head (and orchestrate camera angles and commentary as well), to make this president look good.

SUPREME COURT JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG THINKS EUGENICS A GOOD IDEA?

- Update 7/17/09 - Michael Gerson - What did Justice Ginsberg mean in her latest comments about abortion?

- (Original Post) - Jonah Goldberg writes:

Here’s what Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine: “Frankly I had thought that at the time [Roe v. Wade] was decided,” Ginsburg told her interviewer, Emily Bazelon, “there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

Really?  What populations would that be?  Goldberg wonders, too, and has some ideas.   [more . . ]

SECULAR LIBERALISM AS RELIGION

Dr. Al Mohler writes of liberals who are religiously committed to secular liberalism.  Mohler draws on an article by Howard P. Kains, Liberalism as Religion. 

. . . Kainz offers a crucial insight here, suggesting that one of the most important factors in the nation's cultural divide is that persons on both sides are deeply committed to their own creeds and worldviews--even if on one side those creeds are secular. . .

Kainz concedes that some will resist his designation of secularism as a religion. "Religion in the most common and usual sense connotes dedication to a supreme being or beings," he acknowledges. Nevertheless, "especially in the last few centuries, 'religion' has taken on the additional connotations of dedication to abstract principles or ideals rather than a personal being," he insists. Kainz dates the rise of this secular religion to the French Enlightenment and its idolatrous worship of Reason.

Looking back over the last century, Kainz argues that Marxism and ideological Liberalism have functioned as religious systems for millions of individuals. Looking specifically at Marxism, Kainz argues that the

ANGLICAN UK BISHOP TOM WRIGHT RESPONDS TO THE U.S. EPISCOPAL CHURCH'S OPENING THE DOOR TO ORDINATION FOR ALL (INCLUDING LGBT)

Update - David Virtue analyzes the apostasy of The Episcopal Church and questions whether it can any longer be considered a Christian denomination in any moral or theological sense.

(Original Post) - N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham, is probably the leading New Testament theologian in the world today.  His condemnation of the U.S. Episcopal church's decision will influence other Church of England bishops.  Read Wright's position here. 

MICHAEL FUMENTO: "THE GREAT STEM-CELL-RESEARCH SCAM"

And scam it is.  Michael Fumento contrasts the remarkable advances using adult stem cell research with the lack of any promising results employing embryonic stem cells.  So why the embryonic stem cell funding?  Phony propagandizing by an ignorant and complicit media and $$$$$.  It's a scam.  Read the article and get angry.  (HT: NRO Web briefing.)

THE QUESTION OF OBAMA'S PLACE OF BIRTH HEATS UP: WAS HE BORN IN KENYA OR HAWAII?

Update 7/16/09 - Retired general , lieutenant colonel join reservist's lawsuit over Obama's birth status

- (Original Post) - I have been watching out of the corner of my eye the campaign WorldNetDaily and others have been waging to achieve full disclosure on Obama's place of birth.  If it was in Kenya, and not in the USA (Hawaii), then he fails to meet the qualifications set forth in the U.S. Constititution to be President of the United States.  Yesterday a U.S. soldier apparently won a court case that requires the President to prove his place of birth before he can legitimately be sent to Afghanistan under the military command of President Obama.  The White House's continual failure to produce the long-form certificate of live birth from an Hawaii hospital has apparently now met a crisis point.  We'll see.  Full story from WND here.

ANNE BAYEFSKY - "WHY COULDN'T THE US PRESIDENT TALK TOUGH IN CAIRO AS HE DID IN GHANA?"

Bayefsky points out the stunning contrast between  Obama's tough speech to a country 70% Christian and his excruciatingly conciliatory, apologist-in-chief, approach to the Muslim world.  (HT: NRO Web briefing)

SPEAKING in Ghana on Saturday, Barack Obama lectured Africans on local repression, corruption, brutality, good governance and accountability. The startling contrast to his June speech in Cairo was revealing.

Stroking Muslim and Arab nations has become the hallmark of the US President's foreign policy.

Bayefsky offers a string of examples contrasting what Obama said in each locale.  Upshot? Iranians are not insensitive to the implications for their own struggle for democracy and good governance, to say nothing of the rest of the Arab world suffering under repression, corruption, and tyranny.

THE IRRESPONSIBILITY AND INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY OF LUMPING TOGETHER ALL "FUNDAMENTALISTS"

Yesterday I highlighted the blog, Wintery Knight, saying how valuable it was, and today, lo and behold, Wintery Knight puts up a MUST- SEE post (and video) of Michael Coren, a Toronto talk-show host and columnist, smacking down two leftists who want to lump all "fundamentalists" into the same category -- i.e. any mention of Islamist terrorism is countered by the dangers of alleged "Christian fundamentalists."  Total rubbish.    WK's post is outstanding in every way.  Go over there immediately and see for yourself! 

OBAMA REWRITES THE COLD WAR

Liz Cheney does a commendable job skewing the narrative President Obama continues to set forth regarding American history and exceptionalism.  The man's mind is loaded with the left wing rewriting of history.  Being a postmodernist, facts are not required in the telling of a story.  Create the story out of thin air, whatever you want to say, and tell it loudly, often enough, and in enough venues, and you have succeeded (so it is believed) in imposing a new reality without the inconvenient necessity of building on facts.   Cheney writes:

There are two different versions of the story of the end of the Cold War: the Russian version, and the truth. President Barack Obama endorsed the Russian version in Moscow last week. . .

It is irresponsible for an American president to go to Moscow and tell a room full of young Russians less than the truth about how the Cold War ended. One wonders whether this was just an attempt to push "reset" -- or maybe to curry favor. Perhaps, most concerning of all, Mr. Obama believes what he said.

Mr. Obama's method for pushing reset around the world is becoming clearer with each foreign trip. He proclaims moral equivalence between the U.S. and our adversaries, he readily accepts a false historical narrative, and he refuses to stand up against anti-American lies.  [more . .]

WINTERY KNIGHT ENGAGES THE ISSUES OF THE DAY

My blog friend, Wintery Knight (whom I've never met), consistently puts up hard-hitting, well-thought-out, well-researched, posts which represent a lot of time and effort.  Today I learned something of his motivation:

I had a traumatic experience with a woman I had a Platonic crush on. I was 14 and she was 21, and we worked together as camp counselors. She wrote to me often from college. Her hand-written letters documented her slow transformation from a gentle, sheltered Christian into an atheistic, left-wing, anti-war feminist. I will never forget the experience of being unable to argue against it.

Okay, the larger context of this post is about women and Ann Coulter,  but I think that behind it all lies his efforts to honor truth, research answers, get people to think (theologically, as well as otherwise), and to help people in so doing.  Laudable goal, that, and my hat is off to him. May his tribe increase.  I recommend his blog highly.  His readiness to engage any and all arguments makes me glad he is around to do so.

REMEMBERING TONY SNOW - BY DANA PERINO, HIS WHITE HOUSE SUCCESOR

Parts of this thoughtful, well-written tribute choked me up.  What a wonderful, glorious man!  It's a year ago today that Tony Snow passed away.  (HT: Kevin Sullivan)

I have blogged previously about Tony Snow here (which links to a "Good Friday" article Tony wrote) and also here (which links to a tribute by Bill Kristol who informs us that Snow was an avid reader of C.S. Lewis).  I also put up a post here (which contains links to his commencement address at Catholic University of America, May 12, 2007, and a Christianity Today article on "Cancer's Unexpected Blessings.")

ANOTHER REASON WHY THE CURRENT WHITE HOUSE DISCOURAGES ME

Andy McCarthy's post is titled "Justice, Obama/Holder Style"

Binyam Mohammed:  jihadist plotting mass-murders against American cities — released outright.

 

Laith Qazali: abduction/murder of 5 U.S. soldiers in Karbala — released outright.

 

Irbil 5: Iranian IRGC operatives (i.e., the same guys who murdered 19 of our air force at Khobar Towers in '96) coordinating Iraqi terrorist operations that have killed HUNDREDS of U.S. forces in Iraq since 2003 — released outright.

 

New Black Panther Party operatives on videotape intimidating anti-Obama voters — charges dropped after DOJ had already won the case.

CIA Interrogators who obtained information that saved countless American lives — under investigation.

 

Bush officials who deliberated over national-security policies that prevented another 9/11 (many of which the Holder/Obama DOJ have defended in court and, however inadvertently, in Congress) — under investigation.

THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL IN A NUTSHELL

I love D. L. Moody's comment on Romans 5:1,2.  First, the text:

(1) Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (2) Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

And now Moody's comment:

“Peace for the past, grace for the present, and glory for the future. 
                    - From  For Each Day, p. 11.  (my emphases)

Yep, that's it in a nutshell.  Beautifully stated, and succinctly too.  Best of all:  it's true!

OBAMA: THE STIMULUS IS WORKING [FILE UNDER BALD-FACED OBAMA LIES]

Update: Nouriel Roubini over at Forbes magazine offers an exceptionally gloomy outlook: "Brown Manure, Not Green Shoots.  He subheads his article, "The jobs situation is even worse than the headlines."

(Original post) - Ed Morrissey provides the details.  Click here.  The man in the White House doesn't lack chutzpah.