Archive for September 2007
Illegal Immigration
The New York Times on illegal immigration. Interesting perspective, though rather inductive.
The Blindness of Academia
An interview of Dennis Prager by Hugh Hewitt on the idiocy, disrespect, and danger of inviting Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia University:
Dennis Prager: I expect nothing from academia, nothing intelligent, nothing moral, nothing mature, nothing pro-American, nothing. And so I feel that I’m burying the dead when I speak about the American university or Columbia.
Hugh Hewitt: Well, I know that, but Holocaust denial and genocide…these are new lows.
Dennis Prager: Yes, it does, but it means nothing to them. The average faculty member there hates George Bush fifty times more than he hates, or she hates, Ahmadinejad. There’s no question.
Hugh Hewitt: Now do you expect that there will be, because I think there’s such a disconnect, they have no idea the anger that they are stirring among Americans, generally, and Jewish Americans, specifically. Do you think they have a clue?
Dennis Prager: No, they live in a hermetically sealed universe at the university. It’s called the bubble. That’s when I spoke at Stanford, the students told me it’s called the bubble. And there’s the outside world, and then there’s the inner world. That’s why I called colleges kindergartens, because they are kindergarten…they are gardens for children. Many of those children have faculty positions. And they live, they talk to each other. It’s a form of intellectual onanism. They only talk to each other, they write their books for each other, they blurb each other, they socialize with each other overwhelmingly. I know this from the UJA, the least giving group of American Jews to any Jewish charity are Jewish professors. So this is all old stuff. And the anger will only reaffirm to them their moral elevation above the rest of us.
Enforcement
It is a beautiful and rare thing. Today, it happened. A good day for sports.
Floyd Landis is stripped of his Tour de France title.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for all clean athletes and everyone who values fair and honest competition,” U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart said.
A Game for all you Postmodernists
Because I know my family and friends are just infested with postmodern, deconstructionist ideas.
This game is called “Guess the Non-Existent Word.” It is a simple game of multiple choice, and everyone knows that multiple choice is the easiest possible question to answer. After all, the correct answer is printed right there in front of you.
Objective: Determine, from the options given below, the word(s) and accompanying definition(s) that doesn’t really exist in the English language. Multiple answers are possible. (HINT: Now don’t be fooled! You may think you’ve seen the definition to a word before. But that doesn’t mean the word is Real.)
A. Beauty n. Self-expression; a following of the heart.
B. Reason n. Al Gore
C. Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud n. President of Iran and innocent victim of President George W. Bush.
B. Truth n. Self-expression; a following of the heart.
Leepike Ridge
Nate Wilson (“N.D. Wilson,” and Doug Wilson’s son) wrote a book: Leepike Ridge.
Looks like a fun and worthwhile read. Here’s a review by Elizabeth Bird, and comments about it by Doug Wilson.
Rap Continued
While the last post was obviously in jest, rap is no laughing matter at the root. It’s disgusting stuff, morally and musically. While harmlessly talking in time to a beat can be “rap” (and was back in the 80s, for instance), today’s rap is vulgar, repulsive, musically imbecile, and morally reprehensible. If you think it’s catchy, too bad. Think about what you’re listening to, and if you’re still not convinced, look up the lyrics in full, and finally (this is key) log onto YouTube.com and watch some music videos.
Everyone, but especially adolescents, are affected by what they see and hear. Sometimes these affects are sought out (i.e., I really want to be like 50 Cent) and sometimes they are indirect. Either way, the fact remains: you are affected, whether you like it or not, for better or worse, by what you surround yourself with. This is why friends move together in clusters; they feed off each others’ similar tastes, and it’s no surprise that when little Johnny comes home from his friends house and says to his parents, “it was rad,” and he’s never said “rad” before, they know he copied his friend’s habit of saying “rad.” If you eat healthy food, you become healthier. If you listen to motivational speakers, you become more motivated. If you listen to sad music, you become melancholy.
And if you listen to rap regularly, you are (in one way or other) becoming what rap preaches. If this sounds extreme (i.e., I don’t use the f-word, I don’t call women ho’s and b*tches, and I don’t talk about killing people), you are nonetheless condoning its content. You cannot divorce a song’s “music” from its lyrics; they are one in the same. If you listen to a song, you (at best) condone its entirety implicitly.
There’s a good reason why the Bible includes Philippians 4:8:
For the rest, my brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things have honour, whatever things are upright, whatever things are holy, whatever things are beautiful, whatever things are of value, if there is any virtue and if there is any praise, give thought to these things.
As for examples, read these for your own education, but be forewarned. I would not have posted on this topic without good reason: the following lyrics and videos are either explicit, sexually suggestive, or both. And the only reason I post something inappropriate is because of the rampant disregard of ethical and sexual standards of listeners. Especially Christian listeners. Wake up.
50 Cent: Life’s On The Line (lyrics)
Eminem: Kim (lyrics)
Kelis: Milkshake (lyrics)
