HopeTracker

12% America’s HS Seniors Know Our History

The Weekend Interview With David McCullough: Don’t Know Much About History WSJ.com

Ken Fallin illustrationHistorian David McCullough says that our young people are ‘historically illiterate’. The Department of Education released the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress this week, confirming that only 12% of high-school seniors are knowledgeable about our nation’s history.

In his WSJ interview with Brian Bolduc, McCullough tells a story about an appearance at ‘a very good university in the Midwest’.

She thanked him for coming and admitted, ‘Until I heard your talk this morning, I never realized the original 13 colonies were all on the East Coast.” Remembering the incident, Mr. McCullough’s snow-white eyebrows curl in pain. “I thought, ‘What have we been doing so wrong that this obviously bright young woman could get this far and not know that?”

Yes, indeed. American was founded on the East Coast and not Alaska or Utah.

Creationism Yeah | Evolution Nay

Miss USA evolves: ‘Huge science geek’ wins USA Today Faith & Reason

The newly crowned Miss USA, Alyssa Campanella, 21, of Los Angeles, who calls herself “a huge science geek,” says evolution should be taught in public schools. Charles Darwin and The Vatican, who also supports Darwin’s theory of evolution, would be proud.

Only two of 51 contestants for the crown were willing to embrace the science of evolution: Miss California who won and also Miss Massachusetts.

I was taught evolution in high school. I do believe in it. I’m a huge science geek…I like to believe in the big bang theory and, you know, the evolution of humans throughout time.

Nice to see that Miss USA and Pope Benedict are on the same page.

Only 28% of American Biology Teachers Teach Darwin’s Theory of Evolution AOC FP Jan. 28, 2011

Glenn Beck doing his best howling monkey routine at CPAC conference. Magana/APA new study of America’s high school biology teachers confirms that despite 40 years of court cases ruling that teaching creationism or intelligent design violates the Constitution, most teachers don’t embrace the scientific facts of evolutionary biology.

A new study by Penn State’s Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer says that only 28 percent of America’s biology teachers consistently teach the scientific evidence that evolution has occurred, while 13% only teach creationism. Sixty percent don’t teach much at all, omitting the subject because they don’t want controversy. via Science Daily

American Students Score Pathetically Against Chinese on 2009 PISA Test AOC FP Dec. 7, 2010

What if God gets totally pissed off and says “You guys got really lazy and just assumed that I would bail you out of your problems. I never promised you a rose garden. I gave you brains and intelligence and science, but you chose not to use it. Knowledge is not a sin. Whoever told you that I said science, math and studying hard — even if you question me as part of your learning— is sinful is totally wrong! Intelligence is not a bad, bad word and you Americans had better start using the brains that I gave you. I mean NOW!”

Boys Club

Morality Police Backlash

The Real Meaning of Weinergate More Intelligent Life

Lee Siegel argues that American politics have become so legislatively stagnant that political scandals with an ‘effective’ outcome are the only way people believe they have any power in the political process.

As the media coverage of Weiner—or of Arnold Schwarzenegger, or John Edwards, or Mark Sanford, or John Ensign, or Eliot Spitzer, or Chris Lee or Dominique Strauss-Kahn—builds, our outrage seems to drive its momentum. We end up feeling that we ourselves—our dread and disgust—have had a hand in a powerful figure’s downfall. Unable to affect our stalemated politics, we can at least help to destroy a politician.

In reality, these spectacles are depressing, leaving Siegel to ask how long America’s democratic energies stay repressed before the citizens have a complete breakdown. Interesting perspective, but as women we add another layer to the discussion.

Simply stated, we are disgusted with the hypocrisy of all the finger waving at ‘immoral’ women in Washington, like the boys club runs full steam ahead. On many fronts, growing numbers of American women have ‘had it’ and for multiple reasons.

Why There Will Always Be Weiners The Daily Beast

Making a Saint of Sen David Vitter

Why Bill O’Reilly & Rachel Maddow Are Both Wrong! Townhall Conservative

OK. Call us clueless to the logic of Kevin McCullough’s argument about why Sen David Vitter is a good guy and Bill O’Reilly and Rachel Maddow are wrong to tie the Weiner scandal and Vitter scandal together, but here goes.

Claiming Vitter’s sexual scandal a double standard to Weiner’s. O’Reilly went as far as to label it, ‘much worse’ than the transgressions of Weiner. Maddow implied double standards as some sort of castigation against the GOP.

Amen. The reason, argues McCullough, that Vitter isn’t a disgrace as a senator whose phone number appeared in the DC Madame’s black book is because Hustler’s Larry Flynt advanced the story, when major media failed to investigate. It was Flynt who paid for the lie detector test, which Vitter’s alleged call girl passed. It was Flynt who arranged for her to finally be interviewed by second-tier media.

Flynt has always been after the Christian values guys, asserts McCullough, not understanding for one moment that it’s the cloak of C Street respectability that galls folks like us. When the morality police finger waggers in Congress have a mistress on the side, it just adds insult to injury for American women and men who support our position.

Daily | Weiner Refuses to Resign | Maddow Puts David Vitter In Play Again AOC FP June 9, 2011

See video interview with DC Madam and Rachel Maddow in action.

Social Conservatives & Pornography

The IP address research is clear that Conservatives buy more porn. Personally, we’ve never liked Hustler, but why is Larry Flynt the bad guy for producing the porn that Conservatives buy the most of, while condemning it in Congress?

Larry Flynt just knows the difference between Christian Conservative ideology and their real world actions.

In Anne’s case, she nearly fainted when consulting to a very upscale, high brow sexy website a few years back. The erotic website went live and what was the top viewer location in the world? Not New York, which was #3; not Greenwich, Conn or London, also in the top 10. Not Manchester, England (oh those footballers) or Riyadh, Saudi Arabia which also made the top 10.

The top location of viewers of upscale, erotic naked women was Mesa, Arizona, home to the Morman community of Phoenix.

What Is Wrong With Mormons In Mesa Arizona? Somos Republicans

Mesa is a population of nearly half a million people. It also has the highest population of Mormons than any city in the world, even Salt Lake City. Mesa’s Mormon founding, economic and political roots remain fused to the colossal Mormon financial and political structure of Salt Lake City, Utah. While it is true that Mormons leaders claim that they do not get involve in politics, it is also true that is not merely by chance that Mesa government has been influenced by Mormons since its inception.

Green Beings

Getting Down with Dirt

Waste Not Want Not More Intelligent Life

Kate Forde is curating an exhibition at London’s Wellcome collection that celebrates dirt. Especially in America, dirt is a scourge as are bacteria. Dirt is closely linked to our mortality and the reality that our bodies will eventually return to dust or dirt. It’s a disgraceful ending for members of God’s chosen nation.

In fact dirt is good for our heath, spirits and perhaps our thinking capabilities. We write the truth. Scientists have tied the bacteria in soil to intelligence in rats.

The structure of Kate Forde’s exhibit is exciting.’ In order to examine the sociological impact of dirt, the show’s organisers concentrate on our daily battle against dirt in six different contexts: a home in 17th-century Delft in Holland; a street in Victorian London; a hospital in Glasgow in the 1860s; a museum in Dresden in the early 20th century; a community in present-day New Delhi; and a New York landfill site in 2030. ‘

The New York landfill site is Fresh Kills, three times the size of Central Park, located on Staten Island, closed in 2001 and now a reclamation project.