Opting for Wimphood

I have mixed sentiments regarding the standardized tests administered by the educational system.

On one hand, they are very useful in apprising students and parents as to where the child stands.  On the other hand, the standardized test as a predictor of a child's future, while highly reliable, is not 100% accurate, and educators can misguide at least a small percentage of students if standardized test scores are the sole evaluative criteria used.

I myself have always done well on standardized tests, from the third grade ones to the Multistate Bar Exam.

Quite frankly, I have seen the quality of school administration/administrators decrease since the time I was a student.  I have seen it from the perspective of a taxpayer, a parent, a college faculty member, and a former board member of a non-public school.

So I have nothing against standardized testing per se.  My chariness is based upon the misuses to which the various standardized tests can be put, whether against individual students or in the administration of the tests themselves.

And the misusers are not necessarily the school administrators who administer the standardized tests, or those who use the scores of standardized tests to classify students or prospective students.  A misuser can be a parent who refuses to allow their child to take a standardized test.  In fact, the organized parental standardized test refusers are tied in with the OccuShmucks who made such a mess (figurative and literal) of Wall Street.

There are valid reasons for a parent to refuse to allow his or her child(ren) to sit for a standardized test.  But then again, some parents, such as Jeanette Deutermann of North Bellmore, New York, opt out their children because they cannot bear to see their little darlings having to focus their energies towards meeting the challenges of the standardized testing.

Such parents are shmucks.  Worse yet, many of the children they are raising are being put on the path to developing into irresponsible, fawning wimps who will not be able to think for themselves.  The proliferation of such people in the population, of course, makes it far, far easier for tyrants to take over the nation.

More SuperStorm Sandy Damage by the Occupiers

The OccuShmucks of Zuccotti Park notoriety decided that they would try to cultivate some goodwill from a gullible public by purporting to help the victims of SuperStorm Sandy, and thus rebranded themselves as "Occupy Sandy."  Who, after all, could criticize them for helping genuine victims of a genuine disaster?

Well, there now seem to be questions as to just what happened to the $700K+ raised by Occupy Sandy.  The Charities Bureau of the New York Attorney General's Office reportedly is curious regarding the OS organization's disposition of the funds they collected.

Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York AG, is to be found towards the leftward side of the political spectrum.  But even he is not entirely trusting of Occupy Sandy.

It is too early to tell whether this will result in criminal charges, or whether the OccuShmucks' rich uncle, Nazi collaborator George Soros, will bail them out.

Occupied with the Occupiers

Yes, the postings here have been few of late. Without going into details, it suffices to say that several changes in my heretofore normal routine schedule (if there is such a thing) are now afoot. I fully expect to be quite occupied with various personal and professional matters during the coming weeks and months, and it is likely to be stressful at times (though not all of it necessarily bad stress).

Speaking of being "occupied," I have encountered more than enough of the Occu-Shmucks and their supporters who run my faculty union and who have been convening many campus events to push the Occupy Wall Street agenda.

It therefore was very reassuring to read this article in the Jewish Press from one academic, Prof. Steven Plaut of the University of Haifa, who is definitely NOT an Occu-Shmuck. It is called "You Just Might be an 'Occupier'."

I now share it with you, dear reader, as I sign off and attend to all of those other pressing matters. I'll try to not delay this long for the next posting.

Ice Cream on Wall Street

As usual, I have been busy with various and sundry projects, personal and professional. At this point, my wife and I are still not sure of our Thanksgiving schedule. On account of business and personal matters at their end, my wife's brother and his wife are not situated to do their usual hosting of the Thanksgiving dinner this year. Whether and how long we will travel this year is still undecided, what with the demands on our respective schedules. We shall see what happens.

Within the past 72 hours I have gotten into several different conversations, with different people, regarding various facets of the Occupy Wall Street dirtbags. The one theme that resonates the most is their inconsistency if not hypocrisy.

It seems that the uberleftist Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream people have endorsed the OWS movement! The company news release whines and moans about (A) the absence of employment opportunities; and (B) the big bad greedy corporations.

I will quote from the Midrash: "Do your ears hear what your mouth is saying?" [Midrash Rabbah, Bereshith, 38:13].

First of all, the OWS crowd has cost lots of people their jobs, including many who have jobs that are not in the stock exchanges or the financial markets.

And secondly, Ben and Jerry's is now a subsidiary brand of Unilever, a big international conglomerate that is about as ubercorporate as they come. In fact, those who seek employment at Ben and Jerry's are processed through Unilever's corporate offices.

It's too bad that my brother-in-law and sister-in-law aren't doing Thanksgiving this year. It would have been interesting to hear what my wife's niece, with her far, far left political tendencies (and whose education and living expenses have been well subsidized by her parents), says about the OWSers.

Teaching at the Teach-In

I do have a certain degree of tolerance for liberals (having once been one myself in the idealistic and sheltered days of my youth). If the individuals in the upper echelons of the faculty union I am effectively compelled by law to join (or else pay them an agency fee equal to what my dues would be) were mere liberals, then I really wouldn't have much of a problem.

Unfortunately, my union is run, from the very top downward, by far left radicals who make the likes of Ted Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo seem like right-wing fascists by comparison. For the past few weeks, my union nomenklaturaniks and their apparatchiks have been promoting a "Teach-in" on the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Murphy's Law did a posting on 4 November 2011 which explains just who the OWSers really, really are. Taking him up on his invitation to disseminate it, I put it to paper (4 pages) and had my local Minuteman Press guy run about 50 copies (Thanks, Murph!).

After arriving on campus today and tending to the business of collecting my paycheck from the Bursar's Office, I then went to the "Teach-in" to take a look. In the room reserved by the union were about 180 - 200 people, mostly students (including one of my own former students, who never did impress me as a clear thinker), all attentively taking in the panel discussion without question.

I wondered what good I could do. For one thing, that particular panel's presentation had just begun, and would last more than an hour, and I had too much on my "must do" list to wait around. And because it was a peaceable gathering, any attempts to agitate may well have backfired (I would have given further consideration if there were a few more like me there, but I didn't see any -- quite the opposite).

Seeing the empty expression on so many of the attendees' faces, I began to wonder whether I could be more effective if I attempted to vaccinate those who had not yet entered the room, instead of trying to cure those already in the room who were eating up the party line without question. A few seconds later, I realized that the alpha panelist on the dais was none other than Frances Fox Piven herself. That sealed the deal; if I am in the same room with Frances Fox Piven then there definitely is something wrong!

I immediately exited the room and then started placing my own printed literature on the tables in the cafeteria across the hallway, right next to the flyers already on the tables which promoted the Teach-in! I also tacked a few to some bulletin boards around the campus.

But I had the most fun when I taught my classes this afternoon. The lecture was on real property, so when I got to the part of my lecture notes about the right of property owners to exclude others from their property, the Zuccotti Park situation with the OWS trespassers fit in real nicely.

And one of my students, who works in Manhattan's financial district, told me and the class that one of the OWS protesters physically assaulted him, and told my student that the attack was because my student was wearing a necktie. A few other students chimed in with their own anti-OWS comments and observations.

I also gave my students something to think about: If they are so indignant that people who work in the financial industry have such high salaries, why do they not complain about the entertainers and professional athletes, many of whom are paid even more? And I also mentioned that the labor unions who have backed the OWSers would not do their memberships any favor if the shutdown of the financial markets they now seek were to tank the values of the members' pension funds.

I also suggested that Barack Hussein Obama might benefit if the OWSers were to get really violent, because then he could try to use it as a pretext to declare martial law and cancel the 2012 election. A bit far-fetched? Perhaps! But at least some of my students are going to think about it, and will at least question the much vaunted OWS movement.

My union urged me to participate in their Teach-in, so I did! But they are surely not very happy about what I taught.

Still here, just busy.

I'm still here, but just have been quite busy. Now I am taking a break from grading exams.

Next week promises to be a very active one, with a number of adversarial confrontations on the card.

Thus far, the snow did not stick to the roads or our driveway (though there's about a half inch on the cold metal of our automobiles). The accumulation was far worse over in New York City. In that regard, I take comfort in the fact that the Occupy Wall Street occupiers are uncomfortable with the snow.

Gotta go now, to prep for the many activities next week.