I had some kebabs a few months ago, and asked my obviously Arab waiter where he was from. He said Palestine. I said, oh, West Bank or Gaza? He said Ramallah, with a mild look of disgust in his eyes, and it was obvious to me that when he said Palestine he meant all of Israel, AND the West Bank and Gaza. Looking around the room, they had a picture of the Dome of the Rock with a caption of Jerusalem under it, and had put a Palestinian flag on it.
I don't think most people grasp that when the descendants of the refugees of the War for Israeli Existence say they are oppressed, what they mean is that the EXISTENCE of Israel as a Jewish State "oppresses" them, and that nothing less than the violent ejection--or preferably murder--of all the 8 million Jews in Israel will satisfy them.
Israel HAS occupied Gaza, but had not for 20 or more years; and despite many past acts of mass murder by these savages had been slowly increasing access from Gaza to the economy they had built. There was nothing they were doing that remotely warranted those attacks, much less the horrific evils perpetrated during them, which were cheered on by their equivalent of soccer moms.
Here is the thing: Israel will nuke every nation in the Middle East before it allows itself to be conquered by howling ghouls. This is obvious. This means that the only SANE approach is--and for that matter long has been--to make the best of a bad situation. These Arabs are not the first refugees pushed off their land in human history. They are just the most masochistic, and most committed to battles they can't hope to win.
And as I have said, much of this has to be attributed to the grievance business run by wealthy elites, for whom giving up this pointless battle would mean the loss of large revenue streams. Yasser Arafat was worth BILLIONS when he died, and he likely has dozens of equivalents out there. None of this is for the ordinary people in Gaza and the West Bank. They are just the dupes of effective propaganda and grievance mongering, much like the black community in the US, who have been lied to for fifty years. Every two years it's "THE REPUBLICANS WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE", which works, and then NOTHING--maybe free to them cell phones once in a while.
It's a strange thing, observing the hallucinations of others. I can't say I'm innocent--I have long observed that being completely wrong about something and being completely right feel exactly the same--but I do subject myself to regular feedback. I'm not in the back woods writing in my journal about some Them I am unwilling to engage with and talk with and listen to.
Julia - one day, when you reach the stage in your life when you have to care for others, you will appreciate that Peter sometimes leaves at 4 to care for his family and has established a work culture that will offer you the same flexibility. That is new culture and a benefit to all.
I am pro-Gen Z, but with a giant asterisk. Mostly, they are just like any other generation: good, hard-working, decent people. BUT the anomalies are anomalies and extreme. With the substantial decline in organized religion, schools run by ideology rather than merit, nonexistent gender roles, and self-absorbed parents, some of the kids are not all right. (If all of these things are present, the kids are amazing like other generations) The key thing to change this from Jodi Foster's point of view is to feed them consequences rather than complain about them. Show up late enough and get fired. As a broader society, we have to push back against them when they cross a line to bother the mainstream. Being firm and fair will help change the lives of many. Sadly, these kids are the natural consequences of progressive stupidity.
Peter Savodnik: You can’t trust anyone under 30. He then lists their failings, and says, “To be fair, this is a function of the world we’ve bequeathed to them.”
Yes, Peter, if by “we” you mean people on the Left.
Any institution or organization that starts out neutral but does not vigorously pursue conservative values will inevitably be taken over by the left. See: Any prominent foundation, program in the arts, college, Christian denomination, media outlet, the medical and legal and teaching professions. The same thing can happen at the Free Press if it loses its vigilance, which I see happening already.
Bari, co-founder of the University of Austin, I suggest you wake up!
Instead of this school, can we talk about the New York school - James Madison -that is forcing it's kids into online learning so that all the illegals can be brought in to have a place to sleep? Hello????
Wiping Israel off the map or the NPS attempt, now withdrawn, to remove the statue of William Penn and associated exhibits from his own Philadelphia park, is deracination, e.g. "decentering" and "decolonizing." It is pulling up a culture and a people by the roots. And yes, it is what we did to Native Americans--- a long time ago, and what conquering armies or mobs ( see Rome) have done since the beginning of time. It's part of sacking. The illustration for the sacking of Rome shows a mob takedown of what else? - a statue. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(410). Uprooting our culture, renaming committees, removing portraits, downing statues- all manner of erasure, with malice, should be as unconstitutional as college admission by race is supposed to be. In its murderous, ultimate form, it is concentration camps and the horror of October 7.
The apparently disproportionate and hostile Arab presence and influence in higher education and media is curious. Thirty -four pro-"Palestine" - anti-Israel groups and assorted,agitating professors and well-placed editors at Harvard alone? What passes for a Ph.D. these days? Clearly, with the profusion of agitprop and hardcore rioters, there has been an infiltration of U.S. schools by an oppressive society attacking a free one as an "oppressor." That's beyond lunacy but here we are. Part of DEI is acute overrepresentation while suppressing hated groups.
As everyone now knows, DEI isn't about a benign inclusion; it's about a malign exclusion, tearing down. The Park Service could have, and should have, commemorated a former tribal presence in the area- have at it, by all means. But no, DEI minions had to erase William Penn.
One of the things Claudine Gay was doing was "decolonizing" Harvard, edifice-wise, by removing white names, portraits, as well as course content. The answer to DEI envy and destruction is build. Or add. Don't go after Neri Oxman - that's envy. Build. If you want Harvard without the white guys who founded and built it, build your own. Instead of erasing Israel, build. Gaza could have been, maybe, Singapore instead of tunnels.
Interesting looking at that 'art' teacher's map of "Arab World". It's a huge area of Arab speaking, Muslim run nations. And it just pains the world to no end, that within this huge chunk of the earth taken up by Arab people, that there is one tiny sliver of land that is the Jewish homeland, where Jews have built a nation. One small sliver that just asks to be left alone, to live in peace with others around them who are willing to let them do so. One small sliver that has given the world so much in the way of inventions, patents, agriculture, science and the arts. Oh yes...'art' teacher...the arts.
But apparently that is too much for this 'art' teacher and much of the rest of the world. I have a few words for this 'teacher', but I'll save it for X. I like to keep The FP civil.
My dear Julia, blaming your work habits on Gweneth and Goop pretty much sums up the problem with gen z. I know you think you deserve a participation trophey in Free Press Fight Club, but I sincerely hope there isn't one.
I'm a retired teacher who taught for 14 years (2005-2019). I came into the profession mid-life (at age 48) after a long career in the business sector. I taught mostly seniors, so their age range today is roughly 23 to 36.
Now, match the age range to the beginning of the infiltration of smart phones and social media into the classroom (2010-to 2012) and proliferated until my eventual retirement. So most of the 30-and-unders I taught brought Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok with them.
So from 2010-ish to retirement, I was competing with social media for the students' most precious asset ... their attention. I saw what social media did to Gen Z first hand, and it was not good. Without going into the gory details, they became addicted to tech devices that brought about lonliness, depression, anxiety and social dysfunction we see today. Read about it in Jon Haidt's and Greg Lukianoff's "The Coddling of the American Mind."
I see Peter Savodnik's points and agree.
Then again, who was responsible for introducing Gen Z to digital crack?
Does Gen Z suck? Well, as a boomer growing up in a military family, I used to get taken to the airbase barber shop every Saturday for a “number one”, which was essentially an attempt to eliminate all evidence of hair on my head. The 60’s and college came along and, with it, long hair (gasp), tie-dyed t-shirts, and (yikes) acid rock. We “let it all hang out.” All very Groovy. The Greatest Generation that produced us was aghast. Eventually I grew up and became a successful corporate executive.
Every generation will define itself by contrasting itself from previous generations. That’s normal. What’s discomfiting today is that a growing proportion of younger generations do not appear all that interested in growing up and taking on individual responsibility. The lead article today provides, I think, some insight into this phenomena. There is a demonstrable case to be made that the education process in America, starting in the 60’s in the teaching colleges, has been deeply corrupted. Objective truth has been replaced with what can be simplistically described as Marxist indoctrination with a trendy new name - DEI. As the lead article shows, much of this is funded by enemies of individual freedom and responsibilities who aim to turn America into another Marxist paradise like China or Russia filled with obedient, mindless serfs best represented by the current organized marches celebrating the beheading of babies and gang rape along with disrupting traffic and desecrating military graveyards.
If there is good news in all this, it appears that there is a growing awareness of this threat. The big question is whether, as a country, we have the will to effectively stop it. Time will tell.
So, the NYPD has enough slack in its schedule to send a tactical team into a synagogue and arrest a bunch of bearded Jews for digging tunnels without a permit, yet can’t do anything about retail looting, arson, car theft, robberies, and criminal gangs hanging out on street corners.
“It’s a wonderful place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there!”
Why is a New York elementary school teaching a class in Arab Culture Arts? Those children should be studying math, science, American history and civics, literature in English. No wonder our students do so poorly on standardized tests of essential skills.
So what that Dean Phillips is challenging Biden. Sure Biden is dangerously deranged and a senile imbecile but if you believe that Biden is the problem with Democrats you have a big problem, yourself. The Democrat Party of today is ridden with socialists and other leftist lunatics who support open borders, benefits for illegals, Frankenstein gender transformation for children, unregulated abortions, the release of violent criminals, tribal quotas and slavery reparations for people who were never enslaved and a host of other ideas that would have gotten a person committed to a lunatic asylum only a decade ago. If, as some people say, we are divided 50/50 on these things then we are in way more trouble than any of us believe. The Democrat Party is the party of lunacy.
I had some kebabs a few months ago, and asked my obviously Arab waiter where he was from. He said Palestine. I said, oh, West Bank or Gaza? He said Ramallah, with a mild look of disgust in his eyes, and it was obvious to me that when he said Palestine he meant all of Israel, AND the West Bank and Gaza. Looking around the room, they had a picture of the Dome of the Rock with a caption of Jerusalem under it, and had put a Palestinian flag on it.
I don't think most people grasp that when the descendants of the refugees of the War for Israeli Existence say they are oppressed, what they mean is that the EXISTENCE of Israel as a Jewish State "oppresses" them, and that nothing less than the violent ejection--or preferably murder--of all the 8 million Jews in Israel will satisfy them.
Israel HAS occupied Gaza, but had not for 20 or more years; and despite many past acts of mass murder by these savages had been slowly increasing access from Gaza to the economy they had built. There was nothing they were doing that remotely warranted those attacks, much less the horrific evils perpetrated during them, which were cheered on by their equivalent of soccer moms.
Here is the thing: Israel will nuke every nation in the Middle East before it allows itself to be conquered by howling ghouls. This is obvious. This means that the only SANE approach is--and for that matter long has been--to make the best of a bad situation. These Arabs are not the first refugees pushed off their land in human history. They are just the most masochistic, and most committed to battles they can't hope to win.
And as I have said, much of this has to be attributed to the grievance business run by wealthy elites, for whom giving up this pointless battle would mean the loss of large revenue streams. Yasser Arafat was worth BILLIONS when he died, and he likely has dozens of equivalents out there. None of this is for the ordinary people in Gaza and the West Bank. They are just the dupes of effective propaganda and grievance mongering, much like the black community in the US, who have been lied to for fifty years. Every two years it's "THE REPUBLICANS WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE", which works, and then NOTHING--maybe free to them cell phones once in a while.
It's a strange thing, observing the hallucinations of others. I can't say I'm innocent--I have long observed that being completely wrong about something and being completely right feel exactly the same--but I do subject myself to regular feedback. I'm not in the back woods writing in my journal about some Them I am unwilling to engage with and talk with and listen to.
Boeing's new catchphrase; "When one door closes, another opens."
For the record, everyone who runs the New York City public schools is a Democrat. These children are being indoctrinated by progressive madrassas and imams, not educated. Welcome to the woke Jihad: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-wage-a-progressive-jihad
Julia - one day, when you reach the stage in your life when you have to care for others, you will appreciate that Peter sometimes leaves at 4 to care for his family and has established a work culture that will offer you the same flexibility. That is new culture and a benefit to all.
I am pro-Gen Z, but with a giant asterisk. Mostly, they are just like any other generation: good, hard-working, decent people. BUT the anomalies are anomalies and extreme. With the substantial decline in organized religion, schools run by ideology rather than merit, nonexistent gender roles, and self-absorbed parents, some of the kids are not all right. (If all of these things are present, the kids are amazing like other generations) The key thing to change this from Jodi Foster's point of view is to feed them consequences rather than complain about them. Show up late enough and get fired. As a broader society, we have to push back against them when they cross a line to bother the mainstream. Being firm and fair will help change the lives of many. Sadly, these kids are the natural consequences of progressive stupidity.
Peter Savodnik: You can’t trust anyone under 30. He then lists their failings, and says, “To be fair, this is a function of the world we’ve bequeathed to them.”
Yes, Peter, if by “we” you mean people on the Left.
Any institution or organization that starts out neutral but does not vigorously pursue conservative values will inevitably be taken over by the left. See: Any prominent foundation, program in the arts, college, Christian denomination, media outlet, the medical and legal and teaching professions. The same thing can happen at the Free Press if it loses its vigilance, which I see happening already.
Bari, co-founder of the University of Austin, I suggest you wake up!
Instead of this school, can we talk about the New York school - James Madison -that is forcing it's kids into online learning so that all the illegals can be brought in to have a place to sleep? Hello????
Wiping Israel off the map or the NPS attempt, now withdrawn, to remove the statue of William Penn and associated exhibits from his own Philadelphia park, is deracination, e.g. "decentering" and "decolonizing." It is pulling up a culture and a people by the roots. And yes, it is what we did to Native Americans--- a long time ago, and what conquering armies or mobs ( see Rome) have done since the beginning of time. It's part of sacking. The illustration for the sacking of Rome shows a mob takedown of what else? - a statue. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(410). Uprooting our culture, renaming committees, removing portraits, downing statues- all manner of erasure, with malice, should be as unconstitutional as college admission by race is supposed to be. In its murderous, ultimate form, it is concentration camps and the horror of October 7.
The apparently disproportionate and hostile Arab presence and influence in higher education and media is curious. Thirty -four pro-"Palestine" - anti-Israel groups and assorted,agitating professors and well-placed editors at Harvard alone? What passes for a Ph.D. these days? Clearly, with the profusion of agitprop and hardcore rioters, there has been an infiltration of U.S. schools by an oppressive society attacking a free one as an "oppressor." That's beyond lunacy but here we are. Part of DEI is acute overrepresentation while suppressing hated groups.
As everyone now knows, DEI isn't about a benign inclusion; it's about a malign exclusion, tearing down. The Park Service could have, and should have, commemorated a former tribal presence in the area- have at it, by all means. But no, DEI minions had to erase William Penn.
One of the things Claudine Gay was doing was "decolonizing" Harvard, edifice-wise, by removing white names, portraits, as well as course content. The answer to DEI envy and destruction is build. Or add. Don't go after Neri Oxman - that's envy. Build. If you want Harvard without the white guys who founded and built it, build your own. Instead of erasing Israel, build. Gaza could have been, maybe, Singapore instead of tunnels.
Interesting looking at that 'art' teacher's map of "Arab World". It's a huge area of Arab speaking, Muslim run nations. And it just pains the world to no end, that within this huge chunk of the earth taken up by Arab people, that there is one tiny sliver of land that is the Jewish homeland, where Jews have built a nation. One small sliver that just asks to be left alone, to live in peace with others around them who are willing to let them do so. One small sliver that has given the world so much in the way of inventions, patents, agriculture, science and the arts. Oh yes...'art' teacher...the arts.
But apparently that is too much for this 'art' teacher and much of the rest of the world. I have a few words for this 'teacher', but I'll save it for X. I like to keep The FP civil.
My dear Julia, blaming your work habits on Gweneth and Goop pretty much sums up the problem with gen z. I know you think you deserve a participation trophey in Free Press Fight Club, but I sincerely hope there isn't one.
I'm a retired teacher who taught for 14 years (2005-2019). I came into the profession mid-life (at age 48) after a long career in the business sector. I taught mostly seniors, so their age range today is roughly 23 to 36.
Now, match the age range to the beginning of the infiltration of smart phones and social media into the classroom (2010-to 2012) and proliferated until my eventual retirement. So most of the 30-and-unders I taught brought Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok with them.
So from 2010-ish to retirement, I was competing with social media for the students' most precious asset ... their attention. I saw what social media did to Gen Z first hand, and it was not good. Without going into the gory details, they became addicted to tech devices that brought about lonliness, depression, anxiety and social dysfunction we see today. Read about it in Jon Haidt's and Greg Lukianoff's "The Coddling of the American Mind."
I see Peter Savodnik's points and agree.
Then again, who was responsible for introducing Gen Z to digital crack?
Does Gen Z suck? Well, as a boomer growing up in a military family, I used to get taken to the airbase barber shop every Saturday for a “number one”, which was essentially an attempt to eliminate all evidence of hair on my head. The 60’s and college came along and, with it, long hair (gasp), tie-dyed t-shirts, and (yikes) acid rock. We “let it all hang out.” All very Groovy. The Greatest Generation that produced us was aghast. Eventually I grew up and became a successful corporate executive.
Every generation will define itself by contrasting itself from previous generations. That’s normal. What’s discomfiting today is that a growing proportion of younger generations do not appear all that interested in growing up and taking on individual responsibility. The lead article today provides, I think, some insight into this phenomena. There is a demonstrable case to be made that the education process in America, starting in the 60’s in the teaching colleges, has been deeply corrupted. Objective truth has been replaced with what can be simplistically described as Marxist indoctrination with a trendy new name - DEI. As the lead article shows, much of this is funded by enemies of individual freedom and responsibilities who aim to turn America into another Marxist paradise like China or Russia filled with obedient, mindless serfs best represented by the current organized marches celebrating the beheading of babies and gang rape along with disrupting traffic and desecrating military graveyards.
If there is good news in all this, it appears that there is a growing awareness of this threat. The big question is whether, as a country, we have the will to effectively stop it. Time will tell.
We have to outlaw contributions to our educational system. Contributors are just buying the right to determine the curriculum.
So, the NYPD has enough slack in its schedule to send a tactical team into a synagogue and arrest a bunch of bearded Jews for digging tunnels without a permit, yet can’t do anything about retail looting, arson, car theft, robberies, and criminal gangs hanging out on street corners.
“It’s a wonderful place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there!”
Why is a New York elementary school teaching a class in Arab Culture Arts? Those children should be studying math, science, American history and civics, literature in English. No wonder our students do so poorly on standardized tests of essential skills.
So what that Dean Phillips is challenging Biden. Sure Biden is dangerously deranged and a senile imbecile but if you believe that Biden is the problem with Democrats you have a big problem, yourself. The Democrat Party of today is ridden with socialists and other leftist lunatics who support open borders, benefits for illegals, Frankenstein gender transformation for children, unregulated abortions, the release of violent criminals, tribal quotas and slavery reparations for people who were never enslaved and a host of other ideas that would have gotten a person committed to a lunatic asylum only a decade ago. If, as some people say, we are divided 50/50 on these things then we are in way more trouble than any of us believe. The Democrat Party is the party of lunacy.