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They like western Chinese, so that’s what I’m doing. We got one of those fruit baskets for Christmas and have a couple of apples and pears left, we have some 4 year-old raw milk white cheddar, and picked up some soprasseta, finocchiona, and peppered salame, so bingo! we have appetizers.

• Hot and sour soup
• Rabbit with peanuts in hot bean sauce
• Orange beef
• Twice-cooked pork
• Sounding radish

I made that amazing butter pound cake yesterday, and about half of it is left. That will have to do for dessert.

I’ll probably tone down the heat just a bit. Not much. But I don’t want them to shoot into orbit from the dining room table. If they want hotter, we have plenty of chili oil.

Company for dinner today at 5, and I just found out!

Nap time.

I figure the best way to pop the Hucklebubble is to let him run his mouth, since every time he does, he digs himself deeper, so I haven’t been whacking him much. But the Huckaboob is on a roll now. First, he said Frank Gaffney was his foreign policy adviser, and Gaffney said, “Uh, no” (actually, what Gaffney said wasn’t quite that polite). Then, he said John Bolton was his foreign policy adviser, and Bolton said, “Uh, no” (again, what Bolton said wasn’t quite that polite). And now, the campaign has announced that their candidate has no foreign policy credentials. See the story at Hotair, and follow the links. Foreign policy aside, however, being caught in two lies does not boost his “values” voter credentials, at least not the way I see it. Maybe I’m just being picky.

Ann Althouse has started a thread about rules for movies, and Trooper York sez:

The reason why people hate this movie can be spelled out in two words: Robin Williams. I have some rules in life: Never play cards with any man named “Doc.” Never eat at any place called “Mom’s.” And never, never, no matter what else you do in your whole life, never go to see a movie starring Robin Williams.

To which I add The Hurt Principle: Any movie with William Hurt in it will be unwatchable, pretentious garbage, except for the scene in which Hurt gets killed (if there is one). Case in point: A History of Violence.

It doesn’t look like this outside anymore (click to enhugen).

May 16, release date for Prince Caspian, the sequel to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

George Will:

McDonald’s exemplifies the role of small businesses in Americans’ upward mobility. The company is largely a confederation of small businesses: 85 percent of its U.S. restaurants — average annual sales, $2.2 million — are owned by franchisees. McDonald’s has made more millionaires, and especially black and Hispanic millionaires, than any other economic entity ever, anywhere.

Tangerine-Peel Chicken (Szechuan)

This really is one of the most amazing things I’ve eaten–and the most uniquely flavored. Purists will object to my use of fresh tangerine peel, but dried tangerine peel is often not available at the Chinese grocery (I dry my own because tangerines are not usually available year round), and orange peel is an entirely different thing, “sweeter” in flavor while tangerine peel is almost bitter, maybe grapefruit-y, and orange peel produces a very different, inferior dish. I also double the chilis when I make it, but I love painfully hot food–but before you do the same, note that because of the way this dish is prepared, four chilis will give what most consider to be a spicy dish. Of all my recipes, this is easily one of the five or six most valuable.

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken, in small cubes
2 T. each: oil and sesame oil
1 t. salt

Dry seasonings

1/2 tangerine peel, shredded (or a 2-inch piece of dried tangerine peel, soaked until soft then shredded)
4 dried chilis (the small red ones–chiles de arbol are available everywhere, and work perfectly for Asian, since they’re primarily hot and don’t have a distinctive flavor of their own)
3 green onions, diced
4 quarter-sized pieces ginger, minced
1 t. szechuan peppercorns, toasted and ground

Liquid seasonings

3 T. each: dry sherry, dark soy sauce, wine rice
1 T. sugar

First, put a large piece of cheesecloth folded double in a strainer over a small container, and measure into the cheesecloth the wine rice (like I said, it’s fermented rice–you don’t eat the rice, you extract the sticky liquid and use that). Bunch up the top of the cheesecloth and squeeze out the liquid, then discard the rice and the cheesecloth. Add to it the rest of the liquid seasonings, and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Combine the dry seasonings on a saucer.

Heat a wok until smoking hot over a high flame, then add the oils and swirl the wok to get the oil up the sides. Add the chicken and the salt, and flip it around in the hot oil for about a minute, until all the pink is gone. Add the dry seasonings, mix well, then add the liquid seasonings. Cover the wok, reduce the heat to very low, and cook for fifteen minutes. Remove the cover, turn the heat up on high, and flip until the liquid is evaporated. I always drizzle a little bit of sesame oil on right before serving it.

Loony-tunes, slobbering, mouthbreathing gorilla gurlz and weed dandelion salads are squealing and pulling out their hair about this ad. Why? Well, it makes fun of the biggest bozo in the presidential race, Dennis “I was anally probed by space aliens” Kookcinich. It’s hilarious. Watch it.

Now I”m going to find out where the local Pizza Hut is so I can give them some business. Hat tip: Hotair. By the way, these are the same gorilla girlies that called Hussein’s execution a lynching. For other gems of feminut idiocy guaranteed to have you busting your gut with laughter, see here, here, and here. There’s a reason “feminist scholarship” is an oxymoron.

Dark Knight, the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale sequel to Batman Begins. Here’s the trailer; I’ll post the long one when I find it.

That is how William Faulkner described himself (hat tip to Maggie’s Farm for bringing Faulkner to mind). Here is the acceptance speech he gave for the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1950, sometimes called The Human Heart in Conflict with Itself:

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work–a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.

Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

Remember that rib roast from about ten days ago?

Ready to go in the oven, coated with kosher salt and coarsely-ground black pepper:

Done!

Carved!

Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters:

It’s all about the hair (a theory I like, although it doesn’t explain Trent Lott).

Fourth of July meal, eaten on the fifth:

So the company was delayed a day, and we had July 4 dinner on July 5. I already had the menu lined up: Smoked pork roast, scalloped potatoes, corn, and that coconut cake. But I was at the store on the morning of the 4th, and as I passed the large variety of bizarre mushrooms (what, you didn’t know mushrooms were the number one crop here? neither did I), I thought, “We don’t have a soup, and why not capitalize on all these weird mushrooms and make soup?” So I picked up a few mushrooms of various bizarre types, and then went shopping for other ingredients to put in the soup. I had stock (always) and french-cut green beans. I thought about spinach, but I didn’t like the look of the spinach in the bin, so I passed it by. I saw some tomatoes that didn’t look (or feel) too awful for supermarket tomatoes, so I grabbed six or seven of those, a head of garlic, and spinach-romano tortellinis. Oh, and fresh basil.

When I got home, I quartered the tomatoes and tossed them into a roasting pan with the garlic and the basil (I had bought more to use as garnish, but it disappeared). I sprinkled them with salt and drizzled olive oil all over and roasted them at 500 for about 20-30 minutes, till the tomato skins were beginning to char. I let it all cool, dumped it into the food mill, and ran it through into a pot of stock. When it came time to eat, I tossed the green beans, mushrooms, some country ham cut into matchsticks, and tortellini in and let it simmer 15 minutes or so.

Here’s part of it. Click the pics to get the larger version (or as Jimmyb would say, to biggify the picture):

Here’s the roast:

Here’s the taters. Notice the country ham:

I also decided to make spoonbread, but I didn’t get a picture.

There were lots of leftovers — especially that pork roast, which was way too big (but the smallest edible looking shoulder roast I could find). I had about 10 oz. of those Chinese noodles left, and we were going to the store so I bought a couple of those Ancient Mystery peppers that have appeared in stores lately (the red bell peppers did not look nice). I also had shredded carrots. So I sliced most of the leftover pork thinly, then turned the slices on their sides and sliced the pork into matchsticks. I seeded one of the peppers (I’m going to use the other tonight) and sliced it into matchsticks, and got out the carrots.

I boiled the noodles for 2 minutes, then drained them. I put the wok on the power burner and when it was starting to smoke, added enough oil to coat the inside. I tossed the noodles in, and let them start to get crunchy on the bottom, then stir-fried them until they were golden, and removed them. I tossed some ginger and garlic in the remaining oil, then added the the pork, and flipped it around for a couple of minutes , until it darkened, then removed it. I stir-fried the peppers and carrots for a couple of minutes, moved them up the sides of the wok, and added a couple of tablespoons of hoisin, and a tablespoon each of dark soy and black vinegar, then pushed the veggies back down, added the pork and noodles, and mixed it all together. Finally, I added a few dribbles of sesame oil, and bang, dinner.

Leftovers, in the wok and plated (click on the pic to get the larger):

Then, about that pie. You always run into problems when you decide to make a new recipe when you’re at the store. I got grapes (I had no idea how many I needed, and it turns out we have lots left to munch on), but without the recipe in front of me, I didn’t know I needed Port or grape juice.

I make nothing that requires Port. I never have it. Sherry (dry sack or amontillado), always. Madeira, sometimes. Marsala, sometimes. But in the last twenty years, I may have used Port twice. Anyway, I did have a bottle of Shiraz, so I used that.

It looked good:

And it is. It’s a bit runny, though, so next time, I think I’ll increase the flour from 1/3 to 1/2 cup. Excellent stuff, though. It looks a bit like a cherry pie made with Queen Annes.

I have chicken and that other pepper, so tonight, I’ll be making Gong Bao Ji Ding.

Breibart:

Customs officials in the Philippines have seized inflatable sex dolls meant to be used for an international campaign against animal cruelty, an animal rights group said Thursday.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said it had planned to use the sex toys as props in its Asian campaign against alleged abuses of chickens by a major US fast food chain.

The dolls were to have gone on a tour of red light districts in the Philippines, Thailand and Japan where they would be displayed with a banner reading “KFC Blows,” PETA said.

Oh, those silly moonbats! What will they think up next? No doubt their teachers nurtured their creative juices!

We already had one example of this crap with “Katrina aid.” I originally posted this in October of 2006, but I’m re-posting it today, just to lend context to the most recent example.

Several people thought I was just an awful, cruel, heartless old coot when I objected to federal funds for Katrina. Well, thanks to Joanne Jacobs (again), here’s exactly what your federal funds are going for — that is, other than the cheap booze, crack cocaine, prostitutes and lap dances, and other “rich, vibrant, cultural” expenses quite well reported so far:

Investigation shows FEMA spent millions on puppet shows, bingo, yoga
By Sally Kestin
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted October 8 2006

At the Pinitos Learning Center in Boca Raton, disaster workers dressed as “Windy Biggie” and “Sunny” teach 30 preschoolers a song about how the wind is good, even during a hurricane.

“Windy Biggie is our friend.

“Windy Biggie is strong wind.

“She turns, turns, turns, turns around.

“She’s knocking things to the ground.”

This is FEMA tax money at work. It’s also paying for Hurricane Bingo, puppet shows, “salsa for seniors,” and yoga on the beach.

Idiots.

Last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded Florida $22.6 million for “crisis counseling” for victims of hurricanes Wilma and Katrina.

Florida’s program, called Project H.O.P.E. — Helping Our People in Emergencies — is still in operation with about 450 workers across the state who spend much of their time leading games and performing shows for groups of residents — regardless of whether they’re in crisis or even experienced the storms, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has found.

The program, funded by FEMA but run by Florida’s Department of Children & Families, is supposed to identify victims and help them recover from the “psychological aftermath” of the storms by providing emotional support and referrals for food, clothes and services.

But Project H.O.P.E. officials say they’ve had trouble locating victims because FEMA refuses to provide names or addresses of those who have sought disaster aid, citing confidentiality. Workers have searched for Wilma victims by driving around and looking for blue tarps on roofs.

The Katrina team, whose mission is to help Gulf Coast evacuees who have moved to Florida, have scoured hotels and festivals, sometimes finding only one or two “survivors” a week.

The job is stressful, Project H.O.P.E. officials say. Counselors regularly attend “stress management” sessions that have included collecting shells on the beach, “silly string and art therapy,” and “the toilet paper game.”

“This fun game has the team throwing toilet paper in an orderly fashion while additional rolls are constantly introduced,” says a Project H.O.P.E. report.

One wonders: Did FEMA pay for these “counselors” to play with toilet paper?

But don’t miss the list of “Project HOPE” projects in the sidebar. I wouldn’t want you to think your taxes weren’t being sufficiently wasted on tofu-brained idiocy:

PROJECT H.O.P.E.’S CREATIONS

Funded by crisis counseling grants from FEMA, Project H.O.P.E. has developed shows and presentations for day care centers, retirement homes and businesses, including: organizations. Among their creations:

Faster than Disaster - “A game developed for teens that describes Hurricane awareness through questions (based on Jeopardy Game).”

Hurricane Harry and the Three Little Mice - “This is a puppet show that teaches the need for, how to, and benefits of being ready for a hurricane by using fairy tale themes. … This story is the classic fairy tale of the Three Little Pigs, with the wolf becoming a hurricane trying to huff and puff and blow down houses.”

Presentation on stress: “Hand out a diagram of a piece of Swiss cheese and have each person write three things in three of the holes that they can do right now and have control over. (i.e. read tonight to their kids, take a bubble bath tonight, get a massage tomorrow, etc.).”

Collages: “Survivors create a beautiful image for their personal well being through shapes, colors and images that mimic who they are, what they are going through and what makes them feel good.”

The Healing Box Workshop: “People will paint and decorate a symbolic box. In the box, they will place representations of people, places, things and affirmations of what is important to them. … The box helps people focus priorities and appreciation of what is meaningful in life.”

Source: Florida Department of Children & Families, weekly reports

Folks, this is what twenty years of patiently viewing crane dancing, drumming ceremonies, conscienceness-raising exercises, multicultural awareness seminars, animal rights activism and vegetarianism — instead of stopping these morons and telling them they were morons — has gotten us. We’re paying for this crap. And this is why every penny of Katrina aid should be taken back, and given back to the taxpayers.

Now to our most recent example, this time with tsunami relief.

THREE years after Australians donated $400 million to rebuild Asian lives devastated by the 2004 tsunami, aid groups are under attack for spending much of the money on social and political engineering.

A survey by The Australian of the contributions by non-government organisations to the relief effort found the donations had been spent on politically correct projects promoting left-wing Western values over traditional Asian culture.

The activities - listed as tsunami relief - include a “travelling Oxfam gender justice show” in Indonesia to change rural male attitudes towards women.

Another Oxfam project, reminiscent of the ACTU’s Your Rights at Work campaign, instructs Thai workers in Australian-style industrial activism and encourages them to set up trade unions.

What’s worse about this example is that it’s private donations. Still, anybody who doesn’t know that Oxfam is nothing but a bunch of slobbering nutjobs deserves to be separated from his hard-earned cash, as does anyone so stupid that he’s surprised that his donation isn’t going to tsunami relief.

It doesn’t have quite the entertainment value of the Katrina idiocy, though, unless the travelling Oxfam gender justice show was a puppet show. Or Windy Biggie.

At least there’s one discussion at MLA this year that’s not sheer idiocy (if you’ve never had the pleasure of attending MLA, that’s a very rare thing):

“For writing centers and programs, the dearth of empirical research is dangerous,” said Linda S. Bergmann, director of the Writing Lab at Purdue University. Too much of what writing instructors believe is based on “lore,” she said. At a time of political demands for assessment and commercial companies promising quick results if they take over tutoring services, writing instructors need evidence of what works, she said.

Bergmann always has had an uncommon amount of common sense.

But don’t fear! MLA is, as always, full of pointless idiocy!

The finalists for the Worst Nanny of 2007 are posted. There are the st00pid:

Pamela Anderson, “Tuna Tacos Make Merry Marriage” Award — The publicity-starved spokes-blonde for the animal rights wing nuts at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was caught yet again flouting her veggie “principles.” In June, Anderson got married (for a third time). The menu at her post-ceremony dinner? Pigs in a blanket, tuna tacos, and lobster.

The dishonest:

Michael Jacobson, “No Yummies for Dummies’ Tummies ” Award — It would be quicker to list all the foods the Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) didn’t attack in 2007. Chinese take-out, margarine, quesadillas, and caffeine all made it onto his blacklist. In February, Jacobson told CBS Radio that “restaurants have every right to make these foods and you have every right to eat them.” But CSPI’s lobbying efforts suggest otherwise. The group has sued restaurants for using margarine (trans fat) and is petitioning the FDA to control how much salt you can have.

And those who should be publically hanged:

Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook, “Dumped Dogs Tell No Tales” Award — Let’s get this straight: PETA employees Hinkle and Cook admitted in court to picking up perfectly healthy dogs and cats from North Carolina-area shelters, killing said animals in the back of their PETA-owned van, and tossing the bodies into nearby dumpsters. Yet PETA President Ingrid Newkirk criticized them only for using the dumpster!

Difficult choices.

I was somewhat mystified by the reaction to Bhutto’s assassination yesterday. Yes, it was disturbing, but I’m not sure why it was, as Ann Althouse put it, “terrible news,” and as much as I enjoy bashing the networks, I really don’t see why it should have been at the top of the priority list, as she seems to believe; after all, there was nothing surprising about it. It’s Pakistan. She was a woman, and a Marxist. Surely, nobody expected her not to get assassinated. Awful? yes. Surprising? No. An international disaster? Absolutely not.

But you can always count on the Democrats to push foreign poicy disasters, and Bill Richardson does not disappoint:

“A leader has died, but democracy must live. The United States government cannot stand by and allow Pakistan’s return to democracy to be derailed or delayed by violence,” Richardson said.

Captain Ed addresses Richardson’s idiocy well, but Andrew McCarthy lays it on the table, with no candy-coating, no moaning, no hand-wringing. It’s a bitter pill:

For the United States, the question is whether we learn nothing from repeated, inescapable lessons that placing democratization at the top of our foreign policy priorities is high-order folly.

[ . . . ]

The transformation from Islamic society to true democracy is a long-term project. It would take decades if it can happen at all. Meanwhile, our obsessive insistence on popular referenda is naturally strengthening — and legitimizing — the people who are popular: the jihadists. Popular elections have not reformed Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon. Neither will they reform a place where Osama bin Laden wins popular opinion polls and where the would-be reformers are bombed and shot at until they die.

[ . . . ]

But we should at least stop fooling ourselves. Jihadists are not going to be wished away, rule-of-lawed into submission, or democratized out of existence. If you really want democracy and the rule of law in places like Pakistan, you need to kill the jihadists first. Or they’ll kill you, just like, today, they killed Benazir Bhutto.

It’s too bad President Bush hasn’t learned this lesson.

as the perfect breakfast food, that is, is that it makes me sleepy. And the problem with taking a nap is that I never intend it to last three hours.

That’s where I was yesterday. Napping.

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Previous free threads are here.

The curry is done! Later, folks!

I’m thinking maybe a fiery, Thai curry. Yes. Absolutely.

Okay, off to the kitchen.

Hat tip to Libberocky for the st00pidest, most amoral, and most brain-dead academic research of 2007 which goes to doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan:

A research paper that won a Hebrew University teachers’ committee prize finds that the lack of IDF rapes of Palestinian women is designed to serve a political purpose.

The abstract of the paper, authored by doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, notes that the paper shows that “the lack of organized military rape is an alternate way of realizing [particular] political goals.”

The next sentence delineates the particular goals that are realized in this manner: “In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be seen that the lack of military rape merely strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies the inter-ethnic differences - just as organized military rape would have done.”

The paper further theorizes that Arab women in Judea and Samaria are not raped by IDF soldiers because the women are de-humanized in the soldiers’ eyes.

That’s right. Israeli soldiers are baaaaaad because they don’t rape women. Honorable mention for st00pidest, most amoral, and most brain-dead research of the year goes to the Hebrew University teachers’ committee for giving this idiocy a prize.

Folks, it just don’t get no st00pider than this.

The Name of the Rose is on. I haven’t seen it since it came out — I had no idea Christian Slater was in it (and he does a good job), but nobody knew who Christian Slater was then, since this was his first film. Good, dark, atmospheric murder mystery, and one of Sean Connery’s best performances.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the teasers for Tin Man, the Sci-Fi Channel’s reworked Wizard of Oz. It’s a six-hour mini-series. We watched the first of the three installments last night. Eh. Good for the Sci-Fi Channel, but eh. Okay, I guess. We’ll probably watch the rest of it, just probably not all at one sitting.

You’ll recall the local dairy that sells their milk in glass bottles (which, bizarrely, are regularly auctioned on e-bay):

The milk’s great, but the cream is remarkable, the consistency of Elmer’s glue. Because most will find Meyer cream daunting, I’ve created a photo primer.

Step 1: Remove cream from refrigerator, raise high, and slam onto the counter (if you do not do this, when you try to pour it, it will just sit in the container).

Step 2: Remove lid, and turn upside-down over the mixer bowl. Be patient. The cream will not pour, but glug. The consistency of Elmer’s glue, remember?

Step 3: Don’t overdo it. This isn’t cream like you get from the supermarket dairy cooler. When enough cream has finally glugged out, cap and put back in the refrigerator.

Step 4: Add sugar, put whisk attachment on, and raise the bowl. This is very sweet cream. You don’t need much more than a couple of spoonsful of sugar.

Step 5: Turn the mixer on high. This is very important: Do not leave the mixer. Stand over it. In about twenty seconds, the cream will be stiff (this cream would whip in a minute if it were at room temperature). Don’t overwhip! Another three or four seconds, and you’d have butter!

Step 6: Cut a piece of pie and nuke it, if you prefer it warm. Pile whipped cream on top. Eat! The perfect breakfast!

That was the last of my first quart. As you can imagine, the inside of the container is coated with cream — lots of it, given the consistency. I couldn’t throw it away, so I nuked it for a minute, until the cream “melted” and poured it into the new, open container of Meyer cream.

Next time, we buy a half-gallon of it.

but sure to make GFWs wet their panties (hat tip to Sebastian). The NRA doesn’t endorse primary candidates, but it seems that the Victory Fund has spent $8998.09 setting up a mailer for (here’s the surprising part) Bill Richardson. As far as I know, the VF has not done this for any of the Republican candidates.

A Bill Richardson video is also featured prominently on the NRA-ILA front page today.

The Carnival of Ed is up at History is Elementary.

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The chocolates? We really should hit that candy store more often.

The understatement of the year comes from Joanne Jacobs, who says,

Teacher creativity is over-rated

in summarizing this article. The only thing more over-rated in education than teacher creativity is student creativity.

“Creativity” is one of those edubabble terms nobody ever defines, but from the examples I’ve seen, it would include things like presenting your math class using interpretive dance (for the teacher), or making a diorama of Gettysburg (for the student). There’s nothing wrong with making a diorama for history class, of course, provided that the diorama doesn’t substitute for the content: Does the student know why Gettysburg is important? Does the student know who the major players were? You know, content. Making a diorama not only is not a substitute for content, but nobody has learned content from making a diorama.

God forgive me for being a cynical, curmudgeonly coot on Christmas Day, but I suspect (from what I’ve seen from teachers) that “creativity,” like “constructivism,” is popular for one reason: Sheer laziness. Why prepare for class if you’re going to turn them loose to “create their own meaning”? Why bother with silly things like content if you’re going to have them fingerpaint?

We had those MBA students with no experience, interest, or motivation teaching for us, and we created scripts specifically for them (we called them lab manuals). The class would have been a disaster without those scripts. Some of the MBA students didn’t like having to use them, but that was just too bad. Oh well. Life is like that. Get over it. The relevant concept is quality assurance.

Only in a class with no real content can student “creativity” count for much of anything. Hey, look! Little Johnny subtracted three from five using beans! Give him an extra 20 points for being creative!

What utter crap.

Creativity is for art class. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time and energy. Our duty as educators is to teach the material, that is, get our students to learn the material, not spur their “creativity” or any other nonsense. I’m quite sure that if any cohort brought cute, colored construction paper objects d’art to their presentations, I (and the rest of the class) would have snickered — and then I would have docked them for their non-professional “creativity.”

Getting back to those scripts, experienced teachers were not expected to follow them, but everybody was expected to cover the same material on the same days. Indeed, when you give departmental exams, everybody must cover the same material, or students get cheated. Had we had faculty who could not teach the class without the scripts, we would have shuttled them into doing something else. But that’s not “creativity”; that’s knowing the material, and knowing what works, and it only comes with experience. Somebody right out of ed school has no business being “creative” in class.

“Hey, I know! Instead of talking about this dull story, we’ll put on an impromptu play today!”

But as I’ve noted before, educators seem to lack the common sense gene. Here’s a stunning example from Joanne’s comment thread:

First, who can decide what’s supposed to be taught in a course? There’s a course of study, but what about the specifics? I teach physics and AP Physics. In AP, the College Board decides. That’s taken a lot of the guess-work and teacher preference out, but my regular physics can be almost anything within the vast realm of physics. I’m sure other subjects are similar.

Second, how do you define success?

Where does one start with such mindless blather? Who can decide what’s supposed to be taught in a course? Didn’t they teach you about curricula at your ed school? And if you don’t know what you’re supposed to be teaching, why are you being allowed within ten miles of a classroom?

How do you define success? Well, Einstein, how do they do on the exams? See, that wasn’t hard, was it?

And you wonder why I’m horrified at the state of education? It’s less the students than it is morons like this who are being allowed to teach. He then goes on to say:

Third, does anyone look at the educational research?

That’s truly laughable, given what passes for “educational research.” Ken DeRosa has a reader who has commented on this article, and everything he says, supposedly with authority, demonstrates that he knows nothing whatsoever about what he’s talking about. Educrats, like post-modernists, love to “pull” buzzwords from other disciplines without any understanding of what they mean (here, connectionism), and use the buzzwords to support their own empty ideas, empty ideas whose purpose is always to supplant students’ learning content. We have “integrated,” which now means playing a polka on the accordion in chemistry class. We have “authentic assessment,” which means finding some way to pass students who haven’t learned the material through to the next class, presumably so they’ll be even more lost, and fail even more dramatically. And of course we have “digital” or “21st century” which means clicking a mouse on a little icon instead of actually learning why Gettysburg is historically important.

Yeah, they’re experts — experts in equine manure.

Here’s what we care about. Do students know what they’re supposed to know? Are they prepared to work their little butts off at the university? Do they know who Shakespeare was, what century he wrote, his major plays? Can they add, subtract, divide, multiply, and estimate without a calculator, and are they fluent in basic algebra? Can they write intelligently and coherently, and do they know what plagiarism is and is not? Can they do research, other than using Google or Wikipedia?

What we don’t care about is their creativity. Can it. Don’t. Care. At. All. Mary is a great fingerpainter? Don’t care. Billy makes great 3-D construction paper projects? Don’t care. Juanita creates the prettiest macaroni-art projects you’ve ever seen? Don’t care. Terry gave a great presentation on Harry Potter and made his own costume to wear? Don’t care.

So educators, like I said, get in touch with your inner grandfather. Reactivate that common sense gene for a change. Teach the material, and stop playing kindergarten teacher. And stop throwing around concepts you don’t understand.

By the way: Merry Christmas!

You remember the “Who said it, Al Gore or the Unabomber?” quiz, right? In the same spirit, we now have “Who said it, John Edwards or Mike Huckleberry?” I missed half of them.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

I’ll at least post a Merry Christmas message tomorrow. Don’t know how much else (we may drive over to Bald Eagle and turn around just to drive I-99, now that it’s open).