Let's just throw out a bunch of stuff and clean up my tabs...

should we?

First up:

I guess there's some woman who's turning her back on technology, although she has an iPhone.  The fact that it has a cracked screen and is taped up is supposed to be testimony to her creds.  Ah, no.

I have nothing against technology.  However, I think the people who walk around clutching a phone in their hand, or seeing every event through the pinhole of a phone are very sad creatures. 

Supposedly, a man died after walking off a cliff in San Diego while, according to reports, looking at a hand held device. If it was a "smart phone" what he did was not very smart. 

Fran Porretto puts it well with his post Family, Proximity, And The Smartphone Plague: A Sunday Rumination - and we thank him.

Secondly:

After a busy day on Saturday having our car hauled out a snow bank in our driveway again (we've become a legend and a joke at the towing company), I was able to finally get someone out to plow our driveway.  I actually called one person who said he didn't want to do it because he "might break his plow."  I kid you not. The tow truck driver recommended someone because he felt my pain and probably figured our Allstate towing bennies may be running low.  I called, and this wonderful man, who works with his little fur ball of  happiness Pomeranian doggie, Wendy, showed up in 30 minutes and cleared our driveway.  He charged $35.00.  I gave him $60.00, and a big stack of fresh out of the oven sugar cookies.

He also does landscape work, and if our regular tree guy can't come out this spring, he promised to help.  Our broken and felled trees from the heavy snow fall are legion.

On to Sunday:

Sunday was spent clearing out a bunch of old papers and notes that were stacked everywhere in my office.  In one of the stacks was a copy of an email someone sent with recommendations of things to read. Unfortunately, I copied and pasted the info into Word and can't remember who sent it. 

One of the recommendations was Richard Mitchell (1929-2002), the Underground Grammarian.  All of his books are online and free.  I started reading Less than Words Can Say, and he had me smiling broadly before I even finished the forward.

The first thing he makes fun of is the use of the word "basically."  Listen to any talk show or anyone being interviewed today and their language will be liberally sprinkled with the word "basically."  When I hear it, I'm driven to basically what could be considered basic violence - sort of, basically.

Also recommended was The War Against Grammar by David Mulroy, which proves that the war on grammar is an intentional war, not an accidental one.

John Taylor Gatto also made the list.  I've already read his Underground History of American Education, available online.  

It's also available at Amazon The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling

Mr. Gatto and I agree 100% on education:




 And here he expounds on boredom, zombies, and economic collapse.  What I wouldn't give to have a long dinner date with him.

Did any of you ever dare to say to your mother you were bored?  I sure didn't.  Actually, I can't ever remember being bored. 





Thirdly:

American Thinker has a raft of pretty good articles today with all of them garnering many comments.  The comments are usually my favorite part of articles.

Fourthly:

My Dick Blick order of the last remaining art supplies I needed to begin painting again came Saturday.  On Wednesday I will commence with my painting career again, because man doesn't live by politics alone.

Yes, I know this post is long, but tomorrow is haircut day, along with Costco, and some other errands, so I will be absent.

Let's wrap up with some Donald Trump.

Bill Whittle on Character: Starting the week off right...

and we thank him.



H/T iOwnTheWorld

This is what John Taylor Gatto, author of The Underground History of American Education, has to say in about what our modern day schools achieve.  You may read the entire book at the link above. 

Pathology As A Natural Byproduct

With these eight lessons in hand you should have less trouble seeing that the social pathologies we associate with modern children are natural byproducts of our modern system of schooling which produces:

• Children indifferent to the adult world of values and accomplishment, defying the universal human experience laid down over thousands of years that a close study of grown-ups is always the most exciting and one of the most necessary occupations of youth. Have you noticed how very few people, adults included, want to grow up anymore? Toys are the lingua franca of American society for the masses and the classes.
  
  
• Children with almost no curiosity. Children who can’t even concentrate for long on things they themselves choose to do. Children taught to channel-change by a pedagogy employing the strategy "and now for something different," but kids who also realize dimly that the same damn show is on every channel.
  
  
• Children with a poor sense of the future, of how tomorrow is linked to today. Children who live in a continuous present. Conversely, children with no sense of the past and of how the past has shaped and limited the present, shaped and limited their own choices, predetermined their values and destinies to an overwhelming degree.
  
  
• Children who lack compassion for misfortune, who laugh at weakness, who betray their friends and families, who show contempt for people whose need for help shows too plainly. Children condemned to be alone, to age with bitterness, to die in fear.
  
  
• Children who can’t stand intimacy or frankness. Children who masquerade behind personalities hastily fabricated from watching television and from other distorted gauges of human nature. Behind the masks lurk crippled souls. Aware of this, they avoid the close scrutiny intimate relationships demand because it will expose their shallowness of which they have some awareness.
  
  
• Materialistic children who assign a price to everything and who avoid spending too much time with people who promise no immediate payback—a group which often includes their own parents. Children who follow the lead of schoolteachers, grading and ranking everything: "the best," "the biggest," "the finest," "the worst." Everything simplified into simple-minded categories by the implied judgment of a cash price, deemed an infallible guide to value.
  
  
• Dependent children who grow up to be whining, treacherous, terrified, dependent adults, passive and timid in the face of new challenges. And yet this crippling condition is often hidden under a patina of bravado, anger, aggressiveness.

More Bill Whittle:

Bill Whittle: What We Believe

Part One: Small Government & Free Enterprise  here

Part Two: The Problem with Elitism  here
Part Three: Wealth Creation here 
Part Four: Natural Law here 
Part Five: Gun Rights here
Part Six: Immigration here 
Part Seven:   American Exceptionalism here
Part Eight:  A Nation of Desire here

and  

Bill Whittle: OBAMA AT HALFTIME ...
Bill Whittle: Just exactly who is Obama? 
Bill Whittle :  Eat the Rich 
Bill Whittle: How to Steal Power
Bill Whittle: The Bridge in Your Mind

Take the time to watch:

Bill Whittle Explains our Progressive Nightmare