Vox Popoli

Is not going to help this sort of situation:

To make ends meet during hard economic times, I became a “substitute teacher” for the Los Angeles Unified School District, or LAUSD – or to put it more kindly, a “guest teacher.” As a guest LAUSD teacher I thought I would be an asset, but the system has never appreciated nor taken advantage of my educational or professional hard-earned accomplishments.

There’s no teaching going on at LAUSD – only confinement of the sort one may find in a penal colony, complete with walkie-talkie-carrying wardens and bullhorns. And I have “confined” at many different schools within central Los Angeles in the last six months. Many students scream “suuuuuuuub” when they see someone like me – a “guest teacher” – in their classroom and trample anyone and/or anything as they push and shove their way inside….

I’ve been injured more than once. On Oct. 5, 2007, at another notorious middle school, I was deliberately body-slammed on the head by two to three large young men in a P.E. class of 53 students, while another teacher (someone I had never met before) was decent enough to give a formal declaration to school and police authorities of what he had witnessed. I sustained a concussion and sciatica nerve damage as a result of this personal attack intended to “terrorize [me].” I have memory lapses and continued head and leg pain. I’m told by the local police that this sort of physical abuse on teachers occurs with disturbing regularity. The LAUSD case nurse assigned to my case labeled my attack “boys will be boys.”

I’ve been burglarized (on June 11, 2007), by a stalker with key access to my locked classroom (likely by another teacher or custodian). This theft occurred during lunch break while I was on a five-minute bathroom errand and included a $2,600 2-week-old Sony Vaio notebook, my RX glasses, credit cards, etc. The incident was also reported to the jurisdictional police. But I will have to take LAUSD to Small Claims Court, because district officials will accept NO responsibility.

The irony is that the LAUSD probably spends more money per student than the vast majority of school systems around the world.

Friar Yid doesn’t get it and it’s not entirely his fault:

Don’t get me wrong, Vox. I’m not pro-slavery. But if you have commandments in the Torah saying, “don’t kill your slave,” while not saying a single thing about, “oh, and don’t have slaves,” it’s pretty hard to argue that the Torah’s anti-slavery.

I don’t think I was quite as clear on this as I could have been. My view is that the Bible is essentially agnostic on slavery. It’s neither pro- nor anti-, except in that God doesn’t appear to take any human views of property all that seriously. The Torah clearly doesn’t view slavery as a good thing, or else it wouldn’t be replete with the message that slavery comes as a negative consequence for various actions. And both the Old Testament and the New Testament repeatedly put forth a message based on the concept of how God sets Man free.

And yet, the Bible clearly doesn’t view slavery as a fundamentally immoral act such as thievery, murder, extramarital sex and so forth. Regardless, I don’t see how anyone could seriously argue that the Bible expresses much of a positive view about kings, slavery or divorce, despite the way in which it offers advice regarding all three.

It really does fall in the nature of a category error, though, to attempt blaming any religion for a very common human institution that predated it by centuries, if not millenium, all around the world. This is the point that those who wish to connecct Christianity and slavery always seem to wish to avoid; it also tends to reveal an ahistorical, US-centric perspective.

So, I’m not saying the Bible is inherently anti-slavery. I’m merely saying that it is absurd to argue that it is inherently pro-slavery, and demonstrably illogical to argue that it is responsible in any way, shape or form for historical slavery.

Germany’s new Nazis are putting parents in jail and freezes their assets for homeschooling their children, while at the same time putting a convicted pedophile to work in a kindergarten:

A convicted paedophile sentenced to do community service in a German kindergarten will return to court next week to face charges of abusing two children there, a regional prosecutor’s office said Thursday.

In this case it appears to be an oversight, but it is nevertheless more than a little ironic that a mother jailed for homeschooling her children could find herself sentenced to working in a school.

Friar Yid doesn’t understand how God can’t explain the proper way to own a slave while rejecting the notion of human property:

It’s all well and good if people want to maintain that slavery is bad and stewardship is good. But Vox’s claim that the God of the Bible doesn’t believe in personal property and “could never endorse” human slavery seems downright bogus, particularly given various Old Testament endorsements of the practice.

It’s not as if there aren’t Biblical examples of precisely what I’m describing. The Bible is very clear on God hating divorce. But, because He knows humanity and knows we’re a bunch of hard-hearted idiots, He says that if you’re going to get a divorce in spite of what He wants, then do it this way. And I note that He wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of kings either, but allowed Israel to have one anyhow.

Given God’s total disrespect of human notions of property and ownership, it seems obvious that His rules regarding the positive treatment of slaves should be regarded the same way. Slavery is, like war, poverty and government, simply an aspect of the fallen human condition. It is foolish to pretend that slavery is not common today, or that humanity has somehow evolved past it.

And from the Biblical description of God’s perspective, we are all slaves, either to sin or to righteousness, and “he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.”

But found it rather difficult to credit and even harder to confirm. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that the banks are simply ignoring the law in their feverish attempt to securitize everything:

A federal judge in Ohio has ruled against a longstanding foreclosure practice, potentially creating an obstacle for lenders trying to reclaim properties from troubled borrowers and raising questions about the legal standing of investors in mortgage securities pools.

Judge Christopher A. Boyko of Federal District Court in Cleveland dismissed 14 foreclosure cases brought on behalf of mortgage investors, ruling that they had failed to prove that they owned the properties they were trying to seize….

On Oct. 10, Judge Boyko, 53, ordered the lenders’ representative to file copies of loan assignments showing that the lender was indeed the owner of the note and mortgage on each property when the foreclosure was filed. But lawyers for Deutsche Bank supplied documents showing only an intent to convey the rights in the mortgages rather than proof of ownership as of the foreclosure date.

Saying that Deutsche Bank’s arguments of legal standing fell woefully short, the judge wrote: “The institutions seem to adopt the attitude that since they have been doing this for so long, unchallenged, this practice equates with legal compliance. Finally put to the test, their weak legal arguments compel the court to stop them at the gate.”

This could have some very interesting fallout, especially as home prices continue to decline.

ProFootballTalk is in awe:

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the first high-profile veteran that Childress sent packing from Minnesota delivers the death blow to Brad’s coaching career there? Though it might be premature to think that owner Zygi Wilf would dump the second-year head coach during the season, a posting on a little-known Vikings blog suggests that Wilf is pondering the possibility. Though we previously hadn’t heard of the blog in question and know nothing of its track record, there’s something eerily plausible about the tone and content of the report/rumor/whatever.

And we mention the possibility only because PFT headquarters is being flooded with e-mails from Vikings fans who are desperate to see Childress fired. In six-plus years of doing this, I’ve never seen such fervent and passionate displays of dislike for an NFL head coach.

I cried when Drew Pearson pushed off. I screamed in fury at Darren Nelson when he dropped the ball. I stared in disbelief when Anderson missed. I grimaced when we kept Denny Green and let Tony Dungy go. I covered my eyes when Tice got the job. And I remember the horror of the annus Steckelus.

But I have never, ever hated a Vikings coach like I hate Childress. Everyone – EVERYONE – knew that the QB situation was a massive problem. Everyone knew that Brad Johnson wasn’t the answer and that going into the season with Tarvaris Jackson was a massive gamble. And yet… and yet… you know the rest.

DW isn’t keen on the Huckster:

We were all relieved when Huckabee finished out his term as Governor of Arkansas! I just wish the world knew the Huckabee that was governor of Arkansas. He promoted illegal immigration in every way. He demonized two state representatives who tried to pass a state law requiring proof of citizenship to collect state benefits. He called them racist and unchristian. The law failed. He went to Mexico and negotiated with President Fox to get a Mexican consulate built in Little Rock Arkansas at tax payer expense. Isn’t negotiating with a foreign power illegal and unconstitutional except for the US State Department?

He wanted to give state backed college scholarships to high school graduates of illegals, yet two years earlier they claimed there was no funding to continue it for Arkansas students! He also loved taxes as much as Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas. I just wish the world knew the truth.

Yeah, I’ve never been impressed with the guy either.

In which I take mild exception to Half Sigma’s conception of religious equality:

He correctly points out the hypocrisy of leftists who criticize Christians for denying Darwinism. But when he says “we are all equal before God,” he’s forgetting that during the era of slavery, exactly the opposite was said, that God endorsed slavery and that Africans were the descendants of Canaan, doomed to slavery because of the Curse of Ham.

The thing about religion is that it gives you a justification to believe in whatever you want. But science reveals inconvenient truths.

Given Half Sigma’s deep interest in IQ, I find it difficult to believe that he really thinks it likely that I have forgotten how some Christians historically made use of the Bible to defend their position on slavery. But I’m hardly in a position to complain about anyone else’s flights of rhetoric and the point is a logical fallacy anyhow; Christianity need answer for demonstrably bad Christian theology to the same extent that science need answer for demonstrably bad science. And when one considers that the only significant anti-slavery force in human history has been evangelical Christianity, it would seem very strange to attempt to blame it in any way for an old and enduring institution that long preceded it and is showing signs of reappearing in its absence.

Half-Sigma’s actual error is the idea that equality before God somehow precludes slavery. That is a category error. God is no respecter of either persons or property; since He does not even acknowledge human ownership of material property, He cannot possibly respect human ownership of other humans for good or for ill. He can and does, on the other hand, condemn poor stewardship of every kind; which is why the slave owner who thinks he owns his slaves is charged with treating them well.

No religion gives a blanket justification to believe whatever you want. And one can construct an argument for slavery on scientific principles even more easily than one can on Christian grounds since science offers no justification for equality of any kind.

But this is a minor issue and I applaud Half Sigma’s courageous stance against anti-scientific equalitarian correctness. In fact, the most interesting thing I noticed on Half Sigma’s blog wasn’t related to either IQ or religion, but rather his note that a mention in one of the New York Times’s most emailed articles only led to a maximum potential increase of 4,000 visitors. It is this sort of revealing tidbit, more than all of the various articles on declining newspaper circulations, that attests to the declining relevance of the increasingly decrepit Grey Lady to today’s culture.

The president’s new little French friend is avowedly anti-democratic. Instead of invading Iran, perhaps we should invade France in order to bring democracy there:

Referendums on the new European Union Treaty were “dangerous” and would be lost in France, Britain and other countries, Nicolas Sarkozy has admitted.

The French president’s confession that governments could not win popular votes on a “simplified treaty” – drawn up to replace the EU constitution rejected by his countrymen two years ago – was made in a closed meeting of senior Euro-MPs.

“France was just ahead of all the other countries in voting no. It would happen in all member states if they have a referendum. There is a cleavage between people and governments,” he said.

Needless to say, all the clueless “conservatives” at Townhall and National Review just love Sarkozy. He may be an anti-democrat working towards the completion of a corrupt neo-totalitarian empire, but he is willing to support an attack on Iran and more war is the only issue that neocon-led Republicans care about anymore besides retaining the last vestiges of their power in Washington.

I’m looking forward to eventually seeing the same declaration made regarding the European Union as well as the Union of the Several States:

Mr Brown, in his squalid and anti-democratic way, has since the first devolved parliament opened in 1999 firmly resisted any suggestion that the West Lothian question needs an answer. He sees no reason why Scottish MPs (and indeed Welsh ones – Labour has 29 of them) at Westminster should not be allowed to continue to vote on matters that affect only the English.

Since the Welsh Assembly has recently received a new tranche of powers, expanding its areas of competence, this means that at Westminster Labour can technically deploy 69 MPs to vote on questions that do not affect their constituents one jot, but which can change the course of law in England. That Mr Brown blithely affects to be unmoved by this outrage causes one to question not merely his intelligence but his sanity….

The Union is over, morally at least. When Scotland voted for devolution in 1997 the Union fell into a coma. When Alex Salmond’s SNP administration was elected in May the last rites were read, and the final process of sundering got under way. All that remains is for the Scots, in a referendum, to vote to stick the coffin in the grave, with the Union flag still on it, and pile on the earth.

This is the last thing Mr Brown and the rest of the Raj want. Because of Scottish separatism they are already illegitimate in the eyes of many English, which is why they bang on with such dishonesty and vulgarity about “Britishness”.

It is ironic, how on the one hand Brown and the Scottish Raj are blathering on about “Britishness” while at the same time doing their very best to hand England over to Brussels. Of course, why shouldn’t they? They aren’t Englishmen and they obviously have no loyalty to England or the English.

The sooner the English figure this out and throw them out, the better.