Vox Popoli

Jeff Jacoby finds increasing solitude:

For the second year in a row, the Census Bureau reports, the population of Massachusetts has shrunk. During the 12 months ending July 1, 2005, the Bay State experienced a net loss of more than 8,600 residents, or 0.1 percent of its population. It was one of only three states to end the year with fewer people than it had at the start — New York and Rhode Island were the others — and the only one to do so for the second year running.

A statistical blip this isn’t. Not counting foreign immigrants, Massachusetts has been losing more people than it attracts every year since 1990, according to MassINC, a Boston-based research institute. The net outflow during the 12 years from 1990 to 2002 — the excess of people leaving Massachusetts over those entering — was 213,000, and the hemorrhaging has only gotten worse since then. MassINC reported in 2003 that one-fourth of Bay State residents would leave if they had the opportunity to do so. Among those who have lived in Massachusetts for less than 10 years, the proportion is even higher.

While this sort of news always puts me in a good mood – proving that not all Americans are complete serfs yet – further reflection isn’t quite so positive. The problem is that people are, by and large, both stupid and short-sighted. Those ex-Massachusettsians are going elsewhere, where a surprisingly large percentage of them will immediately begin complaining that the school levies aren’t high enough, the zoning laws aren’t strict enough… like a dog returning to its vomit, they will begin calling for the building blocks of the very sort of oppressive government they previously tried to escape.

Perhaps states like New Hampshire need to set up a sort of protectorate where former residents of Massachusetts and other like-minded states can be gradually detoxed and slowly introduced to the concept of small-government freedom. Or perhaps they should do it like I understand some of the smaller European countries do, granting residence but no citizenship, thus preventing newcomers from ruining that for which they came.

Dungy is the MAN could work on his timing:

How ’bout dem COLTS!!!!

Detroit bound baby!!!

Try to look at the silver lining… Detroit in February isn’t exactly the nicest place in the world.

UPDATE: That may have been the worst call I’ve seen since the Drew Pearson pass interference non-call. Polamalu clearly intercepted the ball, then fumbled it. I have no dog in this hunt, but I’ll definitely be going against the Colts now. It’s either an incredibly stupid rule of which I’m unaware or a horrendous call.

Women do ruin everything:

A tide of lawsuits by female staff is forcing financial institutions to ban the practice of entertaining clients with a raucous night at a lapdancing club.

This also demonstrates Camille Paglia’s assertion that feminism is primarily concerned with the interests of white, upper-middle class women. I’m sure the hundreds of young women who are going to be the most affected by the disappearance of their clientele will really appreciate being forced to work for a much smaller wage at a retail shop so that a few overpriced women stockbrokers can stop feeling left out by the boys.

I’m neither a smoker nor a denizen of strip clubs, but this sort of thing makes me sick. They’re banning smoking, now they’re after strip clubs too and you can be sure they’ll get back to alchohol again when they see the opportunity. And why should anyone be surprised? When you allow women to have political influence, they immediately start acting like your mother, only on a national scale.

Pretty Lady on the absent virtues of the equalitarian male:

Women, girls, self-described ‘feminists’ all: listen to the voice of experience. Check-paying has nothing to do with equality between the genders, good sex, or feminism. Check-paying is the simplest, most accurate method of ascertaining whether you are on a date with a man, or with a bizarre specimen of animated pond slime. Heed this warning at your extreme peril.

I’m not sure why the Lady’s languid manner amuses me so much, but it works for her. Like – and almost completely unlike – Bane, she has style. Furthermore, she’s right, any woman foolish enough to spend her time with a man who refuses to play the man’s role is asking for heartbreak and trouble, not necessarily in that order.

Gene sees progress:

I have been watching schooling related threads and articles for a couple years. There used to be a couple of passionate “schooling” fans or “educators” who would show up and defend “schooling”, but no one this time.

Does anyone think there has been progress in getting Holt’s, Gatto’s, et al’s ideas to the public?

In terms of this blog, certainly. I know at least one former public school proponent who is now homeschooling his children. This was as a direct result of his child’s initial exposure to the public school, not the ongoing debate, but I suspect that he was much more open to the homeschooling option than he would have been had he not participated in the discussion.

And so it grows, one child at a time.

Lightning Aura jumps in very late:

I have not been reading this blog for very long, so I dont know what happened between you two. If you really wanted to ‘eviscerate’ him why not have an intellectual debate?

Because a debate takes two. Mr. Shapiro is too scared and self-important to do what he declares is everyone else’s sacred duty; like Michelle Malkin he is also too frightened to respond to a very public calling-out in the very place he is published. This failure to respond in any way is particularly egregious in Mr. Shapiro’s case since I wrote in response to two weeks’ worth of Shapiro columns written in preemptive self-defense.

Vox’s Third Law of Scorn: If you refuse to respond to legitimate criticism, you deserve all subsequent criticism, legitimate and illegitimate.

PC badly misplaces his trust:

I pray to God that it gets ever louder and eventually, when they take over the helm of the world from the the lost generation that are their parents, the likes of Shapiro will be representative of the majority of their fellow, contemporary citizens. Because if that is not the case they will standing at the helm of a cultural ship heading for oblivion to be listed as just another shipwreck of history. What is your beef against Ben Shapiro?

For God’s sake give the kid room. He is not long out of his teens.

Yes, leadership by short-sighted, self-declared imperialists too self-important to perform what they declare to be duty on the part of others is just what this country needs. I’m not a big fan of Ivy League lawyers in the first place, much less those yearning for a career in politics.

Like most hawks innocent of history, Shapiro fails to understand that empire is a sign of incipient decline and weakness, not strength and vitality. Empires are hollow at the core, which is why they tend to come crashing down so quickly. And hollow at the core is an excellent summation of latter-day America.

As for slack, if you wish to run with the big dogs, then how can you complain about getting knocked down when someone takes exception to your barking? And surely a mainstream syndicated columnist, picked out from the masses for his talent, insight and intelligence, will have no trouble responding to the substance of a critique from a mere Internet columnist like my humble self.

Jay Nordlinger in NRO’s Corner:

It seems the battle for “Turin” has been lost. By that I mean, I’m afraid we’re going to have the “Torino Olympics,” not the “Turin Olympics,” starting February 10.

I started whining about this, here in this column, way back in 2002, when we had the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Then, Katie Couric et al. were saying, “See you four years from now in Torino!” I wanted to start a “Torino Watch,” nipping this dismaying trend in the bud. “Torino” figured in my piece “‘Gutter’ Politics,” about the pronunciation of place names and personal names.

I think we’ll be able to keep “The Shroud of Turin” — I don’t think we’ll have to say, or hear, “The Shroud of Torino.” And we’ll be able to say Florence, not Firenze; Rome, not Roma; Naples, not Napoli; Venice, not Venezia. But have you noticed that a certain type of American likes to say “Milano,” instead of “Milan”?

Well, yeah. Perche Milan e’ la bella squadra, Milano e’ la citta’. Forza Milan!

Why I’m skipping the Oscars this year
Every year since I was old enough to stay up late, I’ve watched the Academy Awards….

Remember when I wrote that one column? And remember when some people got really mad about an insinuation that someone might not be that interested in the opposite sex? And remember when I didn’t care? And remember, remember when some people thought that was pretty bad but it was actually pretty funny?

That was awesome.

Sam Blumenfeld notes how worthless the pieces of paper have become:

Stunned, shocked and appalled are American educators as they study the recent report from the National Center of Education Statistics, which reveals that only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. “It’s really astounding,” said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association. “That’s not saying much for the remainder,” he added, meaning that 69 percent of our college graduates cannot read at or above a “proficient” level.

Absolutely appalled by the results of the survey was Mark S. Schneider, commissioner of education statistics, who remarked, “The declining impact of education on our adult population was the biggest surprise for us, and we just don’t have a good explanation. What’s disturbing is that the assessment is not designed to test your understanding of Proust, but to test your ability to read labels.”

The Boston Globe (Dec. 26, 2005) explained that the test measured how well adults handled basic reading tasks – such as figuring out costs per ounce of food items, comparing viewpoints on two editorials, and reading prescription labels. Of graduate students tested in 2003, 41 percent were classified as “proficient” in prose – able to read and understand information in short texts – down 10 percent since 1992. As for college graduates, only 31 percent were classified as proficient – compared with 40 percent in 1992.

I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense to go into debt in order to attend a place that will give you a degree that doesn’t even guarantee you can read. At this point, not going to college is a sign of intelligence… and no, that’s not sour grapes, I have a degree from a university that is supposedly better than most. I’ve yet to see any real value from it, although my admittedly snazzy ring has led some to mistakenly believe that I’ve actually won a fantasy football championship, so I’ve got that going for me. (Yes, the alumni-hitter-uppers just LOVE talking to me… they haven’t even bothered sending me a letter, much less giving me a call, in years now.)

Men might as well let women have the universities, they’re going to be completely useless in another twenty years. Are they going to be pissed when they learn how little good it will do them, or what?

“Why don’t you want to take me out?”
“I don’t know, probably your appeal rates around the level of a decomposing rhinocerous carcass. No offense.”
“But I have three doctoral degrees!”
“Yes, and I have more than three pieces of paper in this book right here! Perhaps with all those degrees you can tell me if any man in the recorded history of Man has ever thought ‘She’s nice and she’s beautiful, but if only she was a surgeon, she’d be perfect’?”
“You’re just afraid of a strong, independent woman!”
“You know, I suspect I may have overrated your appeal.”

Any four-year old child who is not mentally retarded can learn how to read in a matter of months. This destructive transformation of education into maleducation is not mere happenstance.