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Readers know Pickerhead doesn’t have much good to day about colleges in our country. Thomas Sowell has the same opinion.
Many years ago, as a young man, I read a very interesting book about the rise of the Communists to power in China. In the last chapter, the author tried to explain why and how this had happened.
Among the factors he cited were the country’s educators. That struck me as odd, and not very plausible, at the time. But the passing years have made that seem less and less odd, and more and more plausible. Today, I see our own educators playing a similar role in creating a mindset that undermines American society.
Schools were once thought of as places where a society’s knowledge and experience were passed on to the younger generation. But, about a hundred years ago, Professor John Dewey of ColumbiaUniversity came up with a very different conception of education — one that has spread through American schools of education, and even influenced education in countries overseas.
John Dewey saw the role of the teacher, not as a transmitter of a society’s culture to the young, but as an agent of change — someone strategically placed, with an opportunity to condition students to want a different kind of society.
A century later, we are seeing schools across America indoctrinating students to believe in all sorts of politically correct notions. The history that is taught in too many of our schools is a history that emphasizes everything that has gone bad, or can be made to look bad, in America — and that gives little, if any, attention to the great achievements of this country.
If you think that is an exaggeration, get a copy of “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn and read it. As someone who used to read translations of official Communist newspapers in the days of the Soviet Union, I know that those papers’ attempts to degrade the United States did not sink quite as low as Howard Zinn’s book.
That book has sold millions of copies, poisoning the minds of millions of students in schools and colleges against their own country. …
Remember how all the bien pensants, educated in our finest colleges, said electronic medical records were going to save us billions and billions? All the smart people who run our government believed this foolishness. If just one or two of them had held responsible positions with purchasing authority for software decisions in the private sector, they would have known the salesmen were spewing BS. Now the NY Times acknowledges the annual $81 billion savings have not appeared and never will. The “smartest” president ever, will turn out to be the dumbest.
The conversion to electronic health records has failed so far to produce the hoped-for savings in health care costs and has had mixed results, at best, in improving efficiency and patient care, according to a new analysis by the influential RAND Corporation.
Optimistic predictions by RAND in 2005 helped drive explosive growth in the electronic records industry and encouraged the federal government to give billions of dollars in financial incentives to hospitals and doctors that put the systems in place.
“We’ve not achieved the productivity and quality benefits that are unquestionably there for the taking,” said Dr. Arthur L. Kellermann, one of the authors of a reassessment by RAND that was published in this month’s edition of Health Affairs, an academic journal.
RAND’s 2005 report was paid for by a group of companies, including General Electric and Cerner Corporation, that have profited by developing and selling electronic records systems to hospitals and physician practices. Cerner’s revenue has nearly tripled since the report was released, to a projected $3 billion in 2013, from $1 billion in 2005.
The report predicted that widespread use of electronic records could save the United States health care system at least $81 billion a year, a figure RAND now says was overstated. The study was widely praised within the technology industry and helped persuade Congress and the Obama administration to authorize billions of dollars in federal stimulus money in 2009 to help hospitals and doctors pay for the installation of electronic records systems.
“RAND got a lot of attention and a lot of buzz with the original analysis,” said Dr. Kellermann, who was not involved in the 2005 study. “The industry quickly embraced it.”
But evidence of significant savings is scant, and there is increasing concern that electronic records have actually added to costs by making it easier to bill more for some services. …
Karl Rove has some ideas about the debt ceiling standoff.
President Obama says he won’t negotiate with Republicans over his proposed more than $1 trillion increase in the debt ceiling as a matter of principle because Congress “should pay the bills that they have already racked up.”
Set aside the obvious—that he championed the spending and signed the measures that racked up the bills, which Republicans opposed. There may be no person in America with less moral authority than Mr. Obama on this issue. Six years ago he led a Democratic effort to defeat a $781 billion debt-ceiling increase.
On March 16, 2006, Illinois’s junior Sen. Obama argued on the Senate floor that raising the debt limit was “a sign that the U.S. government can’t pay its own bills.” He complained that “Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren,” and added, “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.”
Even by Washington’s lax standards, Mr. Obama’s complaints today reek of hypocrisy.
Mr. Obama has since expressed semi-regret for his 2006 comments. He told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last April, “I think that it’s important to understand the vantage point of a senator versus the vantage point of a president. When you’re a senator . . . this is always a lousy vote. Nobody likes to be tagged as having increased the debt.” He acknowledged that was “making what is a political vote as opposed to doing what was important for the country.” But as president, the newly enlightened Mr. Obama said, “you start realizing . . . we can’t play around with this stuff.” …
Here’s a White House petition you might want to sign.
Gun Free Zones are supposed to protect our children, and some politicians wish to strip us of our right to keep and bear arms. Those same politicians and their families are currently under the protection of armed Secret Service agents. If Gun Free Zones are sufficient protection for our children, then Gun Free Zones should be good enough for politicians.
Speaking of gun laws, Ann Althouse makes a good point about David Gregory’s use of the illegal magazine.
No charges will be filed against David Gregory “despite the clarity of the violation of this important law, because under all of the circumstances here a prosecution would not promote public safety in the District of Columbia nor serve the best interests of the people of the District to whom this office owes its trust.”
“The clarity of the violation of this important law….”
Why is the law important? If Gregory clearly violated the law, but there is no interest to be served in prosecuting him, doesn’t that prove that the law is not important? If the precise thing that he did — which is clearly what is defined as a crime — raises no interest in prosecution, how can we be satisfied by letting this one nice famous man go? Rewrite the law so that it only covers the activity that the government believes deserves prosecution, so there is equal justice under the law.
According to BBC News wrinkled fingers after long exposure to water have a purpose.
Science may be getting closer to explaining those prune-like fingers and toes we all get when we sit in a hot bath too long.
UK researchers from NewcastleUniversity have confirmed wet objects are easier to handle with wrinkled fingers than with dry, smooth ones.
They suggest our ancestors may have evolved the creases as they moved and foraged for food in wet conditions. …