Monday, November 30, 2015

Material D.C., not me

So I've been reading Gim Gerhaghty's The Weed Department.

There's lots of insider D.C. stuff I'll get into in a subsequent post, but I was most interesting in the  three young women who arrive in D.C. in the mid-90s [I bet you were-ed].

20 years ago I arrived in D.C. with a flourish, fourteen years ago I skulked out of there. As I crossed the Wilson Bridge I rolled down the window, held out an angry fist and shouted, 'So Long, Stink Town!' A free copy of any of my books to the person who gets the reference and posts it in the comments.

The Weed Department really captures the flavor of D.C. at the time. Bill and Newt, Newt and his futrurism, this internet thingy. One of the things about D.C. and Northern Virginia, or NOVA, where I eventually settled, was how young everybody seemed. Especially in NOVA. This was where people were going to get there start.

I started in D.C. with a Senate internship. I didn't know it yet but I had peaked. I was part of a gaggle of young people all breaking into politics, and everyone was succeeding but not me. Paul, Brandon, Amy, Ben, Harry, all had jobs on the Hill. Now I don't know what you people think life on the Hill is like, but it aint glamorous. My friends started at 19K, answering phones, handling constituent mail, giving tours of the Hill to people, etc. The West Wing it was not.

I was still in school actually so it wasn't that big a deal for me. By the time I was out of school in '98, I still couldn't get started. Thinking back now, I'm trying to remember all the jobs I interviewed for....

NYC's DC lobby office
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The Heritage Foundation
Roll Coll and I'm pretty sure Chuck Todd did the interview
ABC This Week
The Republican Mainstream Committee
Burston-Marsteller
Alex Castillianos
Freedom House
Presidential Classroom
Some local paper whose name I can't remember

You get the idea. I did land two D.C. jobs, at CNN Inside Politics, and later, writing fundraising letters. The latter was nasty stuff and went something like this, 'I'm writing you today, Mr. Most Important Person in the World, because without your $100 contribution to Citizens United [yes THAT Citizens United - ed] A is going to B to X....'

Honestly the direct mail fundraising gig had little to do with politics. The lobby organizations were all second rate, and we were more concerned with getting little old lady's social security checks than actually formulating policy or winning elections.

Anywho, I never really succeeded in D.C. In the summer of 2001 Mrs. Stroock and I bugged out to NJ and here we've been ever since.

As fir my pals, Paul is a lobbyist with an industry firm, Harry has his own lobby firm, Ben is at the DIA, Amy was chief of staff for one of the Whips, Brandon is back in Texas as director of gov relations for an airport, etc. Me, I'm in NJ, writing and teaching.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Return of the Battleship, this time, its personal

For me a Dreadnought will always be one of three criminal types working for Cobra, but for normal humans the name usually refers to battleships.

Interesting article over at War is Boring about the decline of battleships. Basically they were cost prohibitive, billions of dollars of steel and technology, thousands of sailors. And just think what losing even one means. Its a blow to national prestige and character. I believe in the Great War the Austrians lost a battleship to a single torpedo.

The author came of age during Ronald Reagan's 600 ship navy. That navy included four battleships, Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri and Wisconsin. Those battleships were an awesome symbol of power, floating, mobile fortresses really, with nine 16 guns and batteries of Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles. There's never been anything quiet like them.

The above lined article claims the age of the battleship is over. But we wonder if that is really so. With the advent of rail-guns which can sling a steel ball several hundred miles, might a floating gun platform be more practical than an air craft carrier? Of course, designers would have to account for return fire and be compelled to include belts of armor on those gun platforms. They would have to get to a crisis area fast. Heavily armed, massively armored fast floating gun platforms...

Look, the dreadnought is back!

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Updates and New Projects

Ok, people, the second draft of Operation Eastern Storm has been submitted. December is still possible for release, we'll see.

We are announcing a new project as well. Something different but kind of the same. We're calling it Centauri. This will be a series of stories (To Defend the Earth style) about colonists on the planet of Centauri, in the Alpha Centauri system, obviously.

We've been writing short stories in this universe for about a decade now. A few weeks ago I was going over them, and realized that with 40k + words already it wasn't too far off from a full novel. Also, we really liked one of the stories, lots of action, tension, etc.

So we're working on that. Release date, who knows? But we're thinking late next year. We'll see.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Wiiiiilllllsssssonnnnnnn!

So the little, fascist twerps at Princeton are coming for Woodrow Wilson.

Well, he was a racist who screened Birth of the Nation at the White House and segregated the federal workforce.

We deal with this issue ever so slightly in our history of Pershing. Basically, one should judge the time, not the man, for the man is a product of that time.

There is also a movement afoot to remove Andrew Jackson from the $20. I couldn't agree more, the man's reputation baffles me. Time for Ronald Reagan, you know, a good president. Currency should be reserved for great men. Andrew Jackson was not one of them.

But back to Wilson. This is the worst kind of history, going back in time and judging men by the values of our own. Only one group does this of course.

What was Washington's stance on gay marriage? Did Lincoln support amnesty? Sure Teddy Roosevelt may have busted the trusts, but what was his stance on trans-gendered rights?

I have this conversation every semester with my students. In 50 years, your grandchildren will be baffled by something you think is right and proper at this moment. I dunno what.

I hold no brief for Woodrow Wilson, but memory holing him for these reasons is insane.

Updates

Lot's of projects in the works.

Working on To Liberate Mars, and I anticipate having a rough done by the end of the year. Just rapping up one of the big stories now.

Pershing is continuing apace and am in negotiations with an agent. These are going amicably and well.

My tyrannical editor is reviewing Operation Eastern Storm. It will go back into the grinder this week. Once we have the new proof, one more review and then voila! World War 1990: Operation Eastern Storm. She hates me, she really hates me. Somewhere a psycho-analyst is going to get rich. Tobias Funke?

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

What a flick!

So I decided to watch A Bridge Too Far last night.

Now, if you're a Gen Xr, this is one of your movies. It was on TV a lot and it was one of the first war movies you could rent. A Bridge Too Far was part of my '80s childhood.

One of the things about A Bridge Too Far back in, say 1980 was the contemporary feel it had. I don't know much about film, but however they shot the picture it looked modern. The credits say Techniclor shot by Panavision, what ever that means. By looking contemporary, A Bridge Too Far made WWII look real and current. The box office draws in the cast helped too.

Over all the film looks good. The color holds well. The actual shooting of the scenes was well done.

Another great aspect of A Bridge Too Far, is that it shows the gore of battle and the horror of war without grossing people out. I'm looking at you Spielberg!

And of course the score, you know the parts I mean. Just magnificent.

Finally, one must admire the pacing and story arc of this film. It is so well put together with one scene flowing seamlessly to the next.

We have always thought that the early real novels we read, Tom Clancy, etc, influenced our writing in that we like to bounce from place to place. But we have to admit, we're wondering if the influence doesn't go even further back.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Battle Extraordinaire: Dogs of War Edition

In Dogs of War, Christopher Walken recruits a team of mercenaries to overthrow a dictator of a small, crap-hole African nation.

I have come to love Dogs of War, Christopher Walken doing his whole Christopher Walken thing, post Vietnam cynicism, a rundown, 1980 feel to the movie. Dogs of War has great scenes showing Walken negotiating deals, gathering his team, etc all the fodder one wants for such a movie.

High point of the movie is the merc's assault on the dictator's compound:

The assault comes across as loud and is lit up by countless explosions, giving one the sense that he is in the middle of the thing. Some great cinematography too.

Enjoy.

In Defense of College Students, Mine Own

Between Missouri, Yale, Amherst and on and on college students are taking a drubbing. They've earned it.

We are, for the time being, an adjunct professor at Raritan Valley Community College and have written before in this space about college kids today.

The students I see every day bear no resemblance whatsoever to the self-reverent punks currently polluting the civic space. Most are middle class kids with jobs on the side. We have lots of veterans coming through now on the GI Bill and plenty of 'non-traditional' students too.

At RVCC are a lot of working class immigrant kids. Lots of Latins in this part of Jersey, plenty of African American students and a growing Indian population. This later growth makes sense as Chindia is right around the corner. I know, I live there. The Indian parents don't mind saving a buck. Can't say that for the Chinese, who are still sending their kids to Rutgers, Princeton, etc. Defying the imagination, there is still not a decent Chinese restaurant around here, but that is a subject for another post. In nearly 7 years of teaching I have had three, count 'em, three Asian students, one was adopted, one was an adult. its not a stereotype if its true...

Most of the students couldn't care less about all this history stuff, much less current events. As far as the issues brought up by the 'elite' students, they would have no idea what to think.

Sorry, this isn't a race thing, its a class thing. You have to have a lot of money to care about what the Princeton school of international affairs is named. My students are far too busy.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Blame the Prof. I know I do.

All this student unrest on various college campuses brings me back...ahhhhh the early 1990's

Back in my undergrad days me and all the other poly sci majors at Wesley College were student activists. Don't be impressed, in 1993 the poly sci department had two professors and a dozen students. Needless to say we were a tight nit group. Where all friends on FB now.

We were Generation X, don't you know, and pretty apathetic. Its not that we didn't care, we all saw what was wrong with Wesley College in 1993, its just that we didn't see what good we could do.

Our mentor, the chair of the department spent 1992 and 1993 trying to talk us into taking action. Now, as for Tony, the chair, let's talk about him. Visually, I want you to picture Mr. Van Driesen from Beavis and Butthead. There you go. I'm not making this up. Tony wore a collard shirt and blazer though. He was from Idaho, a Mormon and had done a hitch in the army and followed the Seattle Sea Hawks.

We could never pin down Tony's politics. He was somewhere left, we knew that, but he insisted he wasn't a socialist. Tony had all the cynicism of an early '90s baby boomer but there was a sense of hope, a belief in what people could do. I know now that politically he was something like George Orwell, a democratic socialist who believed in freedom, and freedom of speech. He hated Wesley College's administration.

Now, remember, the poly sci students were a tight knit group. We usually attended class in what had been the drawing room of an old Victorian house (sometimes Tony would take us to the local dive). Here Tony spent a fair amount of class time talking to us about trying to change things on campus. It wasn't of the 'you can make a difference, maaaaan...' variety. That wasn't Tony. He wasn't an ex-hippie, he was a concerned professor. By the fall of '93 Tony had gotten me, Paul, Ben, Lorna, Alfonso, Martel, Chris, and a few others to take an interest in what was happening. Ben and I won a seat on the Student Government Association, we wrote newspaper editorials. When that wasn't enough we founded our own newspaper. Paul ran for SGA president. We raised a little hell. The admin hated us. After I wrote a critical editorial the college president called me into his office and berated me. Bastard.

I don't think we changed anything but we sure caused trouble.

So I think its pretty obvious that most of the student trouble at Mizzou, Yale, Amherst, etc etc is being stoked by the professors. I'm a college professor myself. These kids wouldn't put down their phones if you paid them. Threaten them all you want, it won't do any good. Behind all this trouble is some gray haired prof.

Friday, November 13, 2015

Report from the RVCC Social Active Collective

Join us for a Teach-In challenging fear and prejudice against people of other cultures. What is Islamophobia, and how does it affect our community? How and why is anti-immigrant rhetoric on the rise? What is a "real" American?

Come to listen, learn, and add your voice to the discussion.
            The Social Action Collective.

God, it could have been so much worse.

The event was organized by two professors, one of whom I know socially. Nice guy, actually. Un-shaved, dressed in teh scruffy-sheek style, un-tucked, short sleeve button-down shirt, etc...

He read from a prepared statement, giving a brief history of American xenophobia and thereby disproving the notion that the country was in the midst of a racism epidemic. People used to distrust the Irish, who knew? Americans worried about mass immigration from eastern Europe? Really? This professor seemed unaware that people are naturally suspicious of those who are different. Who among us hasn't looked over an unfamiliar car in our neighborhood? There were lots of references to Yale. Missouri, and such.

Next came a series of student experiences. These too disproved the whole thesis of the event.  One Muslim student, a veteran, said his CO had once told him that anti-ISIS efforts should be named Operation Kill All Muslims. Another Muslim student said in elementary school he got sent to the shrink for playing guns. A series of Latin students related experiences of the 'why can't you speak English?' variety. An Asian student pointed out that the only racism that she experienced came from black people. Sound familiar? A black professor talked about 'white privilege', but that's a discussion for another post. 

Toward the end one student, himself an army veteran spoke and pointed out that just because a person criticized a religion doesn't mean he is 'Islamaphobic' and the term is used to shut down discussion of Islam and its many problems. At this point the other organizing professor jumped in, for the first time I should add, interrupting a student and challenging him.

The professor hopped into the speaking area and asked questions, his face alight with mischief. Our atheist stood his ground, repeating over and over again that one can criticize something without hating it or people who believe in it. He had a short, civil discussion afterwords with a few kids from the RVCC Muslim Student Association. 

The above mentioned interrupting professor is interesting.  Youthful, 30-ish. Casually but sharply dressed. Baggy jeans, but with a button down, sweater and tie. Seems very friendly and open. I see him holding class outside sometimes. I went an looked him up on Rate My Professor. His reviews are universally positive, the students like him a lot. Also filled with leftist dogma making reference to 'white privilege', 'systems of oppression', 'radical right wing groups' etc etc. Has annoying habit of snapping his fingers when he hears something he likes. A lot of people were doing that, which seems to be some sort of leftist trend.

After about an hour, the meeting, attended by say, a hundred students, broke up. I went over to the head of the MSA and arranged a talk before his group on the Arab-Israeli wars. I've been to a few of their functions, nice kids. 

My own sense, after attending this thing is quite hopeful at least about the students. There's no hope for the professors.

God, it could have been so much worse.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

1915-2015 From the Introduction to my forthcoming book on Pershing and the AEF

It is not true to say that America has forgotten the Great War. Too many Americans have photos in the attic of grandpa or great-grandpa in stiff-necked, uncomfortable Doughboy uniforms. Hundreds if not thousands of towns have statues of Doughboys outfitted in trench-coat and British style helmet and carrying a bayonet tipped Springfield Model 1903 Rifle. The Great War shows up in American pop culture. In the movie Forest Gump, the audience sees a macabre montage of Lt. Dan’s forbearers dying in every major American war, a tri-corner hat wearing continental, a gray-capped Confederate soldier, and a trench coat clad Doughboy. The army named the M-26 Tank after Pershing while a square next to Grand Central Station in Manhattan honors the general.
            Still, as Europe commemorates the Great War’s Centennial it is obvious that the conflict does not have a strong hold on American memory. For the European the Great War broke the 99 years ‘long peace’ that saw no major continent wide war. In America the Great War falls between the nation’s two existential conflicts, the Civil War on one end and World War Two on the other. The Civil war still occupies a central place in American popular memory, more so in the south but among the northern states as well. World War Two was part of the texture of everyday life in postwar America. Everybody’s father or grandfathers had fought in Europe or the Pacific. Every weekend in the 1970s and 80’s one could turn on the TV and see a movie about World War Two. Where the army of World War Two road into battle on Lee, Grant, Stuart and Sherman tanks, the military table of organization and equipment was peppered with vehicles named for the war’s generals and admirals; the Patton Tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the mighty Nimitz Class aircraft carrier. Tom Brokaw wrote a love letter in The Greatest Generation, a final send off to the men and women who won the Second World War. That generation, and America at large, knew what it was fighting for and fighting against.
            The reasons for the Great War are a bit obscure for an American. Most will wonder why the assignation of some duke in a strange sounding city was worth a continent-wide war that killed millions, and was the Kaiser really that bad, anyway? Here once again the other two great American wars overwhelm the Great War, for however bad the Kaiser may have been, nothing he did can compare to the pure evil of Adolph Hitler. The reasons for America’s entry into the war are just as vague. When askedmost Americans would answer ‘The Lusitania’ if they would answer at all. Few know about Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare and fewer still about Germany’s ridiculous offer of military and diplomatic help to Mexico if she attacked the United States.
            One hundred year ago America was a different place than it is today. Few had plumbing or electricity. The consumer culture was still in its infancy and few had disposal income to spend on luxury goods. People dressed much more formally, and informal attire had nothing in common with modern ‘leisure ware’. While as with today America was in the midst of a great immigrant wave unlike today those immigrants were overwhelmingly European. German was as ubiquitous as Spanish is now. Americans were discovering an exotic food then called ‘tomato pie’.
            In 1914 when an American referred to ‘the war’ he meant the Civil War; hundreds of thousands of Union and Confederate veterans participated in yearly parades and bored their grandkids with the same old stories of the March through Georgia or the Seven Days. Those veterans were ghosts of an army long past. As will be discussed below, unlike today, in 1914 America had no army to speak of, merely a constabulary scattered throughout the west with outposts in Hawaii and the Philippines. America’s army was smaller than Portugal’s and the German general staff, which studied everything, including the American Civil War, gave the U.S. Army of 1914 not thought at all. The navy had some punch and global reach but did not master the seas the way the USN has since 1945.
            Baseball was already the national past time while football reigned supreme at the college level. Women could not vote and blacks were strictly segregated. The growing temperance movement was on the verge of success. Cinema was a new technology that most had yet to experience. Demonstrating how much the nation has changed in the last century the most important film of the time was Birth of the Nation, a racial passion play that helped revive the Klan and was screened in the White House by President Woodrow Wilson.
            Wilson was a product of his time. Born in the south he eventually became a professor at Princeton  and governor of New Jersey. His election to the presidency was an historical accident brought about by the fracture of the Republican Party into two camps, one for the sitting President William Howard Taft the other for the upstart and former president Theodore Roosevelt. If the GOP had a united ticket, it would have defeated Wilson by more than a million votes in 1912. Wilson was a very much turn of the century democrat. A progressive who wanted to improve the lot of the common man via the power of the Federal Government, but also a staunch Segregationist who introduced the practice to the Federal work force. He may have been an idealist, but he understood that from 1914-16 America was not ready for and did not want to enter the Great War. That said, he disliked Germany in general, thought the Germans the aggressor and personally supported the Allies. While Wilson was troubled by Germany’s actions much of his time was occupied  by events in Mexico, where a civil war was spilling over the Rio Grande into the United States. Most of the Regular Army and National Guard was deployed along the border and in Vera Cruz, an almost forgotten event dimly remembered by Americans through movies like Sam Pekinpaugh’s The Wild Bunch.
            From 1914 to 1917 the ongoing struggle in Europe was a controversial topic in America, editorialized in the pages of American newspapers, debated on college campus, and argued about over family dinner. America’s sympathies generally but not universally lay with the Allies. Millions of German Americans had family fighting for the Kaiser. Millions of Irish-Americans deeply resented the British, who as recently as 1916 crushed the Irish Easter Rebellion. Wilson may have wanted to join the war on the Allies’ side but without a cause bellis, there was nothing he could do to persuade America to go to war. Fortunately the Germans provided him with one.


Monday, November 9, 2015

Adjuncting: 2015

I'd like to draw reader's attention to this piece in the Weekly Standard. Everything about it is absolutely, metaphysically true. Everything,  from the bloated admin, to the adjuncts being treated like Home Depot day laborers. I have colleagues that teach at several colleges, who walk into the adjunct lounge carrying big trunks full of papers, who indeed conduct business out of their cars and are in their 40s single, and living in a one room apartment carved out of an old Victorian in Easton, Pa.

Let us now draw the reader's attention to this article about professors and dress codes.

They're a disheveled lot, these middle aged adjuncts. Let's be honest, their clothes are in tatters. The middle aged women wear a lot of long, flowing skirts, or blue jeans. There a few older men, math teachers in fact, in crisp jeans and button-downed shirts. Nice guys, actually. Most of the male adjuncts, though, are dressed in grey trousers or blue, they alternate, and a just barely appropriate shirt, we call it the 'I'm middle-aged and I need to be comfortable look.' We'll get into the younger ones in a few paragraphs. Bottom line, none of these people would know how to dress appropriately for a business meeting.

Time for another article. Why are there so few conservatives on campus?

I've been an adjunct for six years now. Before we get to the crux of the question, a bit, a we bit I promise, bio is in order. The author is a dyslexic college drop out who in 2001 went back to school (online, mind you) because he'd been out of work for 8 months. One of his profs suggested that a paper he wrote was really good and should be submitted to a magazine. And away we went, one hundred magazine articles 6 (almost 7) novels, a blog and meeting last week with an agent about his new history of Pershing and the AEF later, he's a author, he's a writer.  That's what he does. Ironically, the above mentioned paper (about Masinissa in the 2nd Punic War) has still never been published.God its been a hard slog, every rung of the later has been greased and at the top of the ramparts there are mailed-knights dropping hot sand and pitch. On a whim in 2009 he sent his CV to the community college around the corner, Raritan Valley.  A year later, while he was holding his second new born daughter in his arms, the phone rang and the caller ID read,'RVCC'.

Let us now go back to the first piece in the Weekly Standard about the plight of the adjunct. We'll pull a quote:
Adjuncting wasn’t designed to be this way. Until relatively recently adjunct professors were typically ultra-educated people who didn’t need the paltry pay because they had other sources of income: retired professors on pensions who wanted to teach a class or two to keep their hand in, high-earning professionals who might teach “clinical” classes in which they shared their real-world experiences with students, and married women with family responsibilities who chose not to teach full-time. The adjuncts of yore essentially taught for love, or to pay for a nice vacation with their spouses.
That's me, folks.

Now, the author of the piece is right about the 'plight of the adjuncts'.  On FB my colleagues bombard me  with graphs about pay disparity and work loads. Most of them blame 'corporatization'. They're incapable of seeing the real culprit, the administrative bloat. The dean for this, the assistant dean for that, etc. Honestly, I have no idea what these deans do all day.

We're at war with the full time tenure track profs, but the adjuncts don't even know it. Remember your humble writer's medieval climb up the later?

A year ago he got a phone call from an official (Official-1) informing him that a full time prof was taking one of his classes.  Official-1 was a leftist radical who understood the author's politics and didn't care one bit, the official offered another class as compensation. A few months later the new official (Official-2) called and informed your author that the same prof was now taking the new class as well. Your author was were pissed, of course, and even went to the full time prof's office looking for him. He wasn't there.  Official-2 said he'd 'Take care of me' in the spring. Spring rolled around and your writer received no new classes. Official-2 made excuses and criticized your author's syllabus.

We used the only leverage we had and went nuclear, resigning with two weeks left in the semester. To your writer's amazement the chair caved. The author wouldn't have. Furious meetings with Official-2  and another individual (Official-3)  followed in which your author agreed to include more none western civ stuff (not a big deal, really it isn't) and include more class activities (they love that crap). All was resolved or so we thought.

Last spring, after inquiring about the class list, your author was sent this email by Official-3:

When we meet next week, we will review your plans for the summer semester and look at the changes you have made this semester. Please bring your exams, syllabi, and collect some sample student work at different points in the grade spectrum. We will make future assignments on a semester-by-semester basis reflecting your progress toward effective teaching of World History.

A month before the above email, I had to severe all contacts with a magazine that had refused to pay me for designing a Meuse-Argonne war game, and the above email is still the most insulting thing that's happened in my professional career. Let me tell you something, sweatie, I was already an effective teacher of World History.

Official-2 claims its all worked out and your author will be teaching in the spring. We'll see what happens.

So adjuncts are treated horribly. We (by which I mean 'I') knew that going in, and always had an advantage my colleagues didn't. We could always walk away. And did. Most other adjuncts don't have that option. They do have one option though, but they would never do it.

They could get a real job. These people would never do that. Nooooooooo, they have a right to living as a prof. They studied, they worked hard, as grad students they schtupped the prof, and its owed to them. Get their hands dirty? Please. The coffee shop where this piece was written is hiring. Don't worry folks, its not a trendy soy-latte-grande coffee shop, but the kind of joint people stop into on their way to work to pick up a coffee and a bagel.

And don't think there's hope for the younger ones coming in. These are the folks in their mid-20s with 150K in debt. Maybe I'm just middle aged [you are -ed] but these kids today. The women are dressed like the students, and I don't even want to think about how the young men are attired. Last semester the guy I shared a classroom with wore paint stained pants, a sweatshirt and a baseball cap. Yesterday I saw a guy in the adjunct office in blue pants, a grey button down shirt he didn't tuck in 45 days of growth on his face and an unruly haircut. He looked like he should be trolling for drag-queens down at the Port Authority.

So, those are my colleagues.

Getting back now to the question of why there are so few conservatives on campus, there is one matter that we've never heard anyone mention. To walk onto a campus in the 21st century is to be bombarded by leftist kant. Walking through the humanities department one gets bombard by = stickers, 'justice for Mike Brown' placards, 'social justice' posters and the like. Just going through the cafeteria one see's posters saying America is practicing 'apartheid' in Puerto Rico, 'Black Lives Matter' rallies, and the latest feminist play being performed on campus. A few days ago, this showed up in my in box:

Join us for a Teach-In challenging fear and prejudice against people of other cultures. What is Islamophobia, and how does it affect our community? How and why is anti-immigrant rhetoric on the rise? What is a "real" American?

Come to listen, learn, and add your voice to the discussion.
            The Social Action Collective.

Albert Finney said 'don't let the bastards grind you down' in Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, but it's hard not too.

Honestly, we are wondering if its worth it anymore.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

41!

We're finally getting a serious bio of President Bush (41).

Ahh, the elder Bush. To this Gen Xr's mind, the brunt of Dana Carvey impersonations and terminally un-cool. He barfed on the Japanese Prime Minister. Talk about Japan bashing...now there's an idea from another era....

Sometimes its just time for a change.

Back then his voice was like nails on a chalk-bard for me. I have since learned that I come to feel that way about all presidents.

George Bush was the first president I voted against. I voted for Bill '92 and regret nothing. Honestly he seemed like a distant and aloof patrician. I loathed the man.

I have also learned that to judge a president, one needs time. We certainly have that.

Bush actually managed the recession of '92 well. I have heard it argued, by Michael Barone I think, that the tax cuts he approved actually helped fill the treasury during the '90s boom.

Bush handled the savings and loan crisis and the BCCI scandal.

Bush was an excellent war time president.

You see, there's a reason I kept him as president for World War 1990.

Why do you think, genius?

Over at The Week, they're wondering why there aren't a lot of conservative college professors:

But here's my question: What's behind the apparent bias? Is it merely a matter of leftists hiring the like-minded and excluding those who dissent from the party line? No doubt, that's part of it. But I think the story is also far more complicated. And this complication makes it very unlikely that simple calls for hiring more conservatives on the grounds of fairness or diversity will make a meaningful difference in rectifying the ideological imbalance.
So let's pretend you're a conservative on campus. I don't have to pretend because I am. There's one thing I never anticipated when I took the job. That is, the sheer monotony of it all, the day in, day out bombardment of leftism everywhere one looks. Here's a poster saying America is practicing apartheid in Puerto Rico, there's a poster on a meeting about campus 'rape culture.' I once attended a planning meeting about commemorating 9/11 and Pearl Harbor and the topics quickly devolved into discussions on the legacy of slavery and the feminine mystique. One professor (sociology, what else?) said he didn't want America to be portrayed as 'a victim of WWII'. That's a direct quote. Yesterday, this showed up in my in-box:
Join us for a Teach-In challenging fear and prejudice against people of other cultures. What is Islamophobia, and how does it affect our community? How and why is anti-immigrant rhetoric on the rise? What is a "real" American?
Come to listen, learn, and add your voice to the discussion.

The Social Action Collective
What is one to do?  I've pulled a few shenanigans at these things, but really, what's the point?

Walk on....walk on to class and teach some American history.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Makhija for the win!

I live in Chindia. Half my block is Chinese. The other half is Indian. I'm exaggerating of course, but only a little.

Today we have local elections that pit out incumbent Mayor Hayes up against the the upstart Nahdi Makhija.

I voted for Hayes the last time, mostly because he came to my house and solicited my support.

Its nice to be wanted.

Its become a family tradition that Mrs. Stroock and I take the girls to go vote with us. They like to press all the buttons. This time around I noticed something interesting, a sea of brown faces queuing up to vote. It doesn't take a genius to figure out they're voting for Makhija.

There's nothing wrong with ethnic solidarity. Not for a new immigrant group at least.

Alright, GOP. You're the stupid party for a reason. It's not my place to judge who or why your mother slept with, his background, or even species. What she did on her own time is her business. The product of that unholy sexual union against the laws of man and nature is you.

Nikki Haley, GOP. She's the governor of South Carolina. Make her your nominee for Veep. Just due it. Haley for Veep.

For once win over a new constituency.

Just do it.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

What's Russki for 'you're dead'? ...Ty trup

ISIS claims it shot down the Russian air liner that crashed in Sinai. Over at Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft has video.

Is the video real? Who knows? My initial judgement is yes, its real. But then again, they didn't teach much missile forensics at Wesley College, so its just a guess.

I do have one question for ISIS, though.

Are you our of your freakin' mind?

I've published a bit on the Russian war in Chechnya. Let's just say the comrade Putin has a different strategy for dealing with Islamic terrorists. They leveled Grozny block by block, paid no mind at all to civilian casualties, and made captured Chechen fighters perform sex acts on one another during interrogation. I think the below video sums up Putin's attitude on the matter:

Of course, the questioner would be some sissy Frenchman.

If this doesn't explain the American 'cult of Putin' nothing will.

Of course, the Soviets had close ties to Egypt for much of the Cold War. Israel's warehouses full of Captured Egyptian army equipment is Soviet in origin. Getting back into Egypt is certainly possible for Putin.

One doubts the Egyptians would mind. They certainly can't handle ISIS. Heck, the Israelis would be ok with Russian presence there as well. At least Putin crush the terrorists.

What a wonderful possibility, a historical POD, what is Sharon was still with us? Sharon, the born in Palestine, was a Russian Jew. Imagine those two in a room together, talking about killing terrorists? Da, da indeed.