California Conservative

Not just in America. What will they say?

AP reports: “An 18-year- old gunman opened fire at his high school in this placid town in southern Finland on Wednesday, killing seven other students and the principal before mortally wounding himself in a rampage that stunned a nation where gun crime is rare.”

Being raised in today’s violent video game “culture,” it’s no surprise to see this happening. Or the message he’s wearing.

Police were analyzing YouTube postings that appeared to anticipate the massacre, including clips in which a young man calls for revolution and apparently prepares for the attack by test firing a semiautomatic handgun.

Investigators said the gunman, who was not identified, shot himself in the head after the shooting spree at Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 30 miles north of the capital, Helsinki. He died later at Toolo Hospital in Helsinki.

The teen killed five boys, two girls and the female principal with a .22-caliber pistol, police said.

Revolution? Against what? Blondes?

At least he wasn’t wearing a Che Guevara shirt.

UPDATE: BREAKING 11/12/07
Lawyer: Finnish teen, Pa. boy chatted

AP reports: “A teenager who admitted plotting a school attack near Philadelphia had communicated online about the Columbine massacre with a teenage outcast who killed eight people and himself in a high school shooting in Finland, the Pennsylvania boy’s attorney said Monday.
. . .

Finnish police said material seized from the computer of Pekka-Eric Auvinen suggests the 18-year-old had communicated online with Dillon Cossey, 14, who was arrested in October on suspicion of preparing an attack at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School in suburban Philadelphia. The attack never took place.

Cossey’s attorney, J. David Farrell, said that he showed Auvinen’s online screen name to the Pennsylvania boy Monday and that his client remembered communicating with the Finnish teen in August or September about video games and the 1999 Columbine massacre in Colorado and exchanging videos they found on the Internet.

“They had discussed certain video games and shared videos with each other,” Farrell said. “Obviously, Columbine was a shared topic of interest.”

The two met through the YouTube video-sharing site, Farrell said. They also exchanged posts on a Web site dedicated to the Columbine killers, traded e-mail and likely chatted on certain Web sites, he said.”

–

..what were we saying about a “violent video game ‘culture’”?

I was saddened to see HBO’s final episode of The Wire last Sunday.

As a career cop who spent 20 years on the street, I have never experienced a more accurate portrayal of police officers and their struggle with the political and social realities of the inner city. Unlike the stylized fantasies that characterize most police dramas, The Wire mugs you with reality.

If it was up to me, I’d make The Wire required viewing for all police recruits in America, and I’d make the final season required viewing for all aspiring public school teachers.

The writing, production, sets, cast and crew are remarkable.

In the final episode, there’s a heartbreaking scene between a homeless junkie named Bubbles and beleaguered homicide Sergeant Landsman. Hardly a word is spoken between them for two minutes, but those two minutes say more than all of the police shows, experts, talking heads, activists, or I could ever say. After viewing the entire series, that scene may be one of the most powerful I’ve witnessed on television.
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There’s a new controversy brewing, but the answer is quite simple: It’s called resisting arrest.

Video here.

So let’s break it down: If someone enters a library or computer lab, [Updated 11/20: sits around but, when asked about his identity at 11:30pm according to school policy*, he refuses to show his ID, he refuses to leave, waits for police to arrive and then] he starts screaming and carrying-on like a maniac, you’d fully expect the authorities to control the situation. You’d want him to be removed from the premises. Right?

*Note: Tabatabainejad failed to produce his BruinCard during a random check after 11:00 p.m., a university policy intended to ensure that only UCLA students, faculty and staff can use the facility late at night.

So, when this individual was asked to leave, threatened to be tasered but continued to rant, he suffered the consequences. This isn’t about inappopriate action by the police, it’s about inappropriate behavior by a vitriolic student who was all worked up and yelling anti-establishment rhetoric like he just finished reading the DailyKos or DemocraticUnderground.

For all those crying boo-hoo, you’re missing the point. Here’s another real-life example of why laws without enforcement, why threats without consequence, don’t work. If a police officer or other authority never uses his or her weapon, they will cease to have any effect. They will not be taken seriously. Like the U.N. Maybe this guy was counting on that. Maybe he believed that he could “act up” and proceed with civil disobedience, and the officers would just stand by and take his antics. Wrong.

Among his liberal use of vulgar epithets, Mr. Tabatabainejad said something that stands out to us and is worth repeating. In a fit of drama, he screamed: “Yes, I’m leaving. I’m leaving this godforesaken place.”

Now, was he talking about the UCLA campus? Or America in general? Either way, we’d be happy to see him take his hostility elsewhere. Evidently, taxpayer-funded public education is a waste of resources on him. We’re sure someone else would gladly take his spot. Or maybe next time, he’ll just pull out a gun and start shooting people before the officers taser him, because they’re too afraid of public reprimand.

Michelle Malkin has extended coverage.

UPDATE: (11/18)
Mustafa alters his FaceBook profile (Verrry interesting…)
HotAir: “UCLA Students Demonstrate…”
Patterico notes: “Cha-ching! The student is looking to cash in on his tasing” (Who would’ve guessed?)
Jay Stephenson wonders, “why people make such a big deal out of tasers.”

(It’s always something. If they hosed Tabatabainejad down with ice-water, some people would still be complaining)

Reuters reports: “Student leaders at a California college have touched off a furor by banning the Pledge of Allegiance at their meetings, saying they see no reason to publicly swear loyalty to God and the U.S. government.”

They must have too much free time on their hands.

“The move was led by three recently elected student trustees, who ran for office wearing revolutionary-style berets and said they do not believe in publicly swearing an oath to the American flag and government at their school. One student trustee voted against the measure, which does not apply to other student groups or campus meetings.”

Wonder what their parents dress like.

Berets? Like Che Guevara? Viva la revolution?

The move by Orange Coast College student trustees, the latest clash over patriotism and religion in American schools, has infuriated some of their classmates — prompting one young woman to loudly recite the pledge in front of the board on Wednesday night in defiance of the rule.

“America is the one thing I’m passionate about and I can’t let them take that away from me,” 18-year-old political science major Christine Zoldos told Reuters.

“The fact that they have enough power to ban one of the most valued traditions in America is just horrible,” Zoldos said, adding she would attend every board meeting to salute the flag.

Well, at least there’s one person with some proper sense of respect and belonging.

OC Register further reports:

Three of five Associated Students trustees took the action Monday, with board member Jason Ball calling the flag salute “irrelevant to the business of student government.”

“While it’s great to be an American, and I’m proud to be an American, yadda-yadda-yadda, and I appreciate all the rituals, I’m done” saluting the flag, Ball said Wednesday.

. . .

The three trustees who voted not to acknowledge the salute – Ball, Regis Jues and Coyotl Tezcatlipoca – remained seated while about two dozen attendees recited verses. Trustee Chairman Brent Bettes, who didn’t participate in Monday’s vote, also remained silent. Board member Michelle Schneider, the sole dissenting vote, took part.

. . .

While religious overtones were one element of the trustees’ motivation, other concerns existed. “Nationalism is something that divides people,” said Ball, wearing black boots, a beret and a hammer-and-sickle pin.

By definition, nationalism unites. Muliculturalism, otherwise known as diversity, divides.

But what can you expect from someone talking PC-rhetoric while wearing a hammer-and-sickle?

Perhaps he’s too busy being a fearless campus activist and missed class about Soviet-style communism.

Yes, they were against organized religion. But they were also against individuality. While fiercely nationalist, communism demands conformity by all — except the leadership, of course. Is that what he’s thinking?

While this punk is woefully in need of education, here’s a quick lesson: the pledge is about patriotism. And had he been born into a communist nation and propose not singing the national anthem, they would probably jail him — after beating him. If only we could find out.

But who cares? He’s safe to suck his thumb under the cover of freedom in the U.S. And evidently, it’s hip to dress like a subversive, combat boots and Columbine-chic, while trying to tear down establishment and that which gives young people the rights and privileges to be educated at taxpayers’ expense.

In this case, we clearly need a refund.

UPDATE: More “San Francisco values”…
Michelle Malkin: “Waging war on JROTC”

Tonight I saw a commercial in opposition to Prop 85, stating that proposition 85 would force a child to tell an abusive parent that she was having an abortion. The implication was that telling the parent could potentially put the child at risk of her parent harming her. The irony of that implication aside, it is frankly untrue. Proponents of the bill simply support abortion on demand, under any circumstances, any age, any time. The interest of the child is not their motive.

The text of the bill is clear.

Notice shall not be required under this Section if waived pursuant to this subdivision and subdivisions (h) or (i) or (j)

(h)(2) If the judge finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that notice to a parent or guardian is not in the best interests of the unemancipated minor, the judge shall authorize a waiver of notice. If the finding that notice to a parent or guardian is not in the best interests of the minor is based on evidence of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, the court shall ensure that such evidence is brought to the attention of the appropriate county child protective agency.

Not only does this clearly present that children with abusive parents will be protected, but it goes one step beyond and reports the parents for their abuses! It’s clear that this is in the best interest of children.

In the Article “Proposition 85 Parental notification can help stop statutory rape, child molestation” by Edith Black (published online at The Catholic Voice), informs us that

Yet studies across the country are now showing that most minor teenage pregnancies are the result of girls’ sexual activity with adult men, not with their teenage peers. In California a study of 46,000 pregnant teenage girls showed that 71 percent of them were impregnated by adult men whose mean age was 22.6 years. Such sexual predators generally try to cover up their crime by arranging for their victim to have an abortion, sometimes even coercing them.

With this in mind, it certainly seems that this proposition, if passed, would protect children by “fishing out” statutory rapists.

Proposition 85 is sound policy, with provisions to protect children with potentially abusive parents. It is sound policy, and should deserves passage.

Cross Posted at The Gentle Cricket

Progressive educators today proudly declare that they don’t warp students’ minds by teaching specific bodies of knowledge, by teaching to the test; they teach students how to think. That concept is a meaningless and dangerous abstraction.

Commenting upon a recent posting, a reader wrote:

“…. Now, if you go to college, you learn how to analyze information critically as opposed to reeling with whatever gut, emotional response you get. You learn not “What to think,” but “How to think.” The only way that education will ever succeed in our times is if it raises a generation of children who can not only read, but read between the lines.”

No one would disagree with the sentiment that children should be able to understand the context of what they read and have a sufficient breadth of knowledge to bring critical judgment to what they read.

But the concept of learning how to think, as a stand-alone pedagogy, is meaningless. One has to think about something, and, in order to understand what one is thinking about, is is necessary to learn a great many facts about that something. In many cases understanding comes only with much practice and drill.

One might as well hand an oboe to an untutored music student and lecture him on how to think about playing the oboe, without benefit of being able to read music and without practice to master the mechanics of producing correct notes from the instrument.

This is particularly true, for example, in mathematics. When a teacher presents a concept with a blackboard demonstration, keener students may be able to follow each step of the process. But only later, working alone at home on assignments, will the student discover what he doesn’t know and in the process learn the concept sufficiently well to solve similar problems in the future.

When students are allowed to use electronic calculators to solve problems, their minds are not engaged in any meaningful way with mathematics itself. They might as well be playing a video game. (more…)

Last week, Democrats were crowing about the cover John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham were providing on the interrogation and military tribunals for terrorists. That cover disappeared Thursday night when the White House and McCain, Warner and Graham reached a deal on this legislation.

The Beltway media will spin this as President Bush giving up more than McCain but, based on the first reporting, the opposite is most likely the truth. What this deal does is force Democratic legislators and candidates off the fence. Here’s how Jim Webb handled it on MTP:

MR. WEBB: I’m with Senator Warner on this, and I think in terms of what Colin Powell is saying, that’s a very important piece of how we view—how we deal long-term with the Islamic world particularly, that we have to stay on the moral high ground. And what you’re seeing here is a split between the theorists, who have controlled so much of the policy in this administration, theorists who have never been on a battlefield, who have never put a uniform on, and who are looking at this thing in a totally different way from people who have had to worry about their troops and themselves possibly coming under enemy hands. This is a very easy issue for me to decide on.

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I’ve been somewhat critical of certain bills coming out of the California State Legislature this year; I think SB 840 will bankrupt the state, and I think AB 2948/2949 are ludicrous at changing the way our elections are held. However, there is at least one positive bill coming out of the state legislature, and I believe that it will have a profound effect on our schools. It is SB 1655, authored by Sen. Jack Scott (D), and it has seen strong bipartisan support on it’s way to the Governor’s desk.

In California, like in so many states where Teachers Unions have disproportionate influence, it is difficult to fire a bad teacher. Very difficult. Currently in California, when a teacher agrees to leave a school voluntarily, they are guaranteed a job at every other school! Whichever school they submit their application to has to hire them! Obviously, this is a ridiculous practice, and SB 1655 would help to put an end to it.

Naturally, the teachers’ union opposes the legislation. In the San Francisco Chronicle today:

Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association, called the bill “insulting to teachers,” because it implies that every teacher who voluntarily leaves a school is a poor one. Some teachers leave a school for reasons unrelated to performance, such as a personality clash with a principal.

Ms. Kerr is being misleading in stating that it implies that every teacher that leaves is a bad teacher. Furthermore, good teachers that leave shouldn’t have a difficult time finding new employment; bad teachers will. (more…)

When a puppy stops peeing on your carpet, it’s important to give him lots of praise and encouragement. So when the New York and LA Times gets a story right, it’s important to do the same.

I’m talking about their reviews of HBO’s The Wire, which starts its forth season tonight. If you’ve missed the first three seasons, you’ve missed some of America’s most important and relevant television in decades. No other crime drama captures the anguish and frustration of good people trying to make things better in a society twisted by politicians, unions, drugs, corruption, and crime. The Wire tells this story with honest clarity that Hollywood liberals are too self-conscious to present.

As the show’s creator, David Simon, explains, “Cop shows in particular have no interest in it because it screws with the basic motif of catching the bad guy… In police procedurals, the people being pursued… are really there to validate the morality and the superiority and the intellect and the heroism of the authorities.”

Simon describes the frustration felt by most cops and public school teachers I’ve known, that in “post-modern America, institutions that are ostensibly there to serve people and are ostensibly there for people to serve, end up betraying people on a fundamental level.” This is probably why highly motivated and promising new teachers quit within their first five years, and why cops like me cannot wait to abandon the profession we love.

Writer and producer Edward Burns is a former Baltimore homicide detective who taught social studies in a middle school for seven years after leaving the police department. Out of the 200 students Burns instructed in his first year, 13 had been shot — two of them twice.

“I was in the infantry in Vietnam,” he recounted. “I chased escapees and murderers and rapists. I was in homicide. There’s nothing like walking into a middle school in a setting like Baltimore.”

The forth season of The Wire delves into the realities of our disastrous public school monopolies. Anyone who cares about our children, inner cities, and America’s future must see this series. And if Simon hits a home run the way he did in the first three years, viewers with the courage to watch will understand why our public schools cannot be fixed, why our children need charters and vouchers to escape, and why Hollywood liberals, the unions, and the politicians they buy refuse to tell this story.

Read Matea Gold’s reviewHERE
& Virginia Heffernan’s review HERE

I’d like to thank this fine institution for the opportunity to speak to the Class of 2006. I’m sure you’ve had your fill of lectures, but in the fine tradition of academia, you’ll have to endure one more before we push you out the door into the real world.

I say “real world” for a reason. And with that, my comments today will center on what I consider a profound quote.

Although he is a prominent American economist, political writer, commentator, and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute, many of your professors probably have never shared with you any of Thomas Sowell’s writings because he’s a black conservative.

My favorite of Dr. Sowell’s musings is this: “The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.”

It so happens that Thomas Sowell was talking about the very place you’re sitting now. He’s talking about some of your teachers, and we’re both challenging the value of some of what you’ve been taught. As you’re now receiving your diplomas, it’s obvious that what I’m about to tell you is kind of after the fact.

Unfortunately, timing is everything.

Some of the people I hang with consider some elements of liberalism, the philosophy you’ve received a healthy dose of these last few years, to be socialism. To back this up, let me read to you some of the current communist goals as written in “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen…
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