On violence
Letter to the editor;
“Violence does not solve everything.” (Authentic American proverb)
“Have we been told that ‘violence does not solve everything’ so often that we have come to believe that violence does not solve anything?” (The late Col. Jeff Cooper)
Generally, when no violence is offered, it is not a good thing to commit violence.
Generally, one must not commit violence. That is, if some “really bad dude” is saying bad words and moving in a manner suggestive of evil intentions, the best thing to do is to watch and wait.
However, if the bad guy goes from mere rhetoric to hurting people, it might be a good idea to hit him with a fist or a ball-bat or something. If he is killing people or making a really convincing show that he will kill someone in a second or two, it may be time “to initiate deadly force” – or maybe even shoot him.
The Arizona Legislature made it possible for responsible residents with clean records to carry concealed weapons: You and your predecessors knew violence.
Violence happens fairly often at schools. Mostly it is stopped by a school employee stepping in and saying words to the students involved.
But there is a kind of school violence that is beyond stopping with words and gestures. There is the dreaded “school-shooter,” who, driven by inner demons, comes prepared to kill as many children as possible. It takes the threat of deadly force, or perhaps even deadly force itself to stop such a disturbed man.
The fastest police force may be able to get there in a minute. (How many children will a school-shooter kill in a minute?) But every school can have a great number of responsible adults with guns in their hands IN ONE SECOND.
I recommend that the Arizona Legislature act to encourage Arizona schools to welcome those who have earned the Concealed Weapons Permit to carry their weapons on the school grounds – especially school employees.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Friday, June 20, 2008
The "logic" of "Liberalism"
T H E O P I N I O N P A P E R glenn3@frontiernet.net
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
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Spoofing “Liberalism”
Letter to the editor;
LIBERAL: We need a giant government program to make war on illiteracy.
ME: “War . . . ”?!
LIBERAL: Certainly. We can put a tax on books and newspapers and use the money to fund a National Literacy Agency with local headquarters in each . . .
ME: How about just teaching children the sounds of letters and lending them interesting reading material?
LIBERAL: “Sounds”?! Phonics?! You troglodyte! Phonics has been discredited in a thousand studies. Why, California outlawed phonics forty years ago! Whole-word recognition is the modern way to go.
ME: We all read by whole-word recognition – after we get to recognize a word. A few hours’ study of the sounds of letters and letter-combinations gives a child the ability to “sound-out” an unfamiliar word. English is not all that phonetic, but most words can be sounded out, and even a child can learn the sounds and the principles.
LIBERAL (changing the subject): And you probably carry a gun, too.
ME: Certainly. Does that disqualify me from the human race?
LIBERAL: Uncivilized! Uncouth! Murderer! Do you think this is the Wild West?
ME: None of the above. What’s your point?
LIBERAL: People in a proper civilized society shouldn’t have to worry about guns.
ME: People in a proper civilized society shouldn’t have to worry about kitchen fires, either, but I see that you keep a fire extinguisher by each door.
LIBERAL (changing the subject again): And you’re a Sunday-school teacher!
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
(To subscribe -- for yourself or a friend – or to unsubscribe – send the e-address.)
Spoofing “Liberalism”
Letter to the editor;
LIBERAL: We need a giant government program to make war on illiteracy.
ME: “War . . . ”?!
LIBERAL: Certainly. We can put a tax on books and newspapers and use the money to fund a National Literacy Agency with local headquarters in each . . .
ME: How about just teaching children the sounds of letters and lending them interesting reading material?
LIBERAL: “Sounds”?! Phonics?! You troglodyte! Phonics has been discredited in a thousand studies. Why, California outlawed phonics forty years ago! Whole-word recognition is the modern way to go.
ME: We all read by whole-word recognition – after we get to recognize a word. A few hours’ study of the sounds of letters and letter-combinations gives a child the ability to “sound-out” an unfamiliar word. English is not all that phonetic, but most words can be sounded out, and even a child can learn the sounds and the principles.
LIBERAL (changing the subject): And you probably carry a gun, too.
ME: Certainly. Does that disqualify me from the human race?
LIBERAL: Uncivilized! Uncouth! Murderer! Do you think this is the Wild West?
ME: None of the above. What’s your point?
LIBERAL: People in a proper civilized society shouldn’t have to worry about guns.
ME: People in a proper civilized society shouldn’t have to worry about kitchen fires, either, but I see that you keep a fire extinguisher by each door.
LIBERAL (changing the subject again): And you’re a Sunday-school teacher!
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Home production of food
T H E O P I N I O N P A P E R glenn3@frontiernet.net
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
(To subscribe -- for yourself or a friend – or to unsubscribe – send the e-address.)
Victory gardens
Letter to the editor;
Anybody remember the yard-gardens during World War Two? (Slogan: “We will win the war with food!”) Many American women took part in the war by digging up their lawns and planting corn and peas and beans and squash from the street to the front door. (Others worked long hours at defense plants.)
Every bushel of produce they grew potentially released truck-and-tractor fuel from the farms to the battle front. Every door-garden potentially released farm-raised food to feed the troops. Every dollar not spent at the grocery stores was potentially available to buy war bonds to finance the war.
We have a different sort of war going on now, and we cannot even tell who the enemy is. There does not seem to be trouble feeding the fighters. But somehow that I cannot tell, this war is tangled up with the constantly rising prices of food and fuel. We may need to follow the sterling example of out mothers and grandmothers, raising a significant part of our food right on our private premises.
Every dollar we don’t spend on commercial groceries is at least potentially available toward paying off our obscene credit card debts. Every trip we don’t make to the store is a gallon or a quart of gasoline not bought and burned. And, who knows? It might even benefit our children and grandchildren to bring food into existence from earth, water, seeds and labor.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
(To subscribe -- for yourself or a friend – or to unsubscribe – send the e-address.)
Victory gardens
Letter to the editor;
Anybody remember the yard-gardens during World War Two? (Slogan: “We will win the war with food!”) Many American women took part in the war by digging up their lawns and planting corn and peas and beans and squash from the street to the front door. (Others worked long hours at defense plants.)
Every bushel of produce they grew potentially released truck-and-tractor fuel from the farms to the battle front. Every door-garden potentially released farm-raised food to feed the troops. Every dollar not spent at the grocery stores was potentially available to buy war bonds to finance the war.
We have a different sort of war going on now, and we cannot even tell who the enemy is. There does not seem to be trouble feeding the fighters. But somehow that I cannot tell, this war is tangled up with the constantly rising prices of food and fuel. We may need to follow the sterling example of out mothers and grandmothers, raising a significant part of our food right on our private premises.
Every dollar we don’t spend on commercial groceries is at least potentially available toward paying off our obscene credit card debts. Every trip we don’t make to the store is a gallon or a quart of gasoline not bought and burned. And, who knows? It might even benefit our children and grandchildren to bring food into existence from earth, water, seeds and labor.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
When reading hurts
T H E O P I N I O N P A P E R glenn3@frontiernet.net
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
(To subscribe -- for yourself or a friend – or to unsubscribe – send the e-address.)
Dis-education
Letter to the editor;
The most basic part of education is to learn to read. Reading is the key to a lifetime of self-education and enjoyment. What a shock it was, therefore, to hear that there exists a scientific method to teach school-children to dislike reading.
Aldus Huxley’s memorable book, Brave New World, depicts giving selected children electrical shocks when they touched beautiful, bright, illustrated books. The idea was to keep them from being attracted to books, getting educated on their own and therefore becoming unsatisfied with their assigned low-grade lot in life.
We can only speculate on what evil motives and/or stupidity might drive modern American school administrators to purchase “readers” deliberately designed to inflict emotional pain on children who read them.
Remember the “readers” of generations a-gone, with illustrated stories of pioneer families, victorious children, brave and assertive children, and young inventors?
The sad news I hear now is that these have been replaced to some degree by pitiful stories of losers, mocked and discouraged and forever failing in valueless endeavors. The stories are especially hard on children who make an individual effort on self-chosen projects.
The suspicion is that such emotional pain is inflicted deliberately on children who read this stuff so that they quit reading – except when forced to read by overwhelming authority. That is, they would not read for fun or information or inspiration.
Now, someone is going to respond that, why, um, these stories are furnished to prepare children for modern life. What? Prepare them for un-ending failure? How about a few shining examples to prepare them to detect problems, make corrections, push forward despite the obstacles, and succeed?
There are thousands of really good children’s books available. They can be borrowed for free from libraries or purchased outright. There is no reason to inflict emotional pain on children because of the choices of “educational” bureaucrats.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
(To subscribe -- for yourself or a friend – or to unsubscribe – send the e-address.)
Dis-education
Letter to the editor;
The most basic part of education is to learn to read. Reading is the key to a lifetime of self-education and enjoyment. What a shock it was, therefore, to hear that there exists a scientific method to teach school-children to dislike reading.
Aldus Huxley’s memorable book, Brave New World, depicts giving selected children electrical shocks when they touched beautiful, bright, illustrated books. The idea was to keep them from being attracted to books, getting educated on their own and therefore becoming unsatisfied with their assigned low-grade lot in life.
We can only speculate on what evil motives and/or stupidity might drive modern American school administrators to purchase “readers” deliberately designed to inflict emotional pain on children who read them.
Remember the “readers” of generations a-gone, with illustrated stories of pioneer families, victorious children, brave and assertive children, and young inventors?
The sad news I hear now is that these have been replaced to some degree by pitiful stories of losers, mocked and discouraged and forever failing in valueless endeavors. The stories are especially hard on children who make an individual effort on self-chosen projects.
The suspicion is that such emotional pain is inflicted deliberately on children who read this stuff so that they quit reading – except when forced to read by overwhelming authority. That is, they would not read for fun or information or inspiration.
Now, someone is going to respond that, why, um, these stories are furnished to prepare children for modern life. What? Prepare them for un-ending failure? How about a few shining examples to prepare them to detect problems, make corrections, push forward despite the obstacles, and succeed?
There are thousands of really good children’s books available. They can be borrowed for free from libraries or purchased outright. There is no reason to inflict emotional pain on children because of the choices of “educational” bureaucrats.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Suing about school bullies
[Ed: This is not a real case. It must not be taken as legal advice.
It was not prepared by a lawyer, but only by a mouthy kid with a typewriter. It is presented for your amusement and speculation.]
Ralph P. Citizen, in propria persona
Box 85 / GradeCurve, Attendance 12345-0085
Telephone 555-2345
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT
COUNTY OF PALMER, STATE OF ATTENDANCE
The Honorable Ed U. Cation, Presiding Judge
Ralph P. and Mary Citizen, ) Case No. ___________________
Plaintiffs, )
vs. ) CIVIL SUIT FOR
John H. Schoolman, ) NON-FEASANCE OF
____________Defendant. ______________ ) A PUBLIC OFFICIAL
Now come Ralph P. Citizen and Mary Citizen, of GradeCurve, County of Palmer, State of Attendance, complaining that John H. Schoolman, who has a statutory duty to protect their minor son, Tommy G. Citizen, over whom the said Schoolman claims to stand in loco parentis; repeatedly, often and consistently fails in said protective duty, to the said child’s great disadvantage, physical injury, pain and humiliation.
JURISDICTION:
This court has jurisdiction to decide this case.
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
John Lifton, also known as “Little John;” and Don McQuellard, who likes to call himself “Mafia Don,” are enrolled in GradeCurve Elementary School. They are large for their age, over-age for their grade, mean, foul-smelling, foul-speaking, ignorant, dishonest, ugly, evil, cruel, thieving, lying bullies (and those are their good points). They have cursed, swindled, robbed, hit, kicked, slapped, tripped, shoved, pinched, punched, pantsed, poked and/or slugged nearly every child at GradeCurve, “just for the fun of it”.
Tommy G. Citizen is a minor child enrolled at GradeCurve Elementary School. He has been on the receiving end of the torments dished out by the aforementioned bullies on at least twenty occasions during this school year. He has suffered bruises, lacerations, pain and fear. They have forcibly robbed him of his lunch money on at least half a dozen occasions. They have thrown his schoolbooks in the toilet. They have pantsed him in public. The worst part is the continuing humiliation of it all.
John H. Schoolman is the Principal of GradeCurve Elementary School. All of the above facts have been reported to him many times, verbally and in writing. In fact, he is so tired of having this sort of facts reported to him that he has quit returning phone calls from irate parents. In spite of all this, he has not done a thing to reduce bullying at his school. He has not disciplined the bullies. He has not asked the school board to expel them. He has not called the police in on this issue. He has not filed criminal charges against the bullies. (Oh, he did call their parents once, but they said he was just picking on their boys, and hung up. That was the end of that.)
The Plaintiffs are not suing the School. The School did not fail to protect the child. They are not suing the School District. The School district has strict policies that require bullies to be kept in line. They are not suing the School Board. The School Board wrote and voted those policies. The Plaintiffs are suing the school Principal, John H. Schoolman, personally, only, solely, in his own personal capacity, for so signally failing to do his statutory duty to protect his charges from one another.
RELIEF REQUESTED:
The Plaintiffs request that Principal Schoolman be ordered to pay a thousand dollars in actual, general and punitive damages, out of his own pocket, so as to make him a fit example to all other in loco parentis school officials not to ignore their statutory duty to protect their students from one another.
_________________________________ ________________________________
(Ralph P. Citizen) (Mary Citizen)
Signed and submitted with all due respect this ____ day of _______, 20__.
A second original of this document is submitted to the Court for service to:
John H. Schoolman, Principal of GradeCurve Elementary School
422 Liberal Education Avenue / GradeCurve, Attendance 12345.
(A courtesy copy has already been mailed to him.)
It was not prepared by a lawyer, but only by a mouthy kid with a typewriter. It is presented for your amusement and speculation.]
Ralph P. Citizen, in propria persona
Box 85 / GradeCurve, Attendance 12345-0085
Telephone 555-2345
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT
COUNTY OF PALMER, STATE OF ATTENDANCE
The Honorable Ed U. Cation, Presiding Judge
Ralph P. and Mary Citizen, ) Case No. ___________________
Plaintiffs, )
vs. ) CIVIL SUIT FOR
John H. Schoolman, ) NON-FEASANCE OF
____________Defendant. ______________ ) A PUBLIC OFFICIAL
Now come Ralph P. Citizen and Mary Citizen, of GradeCurve, County of Palmer, State of Attendance, complaining that John H. Schoolman, who has a statutory duty to protect their minor son, Tommy G. Citizen, over whom the said Schoolman claims to stand in loco parentis; repeatedly, often and consistently fails in said protective duty, to the said child’s great disadvantage, physical injury, pain and humiliation.
JURISDICTION:
This court has jurisdiction to decide this case.
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
John Lifton, also known as “Little John;” and Don McQuellard, who likes to call himself “Mafia Don,” are enrolled in GradeCurve Elementary School. They are large for their age, over-age for their grade, mean, foul-smelling, foul-speaking, ignorant, dishonest, ugly, evil, cruel, thieving, lying bullies (and those are their good points). They have cursed, swindled, robbed, hit, kicked, slapped, tripped, shoved, pinched, punched, pantsed, poked and/or slugged nearly every child at GradeCurve, “just for the fun of it”.
Tommy G. Citizen is a minor child enrolled at GradeCurve Elementary School. He has been on the receiving end of the torments dished out by the aforementioned bullies on at least twenty occasions during this school year. He has suffered bruises, lacerations, pain and fear. They have forcibly robbed him of his lunch money on at least half a dozen occasions. They have thrown his schoolbooks in the toilet. They have pantsed him in public. The worst part is the continuing humiliation of it all.
John H. Schoolman is the Principal of GradeCurve Elementary School. All of the above facts have been reported to him many times, verbally and in writing. In fact, he is so tired of having this sort of facts reported to him that he has quit returning phone calls from irate parents. In spite of all this, he has not done a thing to reduce bullying at his school. He has not disciplined the bullies. He has not asked the school board to expel them. He has not called the police in on this issue. He has not filed criminal charges against the bullies. (Oh, he did call their parents once, but they said he was just picking on their boys, and hung up. That was the end of that.)
The Plaintiffs are not suing the School. The School did not fail to protect the child. They are not suing the School District. The School district has strict policies that require bullies to be kept in line. They are not suing the School Board. The School Board wrote and voted those policies. The Plaintiffs are suing the school Principal, John H. Schoolman, personally, only, solely, in his own personal capacity, for so signally failing to do his statutory duty to protect his charges from one another.
RELIEF REQUESTED:
The Plaintiffs request that Principal Schoolman be ordered to pay a thousand dollars in actual, general and punitive damages, out of his own pocket, so as to make him a fit example to all other in loco parentis school officials not to ignore their statutory duty to protect their students from one another.
_________________________________ ________________________________
(Ralph P. Citizen) (Mary Citizen)
Signed and submitted with all due respect this ____ day of _______, 20__.
A second original of this document is submitted to the Court for service to:
John H. Schoolman, Principal of GradeCurve Elementary School
422 Liberal Education Avenue / GradeCurve, Attendance 12345.
(A courtesy copy has already been mailed to him.)
Who should have guns at school?
Protect the children
Letter to the editor;
Let’s say the worst has happened: A school-shooter is killing children one after another. School employees with cell-phones have called the police.
The police are responding in strength; the lead car is already in sight, with lights and sirens. They have practiced for this call and expect to arrive in record time.
Also in our favor is the fact that the shooter is so hopping mad that he screams imprecations between shots: He can only kill one every two seconds, instead of one a second. BAM! (expletive) BAM! (expletive) BAM! (expletive) BAM!
(Getting back to root causes, maybe he would not have gone off like that if the school administration had protected him from humiliation by school bullies.)
Now, what everyone at the school wants, is lots of responsible adults with handguns.
The lead police car rams the chain-link fence, knocks it down, and drives right over the top of the wreckage. (expletive) BAM! (expletive) BAM! (expletive) BAM!
The officers are jumping out of the cars with their guns in their hands. The shooter surrenders. As we surmised, all anyone at school wanted was lots and lots of responsible adults with firearms.
WRONG! There was one thing more everyone at the school wanted: They wanted those people with guns RIGHT NOW!
There is a way for schools to have armed adults respond in ONE SECOND. That is to have some school employees carrying concealed weapons.
The man who clips the hedges and the lady who washes the windows, with guns, RIGHT NOW, is lots better than the entire police force thirty seconds from now.
I propose that schools be encouraged to honor State Concealed Carry permits – especially those held by their own employees.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Letter to the editor;
Let’s say the worst has happened: A school-shooter is killing children one after another. School employees with cell-phones have called the police.
The police are responding in strength; the lead car is already in sight, with lights and sirens. They have practiced for this call and expect to arrive in record time.
Also in our favor is the fact that the shooter is so hopping mad that he screams imprecations between shots: He can only kill one every two seconds, instead of one a second. BAM! (expletive) BAM! (expletive) BAM! (expletive) BAM!
(Getting back to root causes, maybe he would not have gone off like that if the school administration had protected him from humiliation by school bullies.)
Now, what everyone at the school wants, is lots of responsible adults with handguns.
The lead police car rams the chain-link fence, knocks it down, and drives right over the top of the wreckage. (expletive) BAM! (expletive) BAM! (expletive) BAM!
The officers are jumping out of the cars with their guns in their hands. The shooter surrenders. As we surmised, all anyone at school wanted was lots and lots of responsible adults with firearms.
WRONG! There was one thing more everyone at the school wanted: They wanted those people with guns RIGHT NOW!
There is a way for schools to have armed adults respond in ONE SECOND. That is to have some school employees carrying concealed weapons.
The man who clips the hedges and the lady who washes the windows, with guns, RIGHT NOW, is lots better than the entire police force thirty seconds from now.
I propose that schools be encouraged to honor State Concealed Carry permits – especially those held by their own employees.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
The Big Bang and all that
The origin of everything
Letter to the editor;
PLAN A: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (and life) from available materials. The evidence in the rocks shows that this started about forty five hundred million years ago and continues to this day.
PLAN B: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (and life) out of nothing, starting just over six thousand years ago. (Just ignore the evidence in the rocks.
PLAN C: Random movement of subatomic particles brought forth great numbers of stars, which fusion-cooked them over billions of years into atoms of iron, hydrogen, carbon and so on, to fill up the Periodic Table of Elements. Random combinations of certain of these atoms brought forth all of the amino acids – and therefore eventually proteins – so that life was inevitably originated.
PLAN D: We don’t care how it all started. We are satisfied to eat, drink and party.
PLAN E: (other) specify: _________________________________________________
There are advantages to Plans C and D; No God to worship. No Commandments to obey. No meetings. No responsibilities. No prayers to pray nor psalms to sing. We get to make up our own rules as we go along.
However, if either A or B is true, then we are responsible to Our Heavenly Father for our treatment of each other. Jesus told us, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” Whether you believe that Jesus is God-in-the-flesh, you have to know that He told us that principle correctly. (Atheists also believe we ought to be decent to one another.)
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Letter to the editor;
PLAN A: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (and life) from available materials. The evidence in the rocks shows that this started about forty five hundred million years ago and continues to this day.
PLAN B: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (and life) out of nothing, starting just over six thousand years ago. (Just ignore the evidence in the rocks.
PLAN C: Random movement of subatomic particles brought forth great numbers of stars, which fusion-cooked them over billions of years into atoms of iron, hydrogen, carbon and so on, to fill up the Periodic Table of Elements. Random combinations of certain of these atoms brought forth all of the amino acids – and therefore eventually proteins – so that life was inevitably originated.
PLAN D: We don’t care how it all started. We are satisfied to eat, drink and party.
PLAN E: (other) specify: _________________________________________________
There are advantages to Plans C and D; No God to worship. No Commandments to obey. No meetings. No responsibilities. No prayers to pray nor psalms to sing. We get to make up our own rules as we go along.
However, if either A or B is true, then we are responsible to Our Heavenly Father for our treatment of each other. Jesus told us, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” Whether you believe that Jesus is God-in-the-flesh, you have to know that He told us that principle correctly. (Atheists also believe we ought to be decent to one another.)
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
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