WHY DO DEADLY GOVERNMENT POLICIES ALWAYS HAVE BENIGN NAMES?

In an Internet driven world, there seems to be never ending eruptions of conspiracy theories and crises.  Are they real … Are they serious … Who’s pushing it … Why?  Well, there has been a real crisis right under the nose of some parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles of children in our public schools and universities.  This crisis has been spreading for a long time and it’s about to get worse beyond your ability to comprehend the disastrous consequences.  The crisis is in our education system and is disguised by the benign title of common core state standards (Common Core).  While the situation is very complicated, in fact, the solution is simple … it’s you! 

But first a quick stroll through the contemporary problem.  Liberal tenured professors at universities are indoctrinating our students about the non-exceptionalism of America, the evils of the capitalism, and the failure of democracy.  For that I recommend you go to Prager University.  Let’s move on to K-12, especially in the secondary schools’ social studies curriculum, which are sometimes erroneously funneled into “language arts”. The perpetrators are not professors, but textbook publishers.

Let’s begin with key concepts. First of all, the purpose of an education is to learn how to learn.  This skill lasts an individual for their entire life. Secondly, whether it’s health care, immigration, or public education, be wary of people who push “reform”.  Reforming any major part of society creates openings for a wide range of people with motives, personal agendas, and/or special interests.

·         political (libertarian mantra that education should be private, believe that education doesn’t belong in government at all … not Federal, not state, not  local; and far left and liberal progressives who believe that college education should be free)

·         religious (putting God back into public schools or taking religion out altogether)

·         philosophical (even to the point of undermining our way of life),

·         employment/financial gain (those who want to use student achievement to evaluate educators’ performance and to determine educators’ income; and educators who don’t want to be responsible for factors outside of their control that influence the student achievement, or lack thereof, and educators’ professional associations and/or unions who want educators’ compensation to be determined by collective bargaining.)

Common Core is not the first time that the government has tried to use education for social engineering.  Has everyone so quickly forgotten the failed promises of test, test, test of No Child Left Behind, a byproduct of a bipartisan team of George W. Bush and Ted Kennedy?  US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a Republican, complained that the emphasis on math and science was at the expense of courses in American history, civics, and American government.  She worried that we were failing to prepare students to become educated citizens who would assume the responsibility to be informed voters. And how about the old standby Race to the Top … a bounty of bureaucracy if ever there was one, and believe me, there have been plenty.  Or is it ultimately a bribe to states to implement Common Core?

OFF TO COLLEGE?

Now that you are graduating, you will be soon going off to college. I‘m sure you know how proud your mother and father, relatives and family friends (especially me) are of you. Growing up in East Cleveland, my summer before going off to Ohio State, didn't do much to prepare me for college life. No one I knew had ever gone to college and couldn't give me any advice. So I eventually learned what I now know, but it took a long, long time. Fourteen years ago, when my son was heading off to the University of Miami,I gave him this advice so he didn't have to figure it all out for himself. Time changes many things, but most (if not all) of this advice is still relevant.

The purpose of a formal education is to learn how to learn. Teachers can only teach you so much; the rest depends on how well you learn how to learn.  Over the next four years (and beyond) you will take many different subjects, packaged in a certain way called “courses”. Buried in the information taught in these courses (and your other experiences) are the nuggets of knowledge that you will have to dig out for yourself and repackage into wisdom. Here are some of the really important things to learn:

• How to excel at oral and written communication. Good writing requires good thinking. Understand the meaning of every word you speak, write, and hear.
• How to solve problems. Evaluate the options.
• How to get what you need from yourself.
• How to get resources ---information, money, and people.
• How to make good decisions.
• How to deal with “no” ---accept or reject.
• The second “3 R’s”---- your responsibilities, rights, and remedies.
• How systems (social, political, educational, legal, financial and business institutions) work and how to work within them.
• Understand our financial institutions ----where to get money, how to get money and how to manage it (banks, stocks, property, and other investment markets).
• Understand our legal system---courts, laws, and lawyers.
• Understand who has the power, how they got it and what they are willing to do to keep it.
• How to successfully complete a difficult project.
• How to manage others in successfully completing a difficult project.
• Understand why people behave the way they do and why you behave the way you do. All people are imperfect; learn how to identify their flaws and get to know yours.
• What really matters. Find the truth for yourself—don’t rely on others. Everyone sees the world thru their own filter of beliefs, values, and experiences. These change over time as you get more knowledge, experiences, etc.
• There are no absolutes, except this one.
• Success in life is living your life in your own way. Do what you love and it will never feel like work, it will be fun.
• All things in this world succeed or fail based on expectations, not the actual outcome.
• What you have to offer will be a thoroughly unique combination of skill, knowledge, aptitude, ability, and experience.
• If you could excel at only one thing, it should be the ability to learn. If you’re really good, the second most important thing to excel at is negotiating.

Some people are content (although I can’t imagine why) to bury themselves in reruns of Rocky and Bullwinkle and drink the Kool-Aid. What a waste of life. Your mother likes to remind us all that life is not a dress rehearsal--- and that may be the wisest observation of all.

THE VOICE OF MODERATION CALLS ON ALL CHRISTIANS TO ...

... follow the lead of the Roman Catholic Church's Nostra Aetate in the year of the 50th anniversary. Amid the harsh wake up call for the French open border policy, the focus has been on the 12 Frenchman who gave their lives for liberty. All but those who think like Holocaust deniers realize that Islamic terrorism is a multi-state, multi-regional movement against western culture. But the stark imbalance of media coverage of the four Jewish people murdered at the Paris grocery store for no reason other than that they were Jewish is a stain on humanity. This is not to denigrate the price paid by the 12 Frenchman, but to elevate the plight the surviving 13 million Jewish people whose religion is the bedrock of all of Christianity and every democracy in the world. It is also the very reason that the 12 Frenchmen lost their lives to those, who like Hitler, condemn all of our values, including the Ten Commandments, the Torah, and the old and New Testaments. The media facade of lone wolves and workplace violence has been lifted. Now PJTN calls on all Christians to follow the Roman Catholic Church's unprecedented, unparalleled, historic Vatican II/Nostra Aetate, in this year of the 50th anniversary. The remarkable story of the Church’s examination and transformation is known by far too few Christians, Jews, and other people of conscience. In short, the Church acknowledged that Jews are not responsible for the death of Jesus, eliminating the deicide narrative, and that the Jews’ covenant with God for the land of Israel was not broken; that Christianity sprang from its Jewish roots and is inextricably intertwined with Judaism, and that Jesus and his disciples and many of his apostles were Jewish. The Church also unambiguously stated that it rejects anti-Semitism in every form. As long as some Christians continue to be at odds with Nostre Aetate, they perpetuate the vestiges of Christian anti-Semitism from the days when Jews were tormented, denigrated, and annihilated. The indiscriminate murder of Jews throughout the world are a consequence of those who continue to cling to those rejected beliefs. They and many others also ignore that the false claims against the Jewish people in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a book that has been an enduring threat for Jews since it's dissemination from Russia 100 years ago are at the roots of the recent explosion of global anti-Semitism.. The false libels contained in and spawned by that book were the foundation of the Nazi extermination of six million Jews and are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict. As we have seen, those who seek to annihilate our Jewish brethren also seek to do the same to Christians. Proclaiming Justice to the Nations also calls out to all Christians to denounce the book as the most insidious form of anti-Semitism in the world. Until Jews, Christians and all people of conscience shout the truths of our beliefs from every house of worship, peace and security will not be secure.

Fresh Controversy Hits 'Selma' ... Jews snubbed?

Fresh Controversy Hits 'Selma': Daughter of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel 'Shocked' by Exclusion of Her Father From Film | Black film maker changes history, eliminates MLK's Chief Jewish supporter .... A timely movie marred by the meaningful omissions and distortions of a well-intended, but short-sighted producer. To some of my people, denying the huge role played by Jewish people during the Civil Rights Movement is like denying the Holocaust. I was one of those who was involved. My reasons were simple, but profound. Black people are human beings just like me. I personally knew racism that we Jews had little power to defend against. We did have justice in the courts, while too many black people could not count on colorblind justice. We celebrated the opportunity to change institutional racism for black people, knowing that this country had fallen woefully short of God’s commandments and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. But, we also knew that marching with others who had been discriminated against would improve conditions in society for us as well. I understand the celebration of Dr. King’s leadership in that movement and that our country needed a symbol of independence from institutional racism, like George Washington is America’s symbol of independence from a monarchy. But part of me has always felt that we should have a Civil Rights Day, maybe on the anniversary of President Johnson’s signing the law, like we celebrate Independence Day. Without such a holiday, the contributions of millions of people, then and ongoing, will fail to be recognized by future generations. Will we always be searching for another MLK, or do we want all Americans to share the responsibility to defend everyone’s civil rights, as we do our Constitutional rights?

CRAZY TALK

Media preoccupation with the “backlash” of Islamaphobia is not only Crazy Talk, the word lslamaphobia itself is Crazy Talk. To decry “collective guilt”, as a result of atrocities committed by Muslim terrorists, is more Crazy Talk. It is a false narrative, intended to suggest that no other Muslim is complicit in those barbaric atrocities. But let's replace the Crazy Talk with some plain English. The perpetrators are NOT solely responsible. Their supporters, collaborators, and enablers … media, Muslims, Christians, and, yes, even some Jews, bear their fair share of the guilt. Ron Dolinsky

WHAT DOES I'M JEWISH MEAN?

Being Jewish is more than Judaism, more than the religion. Being Jewish is a also a culture filled with its rich traditions. But truly being Jewish is more than the culture and the religion … being Jewish is the heritage. If someone practices the religion, but doesn't cherish, preserve, and defend the heritage, then they have to relinquish their membership to The Tribe, and tear up their MOT card. If someone engages in the BWC (bread, wine, and candle) traditions (and let's throw in the potato latke part too), but not cherish, preserve, and defend the heritage, then they too have to tear up their MOT card. I know …those who don’t cherish, protect, and preserve the heritage will ask why I have the right to decide whether they get to keep their MOT card. And in the finest Jewish tradition, I answer that question with this question: Why do you want an MOT card anyway?

DON'T GIVE EVIL AN INCH

In the movie, The Usual Suspects, the character of Verbal Kint said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist.” Evil people are not stupid. Worse still, their genius is used to exploit your humanity to accept their inhumanity. Opposition to evil is not forfeiting one’s humanity; it is rather protecting it. The enemies of democracy and our freedoms co-opt these freedoms, and then pervert them and twist them to their own purposes and then demand the “freedoms” for themselves. The intent is to force someone into giving in to their demands or being a hypocrite. That’s a false choice. It is oxymoronic for us to grant rights to people who deny them to themselves.

IT"S ALL ABOUT THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT, STUPID!

One might conclude that all of the reporting and analysis from media, pundits, Jewish Organizations, and Hagel and his “explainers/defenders” has as many different faces as all of the sidelets on all of the cubelets on a Rubik’s cube. But they all share a common core misconception. All of these people buy into/promote the false narrative of a “Palestinian-Israeli Conflict” with Israel as Goliath and “Palestinians” as David. It is and ALWAYS has been an Arab-Israeli Conflict. That Israel has been a miracle of agriculture, science, self defense, and democracy doesn’t alter the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Israel is David., and the giant Goliath has grown like Jack’s bean stalk. It is, and ALWAYS has been, about genocidal anti-Semitism. That some Israeli’s …citizens, government representatives, and IDF officers … buy into the PIC fable doesn’t make it so. And all of the liquefied dinosaurs under the Earth’s surface don’t either. Here’s the test question. If all Jews left Israel, would 15 million Jews who so far have survived several thousand years of genocidal anti-Semitism be then free from genocidal anti-Semites? Here’s another … If the “Palestinians” had every speck of Israel’s land, would the Islamists and Islamist terrorists put an end to their march from one believer to 1.5 billion believers to convert all non-believers? Those who continue to be distracted by the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict will never solve the Arab-Israeli Conflict., and in the end will have blood on their hands.

“Why so much anti-Semitism?”, they ask.

My Christian friends and acquaintances, and many Jews, ask why anti-Semitism is exploding around the world. Well, the explanation is complicated, so that means long. So let’s get started. A glance over our shoulders reveals that many cultures have been wiped out at various points in time by "control the world" aggressors: Persians, Romans, Mongols, European colonializing powers, including almost all of Western Europe, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Russia, AND the Ottoman Empire. Various indigenous peoples of South America, North America, and Africa are just some of the examples of cultures "cleansed" by autocratic nations. Jews as tribes, and as individuals, have been the target of aggression for almost as long as there have been Jews. They have not only been targeted by those colonizing countries, but also by power-hungry rulers who have hijacked religious institutions as a platform for their hegemony. But Jews have survived, and not without having paid the steepest price in the history of human-kind. Maybe the Jewish people have just been unlucky in their choice of enemies; but there can be little doubt that the power elites of Christianity, followed by Islam, and more recently the Nazi Third Reich can be considered responsible for the size of the Jewish population, worldwide, to be somewhere around only 14 million. One doesn't need to be a social scientist to conclude that the growth of the Jewish population has not kept pace with the growth of the population of many other cultures around the world. There can be little doubt that Jewish monotheistic belief in God resulted in the almost total annihilation by the Romans; or that worshipping the wrong God resulted in the inquisitions of Christianity and similar forced conversions and murder by Muslims of Jews. Recent research has revealed that Hitler identified Jewish beliefs as untenable for his goal to make Nazism the world religion. And it's hard to say whether the root causes that have been given over the centuries were "legitimate" in the eyes of the oppressors or just excuses for the atrocities: Christianity said that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, and despite the Roman Catholic church's reversal of that accusation 49 years ago with Nostra Aetate (Vatican II), the phrase "Christ killer" continues to resound throughout Orthodox Christianity and many protestant denominations. Islam, somewhere within its founding years, seems to have had a run in with a Jewish tribe in Mecca, who Muslims say pulled a flip-flop on Mohammed and went with his enemies in Mecca. So now ALL Jews are traitors to Islam. No evidence of this event exists, but Muslim word of mouth needs no evidence. Jewish people have a word for this type of tale ... libel. Actually, Jewish people seem to always be between a rock and a hard place throughout history as a minority, having to take sides eventually with Christians or the Muslims, until the tide turns and they are on the new rulers' hit list. For example, Muslims were in control of much of Spain for centuries and Jewish people were able to establish some kind of detente, although at a very big price, until the Roman Catholics decided to take Spain back. Well, there you have it ... the Inquisitions - convert or die. And more than half the world is Christian and Muslim. Why couldn't Jews be hated by lesser cultures like Laplanders and Arubans? If the historical and/or religious grievances weren't enough to want Jews gone from the earth, the Russians came up with a neat idea that was useful to Christians, Muslims, and Mr. Shicklegruber ... solid evidence that Jews were plotting and planning to TAKE OVER THE WORLD. Yah, that's the ticket! That's right ... the Russians plagiarized (are we surprised?) a book to fabricate the answer to every anti-Semite's prayers. The Protocols of Elders of Zion (Protocols), which, from what people tell me, few if any, including many Jews, have ever heard of, but hundreds of millions of copies of this book can be found all throughout the Middle East, European and Roman Catholic countries, Japan, and probably every nook and cranny of the four corners of this globe ... and its libels seems never to leave the lips of billions of people on this planet, people not even aware of their false origins. Throw in petrodollars, and the ability to use them to buy off politicians and media organizations, and you might wonder why any of the surviving 14 million Jewish people will make it for much longer. Some people say this isn't about Jews and Arabs, it's actually a proxy conflict between a "liberal democracy"/Judeo -Christian values culture vs a fundamentalist theology /caliphate (that's not califragilistic)/ Sharia law/ world domination culture. Over the last 45 or so years in the Arab-Israeli conflict has scaled down to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and further scaled down into the Hamas-Israeli conflict, as a demonstration that smaller is better, where a terrorist organization whose publicly stated goal is killing every Jew on the planet is enabled and/or supported by a disgusting number of people who live in every country. Can it be that they despise Jews so much that they would prefer to support the terrorist organization whose ultimate aim is actually to promote Sharia law and their caliphate? Do they hate Jews enough to sacrifice themselves? Let's not forget the other half, comprised mostly of people living in India and China. What's their beef with the Jews? Although India is the largest democracy in the world, one billion people in India are polytheists and another 250 million are Muslim, and the Communist Party that runs China isn't too fond of the democratic ideals that are at the heart of the culture in Israel. This isn't a very encouraging picture for God's chosen people, is it? There's an old racist “joke”, (that is, it's funny to a racist) about a black man arrested by a Texas sheriff for the crime of being black. The sheriff said, "Boy, I'm gonna give you a fair chance to go free. I'm gonna bury you up to your neck, and if the coyotes don't get ya' tonight, I'll let you go in the mornin'." In the morning, the sheriff was surprised to find his "prisoner" still alive, holding onto the screaming coyote's genitalia by his teeth. The sheriff kicked the black man in the head and said, "Fight fair, n-------r." Jews have seen this movie for several thousand years. Now, in the 21st century, the European Union and United Nations are the sheriff who has buried Jews up to their necks in anti-Semitism for the coyotes of the Middle East and Africa. But the Jews are still … well, you get the metaphor, don’t you? So you wanna know why anti-Semitism is exploding, do you? Well, let’s summarize. The root causes include the vestiges of historical Christian anti-Semitism, a Muslim religion hijacked by fundamentalist Muslims who have found the perfect foil for their campaign of global dominance, and the libels contained in and spawned by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Even if the enemies of Jews acknowledged that Jews are an incredibly tiny portion of the world population, less than 2/10 of 1% , or .002 for those who are fractionally challenged, (I know, some will say “How can that be? Jews have done so much and are into practically everything.), they would still say, “Okay, so there aren’t really enough Jews to take over the world, but they are still the puppeteers and ventriloquists of the world.” And finally, the real reason is that too few Christians know or care that the Roman Catholic Church judged the Jews “NOT GUILTY of the “Christ killer” charge; too few people know or care that 20 years ago a Russian court ruled the Protocols false; too few people can function without oil; too few people know or care that the modern day Middle east was constructed by the British and French who defeated the Arab allies of Germany in WWI; and too few Jews and Jewish organizations and institutions actively defend their heritage at a time of crisis. In other words, as Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Anti-Semitism is and always was genocidal. The world always waits too long to confront evil.