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We are in campaign mode at this time of year. Barack Obama announced his reelection bid on April 4 and on May 11 our presumably literate president invited poets to the White House. In following the professoriate in English departments, Obama invited the rapper Common who drew attention by his controversial lyrics that take the side of a convicted cop killer. The event was scheduled two days prior to the National Candlelight Vigil honoring police officers killed in the line of duty last year.
Did I mention that Obama in addition to being considered an “intellectual” is deemed to be sensitive?
What many in the media missed but yours truly, the sometime poet and English professor noted, was the fact that the “poem” Common “performed” revived the idol-worship of the 2008 election. This is what I transcribed from the video (oops, it disappeared from the White House website). Sorry, kids; you just get the words (I know that’s so old-fashioned) instead of the “performance.”
By Mary Grabar, Posted April 1, 2014: Sadly, what's going on in education is not a joke. Here in Georgia, we're recovering from a nasty session at the Capitol where all kinds of tricks were used to defeat legislation to withdraw Georgia from Common Core and to protect student privacy. The first of my reporting appeared in PJ Media, "The 'Show' of Support for Common Core in Georgia." It was picked up in Stop Common Core, North Carolina, where they are experiencing similar strategies. It earned a mention in the Morning Reads at the pro-Common Core website, Peach Pundit.
At the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research, I discuss how Common Core redistributes grades. The article was posted also at the Locker Room blog of the John Locke Foundation.
My article on food studies (yes, Virginia, there is such a thing) was published at the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Reform, and mentioned at the National Association of Scholars blog, Capitalism Magazine, then Family Security Matters, and by Daniel Greenfield.
A review by Bruce Bawer of Exiled appears in the current issue of Academic Questions. A subscription to the journal comes with a membership to the National Association of Scholars...well worth the price!
Enough about me!
Published August 1, 2013: By Mary Grabar: While reading the engrossing biography of National Review publisher William Rusher, If Not Us, Who? by David Frisk, Dissident Prof came across this reference to William F. Buckley’s opinion of the Beatles: as “‘so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art’” that they were “’the crowned heads of anti-music.’”
It’s hard to stand against the universal acclaim of the Beatles and Dissident Prof is glad to hear she shares the good company of WFB. The Beatles’ early songs were poor imitations of American rock ‘n roll. Like many in the 1960s, they thought they were inspiring the folk, with their songs that turned out to be sappy, insipid, and imitative.
She prefers the squares of the time who sang of what they knew: cheatin’ hearts and lonesomeness: Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette, Charlie Price, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Ray Price, and Hank Williams. And not one word about world peace.
Read more: Mary's Contraries: The Beatles, White Rage, Philosophy Quotas
By Mary Grabar, Posted July 11, 2013: Diana West, in her fascinating new book, American Betrayal, quotes George Orwell on the writing of history. Orwell observed that "History ended in 1936"--an assessment based on reporting from the war in Spain. Since that time, George Orwell has been a staple in classrooms, with Animal Farm being the only exposure many students have to the tenets of Marxism. Many honest historians, however,--no matter their own ideology--still hewed to the factual. Indeed, that was the case with the late Eugene Genovese, under whom Hamilton College History Professor Robert Paquette studied. Genovese, of course, wrote the classic, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, while still in his pre-conversion (conservatism and Catholicism) days.
Read more: Mary's Contraries: History Revised & Ayers Education
By Mary Grabar, Posted June 10, 2013
Thank you, The People's Cube, for alerting the Dissident Prof to this subversive performance by teachers against the State! Do they know, however, about Common Core Rap? Confusion may arise, for teachers aleady are doing mandated "close readings" by using Jay-Z.
Read more: Mary's Contraries: Common Core and Conservative Professors
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