Question who is corrupt

I was just thinking of the time that I first discovered that I was possibly more conservative than I and everyone else had thought. It was rather simple really. Have you ever taken those little political tests you find on the internet? I did love taking those for awhile. Maybe it was the idea of trying to find out who I really should be supporting. At that point I didn't really find myself on the side of the democrats. For instance, I always thought that beurocracy was really ineffective. Can anyone say that when the state takes over things that they run more effectively? Try to think of one.

The next point. I was no longer pro-abortion/pro-choice. I say no longer, because I use to be primarily because my parents are. What changed? New found understanding of life and the horrible effect that abortion has on society as a whole, for one because it is murder (most major point) and if you are one who won't believe that, there is also the point that it makes it where people do not accept responsibility of their actions. One way or another, the allowance of abortion is a major sin of our country.

Moving on, I had trouble understanding how I was a democrat at all. It was as if I voted for them for still having a fear of being labeled as a conservative or to be supportive of the republicans.... who have been labeled as corrupt. Then, I thought.... What proof is there of their corruption? I just took that as a given. The corrupt republican, who was controlled by the evil corporations that cared nothing of people. All they cared about were profit and anything to continue that profit. There was no true caring for the people of this country. So my view was to still vote democrat as a supporter of the people? Am I too far off from general thoughts of republican party. I thought to be a republican was to be stupid and to be closed off to the truth of their corrupt nature.

So the question comes, WHERE IS THE PROOF OF THE CORRUPTION? I was sitting at the computer a while back. Still professing myself as a liberal and I took a test that put my views as the same as Vice President Cheny. I was thinking to myself, are these really his views or is this his way of decieving the public. When I realized how damn paranoid my own thoughts sounded I decided to look further into his political views. I never found real proof of his corruption either. I just found the same paranoid response that originally popped up in my head that I kept questioning.

Before I knew it I started hearing the democratic party in a new light. I have a memory of being at a Dean political rally years ago and hearing people cheer over the gay rights. I sat still at that point looking out over the crowd. Forgive me if you are horribly offended by this, but that was never a point I supported even as a liberal. Just take it as my conservative biggotted family values that I was raised with (of course of you think that you obviously have no clue about my family). The only reason I even write that with an apology is because I've been approached with GREAT hostility for even slightly voicing that opinion.

The hostility is the reason I write this. Republicans are not stupid or corrupt. Many of them maybe prosperous capitalists. I had someone say that about me, that I was plainly a capitalist. Felt no insult there. What I think many democrats really need to do is to start to look at their own party when it comes to corruption and rethink of who it is that should not be trusted.

But now I have gotten use to some of my ideas being met with hostility or simply ignored rather than discussed. Whatever. If you don't care to listen, nothing will be gained. All I did was open my mind up as any good liberal says you should, and boom... I became a conservative. Funny how it works.

Now I'm just rambling on. Now I must go to sleep.

Quest

Writing is not something I've done in quite awhile. At least I've been use to doing the short story version. Now I plan to actually start to write a full story. Won't say to much more about it till it actually makes it further out than just chapter one. What I started thinking of once I started to write was what are the basic thing needed in a story line. I wrote a paper on the process of the story. I want to see how much I remember from this...



1. Start off in the original world, or the place where the hero had come from. This is where the hero had been in their home town or a place that is where they have comfort.



2. I believe there is some upset that is the next step, some challenge is given and the hero has to either willingly or unwillingly jump into the quest. I don't remember exactly what this step was called. What i do remember is that at this point in Star Wars it was when Luke was given the option of going on the quest to save the princess. In that sense he was the unwilling hero. He went because they had killed his family and he had nothing to go back to.



3. The journey of the hero I believe is the next step of the story.

For the life of me I don't remember how exactly it goes from here. I believe that there is a second conflict that happens that the hero must go through that leads to the final on with the enevitable resolution. The resolution must be done on his own without the help of friends or others to help. For instance, when Luke Skywalker destroyed the death star.

I'm going to try and go through and do a full outline. I don't think I'll trust my writing genius to guide me where my muse takes me. I think I'll be a little more realistic than that. I will let you know more as I have progress. Of course I have the assistance of my lovely husband.

Let's hope it works out! I have to say being a writer would definitely suit me better than recruiting. If nothing else comes out of it.... At least this can be entertainment.

Pics of New York

Vacation to Manhattan

Vacations are never as long as you wish them to be. I just visited Manhattan for the first time. The city was wonderful and I already can't wait to go back, but for the most part my week seems to be a vacation planning gone bad. Not that the vacation was bad, but lets say it was not what we had expected. It was a good pay period as we took off. We both work by commission and lets say it was a better than average to start off a vacation. One thing after another, by the time we made it to New York we were already broke. I'm not sure why, but that meant we spent the vacation walking. I took the vacation with my family, they asked me what I wanted to do. Considering the condition of finances I could only honestly say that I wanted to see the city. So that is what I spent my time doing for the past week, walking through Manhattan. Lets say I have blisters upon blisters, and I was not in the best conditioned going in. I have no reason walking at all on a normal basis. Recruiting is not the most energetic of jobs. So it was quite an experience to walk so much in such a short time period.

I've been back since Tuesday and I've really felt wonder lust once again. I have to admit that is one reason I was taken by Arthur in the first place, and that is why I am in South Florida. Now, I feel like the city. Maybe New York is too expensive, but I just want to move to a good city. I liked the convenience of the city and the people going back in forth in suits and other business attire. I liked the atmosphere of the New York. I would also like seasons. I'm not meant for the tropics. My allergies and my skin can only take so much of this sun and whatever else there is in the air I am allergic to.

I remember having long conversations about just leaving and going somewhere else. No matter where it was I lived. The problem now is I have a job, which I have recently been promoted at. My husband has a job and is trying to get his business going. All are reasons for me to stay and to be happy staying.

All I need is to be patient. Maybe it will pass as everything else does. How does one remain content with such drives? Arthur says that if I get placements (commission) that I will be happy again. We will see.

I will see if I can load some pics.

1 Peter 3:13-22

13Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear[b]; do not be frightened."[c] 15But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 17It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. 18For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19through whom[d] also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge[e] of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

I need to move further north...

The South Florida summer has definitly set in. Humid and hot, but much better than Texas. I understand why people still escape this place during the summer. It's not just the threat of hurricanes. Right now I wish I was further north. I don't really care where, just as long as it is colder than here.

Most South Floridians are out at the beach baking out in the sun. I'm not going out there again till I get a big umbrella. My skin won't take it otherwise. That is what I think I am doing tomorrow. But so far going to the movie was a relief yesterday. We went to see Evan Almighty. Great movie! Very funny! I was really suprised to see bad reviews of it. I would say you definitly should ignore the reviews and go and see it.

Now I think we are about to go see another movie. Till later!

On with summer

The rainy season has started in South Florida... Oh how I miss regular seasons. Though I know that I, as I've heard all do quite quickly down here, have completely adapted to this subtropical climate. I can't take even the slightest bit of cold weather. Now we are back to the season where there is not the unbearable Texas heat, but there is the feeling that I am constantly in a sauna. The most pleasant part of this time of the year is that all snow birds have flown north for the winter. Everything is now quiet and the traffic has let up. I'll be surprised if there are any news developments down here till about November or December.

Talking about the news, how about all these new presidential candidates? I really don't know myself. Don't care much about the Democrats side. Clinton or Obama? Not in a great situation one way or another. I haven't landed yet on a republican candidate I support. Too many of them so far. Maybe a few will be weeded out soon enough. One I do know, Giuliani isn't my top pick. I don't see him as one to win the hearts of the Christian Right anyway. Support of abortion will definitely kill that no matter what else he supports. Though to touch more on that I definitely need to read more into the news.

My job has recently won out over school. I guess working about fifty hours at a full time job and trying to be a full time online student does not work. I truly did not know that my job would be that much of a work load when I first took it. Though being a physician recruiter is good enough for me right now. I guess being a grad student will wait for now. That does mean though that I have time on my hands in the late afternoons again.

Maybe I'll blog more. I guess we will see.

Pelicans

Quiz

Create your own Friend Quiz here

Okay, I created this for my myspace, so the last question should be quite obvious:)

Pics from home

I love my new camera. Now I can start taking pictures again. Here are a couple from around home. I've had a good little vacation in Orlando. Now back to work and school. Not much else. Later!

Vacation

Went on a little vacation to Universal Studios. Nothing much to write about it write about it now, but I did enjoy my birthday. Here are a few photos from my new camara. Yeah! I'm excited! Its much better than my old one. I'm about to pass of out right now... So I'll write when I have time next...









The unfortunate part about going on vacation with just the two of us, no pics of us together. Later!

News bias

This was in the news section, Conservatives can't explain Ann Coulter away

I started off with interest in the news field, print journalism. The reason I started putting up the Ben Sergent cartoons when I posted earlier is because the college paper I worked for he also started off there. I wanted to work for the news because I actually thought it was a good cause to give people the facts. I lost interest once I realized that was never the intention of those in the media. I should have realized that when studying the history of journalism....

We have reverted to Yellow Journalism with all news sources today. It is the time of posting opinion instead of the facts, and since all are getting the same opinion in the news they assume they are the facts. One example is above link about Ann Coulter. This was the top story for US news section on Google. It is a link to a BLOG first off. Second, it is opinion. It is very misleading to put it on the news section of Google.

There are certain things that I think that the media portray as fact that are simply opinion. The President of the United States is portrayed as stupid. It is thought as fact that he lied to the country about weapons of mass destruction. It is said that he violated international law with going to war with Iraq. It is said that it is scientific fact that global warming is caused by humans and can be controlled by humans. Like it or not, all of these are opinion.

I would go further to explain, but as usual my time is limited for posting. I have an ongoing frustration with the news and all of the trash that is given to our public. Political Correctness has taken over and it has effectively silenced the majority opinion of Americans. This new direction is against Christianity and religion in general. It is against standing up for standards of morality. This is the only opinion as shown by the news. Any thing else is portrayed as bigoted or ignorance. I seriously worry about the direction that we are going in and fill there is no way of correcting it. Does anybody else think that it is wrong where the country's media is for the downfall of its own leaders and is against the military actions taken by the country. I know it is not just the media, it is the left. I was just reminded of the Left's agenda through looking at the Google News. I think that history will not look well on this period, not because of the president but because of it appears to be a new period of Yellow Journalism.

Happy Birthday to El!

I just realized as I looked quickly at my archives that my blog is two years old.... Well, it is starting it's third year tomorrow. That is one reason why I can't abandon this thing. I started the blog right after my second semester as a grad student at Texas State. Thus the reason for the address: "blogfromsanmarcos". That doesn't quite fit anymore. I was single at that point. I drank at that point and I will be suprised if I ever have a job that easy again. I started this primarily for pictures and art. It still has that purpose at times. When I look back though I realize there is much more to it. The comments between my friends and I that give away our lives, the random facts of my crazey life and then when I finally met Arthur. I admit that I didn't keep up with this as much once I was at the point of getting married. There are things in your life that are just not for everyone. One thing I was somewhat vocal about was changing from democrat to republican. Though I have to admit once I did changed over I don't bother much with political argument. You find that most are do certain they are right that they won't listen to reason. What reason is there to really try? Oh, I still will everyonce and awhile.

Here are some pics through the years:

First pic on my blog.


Me over three years ago.

Perfect timing on trip to Miami, just in time for Katrina.


Then the wedding.

No pictures for now past the wedding.

This is it for now. Till next time!

West Coasters, East Coasters... They're the same.

Texas owes the United States for just about everything. Ever since American emigres helped to foment a rebellion against the Mexican government of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, other American citizens have regularly come to the aid of Texas without so much as a demand for a quid pro quo. During this 1836 rebellion, American volunteers, many from Tennessee (including former US Congressman Davy Crockett) went to Texas to aid the Texian rebels with little more than the expectation that they would get to fight a little bit. Their efforts helped to create the Republic of Texas, not that they get much of the credit compared to 'real' Texans.

- the left coaster



Crockett monument

I would put more, but as showing from my lack of posts I don't have much time. I'm still keeping this up though I really don't have the time right now. I have a twenty page paper due by the end of the week and I have been doing well at keeping up with class. I don't wish to change anything. Business is good and life is good. I just get disturbed by stupidity as usual, which the quote article above shows... the whole article does. I was trying to think of the best title for the post, what do you think?

Hey, maybe I'll add more in a week or so. Hope all are doing well!

Christmas 06'

Groupthink

Hello Everyone,

Here is an article I thought people would think is interesting. Usually I would just put a link, but this one I really think is worth seeing.


http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php? id=56a4b06e77oshwaiq5psszuc2gti5neb

From the issue dated November 12, 2004
Liberal Groupthink Is Anti-Intellectual

 
By MARK BAUERLEIN

Conservatives on college campuses scored a tactical hit when the American Enterprise Institute's magazine published a survey of voter registration among humanities and social-science faculty members several years ago. More than nine out of 10 professors belonged to the Democratic or Green party, an imbalance that contradicted many liberal academics' protestations that diversity and pluralism abound in higher education. Further investigations by people like David Horowitz, president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, coupled with well-publicized cases of discrimination against conservative professors, reinforced the findings and set "intellectual diversity" on the agenda of state legislators and members of Congress.

The public has now picked up the message that "campuses are havens for left-leaning activists," according to a Chronicle poll of 1,000 adult Americans this year. Half of those surveyed -- 68 percent who call themselves "conservative" and even 30 percent who say they are "liberal" -- agreed that colleges improperly introduce a liberal bias into what they teach. The matter, however, is clearly not just one of perception. Indeed, in another recent survey, this one conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute of the University of California at Los Angeles, faculty members themselves chose as their commitment "far left" or "liberal" more than two and a half times as often as "far right" or "conservative." As a Chronicle article last month put it: "On left-leaning campuses around the country, professors on the right feel disenfranchised."

Yet while the lack of conservative minds on college campuses is increasingly indisputable, the question remains: Why?

The obvious answer, at least in the humanities and social sciences, is that academics shun conservative values and traditions, so their curricula and hiring practices discourage non-leftists from pursuing academic careers. What allows them to do that, while at the same time they deny it, is that the bias takes a subtle form. Although I've met several conservative intellectuals in the last year who would love an academic post but have given up after years of trying, outright blackballing is rare. The disparate outcome emerges through an indirect filtering process that runs from graduate school to tenure and beyond.

Some fields' very constitutions rest on progressive politics and make it clear from the start that conservative outlooks will not do. Schools of education, for instance, take constructivist theories of learning as definitive, excluding realists (in matters of knowledge) on principle, while the quasi-Marxist outlook of cultural studies rules out those who espouse capitalism. If you disapprove of affirmative action, forget pursuing a degree in African-American studies. If you think that the nuclear family proves the best unit of social well-being, stay away from women's studies.

Other fields allow the possibility of studying conservative authors and ideas, but narrow the avenues of advancement. Mentors are disinclined to support your topic, conference announcements rarely appeal to your work, and few job descriptions match your profile. A fledgling literary scholar who studies anti-communist writing and concludes that its worth surpasses that of counterculture discourse in terms of the cogency of its ideas and morality of its implications won't go far in the application process.

No active or noisy elimination need occur, and no explicit queries about political orientation need be posed. Political orientation has been embedded into the disciplines, and so what is indeed a political judgment may be expressed in disciplinary terms. As an Americanist said in a committee meeting that I attended, "We can't hire anyone who doesn't do race," an assertion that had all the force of a scholastic dictum. Stanley Fish, professor and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, advises, "The question you should ask professors is whether your work has influence or relevance" -- and while he raised it to argue that no liberal conspiracy in higher education exists, the question is bound to keep conservatives off the short list. For while studies of scholars like Michel Foucault, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri seem central in the graduate seminar, studies of Friedrich A. von Hayek and Francis Fukuyama, whose names rarely appear on cultural-studies syllabi despite their influence on world affairs, seem irrelevant.

Academics may quibble over the hiring process, but voter registration shows that liberal orthodoxy now has a professional import. Conservatives and liberals square off in public, but on campuses, conservative opinion doesn't qualify as respectable inquiry. You won't often find vouchers discussed in education schools or patriotism argued in American studies. Historically, the boundaries of scholarly fields were created by the objects studied and by norms of research and peer review. Today, a political variable has been added, whereby conservative assumptions expel their holders from the academic market. A wall insulates the academic left from ideas and writings on the right.

One can see that phenomenon in how insiders, reacting to Horowitz's polls, displayed little evidence that they had ever read conservative texts or met a conservative thinker. Weblogs had entries conjecturing why conservatives avoid academe -- while never actually bothering to find one and ask -- as if they were some exotic breed whose absence lay rooted in an inscrutable mind-set. Professors offered caricatures of the conservative intelligentsia, selecting Ann H. Coulter and Rush Limbaugh as representatives, not von Hayek, Russell Kirk, Leo Strauss, Thomas Sowell, Robert Nozick, or Gertrude Himmelfarb. One of them wrote that "conservatives of Horowitz's ilk want to unleash the most ignorant forces of the right in hounding liberal academics to death."

Such parochialism and alarm are the outcome of a course of socialization that aligns liberalism with disciplinary standards and collegial mores. Liberal orthodoxy is not just a political outlook; it's a professional one. Rarely is its content discussed. The ordinary evolution of opinion -- expounding your beliefs in conversation, testing them in debate, reading books that confirm or refute them -- is lacking, and what should remain arguable settles into surety. With so many in harmony, and with those who agree joined also in a guild membership, liberal beliefs become academic manners. It's social life in a professional world, and its patterns are worth describing.

The first protocol of academic society might be called the Common Assumption. The assumption is that all the strangers in the room at professional gatherings are liberals. Liberalism at humanities meetings serves the same purpose that scientific method does at science assemblies. It provides a base of accord. The Assumption proves correct often enough for it to join other forms of trust that enable collegial events. A fellowship is intimated, and members may speak their minds without worrying about justifying basic beliefs or curbing emotions.

The Common Assumption usually pans out and passes unnoticed -- except for those who don't share it, to whom it is an overt fact of professional life. Yet usually even they remain quiet in the face of the Common Assumption. There is no joy in breaking up fellow feeling, and the awkward pause that accompanies the moment when someone comes out of the conservative closet marks a quarantine that only the institutionally secure are willing to endure.

Sometimes, however, the Assumption steps over the line into arrogance, as when at a dinner a job candidate volunteered her description of a certain "racist, sexist, and homophobic" organization, and I admitted that I belonged to it. Or when two postdocs from Germany at a nearby university stopped by my office to talk about American literature. As they sat down and I commented on how quiet things were on the day before Thanksgiving, one muttered, "Yes, we call it American Genocide Day."

Such episodes reveal the argumentative hazards of the Assumption. Apart from the ill-mannered righteousness, academics with too much confidence in their audience utter debatable propositions as received wisdom. An assertion of the genocidal motives of early English settlers is put forward not for discussion but for approval. If the audience shares the belief, all is well and good. But a lone dissenter disrupts the process and, merely by posing a question, can show just how cheap such a pat consensus actually is.

After Nixon crushed McGovern in the 1972 election, the film critic Pauline Kael made a remark that has become a touchstone among conservatives. "I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won," she marveled. "I don't know anybody who voted for him." While the second sentence indicates the sheltered habitat of the Manhattan intellectual, the first signifies what social scientists call the False Consensus Effect. That effect occurs when people think that the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population. If the members of a group reach a consensus and rarely encounter those who dispute it, they tend to believe that everybody thinks the same way.

The tendency applies to professors, especially in humanities departments, but with a twist. Although a liberal consensus reigns within, academics have an acute sense of how much their views clash with the majority of Americans. Some take pride in a posture of dissent and find noble precursors in civil rights, Students for a Democratic Society, and other such movements. But dissent from the mainstream has limited charms, especially after 24 years of center-right rule in Washington. Liberal professors want to be adversarial, but are tired of seclusion. Thus, many academics find a solution in a limited version of the False Consensus that says liberal belief reigns among intellectuals everywhere.

Such a consensus applies only to the thinking classes, union supporters, minority-group activists, and environmentalists against corporate powers. Professors cannot conceive that any person trained in critical thinking could listen to George W. Bush speak and still vote Republican. They do acknowledge one setting in which right-wing intellectual work happensnamely, the think tanksbut add that the labor there is patently corrupt. The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and the Hoover Institution all have corporate sponsors, they note, and fellows in residence do their bidding. Hence, references to "right-wing think tanks" are always accompanied by the qualifier "well-funded."

The dangers of aligning liberalism with higher thought are obvious. When a Duke University philosophy professor implied last February that conservatives tend toward stupidity, he confirmed the public opinion of academics as a self-regarding elite -- regardless of whether or not he was joking, as he later said that he was. When laymen scan course syllabi or search the shelves of college bookstores and find only a few volumes of traditionalist argument amid the thickets of leftist critique, they wonder whether students ever enjoy a fruitful encounter with conservative thought. When a conference panel is convened or a collection is published on a controversial subject, and all the participants and contributors stand on one side of the issue, the tendentiousness is striking to everyone except those involved. The False Consensus does its work, but has an opposite effect. Instead of uniting academics with a broader public, it isolates them as a ritualized club.

The final social pattern is the Law of Group Polarization. That lawas Cass R. Sunstein, a professor of political science and of jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, has describedpredicts that when like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts toward extreme versions of their common beliefs. In a product-liability trial, for example, if nine jurors believe the manufacturer is somewhat guilty and three believe it is entirely guilty, the latter will draw the former toward a larger award than the nine would allow on their own. If people who object in varying degrees to the war in Iraq convene to debate methods of protest, all will emerge from the discussion more resolved against the war.

Group Polarization happens so smoothly on campuses that those involved lose all sense of the range of legitimate opinion. A librarian at Ohio State University who announces, "White Americans pay too little attention to the benefits their skin color gives them, and opening their eyes to their privileged status is a valid part of a college education" (The Chronicle, August 6) seems to have no idea how extreme his vision sounds to many ears. Deliberations among groups are just as prone to tone deafness. The annual resolutions of the Modern Language Association's Delegate Assembly, for example, ring with indignation over practices that enjoy popular acceptance. Last year, charging that in wartime, governments use language to "misrepresent policies" and "stigmatize dissent," one resolution urged faculty members to conduct "critical analysis of war talk ... as appropriate, in classrooms." However high-minded the delegates felt as they tallied the vote, which passed 122 to 8 without discussion, to outsiders the resolution seemed merely a license for more proselytizing.

The problem is that the simple trappings of deliberation make academics think that they've reached an opinion through reasoned debate -- instead of, in part, through an irrational social dynamic. The opinion takes on the status of a norm. Extreme views appear to be logical extensions of principles that everyone more or less shares, and extremists gain a larger influence than their numbers merit. If participants left the enclave, their beliefs would moderate, and they would be more open to the beliefs of others. But with the conferences, quarterlies, and committee meetings suffused with extreme positions, they're stuck with abiding by the convictions of their most passionate brethren.

As things stand, such behaviors shift in a left direction, but they could just as well move right if conservatives had the extent of control that liberals do now. The phenomenon that I have described is not so much a political matter as a social dynamic; any political position that dominates an institution without dissent deterioriates into smugness, complacency, and blindness. The solution is an intellectual climate in which the worst tendencies of group psychology are neutralized.

That doesn't mean establishing affirmative action for conservative scholars or encouraging greater market forces in education -- which violate conservative values as much as they do liberal values. Rather, it calls for academics to recognize that a one-party campus is bad for the intellectual health of everyone. Groupthink is an anti-intellectual condition, ironically seductive in that the more one feels at ease with compatriots, the more one's mind narrows. The great liberal John Stuart Mill identified its insulating effect as a failure of imagination: "They have never thrown themselves into the mental condition of those who think differently from them." With adversaries so few and opposing ideas so disposable, a reverse advantage sets in. The majority expands its power throughout the institution, but its thinking grows routine and parochial. The minority is excluded, but its thinking is tested and toughened. Being the lone dissenter in a colloquy, one learns to acquire sure facts, crisp arguments, and a thick skin.

But we can't open the university to conservative ideas and persons by outside command. That would poison the atmosphere and jeopardize the ideals of free inquiry. Leftist bias evolved within the protocols of academic practice (though not without intimidation), and conservative challenges should evolve in the same way. There are no administrative or professional reasons to bring conservatism into academe, to be sure, but there are good intellectual and social reasons for doing so.

Those reasons are, in brief: One, a wider spectrum of opinion accords with the claims of diversity. Two, facing real antagonists strengthens one's own position. Three, to earn a public role in American society, professors must engage the full range of public opinion.

Finally, to create a livelier climate on the campus, professors must end the routine setups that pass for dialogue. Panels on issues like Iraq, racism, imperialism, and terrorism that stack the dais provide lots of passion, but little excitement. Syllabi that include the same roster of voices make learning ever more desultory. Add a few rightists, and the debate picks up. Perhaps that is the most persuasive internal case for infusing conservatism into academic discourse and activities. Without genuine dissent in the classroom and the committee room, academic life is simply boring.

Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University and director of research at the National Endowment for the Arts.

Just watched Brokeback

Weekends never seem to last long enough. There will be very few breaks for me for the next two years because of my new Masters program. So I never seem to choose the right movies to watch. Now I am watching Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. I already know it is funny, nothing to worry about. Before this we were watching Brokeback Mountain. I didn't know that it would be that bad of a love story. The movie wasn't unbarable or anything. It was just that a few times you sit back and think, "What the hell happened here?"

Okay, the first sex/rape scene, I did not see that coming. There was no romantic build up. There was nothing. Just a couple of sheep hearders going about thier buisness. It looks like one of them accidently grabs the other in his sleep. I thought that the Heath Ledger character was going to kick his ass, but instead he does something else with it. That seems to be consistant. Heath Ledger just looks like he's pissed off through the whole movie. There is a definite look of disgust on his face that makes the movie kind of amusing.

I think the only reason this movie would ever get any awards is because of the agenda it has. You don't have to see the movie to really figure that out though. Most people I know have not seen it regardless of how much hype it created. It really didn't show at that many movie theaters either when it came out. Anyway, the hype it created was the only reason I bothered to see it in the first place . It just isn't a very good love story, or more of not a very convincing one. Its the second movie I've seen with a gay love story. I kind of knew from the first that I wouldn't really be thrilled about it. Maybe its part of being a conservative Catholic. Oh well, I won't worry too much about it. I'm tired.

You have to see this!

Okay, I posted about Miami before...

You have to read this article!

One example of the craziness that is Miami. It will make you laugh:)

Happy Thanksgiving

Late Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I am down in Texas for the time being. My parents moved to a new small East Texas town that I must see and do other such things. It is good to have this small break. It is about to be quite busy. I will be starting graduate school at the first of December and working fulltime. For some reason I think I will be much more successful with this schedule though. So, not much to write about at this point. I am alive and well. I just had a cancer scare, but found out that it isn't cancer at this point at least. Just found that out the day before yesterday. It gives me something to be thankful for at least. Well, I shouldn't keep myself on the computer for too long. I never see my parents. Till next time....

A message from the soldiers in Iraq