The other day, I attended an end of the year performance at my kid’s school. The theme — no surprise here — was global warming. I would have been more impressed if (a) the school hadn’t used three pieces of paper for each program, when one piece, or even half a piece, would have done just as well; (b) the place hadn’t been festooned with balloons, one of the big hazards to wildlife (animals choke on them); and (c) everyone hadn’t been relying on a huge, energy-sucking sound system which, as it happened, rendered every speaker completely unintelligible (it was huge, but it wasn’t good).
Frankly, I would have been much more impressed if the show had actually centered around academics: perhaps a scene from Shakespeare, or a reenactment of a historical event. As it was, I got a lot of bland environmental pap, packaged in an exceptionally wasteful environment. I also came away with the sense, again, that while my child is not learning a great deal academically, she could get a masters in such important subjects as picking up trash from the beach, or rapping about pollution.
Filed under: Education
BW,
It reminds me of the bio-hazard left behind after Woodstock. Why should we expect anything different? The stalwart middle class – bourgeois–as they were, air dropped water and food to the suffering troglodytes that despised them.
Maybe when the next school year begins, you should save every piece of paper the school sends you, BW. Just consider the ink and toner, and all sorts of other bio-hazards used to print all that stuff. You might need to buy a new major appliance in order to have a box large enough.
“Mr. Bookworm, I need a new _______ because I need a big box “for the children.” Ought to work….
My daughter’s school just finished a hugely expensive ac/heat overhaul. When they get together in the auditorium to sing about the environment it is cold enough to wear a jacket. In May. In Florida.
Funny…the school was built in 1939 and at the time people apparently survived by opening windows. Now we must shiver.
Kurt,
Maybe you can try to get the box of the ac unit for Bookworm. Mr. Bookworm might appreciate the effort since he’s now on the hook to buy a new large appliance so Bookworm can have a large box to save all that wasted paper. It’s about planning ahead to make a “statement”. Isn’t that what the Left always does? Stage a useless “event” to make a “statement”?
“Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
Shakespeare, there. And how thoughtless does it get, for Bookworm to scorn an educational exercise that addresses the changes in climate that everyone (include the conservative) agrees are occurring – a global phenomenon that can be illustrated with concrete, child-friendly examples from the physical and biological sciences and from anthropology — AND which the President himself met with European leaders this week to discuss? Rank ignorant partisanship isn’t pretty, especially when it decries a child’s education.
I’m amused and irritated by the way pollution is constantly conflated with littering in environmental messages aimed at kids. As if paper cups by the side of the road are destroying the ice caps or something.
I’ve said it before, Bookworm: Homeschooling!
Uh, Greg. Do you ever bother to read what I write? I didn’t attack climate change. I attacked idiots who preach climate change and practice waste.
“Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
-Yoda
Uh, Bookworm. Do you ever bother to remember what you write? “I got a lot of bland environmental pap,” your words, there, as thoughtless as ever, as verified by your own inability to recall them.
Anyway, on a serious note, the saddest part of your derisive post is that you conflate climatology with environmentalism and, we can assume, communicate that sophistry to your children, which is a shame.
I attacked idiots who preach climate change and practice waste.
Comment by Bookworm | June 8, 2007
Greg is just jealous that someone else is getting the attention. Other than him that is. People child have special needs, Book. Like a friendly environment for them to pollute in.
Greg’s not getting better, Book. He’s slipping into the void. Assuming he isn’t there already.
Your derision is justified. I hope you took photos so you and your kids can laugh about the trite and trendy (and weirdly political) event in the future, which will soon seem sadly dated and silly to all. If you’re going to keep your kids in these schools, the least you can do while rolling your eyes about such nonsense is to keep laughing at it. Otherwise your kids might get confused and start to take it all seriously.
Greg as always, avant-garde ,piece de resistance ,creme de la creme !
Y as always ,a shlock-nebbish-kvetcher.
Book a chutzpha yenta.
ps calling people idiots is not nice.
Bookworm, it’s time to get out the banning stick.
Thankfully we haven’t been confronted with overly overt activism at my son’s school. Of course overt is the key word here!
Why is Greg so angry? Perhaps taking a less condescending and hateful approach would be more productive.
As for conflating climatology with environmentalism I would like Greg to explain how the two aren’t intricately related on all sides of the issue, from cause and affect to advocacy. I would pose the obvious here with my belief that most global warming activists are knee deep with causes rooted in advocacy related to the environment.
In the elementary school scenario where the teachers are most likely NOT climatologists I would imagine that the teachers themselves conflate the two even though they can’t see the hypocrisy of the way they don’t practice what they preach.
Greg’s not angry. He loves book!
Webloggin and Book are victims of their partisan preferences – preferences that deny the human contribution to climate change but reluctantly accede to the phenomenon of climate change itself. Furthermore, Webloggin and Book are befuddled by the distinctions among science, science popularization, advocacy and policy (but then, it’s in their partisan interest to blur such distinctions, inasmuch as Webloggin asserts, “I would pose the obvious here with my belief that most global warming activists are knee deep with causes rooted in advocacy related to the environment” – That sentence might not withstand logical scrutiny, but we get Webloggin’s point, that Webloggin refuses to see any difference between the fruits of science and the fruits of advocacy and policy). What we’re witnessing, here, are the thought processes underpinning the Republican war on science, where – at the end of the day – all the conservative prole cares about is the dissemination of the view that they were told to promote in their morning’s e-mail.
Have y’all ever noticed how Greag and Greg go all polysyllabic when they want to get serious? I’m a pretty erudite gal, and I know my way around a dictionary, but my eyes always glaze over when the lectures start.
ha ha ha Always ready with an excuse for staying partisan stupid. That’s our Book because that’s all she’s got.
Have y’all ever noticed how Greag and Greg go all polysyllabic when they want to get serious?
I’ve noticed that Gridlock takes on everyone except me. Maybe he’s obeying orders from on high? Obviously voices speak the words of truth to G’s ears. Even if to the rest of us all we hear is silence.
Like I said before, G is falling into the hole because nobody can sustain the full power of hate forever. Good riddance, tell the fallen hi for me, Grid.
As for the chip off the block, swampo here, I think he’s just starting on the road to Fallen Times.
Keep working at it and maybe you’ll become a real minor demon; in a thousand years perhaps.
I know my way around a dictionary,
The only dictionary I use is the www kind.
People shouldn’t play with fire, and that’s what they are doing when they do things because hate has told them to.
Greag,
There’s nothing partisan about pointing out hypocrisy in an activists actions. However you make the point for everyone that disagrees with your argument by countering with insults. That’s usually where people start when they have nothing substantive to add to the conversation.
Further, one would think that a person who can allegedly differentiate between the often blurred lines separating climatology and environmentalism could also comprehend that climate change can, and historically has, occurred without anthropomorphic cause.
It is not a preference to deny the human contribution just as climate change itself isn’t a phenomenon. It’s just a fact that a.) climate change happens regardless of what man does or doesn’t do and b.) activists who pretend to advocate solutions are often doing little to change their habits that supposedly add to the problem (which is the point of Bookworm’s post).
Do you also deny that an increasing number of leading scientists dispute the main claims pertaining to the degree of climate change caused by man?
While you are at it why don’t you step back and take a look at funding trends during the Clinton years. Funding for global warming research was skewed heavily toward the promotion of today’s global warming hysteria. It’s like paying someone to come up with a pre-determined conclusion.
Lack of peer review and politically motivated consensus has taken the place of true scientific research.
It’s no surprise that you claim that I am the one who doesn’t see the difference between the fruits of science and the fruits of advocacy and policy because you are a product of your own shortsighted bias.
(Because Greag left an obscene, ad hominem attack, which I don’t allow at my blog, I deleted it. It was to this attack that Webloggin left the following restrained reply. — Bookworm)
Like I said, you have nothing.
Nice slapdown. I didn’t think G could go any lower; but it just goes to show that Hades has plenty of depth, surprises, and circles.