Free Republic

It's official. Conservatives are losing their monopoly on complaints about media bias. In the wake of Newsweek's bungled report that U.S. military interrogators "flushed a Qur'an down a toilet," here is Terry Moran, ABC's White House reporter, in an interview with radio host and blogger Hugh Hewitt: "There is, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media, one that begins from the premise that the military must be lying and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong." Moran thinks it's a hangover from Vietnam. Sure, but the culture of the newsroom is a...

“America is reaping the consequences of the destruction of traditional education by the Dewey-Kilpatrick experimentalist philosophy…Dewey’s ideas have led to elimination of many academic subjects on the grounds that they would not be useful in life…The student thus receives neither intellectual training nor the factual knowledge which will help him understand the world he lives in, or to make well-reasoned decisions in his private life or as a responsible citizen.” -- Admiral Hyman Rickover [The Tablet, August 11, 1959]John Dewey, an educational philosopher, first applied his experimental philosophies in a model school at the University of Chicago prior to 1900...

You see it in daycare centers, and you see it in the public schools, from kindergarten to high school. Group projects abound, shoving together individuals who have no formal bonds, yet are banded together for the purpose of collective decision-making. Universities, both public and private, are not immune to this affliction. In fact, if you attend a business college today, you’ll think it’s the newest rage, but it’s been the rule for decades. Most university programs may not use group projects, but undergraduate and graduate programs in business are full of them. It is our contention that group projects are...

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...

Compulsory Mental Health Screening is Coming For Adults and Children Preschool and Up... August 23, 2004 by Sharon Hughes There is a new major U.S. mental health initiative on the docket, based on a report of the New Freedom in Mental Health Commission, which recommends mental health screening for adults and children as young as preschool age, in primary care health settings, schools, and correctional facilities. It also includes expanding school-based mental health programs requiring specific treatments for specific conditions, including the use of specific medications. Despite a growing public opposition to universal mental health screening, states are being encouraged...

I have a brother who has some real personal problems from his past that has gotten involved with an organization called Landmark Forum. This has been going on for over a year, maybe two and has never been and issue with anyone in the family - until recently. He called us late one night and said that he wnated to throw a birthday party for "Bette" which, for our family, means that he is talking about our mom. Part of his problems had to do with a very painful split from our family, so this wasn't too much of a...

[...] As before, US policymakers as well as legislators base their policy decisions on the analysis provided to them by independent analysts. The robustness of the analysis, therefore, is critical to prevent poor decision-making. The intelligence analysis leading up to the 9-11 attacks, as well as the WMD-program in Iraq are classic examples of where the data was analyzed to fit what was thought of as “common sense” conclusions. In both cases, the holes in the analysis have themselves been subject to further analysis. However, it does not appear that the fundamental mistakes underlying poor analysis are being corrected. The...

Home is no place for schoolWed Sep 3, 6:49 AM ET By Dennis L. Evans  The popularity of home schooling, while not significant in terms of the number of children involved, is attracting growing attention from the media, which create the impression that a "movement" is underway. Movement or not, there are compelling reasons to oppose home teaching both for the sake of the children involved and for society. Home schooling is an extension of the misguided notion that "anyone can teach." That notion is simply wrong. Recently, some of our best and brightest college graduates, responding to the altruistic...

We reveal our collective feelings by what we take for granted. New York Times writers, for instance, assume that George W. Bush is considered so gauche that his name can serve as a synonym for clumsiness. On Sunday, a story about inept business jargon quoted an anonymous executive's memo: "Cascade this to your people and see what the push-back is." The article wasn't even about politics, but the writer knew what to say next: "If that sentence were a person, it would walk like George W. Bush." Among liberal opinionmongers, including TV comics, Bush is a punchline. Garrison Keillor on...

<p>June 24, 2003 -- Is the United States to be a nation of individuals engaged in the pursuit of happiness - or an agglomeration of hostile groups each eternally seeking advantage at the expense of the others?</p> <p>Hard to say, based on yesterday's Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action.</p>

In July 2002, freeper tlbshow picked up on a thread on a certain rat underground website. It seems one of the dems had actually bothered to read Ann Coulter's book, "Slander" and thought her analysis of democratic and leftish problems was correct. The brave rat posted his/her thoughts on the dem website and drew a firestorm. The Dem article is reproduced here in full: I just went to one of the "bad places." Is this the article you were referring to: Ann Coulter is Right - And I Am Reeling" Posted by khangaskhan on Jul-03-02 at 11:46 PM I just...

I know someone who is planning on attending one of these "forums", and I'm concerned. From what I can tell, it's a scam wrapped in new age garbage.

It's a bittersweet Labor Day for the groups that have been representing Colorado's more than 46,000 state government workers. Never a large number to begin with, their ranks declined significantly after Gov. Bill Owens last November stopped automatic payroll deductions for dues to employee organizations and labor unions. At the time, nearly 5,800 workers throughout the state - employees doing everything from guarding inmates in prisons to keeping highways in shape - were having their dues withheld automatically. At a meeting of the 2002 Conservative Political Action Conference in Arlington, Va., this year, Owens described his action as a matter...

After four months of controversy, Los Angeles-based poet Wanda Coleman, recipient of the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the American Academy of Poets and a National Book Award finalist last year, wryly concedes that she's received more attention for one book review than for anything else she's ever written. One bad review, that is, of Maya Angelou's latest book, A Song Flung Up to Heaven, the third volume of an autobiography by "the Inaugural Poet." In an April 14 book review in the Los Angeles Times, Coleman concluded, "Unfortunately, the Maya Angelou of A Song Flung Up to Heaven...

TYLER -- A council of journalism and communication schools in eight states has condemned a decision by officials at the University of Texas at Tyler to dismiss the student newspaper's adviser after she encouraged students to practice aggressive reporting. In a letter to UT-Tyler's provost, Fred Blevens, president of the Southwest Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication, criticized administrators for firing the adviser without "due process" or "establishing just cause," and urged them to reconsider cutting her position. Provost David O'Keeffe was out of town Wednesday evening and unavailable for comment, his wife said. But O'Keeffe has said administrators...

Facing the gay gestapo By Tammy Bruce From The Advocate (via FrontPageMag.com), April 16, 2002 I thought I knew what it was like to be on the outside. Most of us gay and lesbian people think we do. After all, we live our lives, out or not, knowing we are on the fringes of society. As a very out feminist gay woman, former leader in the National Organization for Women, I thought I knew what it was like to be at odds with the Establishment. Boy, was I wrong! You see, it wasn’t until I came out as a dissenter...

<p>This week’s news about excessive college drinking is another shocking example of statistical deception by shameless activists manipulating a media panting for sensationalism.</p> <p>USA Today’s "College drinking kills 1,400 a year, study finds" was the typical headline.</p> <p>The frenzy was sparked by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s report, "A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges."</p>