No white flag to feminism here
Julie M. Quist
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Don’t you just hate it when feminists scream about what women want? From the ERA to abortion-on-demand to same-sex marriage, we’re supposed to want it. Well, we didn’t, and we don’t.
The latest uprising is Moms Rising, complete with a “Motherhood Manifesto,” victimhood status (again!), and an “EMPOWERMENT AGENDA”! They’re mad, mad, mad that America is behind Britain, Canada, France, Belgium, Holland, and Scandinavia which are so “family friendly.”
For the record, social welfare countries are in serious economic decline, drowning in unsustainable entitlements. Their populations, too, are steeply down, with live births below replacement levels. Disinterest in child bearing suggests unhealthy family structures.
But in America? 70% of working women would prefer staying home with their kids if they could, and employed women have sharply declined. This makes Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn.org, pretty steamed, because that’s a severe setback for feminists. Blades hates mommy wars, where real women reject feminism.
A two-day home school conference, for example, drew over 6,000 this year. That’s more trouble for Blades who wants government (e.g. feminist) entanglement in what very young children shall believe, do, and value from infancy on.
Blades and friends demand an end to the “mommy wars,” not because they’re ready to leave parents well enough alone. No, this truce demands that we all agree with MoveOn.org’s political agenda for state intervention into our kids and family life.
Their elitist “empowerment” goal would “educate mothers and other caregivers about the injustice” with how we’re treated ? meaning we need more social programs, universal pre-school, and a political agenda mirroring MoveOn.org’s radicalism. They “advocate for a societal shift,” which will spike up the taxes that force two parents into the workplace.
The mommy wars’ “truce,” then, is surrender to feminism. No thanks. Let the war rage. No white flag here!
A Laptop on Every Desk
By Julie M. Quist
Laptops for all. Textbooks of tomorrow. From Illinois to Georgia to Maine to Texas to Minnesota, the push is on to mandate laptops for every student at a price tag that runs into the billions for one state alone. Yet according to Donna Garner, a former teacher and very active proponent of traditional knowledge-based education, no independent, long-term research exists to demonstrate that laptops actually increase academic achievement.
In Maine, they cost taxpayers $300 per year per pupil. Traditional textbooks at $50 each last about five years compared to $1500 for laptops over five years. Then there’s technical support, internet connections, and so on. Overall achievement, meanwhile, stays flat. The American Educational Research Association's annual meeting heard this month about studies actually showing negative results with the use of computers to teach reading.
Clearly, this shockingly expensive educational fad is descending on us with zero evidence to recommend it. Except of course the study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which was glowing, but, then, Apple is raking in billions on this. Obviously people are making big money on this scam, and Gates is just one of them.
There’s more to this picture, though. Curriculum delivered via the internet spells the end of any remnant of local control. It’s a dream come true for education transformers. No one – no parent, no teacher, no administrator or school board member – comes between the student and that curriculum.
What exactly will be delivered to Johnny’s laptop, aside from the vulgarities that multi-culturalists insist he must experience? Eighteen months ago Bill Gates contracted with the UN to build their global information technology pipelines for Education for All.
The contract describes education as “ global communities of practice” -- groups of people organizing for social change. Meaning: worldwide training for social activism. Laptops on every desk.
Beware: Bridge to Terebithia, Part II
By Julie M. Quist
As noted in Part I of “Beware: Bridge to Terebithia,” author Katherine Paterson has successfully marketed a very bad (but well-written) book to public and Christian elementary schools and to home schoolers. In one local school district, students all took home free copies. One family ended up with three. Why all the hype?
Terebithia happens to be an unusually effective tool in introducing children to a new, universal spiritualism which deceptively appears to actually accept and embrace Christianity. For those familiar with “transformational education,” it defines the purpose of education as intentionally and methodically “socializing” students into a “contemporary” worldview. We’re not talking about secret conspiracies here. The determination to transform the worldview of students through education is public and widely understood.
In Terebithia, “separation of church and state” is nowhere to be found. Religion is presented not unsympathetically, but sin and salvation are treated with contempt. The attack is powerful on young readers who by now are emotionally attached to the characters.
“Where’d you hear a thing like that?” asks the 5th grade girl. “I don’t believe it.” The 5th grade boy is embarrassed by what he believes, and smoothly he transfers his allegiance. If this were a positive promotion of Christianity, the book would be banned. Attacks, however, are allowed.
Throughout the book, the Lord’s name is continually taken in vain. A tenet of multiculturalism is to force offensive language on students in the name of familiarizing them with other cultures. Many parents, however, would call this breaking down barriers to wrongdoing. We intentionally shield our children from casual profanity, so they will emulate a higher standard.
Terebithia deliberately undermines Christianity and promotes a pantheistic spiritualism. Thus, the hype. Beware of the tools being against our children. Bridge to Terebithia is one of them. Pass it on.
By Julie Quist
”Jess followed her into the grove, where they stood silently in the dim light.
‘What do you think?’ he whispered.
The question flickered across her face. ‘O God,’ she began. She was more at home with magic than religion, ‘O Spirits of the Grove.’
‘Thy right hand hast given us victory.’ …
She took up the words, ‘Now grant protection to Terebithia, to all its people, and to us its rulers.’” [p. 71]
The two young characters are in a “sacred pine grove,” and to give the words more punch, the illustrations shows her worshipful silhouette with arms lifted high.
“Leslie lifted her arms and face up toward the dark green canopy, ‘O Spirits of the grove,’ she began solemnly. ‘We are come on behalf of our beloved kingdom which lies even now under the spell of some evil, unknown force. Give us, we beseech thee, wisdom to discern this evil, unknown force and power to overcome it.’” [pp. 90-91]
The UN Biodiversity Assessment is a radical environmental document which says that the western world is … characterized by the denial of the sacred attributes of nature … [which] became firmly established about 2000 years ago with the Judeo-Christian –Islamic religious traditions …”
It goes on to say that, “The world view of traditional societies tends to be strikingly different. … They view themselves as members of a community that includes other humans, but also rocks, springs and pools. People are then members of a community of beings – living and non-living. Thus rivers are viewed as mothers. Animals may be treated as kin …”
PANTHEISM is the belief that the universe is divine and nature is sacred. Radical environmentalism believes that the earth is sacred. This book indoctrinates our kids in a new, politicized one-world religion.
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