The Weekly Sam: Subscribe to the Blumenfeld Archive-a Free On-Line Resource for Homeschoolers, Educators, and Historians
In this 2019 interview of Hal Shurtleff by Dr. Duke Pesta of the Freedom Project, Mr. Shurtleff discusses the Sam Blumenfeld Archive which contains much of the writings, and recordings of the late homeschool pioneer. The archive includes Sam’s “Alpha-Phonics” with all 128 lessons in audio and video, cursive lessons, Sam’s monthly newsletters, and publications from American Friends of Algeria and the Society of Jewish Americanists. Here is a link to subscribe to the archive: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
How Democratic Party Politicians Destroyed Gloucester’s Fishing Industry Over Decades The sellout of a working waterfront and the people who built it
The Slow Destruction of a Working City
For decades, the fishing industry in Gloucester was not destroyed by the ocean. It was dismantled by government, year by year. Regulations piled up. Fishing grounds were closed. Seasons were compressed.
Fishermen were forced into narrower windows, making one of the most dangerous jobs in America even more dangerous. Boats disappeared. Permits vanished. A working waterfront was hollowed out.
All of this happened in my lifetime. I grew up in Rocky Neck, watching fishing boats come in and out of the harbor. Over the years, there were fewer boats, fewer trips, and less activity on the waterfront. It wasn’t sudden. It was steady. I watched the fishing industry disappear in real time.
The fishing industry was already shrinking before I was born. Every election cycle brought promises from Democratic politicians to protect it. The outcome tells the story.
As Fishing Shrunk, Government Grew
At the center of this story is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal government agency that regulates commercial fishing through quotas, closures, and rules about when and where fishermen can work.
As Gloucester’s fishing fleet shrank, NOAA expanded. It built a massive federal building in Gloucester, added staff, and grew its budget. It now pays long-term government pensions. The industry declined while the government bureaucracy flourished.
The Local Betrayal
What happened to the fishing industry in Gloucester was not driven only by federal policy. It was enabled locally. Mayors, city councilors, and state representatives supported the political environment that allowed regulation to pile up year after year.
Many of those local officials were Democrats. Many came from fishing families. They understood the docks, the boats, and the risks of the job. Over time, many left that world, entered government and political institutions, and worked against the fishermen they claimed to represent.
Those local Democratic politicians sold a lie. They told fishermen that more regulation meant safety and sustainability, even as the fleet shrank, seasons were compressed, and fishing became more dangerous.
Publicly, they talked about protecting fishermen. In practice, they aligned themselves with federal agencies and political priorities instead of the people who built this city. The industry was dismantled, boat by boat, permit by permit, while local leadership stayed silent or actively supported the process.
That same mindset showed itself clearly in 2020, when the City of Gloucester issued a permit allowing a Black Lives Matter protest at the Fishermen’s Memorial. That decision was approved by local officials who knew exactly what that memorial represents.
The Fishermen’s Memorial exists to honor men lost at sea and to give their families a place to remember them. It is not a general-use space and it is not meant for political events. Allowing a political protest there showed a clear disregard for fishermen and for the families who lost loved ones on the water.
The loss of the fishing vessel Lily Jean and all seven crew members brings that reality into focus. For people who do not live here, the Fishermen’s Memorial may look like a landmark. For Gloucester families, it is personal. It carries names, loss, and history. A younger generation should understand what that memorial means to this community and to the families left behind.
The only local politician I can think of who consistently stood up for the fishing industry was Gus Foote. He opposed the direction things were heading more than forty years ago. He was mocked for his stance, outvoted, and ignored. Looking back, he was right.
The Federal Timeline
This didn’t begin with Barack Obama, but under his administration the mindset became unmistakable.
In 2016, Obama permanently closed a massive offshore area to commercial fishing by creating the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. It was done without meaningful input from fishermen and reflected a belief that government control mattered more than working people.
Under Donald Trump, that mindset briefly changed. Trump reopened those waters to commercial fishing. It didn’t bring the industry back, but it mattered. It showed a different way of thinking—fishermen as people who work, not problems to be managed.
Then Joe Biden reversed course and reinstated the Obama-era restrictions.
When Trump returned to office in 2025, he reopened the waters again. And just yesterday, President Trump signed a proclamation to unleash commercial fishing in the Atlantic, advancing America First fishing policy by restoring access to 4,900 square miles of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument located off the coast of New England.
The timeline is clear. One approach favors government control. The other favors freedom to work.
The Truth
Gloucester fishermen will tell you this now. Even if every restriction were lifted tomorrow, Gloucester no longer has the processing plants, buyers, or supply chain to support a real comeback. Rebuilding would take decades. For people alive today, that era is gone. That is the cost of decades of political decisions.
Seeing It Clearly Now
For a long time, people here were told one story while living another. Regulation was sold as protection. Decline was framed as inevitable.
More people in Gloucester are starting to see that clearly now. Once you see it, it doesn’t go away.
Clarity doesn’t bring back what was lost. But it does change what comes next.
Subscribe to The Destino Doctrine
By Alexander J Destino · Launched 2 months ago
For My Family. For My Community. For Anyone Who Cares About the Truth.
By subscribing, you agree Substack’s Terms of Use, and acknowledge its Information Collection Notice and Privacy Policy.
Constitutional Illiteracy and Wokeness in the U.S. Military: An Interview with Dr. Chase Spears
Hal Shurtleff, host of the Camp Constitution Report, interviews Dr. Chase Spears on Constitutional illiteracy and wokeness in the U.S Military.
Dr. Chase Spears is a combat veteran who served as a U.S. Army public affairs officer for 20 years, retiring from Fort Leavenworth on October 1, 2023. He turned down promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and chose to depart military service as a Major (Promotable) believing that he can serve the nation’s defense more effectively in a civilian capacity. Chase started his military career as an enlisted man and was quickly encouraged to apply for a commission through officer candidate school. He went on to serve 17 years as an officer and paratrooper at the 55th Combat Camera Company, 4th Brigade (Airborne) – 25th Infantry Division, U.S. Army Alaska Headquarters, and the Mission Command Training Program at Fort Leavenworth. He deployed to Kuwait and served a combat tour in Afghanistan, in addition to serving partnership mission in Canada, Mongolia, Jordan, and Australia. In recognition of excellence in service, he was selected for a competitive U.S. Army fellowship to Georgetown University in 2017. The Army next selected him to attend the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College resident course, which is limited to the top 49% of officers. Chase’s is the recipient of awards from the Command and General Staff College, Georgetown University, the International Public Relations Research Association, the interdisciplinary national honor society Phi Kappa Phi, and the International Association of Business Communicators (Kansas City chapter).
Dr. Spears is passionate about holding the military accountable to its Constitutional purpose. He is widely published on civil-military and political topics in publications that include The American Mind, Real Clear Defense, The Washington Post, and The Baltimore Sun. He has also authored chapters about communication professionalism in two books. Chase is often sought out for expert perspective by media organizations including News Nation, The Gateway Pundit, and American Family News. Chase holds a Ph.D. in leadership communication from Kansas State University, where his research focused on the political realities of military norms, culture, and actions. He recently founded a leadership practice that coaches principled leaders to find their spines, man up, ignore critics, lead boldly, and build substantive legacies.
American Minute with Bill Federer History of Iran Part 3 WWI in Middle East to Khomeini’s Revolution
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Weekly Sam: How to Use Education Reform Effectively as a Campaign Issue By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
All candidates for office promise to “improve education,” but when they are elected, they
haven’t the faintest idea of how to proceed from there. That’s because the whole idea of
education reform is based more on the deliberate falsehoods produced by the educators
than on the reality of why our schools are the way they are.
I have been writing critically about education for the last forty years. My books include
The New Illiterates, How to Tutor, Alpha-Phonics, NEA: Trojan Horse in American
Education, The Whole Language Fraud, Homeschooling: A Parents Guide to
Teaching Children, The Victims of Dick and Jane, and Revolution via Education.
In those books I showed that every problem we have in public education today has been
deliberately caused by the educators themselves, and that no true education reform is
possible as long as we rely on the educators to create and implement those reforms.
Here are the realities that you as a candidate or concerned citizen should be aware of:
1, The public schools were taken over in the early 20th century by a cabal of progressive
educators whose goal it was to use the schools as a means of turning children into little
socialists who would then bring about a socialist society. The plan for all of this was
outlined by John Dewey in an article entitled “The Primary-Education Fetich”
written in 1898 and published in Forum magazine, May 1898. In it, Dewey
advocated changing the way children were taught to read so that they could be
deliberately dumbed-down. High literacy was considered an obstacle to socialism
because it developed independent, individualistic intelligence not conducive to
collectivist group think.
2, The new “sight” or “look-say” method of teaching reading was put in the schools in
the 1930s, and by 1955 the reading situation had become so bad that Dr. Rudolf Flesch
was compelled to write Why Johnny Can’t Read. In it he explained, “The teaching of
reading–all over the United States, in all the schools, in all the textbooks–is totally
wrong and flies in the face of all logic and common sense.” And believe it or not, the
situation is as bad today as it was in 1955. In fact, in 2007 the National Endowment for
the Arts issued a report on America’s declining literacy, Reading at Risk. Endowment
Chairman Dana Gioia stated: “This is a massive social problem. We are losing the
majority of the new generation. They will not achieve anything close to their
potential because of poor reading.”
3.
In order to implement these new socialist programs in the schools, the Progressive
Cabal decided to take over the National Education Association and turn it into a powerful
political instrument in order to pressure the Federal Government to pour billions of
dollars into the public schools. Their success has been achieved. Back in 1967, the
NEA’s executive secretary proclaimed: “NEA will become a political power second to no
other special interest group….NEA will organize this profession from top to bottom into
logical operational units that can move swiftly and effectively and with power unmatched
by any other organized group in the nation.” In short, the NEA is a political
organization attached to the radical left-wing of the Democratic party.
4.
The Progressive program has been fully implemented in the public schools, paid for
by the taxpayer who is barely aware of what is going on. Thus American children are at
risk in four ways in the public schools: academically, spiritually, morally, and physically.
Academically because of the reading programs that create dyslexia and reading failure;
spiritually, because of the undermining of the children’s religious beliefs through the
philosophy of secular humanism; morally, because pornographic sex ed, drug ed, and
moral relativism; and physically, because of school shootings and massacres, violence,
and school-bus accidents.
5.
So what is a conservative candidate to do or say when it comes to education? He or
she must support the idea of educational freedom, the right of parents to home-school,
and the right of entrepreneurs and religious denominations to create good private schools.
A conservative can support the idea of the charter school, which in reality is a public
school, provided that the charter issuing board will approve of schools with traditional
teaching programs.
As for the public schools, the conservative candidate should advocate the complete
reform of the primary school curriculum so that it includes intensive, systematic phonics,
cursive writing instruction, and basic arithmetic. It is in the primary school where the
greatest damage is done to the children. Therefore a detailed plan to completely revamp
the primary school curriculum should be the basic educational reform offered by a
conservative candidate. Such advocacy would be an excellent way to gain the support of
parents in the community. It would be very difficult for your opponents to argue against
such reforms.
The above article came from the Blumenfeld Archive: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
The Blumenfeld Archives
Louisiana Appeals Ten Commandments Ruling to Full Fifth Circuit
(This is a news release from our friends at Liberty Counsel. Our case is mentioned in it.
Jan 20, 2026
In June 2024, Louisiana became the first state to require all its public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. Gov. Jeff Landry signed the law which directs all public classrooms from kindergarten to state-funded colleges and universities to post the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” on a poster or framed document. The law states the purpose of these displays is to educate the public on “historically significant documents” that shaped both “American and Louisiana law.”
The outcome of Louisiana’s case will also affect a similar challenge to Texas’ 2025 Ten Commandments law, which is under the Fifth Circuit’s jurisdiction. In Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, several Texas families successfully sued the state receiving a preliminary injunction blocking the Ten Commandments in Texas schools.
Recent Supreme Court precedents show that displaying the Ten Commandments is not necessarily a religious endorsement. In American Legion v. American Humanists Association, the High Court wrote that the Ten Commandments “have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system” and represents a “common cultural heritage.” Then, in 2022, the cases of Shurtleff v. City of Boston and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District rejected and overruled the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman. The High Court replaced the “Lemon Test” by returning to a traditional First Amendment standard where courts must interpret the Establishment Clause by “reference to historical practices and understandings.”
Throughout this case, Louisiana officials have defended the Ten Commandments law as constitutionally valid by arguing that it has a historical and educational purpose. They cite the Decalogue’s “historical role” in developing American law and education, which displayed alongside other historical documents, would be permissible under the First Amendment. Since HB 71 also required public school classrooms to display the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance, the state’s legal team has argued that the law’s intent is not to endorse a religion but to teach where America’s longstanding moral values in civic life originate.
Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The Ten Commandments is a universally recognized symbol of law and has indelibly shaped the Western Legal Tradition and American government. There are more than 50 displays of the Ten Commandments inside and outside the United States Supreme Court. The Ten Commandments are ubiquitous and their central role in law and government pre-date the U.S. Constitution. Passive Ten Commandments displays do not compel religious exercise, so there is no Establishment Clause violation. The en banc Fifth Circuit has a chance to correct a terribly flawed ruling and restore the Ten Commandments to public school classrooms.”
For media interviews, please email media@LC.org.
The transition to net-zero emissions is a tax on the air you breathe Nonscientists Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Bill Gates support taxing the gas of life – CO2
Ronald Stein, P.E., is an engineer, columnist on energy literacy at America Out Loud NEWS, and advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.” He is also the recipient of an unsolicited Tribute to Ronald Stein from Stephen Heins.
Willie Soon, PhD., an astrophysicist and geoscientist, is a leading authority on the relationship between solar phenomena and global climate. He has published extensively for nearly the past 4 decades on solar and stellar physics and Earth sciences as well as public health. Dr. Soon works are well recognized by world-class scientists like Kary Mullis (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry), John Clauser (Nobel Laureate in Physics), Freeman Dyson (Wrangler at Large), Eugene Parker (Father of Solar Wind) and many more.
Co-authored by Ronald Stein and Willie Soon
Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Bill Gates all have lifestyles with large personal mansions and travel by planes, cruise liners, and automobiles, that are all built with fossil fuels, the same fossil fuels they wish to rid the world of. And these “average D students”, according to Richard Lindzen of MIT, in science insisted to tax the air all life depends on. The great weather forecaster, Joe Bastardi, recently provided an estimate that some $10-12 trillion dollars had been wasted over the past 30 years because these pseudo-activists sold the world the idea of “fake energy” by wind turbines and solar panels.
- These green delusionists seem to be oblivious that wind turbines and solar panels may produce “zero” emission, but ONLY generate electricity. Those wind turbines and solar panels are incapable of making any of the products or transportation fuels demanded by the 8 billion now on this planet.
- These “green” mandators for transitioning from ICE vehicles to EV’s would only eliminate gasoline used in ICE vehicles, which is only 1 of the more than 6,000 products made from fossil fuels. The EV, like the ICE vehicle, continues to be 100% made from those oil products, inclusive of tires, computers, wiring and insulation, and all the electronics of those so-called “zero emissions” vehicle.
- These so-called “political leaders” CANNOT explain how wind turbines and solar panels can make any of the other 5,999 products that are now made from hydrocarbons that we see in operating hospitals, airports, offices, shopping centers, datacenters, etc. or how those renewables will support the 50,000 merchant ships, 300 cruise ships, 20,000 commercial aircraft, and 50,000 military aircraft on this planet that did not exist 200 years ago?
Sustainable development and green business based on renewable energy. Reduce CO2 emission concept. Renewable energy-based green businesses can limit climate change and global warming
CO2 is a gas of life that makes the world greener and the plants more water-wise. CO2 concentration levels:
- 8,000 ppm: Naval Submarines
- 5,000 ppm: Space Station
- 4,000 ppm: Abundant Life
- 1,600 ppm: Average
- 800 to 1,500 ppm: Greenhouses enrich the air to boost plant growth and yield by providing more carbon for photosynthesis.
- 425 ppm: TODAY, with nonscientists Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Bill Gates promoting LESS CO2.
- 200 ppm: Ice ages, which contributed to global cooling
- 140 ppm: Death, i.e. CO2 starvation levels when humans, animals, and plant life CANNOT survive.
Why on earth are those so-called political leaders promoting that the world moves toward starvation levels of CO2? Is it a way to generate tax on our air to lessen the US budget deficit?
- The current US budget deficit is more than $38.46 Trillion, but we’ll get back to that in a moment.
In the 1800’s (before oil) life expectancy was around 30 to 40 years of age, and the world population was about 1 billion.
As you know, no one uses that black tar commonly referred to crude oil until it is processed into oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products and various transportation fuels today that did not exist in the 1800’s.
After oil, the world populated from 1 to more than 8 billion in less than 200 years, not from that useless black tar, but from the products we have today from PROCESSED crude oil.
We may not need those hydrocarbons, but we do need those 6,000 products and transportation fuels, that did not exist 200 years ago, that are MADE from hydrocarbons to support the 8 billion on this planet.
Today, we’re a materialistic society based on more than 6,000 products and transportation fuels based on hydrocarbons. We need the products not fossil fuels, BUT we have no back up plan to replace the hydrocarbons that are supporting the supply chain of all those products and transportation fuels that were the basis for the world population growing from 1 to 8 billion in less than 200 years.
We know that wind and solar can ONLY generate electricity, but wind and solar CANNOT make any of the 6,000 products and transportation fuels that are based on hydrocarbons. In the event COP30 get their wishes that we eliminate hydrocarbons BEFORE we have a replacement identified, the world’s population will most likely decline by billions of people as we would be unable to support the supply chain of products and transportation fuels demanded by those on this planet.
Getting back to the US budget deficit of $38.46 Trillion. It is heavily caused by Medicare and Social Security expenses for the growing numbers of older people that are here because of the products made from hydrocarbons that have contributed to an exceptional health care infrastructure that did not exist in the 1800’s that is contributing to today’s longer longevity.
Current CO2 levels of 425 ppm are well below what Navy personnel breath in submarines, and well below what our Astronauts beath on the Space Station, and well below what plants breath in greenhouses, yet Gore, Kerry, Obama, Gates, and California Governor Newsom, all want to over regulate the emissions from our use of hydrocarbons that are only being demanded by people’s addiction to the products made from hydrocarbons.
In 1800, when the atmospheric CO2 level was said to be about 270-280 ppm, it was considered the pre-industrial baseline before large-scale fossil fuel burning supported the world’s population growth from 1 to 8 billion in less than 200 years.
In the event these so-called “political leaders” get their wish by taxing our air and we rid the use of crude oil, it will most likely result in a depopulation of billions on this planet if we rid the use of crude oil before we can clone it to support the supply chain of products for humanity. And, like the 1800’s, when we had no products from hydrocarbons, nobody will live past 60 years of age, and thus the $38.46 Trillion deficit problem will be resolved with a drastic decrease in the numbers eligible for Medicare and Social Security as they die off, AND virtually nobody will live long enough to be added to Medicare and Social Security.
The transition to net-zero emissions is a tax on the air we breathe.
Please share this information with teachers, students, and friends to encourage Energy Literacy conversations at the family dinner table.
Click this Link to Sign up for Energy Literacy from Ronald Stein
When They Come for the Churches The storming of a Minnesota church is not politics. It is good versus evil. How long will Christians stay silent? by Alex Destino
Anti-ICE, Democrat Party foot soldiers are now storming Christian church services in Minnesota. That alone tells you exactly where this country is headed.
This is not protest. This is spiritual warfare. Good versus evil. When activists invade a House of God, frighten children, and intimidate worshipers in the middle of a church service, they are not acting on their own. This is organized. This is funded. This is protected.
And there is a reason for it.
The Democrat Party cannot win elections without importing millions of illegal aliens. Without that pipeline of future voters, their coalition collapses. So they will defend that system at any cost — even if that means trampling churches, terrorizing children, and intimidating pastors.
This is not random. These are foot soldiers for a political machine that depends on chaos and lawlessness to survive.
We have seen this pattern before.
After the Bolshevik Revolution in the early 1920s, communist mobs stormed churches across Russia, shut them down, assaulted priests, desecrated altars, and turned sanctuaries into prisons and propaganda halls. They understood that faith was their greatest enemy. Karl Marx taught that communism advances by tearing down religion, family, truth, and national identity. Destroy faith first, and everything else collapses after it.
Now look at Minnesota and tell me this is not the same pattern.
If you’ve followed anything I’ve written, you know I’ve said for a long time that this is spiritual warfare. This is no longer right versus left. It is good versus evil.
And if you think this cannot happen in your town, you are badly mistaken.
We saw a preview of it right here in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
During Gloucester’s 400th anniversary, I proposed that the city fly the Christian flag on Good Friday to recognize the contributions of the Christian community over four centuries — the faith that shaped not only America, but Gloucester itself. That was all it was meant to be: an acknowledgment of history and gratitude for the people who built this city.
The response exposed something far darker.
The attacks were immediate. The hatred was vicious. The tolerance vanished the moment Christianity appeared in public.
What most people never saw were the messages that came privately.
So many good people reached out to tell me they agreed, that they supported it, that they were grateful someone finally said it out loud. But they were afraid to say it publicly.
Afraid of whom?
Afraid of the same people who now storm churches.
Many of you saw what they tried to do to me. I’m not afraid. But you should ask yourself why so many decent people are.
Scripture is very clear about this. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.” And again, “Whoever acknowledges Me before men, I will also acknowledge before My Father in heaven.”
We are not called to hide our faith. We are called to be bold in it.
Christians need to wake up.
This is no longer about politics. This is about whether you will be allowed to worship freely in your own country without intimidation. Christians are not a minority in the United States. We are the majority. But a silent majority is a defeated majority.
If Christians stood up together, this madness would stop.
Protect your churches. Protect your pastors. Protect your families. If you don’t know what security your church has, ask your pastor. If there is none, demand it. This is not paranoia. This is prudence. And I can assure you of this: this nonsense would not happen at my church.
And understand this clearly: what happened in that church in Minnesota is not just immoral — it is illegal.
Federal law, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, makes it a felony to use force, threats, or physical obstruction to intimidate people because they are exercising their religious freedom at a place of worship. The video is public. The conduct is obvious.
If the law means anything at all, those who entered that church to disrupt worship and terrorize worshipers should be in handcuffs today.
These are not normal times.
If you are not awake now, when will you be?
Stand up for your faith. Stand up for your churches. Stand up for your communities and your families. Because the people doing this do not want coexistence. They want submission. And history is very clear about what happens when good people stay silent for too long.
The Weekly Sam: Book Review of “Marva Collins’ Way” by Sam Blumenfeld
(This is a review from Sam’s June 1987 newsletter titled “Eugenics and the Making of a Black Underclass.”) http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/1987/BEL%2002-06%20198706.pdf
Marva Collins is the black educator who spent 16 years teaching in the Chicago public school system before deciding that she had had enough. “The longer I taught in the public school system, the more I came to think that schools were concerned with everything but teaching,” she says. In September 1975 Marva began a private school of her own with four students and one classroom.
Today, her Westside Preparatory School is considered the nation’s most successful private alternative in a black community. Its success has been widely acclaimed by the media but not by the public educators of Chicago who continue to do what they do best: miseducate. I have known Marva for many years through my association with the Reading Reform Foundation. She has been one of America’s strongest and most vocal advocates of intensive phonics in the teaching of reading. Because of this she is not very popular among reading professionals and specialists who use look-say basal programs.
Marva Collins’ Way is an important book for anyone who wants to understand what one woman is doing to pull black children out of the underclass. Mrs. Collins writes: “I prepared my children for Iife.” And I bluntly told them to face that fact that no one was going to hire them for a job if they walked into an office wearing picks in their hair, if they slinked into a room as though their hips were broken, or if the boys wore earrings or high-heeled shoes or wide-brimmed hats. I teach them to become universal citizens of the world. encourage people,
She writes “I did not teach black history as a subject apart from American history, emphasize black heroes over white, or preach black consciousness rather than a sense of the larger society. My refusal to do so was a sore spot between me and some members of the black community. “I’d say to my students, ‘Is there anyone in here who doesn’t know he’s black?’ And the children would shake their heads and laugh. Then I’d ask, ‘Is there any black child in here who plans on turning white?’ Again, there would be laughter. ‘In that case let’s get on with the business of learning,’ I’m opposed to teaching black English because it separates black children from the rest of society; it also implies they are too inferior to learn standard language usage.” I was convinced black English was another barrier confining my students to the ghetto, “Instead of teaching black pride I taught my children self-pride.
All I wanted was for them to accept themselves. I pointed out that in many ways the ghetto is a state of mind. If you have a positive attitude about yourself, then no one can put you down for who you are or where you live.” This book will also teach you more about education then you’ll ever learn in a teachers college. It goes against everything John Dewey, Cattell, Thorn dike, Gates, Judd, Gray, and the others stood for. It’s what every teacher and student teacher in America should read. But let’ s face it. How many teachers actually read any more books for pleasure?
(The book is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Marva-Collins-Way-P/dp/0874773105/ref=monarch_sidesheet_title#
And the movie:
The Wind Turbine Lie Comes Apart Gloucester’s wind turbines never produced what politicians promised. Not even close.
News out of Gloucester is that the city’s remaining wind turbines are being “retired.” Finally—thank God. I stood with many others who fought bringing these turbines to Gloucester, and we were right. From the beginning, we warned they would not produce the energy politicians promised. The projections were inflated, the assumptions were fantasy, and the output never came close to what the public was sold. Because the energy never materialized, the savings never did either. We warned that maintenance costs would overwhelm any benefit—and they did. Ask yourself a simple question: have your energy bills gone down since those turbines went up? Of course not. They’ve gone up—dramatically. Nationwide, onshore wind turbines average about a 30% capacity factor—meaning they produce less than one-third of their advertised maximum output. Yet communities are sold these projects as if the power is steady, reliable, and capable of justifying the cost. It never was. We also warned that these massive industrial towers didn’t belong in a beautiful, historic waterfront city. They scarred Gloucester’s skyline. We warned they would leak oil. We warned they would fail mechanically. That’s exactly what happened. And none of this was hard to predict. These failures had already happened all over the country. But facts, data, and results mean nothing to left-wing politicians. They convince themselves they’re “saving the planet,” even as they actively degrade the community they claim to care about. Just look at Good Harbor Beach. A third of one of the most beautiful beaches in New England has been fenced off in the name of plover protection. Three years ago, residents were told this operation saved three eggs. Three. Since then, more of the beach has been taken—and officials refuse to share any updated data with the public. Instead, we get enforcement. Self-appointed monitors patrol the beach covered head to toe in full sun-protection gear, binoculars in hand, standing guard like it’s a military exclusion zone. The Karens lead the charge, scanning the sand for violations, with their low-T beta-male husbands tagging along to make sure no one dares step into the plover-protected zone. This is what passes for environmental policy in Gloucester now. Complete nonsense. Same mindset. Same playbook. Ideology first—consequences last. Then reality intervened in the most dramatic way possible: one turbine lost a massive blade. By sheer luck, no one was killed. Nearby residents lived with relentless noise and disruption while politicians kept calling this disaster “progress.” And Gloucester isn’t unique. Look at Cape Wind—years of hype, millions wasted, nothing to show for it. Across the country, wind projects are being retired early because the math never worked and the risks were always downplayed. Wind isn’t the answer to our energy needs. It’s a boondoggle that enriches manufacturers, developers, and green consultants while communities absorb the cost, the damage, and the danger. These turbines may now be “retired”—let’s hope they’re taken down as soon as possible. Until ideology stops outweighing results at the ballot box, Gloucester should expect more failures like this—just wrapped in new slogans and sold by the same people. |