The Weekly Sam: The Benefits of Cursive Writing by Sam Blumenfeld
The teaching of handwriting has a low priority among educators these days. They believe
that handwriting is passé and that in the future everyone will be using word processors to
do their writing. But have you noticed how easy it is to make errors when writing an email?
Parents can be quite confused by the subject of handwriting. So, whenever I lecture at a
homeschool convention on the second R, I always ask by a show of hands if parents think
that handwriting should be taught. Usually the response is unanimously positive.
-So you agree that teaching your child to write is an important part of your homeschooling
curriculum. – The next question I raise is: -If you believe that handwriting should be formally
taught. do you believe that your child should be taught manuscript – also known as ‘ball and-stick’ – first or cursive first? – Most parents assume that ball-and-stick should precede
cursive, because that’s the way they were taught in school. Besides, it is supposed to be
easier that way.
But then I tell them that when I was in primary school in the 1930s, like their grandparents,
we were all taught cursive handwriting, or what was then known as “penmanship,” · using
pens dipped in real ink. That was before ballpoint pens were invented. We were actually
taught in the first grade that there was a correct way to hold a pen so that we would be
able write with ease and facility without tiring. Thus, in those ancient days, an important
part of the primary curriculum was the development of good handwriting, and we were
given plenty of drill to make that possible.
This surprises most parents who assume that print script always preceded cursive writing.
But when I tell them otherwise, I then must explain why cursive should precede print
script and not vice versa. If you teach a child to print for the first two years, that child develops writing habits that will become permanent. Thus, when you try to get your child to switch to cursive in the third grade, you will find resistance to learning a whole new way of writing. That child may continue to print fur the rest of his or her life. Some children develop a hybrid handwriting consisting of a mixture of both print and cursive. That seems to have become the dominant form of writing in America. And there are those children who develop a good cursive
hand writing because they’ve always wanted to and practiced it secretly on the side.
Thus, experience clearly indicates that if you teach ball-and-stick first, your child may never
develop a decent cursive handwriting, while if you teach cursive first, your child can always
learn to print very nicely later on. In other words, cursive first and print later makes good
developmental sense.
An important and frequently overlooked benefit is that cursive helps a child learn to read.
With ball-and-stick it is very easy to confuse bs and ds. But with cursive, a b starts like an
I, and a d starts like an a. The distinction that children make in writing the letters in cursive
carries over to the reading Process. In addition, in writing print script, the letter ‘S may be all
over the page, sometimes written from left to right and from right to left. In cursive, where
all the letters connect. the child learns directional discipline. This helps in learning to
spell, for how the letters join with one another creates habits of hand movement that
automatically aid the spelling process.
Of course, your child should also be taught to print. That can easily be done after your child
has developed a good cursive handwriting. Another important benefit of cursive first is if
your child is left-handed. A right-handed individual tilts the paper counter-clockwise in order
to give one’s handwriting the proper slant. With the left-handed child, the paper must be
tilted in an extreme clockwise position so that the child can write from the bottom up. If the
paper is not tilted clockwise, the left-handed child may want to use the hook. form of
writing. This usually happens when the child is taught ball-and-stick first with the paper in a
straight up position.
If you consider good handwriting or fine penmanship a desired outcome of your home
teaching, then you must teach cursive first. There are several good cursive programs
available on the market. The Abeka program from Pensacola Christian College is probably
one of the best currently available.
I am often asked if Italic is a good way of teaching a child to write. Italic script is more in
the class of calligraphy than handwriting, and therefore takes longer to learn and requires
more skill than a standard cursive handwriting. So, simply learn this simple principle:
cursive first. print second.
(The above came from the Sam Blumenfeld Archives: https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/
We must hope Dr. Soon is right … And the global warming apocalypse is not nigh. Real-world evidence certainly supports him. Jeffrey Foss, PhD
Everyone has heard the bad news. Imminent Climate Apocalypse (aka “global warming” and “climate change”) threatens humanity and planet with devastation, unless we abandon the use of fossil fuels.
Far fewer people have heard the good news. The sun has just entered its Grand Minimum phase, and the Earth will gradually cool over the next few decades.
Why should we all hope Earth will cool? Because nobody with any trace of human decency would hope the Earth will actually suffer catastrophic warming.
Many of us believe in the threat of global warming, but live in the hope that we can switch to “renewable energy” before it is too late. But this is a false hope. Despite our best efforts over several decades, renewables such as wind and solar energy still meet only 2% of global energy needs, while hydro adds only 7% or so.
So avoiding the alleged Climate Apocalypse by relying on renewable energy would require surviving on less than 10% of our current energy requirements. But that is impossible. It would also be really catastrophic: billions could die.
Our global economy runs on energy, and over 80% of it is still fossil fuels, with nuclear and other non-renewables providing another 10%. If we switch to renewables tomorrow, 90% of our energy will be lost, and the global economy will sink like the Titanic. Keeping nuclear power would merely add a second lifeboat as the great ship sinks. Even if the energy loss were spread out over decades, the final result would still be the same.
Humankind could not produce enough food, clothing and shelter. Jobs would vanish. Massive starvation, disease and death would result. Hard physical labor would once again become the norm. Even though life could be maintained for some portion of humanity, liberty and happiness would be lost.
Let’s stop pretending. The prescribed cure for Climate/Global Warming Apocalypse is far worse than the purported disease. If we don’t use coal, oil and natural gas for energy, many of the 7 billion of us now alive must die. Those who survive will be impoverished and enslaved, toiling and scavenging for food by day, and fearing the darkness by night – except for the privileged few who still have money, energy and power.
The sudden and dramatic growth of human life, liberty, and happiness since the industrial revolution was achieved by replacing muscle power with coal and oil power. Before that, Hillsdale College professor of history Burt Folsom points out, only the wealthy could afford whale oil and candles. Everyone else had to go to bed early, and often hungry, when the sun went down, sleeping to recover enough energy to work – only to repeat the daily cycle yet again. Freedom of thought and travel had little real worth when we were too tired to think or walk.
The petroleum age saved whales from the brink of extinction – and brought cheap kerosene to the masses, so that they could read at night, bringing light into their lives and their brains.
The premature switch to renewable energy recommended by the false prophets of Climate Apocalypse is really just one step in an industrial counter-revolution devoutly desired by those discontented with modern life in free market democracies – and ready to erase our hard-won prosperity and freedom.
The Climate Apocalypse global warming bad news is rewarded by big money from the government and servile amplification from traditional big news media – while the good news of global cooling is silenced and unheard, stifled by both traditional media and most of today’s social media platforms.
We should all be suspicious of the motives of those who push this bad news, and welcome those who push back. Dr. Willie Soon is one scientist, although by no means the only one, who has the courage to stand up to big money, big government, big (pseudo) science, big media and big environmentalism to spread the good news. It’s high time we all heard it.
The good news from Dr. Soon and his fellow solar scientists is that the increase in global temperatures since 1800 was caused by two centuries of increasing solar output – not by human use of coal and oil.
But then solar output began to fall around 2000, in a repetition of a well-known 200-year cycle of solar activity, and global warming stopped. That’s more good news that too few people know. The purveyors of Climate Apocalypse have no explanation for this two-decade failure of their prophecy, which fortunately for all of humanity shows the superiority of solar science over apocalyptic warming foretold by computer models, hysteria and headlines – but not by real-world evidence.
Finally, solar science says we should expect steady but manageable global cooling until about mid-century, when solar activity will recover and temperatures begin to warm once again. Once again, this will be due to solar activity, and not to fossil fuels or carbon dioxide emissions.
In the best news of all, that means humanity’s successful pursuit of life, liberty, happiness, and better living standards and healthcare needn’t be stopped by Climate Apocalypse – or its prescribed cure. The only thing we have to fear is the fear of Climate Apocalypse itself.
Equally important, a warmer or cooler planet with more atmospheric CO2 and plentiful, reliable, affordable fossil fuel and nuclear energy would be infinitely preferable to a cooler planet with less CO2 and only expensive, intermittent, weather-dependent wind, solar and biofuel energy.
At the very least, humankind has an historic opportunity to witness a crucial test between two scientific hypotheses of enormous consequence. The next decade or two will reveal whether Earth warms or cools.
Surely all right-minded people must hope that it cools – and that the fear-mongering of imminent global warming apocalypse cools as well.
I might add that no one should wish the current severe Chicago-style polar vortex cold on anyone. I extend my sympathies and prayers to all who are now suffering from the cold. But be of good cheer in the knowledge that this cold-snap at least puts the lie to vastly worse climate scare global warming stories.
I also wouldn’t wish on anyone the “Green New Deal” energy reality of February 1, 2019 – when wind power provided 1.5% of the energy that kept lights on and homes warm in America’s Mid-Atlantic region, solar provided zero, and derided and despised coal, natural gas and nuclear power provided a whopping 93% or that energy! Imagine the cold, misery and death toll under 100% pseudo-renewable energy.
Dr. Jeffrey Foss is a philosopher of science, Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, Canada, and author of Beyond Environmentalism: A Philosophy of Nature.
High School Students in Massachusetts Lobbying in Behalf of Climate Change Legislation on School Time and the Taxpayer’s Money
Recently, Massachusetts State Senator Paul Feeney made a Facebook posting thanking students from Attleboro High School along with their teacher for their lobbying efforts:
Loved having students from Attleboro High School to the State House today. These students are engaged in a 2030 project class with Mr. Brian Hodges and have been working hard on climate change issues and a strategy to affect change locally. Today, they took to the halls of the State House to meet with myself, Representative Jim Hawkins and others to lobby on behalf of “An Act to Promote Green Infrastructure and Reduce Carbon Emissions” filed by Representative Jennifer Smith Benson.
These students were prepared, articulate and passionate. I’m thrilled that they got to witness me sign on to the bill while they were in my office. Following their presentations, we all went down to the Senate and House chambers for pictures and of course, A #SenateSelfie !!!!!!”
I E-mailed the members of the school committee suggesting to them that using public school students to lobby on behalf of legislation was illegal and unethical. I received a reply from the chairman of the committee Mr. Steven Withers:
“Mr. Shurtleff- thanks for you email and bringing this to my attention. That being said, I don’t see an ethics violation here.
Steve”
I E-mailed Mayor Paul Heroux asking his for his input. Here was his reply:
“Well the fence. I think that public employees lobbying on public Time for something that is an advantage to them should be prohibited. But I think that bringing students to the state house to learn about the process is a completely different thing.
Paul”
I did agree with Mayor Heroux that bringing students to the state house to “learn about the process” is proper. I would have made a stop at the State House Book Store and made sure they all picked up a copy of the Massachusetts Constitution.
I wonder what would be their reply would be if the teacher used the students on school time to lobby for bills promoting the repeal of gun laws, or bills promoting the Pro-Life agenda. It appears that it is okay for students to hear just one side of the climate change issue, and then lobby on behalf of legislation that favors the agenda of their teachers and politicians.
In my “letter to the editor” that I just sent off, I offered to provide credentialed speakers on the subject of climate change that differs from what the students are learning. We will see if I they call, but to paraphrase Howie Carr, a popular Boston-based talk show host when my phone doesn’t ring, that would be the high school not calling.”
Hal Shurtleff, Director
Camp Constitution
Senator Feeney’s facebook page
Boston Plastic Bag Ban Gets Camp Constitution National Attention
Thanks to Professor Willie Soon, and his contacts in the climate realist community, my opposition against the City of Boston’s plastic bag ban has received national attention. Two weeks ago, I submitted a letter to the editor of several Boston newspapers spelling out the reasons why the recently enacted ban was not only unconstitutional but also not environmentally friendly. The owner of the “Boston City Paper,” Paul Feeney, ran the letter as a front page story. We decided to create a flyer that can be used anywhere in the U.S. Mark Affleck, Camp Constitution’s newspaper editor, did an excellent job creating the attractive flyer from the copy I sent him. We also created a short video on the subject. (Links to the flyer and video:
https://campconstitution.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Plastic-bag-ban.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzY7ym65xpY)
I sent Professor Soon the letter, and he forwarded it to Paul Driessen who is the senior policy adviser for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and author of articles of books on energy, the environment. and human rights abuses. Mr. Driessen, with input from Michael Lee Greer, did some editing, and converted the letter into an article. with links to the flyer and video. Mr. Driessen then forwarded it to his contacts. Within a few days, it was published by organizations including the Heartland Institute, Canada Free Press CFACT, and wattsupwiththat https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/16/dont-ban-plastic-bags/
Camp Constitution has received an excellent response both locally and nationally. A number of people have contacted us. A man from Alexandria, VA contacted us, and said that he download the flyer and is passing them out to people at his local Trader Joes. A lady from Ventura Beach, California called us and said that she visited our website after seeing the article, and will talk to her group about starting a Camp Constitution in her area. A man who owns six restaurants in Boston contacted us and asked to help with lifting the ban. In addition, Boston’s only conservative city councilor will sponsor a bill to lift the ban. Not all were happy about the letter, however. a local group in my neighborhood worked together to discredit me, and our efforts to expose the truth, but it only generated more support for us.
If a ban has been enacted or being considered in your town or city, please use the PDF and video posted above as educational tools, and consider hosting a Camp Constitution speaker to address the reason behind the bans: the implementation of Agenda 21. Texas has overturned the bans, and we can either stop or overturn bans in other parts of the country.
The Weekly Sam: An Interview of Dr, Moise Tshombe
In 1964, Sam Blumenfeld visited Dr. Moise Tshombe while he was in exile living in Madrid, Spain. Sam was the founder of the American Friends of Katanga. Here is a link to the interview of Dr. Tshombe, a victim of the Pro-Communist policies of Western nations and the United Nations which used mainly white soldiers to subjugate the Province of Katanga.
http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/Affiliations/Moise%20Tshombe%20Interview.pd
Hidden in Plain View by Jane Aitken
We respond to those who claim the origins of new urbanism are merely a ‘theory’
Next time someone tries to sell you on the philanthropic aspect of “workforce housing”, you might attempt to educate them on the deeper motivation for it and how it fits into the “big picture”.
This Town of Bedford document clearly shows that 2009 was the year town officials created a workforce housing sub-committee in order to capitulate to the state’s new “workforce housing law”. Worse yet, it revealed the unholy alliance between government and corporations, the proliferation of “public-private partnerships”, and the subjugation of local and county governments to unelected regionalists.
Some will continue to repeat propaganda that we are spreading a “conspiracy theory”, but take a look at page 11, and you will see the proof.
As for SNHRPC, it is one of 9 unaccountable, unelected regional boards, all of which claim to have no authority, but seem to be ever-present when it comes to overriding the wishes of the people at the local and county levels. No vote was taken by the public on the decisions made by this sub-committee, that we are aware of.
To further elaborate, these so-called “public-private partnerships” (the latest euphemism for the alliance between corporations and government) are alliances that were formerly known as “crony capitalism”. But traditionally, there is yet another name for when government and corporations merge…
When developers partner with government, and are allowed to profit by it, so long as they do what the government tells them to do, it’s called “fascism”.
“New Urbanism’s” founder Andrés Duany summed it up nicely when he said:
“…fascism, say what you like, but it’s efficient”
In addition, another quote of Duany’s reveals his commitment to mega-cities as part of a global government. He said the following regarding the political structure of the country and that it should be based on the importance of cities:
“…Miami, Florida and then the US, then the United Nations”
We have stated before that we believe NH’s Workforce Housing Law to be an unconstitutional effort to dictate where and how people should live and to wrest power from local governments. Where in the US or State Constitutions does it allow federal and state governments to tell local governments what kind of housing they must provide? What’s next, assigning housing based on what they think are our needs? Check the next census for questions such as “How many bedrooms do you have”. Think we’re kidding? See this screen shot which was taken from the year 2000 long form version.
So, what you have just read might indeed be a conspiracy, but it’s definitely not a theory.
Are you starting to see the big picture, Bedford?
Photo credit: Congress for the New Urbanism
(This article originated in the Bedford, NH Patch and written by Jane Aitken
Jane Aitken
Jane Aitken is a Bedford NH resident who started teaching in 1970 when she had just barely turned 21. As a self taught oil-on-canvas artist, it was only natural that she would become an art supervisor for grades K-12, a job which she did for 10 years. She also worked in grades 1 and 2 classrooms for the next 23 years or so. During one of the school reform initiatives of the 1990s Aitken and her colleagues lost “lifetime job tenure”. In order to continue with their contracts, teachers had to attend many teacher training sessions in order to become “recertified”. The courses were nothing but lessons in social engineering. She chose computer courses whenever she could because it seemed a way to accumulate some actual useful information. Aitken then became IT certified with a specialization in graphic design. She also fixes hardware, assists others with the purchase and set up of various devices, and tutors them on usage. Today she uses her talents as an activist to support many causes, not the least of which is taking back the educational system from the corporations and NGOs and those who misuse our schools for political agendas. She was for 6 years Ed Naile’s sidekick on CNHT’s “Taxpayer Radio” which was heard right here on WLMW 90.7 FM, home of Girard at Large.
Climate hysterics skyrocket by Paul Driessen
Increasingly absurd disaster rhetoric is consistently contradicted by climate and weather reality
Call it climate one-upmanship. It seems everyone has to outdo previous climate chaos rhetoric.
The “climate crisis” is the “existential threat of our time,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her House colleagues. We must “end the inaction and denial of science that threaten the planet and the future.”
Former California Governor Jerry Brown solemnly intoned that America has “an enemy, though different, but perhaps very much devastating in a similar way” as the Nazis in World War II.
Not to be outdone, two PhDs writing in Psychology Today declared that “the human race faces extinction” if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels. And yet “even people who experience extreme weather events often still refuse to report the experiences as a manifestation of climate change.” Psychologists, they lament, “have never had to face denial on this scale before.”
Then there’s Oxford University doctoral candidate Samuel Miller-McDonald. He’s convinced the only thing that could save people and planet from cataclysmic climate change is cataclysmic nuclear war that “shuts down the global economy but stops short of human extinction.”
All this headline-grabbing gloom and doom, however, is backed up by little more than computer models, obstinate assertions that the science is settled, and a steady litany of claims that temperatures, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts et cetera are unprecedented, worse than ever before, and due to fossil fuels.
And on the basis of these hysterics, we are supposed to give up the carbon-based fuels that provide over 80% of US and global energy, gladly reduce our living standards – and put our jobs and economy at the mercy of expensive, unreliable, weather dependent, pseudo-renewable wind, solar and biofuel energy.
As in any civil or criminal trial, the burden of proof is on the accusers and prosecutors who want to sentence fossil fuels to oblivion. They need to provide more than blood-curdling charges, opening statements and summations. They need to provide convincing real-world evidence to prove their case.
They have refused to do so. They ignore the way rising atmospheric carbon-dioxide is spurring plant growth and greening the planet. They blame every extreme weather event on fossil fuel emissions, but cannot explain the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age or extreme weather events decades or centuries ago – or why we have had fewer extreme weather events in recent decades. They simply resort to trial in media and other forums where they can exclude exculpatory evidence, bar any case for the fossil fuel defense, and prevent any cross-examination of their witnesses, assertions and make-believe evidence.
Climate models are not evidence. At best, they offer scenarios of what might happen if the assumptions on which they are based turn out to be correct. However, the average prediction by 102 models is now a full degree F (0.55 C) above what satellites are actually measuring. Models that cannot be confirmed by actual observations are of little value and certainly should not be a basis for vital energy policy making.
The alarmist mantra seems to be: If models and reality don’t agree, reality must be wrong.
In fact, even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels climbed to 405 parts per million (0.0405% of Earth’s atmosphere), except for short-term temperature spikes during El Niño ocean warming events, there has been very little planetary warming since 1998; nothing to suggest chaos or runaway temperatures.
Claims that tornadoes have gotten more frequent and intense are obliterated by actual evidence. NOAA records show that from 1954 to 1985 an average of 56 F3 to F5 tornadoes struck the USA each year – but from 1985 to 2017 there were only 34 per year on average. And in 2018, for the first time in modern history, not a single “violent” twister touched down in the United States.
Harvey was the first major (category 3-5) hurricane to make US landfall in a record twelve years. The previous record was nine years, set in the 1860s. (If rising CO2 levels are to blame for Harvey, Irma and other extreme weather events, shouldn’t they also be credited for this hurricane drought?)
Droughts differ little from historic trends and cycles – and the Dust Bowl, Anasazi and Mayan droughts, and other ancient dry spells were long and destructive. Moreover, modern agricultural and drip irrigation technologies enable farmers to deal with droughts far better than they ever could in the past.
Forest fires are fewer than in the recent past – and largely due to failure to remove hundreds of millions of dead and diseased trees that provide ready tinder for massive conflagrations.
Arctic and Antarctic ice are largely within “normal” or “cyclical” levels for the past several centuries – and snow surface temperatures in the East Antarctic Plateau regularly reach -90 °C (-130 F) or lower. Average Antarctic temperatures would have to rise some 20-85 degrees F year-round for all its land ice to melt and cause oceans to rise at faster than their current 7-12 inches per century pace.
In fact, the world’s oceans have risen over 400 feet since the last Pleistocene glaciers melted. (That’s how much water those mile-high Ice Age glaciers took out of the oceans!)Sea level rise paused during the Little Ice Age but kicked in again the past century or so. Meanwhile, retreating glaciers reveal long-lost forests, coins, corpses and other artifacts – proving those glaciers have come and gone many times.
Pacific islands will not be covered by rising seas anytime soon, at 7-12 inches per century, and because corals and atolls grow as seas rise. Land subsidence also plays a big role in perceived sea level rise – and US naval bases are safe from sea level rise, though maybe not from local land subsidence.
The Washington Post did report that “the Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer, and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot.” But that was in 1922.
Moreover, explorers wrote about the cyclical absence of Arctic ice long before that. “We were astonished by the total absence of ice in Barrow Strait,” Sir Francis McClintockwrote in 1860. “I was here at this time in [mid] 1854 – still frozen up – and doubts were entertained as to the possibility of escape.”
Coral bleaching? That too has many causes – few having anything to do with manmade global warming – and the reefs generally return quickly to their former glory as coralsadopt new zooxanthellae.
On and on it goes – with more scare stories daily, more attempts to blame humans and fossil fuels for nearly every interesting or as-yet-unexplained natural phenomenon, weather event or climate fluctuation. And yet countering the manmade climate apocalypse narrative is increasingly difficult – in large part because the $2-trillion-per-yearclimate “science” and “renewable” energy industry works vigorously to suppress such evidence and discussion … and is aided and abetted by its media and political allies.
Thus we have Chuck Todd, who brought an entire panel of alarmist climate “experts” to a recent episode of Meet the Press. He helped them expound ad nauseam on the alleged “existential threat of our time” – but made it clear that he was not going to give even one minute to experts on the other side.
“We’re not going to debate climate change, the existence of it,” Todd proclaimed. “The Earth is getting hotter. And human activity is a major cause, period. We’re not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled, even if political opinion is not.” The only thing left to discuss, from their perspective was “solutions” – most of which would hugely benefit them and their cohorts, politically and financially.
Regular folks in developed and developing countries alike see this politicized, money-driven kangaroo court process for what it is. They also know that unproven, exaggerated and fabricated climate scares must be balanced against their having to give up (or never having) reliable, affordable fossil fuel energy. That is why we have “dangerous manmade climate change” denial on this scale.
That is why we must get the facts out by other means. It is why we must confront Congress, media people and the Trump Administration, and demand that they address these realities, hold debates, revisit the CO2 Endangerment Finding – and stop calling for an end to fossil fuels and modern living standards before we actually have an honest, robust assessment of supposedly “settled” climate science.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and author of articles and books on energy, environmental and human rights issues.
The Weekly Sam: “Alpha-Phonics” Testimonials
Sam Blumenfeld’s most important work was his simplest” “Alpha-Phonics.” Thousands. or perhaps millions thanks in part to the archives, have used Sam’s simple how to read workbook. Here is a link to a 52 page testimonial on his book: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/Other/Alpha-Phonics%20Testimonials.pdf
And you can find a link for the book here: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/Books/Alpha-Phonics%20Workbook.pdf
Camp Constitution’s 2019 Family Camp July 28-August 3–Mark Your Calendars
Mark your calendars for Camp Constitution’s 11th Annual Family Camp which will held the Lakeside Christian Retreat and Conference Center in Pittsfield, MA. The camp will run from Sunday afternoon July 28 and end Saturday morning August 3.
Like every year, we have an excellent line-up of instructors, and this year is no exception. Returning instructors include Professor Willie Soon, Lord Christopher Monckton, Pastor Earl Wallace, Debbie Bacigalupi, Mrs. Edith Craft, Rev. Steve Craft, John McManus, and Mrs. Catherine White. First time instructors include Malena Chastion, founder of the Daughters of Liberty, and Joseph Wolverton, journalist and author of “The Real James Madison.” Other instructors will be announced as we get conformation.
Recreational activities include an optional hike up Mt. Greylock, swimming, canoeing, basketball, volleyball, wffleball, and chess. Alan Belanger, A..K,A. “Spunky the Clown.” will return to entertain. and teach the fine art of juggling. A field trip to the Springfield Arsenal Museum is planned as well.
Tuition remains the same as last year $350, per person 13 and older $250. for children 12 and under, and three and under free. If you can’t attend but would like to help a worthy youngster attend. please earmark a donation fora tuition via our camp’s PayPal account accessed from our website’s homepage www.campconstitution.net For more information, please feel free to call me at (857) 498-1309. Here is a link to a collection of photos from last year’s camp: http://s3.amazonaws.com/camppictures/2018/index.html
Looking forward to another excellent camp and I hope to see you there.
Hal Shurtleff, Director
Camp Constitution
12 March Ave.
West Roxbury, MA 02132
857-498-1309
The Weekly Sam: Sex Education and How It Got Into the Schools By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
The idea that people needed to be educated about sex probably began with the founding
of the birth control movement by Margaret Sanger, who launched a crusade early in the
20th Century to provide women with birth control information. It was Sanger’s work as a
visiting nurse that turned her interest to sex education and women’s health. Influenced
by anarchist Emma Goldman, she began to advocate the need for family limitation as a
means by which working-class women could liberate themselves from the burden of
unwanted pregnancy.
In 1914, Sanger published the first issue of The Woman Rebel, which advocated militant
feminism and the right to practice birth control. She also wrote a 16-page pamphlet,
Family Limitation, which provided explicit instructions on the use of contraceptive
methods. In August 1914, Sanger was indicted for violating postal obscenity laws. She
jumped bail in October and set sail for England.
In England she became acquainted with a number of British radicals, feminists, and Neo-Malthusians whose social and economic theories helped her develop broader scientific
and social justifications for birth control. She was also deeply influenced by psychologist
Havelock Ellis and his theories on female sexuality and free love.
In 1915, Sanger returned to the United States. The government’s case against her was
dropped. In 1916, she opened the nation’s first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New
York. After nine days of operation, the clinic was raided, and Sanger and staff were
arrested. She spent 30 days in jail. However, the publicity surrounding the clinic
provided Sanger with a base of wealthy supporters from which she began to build an
organized birth control movement.
In 1917, Sanger published a new monthly, the Birth Control Review, and in 1921 she
embarked on a campaign to win mainstream support for birth control by founding the
American Birth Control League, the forerunner of Planned Parenthood. She focused her
efforts on gaining support from the medical profession, social workers, and the liberal
wing of the eugenics movement. Havelock Ellis had converted her to the eugenics creed.
She saw birth control as a means of reducing genetically transmitted mental or physical
defects, and supported sterilization for the mentally incompetent. She advocated “more
children for the fit, less from the unfit-that is the chief issue of birth control.”
In 1922, Sanger married oil magnate James Noah H. Slee, thus insuring her financial
independence. Slee, who died in 1943, became the main funder of the birth control
movement. By connecting with the eugenics movement, Sanger was able to gain the
backing of some of America’s wealthiest people.
In 1930, Sanger opened a family planning clinic in Harlem with the approval of the
Negro leadership, including communist W.E.B. DuBois. Beginning in 1939, DuBois also
served on the advisory council for Sanger’s ”Negro Project.” The financial support of
Albert and Mary Lasker made the project possible. In 1966, the year Sanger died, the
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “There is a striking kinship between our movement
and Margaret Sanger’s early efforts.”
From the end of World War II to the present, Planned Parenthood has become the world’s
largest enterprise promoting birth control and abortion. In 1960, the Food and Drug
Administration approved the sale of the birth control pill. In 1961 President Kennedy
defined population growth as a “staggering” problem and formerly endorsed reproductive
research to make new knowledge and methods available worldwide.
In 1961, a Conference on Religion and the Family brought together the medical director
of Planned Parenthood, the director of the National Council of Churches of Christ, and
the leader of the marriage counseling movement in the United States. Out of that meeting
came the idea for creating SIECUS, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of
the United States. It was Dr. Mary Calderone, one of the founders, who introduced the
concept of sexuality in 1964. It encompassed much more than the biological meaning of
sex. Thus, sexuality education replaced the term sex education to emphasize its more
comprehensive scope.
A SIECUS Report (Vol. 27, No.4) states: “In February 1999, SIECUS conducted a
public poll on our Internet site to ask the general public who had the greatest impact in
bringing about a positive change in the way America understands and affirms sexuality.
The top ten, chosen from a list of 100, were Judy Blume, Mary Calderone, Ellen
DeGeneres, Joycelyn Elders, Hugh Hefner, Anita Hill, Magic Johnson, Madonna, Gloria
Steinhem, and Ruth Westheirner. They represent diverse perspectives and views, and
each has helped American think about sexuality in a new and different way.”
Getting back to our chronology, in 1963, the U.N. General Assembly approved a
resolution on population growth and economic development. In that same year, the U.S.
government established the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
(NICHD). Part of its mandate was to support and oversee research in reproductive
science and contraceptive development.
In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut ruled that
Connecticut’s law prohibiting the use of contraceptives by married couples violated a
newly defined right of marital privacy. As a result, ten states liberalized their family
planning laws and began to provide family planning services with tax funds.
In 1969 the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws, now known as the
National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, was founded.
In 1970, Congress enacted Title X of the Public Health Services Act, which provided
support and funding for family planning services and educational programs and for
biomedical and behavioral research in reproduction and contraceptive development. Title
X also authorized funding for a Center for Population Research within NICHD. This
marked the first time Congress had ever voted for a separate authorization of family
planning services.
In that same year, New York state enacted the most progressive abortion law in the
nation, and Planned Parenthood of Syracuse, New York, became the first affiliate to offer
abortion services. In 1973, Humanist Manifesto II was published. It advocated a doctrine of sexual freedom
that clearly clashed with traditional views of sex. The Manifesto states: “In the area of
sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and
puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion,
and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitative denigrating
forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction,
sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration
should not in themselves be considered ‘evil.’ Without countenancing mindless
permissiveness or unbridled promiscuity, a civilized society should be a tolerant one.
Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be
permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their life-styles as they desire ….
Moral education for children and adults is an important way of developing awareness and
sexual maturity.” Among the signers of the Manifesto was Alan F. Guttmacher,
President of Planned Parenthood.
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the constitutional right of
privacy extended to a woman’s decision to have an abortion, thereby legalizing abortion
throughout the United States. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of
Central Missouri v. Danforth struck down state requirements for parental and spousal
consent for abortion and set aside a state prohibition against saline abortions.
In 1976, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, named after Planned Parenthood’s president,
published 11 Million Teenagers, the first nationally distributed document to focus
attention on the problem of teen pregnancy and childbearing in the United States.
In 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court found the Massachusetts statute restricting minors’
access to abortion unconstitutional. It ruled that if states required minors to obtain
parental consent for an abortion, they must also give minors the alternative of obtaining
the consent of a judge, in confidential proceedings and without first notifying their
parents.
In 1981, the Alan Guttmacher Institute published Teenage Pregnancy: The Problem that
Hasn’t Gone Away, an analysis of teen sexuality, contraceptive knowledge and use, and
pregnancy experience. It emphasizes the need for making confidential contraceptive
services accessible to sexually active teens. In 1982, Planned Parenthood published “Sexuality Alphabet,” as tool for sex education.George Grant, in his book, Grand illusions, writes of this publication: “Planned
Parenthood’s sex education programs and materials are brazenly perverse. They are
frequently accentuated with crudely obscene four-letter words and illustrated by
explicitly ribald nudity. They openly endorse aberrant behavior-homosexuality,
masturbation, fornication, incest, and even bestiality-and then they describe that
behavior in excruciating detail.”
In 1953, staffer Lena Levine wrote in Planned Parenthood News: “Our goal is to be ready
as educators and parents to help young people obtain sex satisfaction before marriage.
By sanctioning sex before marriage, we will prevent fear and guilt.”
In 1985, the Alan Guttmacher Institute published its report on Teen Pregnancy in
Industrialized Countries, indicating that the u.S. teen pregnancy rate of 96 per 1,000 is
the highest in the developed world. A two-year study by the National Academy of
Sciences agreed with the AGI study and concluded that “prevention of adolescent
pregnancy should have the highest priority,” and “making contraceptive methods
available and accessible to those who are sexually active and encouraging them to
diligently use these methods is the surest major strategy for pregnancy prevention.”
In 1970, fewer than half of the nation’s school districts offered sex education curricula
and none had school-based birth control clinics. In 1998, more than seventy-five percent
of the districts teach sex education and there are more than one hundred clinics in
operation. Yet the percentage of illegitimate births has only increased during that time,
from a mere fifteen percent to an astonishing fifty-one percent. In California, the public
schools have required sex education for more than thirty years, and yet the state has
maintained one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the nation. (Grant, p. 128)
Meanwhile, the AIDS epidemic, which began with eleven cases in 1979, had grown to
24,000 cases in 1986. In 1993, the number of cases was up to 339,250.
By 1987, Planned Parenthood had become the world’s largest non-government provider
of family planning services. It had also become politically active, joining more than 250
civil rights, civil liberties, religious, labor, education, legal, environmental, health, and
feminist groups that opposed the appointment of conservative Judge Robert Bork to the
U.S. Supreme Court.
This speech was give in 2000
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