Because granting a Bachelor of Arts degree on someone who never heard of Cain and Abel and never heard a Haydn symphony is a fraud.

That’s why folks in China is stupid.

Shorter Dennis Pronger: Here’s a good excuse to keep Junior as dumb as you are!

I think admissions staff would love these questions.

Really.

They don’t want to waste time reading the applications they have. If mommy and daddy come along with a list of questions printed from the Internons they’ll know the applicant would freak out, fuck, snort, drink and destroy everything in sight once he free from the feathery protective layer of his progenitors’ buttocks. The application goes in the garbage, the rejection letter goes in the mail. Next?

“3. In the political science, English, sociology, anthropology and history departments — or any other liberal arts department — what is the ratio of Democrats to Republicans among the professors?”

So he wants affirmative action for republicans?

7. Would a typical graduate of your university be able to say anything intelligent about … dark matter
Pick me! Pick me!
[Clears throat. Strikes tuning fork.]

Oh dear, what can dark matter be?
Oh dear, heat death and entropy,
There’s, been, a break-down of parity;
They say that black holes have no hair.

I’m sure I’m not alone in being familiar with Cain and Abel, Martin Luther, and the location of India many years before entering university. Perhaps this is because, unlike Dennis Prager, I wasn’t raised in a cave nor did I spend my youth sitting at the feet of the village elder and listening to stories of the evil mud people across the river.

On the program tonight is the suppressed quartet from the Haydn Op. 76, the so-called “Kazoo” Quartet in G-Flat Minor, which gets its name from the Largo, cantabile e mesto movement, in which the Inner Voices are called to play kazoos instead of their usual instruments, creating problems of dynamics for cello and first violin that are unique in the literature.

Now, a college that required Song of Solomon? I’d go to that fucking college.

Does the college allow military recruiters on its campus?

What the fuck difference would that make to a young Republican? Aside from knowing which parts of campus to avoid, I mean.

“So he wants affirmative action for republicans?”

Well, yeah! To counter the historical iniquities that Republicans have had to deal with in this country. They haven’t had it as easy as all those privileged Blacks and poor people.

Let’s be honest. This piece really isn’t intended to influence anyone who will send their kids to college–except possibly those who force or brainwash their kids into going to Liberty University or Gordon College or Slippery Rock. It’s about keeping kids stupid by convincing the lowest of the low wingnuts that education isn’t really the same, or that it’s the same thing as indoctrination, which your local house of worship will gladly provide for free.

It’s also about convincing wingnuts to pressure their state legislators to spend as little of their tax dollars as possible to support state universities and colleges–which has the same effect as above, in that it keeps the tuition high and the quality low and the masses ignorant … and the Clownhall ad revenue rolling in!

oops …

‘that education isn’t really important”

My bad

I think most students dream of going to a fucking college. (Hell, I did. And against all odds, my dream came true!)

Now where do we send Dennis Prager?

I have an M.A. in history and I read Howard Zinn’s People’s History.

I am certain that proves something. Indeed it is central to my point.

I got my M.A. in 2005 and I read Zinn on my own in 2007.

Universities should NOT be teaching about the people. They should only be teaching about how great all the Republican presidents are.

Like that great man George W. Bush.

Some day he will retire to Philadelphia, Miss., or Ludlow, Colo., or Wounded Knee, S.D., or the Triangle Shirtwaist Company and be comforted by his nightly frolic over the bones of the oppressed.

What the fuck difference would that make to a young Republican? Aside from knowing which parts of campus to avoid, I mean.

Me FTFFW!

Not me, Me…

You picked that name on purpose, didn’t you?

But absence of recruiters on campus is often a sign of a strong HomoFascist Agenda. We don’t want the U.S. Army stealing potential recruits from our Rainbow Death Squads so we made up an excuse about the long standing policy of discrimination that is currently only found in countries no one in their right mind would want to emulate and kicked them out.

Ok,here’s your problem.

I can answer ALL of those questions.

In detail. With citations.

‘Course, the problem might be that you don’t LIKE my answers

But screw you. These are well-known facts…

Can I have your fuckin degree now?

I mean, seeing as how you’re not using it for anything…

mikey

O.k., goddammit, now I have to know: what does dennis prager think the Korean War was all about?

Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah

It’s over.. Hillary Clinton will be the nominee. She has a commanding lead in Ohio and she is surging ahead in Texas.

Oh dear, now I’m teh enemy again. Sucks to be me.

Can I be unblocked again?

I’ll try to be “good”.

Just wish I knew what I was doing “wrong”.

You don’t need to post this when you set me free…

mikey

“So, Ms. Gupta, why should we hire you?”

“Well, I have degrees in Information Systems and Library Sciences. I had a 4.0 GPA and I made the dean’s list for three consecutive semesters.”

“Uh huh. What do you know about Pope John XXIII?”

“Er…very little, I’m afraid. I’m a Hindu. But I did work my way through college as a programmer, and I already hold three software patents! I was also president of the Student Council and I volunteered for the Animal Welfare League for five…”

“Whatever, lady. Can you tell me the story of Cain and Abel?”

“I…I have recommendations from all of my senior professors, a testimonial from the Fortune 500 company I interned with my junior year, and a signed letter from the governor stating that…”

“Write a summary of part 3 of The Gulag Archipelago while humming Haydn’s ‘Princess Maria Theresa’ Piano Trio No. 33 in G Minor.”

“I’m not sure if I can.”

“Get out of my office, you fucking fraud.”

Is Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” the most widely assigned American history book?

I’m an American historian who’s been in the profession for a couple decades now, including terms at two of the dreaded Ivy League universities and I have never once even heard of anyone assigning that book.

Also, while I can think of perhaps two sociologists I know who might be classified as conservatives, a couple historians, and of course a much larger number of political scientists (largely because of their fluid relationship with contemporary partisans), I have never ever in my life met a conservative anthropologist. Or, for that matter, a conservative English professor.

If Mr. Praeger wants to insist that there is a systemic bias against these alleged hordes of conservative academics in the humanities, he’s first going to have to prove their existence.

Great minds think alike. I fisked this POS earlier today. You doods did it funnier, though.

the Almighty frowned upon Cain’s inability to appease him by slaughtering animals

OK – sorry be pedantic, but Cain was the one who sacrificed the fruit of the land and Abel, the goat. The traditional nomadic culture being favored over the newfangled agricultural civilization.

Just saying.

What I want to know is when the term “threesome” replaced “three-way.” I don’t like it. What was the point of changing, I ask you? I also want to know when a plain old show-the-buttocks moon was replaced by the spreading-the-cheeks-to-expose-the-rectum variety.

Finally, I want everyone to get off my lawn.

jhe — that’s exactly what I was saying. God was displeased with Cain, because unlike Abel, he did not slaughter animals.

I’m very lucky for the high-grade college education I getted.

When the Mr. Employer Guy asked me if I had readed one Shakespeare play, one Federalist paper and one book of the Bible, I said I did readed Romeo and Juliet (where the retarded guy from Gilbert Grape and the So-Called-Life girl both suicided), and there’s only one Federalist Paper (the one that says the Second Amenment means everybody can have any weapons they want (except Iran)) and that John 3:16 is good enough words for anybody to live by!

I got the job anr I ro the letteds they use to ristinguish Depublicans and Remocdats.

Cain gave birth to the vampire race, and I didn’t even learn that while getting my degree.

“7. Would a typical graduate of your university be able to say anything intelligent about Josef Stalin, Louis Armstrong, Pope John XXIII or Pope John Paul II, differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, Cain and Abel, the Gulag Archipelago, Franz Josef Haydn, Pol Pot, Martin Luther, Darfur, how interest rates affect the dollar, dark matter, and “Crime and Punishment”; explain what the Korean War was about and when it was fought; identify India on a map; and know the difference between the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council?”

Let’s see:
Stalin – wasn’t that the guy who was dictator of the Soviet Union for a long time (including the time of WWII)?
Louis Armstrong – Jazz musician
Pope John Paul II – against abortion, against contraceptions, against making women priests… gah, I hate theese guys.
Protestantism/Catholicism: Catholics believe that some guy in rome is in direct contact with “god”. Protestants don’t believe that, they believe god talks to them and their priest directly. They both attend church and revere some bible, but get angry when they’re bible/church/religion is equated with the other.
Cain&Abel – Some fairytale involving one brother killing the other due to god commanding them, or something.
Gulag Archipelago – Soviet political prison system.
Haydn – Wasn’t he a composer?
Pol Pot – leader of some genocidal dictatorship in asia.
Martin Luther: Remember Protestantism? This guy is responsible for causing the split by nailing some theses on a churchdoor.
Dafur – Never heard of that (Is it like the Kosova war going on right now?)
Interest rates affecting the dollar: We don’t have dollars aroudn here, thanks.
dark matter: Matter you can’t detect with normal means. Necessary because else our universe is more than slightly underweight. I guess.
“Crime and punishments” – Dunno, is that some english book?
“Korean war” – Another North/South war with between the guys the russians and chinese supported and the guys the US supported, right? Should have been in the 50s or so, before the vietnam war.
India on a map – sure, we learned that 2 years ago.
General Assembly – every nation has a seat here.
Security Council – only a few nations have a seat, and the United States and the russians can block everything to make sure that the ciriminals on either side aren’t punished.

Hmhm, looks good.
I hereby nominate my elementary school for recommended-university status. Understanding of spoken german is required, reading and writing will be taught.

It’s funny how none of these rich white dudes ever just keep their kids out of our filthy Soviet-ruled universities, or fight to send them to Bob Jones or Montana State

Don’t be so rough on MSU. Unless I’m mistaken, the wonderful Sarah Vowell attended Montana State. It can’t be all *that* bad.

2. Does the college allow military recruiters on its campus?

Would it be okay if they were Venezuelan military recruiters?

7. Would a typical graduate of your university be able to say anything intelligent about … dark matter?

I found some dark matter lodged between my toes once, but I’m damned if I can think of anything intelligent to say about it.

Oh yes! We teach about BOTH kinds of religion, Protestantism AND Catholicism.

This guy is responsible for causing the split by nailing some theses on a churchdoor.

Then he lit the bag on fire and ran away laughing.

Mr. Hoosier X:

Like that great man George W. Bush. Some day he will retire to Philadelphia, Miss., or Ludlow, Colo., or Wounded Knee, S.D., or the Triangle Shirtwaist Company and be comforted by his nightly frolic over the bones of the oppressed.

As someone who teaches US history for his day job (and got his Ph.D from Indiana!), let me just say … well done. I guffawed a small but distressing portion of my martini onto my keyboard when I read this.

Oh — the Triangle Shirtwaist Company was housed in the Asch Building. Said building being “fireproof,” it’s still around, and now part of NYU’s city infrastructure. Its site here.

Hmm, I think this might really make the job of college admissions folks a hell of a lot easier – and the chances of getting my (pending) children into institutions of quality higher learning, greater.

Thank you for your service, Mr. Prager!

________

“Greater” and “Prager” kind of rhyme. That’s poetry!

But seriously, whey are wingers so obsessed with Shakespeare? Is it because he was a fraud? Just asking.

What do you do with a B.A. in English?

Question one pisses the hell out of me. I was reading Shakespeare in effing middle school, I don’t need a damn college course on them. MST3k is a far better example of fine writing and poetry.
Also, color me inept, but wouldn’t the Federalist Papers be better suited to a government course then a writing one? And, really now, The Bible? Like we really need to give kids even more of an excuse to skip class, drink heavily, and drop out? Please.

Shorter Dennis: “Remember, parents, it’s VITALLY IMPORTANT that your child, no matter how old, never be allowed exposure to new or opposing ideas, as that would force then to develop un-American habits, like critical thinking and free will.”

Because he’s white and his books are old. Mostly, because he gives them a chance to exclude minorities.

Don’t tell them about Dumas. Their heads might go poof!

I was going to comment on how the only literature/arts/history credit I need to graduate with a BA were fulfilled via AP courses, but then I remembered that I’m getting a BS.

But seriously, whey are wingers so obsessed with Shakespeare?

Because he’s the only “great writer” they know of. It’s not like they’ve actually read him or watched more of his plays than they had to; it’s like hipsters owning “cool books” they never read but they make sure you know they own them. Plus, he’s white and male, thus, he’s woefully underrepresented in higher education, of course.

Why no Conservative Arts degrees? If Liberal Arts is knowing a little bit about everything, the CA Degree would be knowing a lot about nothing. Such a degree should pave the way to blog on Townhall or National Review.

Glad to know that I’m not the only person who noticed “dark matter” in that list and wondered what institution requires relatively advanced astrophysics courses to graduate.

Of course, the whole list is odd – there’s no coherent thread running through it. It’s like he went to Wikipedia and hit “random article” until he had a list of sufficient length. In fact, let me try: I don’t think a student should be allowed to graduate unless he or she can speak intelligently about Yuri Gagarin, “The Prisoner of Chillon,” Dixie Roberts, Charles O’Hara and the W88 thermonuclear warhead, locate Islamabad and the McMurdo Ice Shelf, describe the significance of Unifund Assurance Co. v. Insurance Corp. of British Columbia and compare and contrast compare Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. There. I’d like some wingnut welfare, please.

Incidentally, my college (Kansas University) meets most of Prager’s demands in spite of being a state school in a hippie liberal burg. Of course, I haven’t gone around grilling professors about their political beliefs.

I once read Kane and Abel and I can say something intelligent about (It was crap). Does that mean I can get a degree from somewhere other than Liberty University?

Oh — the Triangle Shirtwaist Company was housed in the Asch Building. Said building being “fireproof,” it’s still around, and now part of NYU’s city infrastructure. Its site here.
——————————————————
(From the site):
The property is now used as classrooms and offices by New York University…

They actually have classrooms and/or offices in the part of the building that housed the Triangle Shirtwaist Company? That’d be a macabre place to work.

The fact is, liberals, you are losing, big time.

yawn

Or, for that matter, a conservative English professor.

Well, there’s Mark Bauerlein, I guess; Richard Scott Nokes, I think; there are a few others. But, yeah, it’s as hard to find a conservative Lit professor as it is to find a leftist investment banker. Go figure. As others have said, I’ve be more than happy to give up a few spots in my department to the conservatives so long as they’d give me a few spots in their balliwick. Letting Zizek write for the NY Times is a nice start, but I’m not budging until Judith Butler gets Kristol’s spot.

Great gay writers?

You mean like Shakespeare?

Surely to Prager’s horror, I graduated from a Big Ten school with a B.A. in English Lit without having taken one Shakespeare course. However, I had read 6 or 7 of his plays in high school and then read another 5 on my own time in college. (And I did read some of Shakespeare’s sonnets in college — does that count?) Shakespeare’s awesome and shit, but he’s not the be-all/end-all for literature. Instead of taking Shakespeare courses I took classes on John Milton (Paradise Regained & Samson Agonistes!), John Donne & Ben Jonson, 18th century satirists, etc. Does Prager know about them or are they not part of a balanced education?

Prager names some stuff that he knows and thinks it’s a list of Important & Necessary Knowledge. But it really shows how shallow he is. Learning isn’t a checklist, it’s developing abilities like reasoning, writing, etc. Maybe even the ability to recognize that you shouldn’t start a war in the Middle East before you know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

This piece really isn’t intended to influence anyone who will be able to send their kids to college–except possibly those who force or brainwash their kids into going to Liberty University or Gordon College or Slippery Rock. It’s about keeping kids stupid by convincing the lowest of the low wingnuts that education isn’t really the same, or that it’s the same thing as indoctrination, which your local house of worship will gladly provide for free.

It’s also about convincing wingnuts to pressure their state legislators to spend as little of their tax dollars as possible to support state universities and colleges–which has the same effect as above, in that it keeps the tuition high and the quality low and the masses ignorant … and the Clownhall ad revenue rolling in!

KiwiHopeful for the win — although I cheated an extra clause into the first sentence. Because if you know your kid has as much chance of getting into one of the Ivies as Dennis Prager has of getting into the next Miss World competition, and you know he couldn’t afford to attend even if he miraculously did… well, it’s some consolation in a Schadenfreude sense to know that all those unavailable dollars would just be wasted on anti-American propaganda anyway.

And, yeah, the next generation of Pragers will undoubtably be so dumb as to flunk the pouring-water-from-a-boot test, but they’ll have credentials, which is the only reason Reichtards go to college anyway. As for the offspring of Prager’s ‘readership’ — well, if by some fluke of the rising xenophobia or the sinking dollar all the undocumented disappear, somebody is gonna have to pick those grapes and wash those dishes, and even the humblest homeschooler (I’m looking at you, Santorum) should be able to cope with tasks like that…

Mr. Rupert- what exactly is it that teh libruls are losing big time-elections? like 06? Why dont you just keep muttering mission accomplished and whathaveyou.

Find India on a map?!? No fair!

Why no Conservative Arts degrees? If Liberal Arts is knowing a little bit about everything, the CA Degree would be knowing a lot about nothing.

Umm, according to my friends who have them, the degree you get for knowing ‘a lot about nothing’* — sometimes refined as ‘knowing more and more about less and less’ — is actually a PhD, preferably in math, physics, or chemistry. I think the Con Art degree would actually entail “knowing nothing about anything, but in A VERY LOUD VOICE!!!!11!!

(*Actual quote: “Zero is not a number! Zero is — a destination!”)

the thing that amazes me about people like Dennis Prager, who hold forth on The Horror that is American Academia – probably haven’t set foot on a college campus, nor have conversed with an actual faculty member in at leatst 20 years.

In anser to his questions:

1. Can one obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree at your college without having read a single Shakespeare play, one Federalist Paper or one book of the Bible?

No, but then they’d have to forgo Aristotle, Plato, Milton, Pope, Chaucer, Bryon, Shelley, Wordsworth, Voltaire, Racine, Goethe, Dante or some of those guys. Because, although Shakespeare is all very nice, who fuck said he was better than all the other dead white male European writers? As long as we’re picking dead white male European guys, how come these other guys don’t get a shot at being ubiquitous?

Also – How many literature courses do you expect an electrical engineering or biochemistry student to take, anyway? Why the fuck is is OOOOOOKKKKKAYYYYYY for someone to graduate college with maybe 6 credits in 100 level literature and art, as long as the OTHER credits are things like “Fundamentals of Marketing II” , but if they take a 300 level “Twentieth Century Art History” it means that they’re ignorant?

And furthermore – why the fuck is Dennis Prager championing a lower class British guy who spent a whole lot of time away from his wife hanging out in the theatre and writing plays for a bunch of cross-dresser, anyway???

Pardon my froth.

The fact is that colleges are a brainwashing factories for liberalism.

After finishing high school, I got a real job and I make money, instead of smoking dope and talking about feminism.

Colleges also cost too much due to the outrageously overpaid liberal professors. It costs far less to learn a trade than it does to get a worthless degree.

If you must go to college, go to a private Christian-based school.

Next question:

3. In the political science, English, sociology, anthropology and history departments — or any other liberal arts department — what is the ratio of Democrats to Republicans among the professors?

Dennis, I refer you back to that class where you should been reading those Federalist Papers and the Constitution. We don’t ask questions like this in America.

Next Question:

5. Can my child live in a same-sex dorm and are the bathrooms co-ed?

Dennis, how old are you? Cause my college had same sex dorms in 1973, mmmkay? this isn’t something new.

And – even then, no – the suites had their own bathrooms.

You know – its kind of like adults living together in shared apartments. Like normal people do.

In fact, let me try: I don’t think a student should be allowed to graduate unless he or she can speak intelligently about Yuri Gagarin, “The Prisoner of Chillon,” Dixie Roberts, Charles O’Hara and the W88 thermonuclear warhead, locate Islamabad and the McMurdo Ice Shelf, describe the significance of Unifund Assurance Co. v. Insurance Corp. of British Columbia and compare and contrast compare Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.

Oh. My. God. You just paraphrased my four years of edumakayshun at the liberalest of the liberal hippie schools. YOU HAVE DISCOVERED OUR SECRET CURRICULUM! Quickly, now, to the Triviamobile!

Next question:

4. What are the names of the speakers invited and paid with college funds to speak last year at the college?

Please stand by for the incredibly long and boring explanation of how college budgets work. You’d be surprised at how few public dollars goe to speaker fees.

next question:

7. Would a typical graduate of your university be able to say anything intelligent about Josef Stalin, Louis Armstrong, Pope John XXIII or Pope John Paul II, differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, Cain and Abel, the Gulag Archipelago, Franz Josef Haydn, Pol Pot, Martin Luther, Darfur, how interest rates affect the dollar, dark matter, and “Crime and Punishment”; explain what the Korean War was about and when it was fought; identify India on a map; and know the difference between the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council? If not, why not? How could someone be considered in any way educated and not be able to intelligently answer all or nearly all of those questions? If they don’t know about such essential and basic things, what do they know? Movies? The supposed dangers of global warming? The importance of race, gender and class? The meaning of menage a trois (or “threesomes”)? Great gay writers?

Answer: Yes.

I wonder what Prager has to say about dark matter. Might it be G-d’s poop?

I learned about religion via becoming an atheist, history from reading novels (and non-fiction), chemistry from cooking, physics from reading science fiction, and philosophy from watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I also graduated from a university, but that was just the beginning..

someone should let Dennis know there’s hot sex happening in the same sex dorms. Just to scare him.

conservatives, as a rule, do not pursue careers in the liberal arts.

Besides home ec and cowbell construction, what’s in the conservative arts program?

See, regarding literature, the devil is in the details. There’s a fuck of a lot that Alice Walker has more in common with Shakespeare than she does with the author of “The Pillow book” or maybe even Aeschylus (I would say Sappho, but then you guys would go all Beavis and Butthead on me).

Why, as I asked above, pick Shakespeare as the quintessential White European Dead Male literary figure? Isn’t Milton in the wings, waiting to challenge him and take himto the mat?

thing is, these idiots pick Shakepeare because its the only name they’re familiar with – they couldn’t pull Ben Jonson or Christopher Marlowe”s name out of a hat if they tried! Maybe they once heard a cast album recording of “Kiss Me Kate” so they recognize the name.

it’s sort of like someone who touts the superiority of Western cuisine by citing the Waldorf Salad as the acme of the art.

Plus — BTW — I’ve seen some pretty amazing productions of Shakespeare plays I’d like to acquaint ole Dennis with. It’d curl his hair for him.

I got a real job and I make money, instead of smoking dope and talking about feminism.

Gary, you don’t have to talk about feminism when you smoke dope. You can talk about your weirdest high school teachers, or about why you think your cat is watching you when your back is turned, or about how the column of smoke goes straight up if you hold the joint really still. And there are several other topics that you are permitted to discuss – consult your local law enforcement agency for the complete list.

Besides home ec and cowbell construction, what’s in the conservative arts program?

“Fundamentals of Marketing II”

After finishing high school, I got a real job and I make money,

And when they make you assistant night manager, you’re going to do REALLY well at the restaurant. Cracker Barrel has a lot of opportunities for a young man like you.

I bet Dennis Prager wouldn’t like military recruiters at his son’s school.

I can’t think of a single wingnut – besides that vicious lunatic Dr. Laura* – whose kids are serving in Iraq.

So let’s review.

Dennis Prager believes that to be truly educated, you need to be well acquainted with cross-dressing Elizabethan theatre and string quartets of the 18th century Austrian Court.

do they teach that at Liberty and Regency college?

After finishing high school, I got a real job and I make money, instead of smoking dope and talking about feminism.

Well, no wonder you’re such a miserable old fart.

After finishing high school, I got a real job and I make money

I feel sure that Gary makes the money in his basement out of shredded Cheetos bags. And Gary, a word to you: people who actually have educations and know how to think do not necessarily believe that making money is the be-all and end-all of life. Much like that DFH Jesus said in Matthew 6:28ff.

The meaning of menage a trois (or “threesomes”)

I’ll bet a year’s tuition at Princeton that this is the only French phrase Prager can translate. Because no great literature was ever written in those fag Continental languages.

Of course, this could also save the thrifty parent money in another way. When Junior finds out mom and dad pulled this stunt he’d be so embarrassed he’d go slam dancing with the next cross-town train.

Even the most elaborate closed casket funerals is much cheaper than a semester at Uni. Plus you can tell all your WingNut friends that he was afraid to go off to college with all the mean nasty father rapers and mother stabbers.

What’s he trying to do, create more Obama voters? What better way to estrange teenagers from their asshole Republican parents than for the parents to publicly humiliate them by showing up at admissions demanding answers to a lot of stupid fucking questions.

I hear Jules Verne has the conservative seal of approval for some reason. Don’t tell them Cpt. Nemo was an eco-terrorist.

From wikipedia about Dennis Prager:

Prager attended Brooklyn College, majoring in Anthropology and History; he graduated in 1970.[1]

Prager did not complete his Masters degree, dropping out instead in 1973

so, as we say — let’s review.

Dennis attended Brooklyn College as an undergrad majoring in history and anthro. In his freshman and sophomore year, before going off to England in junior year, how much Shakespeare do you suppose he read? Not to mention Haydn symphonies he studied?

How much Shakespeare do you suppose he studied while a grad student under Brzezinski? I’m thinking not so much.

Then he dropped out – I’m thinkingm couldn’t hack the thesis and then decided to make some dough on the zionist speaker circuit – not that there’s anything wrong with that!

But where the fuck does HE get off on critizing literature programs?

Plus — BTW — I’ve seen some pretty amazing productions of Shakespeare plays I’d like to acquaint ole Dennis with. It’d curl his hair for him.

Yeah, what would Prager think if that one Shakespeare play was “Titus Andronicus”?

what would Prager think if that one Shakespeare play was “Titus Andronicus”?

Well, there are some truly hair curling ones, but for some reason the one that stuck in my mind when reading Prager is the “King Lear” production I saw recently this fall where Sir Ian McKellan showed that he was “every inch a king”. If you know what I mean, and I think you do.

But where the fuck does HE get off on critizing literature programs?

Standard wingnut projection: Pttttuuuuuuuuuiiiiii!

Good for thee, but not for me!

Nah na na nah, etc.

The meaning of menage a trois (or “threesomes”)?
Only a pedant would complain that if the English translation is the plural form, then the French version should be “ménages à trois”.
On the other hand, there is “Ménage Abbatoir”, which is the French translation of Titus Andronicus.

Remember this?

On why he read Camus: “I was in Crawford and I said I was looking for a book to read and Laura said you oughtta try Camus. I also read three Shakespeare’s.”

THREE SHAKESPEARES. Suck on THAT terrorists!

??????

Shakespeare in Arabic no work.

Shakespeare is the white, bisexual, cross-dressing actor/playwright of conservative education.

wow, I can talk about all of those issues! where the fuck is my honorary degree already?

Isn’t Milton in the wings, waiting to challenge him and take himto the mat?

Milton wrote in defense of the right to execute a king who had overstepped the bounds of his authority. I don’t think that’s an attitude a Bush-supporting conservative really wants to encourage.

FlipYrWhig said,

On that note...

Prager has a thing about Haydn. He thinks Haydn is more butch than Mozart. Since Prager always sides with authority, despite his view of his own rebelliousness, he thinks he smells faggotry in Mozart and so conducts Haydn with pick-up orchestras.

Would a typical graduate of your university be able to say anything intelligent about … Louis Armstrong?

Dennis’s son likes a black musician.

And yes, as a graduate of NYU’s College of Arts & Sciences, they hold classes in the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, something it took me to my sophomore year to realize. Once I did, I noticed that the fire escapes are very well maintained, and the exits well-marked – seriously. It is, if you can ignore its grisly history, a beautiful building – or was, 10 years ago.

After finishing high school, I got a real job and I make money, instead of smoking dope and talking about feminism.

The produce aisle doesn’t stock itself !

Snorghagen:

God only knows what it’s like working in the Asch/Brown building of NYU’s campus. I have never visited the place, but researching a lecture a couple of years ago stumbled upon the website I linked to, which showed that — yes — it’s still in use as part of NYU’s chemistry program.

I’m sure the faculty and students occasionally look twice at the brass plaque on the front wall as they walk in, sipping their coffee.

Ah. Jim beat me to it. I’m glad to hear that the fire escapes are better marked nowadays.

Truly, the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, and the Asch/Brown building, makes for fascinating history. One of the reasons why people were probably complacent before the fire is the same reason that the building is still part of NYU’s infrastructure: it was “fireproof.” And it was … it’s just that the floors, the walls, and the poor women who worked inside it, were not.

I’m sure Mr. Prager is deeply concerned by all this.

There’s one thing I emphasize that I want my students to take away when they leave the university. It is: don’t believe anything I or anyone else says. It makes classes way fun!

“So he wants affirmative action for republicans?”

Yes, exactly. Conservatives are totally incoherent on affirmative action, the noisily oppose AA based on race, geography, economic class or anything like that then turn right around and argue that Universities should institute AA for conservative professors.

Aren’t these “by your bootstraps” types supposed to be the ones arguing to man up, get a PhD and compete in the free market?

How about if instead of sending your kid only to a school that allows military recruiters, you just send your kid straight to the military recruiters. Cut out the middle man. Phone up the recruiters and invite them over to your house to sit down with your son or daughter and sign ’em up.

Because you don’t want your kid joining the military, that’s just for those other people’s kids? Oh, I see. Why didn’t you just say so? Because that would expose you as the giant hypocritical douche that you are? True. Very true.

Off topic, I think Jonah missed a cartoon:

“If Mr. Praeger wants to insist that there is a systemic bias against these alleged hordes of conservative academics in the humanities, he’s first going to have to prove their existence.”

This is a very important point often overlooked. These kinds of screeds never point to numbers of specific accomplished professors who are being denied jobs.

Given the general conservative contempt for academia it’s not surprising that most people who choose to enter it are liberal. It’s like asking why there aren’t more conservative rap artists.

Colleges also cost too much due to the outrageously overpaid liberal professors. It costs far less to learn a trade than it does to get a worthless degree.

Gary would like to remind everyone that it’s very bad to flush paper towels and feminine hygiene products down the toilet. This can cause sewer backups.

Why Cain and Abel, of all things? I doubt your average American Pastor could say anything intelligent about Cain and Abel. I don’t think it’s going to come up very often for a biologist.

There’s times when it’s useful to know a bit about the bible (You can usually find a quote from the Gospels to contradict the nasty things Christian assholes tend to say), but it’s not like you need to know everything. I don’t think any of the biblical religions even sacrifice animals anymore.

It’s like he closed his eyes and opened a bible up to a random page. Which is a weird strategy for choosing things that apparently all people, everywhere, should know.

Walt Whitman was a fag.

That’s right, you boys.

People who proudly claim they “don’t need to know about something” invariably turn about to be stupid and dangerous precisely because of that statement.

Of course you should learn in college about Cain and Abel. And Socrates and Plato. And Eratosthenes.

Cain and Abel were real people.

All the things Prager lists are things that college students should know about.

He’s perfectly describing the dreaded liberal arts education.

Go for it, Dennis !!!

Dennis Prager believes that to be truly educated, you need to be well acquainted with cross-dressing Elizabethan theatre and string quartets of the 18th century Austrian Court.

This is as ignorant a statement as I have ever seen at Little Green Footballs during Black History Month.

You are arguing that it is “kool” to not know anything about literature, writing or music.

And it is doubleplusunkool to actually know something about literature, writing and music.

Haydn wrote some great music. He was a great composer:

“Franz Joseph Haydn was tremendously inventive and prolific. In addition to the Creation Mass, The Seasons and 104 symphonies, there are 83 string quartets, 52 piano sonatas (No.3 in Eb, No.8 in D), and numerous other concertos and chamber pieces (Guitar Quartet in D: Allegro). Haydn may or may not have invented the string quartet itself, but he consolidated the nascent tendencies of Rococco music into the modern sonata principle, and this became the vehicle for the most ambitious elevated musical thoughts well into the next century and even into our own. With Haydn, as well as with Mozart and Beethoven, the sonata is, as Sir Donald Francis Tovey stated, a process, not a form. It changes dynamically and organically with the material and like snowflakes, no two truly classical sonatas are alike.

Haydn was unburdened by the nineteenth century idea of the artist and his historic legacy. He is one of the least neurotic of the great composers. Haydn treated composing more as an exalted craft in which he delighted in endlessly experimenting. A close look at his music reveals many daring gambits of harmony and form. His endless humor and wit are palpable as is the warmth of his humanity. As Haydn once wrote, “Since God has given me a cheerful heart, He will forgive me for serving him cheerfully.”

This is something intelligent people should not know about ?

Advantage, Prager.

In an increasingly competitive workplace, where people with B.A. degrees compete with each other for minimum-wage temp jobs, it’s more important than ever that you be able to honestly state on your résumé that you know that the Almighty frowned upon Cain’s inability to appease him by slaughtering animals, and be able to hum a convincing rendition of the 2nd movement from Sonata 62 (Hoboken). Otherwise your entire educational experience has been nothing more than an utter sham.

You jumped the shark here.

Dennis Prager is actually describing and recommending a modern, standard (1960-present) American liberal arts undergraduate education.

Say, wasn’t there some talk recently about someone being a concern troll? Okay then.

g,

And when they make you assistant night manager, you’re going to do REALLY well at the restaurant.

Laugh if you must. But there’s fuckin’ room to move as a fry cook. Gary could be manager in two years. King. God.

As an aside, may I just note that one of the cool things about S,N! is that the above is already the second Repo Man reference in the thread.

Dark Matter? Isn’t that just a “Theory” taught by the stalinist “scientists” that the right wing crazies like to attack at each opportunity? Where is dark matter in the bible? My guess is the only thing Praeger knows about dark matter is that his wife has to use “shout” to get the dark matter stains out of his underwear.

Cain and Abel were real people.

Sure, they were. So was Santa Clause, Spider-Man and Little Red Riding Hood.

Sheesh.

I’ll bet a year’s tuition at Princeton that this is the only French phrase Prager can translate

I think we should all start pronouncing Prager’s name in the French manner: pra-ZHAY.

After all, “Prager” already looks like the infinitive of a French verb: je prage, tu prages, il/elle prage, nous prageons, vous pragez, ils pragent.

Example:

“Nous nous avons tellement pragés pendant le ménage-à-trois dans les cabinets unisexes de notre foyer hier soir que je ne peux pisser aucune goutte aujourd’hui!”

Surely Dennis is no less worthy of immortality than Rick Santorum.

3. In the political science, English, sociology, anthropology and history departments — or any other liberal arts department — what is the ratio of Democrats to Republicans among the professors?

Trick question! Because if they’re asking for your political party affiliation on the application (you know, the way they always do), and they still hire people who admit to being Demoncraps, they are not worthy to edumacate your precious offspring!

pwn3d again, Ivies!

I think “prager” should be French for “to end an argument about racial inequality by citing a possibly imaginary black friend”. As in: “Je l’ai pragé en disant mon ami noir n’a jamais éprouvé le racisme.”

Yep, looks like Brother Watts missed the class on ‘archetypes’. And wasn’t it convenient that Jacob had twelve sons with the same names as the twelve tribes living in Canaan at the time? A good education will learn ya about all them funny coincidences.

Dark Matter? Isn’t that just a “Theory” taught by the stalinist “scientists” that the right wing crazies like to attack at each opportunity?

Indeed it is.

“In astrophysics and cosmology, dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter of unknown composition that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be observed directly, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter”

Dark matter vs. MOND

Cain and Abel were real people.

Douglas Watts just earned a slot in my killfile.

It seems to me that the only major figure in western religions likely to have actually existed (aside from hucksters and opportunists like Saul/Paul) is Muhammad. Perhaps a well-rounded education would explore Islam in some depth.

Could the term “dark matter” be Inbred-Honkese for African-American studies?

Prager is more or less describing a liberal arts education, but one that includes more than college. He’s still full of shit. YOu only have four years in college, and much of that time is spent in specialized study. Many of the things on his list, I knew in High School. But I got lucky. Listening to classical music and recognizing the composer makes you an enlightened, educated person but it is not essential. The same with dark matter, and Shakespeare. The focus of my college years is and has been history and Japanese. I spent a semester in Japan. I haven’t heard Haydn or many other classical composers besides Beethoven, Mozart and Bach (my loss I bet) but I’ve seen a Noh play, and I understood what was happening and enjoyed myself, I’ve seen a live koto concert, I can recognize Buddhist iconography, I boated around the island where during WWII George H.W. Bush was shot down, sold fish in a Japanese fish market for a couple days in a town that Americans never visit. In short, I lived to the fullest in a foreign country. So Prager, my degree is not a fraud. Screw you.

Dennis Prager believes that to be truly educated, you need to be well acquainted with cross-dressing Elizabethan theatre and string quartets of the 18th century Austrian Court.

This is as ignorant a statement as I have ever seen at Little Green Footballs during Black History Month.

Mr. Watts, you gravely misunderstand me. Either that or your sarcasm detector must be on the fritz.

I admire and adore both Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Haydn. And I am not saying that knowing about them is not worthwhile.

I am simply amused that Prager holds these two accomplished gentlement up unexamined by his own exacting standards. It’s as if he pulled their names out of his Reader’ Digest Book of Great European Culture.

It would be marvelously funny if we could see a meeting between Mr. ConservativeValues R Us (“America was founded on Judeo Christian values”) and Shakespeare, for instance, who wrote deliciously bawdy jokes in his plays, wrote sonnets that might have expressed his love on another man, and wrote for men dressing as women.

I think that Mr. Prager would NOT like Shakespeare one little bit if he were actually here in the flesh.

Wait — wasn’t all Elizabethan theater cross-dressing? Since, you know, women weren’t generally allowed and men and boys played womens’ and girls’ roles?

Well, yeah. that’s among the reasons why Cromwell and his guys – the Pragers of the day – shut down the theatres when they gained power.

By the way, it is funny to watch right wingers pretend to be in favor of Western culture, Greek philosophical heritage, and American Constitutional traditions — as if praising them while betraying the principles of these traditions counts.

Hee hee hee.

The “conservatives” who appreciate Greek scientific traditions gleefully embrace anti-evolution chicanery and anti-global warming shysters.

The “conservatives” who appreciate Shakespeare so much continually press for funding of the arts to be cut in schools, so that it’s pretty rare for kids to see, like, you know, Shakespeare plays.

The “conservatives” who praise the Greek philosophical traditions and Athenic democracy base their arguments to invade & occupy an entire nations on claims that all who dissent are disloyal terrorist lovers.

Everything is grist for their mill, ground up into pablum and regurgitated via e-mail. They don’t want to learn about Mozart (party animal), Abraham (never existed) or medicine (beware, evolution!). They want a club to beat someone over the head.

it’s sort of like someone who touts the superiority of Western cuisine by citing the Waldorf Salad as the acme of the art.

That’s harsh.

Same sex marriage = BAD!! BAD!! BAD!!

Same sex dorm = uh… Good??

Prager has a thing about Haydn. He thinks Haydn is more butch than Mozart.

For the same reason he thinks Stryper is more butch than Sabbath — when they spell it with a “y,” you know they’re really sticking it to the librul establishment!

I think Mr. Prager has higher education confused with preparation for Jeopardy.

Dark matter?

Maybe I’m not up to date, but…from what I’ve read, even people who study the stuff don’t have much to say about dark matter. We just don’t know that much about it.

Of course, his list completely left out biology. There’s nothing about anatomy and physiology (too dirty, presumably), genetics (can’t have people tinkering with God’s creations!), or evolution (duh).

(And Haydn? Why Haydn and not Bach, for heaven’s sake?)

He also has parenthood confused with mind control. He thinks he’s still going to control his son’s sexuality?

The thought of the son plus no sex education plus “condoms are teh evil” is funny, though.

I would guess that it’s pretty rare to find the right wing movement which encourages people to be more like the actual past than to be like the past which they prefer.

Why can’t they just do their own version of Renaissance Fairs? You know, try and attract people to “Upright Conservative World” where everything is as they would like for it to have been?

7. Would a typical graduate of your university be able to… explain what the Korean War was about and when it was fought…

They offer classes on M*A*S*H now? Sweet.

Innocent Bystander said,

March 5, 2008 at 5:35

Why no Conservative Arts degrees? If Liberal Arts is knowing a little bit about everything, the CA Degree would be knowing a lot about nothing. Such a degree should pave the way to blog on Townhall or National Review.

Awesome. I think we have our Quote of the week.

If George W. Fucking Bush could pass Prager’s exam, or even get above 50 percent, I’ll eat any and every hat you got.

You are arguing that it is “kool” to not know anything about literature, writing or music.

Uh, no. News flash: you can get a BA without reading Shakespeare or listening to Haydn. That’s not the same as learning nothing.

Mr. Watts, you gravely misunderstand me. Either that or your sarcasm detector must be on the fritz.

Maybe they should start teaching sarcasm at university.

“Franz Joseph Haydn was tremendously inventive and prolific. In addition to the Creation…

Advantage Google.

Dennis-o, everyone knows Cain and Abel’s is a slamming frat bar just off campus here at UT where the Budd Lite and Jaegermeister flow like a Haydn symphony, so lighten up, dude.

how interest rates affect the dollar, dark matter, and “Crime and Punishment”;

I’m still waiting for you geniuses to explain this.

Screeds like Dennis’s are a perennial favorite among right-wingers – Dr. Mike Adams, PhD pumps them out on a seasonal basis – but the funny thing is, they don’t reflect the reality of current University curriculum at all.

Once I read one of these columns when I was home sick and had nothing better to do, so I picked at random about 8 universities and checked out their requirements for a BA. Every one of them included a literature requirement that allowed a student to pick from a list heavily weighted towards pre-twentieth century English or American literature, with Shakespeare as a quite prominent choice.

As for Haydn, well, most universities require undergrads to take a measly amount of arts in the first place, but certainly “Introduction to Music” is always offered.

So my point is — the main focus of Prager’s column isn’t even factually true. Yet they routinely roll this meme out, whenever they run out of other ideas.

Once I read one of these columns when I was home sick and had nothing better to do, so I picked at random about 8 universities and checked out their requirements for a BA. Every one of them included a literature requirement that allowed a student to pick from a list heavily weighted towards pre-twentieth century English or American literature, with Shakespeare as a quite prominent choice.

You think that counts?

Not one bit of your so-called “investigation” involved submitting each & every student to a prominent conservative intelekshul like Dennis Prager for review & approval.

No wonder liberals don’t appreciate classics of Western Culture like American Gladiator and Walking Tall.

You know what’s pretty insulting about that list? If a student hasn’t covered all of that in high school, it’s pretty darn unprepared when he shows up for college.

how interest rates affect the dollar, dark matter, and “Crime and Punishment”;

I’m still waiting for you geniuses to explain this.

Proper sentence structure is un-American. Now, as your punishment, memorize all of Genesis. Remember, Abel and Cain were real people!

Would a typical graduate of your university be able to say anything intelligent about Josef Stalin, Louis Armstrong, Pope John XXIII or Pope John Paul II, differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, Cain and Abel, the Gulag Archipelago, Franz Josef Haydn, Pol Pot, Martin Luther, Darfur, how interest rates affect the dollar, dark matter, and “Crime and Punishment”; explain what the Korean War was about and when it was fought; identify India on a map; and know the difference between the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council?

Based upon his body of work, Dennis seems to have nothing intelligent to say about any of these subjects, or any other for that matter.

Somehow I doubt Dennis could tell the difference between Shakespeare and Johnson. Quick, Dennis, who wrote: “Art hath an enemy called Ignorance”?

Interest rates affect “Crime and Punishment: because when they go up poor students get more resentful of pawnborkers and murder more of them. This gives police detectives named Porfiry Petrovich more work, and they use the bonuses they get for catching the murderers to buy houses, thus increasing the demand for mortgages and raising interest rates still further, whereupon more pawnborkers get murdered by poor students . . .

Hmm. Why doesn’t Prager mention great American composers like Copland? Okay, he was gay and lefty, but he celebrated all that was muscular and pioneering about the U.S.

Or he could talk about great jazz pioneers. Of course, many of them were a bit on the brownish side, but hey.

Here’s the thing about Prager’s implied litmus test for an acceptable college education: if a school told prospective students that they would be REQUIRED to read Shakespeare (rather than simply required to take a literature course), REQUIRED to read the federalist papers (as opposed to being required to take a history course or government course on a topic of their choosing), REQUIRED to read the bible, REQUIRED to take courses that would enable them to answer questions about “Josef Stalin, Louis Armstrong, Pope John XXIII or Pope John Paul II, differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, Cain and Abel, the Gulag Archipelago, Franz Josef Haydn, Pol Pot, Martin Luther, Darfur, how interest rates affect the dollar, dark matter, and “Crime and Punishment”; explain what the Korean War was about and when it was fought; identify India on a map; and know the difference between the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council”, then that institution would have, maybe, 5 students.

As institutions of higher education have become the good little capitalists Prager et al. want them to be, they have taken catering to the consumer to the pinnacle of its art. A student who wants to major in business, or education, or nursing, or who is pre-med, whatever little cushy job they’re expecting to earn upon completion of the degree, does not consider it a worthwhile investment of their tuition dollars to “waste” time taking courses that don’t “count” toward their vocational training. And universities have been very accommodating to this desire.

Perhaps you can tell that I am an embittered liberal arts professor at a supposedly liberal arts college who constantly watches budgetary priorities go towards new gyms and new lines in the business school while we struggle in classrooms that sometimes literally have no chalk.

If you are not reading The Pain Comics on a regular basis, you are missing out.

http://www.thepaincomics.com

Here is a quote for the Sadly, No! masthead, extracted from today’s artist’s comment:

“Google image search is an indispensable reference tool for the lazy cartoonist, but it is also a Pandora’s Box of troubling imagery which, once seared into the visual memory, proves ineradicable.”

There are more things in heaven and earth, Dennis,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Prager is an idiot if he uses Haydn as his litmus test for determining whether a college is suitable to educate the leaders of tomorrow. Haydn’s music is pleasant, and competent and probably the second best example of classicism (Mozart was clearly the best example. If you disagree just see if you can name any Haydn operas.)

I just find it shocking that Prager would skip over these composers to decide that Hayden is the composer that college students should learn about:

Beethoven
Bach (J.S., of course, but you could make a very good argument that C.P.E. and even J.C. should be ahead of Haydn)
Mozart
Brahms
Vivaldi

What’s more, there are several composers who are at least as important as Haydn that Prager somehow overlooks:

Wagner
Schuetz
John Cage
Schoenberg
Verdi
Rossini
Tallis
(list ended for the sake of brevity)

What’s so great about Haydn? Clearly, Prager likes him, and so he thinks that everyone should learn about his music. Somehow, Prager thinks that this makes him the opposite of the ivory tower, intellectual conoscenti professors that he despises since, you know, Prager is only trying to impose his personal bias about composers and stuff.

I’ve never heard a Haydn symphony in my life. Does that mean I have to give my degree back?

Late to the party, but yeah — the fact that despite their know-nothing laments most conservative pundits would chew off their big toes sooner than send their own kids to Patrick Henry College rather than Harvard just can’t be thrown in their faces often enough.

Love me some Louis Armstrong, but perhaps Art Tatum might be worth a mention if you’re gonna include jazz musicians in the curriculum. My Dad was a jazz pianist and I think I was six before I realized that Tatum and God weren’t actually the same person.

“After finishing high school, I got a real job and I make money, instead of smoking dope and talking about feminism.”

That’s right, Gary. Don’t you ever let anyone tell you that delivering pizzas isn’t an important position.

Because granting a Bachelor of Arts degree on someone who never heard of Cain and Abel and never heard a Haydn symphony is a fraud.

He has a point. I’ve never heard a Haydn symphony, and I have a lowly business degree…if only Water Music had been on the charts when I was a lad! I might have, you know, become a writer or painter or something productive, instead of an actor…

(psst, yes, I inow Water Music was Handel…)

Or he could talk about great jazz pioneers. Of course, many of them were a bit on the brownish side, but hey.

Billy Taylor. Two birds with one stone…

Haydn’s music is pleasant, and competent and probably the second best example of classicism (Mozart was clearly the best example. If you disagree just see if you can name any Haydn operas.)

According to the link someone posted upthread, it appears that Haydn would agree with this himself.

Hmmm…Why have many colleges gone away from single-sex dorms? According to a story from the Christian Science Monitor, it’s because The change was made partly in response to gay students, some of whom say single-sex housing policies make them uncomfortable and are discriminatory.

On one hand, this is what Prager is talking about: a despised liberal minority whines their way into changing long-cherished (and completely successful) traditions keeping promiscuity out of college settings.

On the other, of course, the same-sex dorms made teh gays “uncomfortable” to have to be around so many potential mates.

Of course, I’m sure that Prager has segregated bathrooms at the Prager house, because that whole “unisex” thing can lead to disaster.

I might have, you know, become a writer or painter or something productive, instead of an actor…

Now, someone remind me which wingnut it was who recounted their horror upon attending a dinner party full of LIBRULS, where the parents discussed their hopes that their children would grow up to be playwrights and artists?

I’m sure that particular wingnut would be horrified if his budding little doctor, lawyer, or entrepreneur were forced to learn about Shakespeare and Haydn.

Gary /Saul/Booger/St. Smegma falls into the usual trap of the stoopid: the false exclusion principle.

After finishing high school I got a job, smoked a lot of dope, worked my way through college, talked a little bit about feminism and a lot about LGB equality, got a BS in math, smoked some more dope, opicked up a BS in Comp Sci, and minors in Physics, English, Philosophy, Chemistry and Biology. Drank a lot, had way too much sex, experimented with drugs nearly indiscriminately, smoked some more dope.

I make a lot of money. I don’t smoke so much dope anymore but I think that’s just due to my age.

PHTPTHPTHTHTHTHTTHHTPHT

To quote that great American playwright Meredith Wilson –

“All I want is a modest man.
A quiet man, a gentle man
A straightforward and honest man
To sit with me in a cottage somewhere in the state of Iowa…
And I would like him to be more interested in me
Than he’s in himself and more interested in us than in me…
And if occasionally he’d ponder
What makes Shakespeare and Beethoven great.
Him I could love ’til I die.”

Hey, wait! Doesn’t “McCain” mean literally that he’s the Son of Cain??

Yet another reason for true Christian believers to abstain from voting this year. Mr. Prager, I’m looking at you.

Obviously, I also flunked out of typing class.

Haydn wrote literally hundreds of symphonies that sound exactly the same. The one that stands out as different was called the “Surprise” symphony, because instead of having a slow, quiet second movement, it started off quiet, and then surprise! it got loud.

Haydn spent his career kissing the asses of the nobility. I’m guessing this is why goopers like him so much. As has been pointed out, there’s a lot better “classical” music out there.

Obviously, I also flunked out of typing class.

You obviously attended a librul leftist institution!

Hey, does it count if you don’t know any of the things Prager mentions but you do know which ones to praise as awesome???

Like, if you’ve never read any of the Bible but you think it’s effing fantastic, does that pass the Western Culture Without Liberal Pointy Head Contamination test?

Endorsement.

I guess you have to give Dennis credit for standing up for book learning at all. Congratulations on not reaching the bottom of the barrel.

Cromwell and his guys – the Pragers of the day

In some ways yes, in other ways no. The events of 360 years ago don’t translate very exactly into the politics of today. I have a harder time seeing Prager as an iconoclastic Roundhead than as a Royalist shill, churning out crappy pamphlets on behalf of the king and the established church.

“You want something by Bach? Which one, Johann Sebastian, or Offen?”
-Victor Borge

Haydn spent his career kissing the asses of the nobility.

You’d never have heard of him if he didn’t. That’s how the business worked in those days. What was he supposed to do, starve?

I guess you have to give Dennis credit for standing up for book learning at all.

That’s what I was thinking about this Louis Armstrong thing- like, OK, it sounds like he’s declaring ownership, but I guess it’s good if a Republican thinks he’s somebody he’s supposed to defend.

Fuck Prager. He went and ruined F.J. Haydn for me.

Of course, being a douchebag is central to Den-den’s point…

Hold on, I think we missed something important here.

In 1969, Prager spent his junior year abroad at the University of Leeds in England. Having studied Russian, Prager was sponsored to be sent to the Soviet Union to bring in Jewish religious objects and meet with Russian Jewish dissidents. Upon his return, Prager began his career as a public speaker, lecturing several times a week about the state of Jews in the Soviet Union.

From 1970-72, Prager attended the Russian (now Harriman Institute) and Middle East Institutes at the Columbia University School of International Affairs. He studied under Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who later served in the Carter administration as the head of the National Security Council.

So he was a commie AND a democrat.

I still can’t believe Prager arguing for affirmative action–with quotas!–for wingnut social studies types like himself. Irony is as dead as book-learning for these people.

If he knew more about music, my guess is he’d prefer Georg Händel, an anglophile (and monarchist) who died rich. Haydn was a notorious plagiarist even by composers’ standards, though…that might be what attracts DP’s regard.

DP has to argue for affirmative action – there’s no way wingnuts qualify to enter college otherwise.

Upon his return, Prager began his career as a public speaker, lecturing several times a week about the state of Jews in the Soviet Union.

Hmm….Let me imagine how this REALLY worked out.

Prager as an earnest young 20 year old, wearing a cheap sports jacket and tie from Korvettes, speaks to his mom’s book club, showing slides from his travels. She’s so proud of him that she insists he be allowed to make a presentation at the next Hadassah meeting.

Unless someone has definitive proof to the contrary, I’m going to assume that Douglas Watts = Dennis Prager.

And that he ADORES pie.

There’s a lot of Haydn haters here. No, Dagoril, Haydn didn’t literally write hundreds of symphonies that sound exactly the same- no more than Mozart’s 40 or so symphonies sound the same as each other.

Haydn is probably the second most important composer of the “classical period,” mainly because he did more than any of his contemporaries or predecessors to develop the “classical” symphony and string quartet.

Judging Haydn’s contribution soley by his lack of well-known operas is also pretty weak. Haydn’s music had a meaningful influence on his contemporaries, including Mozart, and on young Mr. Beethoven.

Now I like Haydn and I resent that Prager is almost claiming him as a icon of conservatism- I just don’t get that part.

Oh, and “People’s History” is more of a HS-level work, anyway. You know, like Huck Finn.

Hmmm…Why have many colleges gone away from single-sex dorms? According to a story from the Christian Science Monitor, it’s because The change was made partly in response to gay students, some of whom say single-sex housing policies make them uncomfortable and are discriminatory.

Ok, these gay students are nothing like the gay students I know (and I was one of them). How many gay guys are uncomfortable being around lots and lots of men? How many lesbians would hate being surrounded by lots of young, pretty women? Yeah, exactly none to the zero-th power.

Same-sex housing? I think I have a DVD on that. It was put out by Falcon, I believe . . .

It’s not just affirmative action for people though, it’s affirmative action for ideas. The position they think they’re fighting for in the culture wars can only be won by adopting multicultural positions.

BA in Wingnut Studies anyone?

BA in Wingnut Studies anyone?

I am thinking more along the lines of “BS,” and I ain’t talkin’ science, because science makes Baby Jeebus cry.

. Would a typical graduate of your university be able to say anything intelligent about Josef Stalin, Louis Armstrong, Pope John XXIII or Pope John Paul II, differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, Cain and Abel, the Gulag Archipelago, Franz Josef Haydn, Pol Pot, Martin Luther, Darfur, how interest rates affect the dollar, dark matter, and “Crime and Punishment”; explain what the Korean War was about and when it was fought; identify India on a map; and know the difference between the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council? If not, why not? How could someone be considered in any way educated and not be able to intelligently answer all or nearly all of those questions? If they don’t know about such essential and basic things, what do they know? Movies? The supposed dangers of global warming? The importance of race, gender and class? The meaning of menage a trois (or “threesomes”)? Great gay writers?

Doesn’t this laundry list sound like it comes from some LaRouche authored conspiracy tract? I.e. aren’t all these things part of the same Jesuit/Zionist plot?

*

Now, a college that required Song of Solomon? I’d go to that fucking college. – Me

I believe you put the emphasis in the wrong place: a college that require Song of Solomon as reading would, almost by definition, be a fucking college, wouldn’t it?

*

Also, what’s the complaint about the dearth of conservative professors in the humanities? I know conservative professors in the humanities. The only time it ever becomes an issue is that whenever one of them is denied tenure (on account of being an insufferable egotist who is uncollegial and doesn’t publish sufficiently) they blame liberal academia for oppressing them (and conservatives talk about the victim mentality of liberals and minority groups? that’s some projection there).

Now conservatives in the sciences — I’d say each field has a token conservative or two, but wow! conservative academic scientists do tend to be quite rare, from what I can tell …

> Does the college allow military recruiters on its campus?

Credit where it’s due, Leonard. Obviously, he wouldn’t need this information unless he fully expected his kid to enlist in the military, which makes him a hell of a lot less hypocritical than most of his pals. I mean, right? Because, by what other logic could this question even be relevant? Right?

Also:

> Would a typical graduate of your university be able to say anything intelligent about …

Since when has a degree from any college, of any kind, anywhere, ever guaranteed intelligence, let alone the ability to speak intelligently on any subject?

What Professor Illuminata said.

And also: Why is Dennis Prager arguing in favor of a Nanny State for college students? Why should we not trust that America’s best and brightest young conservative scholars are able to glean the same universal truths and grand significances via reading a wide variety of classical texts by long-dead white guys? Why does Dennis believe that professors must spoon-feed specific ideas, texts and artifacts to the masses of students, thus making them march in liberal fascist lockstep? Why do you hate freedom, Dennis, why?

Proper sentence structure is un-American. Now, as your punishment, memorize all of Genesis

Even the Phil Collins era?

Dude, that’s pretty harsh.

What’s so great about Haydn? Clearly, Prager likes him, and so he thinks that everyone should learn about his music. Somehow, Prager thinks that this makes him the opposite of the ivory tower, intellectual conoscenti professors that he despises since, you know, Prager is only trying to impose his personal bias about composers and stuff.

This is a repeat link from the Rage Rage post a couple days ago, but it fits with Prager’s rant too well to not post it again.

“You Know What’s Stupid? Everything I Don’t Understand.”

http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/you_know_whats_stupid

Ok, these gay students are nothing like the gay students I know (and I was one of them). How many gay guys are uncomfortable being around lots and lots of men?

Well, if the men regularly beat the shit out of them for having boyfriends I could see it being a problem.

Of course, the ones who hit are just closet cases anyway.

All you need to know about the mentality of Dennis Prager is revealed in this one sentance:

For whatever reasons, many black Americans have been choosing segregation.

Has Mr. Prager, for example, considered how it feels to be “the official black friend of Dennis Prager’s kid”?

Also, I wonder how Mr. Prager feels about “all those people who are complaining ’cause they can’t pay the balloon payments on their subprime loans”? Is Mr. Prager un-aware of redlining (“well Mr. Blackperson, we just can’t give you a non-subprime loan if you want to live in Whiteville”)?

If Mr. Prager can’t think of “whatever” reasons why segregation persists and even why some Black Americans might choose not to put themselves in positions where their kids get the “honor” of being “the token Black kid”, he’s a complete idiot who wouldn’t have the platform he does if the meritocratic society people like Prager claim to support (whenever Affirmative Action is discussed) actually existed.

But we already knew that …

a handy list of questions you should ask of hapless admissions clerks before forking over your tuition money

Admissions Counsellor: “Welcome to Wottamatta University, Mr. Prager. I hope your and your son enjoyed the tour. Do you have any questions about our campus or our programs?”

Prager’s son: “Um…well, I was wondering – ”

Prager (interrupting): “I do indeed, I have several important questions about your academic institution! First, an one obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree at your college without having read a single Shakespeare play, one Federalist Paper or one book of the Bible?”

Prager’s son: “Dad, uh…”

Counsellor: “Well, sir, we do have a literature requirement for the undergraduate degree, including English literature, history, and other electives, including Comparative Religion. Of course if your student prefers to work in a more unstructure academic envirionment, he could work with his advisor….”

Prager: “No no no, that’s not what I meant! Never mind. Let me ask you this – Do you allow military recruiters on your campus?”

Counsellor: “Would young Dennis Junior like some literature about the Army ROTC program on our campus? If you have a interest in signing up, I’d be pleased to provide you with the name of the faculty advisor. The program is eager for new students.”

Prager: “What? My son — in the Army? Why on earth would you think I’d let my — ” (Blusters, stammers lapses into outraged silence)

Prager’s son: “Excuse me, can you please tell me about the Drama program here at Wottsamatta U?”

Meh. Haydn never did much for me. I much prefer Brahms. So did Jimi Hendrix, actually.

I believe you put the emphasis in the wrong place: a college that require Song of Solomon as reading would, almost by definition, be a fucking college, wouldn’t it?

Only if it was offered as a lab.

all these things part of the same Jesuit/Zionist plot?

Too funny. I went to a Catholic College for a year (or two). Those zany Jesuits! I really despise them but I also love them – for the entertainment value if nothing else.

Also, Josh, I’m pretty sure that was on a William Higgins label. Falcon wouldn’t go near a college, even a fake one.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Tristram Shandy.

Actually, that explains a lot.

Falcon wouldn’t go near a college, even a fake one.

Ah, right. Too young/smooth. Maybe “Know Your Pr0n Studios” should be added to Prager’s laundry list. That is some knowledge you can use!

Now conservatives in the sciences — I’d say each field has a token conservative or two, but wow! conservative academic scientists do tend to be quite rare, from what I can tell …

Yes, but this is a fairly recent development. Early in my career, I knew several politically conservative science faculty. That was before “conservative” came to be synonymous with “anti-science.”

May I nominate Maybe “Know Your Pr0n Studios” should be added to Prager’s laundry list. That is some knowledge you can use!

Winner.

“Cain and Abel were real people.”

And Doug is real stupid…

Mr. Leonard Pierce fails to realize that anything learned absent a guiding context of some magic storybook with big floods and shit is not true knowledge. Which is why no non-Judeo-Christian country such as India or North Korea has ever developed a nuclear weapon. It is also why no non-Judeo-Christian country like Japan has a high standard of living and first rate health care.

You might wanna be careful, now, how you characterize Montana State University. It’s a hot bed of liberalism the likes of which the Ivy’s have never seen. I mean, we gots … ski-bums … round these parts.

Hey, wait! Doesn’t “McCain” mean literally that he’s the Son of Cain??

Hwaet?! “Son of Cain”: the same description given to Grendel! Lock up your mead halls — JSM3 is coming to massacre your thanes!

Hyadn’s stuff is pleseant untreatening and pretty forgetable – Haydn wrote a lot – and is also remembered for being one of Beethoven’s teachers – the relationship became strained – mostly becasue Beethoven was well who he was.

As someone teaching at a small liberal arts college I want to also note that I’ve never heard of anyone assigning Zinn as a reading outside of a graduate student seminar. Frankly, it’s not that good of a history. Zinn forces events into his predetermined theory and goes from there. It’s more popular among the more leftwing students than among most professors. To be fair, it’s better than “A Patriot’s Guide to History” but that’s a low, low hurdle.

Haydn is clearly the Brussel Sprout of liberal-arts arguments.

If Haydn had had the good sense to die young in romantically tragic circumstances, he’d be better-known today than Mozart, people would think of him as the outrageous party animal, and La Canterina would be performed more often than Die Zauberflöte.
As it is, Prager thinks of Haydn as a recherché figure whom he can use as a sign of a real musical education (one up on those ignorant masses who’ve merely heard of Mozart).
Now I’m going to listen to my Johann Stamitz recordings.

This is a very funny article, I do not really respect Prager that much, bt the person who wrote this took ALLOT out of context here, by not providing Prager’s answers to his own questions this ends up being pretty biased and completly wrong in some areas, I went and found Pragers answers to the questions (from the link included in the initl post)).. for the Record, I do think Prager is a ducsh but at the same time I think its kinda fucked up to distort his answers , for example,

the question :

6. Is Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” the most widely assigned American history book?

And the answer, You know, like it is nowhere.(from this site), which is Pragers stance also, he does not want it assigned also but you would never gather that from this blog, Pragers answer :

If the answer is yes, you should consider sending your son or daughter to another university or at least be aware that you will be paying a lot of hard-earned money for your child to be manipulated into believing that America is a bad country, certainly no better than others, as he or she reads what is essentially a proctologist’s view of American history. Zinn believes, as he told me in an interview on my radio show, that America has done “probably more harm than good in its history.”

Like i said, Prager is a morn but this blog should not get much credit eaither (though it is funny) when the author tries to distort what prager is trying to say in the first place

Congratulations, Dom! Your grammar, spelling and analytical skills have won you the chairmanship of the English Department at Prager U.

You can stop by the Dean’s office any time to pick up your mop.

Dom, I believe you’ve taken Mr. Leonard Pierce’s post out of context, and in the process distorting what Mr. Leonard Pierce is trying to say. He is pointing out that liberals don’t all teach that book, therefore grilling every university about it is stupid, making Prager a morn. Or a ducsh.

Um, Leonard seems to imply that Dennis doesn’t like the book. Dennis doesn’t like the book.

And why beholdest thou the Boss DS-1 that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the Big Muff that is in thine own eye?

Well, I certainly hope someone stabs him in the eye.

Prager is a ducsh

Without a liberal arts education I would not have developed the analytical skills necessary to parse this.

Dom, dood, this is a snark blog.

don’t get all earnest on us.

And if you’d gone to college and taken your French, you’d know that it’s “douche”.

Damn, the leauge of Lenoard followers strikes within seconds! I guess if I were as witty and had as many great one liners as some of you I could get people to follow my opinions more often, since witt and one liners seem to always prevail on the collective conciousness of the internet.. Damn, I thought my post was not even posted because it got pushed up by 5 posts within a min!?! are some of you just bustin with a “lets out witt and smear other peoples opinions” hard on and just tapin the Refresh button to get your shitty witt and lame comparisons (gutiar pedals? hmm ok).. I should have realised this in the first place but ehh,as we all know, the internet is such serious buisness.

Okay, do you know where you are?

Yeah, I now realise how “snarky” this blog is , for some dumb reason I did not realise that right away, it is pretty damn funny how Lenoard phrases certain things, great smart-ass humor, so , sorry to get in the way in the first place, will contiune to just read and laugh and take it as is.

If I find a blog I don’t really like or agree with, uh, I, uh, go to another blog.

I hear there are lots of choices.

Well, you kinda missed my point, I do aggree with it, I just took it out of context, did not realise the exact sort of blog this was, and now I do. My bad. Not really sure why grammer and spelling would really matter on this sort of blog but ehhh, whatever, this is good stuff though, very funny.

How is Sadly, No distorting what Prager says?

Your example was kind of lame, especially as you didn’t seem to notice Prager’s glaring straw man argument.

People here tend to be liberals. Which means they prefer examples to vague generalizations.

That’s a good boy.

Not really sure why grammer and spelling would really matter on this sort of blog

When you get the Shania law smacked down on your ass you’ll understand.

But welcome anyway.

Well I know I’m fearing the day we live under Shania law…

Yeah yeah, I get the point, I even aggree with you , I just got the idea (stupid me) that Prager was sugesting that they should use that book, which was pretty stupid for me to assume in the first place being that this is Prager we are talking about. I am not sure which stupid brain cells started that reaction but ehh, such is life and since this just some internet blog, well, who really cares.. Sorry people, commence conversations!

A bit off-topic, but earlier today, I called my parents to ask what was up in the Heartland*. My mother, being the normal, kind person she is, said everything was fine and asked if she should send me Girl Scout cookies.
My dad, jaded lover of Mitt Romney and loather of “too-librul” McCain, said that he was hung over from voting for Hillary in the primary “just for the hell of it” and then getting smashed**.

*No, I didn’t actually ask them that.
**Yes, he apparently actually did that. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry…?

Dom’s comment is a pretty good argument for the importance of critical reading skills. And the necessity of a spell-checker. Or was that a morn dusch thing to say?

Like some of you, I was also confused about what Prager was trying to say about the effect of interest rates on dark matter and Dostoevsky. Then I realized that he was making a meta-comment on how his liberal arts education failed to prepare him for the realities of crafting intelligible sentences in a free-market context. And a meta-meta-comment about how his son’s friend’s blackness helped him cope with Raskolnikov’s fate. And a meta-meta-meta comment about the guilt he feels over the discernable absence in his soul. Man, that guy’s good.

As it is, Prager thinks of Haydn as a recherché figure whom he can use as a sign of a real musical education (one up on those ignorant masses who’ve merely heard of Mozart). – Smut Clyde

Methinks Haydn would hardly be “one up on those ignorant masses who’ve merely heard of Mozart”. Maybe, I’m too overmahedumicated and musically inclined (I pretend to play piano/organ and sing a lot … until I am told to shut up, since I can’t carry a tune), but I knew from Haydn in elementary school.

I thought Prager was supposed to be Jewish. Shouldn’t he then be citing, as an example of a high-falutin’ example of a musician and composer, Charles-Valentin Alkan?

Anyway, I’m confused … so if no college uses Zinn’s book and Prager knows this, why is Prager bringing up this dog-whistle/straw man? Something seems fishy here …

personally, I’m kind of looking forward to living under Shania….

Being of the Wasabi sect, I’m already living under Shania law.

I love how important this guy, ostensibly Jewish, believes knowing about Martin Luther is.

Perhaps we should also know who, exactly, killed Jesus – and controls the banks.

Incidentally, I really love wingnuts shitting on Howard Zinn. You’d think they’d be more respectful of a WW2 veteran, if you had just come to this land – head buzzing with promises of streets paved with gold, opportunities for every rugged individual, and more support per troop than any country save North Korea.

You know I’ve been accused of being pinko scum, but some of prager’s rant makes sense. It’s basically Allan Bloom warmed over. The problem is most conservatives try and make an inflexible conservatively correct curriculum to replace the neo maxists curriculum. They miss the point that the inflexibility was part of the problem, not just the content. And why harsh on Zinn, his history text is a classic. I would read other histories of America and compare and contrast, but there is no need to proscribe old Zinny like some kind of bacteria.

Why can’t they just do their own version of Renaissance Fairs? You know, try and attract people to “Upright Conservative World” where everything is as they would like for it to have been?

El Cid, this made me laugh. And then it made me sad, because unfortunately, the promoters of Upright Conservative World prefer — believe — that they can change the actual past to conform to their prejudices if only they can destroy all the records and kill shout down all the witnesses who disagree. Orwell described such UCW fanatics as “fascists”, but then, Orwell died young & broke and Jonah Goldberg is still parading his prosperity among us…

<blockquote.Because granting a Bachelor of Arts degree on someone who never heard of Cain and Abel and never heard a Haydn symphony is a fraud.

Oh, I dunno. We seem to have elected a President who couldn’t name the President of Pakistan.

By the way, one has to wonder about a guy complaining about illiterate college kids, who thinks degrees are granted “on” someone.

Corrected:

Because granting a Bachelor of Arts degree on someone who never heard of Cain and Abel and never heard a Haydn symphony is a fraud.

Oh, I dunno. We seem to have elected a President who couldn’t name the President of Pakistan.

By the way, one has to wonder about a guy complaining about illiterate college kids, who thinks degrees are granted “on” someone.

Being of the Wasabi sect, I’m already living under Shania law.

As described by the prophet Hamada Hamada…

Ha Ha !

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5908/bamanr1.jpg

I generally only lurk here. Every day ———for hours—–I know—It’s sad. Bit can I just say, I LOVE THIS BLOG!

BTW, I just got back from happy hour.

Zinn forces events into his predetermined theory and goes from there.

I read Zinn, and I found the People’s History to be pretty solid in the chapters on my field. So I’m very curious about your criticisms. You got any good examples ready?

I have a harder time seeing Prager as an iconoclastic Roundhead than as a Royalist shill, churning out crappy pamphlets on behalf of the king and the established church.

Prager is more than a little like Jeremy Collier, author of “A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage” (1698). Oh noes, popular entertainment is smutty and irreligious and teaches bad lessons to impressionable youth!

Man, I’m late getting back to the party here, but:

I’ve never heard a Haydn symphony in my life. Does that mean I have to give my degree back?

Oh c’mon. You’re reading liberal blog – surely you’re familiar, then, with Deutschland Uber Alles? Or, as Haydn called it, the 2nd movement of the Emperor Quartet?

I refuse to believe that unless it is on You-Tube. Next you’ll be telling me that the andante of Symphony #94 is “Twinkle Twinkle”.

Neil Young is the Richard Wagner of liberal fascism.

Oh c’mon. You’re reading liberal blog – surely you’re familiar, then, with Deutschland Uber Alles? Or, as Haydn called it, the 2nd movement of the Emperor Quartet? – Jim

Ironically, that melody provides a perfect setting for the Jewish hymn, Adom Olam. I guess Jews are the German Nationalists of liberal fascism?

> Upright Conservative World

Tom Tomorrow beat you to it:
http://www.cafepress.com/tomsworld.9964027

link

This reminded me of re-reading (or attempting to re-read) Plato’s “The Republic” recently. The naked distaste for democracy is still a little hard to take, for some reason.

Of course, the fact that I’m familiar with Plato (and just about everything on his peculiar little list of Stuff Smart White Guys Need to Know) and do NOT agree with his off-putting world view would no doubt distress and confuse him.

I’ve long suspected that Prager is a put-on concocted to make people like Ben Stein look better. If so, it’s not working very well.

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