Things To Ponder
By Dwight Baker (06/25/03)
Hillary Clinton vs. Harry Potter
Two highly publicized books have come out within the last couple weeks, Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the fifth Harry Potter book by J.K. Rowling. If you’re not a fan of Hillary’s, you’ve no doubt chuckled at some conservative pundits’ suggestions that her book be placed in the fiction section of bookstores. Partly because of what her book has in common with the latest Potter installment: they’re both missing crucial information.
The Potter tome, after weeks of feverish anticipation, was released last Saturday, June 21st at 12:01 a.m. only for disappointed consumers to learn the publisher had accidentally omitted several pages from the 870-page novel. What’s missing from Hillary’s book is the truth about her involvement in the Travelgate scandal, what she knew and when she knew it about the Monica affair, and her explanation for how hundreds of missing documents from her Rose Law Firm days mysteriously turned up in the White House in January 1996, two years after they were subpoenaed.
Hillary’s book is aptly named. It is indeed “living history”, much like a will can be called “living” in that it can be changed any time while the corpse-to-be is still alive, the Clintons’ versions of history seem to change as time goes along as well.
Affirmative Action
What’s going on in the admissions office at the University of Michigan isn’t affirmative action. It’s reverse discrimination.
Those who are celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday, June 23rd aren’t seeing the big picture. It should be insulting to Blacks and Hispanics that Michigan, and several other universities throughout the country, practice "the soft bigotry of low expectations." If those who wouldn’t be admitted except for these extra points on the entrance exam couldn’t cut it before they got in, what makes us believe they could once they did get in?
Studies have shown that these students that would otherwise be “on the bubble” have a history of under-achievement, sometimes being two or three grades behind their slightly brighter counterparts in reading and math. If that’s the case, it will only continue once in college.
The telling statistic of all this isn’t the percentage of minorities admitted. It will be whether or not that same percentage comes out the other end at graduation. Unless the universities are similarly padding their test scores, chances are those graduation percentages will be lower because the study habits and overall ability of those “bubble” students hadn’t changed.
And that is why it’s so confusing that liberal Democrats and so-called “black leaders” are opposed to concept of school vouchers that would allow blacks and other minorities to get into better schools, be they private, religious, or otherwise. If our inner-city public schools are in such disarray that minorities or the “economically-challenged” are barely even expected to graduate, why not give them the opportunity to change that? Why not give them the tools they need to qualify for admission into college on their own merits? To grant special help at the college level but to deny it during a student’s formative elementary, intermediate, and high school years is hypocritical.
What’s even worse about holding on to these flawed admissions policies is that it will hurt these very same minority students in the long run. Future employers won’t practice the same policy when these people are looking for employment. They’ll pick the best of the bunch as they’ve always done and these students will be left pondering what happened from an unemployment line.
The tax dollars that support our state universities will only go up to match the rising tuition costs that increased dropout rates produce.
Society’s Not to Blame
This past week, I responded to a letter to the editor in the Houston Chronicle written by a woman who was blaming society for atrocities attributed to women here in the Houston area lately. The writer says, “we can't be too outraged at a mother who uses her daughter to shoplift for her or one who leaves a baby in a car parked outside a bar, much less at the judge who orders children returned to a mother found guilty of physical abuse, if we don't contribute anything to prevent these events from occurring.” The story of the mother abandoning the daughter she coerced into shoplifting made national news.
I responded that in every one of those situations, the mother made a choice. Nobody forced these women to do what they did and now they must pay the consequences.
I’m just becoming increasingly saddened that it seems personal convictions and accountability are becoming a thing of the past. Every example I’ve given above illustrates that in some way, whether it be Hillary blaming the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, minorities complaining about a perceived culturally-biased education system, or feminists claiming oppression in a “man’s world”.
Perhaps I should just ignore the news and engulf myself in Harry Potter.
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