What ? Were they friggin' pirates ? Yo ho ho and a bottle of Hennessy ?
They were punks.
A week later I read how one of those kids killed another kid right in the same theater.
Why?
“I wanted his jacket.”
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=7713#.VhAjJSsYH3U
Western culture is not transmitted through the genes. It has to be taught to each succeeding generation.
To transmit this heritage, we depend on our schools and colleges.
Never has a public trust been more misplaced.
We are reminded of the rupturing of our cultural pipeline by the current debate over curricular changes at Stanford University.
In a speech at Stanford on April 18, Secretary of Education William J. Bennett blasted that University for scrapping its basic course, “Western Thought,” which has been required for all freshmen.
The “Western Thought” course was introduced in 1980. It was a step toward rebuilding the worthy curriculum that was trashed in the 1960s and ‘70s at the hands of nihilistic students and deranged faculty.
The course consisted of the study of great books that are the landmarks in the long development of Western culture.
“Western Thought” from its inception became the target of a small but loud gang of protesters.
Their chant in a demonstration last year, led by Rev. Jesse Jackson—
“Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture’s got to go!”—
tells us what they are and what they want.
Their ostensible objection to the course is that white males are overrepresented in the reading list while women, blacks, American Indians, Hispanics etc. are omitted.
The Stanford Faculty Senate voted 39-4 with 5 abstentions to gut “Western Thought.”
Nine of the 15 required books and all 18 “highly recommended” books are dropped, to be replaced by “works by women, minorities and persons of color.”
Whatever may be the proper role of such books in
education, they are no substitute for the great classics that are the foundation stones of our culture.
Choosing books by authors’ gender or ethnic category rather than by the books’ quality ought to embarrass all educators.
http://www.fortfreedom.org/r12.htm
“WESTERN CULTURE’S GOT TO GO”
by Natalie and Gerald Sirkin 1/2/1989