Marin County Town Changes Name To ‘Obama’

Illegal aliens welcome!

Dumbing down?

Craig Newmark’s recent post concerning renaming Algebra II, or Algebra-Trigonometry, “Problem Solving” called to mind another proposal I noticed recently—a brief lecture in which University of Pennsylvania mathematics professor Dennis DeTurck advocates eliminating fractions from the elementary school curriculum.

In the fifth grade, I learned how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions. Although I took to it quickly, many of my classmates struggled. I’m confident that most of them eventually got it, and I’m grateful for having learned it, as well as having been challenged in a variety of ways at the age of 10, and throughout elementary school.

I worry that streamlining curricula may disadvantage students by failing to provide them with other methods of appreciating and using information. Witness the protracted and counterproductive battle between phonics-only proponents and whole-language–only proponents. Most early childhood educators today understand that teaching both yields the greatest results.

The Anointed One

Perhaps more than any other phrase in Obama’s “playing President” exercise in Berlin, the one I found most repugnant was “freedom from want.” Nothing will ultimately ensure for every global citizen freedom from want. Like professing fondness for a “blended economy,” this is a frightening wish from someone who in the same breath pays lip service to free markets and points out the eventual failure of the Communists.

Are the posters of Ché that abound in his campaign offices nostalgic, or do Obama's supporters see him as the re-embodiment of Ché? Government can never have enough money, but citizens always have too much. Adults can’t be trusted to be responsible for themselves, yet government can be trusted to take care of them. Poor children must be inculcated into dependency in public education bureaucracies. People are discouraged from pursuing economic advancement in the private sector so that they're “free” to perform community service. Owning a gun to protect yourself and your family is frowned upon; aborting children even for mere inconvenience is encouraged.

Obama is a modern-day Communist running not so much for the presidency as for a Soviet premiership over the United States. Are Americans this desperate to be taken care of? Are we so helpless that we’ll willingly relegate ourselves to child-like dependency?

Defensive medicine = stupidity, rudeness, loss of business

I’m looking for a new GP. I’ve been treated discourteously at Family Health Associates in Millstadt, where I’ve gone for the past ten years. In that time, I’ve chafed at the office’s phone policy, which denies patients the simple ability to leave recorded messages before business hours, after business hours, or even during the daily 90-minute lunch break. But that’s nothing.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been suffering from second recurrence of an ingrown toenail. My general practitioner has removed it twice. It’s quite painful, and both previous times, she prescribed an antibiotic to cure the infection before removing the toenail and attempting to kill the nail at its base. So I called the office to request a prescription, explaining that it had happened twice before, and to ask to discuss different courses of treatment.

No dice. The secretary insisted that I had to see the doctor to get the prescription. When I asked to leave a message for my GP, said secretary countered, “The doctor doesn’t return phone calls.” Had I gotten the prescription, I could have started taking in advance of a possible third procedure. Having had enough, I ended the call with “I’m going to look for a more helpful office.”

I’m not sure who to be most disgusted with, my doctor for permitting such an office policy, the staff for behaving officiously as a matter of course, or perhaps the anti-medical legal climate in St. Clair County, which leads some doctors to practice defensive medicine at expense of patients’ time and money. At this point, it doesn’t matter. I’m prepared to vote with my feet, such as they are.

To leave no one unthanked, thank you, rude secretary. Thanks, doctor. Thank you, predacious personal injury lawyers. Thanks, pea-brained juries. And thanks, legislators. It’s obvious whom most of you look out for, and a pity it’s so seldom the patient.