Curtis Dahlgren
March 24, 2007
ON "GOING SOUTH" for spring break or just in general [a "best of"]
By Curtis Dahlgren

"Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily." — Shakespeare

PRUDE, n; A FINE THING OF A WOMAN [Dictionary of Word Origins, John Ayto]

I like Olde English, because originally the word "prude" was never applied to men — and it was the highest compliment one could pay to a female. The word "prudefemme" in Old French meant (literally!) "a fine thing of a woman." "Preu" meant "fine," "brave," "virtuous" (and it gave the English the word "proud" — which is also an okay word in the best sense of the word).

A common misconception is that "prude" and "prudent" are related words, but Ayto says that "prudent," the literal meaning of which is foreseeing, came into English via a separate root (and route). He says, "Prudent and provident are as it were two separate goes at the same word."

In other words, it is "providential" to be prudent (far-sighted), and "not very prudent" to call virtuous people PRUDES (i.e., by doing so, you are not being very "foreseeing"). The RenewAmerica website has many "fine" and "far-sighted" columnists — roughly as many women as men — and it astounds me how under-read some of them are (I cite two good ones at the end of this reposted column).

[I happened to reread a column I wrote four months ago, and noticed how little things have changed in the culture war, so I'm reposting the following excerpt. Perhaps, this time, some of you will get the message.]

Winter . . arrived this morning. I don't know how the term "going south" came about, but during the night the wind had "gone north," with gusts to 23 mph (I like winter, but this was sort of sudden). Why do I mention all this? An acquaintance once said to me, "You talk and talk and never say anything" — when I would digress into ironies and paradoxes.

Well, let's just say that this has all put me in the "right" mood to write about PC education and the educrats. I'm going to let it rip.

Albert Einstein once said, "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

DEFINE "CRITICAL THINKING." That's one of the latest buzzwords on the Left. They claim to be teaching our kids "how to think for themselves," but in actuality, they are just teaching kids how to parrot "what we tell you to think." Steeped in junk psychology themselves, the Establishment teachers have elevated junk science to the level of mysticism, mythology, and "infallibility" (just google "global warming").

"Our dogma, right or wrong." The last refuge of a scoundrel is politically correct dogma.

Rather than teaching kids how to think (by teaching them how to read well), they are in fact just teaching them how to shut their eyes to reality and shut their ears to that "right-wing propaganda" about eternal truths and critical principles to be gleaned from history by life-long study and real critical thinking. NO WONDER WE HAVE TROUBLE SLEEPING.

As Thomas Sowell says, "More frightening than any particular beliefs or policies is an utter lack of any sense of a need to test those beliefs and policies against hard evidence. Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a [PC] vision." ["Who really cares? Debunking Mythology"]
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MWJjZWVkY2YyM2I2NGNmZTFlNGNmNjcxMzI0MzQyYjM=

Personally, this author tries to chronicle the week-to-week developments in the "intellectual" world. This week was a doozy:

1) Officials have asked organizers of a Chicago ethnic festival to reconsider using a movie studio as a sponsor because it is worried ads for its film "The Nativity Story" might offend non-Christians.

2) In his column "The plot against America exposed," Wes Vernon wrote, "You may think it 'just happened' that today's establishment universities, establishment foundations, and establishment media march to the drummer of 'political correctness' that (at the very least) downgrades our Judeo-Christian heritage, while condoning — if not celebrating — same-sex marriage. None of these things 'just happened.'" http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/vernon/061127

3) British writer Richard Dawkins, in an interview, came right out and admitted what we always knew, that Darwinism must lead to atheism, plus peer pressure making religion so embarrassing that the general population will be intimidated into silence (I paraphrase).

4) We read of an October Harris poll that found that nearly half of the American people aren't sure if there is a God, and that "42 percent of US adults are not 'absolutely certain' there is a God compared to 34 percent who felt that way when asked the same question three years ago" . . . .

To top things off, I learned that the cousin of a former relative by marriage was murdered in Phoenix recently. I don't know who the murderer was yet, but in an eye-opening article, "Illegal aliens murder 12 Americans daily," Joseph Farah writes . . http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53103 . . that "most Americans have no idea more of their fellow citizens — men, women and children — were murdered this year by illegal aliens than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since those military campaigns began."

While our intellectual "giants" focus on the task of obliterating religion (Sir Elton John), and our best national security people focus on the border of Pakistan, Syria and Iran, our own southern border goes unguarded. This does not bode well for our futuristic feminized culture.

Most politicians still have no clue that the American people are serious about sealing our southern border. I just saw today a bumper sticker on a truck that says, "BORDER CONTROL — NOT GUN CONTROL." [some visitors to Iowa recently got an ear-full]

I think it's time to define the word "RENEW":

My dictionary says that the "renew" in RenewAmerica means:

1) To begin or take up again.
2) to make effective for an additional period.
3) to restore or replenish.
4) to make, say, or do again.
5) to revive or make fresh again.
6) to RESTORE TO A FORMER STATE.

Words MEAN things, and the word "renewal" cannot be dismissed by pedantic accusations of "turning back the clock." I wrote about that subject in one of my first columns:
www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/031009

And in one the favorite lines of all time, I said:

"Scientists have discovered a tiny creature that lives in the lips of a North Atlantic lobster; it is unique because its brain completely disappears at the onset of adolescence and doesn't reappear until adulthood. [This analogy] pictures our middle school students being turned over to teachers and school officials at their most vulnerable time. And psychologists tell parents that, once kids reach age 13, any attempt by a parent to influence them won't have any affect one way or another (but drugs [or condoms] from the school nurse are a sure cure for whatever ails them)."

When a kid is brainless, Godless, clueless, and purposeless, and distracted by raging hormones, it is easy for him/her to be intimidated by the intellectual "giants" of the Establishment schools (and go like "whatever!").

Besides, when wearing $200 sneakers and $1,000 jeans, or having a $600 video game, is more important than being educated and being able to find the United States on a globe, who cares? Just go along to get along with the crowd!

Speaking of drugs, science is working on drugs that will wipe out bad memories. That was a "revelation" this week. You mean the "new Soviet" American man has guilt yet? A lot of those "bad memories" involve the use (or non-use) of condoms. [like during "spring break"]

[At this point in writing my column, the power went off at my house. Something out there must not want this column to get "out there." This is powerful stuff, but some days, when you "seize the moment," the whole day fights back! Oh well, considering what some people in other parts of the globe are facing, I shouldn't complain about the power going out.]

By the way, how did electricity evolve? Did lightning bring pond scum to life billions and billions of years ago? I "ramble," but seriously, when we tell the next generation that their first ancestor was pond scum, and that there is no purpose for living, is it any wonder that teen-age suicides are at record rates?

Speaking of "turning back the clock,"
though, Paul Greenberg [had] a brilliant column this week about Milton Friedman (bear with me; even economics is interrelated with everything else in the universe). Greenberg said, to paraphrase, that Friedman was a historian first and looked to the lessons of history for his theories of economic freedom that won him a Nobel Prize (and led to the Reaganomics that has propelled us to the point where even inner-city youths can wear $200 sneakers and $1,000 jeans).

Yes, the "old books" are the best books, with occasional exceptions such as "Godless" by Ann Coulter. Chapter seven of that book alone is worth the cost: "The Left's War on Science: Burning books to advance 'Science.'" Coulter writes, regarding politically correct 'science':

"What's so disarming about the Left's pretend interest in science is that they have the audacity to shut down debate in the name of 'Science.' Science is the study of the world as it exists, which, to their constant annoyance, is not the world liberals like it to be."

The "scientific method" has become a joke. Who are these "experts?" The same people who claim that embryonic stem-cell research is more valuable than adult stem-cell research are the same people who told us that 2006 was going to be a horrible hurricane season, that men and women have no innate differences other than appendages, and that we evolved from a "common ancestor" — a certain primate.

BY THE WAY, if the human race split off in one generation from the "animals" (just for argument's sake), wouldn't that DNA shift have been kind of sudden (almost as sudden as winter's arrival this morning) — almost be a "miracle," in Einstein's words?

AND HOW DID "light" evolve? Without light, even the primates wouldn't have been able to see each other.

Speaking of modern Academics, they remind me of that "primordial soup" from which we supposedly sprang: Crud still rises to the TOP!



"Spring heart-break," by Marsha West: [on Academia "going South"]
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/mwest/070323

"Wear and tear on the guillotine," by Helen Valois
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/valois/070113 [on "Going South" just in general]

© Curtis Dahlgren

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)

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Curtis Dahlgren

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in the frozen tundra of Michigan's U.P., and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton... (more)

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