Archive for July, 2009

« Older Entries

“Indoctrinate U” teaches valuable lessons

July 31st, 2009  |  No Comments »

If you want a politically-neutral documentary, Indoctrinate U is not it; both Evan Coyne Maloney and his film are unabashedly conservative. However, that does not mean either deserves to be discounted – far from it. Maloney clearly has a point, and he presents it in a manner that alternates between shocking, frustrating and humorous, but is always engaging.

The tenor of Indoctrinate U is set almost immediately with coverage of affirmative action adversary Ward Connerly’s experience at the University of Michigan. Connerly’s appearance was protested by numerous students and clubs, and the speech itself was attended by an audience overwhelmingly hostile to his stance. During the discussion session, a young (black) woman claimed it was “troubling to see a black man … speak out against affirmative action.” The crowd was quiet as she spoke, yet Connerly barely got a sentence out before his response received a heckler’s veto. Apparently it bothered more people than just her that, in Connerly’s words, “a black man would be against her point of view.”

If that makes you shake your head, then by the end of the hour and a half you spend with Indoctrinate U you’ll have a serious crick in your neck. Incivility to dissenting views is an all-too-common theme.

I found the most gripping parts of Indoctrinate U to be the personal experiences, where professors were jerked around and patronized by their departments, student publications were stolen while the university administration sat idle, and students themselves were threatened, humiliated and bullied by both faculty as well as their peers. While each account was (not surprisingly) a sympathetic cause, two stood out in my mind as particularly outrageous. I’ll leave them for Maloney to tell, but I will say that of all the things I might call conservatism, good or bad, a psychological disorder is not one of them.

Maloney’s investigative segments were also outstanding. Maloney and his cameraman visited a campus office to follow up on specific incidents or, in a couple of cases, claims of diversity. It was quite funny (in both the hilarious and peculiar sense) to watch how the staff of each office went out of its way to avoid answering Maloney’s inquiries. It was also quite pathetic to see how the staff copped out each time … literally.

One professor interviewed in the documentary said that when he gave his students a statement of his beliefs, most of them would agree with him. Much to his credit, he felt there was “something wrong” with that.

What’s wrong is that many students – one-third of them, according to a poll cited in the film – feel their ability to pass a class is not necessarily based on whether or not they know the material, but on how well they can regurgitate their professor’s views. After watching Indoctrinate U, you won’t blame any student in the least for believing that.

Liberals frequently and unreservedly call right-wingers and their outlets (such as Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the like) narrow-minded, heartless and reactionary. Maloney and Indoctrinate U show that the academic left can be every bit as intolerant, insensitive and extreme as they claim their ideological foes to be.

Conservatives will absolutely love Indoctrinate U. However, anyone of any political stripe who is intellectually honest and values true discussion over censorship will also appreciate Maloney’s work.

I am not the first to unreservedly recommend Indoctrinate U and I’m sure I won’t be the last. I hope that current and soon-to-be college students as well as their parents see the film. Current students will get an idea of what academic life can be like for their peers across the country (and perhaps even on their own campus), while students that plan on matriculating can gain a sense of what they might face in the near future and make a more informed decision.

Review    , ,

Bush vs. Obama

July 24th, 2009  |  2 Comments »

“I could’ve calibrated those words differently.”

– President Obama, on his remark that Sgt. James Crowley, the officer that arrested the scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., “acted stupidly”.

“Calibrated“?!

I think I understand the difference between George W. Bush and Barack Obama now.

Bush’s modus operandi was mangling the English language. Obama prefers beating it into submission.

Commentary   

A little salt, a little sugar makes the goo taste really good…

July 22nd, 2009  |  1 Comment »

I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich the other day, scraping the last bit of Jif from the cavernous Sam’s Club jar I bought some months back. While doing so, I decided to look at the label on the jar one last time before throwing it away. (Yes, I threw it away. Sorry, Captain Planet.)

As you well know, or at least have seen, food labels have had to list specific potential allergens for a few years now. I am honestly sympathetic to the concern of needing to know what ingredients are in foods, because it is certainly no fun having your airways blocked or watching parts of your body swell up almost instantaneously. However, I am also one of those jerks who expects most humans to have some shred of intelligence.

If you are allergic to peanuts, I can understand why you might need a warning on a bag of potato chips, a box of fish sticks or a package of chocolate chip cookies. On the other hand, if you are allergic to peanuts and you deliberately buy and eat a food product with the word “peanut” in its name, my sympathies for you ended long ago.

And that brings me back to the jar of Jif I had.

On the front of the label under the name “Jif” were the words “Creamy Peanut Butter”. A bit to the right was a circle enscribed with “Fresh Roasted Peanut Taste” and a depiction of peanuts in the center. I then turned the jar to the side to see how the list of ingredients was handled. While an allergy warning (mercifully) did not appear, the word “peanuts” was printed in bold in the ingredient list itself, as if that was the make-or-break proof a jar of creamy peanut butter with fresh roasted peanut taste and a picture of peanuts on the front actually, in fact, had peanuts in it.

That piqued my curiosity. Since I wanted more goober goo anyway, I looked at the jars of some other brands the last time I went grocery shopping.

All the brands except Peter Pan had some depiction of peanuts on the front of the label, though none had the overplay of peanut taste my old jar of Jif did. (Even Jif itself replaced their “fresh roasted” boast with a form of the famous “Choosy Moms Choose Jif” slogan and removed the peanuts to fit in another piece of braggadocio: “#1″.)

Peter Pan, Great Value (Walmart’s house brand) and Fisher’s all chose to warn the buyer that their peanut butter may indeed be peanut-flavored by printing “Contains: Peanuts” under the list of ingredients.

Smucker’s handled it the same way as Jif did (i.e., peanuts), which isn’t surprising as Jif is also a Smucker Company brand.

However, Skippy’s label had no warning and no bold print; only the ingredients were on the side. In today’s dumbed down world, that was like a breath of fresh air.

(By the way, here’s an interesting point of comparison: That same day, I also bought a package of Strawberried Peanut Butter M&Ms [the flavor cross-advertised with the second Transformers movie]. The back of the bag also had allergy information: “May Contain Almonds”. I felt that warning was every bit as intelligent and praiseworthy as the Skippy label.)

I am a person who, on occasion, will make purchasing decisions based on things such as how funny or annoying a product’s commercials are. Given how much I liked what Skippy had done, guess what I did?

I bought another jar of Jif. You didn’t think I had a container of it the size of a woolly mammoth for no reason, did you?

Opinion   

Capitalism: A *True* Love Story

July 21st, 2009  |  2 Comments »

A woman I knew once told me that Coke was seen as a symbol of capitalism by the people in the socialist circles of where she went to school in Montréal, so instead they would drink… Pepsi. We both laughed at the irony of it. (She, being a staunch free-marketeer and a bit of a contrarian, drinks Coke — but not Pepsi — because of that. I thought that in itself also was rather funny.)

Similarly, I have quite a few friends who refuse to shop at Walmart for a host of reasons: the stores are a blight on neighborhoods, their labor practices are unfair, they drive local stores out of business and so forth. Yet, more often than not, their retailer of choice is, you’ve guessed it, Target, the store that essentially would be Walmart if it wasn’t for Walmart.

A well-known documentarian and critic of General Motors (yes, I’ve mentioned him before) is releasing a new documentary toward the end of the year entitled “Capitalism: A Love Story”. “It will be the perfect date movie,” he says. “It’s got it all – lust, passion, romance and 14,000 jobs being eliminated every day.” He is, of course, is the same person who has become a millionaire by having a willing audience pay for admission to his documentaries in theaters, watching them on premium movie channels as well as buying and renting them on video.

Mention the word “capitalism”, and many people will think of companies like Coca-Cola, Walmart and General Motors. Of course, with the corporate malfeasance earlier this decade and the more recent government taxpayer bailouts, you are also likely to recall thoughts of Enron, Worldcom, AIG and, well, General Motors.

Many of capitalism’s detractors are likely to consider a business failure as a fault in capitalism when, in fact, it is the exact opposite. A company that goes out of business is indicative of one that had poor strategy and, if it is allowed to fail, a lesson for other firms. Enron went under because investors lost confidence in a scandal-ridden corporate board that cheated its own employees. General Motors went bankrupt (and allegedly would have failed if it wasn’t propped up) because it didn’t react quickly enough to a shifting consumer demand. It isn’t a happy time when others lose jobs because of a business shutting down, but a company that does not serve the needs of its customers or disquiets its investors has sealed its own fate, large or small.

Similarly, there always will be those who try to defraud others. However, that is not a fault of capitalism; rather, it is a mark of character of the person who participates in fraud. In capitalism, trust is an essential part of doing business. If people find they cannot trust you (or hear of enough bad publicity secondhand), it will certainly cut into your ability to do business, if not ruin it entirely. With the Internet, the effects of customer testimonials can be amplified exponentially.

Although the famous logos you see from and on the roads and highways are the most well-known symbols, it is the entrepreneur that’s the true heart of capitalism. Take the three companies mentioned in the opening: Coca-Cola was invented by John Pemberton and sold as a local soft drink in and around Atlanta. Walmart was founded as a single store in Bentonville, Arkansas by Sam Walton. General Motors began as the brainchild of a Michigan salesman named Billy Durant. If it weren’t for entrepreneurs like those three, there wouldn’t be any big businesses to hate.

However, most would agree that larger companies from time to time (some would say quite often) need to be kept on their toes. The best way to do that is by allowing the “little guys” to fairly compete with the “big boys”. Hence it is worth remembering that “Big Business” nor business in general are equivalent to capitalism.

Free markets are about open competition in the marketplace. That isn’t something businesses always want, so you will see some established companies and trade unions back mandates or legislation that hamper the ability for others to compete. To put that another way, business wielding its influence within government to protect its own interests is an impediment to, NOT a byproduct of, capitalism and free markets.

Trader’s markets, farmers’ markets and bazaars are great examples of the entrepreneurial spirit at work: people stop by the stands of farmers, fishermen, artisans, bakers and other industrious individuals, take a look at what’s being offered and interact directly with the shopkeepers. The local coffee shop, the accountant downtown, and individual hairdressers are also great examples. The teenagers who mow lawns and shovel snow as well as the kids selling lemonade and candy are also entrepreneurs and, yes, capitalists.

So, yes, I admit it: I love capitalism. I think that if more people recognized what capitalism truly is and, more importantly, what capitalism is not, they would come to love it as well.

Opinion   
« Older Entries