Rebecca Fried - American Scholar and High School Student Quieted "No Irish Need Apply" Denier from the University of Illinois

Augusta Constitutionalist (Ga) 31 July 1868.

Kids love a challenge and nothing challenges them like a teacher saying something outrageous ( to their experiences) and demanding of them -"Well prove me wrong!"

My students LOVED rubbing my pug-nose in it -deeply and lovingly -and I have to say I loved it too.

I am wrong, early and often, and I will fess up when called on mistakes, misteps and, too often, miss spellings.  I write fast and furious and seem to require a full time editor just to pay the light bill.

A few years back there was a huge Hoo-Ha from a very celebrated American academic at University of Illinois who broadly and  loudly told Irish Americans to believe him and not their lying eyes.  I read his article published by OxFord University ( I'm in there too, under Thackeray BTW) Press and dismissed the professor 'painstaking and careful research' which denied that "No Irish Need Apply" signs existed - ever.

I remember seeing those very signs in the ads of old Chicago newspapers all the way up to WWII.

Well, I never bothered with Professor Richard J. Jensen's thesis and harbored my prejudices based upon emprirical evidence.
A high school student from Brooklyn, NY gutted Professor Jensen two weeks ago from t'aint to gizzard:

 in a piece for the Oxford Journal of Social History – the same journal where Jensen published his findings – Rebecca A. Fried, a  a high-school student at the Sidwell Friends school in Washington, DC,” has found overwhelming evidence that the NINA signs were very real and very prevalent.
In a wonderfully written and researched rebuttal, Fried challenges Jensen’s claim that “the NINA phenomenon is an ahistorical memory to be explained by ‘delu[sional]’ group psychology and ‘the political need to be bona-fide victims’ rather than by the fact of historic discrimination.”
Instead, she writes, “the documentary record better supports the earlier view that Irish-Americans have a communal recollection of NINA advertising because NINA advertising did, in fact, exist over a substantial period of United States history, sometimes on a fairly widespread basis.”


Wanted advertisement displaying the qualification “No Irish need apply.” The New York Herald, Vol. XXVIII Issue 186, Page 11. 7 July 1863.

How about that, youngster!?!!!!! Professor Jensen is being tuned up thanks to kid who was challenged by a teacher . . .not a real nice on it seems from the exchanges Old Doc Jensen is having with Rebbecca.

"Analyze This! " - God Responds to Latest Scientific Study: People of Faith Don't Think

Scientists have revealed one of the reasons why some folks are less religious than others: They think more analytically, rather than going with their gut. And thinking analytically can cause religious belief to wane — for skeptics and true believers alike.

I was awakened again, thanks be to God. Said my prayers, fed the cat, and got to it.  Read the Tribune and the posted article and asked God what he thought of it. Here HE is!


God ( aka - Supreme Being, Dominus, Lord of Hosts, Yaweh, Allah, Prime Mover, Triun God, Original Gangstah! & etc. )

Hickey, do you know what time it is ?  Oh, ME!  You got Company? Sorry about the get-up,folks,  this goof wakes before I intended man to rise.  Hickey, you are really lucky I turned-in early, or you'd really be up $hit-creek for fair, Paddy Me Boy!  As it is you just added a few semesters to your stay in Purgatory. Take a walk or something - I sure Hell don't need you staring over my shoulders. Now, Blow!

Hi, everybody!  Again, sorry about my state of dress; I'm God for Crissakes, not Adolph Menjou.  He really is an inconsiderate pain in the ass, but he means well, I know. . . .before we get to the meat of the matter, let me first congratulate all the Leo Alumni who will be celebrating their commitment to Leo High School ( 1928-2012 Anno Mine) at the Lexington House in Hickory Hills tonight.  The doors will open at 5:30 P.M. and cocktails will be served between 6:30 - 7:30 Post Meridian central Standard Time.  If any of you guys are thirsty, just wait; there will be plenty of time to toss back a few and remember DUI laws are enforced.  I created the each human body differently - age, weight, gender, food intake prior to consumption of one ounce of alcohol must be considered.  For some of you gents who slept through Brother Finch's chemistry and physics class, which I dou . . .am certain never happened, remember an ounce of booze is an ounce of booze - beer, wine, or loudmouth.  Have fun but if you plan to whack down an inappropriate amount of cold ones, have a sober driver.  Remember to eat.

Leo Men!  You are my sons in whom I am very well pleased!

The weather is going to be a bit odd - Hey, you live in Chicago! 

That's about it.

Now, a group of smart kids used grant money to justify the current war on Faith.  This is a political gimmick that Bismark used in the 19th Century in order to consolidate the 101 German States and principalities under Prussian control.  Kant and Hegel were and still are used to make a case against me.  Knock yourselves out, Lads.

This current study is meant to Balkans folks.  If you believe in Me, all to the good.  If you choose to not believe in Me . . .see you in a few years; right Mr. Hitchens?  Any way. 

This new study, which is really as old as human arrogance, holds that Doubters are smarter than Believers. They use math and science to prove this using a series of John Dewey's tests and measurements.  These are the same class of  talented youngsters who measure and calibrated the wheels on the very expensive Bombardier Rail Car Wheels that the City of City bought like a pig in a poke last November.

Measure twice; cut once works only if the carpenter has learned which end of the rule which - remember that scene in This is Spinal Tap?  That was great!  The Stonehenge scene.  Where the stage manager wrote down inches ("s) instead of feet (')? Here, Watch This!

Spinal Tap - Stonehenge - The most popular videos are here

You guys kill me . . . and then I Resurrect!
Anyway, ever since Moses took his sandals off when I lit that bush on fire ( Charleton Heston!  Take a bow, Son!) you need proofs. Thomas the Apostle, that was a close one for you, Kiddo. No matter what I say, do, or demonstrate there will always be doubt - supposed to be.  I don't want you clowns stumbling around in the dark, or depending upon your trust of Kellogg's that there is exactly 16 ounces of corn-flakes in the box, or worse allowing science alone to be your guide - looks at how much weight Al Gore put on since he obsessed with glaciers and penguins.  That and his pretty wife gave him the gate.

I am perfect. Sorry, the job's taken.  Everything else is limited ( you can only drink so many beers, guys), fallible, disappointing, and in exact.  The earth is nice and round.  Water freezes at a some point, given certain circumstances, and it boils at some point, again given certain circumstances.  The NBA does not draft Pygmies - is that certainty, or what if Shorty Mnumbaka has a hang time measured in 0.58 minutes X Two and standard English yard ( 3') s times Seven?   Shorty will go into his freshman year at Brother Aman Prep School in Gungu, Uganda just a bit north central of Lake Albert.  Don't believe me?  Got Proof? just kidding.

Look, you have computers and they are all coded using 0s and 1s. You have DNA coded A, T,G, C with three billion of these letters in every human cell - math is limits.

I have been talking to you all for millions of years; some choose to believe on a few thousand of years, Whats a few numbers off between friends?  I AM. . . .don't just take my  Word for it. Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."

Here's the deal. No matter how many numbers, proofs, or tests, you all have Free Will.  No Charge! 
One caveat - There really is only One test, all the rest are Old Styles and Slim Jims, really.  It is Pass/Fail and really can not study for it - call it The Final.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-sci-religion-analytical-thinking-20120427,0,7996681.story

http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html

Secular Cohabitation Vows - No Bands, No Ties, No Biggie, No Hokey-Pokey, Whatever!

Hat tip from Regular Guy!

I listened to a tweedy academic explain that marriage is as outmoded as spats, or something like that and I kept my mouth shut. Must have been all the Rhino tranquillizer that my Love slipped into my soda water. The guy blinked about three times during his five minute discourse on marriage, religion, intolerance, and Pope Benedict. He argued that cohabitation is the only civilized conjugal arrangement.



Marriage works in my neighborhood. It might not work everywhere. Who's to say?

Gravity works in my neighborhood. It does not work in controlled upper -stratospheric environments, like big NASA airplanes, or up in outer space. Who's to say.

We are as God made us works in my neighborhood with certain theological and moral modifications. Atheists are as the Big Bang made them. Who's to say.

'Who's To Say?' Part Tray - Situational Ethics: The Cop Out That Keeps Giving!

More on 'Who's To Say?' The Catch-phrase of the smarmy and the self-absorbed. This question is posed largely by people who are passive aggressive smart-asses when confronted with the reality that their agenda stands in front of Universal Truths that are too tough to follow. That is why well-to-do educated women use abortion as cosmetic surgery. 'Think of the poor unwanted Child! Kill It! - out of Love!'

Situational Ethics appeared at the same time Planned Parenthood and other wonderful folks decided to unleash genocide on the unborn and make it as easy as stealing donuts! 'Who's to say a Woman's Body is Not Her Own?'

Donuts.
I stole items from Kean Gas Station this morning ( hypothetically speaking for any District 22 CPD officers on Blog Watch) - Six French Donuts ( the ones that look like Tractor Wheels), three Hava-Hanks ( sets of Two), and four Two Bit Bags of Ranch Dressing Doritos, while Dawna was busy with Jerry Schumacher's gas can re-fill.

I stole these items because I had no cash and I love my children - Clare is nuts for Doritos and French Donuts and hates when my snot-locker runs in the cold weather - who don't?

Who's to say that I am a thief? This is a hypothetical. Dawna could kick my ass on the best day that I ever lived and Jerry Schumacher was an All American at Michigan and a Tony Lawless Award winning football great at Mount Carmel possessing a rock-ribbed ethical world view that roundly frowns upon sneaks - active and passive.

In the 1960's an Episcopal priest named Joseph Fletcher developed Situational Ethics that became a hot-button Get of Jail Free Card for people bothered by Universal Truths and the 10 Items Zapped into the Stone Tablets.

Fletcher developed an ethical dodge based upon Love! Agape - or universal brotherly Love as the end of all things. Smart guys call this a teleological ethic as opposed to a law based or outlaw ethic.

Thieves used to follow 'the outlaw' or antinomian ethic. Thieves steal.

Everyone else follows the Law.

Thus, if my sense of Brotherly Love makes me want to get to work as fast as I can, then it follows that I drive up on sidewalks to avoid traffic delays on Western Ave. or 87th Street with the pedal to the metal - 'Get the Hell out of MY WAY!!!!!!!! I am doing this out of Universal LOOOOOOOOOOVE!'


Here's Fletcher's Nut-shell:
There are four presuppositions that Fletcher makes before setting out the situational ethics theory:

Pragmatism - This is that the course of action must be practical and work
Relativism - All situations are always relative; situational ethicists try to avoid such words as 'never' and 'always'
Positivism - The whole of situational ethics relies upon the fact that the person freely chooses to believe in agape love as described by Christianity.
Personalism - Whereas the legalist thinks people should work to laws, the situational ethicist believes that laws are for the benefit of the people.

[edit] The six fundamental principles
First proposition
Only one thing is intrinsically good; namely love: nothing else at all. Fletcher (1963, pg56)
Second proposition
The ruling norm of Christian decision is love: nothing else. Fletcher (1963, pg69)
Third proposition
Love and Justice are the same, for justice is love distributed, nothing else. Fletcher (1963, pg87)
Justice is Christian love using its head, calculating its duties, obligations, opportunities, resources...Justice is love coping with situations where distribution is called for. Fletcher (1963, pg95)
Fourth proposition
Love wills the neighbour's good, whether we like him or not. Fletcher (1963, pg103)
Fifth proposition
Only the end justifies the means, nothing else. Fletcher (1963, pg120)
Sixth proposition
Love's decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively. Fletcher

The situation determines the course of the action! In China, toddlers squat to urinate and defecate where and when they are moved to do so! Love is the answer.

Forget the Sexist rules demanding that Women go to the Ladies Rooms and Lads to the Gents! Do as in China! Love is the end!

Who's to say?

BTW- I bought two donuts for Clare - standard glazed and a 16 oz. Cup of Dark Roast for $ 2.85. The Firemen had glomed all the French Donuts by 5:45 AM.

'Who's To Say?' Part 2. Maybe John Dewey Should Have Had a Beer with John Kass at Nick's Beergarden.

"nature itself is wistful and pathetic, turbulent and passionate" - John Dewey 1859-1952.

What in the hell does that mean? But then again that is the point. John Dewey is the father of American Public Education, the leading thinker of the American Progressive Movement, one of the leaders of American Psychology, founder of the University of Chicago Laboratory School and the one of the leaders in Nuance.

Dewey was a New Englander and a smart guy who studied the German thinker Hegel. Hegel developed modern thought based upon the notion that Germans were smarter than Italians, Spaniards, Frenchmen and Arabs. Hegel and his buddy Schopenauer developed Dialectical Materialism, which gave Karl Marx something to write about in the dusty stacks of the British Museum developed the notion of class warfare as the new parousia(παρουσία) , or Second Coming.

John Dewey took a job at Rockefeller's swell new school south of Canaryville's Stockyards - The University of Chicago - and established himself as the leader in the Pragmatist Movement begun by William James. Pragmatism is rooted in the empiricists of the 18th Century and candied up with the Romantics and the Dialectical Materialists of the 19th Century. Two Dollar words for 'if you can't really see it, give it a pass.'

This is a nice way of killing off any metaphysics - the stuff you can't see: Faith, Belief, Trust, Compassion, Piety, Fidelity all that nonsense. E.G. 'Were any of us, really, in the cell with John McCain? Can we be actually certain that he was, in fact, a prisoner? Honor?' or how about 'What is an Unrepentant Terrorist? Bill Ayers we all know IS a "Distinguished Professor of Education" so why is this an issue?'

John Dewey, who it seems, died a few months before I was born, it appears, influenced the use and application of 'Who's to say?'

'Who's to say?' is the means by which a shared belief can be kicked to death. It is also the advent message for all bad, worthless, tasteless, obscene, and dangerous idiots to have their time in the spotlight. How else might one explain the development of Reality TV and Bill Maher?

Aristotle influenced Christian ( Aquinas), Jewish (Maimonides), and Muslim ( Averroes/Avicenna)thinkers who have helped people make sense of our lives through an understanding of an Ordered and Unified Universe. Faith, Belief in Universal Truths and all that stuff that Dewey and the smart guys killed off - or tried to - is reflected in an Absolute ( God/Higher Power/Big Banger/Truth).

No less an Aristotelian than Chicago Tribune's John Kass gave us an exercise in a long over-due return to sense over Dewey with a brilliant essay called to my attention by Saloon Keeper/Coach/Jazz Historian and Snappy Dresser Nick Novich*.

'Kass wrote the most stirring caveat to Americans with his essay on capturing Wild Pigs. Read it, Hickey!' I had in fact missed that one. Here is Kass, discussing one of those metaphysical terms 'Liberty" - Kass as metaphysician answering the 'Who's to Say?-ers' and John Dewey-

Fear happens. The 9/11 terrorist attacks happened, and the federal government—always eager to extend its reach—built its massive security bureaucracy, down to those spy cameras installed on the streetlights of so many cities and towns, thrilling America's mayors and the police chiefs. We're told the cameras keep us safe. We've become used to the eyes.

And when the economic crisis happened—when the credit bubble burst and the excesses of Wall Street caught up with us, and so many people lost their jobs and their retirement savings got whacked, and they started losing their homes—naturally people became fearful.

When you're worried about your family, you're not interested in the history of blame. You're interested in keeping a roof over their heads. You're interested in solutions. The solution so many want these days is more government.

Some of that is a proper demand for reasonable regulations on the markets and on lending that were eased during the Clinton years and continued. But today's crisis has also led to the massive federal bailout of the financial industry, with Washington picking who wins and who loses. We're told that this arrangement is only temporary. But partnerships involving almost a trillion dollars that grant even greater leverage to Washington have a way of becoming quite terribly permanent.

So the leviathan grows, and the bureaucrats and the corporate types attached to this bailout deal see the world in strikingly similar terms. They share the same type of mind and they share the common purpose of maintaining the status quo. Why wouldn't they? They're on the inside.

The casualty will be the entrepreneurs, those on the outside, the ones who create the spark and offer up the products or the ideas that fire the economy. The entrepreneurial mind isn't willing to settle and wants to make more than $250,000 in salary or whatever the federal government deems proper. They don't want proper. What they want is to take risks and reach the American Dream.

Such men and women will be on the outside for decades now. When they get close to victory they'll get whacked with tax increases and the rug will be pulled out from under them. The rich will have their wealth. But new entrepreneurs will be hamstrung and without that creative spark, no government-administered economic system can survive. History has taught us this over and over again.

The bailout happened so quickly we haven't fully considered the effects. Will we recognize America 40 years from now? How long before we understand how fundamentally America has changed? What kind of generational conflicts will this new government market policy instigate? Will our children speak of liberty, as we once did before we forgot?

These days, liberty isn't in vogue. It's so, so olde. We forget to consider liberty as America's founders conceived it—as one of the rights given us by God. Liberty was something an entrepreneur could understand. But even before this economic crisis Americans were given a new word from the corporatist/bureaucrat dictionary: empowerment.

"Empowerment" kinda, sorta evokes liberty but not really, since "empowerment" is something a government confers upon its people (or its serfs) when government decides the serfs (people) are ready.

While writing this I received one of those chain e-mails, but this one wasn't about a politician or the widow of the Nigerian oil minister. It was about how to catch wild pigs. I don't know if you could actually catch wild pigs this way, but it really doesn't matter. In this method, you throw bucketfuls of corn on the forest floor. The pigs eat the corn. A month later you put up one side of a fence and more corn. Eventually, the pigs return, get used to the fence and keep eating. And another side of fence and more corn and so on, until you close the gate and you've caught the pigs. They've lost their freedom. They can't figure out what's happened.

We're not pigs, we're Americans, rightfully worried about the economic future. But the times are changing, and the Boomers should consider the costs and consequences of what they're being offered by our politicians before the last side of the fence goes up. ( emphasis my own)
jskass@tribune.com

Boomers ( broadly, to be sure) are 'Who's to Say?' Dewey Devotees. Kass and other close-knit ethnic types who share the traditions of Faith and Culture deconstructed by the Progressive Deweyites give us a great opportunity to examine the agendas behind the people who demand a a rhetorical answer to 'Who's to say?'

Well done, Brother Kass.



*

Nick Novich is proprietor of many great neighborhood watering holes in this wonderful city.

http://www.nicksbeergarden.com/

'Who's to Say?' and the Advent of Offense, Stupidity, Hypocrisy and Probably a Thorough Ass-Kicking from a Good Person

"One does not leave a convivial party before closing time." Winston Churchill




I got an e-mail about a book by Paul Krassner, one of the many terminally unfunny Comedians who play at being Lenny Bruce, who was also largely unfunny. Who's to Say, Paul Krassner is not funny? Me.

Thus,

In any case, there's a certain meta-irony about the name Re-create 68. Not only did the crossed-out 68 on the hat of the cop on the T-shirt refer to Re-create 68, but also Re-create 68 itself was a reference to the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago where protesters were severely beaten by police.

Moreover, at the 1996 Democratic convention in Chicago, there were T-shirts with the logo of the Chicago Police Department and the legend, "Democratic National Convention Chicago--1996--We Kicked Your Father's Ass in 1968--Wait 'Til You See What We Do to You!"

That's the trouble with a police state. The cops think it's a good thing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-krassner/

Stop, Paul, your killing me! No really. Stop.

Krassner is a smoked-up, Hippie Manque who writes for Arianna Huffington. Arianna is universally recognized for her wit and good humor. I'm kidding. Arianna has all of the Wimsey of an obscenely obese Greek diner owner who had twelve limber and athletic drunks pull a dine and dash at 3AM on $300 bill. Paul Krassner is an affirmative action placement on Huffngton Post. BTW - how come Arianna keeps her old man's handle after taking all his gelt, when it was learned that he was dating good looking guys and not Arianna, his bride? Just asking. Who's to say?

I have heard the guy, seen the guy, read the guy and his material and Bupkis! No giggle; no smile; no wistful nod of assent of his charm. Arianna Huffington writes the foreward to his book, which should be indicative of the level of Haines moistening humor thickening Paul Krassner's new book -Who's to Say What's Obscene Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today ! Me, Paul.

'Who's to Say?' is the key that unlocks the doors to goodness and lets in the idiots, the talentless, the obscene, the dangerous and the useless. It is rooted in Marxism and Hegelian/Dewey subjectivism - American Progressive Romance - which Bertrand Russell called 'madness' in his History of Western Philosophy. 'Who's to Say?'is as particularly obnoxious a dodge and head-fake as it appears; soulfully accepted by the truly shallow and the spineless. It is especially evident in Academia. Idiots and gutless lightweights have attempted to erase the Canons of Taste for more than thirty years. Alan Bloom, Mortimer Adler, Harold Bloom, E.D. Hirsch and Max Weismann have fought heroic actions against the Chomsky/Ward Churchill/Mad-Dog Feminists/Cornell West fruitloops alive at American Universities.

Canon Formation was huge topic of concern when I was in graduate school in the
1980's. It was an agenda set by Identity Issue academics to destroy the Canons of Literature ( Dead White Men).

Canon Formation hit Loyola University through the English Department, when trendy professors replaced Old School Humanities Close Readers and genuine scholars. Loyola University had more good scholars aboard than nutbags and at Loyola University graduate students were taught the Canon of British and American Literature. 'Who's to Say' what is good literature? Well, people who actually have read and understood the vast fields of literature and have developed Taste.

Tolstoy is better than William Least Heat Moon - Who says so? Me. I read both.
Milton is better than Charles Bukowski - Who says so? Anyone who has not allowed a drunk to throw up on him.
Jane Austen is better than Gertrude Stein - Who says So? A Rose is A Rose Is a Rose!
Thackeray is better than Tom Wolfe -who say's so? Tom Wolfe.

The Canons of Taste, like the Canons of Literature were formed by many, many people who agree that certain actions, words, images and allusions are acceptable or unacceptable. That is called Judgment. Discernment. Thus,a 1787 Chateau d'Yquem ($56,588) is better than Night Train Express.

Who's to say what is obscene? Well, the people kicking your ass!