Conservative English Major

Oh - and happy new year to y'all!!!!!!!!

I've decided I'm going to stop checking the "white/Caucasian" label. I'm checking the "mixed racial background" box, if there is one.

I've been filling out a lot of forms lately for one reason or another. I have a friend who was born and raised in South Africa, but he happens to be white. He left South Africa because of his disgust over his family's involvement with the repression of Black South Africans, but he still checks "African-American" on any forms he gets (Unless it says "black/African-American").

I have some American Indian/Native American blood in my veins. It's thin and not enough (as far as I have been able to ascertain) to get me any scholarships or jobs - but it's there. I'm mostly German and Irish, with some English and Scottish thrown in - but I have some Indian ancestry.

So, to protest the ridiculous attempts to define someone by their racial category merely because it fits some affirmative action policy I am checking the "mixed racial background" box - because it is true.

Quick item of interest:

Number 2 pencil has this entry on handwriting vs. typing. Reminds me of my elementary school years, where I was actually taken out of class for an hour a day to have private handwriting lessons because the teachers couldn't read my handwriting. After two years and no improvement, they actually taught me how to type my assignments. I learned typing three years ahead of everyone else in my class due to my early bad handwriting.

And I still can't type worth a da[rn]. I may be an English major, but my typing skills are awful.

The Semester is over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway - all us TAs got together for one last dinner with our professor (who is actually very nice about feeding us once a month). Well, the conversation turned to failing inner city schools, which our area has a lot of. Guess whose fault it was?

George W. Bush. Of course. Everyone at that table had lots to say abou that (expletive) Bush who is responsible, with his "racist policies and anti-education initiatives", for all that is wrong with public education.

Never mind that many of these schools have been failing since before Nixon was president. If Gore were president, either all the problems would have vanished, or they would blame the republicans in Congress, I guess.

This is another example of how their extremism pushes me farther to the right. I personally do not like the No Child Left Behind Act. I can't blame Bush for all that is wrong with America.

It seems Liberals have lost all sense of history. Everything that is wrong with America now is entirely the result of Bush. (Or Shrub as many refer to him. I bet if I referred to Gore as "bloody guts" they would call me a bigot).

Bouncing off my last blog, Winston's Diary has a much more eloquent and better reasoned example of how the strident left-wingism of the academy can force moderate students to the right.

Worth checking out.

Also - there is no media bias? FOXnews.com's current headline is that "the USA has captured insurgents leaders in Iraq along with a huge cache of weapons". I can't even find an article that mentions it on
CNN.com - whose headline is on the flu epidemic. Yes, the flu is important, but I can't even find the typical "buried in the last paragraph mention" on anything positive the US has done in Iraq recently. Yes, I'll agree FOX news is to the right of the general media - but that just puts it right in the center.

Anyway - I promised to talk about how the views of many of my fellow grad students and my instructors has pushed met to support Bush more than usual.

Where - I have to say that I do like Bush. I think he does a good job. I don't agree with everything though. I wish he would try to reign in government spending rather than increase it, and I didn't care for the No Child Left Behind act, but that is mostly because I am originally from Alaska, where that act is unimplementable as it currently stands.

Anyway - I don't support everything Bush has done, and I have a few harsh words for some of his actions. BUT ---

The fact that my fellow grad students and my instructors constantly make comparisons between Bush as Hitler, loudly wish he would die, and refuse to see anything he can do in a positive light - this attitude pushes me even further in my support of Bush. Instead of being a slightly disaffected supporter who would critique some of his policies, I find myself reacting to my fellows extremism and becoming a fairly staunch supporter.

I think this is why the Democrats will lose in 2004 unless they change their tune. Anger is very off-putting to those not solidly in your camp. They will alienate the swing voters, and even the conservative voters who might have been persuaded to vote for a Democrat who appealed to the political center.

Hmm. Does anyone vote for Republicans? How do they ever get elected?

Why do I ask this? Well, on the news I just heard (on various stations) that the Democratic party "traditionally" has a "lock" on the following voter blocs:
Senior Citizens
Younger people or The Youth
Blacks
Hispanics
Women
Artists
College students and faculty
Southern States
West Coast
The Poor
Blue Collar Workers
Union Members

So who votes for Republicans? No wonder my fellow grad students constantly say they don't know any Republicans. There aren't any! (other than me).

SO, how come this story isn't on CNN.com or other news sites?
Iraqi WMD

Fox may be more conservative than other networks, but that likely just places them in the "moderate" camp - and if its the only place to get news like this, I can't help but understand why the network new is losing viewers in droves.

I was right in my Thanksgiving day prediction. Many other grad students not only attacked Bush for his "Cheap stunt" the other day in the student lounge. A few actually wished that someone would assassinate him. I wonder if I should I contact the Secret Service?

I didn't really like Clinton, but I always assumed that at the least, he was limited to 8 years in office. I never once heard a conservative wish him dead.

I think if these Liberals in my program hated him so much, but "loved America" (even if it is an imperialist power as they always qualify it) as many still proclaim, they would work on getting Dean or Kerry or Sharpton or someone else elected p why wish Bush dead?

More on this later - on why this extremism on Liberals' parts has pushed me to support Bush more than I usually would have.

So, here are a few lines from one of my favorite poems:

"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The Blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

This is from Yeats' "The Second Coming." Early drafts of the poem show he was referring to wars such as World War I, the Anglo-Irish War and the Bolshevik revolution. The lines are a pretty good description of a world that has war unleashed upon it, right?

Nope. This is a rape? Why? Because my professor says so. In fact, the one thing I have learned this semester is that everything is about sex. Eating is sexual because food penetrates your body. A nose is sexual because it extends from the body. All of my professors are literally obsessed with finding sex in everything - and especially rape.

Hey, I'll be the first to admit Shakespeare is full of bawdy jokes, and Yeats' "Leda and the Swan" is obviously about a rape, but please.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Not everything is about sex.