Pat Boone had a dream. He dreamed that he was president. It would be our nightmare; after going on and on about the usual far right anti-tax tripe and militaristic fantasies, he gets to education.
As a man who intended to be a teacher myself, I issued an ultimatum to the teachers' unions: They would return to basic math, including arithmetic, and basic English (the mandated official language), and basic science devoid of unproven theories like evolution, sticking instead to factual evidence and not discounting "intelligent design" as the more scientific basis for life and existence. All history books would again detail the reasons America was founded, and tell the stories of our Founding Fathers and national heroes - not latter day revisions. Teachers' pay and advancement would depend on the test scores and comprehension of their students.
Yikes. Delusional incompetence on display!
And then he ends his goofy reminiscence of a trivial dream with this:
I woke up tingling with excitement - only to find I'd been dreaming. But I can't get it out of my mind.
It's a dream, Pat. I know you loons have a tough time sorting out reality from fantasy, but it's nothing to be excited about. And forget about running for the presidency: you're a crazy ol' coot with no skills or talent, and the time for your kind is over.
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And then Pat had to change his underwear.
I'm glad he admits that it's a dream that evolution is unproven (in the court sense of "proof") and that ID is a more scientific basis.
Now it's time to give up your fantasies, ignoramus.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
At Pat's age, I guess dreams of a dictatorship are pretty much all one has to get all tingly.
I wonder if Pat's hypothetical history book would also have stories of Native American genocide? The smallpox would be considered a national hero.
"They would return to basic math, including arithmetic..." What in Gob's name is he talking about?
Kobra FTW on the very first comment? Impressive.
Boone is a tiresome fool. Who listens to him? No, please don't answer that, I'm about to have lunch.
Wow, just wow... I'm guessing he never became a teacher because he failed some sort of psych evaluation?
Pat Boone is of no importance to anyone. He is completely obsolete.
I despise this. He likes his history like he likes his science - based in unchanging mythology. His God forbid that the history of the United States go into anything but the lives of the wealthy, educated elite whose stories were once the sole basis for what was taught in our schools, since no one else did anything of any importance in the development of the country. Right, Pat?
This man is an utter loon. I would rather, as a science major, teach my children at home. I would never subject them to the hypocritical men and women that are attempting to slyly inject religious "studies" into the classroom. We aren't being truthful about the Founding Fathers?
Oh, wait - he views them as Christians, which would justify his claim that this nation is absolutely Christian. Wrong. The Founding Fathers were not theocratic drones, and the Constitution includes several Pagan concepts, including Nature's God.
"and basic science devoid of unproven theories like evolution, sticking instead to factual evidence and not discounting "intelligent design" as the ..."
Heh. Self-canceling.
On December 06, 2008 Pat Boone wrote an article for WorldNetDaily wherein he drew analogies between recent gay rights protests, and recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. He reminds readers of hostage taking, exploding bombs systematic murder and chaotic conditions of carnage.
He also said that evolution is a "false religion", as well.
Now it's been confirmed: this man is irrelevant.
Yes, but this is one of those dreams when you wake up over and over again with a scream, each time revealing that the last time was just a dream...
And you're still asleep, Pat.
What a shame you're sleep-living.
And that your dreams are so toxic to the rest of us.
Excellent. Let's return to the eighteenth century and pretend that there has been no historical or scientific research since. Because those "historians" and "scientists" can't possible have come up with anything new in the past two hundred years.
Furthermore, what's this aging loon rambling about? Returning to basic math and English? He doesn't want advanced studies for students and exposure to other languages? I suppose he wants to claim that the Founding Fathers envisioned a nation where our education system would be dictated by theocratic morons? Ah, but Mr. Boone had the nerve to compare homosexuals to terrorists and evolution to some sort of religion, so I suppose that breathtaking ignorance is to be expected.
Does Pat live in Oklahoma? He appears to fit right in with the good upstanding moral crusaders who populate the legislature in that fine state.
Pat, my dear fellow, I hate to break it to you, but the fact that evolution isn't "proven" in the dumbass sense that you use that word doesn't constitute the critical weakness for the theory that your addled mind seems to think it does. Science doesn't reveal Truth. No position anyfuckingwhere near education for you. Thanks for playing though. Make sure you check in with AnthonyK on your way out. He has some great parting gifts for you. Tell him what he's won, Anthony.
Pat Boone is a raving lunatic, superstitious, and racist as all get out. When asked why I'm an atheist, I say, "Because of Pat Boone. I just don't want to be like him."
"I woke up tingling with excitement - only to find I'd been dreaming."
Sounds like a wet dream.
No need to insult hallucinogens.
:)
ermmm. OT, but a poll to crash, if you'd like:
http://www.starnewsonline.com/
He has been irrelevant for over a half century when he became known as the go to guy the clean up rock-n-roll (colored) music for clean living christian white folks.
That's a very heartening article in the NY Times but when he talks about "the intrusion of the state into their private lives" please spare a thought for us poor Brits. We're stuck with the dreadful Brown and his authoritarian shits for a while yet and there's no UK Obama on the horizon (I really hope Obama doesn't pull a Tony Blair on you).
At least religion, in the UK, is regarded as pretty irrelevant by most of us.
I've discovered that the best way to deal with fundies is to calmly explain the facts to them as well as why an empirical framework is the most reliable route to knowledge. I've made dozens of them come around to a rational worldview with this method.
... and then I woke up and discovered that it was all just a dream. Damn!
@5
I know! Is there some grade school math revolution afoot in which teachers are abandoning arithmetic? What other math is there for the first half or so of grade school?
"The Pat Boone Dream Journals". Something new to sell at the Creation Museum bookstore. Endless product, endless tards.
I dreamt I saw Pat Boone's willy in a box. When I awoke, I was not tingling with excitement.
Last I checked, there was plenty of factual evidence for evolution. Or would someone care to tell me why God would have placed corresponding patterns in human and chimpanzee DNA in a fashion absolutely consistent with retroviral markers in the DNA of a common ancestor?
Teaching basic maths (note plural) and the Queen's English, plus a little French or German, would certainly be a good idea, though.
I saw him on TBN a few years ago saying that 'in a democracy the majority rules, and we're the majority...we should get whatever we want' ...then he added that 'the majority is charged with taking care of the minority' or something to that effect. In our system the law rules...it may be made by the majority which can easily end up being over represented in the process. His kind are on the way out though...taking their place are the slightly less nutty theocrats.
I especially liked his complaint about taxpayers opposing abortion having to pay $2 billion towards it; yeah, how much was spent in Iraq? How many people oppose it?
*wakes up screaming*
Just a nightmare. It was just a nightmare.
If this were an ideal universe, somewhere in Cloudcuckooland, the President of the United States, Pat Boone, is going to war against the President of Texas, Chuck Norris.
A Definition of Hell:
Spending eternity in heaven living down the street from Pat Boone, Barb, Ken Ham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Chuck fucking Norris.
PZ, thanks for the link to the NYT opinion piece-interesting and well-written.
Poor ol' Pat ought to stick to things he's good at, like singing Judas Priest covers...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8zi4oFdUek&feature=related
...Nope, no good at that. Little Richard covers?....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yQeD6z2-jY
...nope, no good at that either!
I guess he ought to just stick to the one thing he does well, remaining irrelevant.
Mrs Tilton, I can never unsee that. Doctor, my eyes!
Why do I think he imagines the Disney Davey Crockett movie is a documentary?
In a fantasy I had just moments before I typed this out, zombie Bruce Lee claws he way out of the grave in order to kick Chuck Norris' ass yet again.
Last I checked, there was plenty of factual evidence for evolution. Or would someone care to tell me why God would have placed corresponding patterns in human and chimpanzee DNA in a fashion absolutely consistent with retroviral markers in the DNA of a common ancestor?
The god of Abraham is a dick; he does stuff like that because it is precious slapstick.
Oh don't all pile up on ole Pat.
He's an old man who realizes the 'wisdom' he thought he had amassed in his life is just so much bullshit. Its normal that he fantasizes a world where he was right all along.
The link to the Frank Rich NYT Op-ed piece was interesting, especially since it came from someone in the moderate-to-conservative camp. Here's another piece in a similar vein; an evangelical Christian writes about the coming demise of evangelism in the Christian Science Monitor. I don't share his perspective, but his analysis is interesting...
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html
Apparently, in his dream, the American president also gets to be a dictator.
Who in the hell is Pat Boone anyway? Before my time.
IIRC, he was a singer of some sort. And not a very good one.
Cafeeine (#39), "don't all pile up on ole Pat...He's an old man"
You sound like a nice person, and you're probably right, but the thing I just can't forgive him for is that he's been in the business for nearly half a century and never made one good record!!! His dreams are probably no crazier than mine or yours, so I'll give him a pass on that, but his MUSIC?!?!! Can't forgive that, no matter how I try!
Dear Mr. Boone,
For someone who has a stiffy for English as an official language, you handle it like an obsessive-compulsive handles dog feces.
"Wow, I had this crazy dream last night!"
Nnnnnno, from your description, you had a tedious, ridiculous dream concerning your own uninformed political positions, coupled with a bit of your dreams of adequacy. "Crazy" would be, "Dude, I dreamed I was having sex with Maria Shriver in the back of a Hummer while Arnold drove us up a mountain goat so we could jump off the horns and into a lake of pure molten flouride, and the ice worms kept singing Village People songs to us!"
Now *that* would've been a crazy dream. Still not worth writing about, but definitely crazy.
He sure sounded like he enjoyed that dream; why, oh why did he have to wake up from it all? Oh well, some day, soon enough, I guess. (...sigh...)
All history books would again detail the reasons America was founded, and tell the stories of our Founding Fathers and national heroes - not latter day revisions.
Yes, let's not “improve” our children’s education with “historical accuracy.” Let them learn history as I learned it:
*Paul Revere single-handedly rode like the wind warning people in time that the British were coming.
*Betsy Ross sewed the first Stars and Stripes
*Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or give me death!"
*George Washington chopped down the cherry tree
*Henry Ford invented the automobile
*Columbus set sail to prove to that the earth was round
AMERICAN EDUCATION!
USA! USA! USA!
"They would return to basic math, including arithmetic, and basic English"
"Now you kids get off of my lawn!"
Today in Professor Boonie's science class:
Snakes, and why they lost their vocal chords.
We already knew that black patent leather shoes reflect up.
We now know that white patent leather shoes deflect intelligence.
Frankly, my initial reaction was, "Pat Boone is still alive?"
Cheesy singer who had some serious mainstream popularity in the 50 60's including TV shows. I think he was second behind Elvis during that time frame. He did mainly gospel type stuff for a while and has been an outspoken apologist and right winger and kook.
I think he lived next door to Ozzy Osbourne for a while.
No sure why I know that.
I think he has a perma position on WND.
You know, I was just suddenly struck with a revelation. "Historical revisionism" is an accusation often leveled by people who want the history taught such that America has always been pretty much perfect and getting better. They don't want people to talk about how the founding fathers were in favor of a "democracy" where only white male property-owners could vote, or how Lincoln freed the slaves not because he thought it was the right thing to do but as another tactic in the war against the South, or that America has gone to war only to defend itself. In other words, they're quite happy to take a tale and ignore all parts they don't like, and they don't want to update their comfortable worldview when confronted with new facts (or even new interpretations of old facts).
Doesn't *that* mindset sound familiar.
Oops, my third example is the opposite of what I meant. They WANT it taught America has only gone to war to defend itself.
We all know that God wants us to speak English. It's the language he used to write the Bible. What...it wasn't originally written in English? Seriously, I don't know why these people get so caught up in "protecting" such a non-ideal language. I think it's just that they're too lazy to consider learning a better one.
Also, this guy has a strange idea of what wet dreams are supposed to be.
"All history books would again detail the reasons America was founded, and tell the stories of our Founding Fathers and national heroes - not latter day revisions."
Latter day revisions? So, basically, he hates the later amendments to the US constitution and would prefer to, say, bring back slavery and the like?
Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Gee thanks Mrs. Tilton. Just what I needed before lunch.
What would happen to the world if all of this actually became American policy?
Please tell me that even the religious right in America will not stand for this.
Eddie. No one listens to anything on WorldNutDaily other than the freakiest of the right wing... it's not an intellectual that could ever accomplish anything.
Don't be the slightest bit worried.
And for fuck's sake... it's PAT BOONE.
Pat can really rock though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoMwhm-OOg8
Posted by: raven | March 16, 2009 2:48 PM
Who in the hell is Pat Boone anyway? Before my time.
Pat Boone was the white guy who was recruited to whitify black music so suburban parents wouldn't freak out over the likes of Elvis...He was kind of the 'counter-Elvis.' I doubt his nether regions EVER shook, even with passion. But that was his attraction. He has/had a nice enough, Perry Como-white bread baritone voice.
See, this is why no federal politician should ever be able to dictate to teachers what they should teach.
Bizarrely enough, on the economy, Boone seems to be more or less right (rescind the bailout, let the companies go bankrupt, and instead spend the money on extending temporary assistance to those put out of work). And while I'm not a definite advocate of the gold standard - I don't know enough about monetary policy to have an informed opinion, and it's hotly disputed among economists even within the libertarian movement - it does seem to me that there's a case to be made for it.
Then he ruins it by talking absolute nonsense about education, religion and the courts. What a shame.
I'm pretty sure he meant he couldn't get it out of his hand. This is speculation on my part, however.
Why, oh why this? Teachers' pay and advancement would depend on the test scores and comprehension of their students.
What is the fetish that the right wing has of imagining that you can reduce teaching to assembly line work payed by the hour?
The test is how students do 30 years after their schooling -- success on multiple choice guesses are unlikely to predict adult success, except on taking multiple guess tests. You'd think this would be what righties would rail against -- turning schooling into a bureaucratic morass, where human beings are simply beef for a grinder. At least if they had a consistent and honest ideology, and the latter wasn't actually their implicit goal.
Tom @ #11, stay out of my head,lol.
Did I read this correctly? “devoid of unproven theories like evolution, sticking instead to factual evidence and not discounting "intelligent design" as the more scientific basis for life” I must have missed the memo. Science is now fantasy and fantasy is science. Just want to make sure I am clear on that.
#34, RikG, I saw that video years ago, I managed to rip it from my mind, I DO NOT thank you for reminding me, the pain…the pain…..
So does that mean Gravity...Germs and certain types of physics are to be dumped?
And by his definition ID is not only dumped but buried.
Would it not be easier... if not wiser... to dump Pat...or is that not very xian?
Mind you if it gets rid of ID why not?
Sounds like booney had a boney...hope he changed his sheets...Ewwww! tacky!
Must be a total embarrassment to the other jeebus lovers...the dude even boasts about nocturnal emissions.
And the answer to the question no one is asking is . . .
Harry "the Hipster" Gibson.
What do I win?
(Kudos, PZ, for the excellent pop-culture reference.)
Yep, because test scores and actual comprehension are always soooooo tightly correlated.
Oh for fucks sake! NO! Do not try to turn this into another shitfestered loonatarian thread, Walton.
Bailiff! Whack his pee-pee. >:[
@Walton, we tried his economic approach already, it was during the Great Depression. How did that turn out again?
I know this is a science board, but his economics scares me more. This shiff-for-brains twat is so stupid that I wonder how he can even breath on his own. The part that really gets me beating my head against the wall is that he states he'll save hundreds of millions of dollars doing it his way. The first thing that popped into my mind was Dr. Evil thinking that holding the world hostage for a million dollars was going to make him rich. *head slap*
Here's the low-down on the bail-out - nobody actually knows the potential cost of everything. The best guess, is that between the Fed's alphabet soup plans (TARP, TALF, TSLF, etc.), the stimulus package, and individual rescue plans (AIG, C, Freddie, Fannie, GM, and Chrysler), the taxpayer could be on the hook for about $3 trillion. What Patty is suggesting is that all that money is flushed down the toilet, but it will save a few hundred thousand!! That's winning $10 dollars on a lotto after you spent $1,0000.
Yup, everyone's a winner.
What ever Pat is smoking, keep it away from me. I have few enough functioning brain cells as it is.
Oops, SB $10,000 not 1,0000 -- same number of digits, though. ;)
... I issued an ultimatum to the teachers' unions...
A) So much for locally-based control of education.
B) In Pat Boone's world, will unions gain so much power that they're responsible for curriculum?
As the owner of a small collection of American history textbooks from 1891-1905, I can say that they were certainly a better read than the pap I was fed in school thirty years ago, and surprisingly objective and voluminous. That's because they're about facts, mostly, and were written at a time when science=progress and progress was making an obvious difference in everyones' daily lives.
They don't try to tell every possible side of the story, no, but then they don't disparage much of anyone. Even Indians are treated with something resembling respect as defeated military foes.
Of course, that might be because a lot of American history was within living memory at the time.
The real problem with modern education is shown to be that we no longer have a unit on the controversy over adopting the silver standard.
"And while I'm not a definite advocate of the gold standard - I don't know enough about monetary policy to have an informed opinion, and it's hotly disputed among economists even within the libertarian movement - it does seem to me that there's a case to be made for it. "
The case is generally based on "I own a lot of gold." Because a gold standard would require finding several trillion dollars worth of it at this point. We went off it because it was choking the economy in the first place.
The aforementioned obscure silver standard was, IIRC, the alternative earlier which would allow the economy to grow better as it was more plentiful.
I for one have had soooo many opportunities to use my skills at taking multiple choice tests in my professional career.
Should the inventor of the multiple choice test be
a) drawn and quartered
b) skinned alive
c) boiled in oil
d) all of the above
Yeah, I wrote about Boone's wacky pipe dream on Saturday. I'm afraid that I mocked him quite a bit. It's charming how Pat Boone has dreams in which the U.S. Constitution is left in tatters (superpatriots are pseudopatriots) and demands respect for "the will of the people." Shut up, Pat, you crazy loon. The will of the people was expressed quite clearly in November. You lost. Big time.
Pat Boone probably hasn't tingled with that much excitement since the that brisk November day in 1977 when he became the inspiration for Justin Timberlake's "Junk in a Box" skit on SNL.
Well, you can't discount the power of dreams entirely. I had a dream as a child that I was drowning in a swimming pool filled with human feces - then I lived through the Bush administration. Spooky.
To his credit, at least he's recognised that this was a dream, a product of his own mind and imagination.
That's one step ahead of the people who claim anything that pops into their head is a vision / command from god.
Re: #4 and #46. I concur. A big contribution to the stupidity of Boone, Billo, Beck, etc., is their demonstrated ignorance of the real history of the country. To paraphrase the words of Harlan Ellison "They are not entitled to their opinions, they are entitled to informed opinions." Get informed? They might start with Ronald Wright's amazing look at the historical roots of American politics, What is America?
See, this is why no federal politician should ever be able to dictate to teachers what they should teach.
fail, Walton, fail.
the lesson you missed was:
crazy old white guys SHOULD STOP RUNNING FOR ELECTED OFFICE.
...and you should stop voting for them.
He seems to be confusing President with King.
Pat Boone @ "and basic science devoid of unproven theories like evolution,"
Well there goes atomic, gravity, disease and the whole lot. So his vision it turn America into some back ass third world country?
Snowbird @ 69 (how appropriate) Sir, I'll have you know that I am a twatitarian and I will not have that sacred noun used in the same sentence as (ugh) Walton, or Pat Boone for that matter! Thank you.
The first sentence made me glad he never took up that vocation. It ought to be <"i>As a man who intended to be a teacher himself".
Even if I weren't a man who actually is an English teacher himself, this would've raised red flags for me.
For some reason I think Chuck Norris will be having the same dream in the not to distant future.
Will the next Republican president be an "education president" too? Unless you are certain that the US is now a one party system, it might be a good idea to get the federal government out of the education business and return to local control of the schools.
For some reason I think Chuck Norris will be having the same dream in the not to distant future.
Didn't Pat just exhibit the first signs of dementia? This brings up a question: shouldn't there be a special category for people who are steadfastly irrational and delusional who then go on to develop dementia? I'm thinking prophet.
I think the arithmetic comment relates to constructivist/inquiry-based math programs. The debate is often referred to as the "math wars," and it's similar to the debate about phonics vs "whole language."
A popular video against the constructivist method is Math Education but you can Google "math wars" or "constructivist math" to find out more.
When did English become the mandated official language? Or is this just another one of Patty's dreams?
BTW, I will be nice to everyone and not explain why going back on the gold standard would be ruinous to the American economy.
Didn't Pat just exhibit the first signs of dementia? This brings up a question: shouldn't there be a special category for people who are steadfastly irrational and delusional who then go on to develop dementia? I'm thinking prophet.
@Marcus #84.
Ugh! Sorry, my bad. :(
Sadly, it's becoming a short list of things I can use to describe people like Patty. Call him a jackass, and PETA will be on your ass. Call him an asshole, and you insult an orifice that at least has a practical biological use. *sigh*
Didn't Pat just exhibit the first signs of dementia? This brings up a question: shouldn't there be a special category for people who are steadfastly irrational and delusional who then go on to develop dementia? I'm thinking prophet.
Longstreet: Of course, that might be because a lot of American history was within living memory at the time.
And also because the art of propaganda was really mastered from WWI, when we all were trained to regimentation and totalitarianism. Finally, it wasn't until after the turn of the century when the Great Amnesia really set in via the desire/brainwashing of everyone into believing that we had a classless society composed of a vast middle-class, where no one was lower-class or upper-class; that required everyone to forget that their mother or grandmother had worked in a brothel, and ol' Dad was a drunken cowboy who never learned Mom's name.
Just compare the image of America from Twain with that from the '30's onward. They're both crazy, but two completely different kinds of crazy. Or our dear President Grover Cleveland, who fairly openly shared a woman with two other men -- yet managed to get elected president several times!
Individualism didn't become just self-delusionary twaddle until after the Great War.
#90--I'm guessing you're right, but given his level of cultural relevance he'd probably phrase it as 'that danged new math.'
Although I doubt he's aware of Tom Lehrer. Or much else at this point either.
"And also because the art of propaganda was really mastered from WWI, when we all were trained to regimentation and totalitarianism."
Yeah. Funny, isn't it, that the most successful terrorist in history was s Serbian who couldn't hit the side of a barn.
Gavrillo Princip destroyed the world. Pretty much everything in the last 95 years has been his fault. (Before that, we have to blame the Romans.)
Eat your hearts out, Al Qaida. (Literally, please.)
I think the tingle Pat felt was a tingle down his ever-shrinking third leg...as someone here already said, he probably woke up from a wet dream with a sticky substance in his Mormon shorts and mistook it for a message from God...
... basic English (the mandated official language) ...
Full English, and advanced English, will be outlawed!
Longstreet: Yeah. Funny, isn't it, that the most successful terrorist in history was s Serbian who couldn't hit the side of a barn.
Gavrillo Princip destroyed the world. Pretty much everything in the last 95 years has been his fault. (Before that, we have to blame the Romans.)
But isn't Serbian culture (if not the language), basically a continuation of Byzantine society, the rural poor of the Roman Empire to it's bitter end in 1918?
So really, we can keep on blaming the Romans! Maybe we should dig up a few of the early Patricians and kick their asses?
@Snowbird 'sOkay. Gave me a chance to use "twatitarian" in a sentence and practice "self-righteous indignation". (Why should the creotards have all the fun?) Besides you wouldn't want to catch a ration from Janine, she's tough.
RE wagonjak at #98, Pat's third leg. NSFW.
http://www.bartcop.com/pat-boone.htm
"I woke up tingling with excitement - only to find I'd been dreaming."
Can someone please give Pat a nice glass of warm milk, laced with barbituates and cyanide so that the old man can go back to sleep. Hopefully we can then all go back to the important job of making this world a better place to live. Thank you.
"I woke up tingling with excitement - only to find I'd been dreaming. But I can't get it out of my mind."
Yet further proof of the dictum that those who most want to be president are invariably the least qualified to do the job.
Wow! In Pat Boone's demented dream world, it would be the reality based people home schooling their children and not the religious nut jobs. Or maybe we'd be considered the new nut jobs.
@Frog
"But isn't Serbian culture (if not the language), basically a continuation of Byzantine society, the rural poor of the Roman Empire to it's bitter end in 1918?
So really, we can keep on blaming the Romans! Maybe we should dig up a few of the early Patricians and kick their asses?"
Well, to some extent. Serbian culture was really molded by having their nation periodically stomped out of existence by whatever big contry was passing through while they were distracted by internecine warfare.
They are in that way much like many eastern European nations.
But Princip's actions were really pure ethnic nationalism and unrelated to any traditional cultural framework beyond the normal "That land is mine because my people once owned it." That kind of nationalism was new in the world, having developed from the earlier concept of clan tribalism. It's when Lombards became Italians, Prussians became Germans, Burgundians became French, etc.
But, yeah, all of the historical underpinnings to make that happen came from the Romans. All of history* everywhere in the world is different because of them.
*All of it after contact with a Roman-influenced State, which is, eventually, all of them.
Message to Pat Boone: It's not a good idea to drink to much while watching Idiocracy and then fall asleep.
I had a dream like that, except creationist dogma wasn't brought up in science class, politicians didn't try to dictate what the earth's climate was doing, and the budgets for research and education were increased to a level commensurate with need. And then I woke up.
"And then Pat had to change his underwear."
Again. And it was a diaper. And it was changed FOR him.
Should Pat, No God forbid!, be in a traffic accident and require a transfusion, he'd better hope Chuck Norris is willing to be the donor: no other homo sapiens [sic] could possibly have the same bloo... uh,... ichor type.
You can still get Ovaltine in the States? Damn!
Dear old Pat was huge when I was in short trousers in the 50s - I preferred Perry Como myself - same style of voice but less religion.
I had a dream that I was sitting in a space station overlooking Europa and it was still the year 2009.
Then I woke up and realized the world did indeed suffer 1,500+ years of stagnation thanks to superstition.
As a European I often blink, sigh and just shake my head at such dellusions of grandeur some americans have.
As if there was nothing before america and as if the usa is the biggest, the best and better than the rest.
Especially after 8 years of bush, where the world has to suffer from the immense greed of certain people and companies.
The world isn't only about the usa.
I guess mister Boone forgets that too at times.
In the movie "Long Live Rock'n'roll" Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Bo Diddley are talking about how they all got screwed by white record companies, and the part where Little Richard talks about first hearing "Tutti Frutti" on the radio is priceless. (It wasn't his original, it was Boone's lifeless castration of the song).
Tis Himself#91,
"BTW, I will be nice to everyone and not explain why going back on the gold standard would be ruinous to the American economy."
Hmmm, and you will probably claim to have me killfiled, so you can pretend to have arrived at that analysis independently.
Longstreet, your collection of old textbooks sounds really cool.
WRT those books' treatment of race relations, the fact that they were published before American race relations took a nosedive into the cesspool of the 19teens and 1920s probably has something to do with their relatively enlightened treatment of non-whites.
I've noticed that most people alive today think of race relations as something that has been getting increasingly better. That is, our perception of race relations in the past is usually skewed to thinking the worst of our ancestors. Unfortuately history is rarely that simple - race relations improved and worsened cyclically, just like everything else. And there are always individual exceptions to the general cultural millieu.
History textbooks go through a 20-30 year cycle. The historians of the time review and rewrite history based on (as much) their own view of history as on any new information, evidence, etc. Good old Patty-boy wants to go back to the "Gone with the Wind" portrayal of history of the 40s and early 50s. The South was wonderful, slaves were stupid and happy, and then those damn northerners had to go and ruin things because they had no respect for state's rights!
I do have a question though, if I'm not a member of a teacher's union, can I tell him to go fuck himself and go about doing my job?