On the good ship Nincompoop

▲ DEMONIZING ADOLF? Remember (former SOCCCD trustee) Steve Frogue’s pal MICHAEL COLLINS PIPER? [His fate: HERE.] He used to work for Willis Carto's Spotlight, a wacked-out anti-Semitic newspaper. Nowadays he has a radio show on the nearly infinitesimal Republic Broadcasting Network called the “Piper Report.” I checked out Piper’s radio archive and found that among his guests has been Willis Carto. Need I say more? No, but I will.

Here’s a description of a recent show:

…Piper featured a provocative interview with [guests]… discussing … the fact that the primary reason why the United States and Britain were so determined to wage war against Adolf Hitler was because ... Hitler had begun to implement a bartering system ... in order to circumvent the machinations of the international banking houses in the sphere of influence of the infamous "City of London," the center of global finance operating under the control of the Rothschild family and their satellites in Europe and the United States….

Ah, the old “Jewish bankers” conspiracy theory. Piper is an idiot.

The description goes on to refer to the “controlled media” and its desire to “carp on and on about the much-talked about ‘Holocaust,’ which [the guest] noted, quite correctly, is the subject of much propaganda and exaggeration….”

Any nation today, it goes on to say, “that dares challenge the banking elite…will find itself and its leaders demonized by the mass media, precisely as Hitler was demonized and is demonized today.”

I wonder what Steve thinks about all this?

▲ THEY REALLY ARE LIKE THAT. In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed, there’s a mildly amusing story about a Harvard recruiting video that went badly wrong. The brief video was an attempt to make Harvard’s Economics Department website “more personal." Unfortunately, the two professors who appear in the video come across as “stodgy and stereotypically self-important.”

Yup, they sure do. At first, their performance looks like a parody of, well, the Harvard Econ Department. But no. One soon realizes that everything one feared might be true about such a place is indeed all-too-true.

Naturally, the video found its way onto YouTube, whereupon it inspired parodies and the like.

On YouTube, one poster wrote “It’s like watching paint dry.” Another poster responded: “I didn’t think it was quite that exciting.”

Reminds me of Chancellor Mathur's attempt to seem human a year or so ago. He played Carnac, the old Johnny Carson character. My guess is that, after Raghu bombed, he immediately went backstage to kill the poor guy or gal who suggested the "humanizing" gambit.

Raghu, let me offer you some advice. Just be yourself. If, in your heart, you want to tyrannize underlings and pulverize detractors, then just come right out and say so. People love honesty. Then, if possible, get some tears going. Ask the Lord for forgiveness. People love penitence.

Plus, if you do this, I promise to send you a check for $50. That's fifty dollars, American.

▲ DINOSAURS ON THE GOOD SHIP NINCOMPOOP. This morning’s New York Times has a story about a High School kid in New Jersey who secretly tape recorded his teacher proselytizing in class: Talk in Class Turns to God:

…[T]he teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven….

“If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong,” Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. “He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.”….

Get this: the community has largely sided with the teacher, not the student, who has received a death threat.

▲ SARAH TURNS FOUR. Went to my niece’s birthday party yesterday, which had a "dinosaur" theme. Sarah is smart; I'm sure she's clear that dinosaurs were never on an ark. "How would they all fit?" she'd say (if I were to ask, which I won't). I took a few snaps.

This is Sarah, who turned 4. She's a great kid.

Here’s her close pal and cousin Liliana.

Liliana let go her balloon, and we all watched it drift into the clear blue yonder.

There we all were, staring into the distance, imagining the perspective of a little balloon, so high in the cold winter sky.