RUTHFULLY YOURS

Bonnie Henthorn and her husband spent their formative years in Tyler County public schools. Between them, their two children spent at least 15 years in that school system. The family has paid taxes that support the schools for decades.

With deep roots and a historical perspective like that, Henthorn is an ideal choice for president of the Tyler County school board, a role she has filled since 2014. But none of that matters now because in January she committed the unpardonable sin of public education: She started homeschooling.

Henthorn announced the family decision at the Jan. 4 school board meeting, citing two reasons that had nothing to do with Tyler County schools. “One is that I want them to have a more Christian-based education,” she said. “… Number two is I no longer feel that the state leadership has the best interest of the students at heart.”

That very personal decision, designed to benefit Henthorn’s sophomore son and seventh-grade daughter, quickly became the topic of a very hostile public debate.

At the meeting, board member Linda Hoover peppered Henthorn with questions. She implied that Henthorn couldn’t lead an education system if her children weren’t part of it and that pulling them from it is “a slap in the teachers’ faces.” Another board member, Jimmy Wyatt, called it a “questionable decision” that might show a lack of faith in the county school system.
Bonnie Henthorn (Twitter) Bonnie Henthorn (Twitter)

The outrage escalated over the next few weeks. A Tyler County native created a Facebook group and a Change.org petition demanding Henthorn’s resignation. The Charleston Gazette-Mail published an editorial decrying the “sad mess” in Tyler County and calling Henthorn “unsuited for public school leadership.”

I wonder: is Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu getting piqued? Is Jordan’s behavior beginning to annoy him? Is the pressure Jordan is applying vis a vis the Temple Mount starting to bother even him? First, despite promises to seek ways to permit Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, he succumbed to the so-called “status quo” (so-called because it is only static as regards Jews).

Second, when it was absolutely clear who was initiating violence and provocations (the Jordanian Waqf by allowing youths to infiltrate the Al-Aqsa Mosque and stay there overnight with firebombs, etc. as well as Sheikh Raad Salah’s Islamic Movement), he only spoke in a general fashion without blaming Jordan.

Third, he didn’t call out Jordan on the violation of Article Nine of the Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty.

Fourth, he traveled to Amman (and Berlin) to meet US Secretary of State John Kerry and King Abdallah II and bowed to the pressure of installing cameras.

Fifth, he stood idly by for some five months while nothing happens with the camera surveillance scheme.

Sixth, he demurred when the Waqf and Jordan announced that the cameras will not be placed inside the mosque or the Dome of the Rock thus completely undermining Israel’s case to prove Muslim-instigated violence.

And now we read that Jordan is protesting a rabbi storming of Jerusalem mosque :

Jordan Tuesday strongly protested a raid into Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque compound, led by ultranationalist rabbi Yehuda Glick of the ruling Likud party, and urged Israel, as the occupation power, to stop such provocations.

Given the post-grad worth of degrees in gender studies, queer studies and journalism, to name but a few of the modern academy’s taxpayer-subsidised growth areas, it is a monumental injustice to make others underwrite the ongoing exaltation of credentialed irrelevance.
That Australia’s current system of higher education is unsustainable is a fact most are willing to concede. The latest evidence, revealed by the ABC, is of a $13.5 billion debt accrued over four years. This news adds another nail to the coffin of Entitlement Era higher ed and must surely accelerate a large-scale overhaul of the present—pun intended—arrangement.

As a graduate of two-and-a-bit university degrees, I am aware of the doors my tertiary education has opened, and am grateful for the subsidies and deferred payment system through HECS/HELP. That being said, it seems ludicrous my higher education should be paid for by the government taxpayers, including many who did not receive higher education themselves. Despite what our society leads me and fellow Gen Y-ers to believe, we do not have a right to go to university, nor are we entitled to see those studies heavily subsidised.

Speaking for myself, I would have attended university even if required to pay the full fees for my courses—albeit under a deferred-payment scheme— because my interests and professional ambitions lie in academia. On the other hand, I can safely assume that many of my co-students chose to go to university precisely because of the current arrangements. They chose uni because it was the easy option: no upfront fees, Youth Allowance, low-cost courses that might be repaid (or not paid at all, should they go overseas) in the distant future, and — or so they believe — because of better job prospects.

Encouraging this mindset was the uncapping of university places under Labor, as it carried us one step closer to socialist Nirvana: a bachelor’s certificate on every mantelpiece, a gown and mortar board in every wardrobe! All that achieved was to lower the bar. Many university degrees, and here one thinks especially of arts grads, might more appropriately be hung in the garden shed than occupy pride of place in the recent graduate’s hallway. (editor’s note: the declining gradient of Australian journalism matches to a T the rise of “journalism” as a tertiary subject. If you doubt that, note the work-experience children delivering their oracular preconceptions in the guise of “news coverage” via the Fairfax press. )

What I’m getting at is not inspired by elitism; a university graduate is as likely to make a fool of himself as any other person. No, my gripe is twofold and it’s not based on a white-male, CIS-privileged, capitalist conspiracy, despite what you may hear. Firstly, there’s the issue of entitlement, which is raging unchecked among us Gen Y-ers. And secondly, there’s the frustrating notion that suggests: ‘a truly just society must provide—for free if possible—a university degree to everyone.’

The Obama administration released a new report this week that paints a stark picture of how climate change will affect human health. Higher temperatures, we’re told, will be deadly—killing “thousands to tens of thousands” of Americans. The report is subtitled “A Scientific Assessment,” presumably to underscore its reliability. But the report reads as a political sledgehammer that hypes the bad and skips over the good. It also ignores inconvenient evidence—like the fact that cold kills many more people than heat.

Climate change is a genuine problem that will eventually be a net detriment to society. Gradually rising temperatures across decades will increase the number of hot days and heat waves. If humans make no attempts whatsoever to adapt—a curious assumption that the report inexplicably relies on almost throughout—the total number of heat-related deaths will rise. But correspondingly, climate change will also reduce the number of cold days and cold spells. That will cut the total number of cold-related deaths.
Consider a rigorous study published last year in the journal Lancet that examined temperature-related mortality around the globe. The researchers looked at data on more than 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 areas: cold countries like Canada and Sweden, temperate nations like Spain, South Korea and Australia, and subtropical and tropical ones like Brazil and Thailand.The Lancet researchers found that about 0.5%—half a percent—of all deaths are associated with heat, not only from acute problems like heat stroke, but also increased mortality from cardiac events and dehydration. But more than 7% of deaths are related to cold—counting hypothermia, as well as increased blood pressure and risk of heart attack that results when the body restricts blood flow in response to frigid temperatures. In the U.S. about 9,000 people die from heat each year but 144,000 die from cold. CONTINUE AT SITE