The American Spectator

Reader Mail

THE PEACEFUL REVOLUTION
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Gandhi for Capitalists:

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all get together in this country and shut down? With one exception to your article, every single radio should be tuned in to Rush Limbaugh, knowing that Obama has told Republicans they shouldn't listen to him. Even though millions of Americans don't listen to him, the point would be made loud and clear that we will disobey the 'royalty' at the top. There is no one whom the liberals hate more than Rush. There is nothing that would send a message like 150 million households listening to Rush. Turn up the radio!
-- DeAne Pradzinski
Highland, California

There is so much we can do if we get organized. This website is the Albert Einstein Institute for strategic non-violent action.

It has a virtual laundry list of actions citizens can engage in to promote democracy. If you haven't been to this website -- you should. The time has come for us to organize. We need a leader! People are ready to follow. Give us a plan.
-- Rosie

Paging John Galt. Paging John Galt. The American Capitalist System is making an emergency page for Mr. John Galt.  
-- Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

YEP, IT'S PRETTY BLEAK ALRIGHT
Re: Tony Marsh's The Audacity of Cynicism:

The GOP indeed lost 26 or 27 seats in Reagan's first midterm election, in 1982. But inflation by then had declined to single digits, to about 6 or 8 percent; it was not 13.5 percent. You are correct, however, that unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent earlier that year and the phase-in of the tax cut postponed full recovery.

Well done.
-- Peter Murphy
W. Sand Lake, New York

Cynicism?

Not even in Alice's Wonderland would you find a cynical situation like ours, in which federal law prohibits a shopkeeper from selling tobacco to someone under 18 because of the health risk, yet will soon require a physician to perform abortions on demand.

You have to wonder if that's the product of the caterpillar's mushroom-induced thinking, or of whatever he's smoking in his hookah.

Oh well, maybe someone will wake us up before we lose our heads.
-- A. C. Santore

DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH
Re: Philip Klein's New Health Czar Challenges Obama's Ethics Reforms:

Violating "the spirit, if not the letter, of President Obama's ambitious ethics requirements"?

You're kidding, right? What ethics requirements?

Remember: Everything Barack Hussein Obama has said, says and will say has an expiration date. Everything.

And even though neo-Marxist Obama and his gang—not administration, gang—has begun their Sherman-like march through American culture, our Constitution and its freedoms, banking institutions and more with an intentional malice not seen in any incoming new administration, it doesn't seem to bother most Americans that he's already vying for, if not already won, the title of the most corrupt and anti-American politician to ever become America's chief executive.

That's because, at least in my opinion, he's simply a collective reflection of the amorality and lack of ethics of those, including the advocacy/adversary media, Tinsel Town and Left Coast, who elected him.
-- C. Kenna Amos
Princeton, W.Va.

Hypocrisy seems to be highly contagious; almost everyone who goes to Washington catches a dose rather quickly.  Strangely though, it is the electorate that is sick and suffering. 
-- Ira M. Kessel   
Rochester, New York

NEW SCHOOL TIES
Re: Ken Blackwell's Not Making the Grade:

Grade inflation damages a university and its students several ways, especially in the eyes of potential employers of a university's students. When grades are inflated, businesses find it more difficult to identify superior and qualified students to fill positions. A student cannot distinguish herself/himself from her/his peers.

I proposed the following steps to reduce grade inflation to my provost:
1. Identify and reward professors who do not inflate grades.
2. Eliminate the conflict of interest that rewards professors for grade inflation. With the status quo, professors who inflate grades are more likely to get high student evaluations and are more likely to be rewarded by admin.
3. Recognize that student evaluations are not pure numbers. A normalized number is a pure number.
4. To obtain a pure number for student evaluations of a professor, I recommend the following ratio: student evaluation / class average grade.

To clarify steps 3 and 4, the following examples may help: If the student evaluation of the professor is 4.4 and the class average grade is 2 (=C), then the pure evaluation of the professor becomes 2.2.

If the student evaluation is 4.4 and the class average grade is 4 (=A, inflated), then the pure evaluation of the professor becomes 1.1.

If the student evaluation is 3.6 and the class average grade is 4, then the pure evaluation of the professor becomes 0.9.

If the student evaluation is 3.6 and the class average grade is 2, then the pure evaluation of the professor becomes 1.8.

Thus a pure evaluation will motivate professors to assign truly earned grades rather than give inflated grades. From the admin viewpoint, a pure evaluation greater than one is desirable for a professor. To scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, pure (non-dimensional) numbers are much more useful and significant.

Employers would benefit from honest grades. Universities and students would too. Although it would benefit all of society, only a bold and creative administration would take the steps necessary to stem grade inflation.
-- Roy Henk, PhD, P.E.
Professor of Science and Engineering

HE WILL BE MISSED
Re: Jay D. Homnick's Abraham Ravitz, RIP:    

Loved Jay D. Homnick's comprehensive article about MK Abraham Ravitz, of Jerusalem, who passed away recently.

What the world of politics needs are men of principle like Ravitz, as Jay so aptly describes him.

Thank you for publishing such informative and inspiring material.
-- Yaakov Ben Aron
Jerusalem, Israel