In my never ending quest toward curmudgeonly perfection, I plug away at my latest book, A Curmudgeon Before My Time. I have hope that I can one day spread my pain and crabbiness to the rest of the world with a New York Times bestseller. Its subtle wit and flavorful sarcasm would make it a likely candidate. The movie offers should come pouring in soon.
So, why am I curmudgeonly, grumpy, irritable, bad-tempered, and cranky? It's my shiny personality. Part was inculcated through experience.
As another treat, I've compiled another of my top Ten Things I Hate. Curmudgeons of the world unite! This is for you!
10) Students Who Cheat
It used to be that I'd get one or two research papers a semester where students copied text from an encyclopedia. Now I get entire Wikipedia articles turned in as homework. There's information everywhere, including Wikipedia. The problem is that none of the information actually seems to make its way past the eyeballs and into the synapses of my students. We live in a copy and paste generation. I understand that grade schools now teach this as a skill – copy some dreck from Wikipedia, paste it into a document, print it out with some pretty pictures, and call it research.
Even after I tell my students that copying and pasting is plagiarism, they still don't seem to get it. I now get anywhere from two to three students who fail my class because they can't seem to write anything without pasting from Wikipedia.
9) Students Who Argue Without Knowledge
Students in my classes are more and more confrontational. It used to be that expressing an opinion in the college classroom was a good thing, but over the past ten or twenty years, students bring less and less real knowledge to the table and argue more and more.
Years ago, to make a point, students would draw on sources such as Durkheim or Evans-Pritchard, Marx or Hamilton, Jefferson or Adams. Now arguments are based on Michael Moore or the New York Times. And if I hear Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann cited as sources one more time, I swear I'll go postal.
8) Same Sex Marriage Arguments
The arguments in favor of same sex marriage make absolutely no sense. For example, we hear: “It's all about love” or “They're taking away our civil rights.” We heard the pro-gay marriage folks take their best shot in the California Supreme Court and not even the justices in one of the most liberal states in the US could make heads or tails out of the oral arguments.
Along those same lines, it's a shame that Kenneth Star will once again be vilified for standing up for what's right. He was hated for pointing out that Bill Clinton was having sex with interns. Just imagine how much he'll be hated for pointing out that the same sex proponents had silly arguments.
7) The Anti-Religious
One of the true joys in life is baiting the anti-religious. It wouldn't be so much fun, except that Born Again Atheists take the bait again and again. When I was young, I would watch the wars between the red ants and the black ants. If black ants ended up in red ant territory, the red ants would swarm all over in miniature gladiatorial combat. It was fascinating to me back then. In the same way, I'd love to see a group of Born Again Atheists end up in Evangelical Revival territory. Let the games begin!
6) Pepsi's Ad Campaign
I like to drink Pepsi. But I do not agree with a company that promotes its products by also promoting the homosexual lifestyle. Count me out, Pepsi.
5) Britney Spears
Britney used to be a pretty young woman. Then she decided to take drugs, go out in public without underwear, shave her head, and whack out on her children. Kids used to look up to her as a role model. It's the children I feel sorry for. With role models like Britney, no wonder kids are confused about morality.
4) Liberal Tax Plans
One trillion dollars in tax increases. $1,000,000,000,000. Tax. Increases. And no, it isn't all about socking it to the rich.
3) Congress
Let's face it, during the best of times, Congress is a suspect institution. It was John Adams (for my students who've never heard of him, look him up in Wikipedia) who said: “In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.”
2) Nanci Pelosi
If Congress were a village, Nanci Pelosi would be the Village Idiot. (Sorry liberals, GW Bush doesn't hold the patent on that one.) Hillary Clinton actually got it right, it does take a village idiot to raze the children.
1) Spending Bills
Under the Bush Administration, Congress pushed through a $700,000,000,000 bank bailout. After Obama came into power, Congress pushed through a spending bill to the tune of $787,000,000,000. This year's budget runs $410,000,000,000. With regard to the senseless and useless spending packages passed under the guise of “stimulus packages” and “bank bailouts” we should keep in mind Thomas Jefferson's (look him up students) adage: “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”
I ran out of fingers and toes to try and add all those numbers up, but I'm afraid this country will have a severe zeros shortage before we come close to paying for this government "stimulus."
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