“The Worrisome Veteran”
Or Should more aptly be called The Worrisome Educator…
Penn State University’s “Department of Counseling and Psychological Services” has a video presentation that should leave any decent American shocked, saddened, and yes, even enraged. Credit David French of National Review Online for posting what might be the most definitive four minute expose on the tragedy of higher education in America. Indeed, Penn State’s shameful video production of “The Worrisome Veteran” can provide all Americans some priceless insights into the kind of surreal institutions liberals create when left unchecked.
“The Worrisome Veteran” is part of Penn State’s “Worrisome Student Behaviors” video series which is designed to provide faculty and students the ability to “minimize risk” when encountering problematic students on campus. Each video presents actors reenacting possible confrontations that may occur in various environments and suggests appropriate responses. The subtitle of the “Worrisome Veteran” presentation is: “I deserve a better grade or else . . .” In other words, to the progressive staff at Penn State, students who are veterans returning from the war in Iraq are simply potential criminals who’ve forgotten how to reason politely.
I will break this disturbing portrayal down into several sections:
1. PSU and other institutions for higher education are singling out veterans and young military white males, specifically, returning home from war to receive an education. The fact that veterans are being segregated is horrendous and discriminatory as should be clear to any clear-thinking human being.
2. The female professor talks about feeling uneasy and uncomfortable with the veteran and why would that be? It would seem like she is making the assumption that all military vets are aggressors and women-beaters on the brink of snapping at any moment. This may be something portrayed in Hollywood or by the media who may harp on one individual to classify the entire group as such, but this happens to all people and more so for the average non-military type.
3. The video uses the argument of the ex-officer having and using bad grammar as a reason to give a low grade. What struck me was that they make an assumption that men and women in uniform are uneducated hill-billy’s another misconception that was echoed by the likes of the traitor, himself, John Kerry, when he said that only uneducated men and women join the military.
4. Why is the professor only telling him what he is doing wrong and making it very vague? She should be giving him specifics should she not? I would expect that a professor or any teacher would sit down with me during office hours to take the time and point out to me what areas of my english need improvement – do I have too many run-on sentences? Am I incorrectly using prepositions? Is my punctuation off? One would think that an English Professor would be able to do this more so than, let’s say a Math Professor!
5. The mere fact that this video has to bring up the fact that the student is feeling singled out and discriminated against due to the professor’s views on the war and political leanings, tell me more about the educators at this university than anything else. They are basically saying that these views are held by a vast majority of the faculty at PSU and this could be a reason why students get upset. Why would any English Professor espouse their views in such a class? It’s not like this is a foreign diplomacy class or some type of political science class.
6. Why does the teacher feel that it is acceptable to diagnose the student by telling him he needs counseling or help? This is something the student must come to grips with if he or she in fact asks for help or discloses they are having issues. The assumption made by the teacher is incredibly condescending and yet again discriminatory. Many men and women coming home from war have been getting diagnosed with PTSD lately, but that does not mean that the majority of these cases are military folks. In fact most PTSD cases are those who are not associated with the military at all since PTSD is incredibly common and can occur due to any type of traumatic experience! PTSD also does not mean that someone will snap… another common misconception.
6. PSU is a PUBLIC school and has land grants this means that the PEOPLE own this land and there shouldn’t be political bias allowed in such institutions. If the faculty would like to discuss their views and opinions behind closed doors among one another or at happy hour then so be it, but inside the classroom and in front of children that are not their own should be banned.
7. Could there be any coincidence with the latest DHS report and this university creating this video? DHS did tell us that veterans returning home are more susceptible to right-wing extremism!
This is becoming insane!
U.S. Reporters Jailed in Iran and North Korea
This is a little ironic after the recent CIA Gitmo “torture” memo release.
North Korea has incarcerated two female journalists from the United States. Laura Ling and Euna Lee visited North Korea in hopes to interview defectors. They flew into Seoul and held meetings there for the beginning of their trip. They flew to Yanji, a small Chinese city over the border of North Korea after their sessions were complete. The women were advised not to leave the small city or else face possible incrimination by North Korea. Rather than heed the warning, the women crossed the Tumen River, in which reports after which are varying. One report states that the women were taken into custody because they would not stop filming, while another one states they were pursued back across the frozen river onto Chinese soil where they were brought back to North Korea.
The women have been jailed in North Korea for over a month now, while the Obama administration states it is trying to free them through diplomacy. I’m curious as to why none of us here have really heard anything about this? Nobody on the outside knows how the women are doing and Kim Jong Il is unlikely to release them anytime soon because of what U.S. captives mean for his country (usually money and food to continue to subsist on) and due to the grudge he is holding against the U.N. and the West for their reaction to his missile launch.
Kim Jong Il no has a lot of leverage against the United States and these two women will merely be pawns in this game. I hope that the “diplomacy” style does not wind up like Carter’s 444 day escapade.
Either way, within 24 hours Ms Ling and Ms Lee were taken in separate vehicles to Pyongyang for questioning. A week later it was announced that they would be put on trial.
Conviction for illegal entry carries up to three years in prison; the more serious crimes of espionage or “hostility toward North Korean people” are punishable by five to ten years.
The US State Department has said that it is making every diplomatic effort to free the two women and Mr Gore is said to have contacted Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, to ask for her assistance. The US has no embassy in North Korea but a representative of the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang is said to have seen the journalists at the end of last month.
Koh Yu Hwan, a professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, said that Pyongyang was unlikely to release the journalists soon. Having two Americans was like having a “piece of rice cake rolling in for free”, he said.
“They’re going to make maximum use of this for multiple purposes. Rather than a trial by a criminal code, it will be a political trial.”
Iran has also taken a U.S.-Iranian journalist prisoner and has officially sentenced her to 8 years in prison based on charges of espionage.
Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old Iranian-American journalist, was convicted of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison on Saturday by Iran’s Revolutionary Court.
Ms. Saberi, a former American beauty queen, has been in detention in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since Jan. 31. She was charged with espionage earlier this month and tried this week behind closed doors.
The truth behind why she was detained in the first place is very disconnected with myriad reasons, which can only be expected by another “state”-run government much like North Korea.
This makes me wonder if Obama’s new call of diplomacy and negotiatons with hostile nations will still consider no pre-conditions…
“Ms Saberi has been sentenced to eight years in jail and I am going to appeal,” her lawyer Abdolsamad Khoramshahi told AFP. Under Iranian law, the verdict can be appealed within 20 days.
The case against Saberi, who has both US and Iranian nationality, has raised deep concerns in Washington and among rights groups.
She was initially reported to have been detained for buying alcohol, an illegal act in the Islamic republic.
The ISNA news agency, quoting an unnamed judiciary source, confirmed that a revolutionary court had sentenced Saberi for espionage — a charge that could have risked the death sentence. No date was given for the verdict.
“Roxana said in court that her earlier confessions were not true and she told me she had been tricked into believing that she would be released if she cooperated,” her father Reza Saberi told AFP.
“Her denial is documented in her case but apparently they did not pay attention to it,” he added, without saying when he had spoken to his daughter.
“We are very shocked and we were not expecting it. We were hoping for six months and then clemency.”
The court ruling comes despite calls by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Saberi’s release and President Barack Obama’s diplomatic overtures to Iran after three decades of ruptured ties.
[...]
Last month, Saberi’s parents — who came to Iran to pursue her case and have visited her at least twice — appealed to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for her release, saying she was in a “dangerous” mental state.
Her mental state must be an indication of the wonderful treatment in Iran and the fact that no other countries use cruel and unusual punishment like the United States right? At least we make sure that our methods meet protocol standards and we only persecute real criminals and terrorists unlike others.
Clinton said she had delivered a letter to Iranian officials on March 31, seeking Saberi’s release and making appeals on behalf of two other US citizens.
Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent, vanished on the Gulf island of Kish two years ago, and student Esha Momeni has been prevented from leaving Iran despite being released from jail last year.
After three decades of severed ties, the Obama administration has called for dialogue with Tehran over its controversial nuclear drive, which Western powers fear could be a cover for efforts to build an atomic bomb.
So we are to believe that Iran does not have bad intentions with their nuclear facilities whilst they kill and capture U.S. citizens, whom we conveniently do not hear much about from our own media propagandists?
To help Roxana please visit www.freeroxana.net
Susan Roesgen From CNN Told to Take a Break
CNN’s Susan Roesgen has had a rough week, what with all the ordinary American/First Amendment practitioners bashing she so passionately and obnoxiously delivered in her TEA Party reporting.
Perhaps it was the sniping at the place she twice applied in 2005 – Rupert Murdoch’s House of Ratings, otherwise known as Fox News – that put her over the edge.
Or whether or not her email box was so overwhelmed with what was undoubtedly an endless stream of love letters and fan mail that it caused a server meltdown.
Whatever it was, CNN has announced that Miss Roesgen’s “tak(ing) a break.”
Two days after Susan Roesgen’s much talked-about Chicago Tea Party live shots, we are learning more about what happened off-camera.
Sources close to the situation tell TVNewser as Roesgen was reporting her 2pmET live shot for CNN, she heard shouts from the crowd including “Damn CNN” and “Shut up, bitch.”
As we now know, Roesgen wrapped up the live shot, saying “I think you get the general tenor of this,” that it was “not really family viewing” from an “Anti-CNN” crowd.
Our source says Roesgen received an avalanche of email messages, some supportive, and some “vitriolic with crude insults.”
Here are some of my thoughts for why she is “taking a break.”
A: Going in for the 28 day, 12-step program cure
B: Getting her out of town to avoid the incoming flak
C: Giving her 30 days to consider her unique qualifications for self-employment
D: Recovering from her Teabagging episode with Wolfe Blitzer
E: Cleansing herself at some swanky spa after getting dirty with all those filthy average working Americans.
We shall see!
Behind the Scenes Footage: Woman Takes CNN Reporter to Task!
What a find – thanks Redstate and the Founding Father Bloggers!
