"I can bench press a car, I'm an ex football star with degrees from both Harvard and Yale. Girls just can't keep up, I'm a real love machine. I've had far better sex while in jail. I designed the Sears Tower. I make two grand an hour. I cook the world's best duck flambe. I'll take the pick of the litter and girls jockey for me. I don't need these lines to get laid. [So kiss me, I'm s%*^faced ...] I'm the man of the night, A real ladies delight. See, my figure was chisled from stone. One more for the gal then I'll escort her home, come last call, I'm never alone. I own a house on the hill with a red water bed. It puts Hugh Heffnor's mansion to shame. With girls by the pool and Italian sports cars I'm just here in this dump for the game." [The Dropkick Murphys]

Matt pulls another pint. God I'm going to miss those in Shanghai!

Ah Now Wasn't That A Night

Patsy arrived in town on Thursday, just in time for Paddy's send off to China for the summer. The boys took it up a notch, WOP chummed it up with Patsy, and lucidity failed us all (except for MoonPie, who of course is always lucid).

Speak for yourself, you comfy first-worlder!

We've had a number of posts lately on the crackpot, I mean... interesting theories of one "Comrade" Ivan Illich, whose plans for "Deschooling Society" sound great when you're sitting in a Starbucks, sipping your Double-Mocha Grande Latte with Whipped Cream and a Cherry on Top. Sometimes, however, it's easy to forget that the vast majority of the world does not exist in such conditions, and that for many of these people, traditional private education is the best, sometimes the only means of getting ahead.

Case in point: India.

From the article:

One obvious prerequisite for the Bangalore boom was India’s high-tech labor force...
...In the 1960s and ’70s, religious and philanthropic organizations picked up the slack by founding private engineering colleges of their own, often of substandard quality. But as the I.T. industry grew in the ’90s, so did the number of private engineering colleges and polytechnics. Today, four out of five engineering students attend private colleges, even though those institutions charge five to 10 times more in tuition than government colleges. The private schools also demand an upfront entry or “capitation” fee equivalent to about $3,000 to $4,000—a small fortune for middle-class families. The quality of these schools still varies a great deal, notes Vijay Menon of Progeon, the Bangalore-based outsourcing arm of the I.T. company Infosys. “But many of them have built a brand name for themselves by the stellar performance of their graduates on the American GRE,” he adds.

Furthermore, unlike government colleges, the private schools have a vested interest in delivering graduates with skills suited for the industry. “Otherwise,” Prahlad notes, “they can’t justify their hefty capitation fees.”

"Open webs of learning" sound nice to Americans with degrees in postmodernism. But for the residents of an impoverished society where vocational training is needed, and needed fast to put food on the table, private education will deliver the goods much more quickly than "self-directed education in fluid, informal arrangements." I think it's safe to say that there's a place for both in the world.

Clarifications on "Comrade" Illich

In a recent post I included a passage from Ivan Illich that seemed to draw the ire of Paddy. He found the world of Hogwart to be preferable to the vision of Illich and made some disparaging remarks about him, refering to him as "Commrade" Illich and wondering if he sent his children to private schools. Illich was not a Russian party thug and he had no children. Ivan Illich was a Roman Catholic Priest. Rather than sing the praises of DeSchooling Society and Illich, I will simply provide you with a link to his life and the complete text of several of his works.

Ivan Illich

If Paddy would like to provide us all with his recommended reading list for the French Revolution it would be greatly appreciated.

WOP

The people need to be protected!

Speaking of terror and royalty, check out what everyone's favorite federal agency is up to now:

Bernice Bogart, 83, has had a hip replacement seven years ago and isn't supposed to stand without her walker. Her daughter, Sally Moon, says she was assured that Frontier Airlines and Transportation Security Administration staff would not require her mother to leave her wheelchair while going through security at Denver International Airport. But while Moon was placing her bags on the x-ray screener, TSA officials chose her mother, who suffers from dementia, for additional screening and got her out of the wheelchair. When Moon reached out to keep her mother from falling, a TSA official shouted at her not to touch the old woman. And when Moon pointed out her mother is under doctor's orders not to stand, she says the screener threatened not to allow them on the plane. The screener had Bogart raise her arms, but she could only raise them so far because of the effects of breast cancer surgery, so the screener raised them herself. When Moon asked for the screener's name, TSA officials refused to provide it.

More on this outrage here.

Thank goodness we have such stalwart and conscientious protectors in the Global War on Terror (TM)!

An Educational Proposal

PaddyWop

All this talk about freedom and revolution caused me to go and dig up the following idea for an educational system proposed by Ivan Illich.....

"A good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known. Such a system would require the application of constitutional guarantees to education. Learners should not be forced to submit to an obligatory curriculum, or to discrimination based on whether they possess a certificate or a diploma. Nor should the public be forced to support, through regressive taxation, a huge professional apparatus of educators and buildings which in fact restricts the public's chances for learning to the services the profession is willing to put on the market. It should use modern technology to make free speech, free assembly, and a free press truly universal and, therefore, fully educational"

You sure don't need brick and mortor for this......or authority!!

A Few Words For Monsieur le Duck

"We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.
If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs.
It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his brutalized subjects; he is right, as a despot. Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not destined to strike the heads of the proud?" - Maximilien Robespierre, 1794

And by the way, the portrait tis your man Theobald Wolfe Tone, another Irishman who knew a thing or two about the tyranny of royalists

Greetings, gentle readers

Good evening, oh ever-faithful readership of this distinguished web log. I am delighted to announce that I will now be providing a sorely needed continental touch to this little project. Since June 2nd, the 213th anniversary of the accursed day upon which that villain and traitor Robespierre began his reign of terror, I have been endowed with posting privileges. I look forward to the many ineresting discussions which I doubtless will have with my fellow Catholics, and to crushing any sign of republicanism or liberal tendencies by divine right.

Vive le Roi!

The Immortal Patsy Whalen

Paddy has entered the building!

Well, the technologically challenged Irishman has finally made it onto his first blog. Watch out, he's got a lot of Guinness in the cellar and loads on his mind.

Back in Action

Paddy and I were back at our favorite place of dialogue with a new friend on Thursday night. Our irish friend from Boston (though not a Southie) made the mistake:) of asking Paddy and I for our views on some subjects that are dear to our hearts. Since she was buying...we went on for hours thought I should have left the nachos alone.

The big news is that Paddy is going abroad for two months and is going to keep us informed of his travels, right here, with a sort of travelogue so stay tuned. Paddy and I also invited a real poet to join our ramblings here, so the level of dialogue may just pick up a bit:) as well a guy who we shall say is covered with Ivy!.

Please, always feel free to join in the discussions, and to suggest topics for the crew to ramble on about.

Wop

Italy 2 Ireland 1

Italy 2  Ireland 1

Yesterday was wonderful day at PaddyWop  as the Italian and Irish national sides squared off in a friendly game that was spirited and well played.  I think the Italians triumphed in the match but it didn’t really matter.  Then last night I watched the US national squad defeat Trinidad, 1-0.  Paddy and I were together watching the game at the bar at Nannys’. It was a good night.

Test From Word

This is the first post to Paddywop in a long while.  I am writing this in word and going to try to publish it.(image placeholder)

The First Audio Posts

PaddyWop

I hope that you all enjoyed the posts from Nanny's. Paddy and I enjoyed it so much that we went and listened to old tapes of a familiar internet radio show. We listen to them until 5 in the morning.

I got a charge today from the presence of an American Cardinal saying Mass in Rome today. The protests against him disturbed me a bit but I understood them. We can never forget the Catholic sacrament of Pennance. On this score......I was an altarboy from the age of 9 through high school. I never had a bad experience with a priest, scoutmaster or sports coach. No one talked about it either.

I grew up Catholic and loved it!!

A fat liberal with an Italian view of the world

PaddyWop is now open for business. I am a fat italian guy whose grandfather got off a boat and made a life for his family in America. My buddy is an Irisman who has some very interesting views on many many things. We are both united in our hatred of George W. Bush and in our love of beer. This blog grew out of our conversations at the bar of Nanny O'brien's and the Zebra lounge. Stay tuned for interesting conversations.