Today, something unprecedented is happening. The Righties have banded together to destroy ONE person (a blogger claims he feels “threatened”). The entire front page of Memeorandum is dominated by this coordinated attack and smear. That OUGHT to scare hell out of everybody else, but I see virtually no commentary whatsoever. This is a dangerous precedent, the bloggy equivalent of Kristallnacht, perhaps. Beware.

Here is Patterico, taking a day off from the ongoing coordinated smear and personal destruction of Elizabeth Warren:

BREITBART TOLD THE STORY JUST BEFORE HE DIED

In the last radio interview Andrew Breitbart ever gave, on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, Breitbart talked about a new ruthless tactic used by thugs against political opponents:

[O]ne of the things they’ve done to people who have worked with me in the past, including an L.A. prosecutor, is to “SWAT.” That means that they’re spoofing phones, pretending to be somebody else’s phone, calling 911, and saying “I killed somebody” and then the person’s home is met with the guns drawn, the SWAT and the helicopters, in a horrifying act. It’s happened twice: once in New Jersey, once in Los Angeles, with an L.A. County . . . prosecutor who [is] associated with me.”

I am that L.A. County prosecutor. And in this post, you’ll hear the hoax call that sent police to my house, pointing loaded guns at me.

THE NIGHT I COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED BECAUSE OF MY BLOGGING …

Ah, a coordinated act of personal destruction and blog terrorism claiming the selfsame projected qualities. “I know you are, but what am I?” as the noted pundit P.W. Herman is oft heard to say. And it’s always nice to see the ghoulish hand of Breitbart from beyond the grave …

Each to his own soothsaying says I. Some worship the Dow. Others (far too many) worship at the shrine of “Polls.” Not a day goes by that some new polling of the public (and we all know how painful THAT can be) reveals some grand new truth, or provides fodder for an army of journalists and bloggers who, evidently, don’t actually find anything much newsworthy and spend their long prologue into senescence by dithering about trivialites dug up by the unconscious biases of the pollsters  – because we can only poll on what we KNOW, and never on what we DON’T KNOW, which is where all the action in the news cycle is anyway.

Sadly, the pollsters, dependent on their constant polling commissions (and omissions) even find a way to capitalize (literally) on stunning new news, by polling the public on what they THINK about the twists and turns of history.

It is a form of soothsaying, unless mathematical prediction is any more legitimate a pursuit than the reading of turtle’s entrails or tea leaves.

If we all have free will, of course, polling doesn’t work. Then again, if all is Written by the Hand of Destiny, then we would think like most of the Eastern Hemisphere and our entire approach would be different.

So, allowing the metaphor of soothsaying, not as a belief system, or even as a serious proposition (since neither soothsayers nor scientists can grasp a simple fact in the whole morass, namely, that it either works or doesn’t work, based on an unprovable assumption that you can find in the Lord’s Prayer, an old Western/Middle Eastern notion called “As above, so below,” the basis of all sympathetic magic and skrying), today’s metaphor is Astrology.

In the land of no ears, Vincent van Gogh is king.

First I’ll tell you a fact: Algol is an eclipsing binary, Beta (ß) Perseus, known from time immemorial as the demon star.

Algol, the Demon, the Demon Star, and the Blinking Demon, from the Arabians’ Ra’s al Ghul, the Demon’s Head, is said to have been thus called from its rapid and wonderful variations; but I find no evidence of this [Star Names was published in 1889, it was that year that Algol was discovered to be an eclipsing binary — Wikipedia], and that people probably took the title from the second-century Greek astronomer Ptolemy. Al Ghul literally signifies a Mischief-maker, and the name still appears in the Ghoul of the Arabian Nights and of our day. It degenerated into the Alove often used some centuries ago for this star…

Our modern English word “ghoul” is derived from the Arabic name of the star, and it OUGHT to be a reminder to us that the reason so many of our major stars  carry Arabic names is that astronomy/astrology fell into disuse during the Dark Ages, and the flowering Arabic Civilization was ahead of Western Civilization in the arts and sciences. This is where we get “Algebra,” from the Arabian mathematicians. Nobody’s number one forever, and when the Western “knights” arrived during the Crusades, they were presented with a more technologically advanced civilization … which they stole freely from. But the star Algol has been pretty universally seen as maelevolent, even outside of the old Greek Myth of Perseus:

The Hebrews knew Algol as Rosh ha Satan, Satan’s Head, English writer on globes John Chilmead (circa 1639)’s Rosch hassatan, the Divels head; but also as Lilith, Adam’s legendary first wife, the nocturnal vampyre from the lower world that reappeared in the demonology of the Middle Ages as the witch Lilis, one of the characters in Goethe’s Walpurgis Nacht.

The Chinese gave it the gruesome title Tseih She, the Piled-up Corpses.

Astrologers of course said that it was the most unfortunate, violent, and dangerous star in the heavens, and it certainly has been one of the best observed, as the most noteworthy variable in the northern sky….

(from Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1889.)

And the old Ghoul has been in the news just this month:

Astronomers discover ancient Egyptian observations of a variable star
Posted by TANN
Ancient, Astronomy, Breakingnews, Egypt, Universe 11:30 AM

The study of the “Demon star”, Algol, made by a research group of the University of Helsinki, Finland, has received both scientific and public attention. The period of the brightness variation of this eclipsing binary star has been connected to good prognoses three millennia ago. This result has raised a lot of discussion and the news has spread widely in the Internet.

“The Demon Star” – Ancient Cairo Calendar Shows Egyptians
Discovered the Binary Algol 3200 Years Ago [Credit: NASA]

The Egyptian papyrus Cairo 86637 calendar is probably the oldest preserved historical document of bare eye observations of a variable star. Each day of one Egyptian year was divided into three parts in this calendar. A good or a bad prognosis was assigned for these parts of a day.

“The texts regarding the prognoses are connected to mythological and astronomical events”, says Master of Science Sebastian Porceddu…

The ancient Egyptians have made accurate measurements that provide useful constraints for modern astronomers.

“It seems that the first observation of a variable star was made 3000 years earlier than was previously thought”, says [docent] Lauri Jetsu. “However, I want to emphasize that our research has only been sent to a scientific journal about two weeks ago. This type of results can raise a lot of controversy before they are accepted.”

Controversy?

You see, in our modern understanding of astrology (which ought to be what astronomy is called, “the study of the stars” instead of “the naming of the stars”)  Algol is actually an eclipsing binary star: two stars engaged in a deadly dance around a gravitational midpoint, an invisible maypole.

And the larger is tearing the smaller one apart, sucking it like a tick, until all its mass has transferred to the larger star.

The ancient Egyptians didn’t know that, of course. All they knew was that there was a star that would grow brighter and darker over a period (currently) of 68.75 hours —  or just under three days — “winking” at them. This was discovered by all great astronomical cultures fairly early, as the 3,000 year old Egyptian observations attest.

from “Astronomy 162″ University of Tennessee

So, the Egyptian records give a differential time of revolution for the Algol binary of (in scienteze) “0.017 days.”

I kid you not. Seventeen thousandths of a day.

What is that in millimeters, I wonder? Gallons? Kilohertz? Puppies?

24 hours multiplied by 0.017 gives us 0.408000 hours, which is a number just as useless as 0.017 days, or 92.7 handshakes, 5.6 milkshakes or 1.0 earthquakes.

How about 60 minutes an hour 24 hours a day? Equals 1440 minutes in a day.

We’re onto something. Now we just multiply those minutes by that fraction of a day, and we’ll have a human number.

Lessee: 1440 times 0.017 gives us 24.48 minutes and rounding that (in engineering math) .48 of a 60 second minute is half, so 24 and a half minutes.

About half an hour in 3,000 years. Thank you Ancient Egyptian trained observers.

Now, we can figure out a lot about the mass and loss of mass of the cosmic duprass (or, perhaps triple star system):

“We can explain why the period of Algol has increased by about 0.017 days”, says Lauri Jetsu. “The period increase during the past three millennia could have been caused by the observed mass transfer between the two members of this binary. In fact, this would be the first observation that confirms the period increase of Algol and it also gives an estimate of the mass transfer rate.”

But isn’t it also interesting that humans all over the Earth, watching that phenomenon, and declared the Ghoul star the evilest star in the sky?

I mean, they’re just burning rocks in the sky in the modern conception, so why aren’t the results more random?

Anyway, the point here is that we will undoubtedly be looked at in 3,000 years as condescendingly as we look at 3,000 year old Egyptians, especially when we had to pay an exorbitant fee to view them. Or, eventually, us.

I like astrology for that reason: the world came up with different systems of interpreting the motion of the stars in the heavens as reflecting here on Earth, that preserved an unquestioned precept of millennia past: “On Earth as it is in Heaven.”

And, in the centuries following the rather acrimonious breakup of astronomy and astrology, the twain have rarely deigned to meet.

I like the old Ptolemaic astrology, and the Arabian Parts and the Lunar Mansions, and the Hindu and Chinese lore. This is the first time in history we’ve ever had a chance to go through everybody’s notes and compare them. It’s a way of getting into the heads of historical figures, remembering that they gave as much credence to their astrological weather as you and I give to polls and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

So, the soothsaying metaphor, and a coincidence and another metaphor and we’re done. (If it helps, our word “alcohol” also comes from Medusa’s head, the Gorgon star, Algol. Ghoul.)

Medusa by Carvaggio (1595)

The language of astrology is poetic language for psychology, and modern astrology has been thoroughly adulterated with it. Everything is a lovely metaphor and nothing bad ever happens. You are in charge of your destiny, they intone in silky, comforting tone, and find some ‘lucky’ star to make you feel better.

This is a trick known to palmists and portfolio advisors alike, never give bad news, since, if you’re wrong, they’ll despise you. But, if you only give good news (or “buy” advice), they will only remember the pleasure of the gains and never the pain of the losses. It is a problem in soothsaying from astrologers to the business press, that never tell you the bad news in direct proportion to when you need it most.

Thus it was, when the eclipse occurred last Sunday, I noted the old Fixed Stars that were mainstays from before old Ptolemy (diviner of the Epicycles, that strange explanation of the wanderers — planets — suddenly reversing themselves and traveling backwards over many nights) until after Sir Isaac Newton (who cast and constructed horoscopes, there being as yet no bill of divorcement between astronomy and astrology).

After all, a “horoscope” is nothing more or less than a map of the sky dome (above the horizon) and the unseen sky dome below the horizon. If you know the night sky, and know to factor in a full thirty degrees* (the precession of equinoxes that most modern astrology has failed to note) , you could generate a “horoscope” for that hour and walk outside and know where to find all the stars and planets. It’s just a simplified sky map for a point in time.

[* thirty degrees equals, in human terms, three widths of your fist held at arm's length from your eye. Straight up is 90 degrees. The width of your little finger is two degrees, and the width of its fingernail is one. ]

Almost all cultures have taken this VERY seriously, however — as the careful Egyptians measured the blinking of the demon star three thousand years ago — and as comets were said to presage the fall of a king, or a plague, so, too everyone was sure that the stars moving in the sky meant something. And we have projected our mythology and our psychic history onto the night sky, and that’s why I enjoy it without necessarily subscribing to it: the rich tapestry of human poetic history is writ there, and guided the minds of our recent forebears.

When the Spanish Influenza struck the World during World War I, many all over the world (and right here in the Good Ol’ USA) were absolutely convinced that the Influenza came from the tail of Halley’s Comet, which we passed through when it returned in 1910.

The Head of Medusa, by Peter Paul Rubens (1618)

Or consider the origins of the word “Influenza,” which comes from Italian by way of the Latin root that creates our own word “influence.”

The word Influenza comes from the Italian language meaning “influence” and refers to the cause of the disease; initially, this ascribed illness to unfavorable astrological influences.^[155] *

[* Wikipedia Footnote source = "Influenza, The Oxford English Dictionary, second edition."]

 You see? That old thought system is woven into the warp and woof of our culture, just like the Bible, and it is foolish to be culturally illiterate in either — whether one believes or not.

Which brings us to the eclipse. Now, in the old reckoning, eclipses are bad things. And the “ruler” of “ruling planet” of the eclipse is an indicator of how bad it will be. I am not an astrologer, nor a deep practitioner, but even I could look at it and see that the “ring of fire” eclipse took place over the Plieades, specifically Alcyone, and that Mercury (the “ruler”) and Jupiter were in tight conjunction over Algol at the time.

So, I checked the various web sites and online astrology sites to SEE how this was interpreted.

All New Agey “have a nice day” nothing to see here and suchlike. Virtually no modern astrologer noticing the Algol connection, and most saying that “in the olden days, the Plieades and Alcyon were considered bad/malefic, but, really, there’s no bad stuff and everything’s fine.”

Wood carving (door) by Thomas Regnaudin circa 1660

Even in the older branch of astrology, very little acknowledgement of the event. The older branch is called “mundane” or worldly astrology. It deals with the fate of nations and the world stage. It’s older because kings and potentates were concerned with it, and could pay court astrologers salaries, while the newer branch “horary” or hourly astrology deals with your personalhoroscope, and if you’ll meet your soulmate, etcetera. Not a big dollar market draw, and until recently, historically, the lesser focus of astrologers. Even old  J.P. Morgan, he of the invisible dirk and father of the modern bank that just lost $3 billion in derivatives trading, said  “Millionaires don’t have astrologers, billionaires do.”

(One wonders whether their current astrologer saw that coming.)

I finally found ONE more traditional astrologer who said this:

I don’t think I’ve ever done a chart where there were so many negative stars and I hope to never have to write about one again.

Now, my point isn’t whether astrology works, remember. My point is that, IF it did work, then virtually all astrologers should have noticed this really bad omen in the “heavens.”*

[* "Heavens" because most astrologers nowadays rely on computer software to tell them where the stars are, or old ephemerides books to do the same, and virtually NOT ONE of them could actually go outside and SHOW you the constellation of Gemini, or Taurus or Capricorn, and would have no idea that the bright star in the evening sky was Venus, nor that Mars is prominent in the constellation of Leo, or that Saturn is just two fingers' width from Spica, or "Arista" in the night sky. They claim to read the stars that they only know from books and not from the simple and traditional "looking up at the sky."]

And there is our metaphor. The astrologers of today are so much filled with their “have a nice day” and psychological nonsense that what would have been a clear sign to any astrologer of, say, the past 3,000 years is invisible to them, even assuming that astrology worked.

So, too, the liberal blogs and news media.

The sign of a concerted, coordinated blog swarm to destroy one person hasn’t been seen as clearly as when Billy launched HIS Kristolnacht against one Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp and the New Republic magazine in 2007, which they later tacitly ADMITTED*. Then, the left wing blogs remained comatose. Today, as something far bigger, and far uglier takes place, the leftie blogosphere remains as comatose about the omen in the bloggy heavens as our modern astrologers are blind to the very sort of sign that their astrology exists to see and interpret.

[* Note that old "Butt Plug Bob" is part of today's smearandsmash. See The Columbia Journalism Review's post-mortem on L'Affaire Beauchamp.]

That is the metaphor. Both groups OUGHT to have the perspicacity to read the handwriting on the wall. Neither does.

Here, by the by, is the old interpretation of the influence of Algol [Wikipedia]:

In the Tetrabiblos, the 2nd century astrological text of the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy, Algol is referred to as “the Gorgon of Perseus” and associated with death by decapitation: a theme which mirrors the myth of the hero Perseus’ victory over the snake-headed Gorgon Medusa. Astrologically, Algol is considered the most unfortunate star in the sky, and was listed as one of the 15 Behenian stars. Historically, the star has received a strong association with bloody violence across a wide variety of cultures.

Modern “psychological” astrologers throw out the 4,000 years of observation and cross-cultural interpretation and just go with the “Perseus” myth about Medusa and say it’s about “angry women.“ (Not because it makes sense, but because it’s convenient to their archetypal/Jungian interepretations.)

Modern “psychological” astrologers discount the literal, and emphasize the tendency to “lose one’s head” in a paroxysm of rage. Today’s blogswarm is certainly an interesting coincidence of that interpretation, but we must, needs, pooh-pooh any correlation for the purposes of our Metaphor, today. Just an interesting coincidence.

Perseus gave Medusa’s head to Athena
who placed it on her Aegis, her shield,
where it was last heard of. (Seeing it is
somewhat difficult for mortal observers) 

And here is sleazebag Michael Barone in Real Clear Politics (on another matter, but double apropos here, like Algol):

Cocooned Liberals Are Unprepared for Political Debate
By Michael Barone
May 24, 2012

It’s comfortable living in a cocoon — associating only with those who share your views, reading journalism and watching news that only reinforces them, avoiding those on the other side of the cultural divide.

Liberals have been doing this for a long time. In 1972, the movie critic Pauline Kael said it was odd that Richard Nixon was winning the election, because everyone she knew was for George McGovern….

UPDATED BELOW

I have to start with my ethics, because I’ve spent more than 48 hours wrestling with whether what I’m about to do is the RIGHT thing to do. Right as in “correct,” and “proper,” and not as politics, as is in common parlance.

George Washington statue at
Independence Hall, Philadelphia

You see, I posted three hours of a radio interview into six years of investigative reporting that’s been recognized by outlets from PBS’ “NOW” to the Portland Oregonian.

And then a conservative blogger responded with hate speech of at least vaguely grammatical insensate rage.

And he did it on the Oakland Schools, White Lake, Commerce Township, Michigan server. On the official government k12.mi.us servers. I have zero doubt that this is — apart from the hypocrisy of railing against “big government” and tax fraud and waste on the government’s dime — clearly a violation of local and state policy.

Thus, my ethical dilemma. Do I “snitch” and possibly get this man in job trouble in tough economic times?

I have to take responsibility for that, and yet I still feel awful about Denny Flahault. (Deserved though it might have been.) Or do I let it slide, as is my liberal habit?

And then, alas, I read the comments and the hatred directed at Whitney Houston’s in the 5000+ comments on the story at Fox News, and I realized that some forms of tolerance ARE collaborationism, as the “Conservative Teacher” suggests in comment #6642 [emphasis added]:

A Conservative Teacher aconservativeteacher.blogspot.com x aconservativeteacher@gmail.com 216.11.79.22

Submitted on 2012/02/11 at 5:59 am You’re a liar and a hypocrite and a bad person. Right now, you support the President of the United States attacking publically and politically individual soverign citizens of the United States because you don’t like those people, and by doing so establish and support the President’s ability to do this. But in future years, when the President turns on people who you like, or who you support, or perhaps when the President of the United States goes on TV and tells everyone that you personally are a bad guy and should be treated as stuff, you will howl ‘unfair’ and ‘wrong’ then- except there will be no one to save you. You’re the same sort of person who let the fascists murder Jews and innocent people in Germany because they were political enemies of yours- you are the same sort of person who did nothing in the Soviet Union while Ukranians and liberals were killed because you thought they were really bad people. I’ve got your back, for what’s it worth, and the minute a Republican or conservative President turns on individual citizens and uses the office and the power of the office to attack individual soverign citizens of our nation, I’ll help you out. I do this not because you are a good and decent person who deserves that, but because I am a good and decent person.

Thus, my dilemma has been resolved by the unlikeliest of advisors, the perpetrator himself. Much as I’d like to let this pass with a witty retort and an acknowledgement that such is always the case if you’re going to voice an opinion, going back, at least, to Aristotle:

Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

So, being called a Hitler genocide enabler is not the worst thing I’ve been called, and is not particularly offense to ME. You get (e)mail like this all the time, in my profession. My letters in the [Eugene] Register-Guard  and Weekly used to get me multiple-page actual anonymous letters, dot-matrix printed and yellow-highlighted prophetic Fire and Brimstone, condemning me to Hell for questioning George W. Bush, God’s Anointed Ruler, etc. etc. etc. And so forth.

But, as Kant would say, there is a moral imperative here. Whether uncomfortable or not, the simple facts deserve to be known by the public who funds this letter.

And here is the documentary proof (which you are invited to examine on your own). I will only swear that I have not altered so much as a jot or tittle of the digital record. I have rendered each of the following screencaps as .pdf files from the original screens, which are linked to the screencaps below.

First, look up that URL capture number:

Highland, Michigan.

Sitemeter says that it is Commerce Township, Michigan, and “What is My IP address”  says it’s White Lake, Michigan.

According to Geo Bytes, all of those towns reside within a 15 mile radius, so the exact city isn’t particularly an issue.

Miles.tenths. City.State.Country
0 0 Highland, MI, US
8 5 Hartland, MI, US
9 5 Milford, MI, US
9 5 White Lake, MI, US
11 6 Commerce Township, MI, US
11 6 Davisburg, MI, US
14 8 Union Lake, MI, US
15 9 Fenton, MI, US

Second, we look at the visit record from SiteMeter (sorry, it’s behind my account firewall):

That was what caught my eye.  And the comment quoted in its entirety above was the result (see my comments policy at the bottom of my blog, clearly stated).

I noted that the URL capture from Sitemeter (completely independent of WordPress) matched the WordPress capture. So, I went to “A Conservative Teacher”s blog. Here is his self-description [emphasis added]:

Contact me
Email [= aconservativeteacher@gmail.com ]
On Blogger since June 2008
Profile views – 5437
My blogs

A Conservative Teacher
About me

Industry Education
Location Michigan, United States

Introduction A Conservative Teacher is the pseudonym for the author of A Conservative Teacher, one of the most popular education and politics blogs in Michigan. As the premier blog written by a conservative teacher, my posts have been picked up by top-tier blogs and I have been a featured guest writer on many more blogs. Those looking for a conservative teacher to interview frequently find their way to me, and I have been invited as a guest on radio programs to talk further about some of my more explosive and exciting posts. Whether as a public high school teacher where I have taught many subjects in social studies, a local elected official, a policy advisor working for the government, an executive on union and government boards, or as a member of one of several government committees on education, I have been on the front lines of communication for many years. Whether in print or on radio, I can always be counted on for knowledgeable, exciting, positive, passionate, and honest commentary on education, government, best practices, politics, the media, testing, the environment, religion, book or movie reviews, elections, technology, or local events.

Here is a snippet of this “knowledgeable, exciting, positive, passionate, and honest commentary” from December 8, 2011 (since it is cross-posted with the same bio, verbatim, and seems utterly germane to this “conservative teacher”s educational agenda):

Teaching and Brain-Dead Liberal Students

Public Schools
Dec 08, 2011

Of all the students in my class, the ones who are the least intelligent are the liberal ones. As Ronald Reagan once said, it isn’t that these students are ignorant- in a great many cases, these students earn A’s in all their classes and have a considerable wealth of knowledge on the issues and the subject matter. But what makes them just so darned unintelligent is that they know so much that isn’t so.

For example, one of my students every day talks about the right to occupy public places that the people in the Occupy Wall Street movements are exercising. He knows that individual citizens have the right to squat on public places and protest, regardless of time, place, and manner restrictions, and he knows this beyond a doubt in his little mind. But what he knows isn’t so- at no time has any court or legal scholar ever argued that people have an unlimited right to live on public lands without being molested- in fact, there are considerable and respected time, place, and manner restrictions on protesting on public property, and this includes not being able to sleep overnight in tents in public parks. My student isn’t ignorant of the laws and rules and regulations regarding the First Amendment; rather, it is that he knows things where aren’t so.

Another one of my students knows that under President George W. Bush and the Republicans, our nation was plunged into a severe recession that President Barack Obama has had to battle his entire time in office. She knows that the recession began under Republican control of Congress and the Presidency, and here in Michigan she knows that the recession can be blamed on a Republican Governor and state Congress. She is not ignorant- if I were to ask her when Congress was taken over by the Democrats, when President Obama took office, when the Great Recession started, or when Democrats lost control of the Michigan Congress or Governorship, she’d be able to tell me. It is just that when I ask her to put all this information together, she suddenly knows things that aren’t so, because the truth of the matter is that the Great Recession began in 2008 during the last year of Bush’s presidency, under a Democrat* Congress, and in Michigan there was a Democratic Governor and Congress too. What she knew wasn’t so!

Another student last week knew that global warming was happening- that is, she knew that ever since the industrial age began, human activity has been causing a steady and progressively accelerating of the global temperatures. She knew this to be so, and she was a good student who every day would quote from the New York Timesor Barack Obama, so she wasn’t ignorant- it was just that what she knew wasn’t so. The temperature of the globe has not been steadily rising in temperatures since the industrial age, and to be honest, it is difficult to determine beyond a shadow of a doubt whether it is rising even now, what with data being manipulated by scientists, a lack in measuring stations, and an overall problem of putting thermometers near industrial and populated areas that naturally emit a lot of heat.

Just why exactly are the liberals and left-wing of our nation brain dead? [...]

[* If this partisan pedant were actually concerned with "facts" he'd know that it is the "Democratic Party" and, therefore, not "Democrat Congress." The former is an intentional slur -- albeit not necessarily from A Conservative Teacher, who might just be ignorant on this issue.]

Really? “Brain dead” and “his little mind”? Is that an appropriate way to talk about your students in a private social network? And would it be appropriate to talk about one’s students publicly as a “media celebrity” (if you read his stuff, low self-esteem doesn’t seem to be one of his problems) in a public forum?

[* There's a cache of his backlogged stuff at  "Conservatives on Fire" as well. He's not obscure in blogging circles.]

Or, one need look no further than February 13th’s A Conservative Teacher blog posting which begins with:

click for original

As a public school teacher, every day I battle to advance the principles of liberty and freedom. This is my story.

“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” – Socrates
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012

Elementary Students Turned Into Pawns by Liberal Teacher?

Elementary Students Forced to Write Advocacy Letters to Governor Criticizing Education Cuts, via Michigan Capitol Confidential:

…

This news does not shock or surprise me. In my post Liberal Teachers I wrote:

Whole generations of students are being brainwashed by this liberal thinking. And I do mean they are being brain-washed. Teachers are systematically trying to force the students in their classes to think in a certain way. They are forced to only hear one viewpoint on issues, they are forced to only provide answers that the teacher considers right, and they are forced on penalty of shame to admit to and agree to the liberal agenda. True, many students rebel against this system, usually be shutting down mentally or saying they hate school, but most students are worn down bit by bit, and eventually agree that 2+2 does equal 5*, and the liberal agenda in this nation is advanced that much further.

There is considerable evidence to me that this is so- textbooks, state curriculum, lesson plans, standardized tests, student comments, and my own observations. On big issues and little issues, the liberal agenda is pushed down students minds, and the cumulative effect of decades of this is beginning to show in our current political environment.

And so forth.

[* =

See "Nostradammit" 29 Jan 2011 for details

end of internal footnote.]

And here is a recent radio appearance from the link on his blog:

Click for .mp3
HE is definitely a guy, and anyone at the Oakland Schools
ought to be able to identify him from his voice. 

My point is this: if he’s so worried about big government, and so afraid of taking responsibility for his own opinions in his own name, why is he calling people Nazi collaborators on the taxpayers’ dime?

There is supposed to be a firewall between this hate-filled egotist’s anonymous public sneering at his students and those who differ with his cranky political agenda — and his taxpayer-paid, salaried, tenured job TEACHING Michigan’s young men and women, according to the democrat – small ‘d’ – consensus of Michigan’s elected representatives.

Sorry, I meant “democratic” consensus — small ‘d’ — whoops!

No. A line has been crossed that I have to point out to the taxpayers of Michigan, who just paid to have me called a Nazi. I might have shined it on, but it is precisely tolerating this kind of savage intolerance that has produced the political climate that ALL Americans — save for a few agitators never so happy as when they’re playing “let’s you and him fight” — are properly appalled and repulsed by.

The irony is that, if high schools had recess, the kind of anonymous baiting and insulting the beliefs of others that “A Conservative Teacher” regularly engages in, behind his Dorian Gray mask of anonymity would NOT be tolerated by the Administration.

Three Medford, Oregon teachers who were thrown
out of a 2004 George W. Bush rally for
wearing these awful t-shirts. 

Or teachers like “A Conservative Teacher.”

Who used your tax dollars to send this response to my three hours summarizing my demonstrably correct investigative reporting on Koch-related entities, foundations and political operations:

You’re a liar and a hypocrite and a bad person. Right now, you support the President of the United States attacking publically and politically individual soverign citizens of the United States because you don’t like those people, and by doing so establish and support the President’s ability to do this. But in future years, when the President turns on people who you like, or who you support, or perhaps when the President of the United States goes on TV and tells everyone that you personally are a bad guy and should be treated as stuff, you will howl ‘unfair’ and ‘wrong’ then- except there will be no one to save you.

You’re the same sort of person who let the fascists murder Jews and innocent people in Germany because they were political enemies of yours- you are the same sort of person who did nothing in the Soviet Union while Ukranians and liberals were killed because you thought they were really bad people.

I’ve got your back, for what’s it worth, and the minute a Republican or conservative President turns on individual citizens and uses the office and the power of the office to attack individual soverign citizens of our nation, I’ll help you out. I do this not because you are a good and decent person who deserves that, but because I am a good and decent person.

 That last might not be the universal consensus, however.

But, all of this would be meaningless, if I did not confirm that the commenter and “A Conservative Teacher” were one and the same anonymous person. People get spoofed all the time. So, I sent a letter, politely asking for confirmation, quoting the comment from the k12.mi.us server.

from Hart Williams
to aconservativeteacher@gmail.com
date Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 2:00 AM
subject A Question

Dear Conservative Teacher:

I would like to respond more thoughtfully on my blog to your comment, but first, is this your comment, or is someone spoofing your identity? (In which case, I thought you’d like to know.)

Submitted on 2012/02/11 at 5:59 am
You’re a liar and a hypocrite and a bad person. Right now, you support the President of the United States attacking publically and politically individual soverign citizens of the United States because you don’t like those people, and by doing so establish and support the President’s ability to do this. But in future years, when the President turns on people who you like, or who you support, or perhaps when the President of the United States goes on TV and tells everyone that you personally are a bad guy and should be treated as stuff, you will howl ‘unfair’ and ‘wrong’ then- except there will be no one to save you.

You’re the same sort of person who let the fascists murder Jews and innocent people in Germany because they were political enemies of yours- you are the same sort of person who did nothing in the Soviet Union while Ukranians and liberals were killed because you thought they were really bad people.

I’ve got your back, for what’s it worth, and the minute a Republican or conservative President turns on individual citizens and uses the office and the power of the office to attack individual soverign citizens of our nation, I’ll help you out. I do this not because you are a good and decent person who deserves that, but because I am a good and decent person.

If so, Thank you for reading, at least.

Cordially,

Hart Williams,
his vorpal sword, Prop.

You’re never too old to live and
you’re never too young to die ..

There was no reply.

So, I thought for a moment, and devised a small subterfuge. Since this guy has such a high opinion of himself, I thought, if I feign anger and then INSTRUCT the all-knowing teacher* it just might push his buttons.

[* Who modestly posts this Biblical citation at the bottom of his blog master page:

ECCLESIASTES 12:9-11 (NIV)

Not only was the Teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true. The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails-given by one shepherd.

Ecclesiastes 12:9-11 (NIV)

Right under this, of course:

I call on all good Americans to resist these Bizarro's and their Bizarro agenda.

BIZARRO SUPERMAN

A Modern Day Liberal

And so I wrote this to the email address listed both on my comment page and his blogger profile page:

from Hart Williams
to aconservativeteacher@gmail.com
date Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 12:18 AM [all times PST]
subject As I suspected

To “A Konservuhtiv Teechur”:

No response, which is, by virtue of its silence, all the confirmation I actually needed. Silence, in this case, indicates ownership.

There wasn’t much doubt of the fact, given your M.O.*, but I thought I’d give you a chance.

Too gutless to show your face; too craven to take responsibility for your words, even though spoken anonymously.

Taking the word “pusillanimous” furtively into the new century, I see.

Glad to know that “role models” like yourself are edumacating our next generation of leaders.

Hart Williams

You’re never too old to live and
you’re never too young to die ..

[*"Modus operandi," a Latin term that is used in English to mean: "Method of Operation."]

As we all know from our Direct Mail Advertising manual, the KEY to any marketing letter is in that “P.S.” (Look at any political or charitable fundraising letter you get as junk mail, sometime.)

In other words, never “instruct” a teacher. But if you do, make sure to put it in the PS.

I received the following response the same day from the email address listed both on my comment page and his blogger profile page:

from . . aconservativeteacher@gmail.com
to Hart Williams
date Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 7:24 PM
subject Re: As I suspected

7:24 PM

Thank you so much for contacting me. You are a vile person, but even
still, when the government turns on you please look me up for support
and help. In the meantime, please attempt to further your education in
everything meaningful. I feel badly for you and your life.

He’s nothing if not consistent.

Here’s a .PNG of his response, quoting my followup letter.

click for full size

No matter what disciplinary action is taken by the authorities, this much is certain: his “identity” cannot and must not remain outside of the public record. By making and confirming these comments, initially at taxpayer expense, he has no expectation of privacy in this matter, and Michigan taxpayers deserve to know which of their employees is calling his students “brain-dead” and “little-minded” … and accusing legitimate investigators of being “vile” persons and

You’re the same sort of person who let the fascists murder Jews and innocent people in Germany because they were political enemies of yours- you are the same sort of person who did nothing in the Soviet Union while Ukranians and liberals were killed because you thought they were really bad people.

Now: the question is, having myself determined that it is worse to ignore this than to confront this, what are YOU going to do, Oakland Schools?

Michigan Department of Education?

Media?

Citizens?

I await your decision on how best to spend your tax dollars.

Courage.

=======================

Note: I have an .html, a .pdf and a screencap PNG file (or an .mp3) of each instance cited herein, so don’t try to “scrub” the online evidence.

UPDATE 8:46 AM 2-15-2012:

I have received permission to quote this letter from the Oakland Schools Superintendant, received at 7:34 AM:

Dear Mr. Williams,

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.  My staff will investigate this immediately.  Oakland Schools manages all of the IP addresses for all of our school districts throughout the county via the ONE network which means this could have come from any mobile device being used in our 28 school districts.  We will find the source and inform the appropriate parties.

Thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to investigate and correct this,

/s/

Update 2: It seems that I am a thug (this comment was left on the original piece):

A Conservative Teacher
15 February 2012 at 2:48 pm [PST]

Nice- so I suggested that your support of Obama’s policies to attack personal people was thuggish, and you respond with this post, which is essentially thuggish. I felt that people should be more decent to one another, and that your support of attacking people in mean and spiteful manners like Obama was doing was wrong in this nation. And you replied to my comments like this?

This is shameful. I know you think that it is funny and amusing, but you probably should reconsider posting posts like this and remove it. A war of words is one thing, but attempting to destroy my family and force me to lose my jobs and have my children suffer just because my comments hit too close to home is another.

=======================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

Mitt Romney recently said that his tax rate is about 15% when pressed yet again about releasing his tax returns. Here’s a couple of must reads about Mitt and his money…

Romney Parks Millions in Offshore Tax Haven

Mitt Romney Sent Millions to Mormon Church…

Odds look good for Mitt to become the GOP nominee, although other candidates are holding on for dear life. One right wing blogger suggests Rick Perry should drop out now and become a “kingmaker.” Stay tuned…

Perhaps Mitt thinks he’ll just buy his way to the White House…