The Dirty Dozen:America's Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses

Parent Cafe
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<p><a href=“http://media.yaf.org/latest/12_19_06.cfm[/url]”>http://media.yaf.org/latest/12_19_06.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Go ahead, discuss…:)</p>

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<p>Seeing “yaf” was enough for me. EWWWWWw. Are they still goosestepping around? (I looked around their site. I can’t tell if they are the same, or an outgrowth of what I remember as Young Americans for Freedom. They don’t seem to claim them. ) :wink: Seem like real nice folks.</p>

<p>Here’s their College Top Ten Schools:
(Get your checkbooks ready)</p>

<p>Hillsdale College
Grove City College
Franciscan University
Indiana Wesleyan
University
Thomas Aquinas College
College of the Ozarks
Liberty University
Patrick Henry College
Christendom College
Harding University</p>

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<p>How dare those native american women be feminists?!</p>

<p>How dare those Swatties study peace?!</p>

<p>DISGUSTING.</p>

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<p>But it’s a liberal peace, SBmom. Lib - er- al. See? It’s not real peace.</p>

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<p>Curmudgeon, it’s funny, but I looked immediately at who it was who had produced this list and yes, no surprise. The even funnier thing is that the universities which my Ds attend probably have course offerings which are extremely similar to this list, including the (dis)honorable mentions. I imagine that this would be the case at hundreds of colleges. Many of those courses sound pretty interesting to me. Well, maybe not The Phallus, but, hey, there could be some interesting guest ‘speakers’. ;)</p>

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<p>LOL. Yep. I’m sure that some version of many of the courses cited exists at most colleges and uni’s. </p>

<p>I checked and it seems YAF-Young Americans for Freedom and YAF- Young America’s Foundation are separate entities. One is yaf.org the other yaf.com. How confusing. ???</p>

<p>Well, at least they don’t have to worry about what color shirts to wear to meetings. ;)</p>

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<p>Wow, I was expecting these to be a lot more scandalous. </p>

<p>The author decries “dividing” people by race, color, and gender…although “dividing” them on the basis of nationality or language seems to be no problem. Note the lack of complaints about the thousands of courses out there called “French Literature” or “Western Political Philosophy” or “Greek History”. Why the dichotomy?</p>

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<p>“Queer Musicology”
Likely atonal serialism.</p>

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<p>Heck, I studied several courses on nonviolence back in the '70’s. What’s the matter with that? And there were human sexuality courses offered; it was the most popular way to fulfill a certain requirement (can’t remember if it was science or humanities; I didn’t take it.). Back then, students could make up their own courses if they could find someone to teach them, so we had lots of off-the-wall courses. I don’t really see a problem there, if that’s what people want to take. You still have to get in the requirements, but why not have some fun with the rest?</p>

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<p>Much ado about nothing…</p>

<p>In 1975 I took a class at U of M called Maternal and Child Health Care from the School of Public Health, generally called Marriage Class. Very heavily populated by football players. Lectures were Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. It was an extremely interesting class - really one of the best. Great lectures - the lectures were always full, although the discussion sessions were not.</p>

<p>College is a time to stretch the horizons.</p>

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<p>YAF Top 10 Course Offerings</p>

<ol>
<li> Dead White Men: all you really need</li>
<li> Christians vs. Infidels</li>
<li> Ronald Reagan: the man, the genius, the legacy</li>
<li> The Bible as Science</li>
<li> Amy Grant: Modesty, Chastity, & A Beat You Can Dance To</li>
<li> Homosexuals: Why They’re All Going Straight to Hell</li>
<li> Feminism: a misogynist perspective</li>
<li> Branson, Missouri and the contracting American psyche</li>
<li> WWJD? – Obviously: Nuke them Into the Stone Age</li>
<li>Wiretaps, Torture, & the Death Penalty: 3 Pillars of Democracy</li>
</ol>

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<p>“For instance, books and speeches from the late Milton Friedman and Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick are rarely studied in the classroom, yet leftist works are prevalent in college classrooms nationwide.”</p>

<p>Yeah, right. You can go to the Harvard Graduate School of Education and discover that the works of arguably the most important educator of the second half of the 20th Century - Paolo Freire - aren’t taught in a single course. If you want to read Freire, you have to go to - get this - the Divinity School.</p>

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<p>guess we should have just kept everything the way it was</p>

<p>everything good that was done was done by white men, and the rest, eh…yeppers</p>

<p>as for that website for the oped piece…ewww</p>

<p>and the suggested reading, nicely balanced;- not</p>

<p>too bad those nasty feminists in the 60s ruined it for all those young women who are able to go to some of those colleeges and get paid fairly (so of)- I think those against feminists shouldn’t reap the rewards of those that stood up, to accept those rewards is kind of hypocritical, don’t you think</p>

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<p>this is the same group that did :catch an illegal immigrant day…yep one of your classier groups</p>

<p>and they are there to fight the commies!!! yep those reds (which ones) are out to take over the camus, so YAF is there to stop marxismand communism on campus…what decade do they live in</p>

<p>and according to YAF, pacifism is not Christian…</p>

<p>but hey, lets go back to the 50s which seems to be what they want…darn liberals and women…</p>

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<p>Right-wingers are so oppressed.</p>

<p>SBmom–what a hoot.</p>

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<p>I can’t even tell what’s remotely wrong (supposedly) with some of these. </p>

<p>Marx? Last time I checked, he was still a major figure in political economy and intellectual history. There are about 50 trillion things you can’t understand about the last 150 years if you have no idea what Marxism is. Marx is one of the core authors Chicago makes essentially all its students read. Adam Smith, too.</p>

<p>And its wrong to give a seminar on wage differentials? I think that’s a great topic – an entree to economics and policy.</p>

<p>The Adultery Novel? What the hell’s wrong with that?</p>

<p>(Meanwhile, my daughter is taking a course that’s called “To Hell With The Enlightenment”.)</p>

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<p>"(Meanwhile, my daughter is taking a course that’s called “To Hell With The Enlightenment”.)</p>

<p>That’s actually become a very big issue in modern philosophy - for a brilliant summation of the issues involved, I highly recommend Stephen Toulmin’s Cosmopolis:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Cosmopolis-Hidden-Modernity-Stephen-Toulmin/dp/0226808386/sr=8-2/qid=1168386372/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/104-9718221-5102306?ie=UTF8&s=books[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Cosmopolis-Hidden-Modernity-Stephen-Toulmin/dp/0226808386/sr=8-2/qid=1168386372/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/104-9718221-5102306?ie=UTF8&s=books&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I thought all of the courses on the list sounded reasonably plausible (with the aforementioned exception of that on the male member, taught, presumably, with someone with first hand experience in the matter).</p>

<p>Here’s a description I encountered recently of a first year seminar. It seems pretty marginal:</p>

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<p>It’s pretty marginal, until you recognize that the first museum collections and the origins of the Royal Academy of Science in the 17th Century, and the creation of the “amateur virtuosi” - basically the first modern archaeologists, and the creation of the first British newspapers (Tatler and Spectator) were ALL offspring of the late 17th Century English coffee house. </p>

<p>Bach’s Coffee Cantata says it all.</p>

<p>"
Recitative Narrator
Be quiet, stop chattering, and pay attention to what’s taking place: here comes Herr Schlendrian with his daughter Lieschen; he’s growling like a honey bear. Hear for yourselves, what she has done to him!</p>

<p>Aria - Schlendrian
Don’t one’s children cause one endless trials & tribulations! What I say each day to my daughter Lieschen falls on stony ground.</p>

<p>Recitative - Schlendrian
You wicked child, you disobedient girl, h! when will I get my way; give up coffee!</p>

<p>Lieschen
Father, don’t be so severe! f I can’t drink my bowl of coffee three times daily, then in my torment I will shrivel up like a piece of roast goat.</p>

<p>Aria - Lieschen
Mm! how sweet the coffee tastes, more delicious than a thousand kisses, mellower than muscatel wine. Coffee, coffee I must have, and if someone wishes to give me a treat, ah, then pour me out some coffee!</p>

<p>Recitative - Schlendrian
If you don’t give up drinking coffee then you shan’t go to any wedding feast, nor go out walking. oh! when will I get my way; give up coffee!</p>

<p>Lieschen
Oh well! Just leave me my coffee!</p>

<p>Schlendrian
Now I’ve got the little minx! I won’t get you a whalebone skirt in the latest fashion.</p>

<p>Lieschen
I can easily live with that.</p>

<p>Schlendrian
You’re not to stand at the window and watch people pass by!</p>

<p>Lieschen
That as well, only I beg of you, leave me my coffee!</p>

<p>Schlendrian
Furthermore, you shan’t be getting any silver or gold ribbon for your bonnet from me!</p>

<p>Lieschen
Yes, yes! only leave me to my pleasure!</p>

<p>Schlendrian
You disobedient Lieschen you, so you go along with it all!</p>

<p>Aria - Schlendrian
Hard-hearted girls are not so easily won over. Yet if one finds their weak spot, ah! then one comes away successful. </p>

<p>Recitative - Schlendrian
Now take heed what your father says!</p>

<p>Lieschen
In everything but the coffee.</p>

<p>Schlendrian
Well then, you’ll have to resign yourself to never taking a husband.</p>

<p>Lieschen
Oh yes! Father, a husband!</p>

<p>Schlendrian
I swear it won’t happen.</p>

<p>Lieschen
Until I can forgo coffee? From now on, coffee, remain forever untouched! Father, listen, I won’t drink any</p>

<p>Schlendrian
Then you shall have a husband at last!</p>

<p>Aria - Lieschen
Today even dear father, see to it! Oh, a husband! Really, that suits me splendidly! If it could only happen soon that at last, before I go to bed, instead of coffee I were to get a proper lover!</p>

<p>Recitative - Narrator
Old Schlendrian goes off to see if he can find a husband forthwith for his daughter Lieschen; but Leischen secretly lets it be known: no suitor is to come to my house unless he promises me, and it is also written into the marriage contract, that I will be permitted to make myself coffee whenever I want. </p>

<p>Trio
A cat won’t stop from catching mice, and maidens remain faithful to their coffee. The mother holds her coffee dear, the grandmother drank it also, who can thus rebuke the daughters!"</p>

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<p>Courses like “Feminist Disability Theory and Jane Eyre” make me weep. PLEASE leave us with SOME beauty.</p>