Allen said he would not return to Overland because has received threats, which he said have been reported to police. But he said he did not regret publicizing Bennish's lecture.

Alright, and so this becomes very, very muddled. And I'm not in any way implying that you should agree with me. I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position. But what I'm trying to get you to do is to think, right, about these issues more in-depth, you know, and not just take things from the surface. And I'm glad you asked all your questions, because they're very good, legitimate questions. And hopefully that allows other people to begin to think about some of those things, too.

That's exactly what a teacher has to do for his students to get more than country names from a geography lesson.

Sailor, if you think so well why don't you show up when I call people like you out? Freakin No-show.

Bennish teaches Accelerated World Geography, an honors class designed to prepare students for college. In his course syllabus, Bennish explains that his course will "look into the geographical--or spatial--relationships between human societies and cultures, the natural environment, and historical changes that have shaped the contemporary world. More than answering the question 'what is where,' this course adopts a conceptual approach to understanding and explaining the dynamic human and natural features of the earth's surface." Themes covered during the semester, he explains, include "population, religion, human rights, notions of development and underdevelopment, impact of colonialism historically and currently, sustainability, impacts of modernization on developing countries, globalization of economy and culture, political and international conflict, cultural diversity, and global environmental concerns." In order to effectively teach this stuff, he explains, "A deeper understanding of current events from a historical and geographical perspective is imperative. Thus, timely issues and events in the news will be tied into the overall framework of the course."

It wasn't a geography class where elementary school kids rattle off the names of capital cities.

For example our interrogation techniques that can clearly rival those of Gestapo in terms of their lethality with a bonus of sexual humiliation thrown in for good measure.

Concentration camps would overflowing with Muslims, Jews, Communists, Democrats and labor union people.

, well then don't the Peruvians and the Iranians and the Chinese have the right to invade America and drop chemical weapons over North Carolina to destroy the tobacco plants that are killing millions and millions of people in their countries every year and causing them billions of dollars in health care costs?

Do you see how when, you know, when you're looking at this definition, where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Is that a part of this system? Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It's at odds with human rights.

he admits that he doesn't always present both sides of an argument together, which makes me wonder just how long he sometimes waits to bring up opposing points of view.

I speculate, never.

Posted by PPJ aka Jim
July 4, 2005 10:35 PM
I suspect that you also understood.

Posted by JimakaPPJ October 4, 2005 05:21 PM [...]And as long as we are speculating ...

Posted by JimakaPPJ February 28, 2006 08:31 PM sailor - I made a supposition.

Quibble away, Sailor. It's a free country, and that seems to be all that most of the people here do anyway.

As if every teacher is supposed to be a robot of neutrality.

He thought, and he was almost right, that no one would challenge him and he could do what he wanted.

If they can't [be robots of neutrality] they should get out of teaching. Espcially K-12.

some of Bush's speech "sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say. We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backwards and our job is to conquer the world and make sure that they all live just like we want them to."

Later in the recording, Bennish said he was not claiming Bush and Hitler were the same, "but there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use."

budding stand-up comic wants to write more comedy sketches as well as suspense-filled fiction. And he may add some political writing to his repertory.