[lbo-talk] Here she goes again

[Michael McIntyre]

> Tayssir wrote:
>
> I looked at the link, and these writer-worshippers are appalled that:
>
>     "English majors can avoid reading Othello in favor of studying:
>     'Critical Race Theory,' which explores why race 'continue[s] to
>     have vital significance in politics, economics, education,
>     culture, arts, and everyday social realities" including
>     'sexuality, class, disability, multiculturalism, nationality, and
>     globalism.'"
>
>
> The problem isn't that there's no one around to teach Shakespeare --
> merely that students aren't REQUIRED to study it. After all, they
> can't think for themselves. The real stakeholders are:
>
>     "Employers -- especially newspapers, publishers, schools, and
>     others who hire English majors -- should be deeply concerned. So
>     should parents, alumni, trustees, and interested citizens."
>
This is worse than funny.  Who wants to hire an English major to  
write Elizabethan iambic pentameter?  These "employers" are, for the  
most part, illiterate donkeys.  I remember having lunch with one of  
our best composition teachers, a man who got stuck as the prime  
faculty representative on the committee to write DePaul's new  
"strategic plan".  He spent a good part of that lunch shaking his  
head at his naive belief that he might be able to contribute to an  
elegantly written plan.  Instead, the educational bureaucrats and  
trustees who ran the show produced a set of loosely related bullet  
points, collated from - I swear I am not making this up - post-it  
notes.  My colleague was reduced to fighting to get them to use  
complete sentences.  Paragraphs are beyond them.  That's Lynne  
Cheney's constitutency.  Har-de-fucking har!

Michael McIntyre

PS - You can check out the monstrosity at http:// 
vision2012.depaul.edu/_downloads/VISIONtwenty12Brochure.pdf