>Don't moralize.
I used to be unclear on what Carrol meant when he said this (and he's said it often). Then this week I was doing some digging on a new school in Los Angeles that my daughter will be attending starting this fall.
The school is built on the site of the Ambassador Hotel, where RFK was killed. It's called the Robert F. Kennedy Community School. I was figuring you can't go wrong, because the school's caught a lot of flack about cost overruns etc., so it's too big too fail.
Then a couple weeks ago I was talking to an Orange County resident who called it the Taj Mahal of wastefulness. I nipped conflict in the bud by saying my daughter's going there so I hope it's ok. I had thought I was talking to a typical Prop 13 Reagan Republican. Turns out she's a Dem and an educator.
Anyway, I was pretty happy with the school but then the other day found out (dog bless google) that one of the school principals (there are three schools in the complex) is in this group called Facing History and Ourselves. They've been around for 30 or 40 years and have big gun supporters like Matt Damon and Bill Moyers. Looking a little further I find them involved in this recent PBS project based on a book by Daniel Goldhagen called Worse Than War.
Long story short, looking at Goldhagen's work I understand very much better what Carrol means when he says don't moralize.
But the kid is still going to the school, at least for a year. Then we'll see. Who knows. Maybe Goldhagen at school and me at home questioning his work could work out.
What a fucking crapshoot.