Keith Burgess-Jackson

John Fund thinks Rudy Giuliani lacks manners. Of course Giuliani lacks manners; he’s a Yankee fan.

Paul Krugman* won’t like this.

* “Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults” (Daniel Okrent, “13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did,” The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

In my eighth year I commenced learning Latin, in conjunction with a younger sister, to whom I taught it as I went on, and who afterwards repeated the lessons to my father: and from this time, other sisters and brothers being successively added as pupils, a considerable part of my day’s work consisted of this preparatory teaching. It was a part which I greatly disliked; the more so, as I was held responsible for the lessons of my pupils, in almost as full a sense as for my own: I however derived from this discipline the great advantage of learning more thoroughly and retaining more lastingly the things which I was set to teach: perhaps, too, the practice it afforded in explaining difficulties to others, may even at that age have been useful. In other respects, the experience of my boyhood is not favourable to the plan of teaching children by means of one another. The teaching, I am sure, is very inefficient as teaching, and I well knew that the relation between teacher and taught is not a good moral discipline to either. I went in this manner through the Latin grammar, and a considerable part of Cornelius Nepos and Cæsar’s Commentaries, but afterwards added to the superintendence of these lessons, much longer ones of my own.

Note from KBJ: I know it sounds strange, especially to anyone who hasn’t taught, but the best way to learn something is to teach it. I think that’s why I love teaching: I love learning. For example, even though I’ve been teaching Ethics for many years, I still learn something every time I teach it. As for why this is, I think it’s because, to teach something, you have to get inside it (so to speak). You have to anticipate questions about it; you have to formulate (in advance) different ways to articulate it; you have to explain difficult concepts and distinctions in terms your pupils can understand; and you have to come up with examples to illustrate it. By the way, Mill’s father should have been charged with child abuse for waiting eight years to teach his son Latin.

Here.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re “Larry Craig’s Great Adventure: Suddenly, He’s a Civil Libertarian,” by Adam Cohen (Editorial Observer, Sept. 24):

It is certainly true that Senator Larry Craig joins a sad list of conservatives who found themselves supporting defendants’ rights after themselves becoming defendants. Also true: there is an equally long list of conservatives who have developed a liberal position on other matters when their personal or family circumstance induced them to be, or at least to seem, a bit more broad-minded.

Thus, we have Dick Cheney’s moderate stance on gay rights, Nancy Reagan’s support for stem cell research, Rush Limbaugh’s pseudo-conversion with regard to hard time for drug abusers. These examples make it all the more regrettable that George W. Bush doesn’t have a family member serving in Iraq.

David P. Barash
Redmond, Wash., Sept. 24, 2007

Note from KBJ: Let’s not forget Peter Singer and his mother. The phenomenon the letter writer describes is not limited to conservatives. A progressive, after all, is just a conservative who hasn’t been mugged. (Here is the original saying. I like mine better.) Other examples of progressive conversion to conservatism: (1) your 30-year old daughter—an only child—gets pregnant and wants to abort your grandchild; (2) your spouse is murdered and you want the perpetrator put to death; (3) you win the lottery and all of a sudden oppose the death tax. Feel free to supply other examples. Perhaps we can send them to Mr Barash, who sees only what he wants to see instead of what’s out there. By the way, if it’s regrettable that George W. Bush doesn’t have a family member serving in Iraq, it’s also regrettable that David P. Barash didn’t have family or friends living in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.