WMD Forum

[fstolz]

Major, you are indeed, an erudite and eloquent writer! I dos so enjoy reading your material.........and it doesn't hurt that I agree 100%!

Just a quick story........I recall once meeting with a dean of the dept.,at a school at which I taught. She was of Hispanic background and was quick to show me a copy of her doctoral dissertation that she kept in her office on campus. Her PhD was in education. I could not help but compare her work with the MA thesis I'd done at UCD for an intertidal, biogeographic study. I had 20 pages in my biblio. alone; hers had not quite 3. I had statistics galore, tables, graphs, charts, and color photographs of my research area and specimens, she had hand drawn [not even computer generated] stick figures to depict youngsters....the only graphics, period. She laughed as she told me she'd finished the 37 pages in 6 months and the program in 2.5 years.......I suspect she was fully aware of what she'd gotten away with, and was happy as a clam nonetheless. I was working part-time [though admittedly, by choice, as I also taught our children at home] while she was dean of a community college......leading and guiding those who believed she might make a difference in their education.

It is your niece, isn't it who is working on her doctoral degree? Yes, you have every right to be proud of her, for she is doing more than most for her degree. Her ability with languages as well as history and art give her a much broader knowledge base than many-to-most who work on advanced degrees, who instead are exquisitely specialized. For those whose focus is so precisely defined, does in depth conversation about anything else even occur? Can they even speak standard English? Do they play a musical instrument? Or discuss philosophical points? Does it even matter to them?

I recall my maternal grandparents and their friends. None held PhD's. Some were physicians, one or two were attorneys; my Grampa was a high school principal....but what I recall...and this was as a young child in the 50's.....I remember that when they got together at my grandparents they all seemed such fascinating people!....not discussing their specialization, but rather, art, history,hunting, woodworking, music....indeed, there were 6 men [my Grandfather, and another of whom was my great uncle who owned a shoe store] who would sing opera and neighbors would call my grandmother asking her to open the windows so that they could listen! Oh politics too, were bandied about, but what I remember thinking, especially in contrast to many whom I met later in life, is that those people had such broad, rich, and varied stores of knowledge.........and were so terribly interesting!!

No matter what the degree, or not, it is the individual who has taken on the world to learn as much as one can...to extract as greatly and broadly as possible, and then goes about it, is truly the fascinating person and one worthy of further attention...especially if he/she doesn't believe so! There aren't a great many it seems. I believe you are one such fellow, Major...many talents, many abilities, humility, and strong faith, and having served our Great Nation...and you are able to write so wonderfully well and expressively, supporting points that you make.

Good grief, I've gone on!

I hope my compliments [for it is n-o-t flattery] aren't troubling to you....my Mother always told me that if something good may be said of someone, to certainly do so....and so I have...nothing more.

Best,
Barbara



On Tue, Frank Stolz wrote:

Col. S: I am not in the least opposed to individuals attaining a PhD, and in fact I admire them as I am fully aware of the time and effort required to obtain a PhD. And so if for nothing else, they have to be admired for their proven cleverness at research, or in their ability to take tests, and in their tenacity in completing a very long Doctoral program, which often times is in a very specialized area. That said, a lot of a PhD program is based on research and thus to varying extents on plagiarizing or quoting the works of others, and so not necessarily based on the brilliance or innovativeness and ideas of the individual PhD candidate. So I just want others to know that I do very much appreciate higher levels of education and those who obtained an educational degree that is not that simple to obtain, and regardless of how smart one might be. However, in the above I do not include those whose PhD degrees were almost prejudged because of adhering to the correct ideology or set of beliefs, and regardless of the actual work submitted.

We frequently find news reports of those sporting either fake PhDs or some that can't write a proper sentence or paragraph that makes any sense. And so some were obviously allowed so much leeway, as to make one wonder how they ever obtained an undergraduate degree or completed High School. In some cases, some minority students are almost allowed a free pass as far as actual difficult studies are concerned, and high grades are sometimes awarded even though the work submitted is obviously below par. This takes place when those usually of the liberal bent determine that in order to either encourage minorities to excel in academics, they needed to have more examples of minority people possessing senior degrees, and so much leeway is and was taken to make quotas rather than to grade according to the individuals knowledge and intelligence.

I am quite proud of a family member who is in a Doctoral program, and in order to even be accepted into the program she was required to learn both French and German as secondary languages, and for the purposes of being able interpret and read the newer as well as the older forms of those languages, since she will eventually become a curator of art museums or galleries. And so her knowledge of the history and dates of works of art, must be something that she can speak about during speaking engagements and also to be able to research in the language of the Western artists of the various periods, which she will have to know in order to be hired and be successful in her future endeavors. While I love her dearly and will respect her title of Doctor when she receives it, I would not want her running major government programs, outside of perhaps the fraud units in the FBI , or Secret Service, or some such government entity. A Doctorates degree in theology, sports administration, Black Studies, Indian Studies, Archeology, Entomology, Dentistry, or even Medicine, does not necessarily make one a good or knowledgeable leader of others, or a business administrator with knowledge and experience in the various facets of that kind of required expertise, yet many seem to believe that possessing a doctorates degree qualifies a person for any assignment given within our governmental agencies and departments.

Here are the credentials of Mike Brown (former hear of FEMA under the newly formed Department of Homeland Security http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/government/brown-bio.html, and Paul Bremer, a former State Department "hot shot" and also former Ambassador to Iraq, before being relieved of his duties as was Brown of his FEMA position. If you read the biographies of these people they both seem eminently qualified to the positions that they once held, but neither was considered a good or inspiring leader, or with having any particular great knowledgeable in the specific jobs to which they were assigned. Bright men both-yes, qualified for the positions assigned-no. Yet many like these two arrogant and in my view unwise people were placed in positions in which they were not suitably qualified, yet some relied on their academic credentials rather than on their leadership and common sense qualifications.

Madeline Albright, the Former Secretary of State, has excellent academic credentials as seen in this link: http://www.answers.com/topic/madeleine-albright yet had to be informed by a reporter that her family was Jewish, while this "smartest woman in the world" didn't even seem to know her own heritage. The same can be said of Hillary Clinton, who also was given the same moniker as "smartest woman in the world," and yet could not pass the NY State Bar after several attempts, and finally passed the Arkansas Bar Exam. My point is and has been that there are many academically bright folks, such as those who can tell you who the King of Persia was in 1250 BC and what he did during his reign. But that does not by any means make them an instant "expert" on contemporary Iran, or on how to fight a war or insurgency in that region, or for that matter in most in any other region of the world. Unfortunately, many are bedazzled by the term "Doctor" used by almost all PhD recipients, and so many are inclined to believe that anyone holding those credentials can manage almost any assignment or task given, and even if it has little to do with the subjects they once majored in or became proficient scholars on. Today in the DoD and many other U.S. Government agencies, people sporting PhDs are tripping over one another and many have been shot to the top of their differing agencies or departments even though their leadership and business, economic, historical, and/or financial acumen, experience, and knowledge is badly lacking or non existent.

While I do admire those who went on to attain a PhD, I am not awe struck by them as are so many others are both in and out of government as well as within our own military forces. If we look at the backgrounds of military leaders like Generals' Washington, Jackson, Grant, Lee, Pershing, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Patton, Arnold, or Admirals like Nimitz, Halsey, Radford, etc, none possessed a PhD, and yet accomplished more than anyone could ever have imagined during WWI and WWII. On the political side, Lincoln was self taught while Truman never got past High School, yet they became some of the most revered of our Presidents while using common sense, as opposed to today's PhD dazzling models, theories, new or old ideologies, and concepts that never seem to work or work well after implementation. My complaints are not that we have PhD holders in our various government agencies and departments, but rather my compliant is the very large numbers of them, and who might well be better employed at a university or college rather than in an arena which is far removed form their particular specialties.

Granted, probably none of the above named individuals, could off the top of their head state who the Persian King was in 1250 BC and what he did. But they did know how to defeat enemy fleets, disembark large armies on hostile or foreign shores, or cross the Rhine or invade Japan had the latter assaults been required. It also took a lot of soul searching and guts during the Revolutionary War for Washington to take on the largest Army in the world , and for Lincoln to somehow manage to contain a National Civil War, or for Truman to end to a War through the use of Atomic weapons. Furthermore, as far as the above individuals were or are concerned, they probably could not explain the meaning of various words like: pedicular, spandrel; ukase;, lapidate; eschatology; satrap; oblate; etc. But they sure could fight a war or run a conquered country, and often times regardless of how well or poorly their underlings and subordinates performed.

It is bad enough in my view that some acquire a PhD in subjects that some of us wonder why a PhD would ever be offered for such fields, but then their are the phonies who faked their degrees like Ward Churchill see: http://diplomamillnews.blogspot.com/2009/04/colorado-campus-divided-over-acquitted.html , or the two State Department husband and wife team found to have plagiarized their PhD degrees writings and orals on of all things "The Marine Corps in the Banana Wars of the early 20th century." Doctoral programs abound and here are but a few: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Doctoral_degrees . For Stanford University here is their guidance for PhDs at : http://gap.stanford.edu/6-1.html . Again I will restate I respect and admire senior academic degree holders for their achievement and years of work, but I do not view them as Omni-knowledgeable beings. Rather I see them as individuals who hold very specialized degrees in various fields of endeavor, and who accomplished that which only a very small percentage of our nations citizens have completed. It would be impossible for me to admire someone like Bill Ayers, both terrorists and bomb maker/planter, and now supposedly working as a distinguished Professor. I also am in accord with the comments sent by Col. S, as well as the article he forwarded below as they are both in agreement with my own line of reasoning.-VRS-
-Stolz Sends-
www.WMDTERROR.com

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From: PCol Adolf SGAMBELLURI
To: Maj Frank Stolz USMC (Ret)
Subject: TOO MANY PHDs TRYING TO HAVE US SOCIALIZE TO THEIR LIKING...GIVE ME A C STUDENT WITH COMMON SENSE

AS I WAS READING THIS, FRANK... MY FIRST THOUGHT CAME TO MIND AND IT WAS YOU WHO WAS ALWAYS GIVING THE CAVEATE THERE ARE TOO MANY PHDS "trying to tell us how to run things." THIS THESIS BELOW IS A GOOD ANALOGY COMPARED TO THE THIS Ret. COL STUDENT WITH A AND C GRADES...OBVIOUSLY COMING OUT THE BETTER. HEHEHEHE.

A Plague of ‘A’ Students
Why it’s so irksome being governed by the Obami.
BY P. J. O'Rourke
May 3, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 31

Barack Obama is more irritating than the other nuisances on the left. Nancy Pelosi needs a session on the ducking stool, of course. But everyone with an ugly divorce has had a Nancy. She’s vexatious and expensive to get rid of, but it’s not like we give a damn about her. Harry Reid is going house-to-house selling nothing anybody wants. Slam the door on him and the neighbor’s Rottweiler will do the rest. And Barney Frank is self-punishing. Imagine being trapped inside Barney Frank.

The secret to the Obama annoyance is snotty lecturing. His tone of voice sends us back to the worst place in college. We sit once more packed into the vast, dreary confines of a freshman survey course—“Rocks for Jocks,” “Nuts and Sluts,” “Darkness at Noon.” At the lectern is a twerp of a grad student—the prototypical A student—insecure, overbearing, full of himself and contempt for his students. All we want is an easy three credits to fulfill a curriculum requirement in science, social science, or fine arts. We’ve got a mimeographed copy of last year’s final with multiple choice answers already written on our wrists. The grad student could skip his classes, the way we intend to, but there the s.o.b. is, taking attendance. (How else to explain this year’s census?)

America has made the mistake of letting the A student run things. It was A students who briefly took over the business world during the period of derivatives, credit swaps, and collateralized debt obligations. We’re still reeling from the effects. This is why good businessmen have always adhered to the maxim: “A students work for B students.” Or, as a businessman friend of mine put it, “B students work for C students—A students teach.”
It was a bunch of A students at the Defense Department who planned the syllabus for the Iraq war, and to hell with what happened to the Iraqi Class of ’03 after they’d graduated from Shock and Awe.


The U.S. tax code was written by A students. Every April 15 we have to pay somebody who got an A in accounting to keep ourselves from being sent to jail.

Now there’s health care reform—just the kind of thing that would earn an A on a term paper from that twerp of a grad student who teaches Econ 101.

Why are A students so hateful? I’m sure up at Harvard, over at the New York Times, and inside the White House they think we just envy their smarts. Maybe we are resentful clods gawking with bitter incomprehension at the intellectual magnificence of our betters. If so, why are our betters spending so much time nervously insisting that they’re smarter than Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement? They are. You can look it up (if you have a fancy education the way our betters do and know what the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary is). “Smart” has its root in the Old English word for being a pain. The adjective has eight other principal definitions ranging from “brisk” to “fashionable” to “neat.” Only two definitions indicate cleverness—smart as in “clever in talk” and smart as in “clever in looking after one’s own interests.” Don’t get smart with me.

The other objection to A students is what it takes to become one—toad-eating. A students must do what teachers and textbooks want and do it the way teachers and texts want it done. Neatness counts! A students are very busy.

Such brisk apple-polishing happens to be an all-too-good preparation for politics. This is because a student’s success at education and a politician’s success at politics are measured mostly by input rather than outcome. Yes, one got elected. Yes, the other became class valedictorian. But to what end? It can take decades to measure the outcome of an education. Did the A student at architecture school become a respected partner at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, or did he become Albert Speer? Likewise with politics. Did Woodrow Wilson’s meddling in Europe wreak havoc upon the globe? We wouldn’t know for 20 years. Did Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal totally destroy the fabric of American society? We’re not absolutely certain even now. Meanwhile Woodrow Wilson, FDR, the class valedictorian, and Albert Speer were inputting like crazy.

The C student starts a restaurant. The A student writes restaurant reviews. The input-worshipping universe of the New York Times is like New York itself—thousands of restaurant reviews and no place we can afford to eat.

Let us allow that some intelligence is involved in screwing up Wall Street, Washington, and the world. A students and Type-A politicians do discover an occasional new element—Obscurantium—or pass an occasional piece of landmark legislation (of which the health care reform bill is not one). Smart people have their uses, but our country doesn’t belong to them. As the not-too-smart Woody Guthrie said, “This land was made for you and me.” The smart set stayed in fashionable Europe, where everything was nice and neat and people were clever about looking after their own interests and didn’t need to come to America. The Mayflower was full of C students. Their idea was that, given freedom, responsibility, rule of law and some elbow room, the average, the middling, and the mediocre could create the richest, most powerful country ever.

Thus in America nobody loves a smart-ass. What’s interesting about Obama is that he didn’t start out being one. Lips (and academic records) are sealed at Occidental College and Columbia, but Obama doesn’t seem to have been an A student as an undergraduate. He learned to “make it or fake it” at Harvard Law where he graduated magna cum laude. Worse than an A student is somebody pretending to be one, witness Al Gore.

However, perhaps I should hold my tongue and temper my ire. I have just received my junior high school daughter’s report card. She’s an A student. I questioned her, and it turns out so is every one of her girlfriends including the numbskull jock and the complete feather-brain who’s besotted with Justin Bieber.

I can’t imagine what kind of input my daughter’s school is measuring (although I assume my daughter delivers it via Twitter). But when input is valued enough, America turns into that blissful land of social justice so desired by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barney Frank—outcomes are equal at last. I’m old-fashioned in my criticism of Barack Obama. He graduated from Harvard Law in the 1990s, barely yesterday. I’d forgotten the wonderful progressiveness of the American educational system. We’re all A students now.

P.J. O’Rourke, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, is author, most recently, of Driving Like Crazy.

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Col. Adolf Sgambelluri, USMC Ret.
Semper Fidelis
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Excelsior! Per ardua ad astra!

B. Batterson-Rossi
Knowledge Management Coordinator,
Infragard San Diego Member's Alliance, an FBI-Affiliated 501(c)3 Corporation

Graduate Student, San Diego State University, Homeland Security, M.S. Program

Adjunct Assoc. Prof.
Cuyamaca College
Dept. of Science & Engineering
Physical Geography, Geology, Earth Science & Oceanography
BBattersonRossi@gmail.com
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Major Frank Stolz, USMC (Ret)