tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9069955.post4279465427193933984..comments2023-10-26T08:02:44.948-04:00Comments on Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State: A Sense Of HosleyDon Pescihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11167988001948356357noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9069955.post-92162567389532963852015-05-10T08:42:39.673-04:002015-05-10T08:42:39.673-04:00I don't recall getting much of a Connecticut h...I don't recall getting much of a Connecticut history curriculum in government elementary school 1961-65. Fifty years later the government has degraded its education service even as it has broadened its application to increasingly "special" recipients. Here in Hartford half the students come from homes without English, and I'll bet a good percentage of them couldn't find the Connecticut River on a map. My Italian mailman, Vinnie, came over here after elementaRY, says that part of an Italian education is comprehensive Italian history. Would that we had Mr. Hosley designing a history curriculum for juvenile Nutmeggers.<br /><br />As you say, it's not as if this problem is simply a matter of having a bit less data up in the skull hard drive. We don't know who we are, and if you don't know who you are it's a problem; how are you to act? Put otherwise, cultural happiness and integrity take a hit. We'd be alienated if there were anything there at this point to be alienated from. Mr. Moelling has a good word for our condition; bloodless.<br /><br />The other day a woman called into Bill Bennett's radio show and asked if he'd ever heard of the National Monument to the Forefathers in Plymouth, Ma. He hadn't; nor had I. OK, we are a "nation of immigrants," if you like, but we immigrated into an existing tradition of self-government; a tradition that gets some articulation in our Fundamental Orders. To use Professor Huntington's distinction from "Who We Are," we are, or ought to be, a nation of settlers as well as one of aliens. Look; the Plymouth monument says nothing at all about equality or progress.<br />----------------<br />On the main pedestal stands the heroic figure of "Faith" with her right hand pointing toward heaven and her left hand clutching the Bible. Upon the four buttresses also are seated figures emblematical of the principles upon which the Pilgrims founded their Commonwealth; counter-clockwise from the east are Morality, Law, Education, and Liberty. Each was carved from a solid block of granite, posed in the sitting position upon chairs with a high relief on either side of minor characteristics. Under "Morality" stand "Prophet" and "Evangelist"; under "Law" stand "Justice" and "Mercy"; under "Education" are "Youth" and "Wisdom"; and under "Liberty" stand "Tyranny Overthrown" and "Peace". On the face of the buttresses, beneath these figures are high reliefs in marble, representing scenes from Pilgrim history. Under "Morality" is "Embarcation"; under "Law" is "Treaty"; under "Education" is "Compact"; and under "Freedom" is "Landing".<br />---------------<br />In Confucian philosophy, filial piety (Chinese: 孝, xiào) is a virtue of respect for one's father, elders, and ancestors. The Confucian classic Xiao Jing or Classic of Xiào, thought to be written around the Qin-Han period, has historically been the authoritative source on the Confucian tenet of xiào / "filial piety". The book, a conversation between Confucius and his student Zeng Shen (曾參, also known as Zengzi 曾子), is about how to set up a good society using the principle of xiào (filial piety).peter brushnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9069955.post-22012771409423749462015-05-09T09:05:10.426-04:002015-05-09T09:05:10.426-04:00I often think of how little most residents of CT k...I often think of how little most residents of CT know of the long history (starting with why we are the Constitution State). Although I've lived here for close to 40 years, I do not consider my self as being from CT. Perhaps this is because of the predominant leftist and PC drumbeat. But CT was not such a bloodless or ambitionless state. Once a powerhouse of industry, shipping, innovation it is now a shell of its former self. If you read some of the patriotic sermons of the revolutionary war Yankee ministers, you see really extraordinary people. The early Yankee traders sending fast clippers to China, Quaker whaling ship moguls, tobacco tycoons, machinery geniuses and others made the state wealthy, dynamic and exciting. History can instruct but it has been handcuffed by the endless bitching of the Social Justice crowd. dmoellinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13128088863830769762noreply@blogger.com