Cheat Seeking Missiles

his proved to be an interesting week with the Watcher’s Council blogfest, with the usual variety, the usual smarts, the usual clarity - and all unusually good.

Winning on the Watcher’s Council side of things was the Colossus of Rhodey with his post on students’ sense of entitlement, as in, “How did I get a bad grade? I was here!” When I was in school, there was no assumption that just showing up would earn you a good grade, but today kids have tread where we never thought to:

A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.

UCI is a prestigious school with very high entry requirements - hardly Boondocks Community College. Incredible Daughter #1 goes to OC’s other excellent university, Chapman, and said this in response to Rhodey’s post:

The problem with entitlement starts with preschool. From an early age we are all given As and all we have to do is keep them. Suddenly when we hit college, we are all given Fs and have to work our way up from it. It’s a difficult mindset to just shift gears to, especially for people who are just used to getting good grades. I’ve never gotten a grade that I didn’t think I deserved, though. There were some times I was a little upset because I tried hard, but you can’t be mad when you look at the math. If you get a C on all of your tests and they are worth 75% of your grade, then it’ll be tough to get an A, no matter how hard you try.

Love that gal.

The winner on the non-Council side, Michael J. Totten, was dealing with another set of entitlement - Lebanese Nazi’s sense that they’re entitled to beat up anyone who criticizes them, or their swastika-like logo. In this case, the critic was Christopher Hitchins, who defaced a Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) poster in Beirut and ended up beaten and bruised, having been on the receiving end of their sense of entitlement, as chronicled in Christopher Hitchens and the Battle of Beirut.

My feelings about Hitchens go up and down depending on the subject at hand. If it’s faith, I grow tired of him quickly because he sounds so pompous … kind of like I used to sound before my faith came to me, come to think of it. When he talks about world affairs, he gets my attention. But in this story, he was riveting, because he lived out his faith in decency, which just forced him to deface an SSNP sign with its swastika, resulting in:

Christopher was encircled by four or five of them. They were geared up to smash him, and I reached for his hand to pull him away. One of the toughs clawed at my arm and left me with a bleeding scratch and a bruise. I expected a punch in the face, but I wasn’t the target.

Christopher was the target. He was the one who had defaced their sign. One of the guys smacked him hard in the face. Another delivered a roundhouse kick to his legs. A third punched him and knocked him into the street between two parked cars. Then they gathered around and kicked him while he was down. They kicked him hard in the head, in the ribs, and in the legs.

Jonathan and I had about two and a half seconds to figure out what we should do when one of the SSNP members punched him in the side of the head and then kicked him.

After they fled, this conversation ensued:

“The SSNP,” I said, “is the last party you want to mess with in Lebanon. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you properly. This is partly my fault.”

“I appreciate that,” Christopher said. “But I would have done it anyway. One must take a stand. One simply must.”

I with England would listen to its native son and take a stand against the Islamist thugs who are taking advantage of his countrymen’s kindness … or obliviousness.

For all the winners - including my third place win (HEY! I’m entitled to a ribbon here!!), check out the Watcher’s post. And thanks, Watcher, for your superhero-like dedication to this little venture. Don’t worry; we won’t tell anyone what you look like in those tights.

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