The VonFrederick 

Tempus             

February 2008 Volume 5  Issue 2

  Feature Article:

Academic Failure; A Prerequisite for Control?

George A. Torres, MBA, Law Enforcement Specialist, The VonFrederick Group

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson

As the campaign season ramps up politicians are spewing grandiose resumes, misinformation, lies and outrageous promises. I am reminded of media interviews with “average people”, who seem to either believe the politicians or haven’t a clue. Is it selective editing or are that many people clueless? The display of ignorance is frightening. How could so many exhibit such inanity?

Could the answer lie in our education system? Voices of those concerned with academic failure in public education are increasing. Public schools have become liberal indoctrination centers lacking discipline with curriculums that focus on self-esteem and an anti-American agenda instead of teaching the basics of math, English, science, civics and history. The results have been disastrous.

In 2007, the dropout rate for minority students approached 50%. A study of graduation rates in big-city public school districts was sponsored by the Gates Foundation. It found the high school graduation rate in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas and Denver was fewer than 50%, in New York City only 38.9%, in Baltimore 38.5% and in Detroit only 21.7%. In New Orleans a high school valedictorian couldn't graduate because she had failed the math portion of her graduate exit exam five times. 

A small wonder when one examines the teachers and curriculum found in our public schools. A study found 50% of teachers tested failed qualifying verbal and math test. Bill Morgan, a teacher at the Cleveland Elementary School in San Francisco taught his view of Thanksgiving by seizing personal property of his 3rd grade students and telling them they were his because he “discovered them”. In August 2006, a teacher in Stuart Middle School, Louisville, burned two American flags in his class to motivate his students for a freedom of speech assignment. In Illinois School District 126, Prairie Junior High School’s required reading for 8th graders was the profane and age-inappropriate book Fat Kid Rules the World, by K. L. Going. 

Liberals and teacher unions admit academic decline but claim more money will correct the problem. The District of Columbia refutes that claim. It spent $16,334 per student in the 2002-2003, most in the country. Yet, in 2005 its 8th-graders ranked last in national reading and math tests; in 2006 only 12% scored at grade-level proficiency in reading; and only 7% scored grade-level proficiency in math. 

Colleges fare no better. Intercollegiate Studies Institute found knowledge in "civic literacy", consisting of American history, government, foreign affairs and economics is declining most our colleges and universities. Questions that focused on what should be common knowledge were administered to students at 50 colleges. The average freshman correctly answered only 51.7% of the questions and the average senior answered 53.2% correctly. 

An explanation as to why the students had failing scores can be attributed to college professors promoting political agendas and teaching their ideological interpretations in absurd courses. For example, these worthless courses can be found in the English Department at Virginia Tech. Professor Bernice Hausman's English 5454, "Studies in Theory: Representing Female Bodies" includes an assigned reading, "The Anthropometry of Barbie: Unsettling Ideals of the Feminine Body in Popular Culture" and she uses "feminist pedagogy" theory in teaching sex and gender are merely "rhetorical constructs" resulting from cultural experiences. Professor J.D. Stahl's senior seminar, English 4784, "The City in Literature" includes an assigned reading about an urban prostitute who kills herself and a violent man who kills his girlfriend. How about these excursions into intellectualism? VT offered a course in “Contemporary Horror” (attended by the English major and VT shooter Cho Seung-Hui). Professor Paul Heilker examines “The Struggle to Be a Girly-Man in a World of Gladiator Pumpitude". Professor Allen Brizee explores Marxism and suggests the capitalist system exploits millions of people and our role makes us guilty of oppression.

At Occidental College in Los Angeles, one mandated course for freshman is "The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie" as a Marxist critique of capitalism. At Johns Hopkins University a course called "Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll in Ancient Egypt" includes slide shows of women in ancient Egypt vomiting on each other, having intercourse and fixing their hair. Harvard University offers a "Marxist Concepts of Racism" that examines the role of capitalist development and expansion in creating racial inequality.

A small wonder why American students score the highest in self esteem and below the mean in scholastic knowledge, why so many citizens are easily misled by liberal misinformation and buy the false promises. And a small wonder why liberals need control of public education.

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   Exposed Secrets

Eric Chevreuil, Retired Captain, French Military, The VonFrederick Group

In the Navy, Nuclear submarines are the most critical pieces of the inventory because they are totally part of our nuclear deterrence policy. The latest subs have top secret propulsion systems, top secret power plants, top secret communication devices, etc, etc.

Is the Navy paranoid, no! Our deterrence is based on the fact that our submarines are 24/7 cruising the bottom of the ocean, undetected and undetectable, and permanently able to carry a huge nuclear strike, offensive or defensive, on any enemy. MAD, mutual assured destruction! If you hit me, I will still have the power to destroy you thanks to the stealth of my submarines, and to their nuclear payload.

In order for the deterrence to work, our nuclear vector carriers need indeed to be stealthy, undetectable. Everything has a “signature” nowadays. It could be the cavitations created by a propeller, the specific humming of a power plant, the burst transmission of a radio message, the water displacement…

In order for these vital characteristics to be kept secret, well, they need to be classified, and critical pieces of equipment kept away from satellites or people who can take pictures, film or record them.

The USS Virginia is one of our latest nuclear submarines, the crème de la crème. It has been around for about a decade already, or more, and sports such a revolutionary propeller that grants him stealth and credibility... 

Because this propeller has a specific design that allows the sub to move undetected from surface ships during its stealthy patrols around the world, it is common for the Navy to “wrap” it up when the submarine comes to dry docks after a mission. Actually, the wrapping of top secret technology has been a common procedure since World War 2, since the two major powers had started to junk space with spy satellites.

Dan Twohig is a lucky guy, because he discovered something that could have cost him his life in China or North Korea. He lives in North Bend in Washington State, about 25 miles from Seattle. Sick of his commute, he was looking for a closer place to move in last June, and stumbled upon top secret military technology while scrolling over Seattle using Microsoft Virtual Earth program, an application pretty similar to Google earth. The picture is a 2003 caption of the USS Virginia on dry dock at the Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Washington State, also known for housing the largest nuclear weapons arsenal, the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific. On this picture, depicted for all to zoom in, lays the sub with its unwrapped high tech propeller. Dan, a marine buff, posted it on his blog and the news took off and spread on the Internet.

So much for top secrecy, naval deterrence, and trust on your government to do the right thing to protect you!

These applications that allow you to “virtually fly over” towns and country are a blessing for all the bad guys. 

With the picture above, I can figure out point of entry, security, targets, vulnerabilities…I am not a terrorist, so you are fine.

Tomorrow, I can follow you home, get your address, pull out an aerial view of your house, zoom in, and figure out point of entry, security, targets, vulnerabilities for my next home invasion, or to steal the nice Ferrari or the Lexus you were driving…but I am not a robber, so don’t fear me.

How do you like to have everybody and his sister able to peek in your backyard, zoom-in on your house, pull you credit history and interest payments, our Nuclear secrets? I don’t feel good at all.

Just take a look at the pictures and detailed floor plan and financial information on your house www.zillow.com

And by the way….the sub is still there for our pleasure! Can you believe it?

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=ryqjnb4s57d5&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=10352732&encType=1 

Have a nice day and sleep tight. Big brother is looking after you.

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Crime And Violence On Campus: Part V

Dr. Lionel C.M. von Frederick Rawlins, President & CEO, The VonFrederick Group

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It hardly made a ripple in the deluge of violent news gripping the nation, but it was enough to frighten relatively placid San Bernadino. Members of a drug-trafficking gang opened fire with a rifle and 9-mm handguns one evening in 2005 when a stray bullet killed 11 year old Mynisha Crenshaw who was eating dinner with her family. More than 60 shots failed to hit their intended target, a figure in a narcotics sale dispute. 

That scenario of violence against innocent bystanders has been repeated across the nation. The drumbeat of news coverage has made it seem that America is in the midst of its worst epidemic of violence ever. That sense is not supported by the numbers. The latest evidence is that crime levels actually fell in 2006. But that does not mean that 2006 was not one of the scariest years in American history. Overriding the statistics is the chilling realization that the big crime stories of recent months have invaded virtually every sanctuary where Americans thought they were safe: their cars (Francisco Regalado/Joe Malta murders, Los Angeles), their public transit (over ran by gangs and criminals), even their bedrooms (Elizabeth Smart, Utah/Jessica Lunsford, Florida). Gangs have taken root in small towns and suburbs. In addition, a holiday season burst of multiple killings showed how potent modern weapons are and how random the slaughter can be.

The nation has been through any number of anticrime seasons in the past generation. In many of them, the public’s preoccupation with crime rose as citizens’ concerns about the economy subsided – and then waned as economic and terrorism issues regained center stage. Public attitudes are also driven by periodic media orgies of crime coverage. Yet, there are some who believe that the forces gathering behind this season’s effort are different because the threat seems so much graver. There is some hope, too, that a much more serious and comprehensive national attack on crime, violence and terrorism will emerge – and maybe even show real results.

With resources scarce at all levels of government, the best hope for progress against violence is at the local level, where grass-roots organizations are rising up to mount more sophisticated campaigns against street crimes. It does not entail a magic formula; citizens will have to decide whether to sit idly or take up the mantle. Disclosures in hypocrisy and moral laxity infect those in leadership positions from Washington to Wall Street. Although some would maintain that present times have witnessed an impressive revival of moral awareness, with the continuing controversies over abortion, civil disobedience, and capital punishment, all of which give evidence of the eagerness of our society to identify and argue moral issues, probably most observers would agree that there has been over the years, a decline in private and public morality.

The terms morality and ethics have been used interchangeably. This is an inaccurate use of the terms, although the terms are clearly interrelated. Ethics is a philosophy that examines the principles of right and wrong, good and bad. Morality on the other hand, is a practice of these principles on a regular basis, culminating in a moral life. Morality is conduct that is related to integrity. Consequently, while most people may be technically viewed as ethical (by virtue of knowing the principles of right and  wrong) only those who internalize these principles and faith and fully apply them in their relationships with others should be considered moral. There are no areas, perhaps, in which ethical dilemmas are more prominently seen and their mishandling more forcefully placed before the public eye than the American criminal justice system.

It is the role of the criminal justice system to ensure that both justice and due process are delivered to those offenders accused of crime. The players in the criminal justice system have the obligation of  promoting the fair administration of justice. Eternal vigilance is promoted as being part of the price of  liberty. Acting in an ethical manner is a prerequisite to all actions taken within the justice system. In the words of Justice Brandeis, “To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means – to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retribution” (Olmstead v. United States, 1928)

Lawyers are not above the law. They cannot ignore the laws against interrogating citizens, employees of both corporations and small businesses charged with either civil or criminal offenses. Every lawyer must abide by the state licensing authorities’ rules of ethics.No lawyer (prosecuting or defense) is exempt from following the requirements of ethics rule. The American justice system is a system that seeks the truth. Witnesses in cases must be instructed to testify honestly. They cannot be induced to testify in return for some favor or monetary award.Your system is based on fairness at every level of federal, state, and local government. Due process 
must be afforded all; those who are accused of committing a crime, and those found guilty must be adjudicated in a fair and lawful manner.

In any discussion of moral and ethical actions, many issues must be taken into consideration, including how far to go in order to preserve the criminal justice system without doing anything unethical. Laws are the creation of man. Laws have evolved out of a need to resolve human conflict. As such, there are differences and agreements; and, the role ethics and fairness play in the criminal 
justice system leads to continuous debate.

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Tempus Virtuous

Peter died, October 1, 2005, shortly after returning from his tour of duty in Iraq. Today, Memorial Day 2007, my mother, sister-in-law and I visited my brother’s grave to place two American flags: one for my brother’s military service during the Vietnam War as a Navy corpsman and as a Marine, reconnoitering landing sites in North Vietnam.

The second flag on my brother’s grave honored his year-long tour of duty in Iraq with the Army in 2004. 
I was 15 years old when Peter was sent to Vietnam. I received many letters from him during his RR in Thailand. He was young, not yet 20 years and probably feeling immortal. His letters were full of delights he was discovering in Asia and the South Pacific Islands. He would send home pictures of monkeys on his shoulder and of his Navy/Marine buddies. He never shared the horrors of war he witnessed. Thirty years later, my sister-in-law, Peter’s wife mentioned to me he had been seeing a military counselor for his Vietnam experiences, before his deployment to Iraq. In 1969, as a naval corpsman, he was on the battle field, where ever that may have been. Little did he know that the Viet Cong was targeting corpsmen? The Vietnam War was a bloody battle without a front and medical assistance was persona non gratis. At least that is how Viet Cong saw it and deliberately dishonored medical aid as specified in the Geneva Convention. According to the Geneva Convention, “The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for. An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict. 
The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.

 The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict. 
Again, the Viet Cong did not honor the Geneva Convention rules established during WWII. The same goes with the Iraq War. Terrorists have their own agenda, a bizarre and twisted ideology; they are extremists and use Islam as their foundation. Terrorism has no foundation of faith, save for a hatred for those who do not believe as they do…get rid of any one who opposes their anarchy. Much like Hitler’s regime, and the Viet Cong.

My brother was raised understanding we are unconditionally loved. Our parents modeled this ideology. Peter was our eldest brother and a man who literally would take his own shirt off his back for another person who did not have shelter or clothing.

When we were very young Peter would bring home sickly animals that needed food and shelter. Along with Peter, my parents would nourish the animal--usually a domesticated and discarded dog or cat and/or a wild-life creature that its parent pushed out of the nest
.
Peter’s letters from Vietnam were legendary. Even better, with new electronic technology he was able to cell-phone or e-mail our family members during his tour in Iraq. His siblings, my parents, myself included, as well as his wife and children sent care packages per his request while in Iraq during 2004. We all knew the packages were not for him, but for others in greater need. Peter was in Iraq, serving his country, but serving his fellowman as well. We understood there were no boundaries, geopolitical, ideological or theological—we are all to serve one another. The following is an excerpt from a letter Peter wrote to our father, dated October 2003. 

“Dear Dad, …our mission to Iraq was hauling vehicles for a civil affairs unit. Sunday we departed early 5 a.m. heading north to Fallujah…in the Sunni triangle. (Dad) the candy you had sent me was passed out to the children of Falluja. Most people are if not friendly at least tolerating us especially when we make their kids happy…”

A few months after his return from the Middle East Peter required surgery at his Army base In Texas and subsequently died of a massive coronary. On his headstone it reads: “Our Beloved Warrior.”

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Did You Know? Michelle Glisan Blevins         

• That Vanuatu is a country consisting of a group of over 80 islands, many of which have active volcanoes

• That on the island of Tanna a ‘cargo cult’ began in the 1930s after contact with American servicemen and war matériel; known as the John Frum movement it is active to this day

• That a majority of Ni-Vanuatu speak one of the more than 100 local languages

• That lap-lap is a traditional pudding-like food made from grated vegetables mixed with coconut milk; on special occasions flying fox or other meat may be added

The Ni-Vanuatu flag has two equal horizontal bands of red (top) and green with a black isosceles triangle (based on the hoist side) all separated by a black-edged yellow stripe in the shape of a horizontal Y (the two points of the Y face the hoist side and enclose the triangle); centered in the triangle is a boar's tusk encircling two crossed namele leaves, all in yellow

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Benjamin Lee Whorf

April 24, 1897 to July 26, 1941

Benjamin Lee Whorf graduated with a Bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and by profession was a fire suppression engineer for the Hartford Fire Insurance Company- yet he is known for being a linguist. Whorf studied linguistics at Yale under Edward Sapir and together they developed the Sapir-Wharf Hypothesis, a person’s thoughts and behaviors are influenced by the language they speak. Whorf stated, “all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated.” (Wikipedia-Whorf (Carroll; Ed.); 1956: pp. 212–214) Whorf died of cancer at the age of 44, his works were published posthumously. 

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How To Survive If Your Food Is Being Poisoned 

1. Induce vomiting. 
   Regurgitating the agent before it can be absorbed into the bloodstream will help to reduce its effects. If you cannot force yourself to vomit, take 1 tablespoon of syrup of ipecac, followed by a glass of water, soda, or juice. (Do not drink mile.) Vomiting should occur within a few minutes. If it does not, follow with a second tablespoon of the ipecac.  

2. Take activated charcoal. 
   Drink a single, premixed container of activated charcoal slurry, or mix the powder with the proper amount of liquid (follow the instructions on the package) to absorb the poison. Do not take activated charcoal within 30 minutes of taking ipecac, or while vomiting is still occurring. Activated charcoal is most effective whtn administered in an emergency room.

3. Test food and drink promptly. 
   Take your meal to a lab and have it tested. Once the toxins are identified, an antidote, if available, and treatment can be administered. However, some exotic poisons such as dioxin, mercury, and other heavy metals may be difficult or impossible to detect, especially in low concentrations. 

4. Seek medical attention promptly. .
   Call the local poison control center as soon as possible. Some remedies can be prescribed over the phone, without an examination. With an examination and blood, urine, and other tests, health-care professionals can determine the effects of the poison on your body. 

Be Aware

	Poisons may be sedatives (or mixed with sedatives) to induce loss of consciousness. If you pass out but wake up later, do not assume the poison has worked its way out of your system..
	A percolating drink— or one that appears to be foaming or releasing quantities of odd-smelling gas—should be avoided. The chemical agent phosgene, for example, is an odorous poisonous gas at room temperature but may be a liquid when cooled.
	Depending on the agent, poison may be absorbed into the bloodstream in seconds or minutes.

In sufficient concentrations, several common poison agents are relatively easy to detect in food or drink, based on their odor. These include: 

• Arsine
  Type: blood agent
  Odor: garlic
  Timing of Symptoms: minutes or hours
  Symptoms: may include headache, dizziness, difficulty breathing, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and bloody urine 

• Chlorine
  Type: choking agent
  Odor: bleach
  Timing of Symptoms: seconds to minutes 
  Symptoms: may include headache, nausea, weakness, and loss of consciousness (when ingested in high doses)

•  Cyanide
  Type: choking agent
  Odor: bitter almonds
  Timing of Symptoms: seconds to minutes
  Symptoms: may include headache, nausea, weakness, anxiety, and loss of consciousness

• Hydrogen Chloride
  Type: blood agent
  Odor: acrid, metallic
  Timing of Symptoms: seconds to minutes
  Symptoms: may include eye and skin irritation, fluid in the lungs, and blue skin (in high doses) 

• Phosgene
  Type: choking agent
  Odor: decaying fruit
  Timing of Symptoms: 1 to 24 hours
  Symptoms: may include burning eyes, sore throat, cough, and chest tightness 
  

(Piven and Borgenicht)

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The VonFrederick Group

Phone: (877) 207-1300
Fax:     (916) 488-7531
Email:

Dr. Lionel C.M. VonFrederick Rawlins
Lionel@VonFrederick.com

George A. Torres, MBA
George@VonFrederick.com

Eric Chevreuil
Eric@VonFrederick.com

Pat McLane
Pat@VonFrederick.com

Albert Globus, MD
Al@VonFrederick.com

General Clifford L. Stanely, Ph.D.
Cliff@VonFrederick.com

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reading at VonFrederick.com

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