No One Asked Me But… (May 24, 2023)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… Recently I spent three days in Southern California: So. Cal. as it is referred to by the natives. I went there to attend the graduation of my granddaughter from California State University, Long Beach also known as “The Beach.”

If a girl graduates from “The Beach” does this make her a daughter of “The Beach”, and if a boy graduates from “The Beach” does he become a son of “The Beach”?

California State University, Long Beach is a public research university on a 322-acre campus and is the second largest university in the California State University system. One is almost overwhelmed by the size of the campus. More students attend “The Beach” than the population of Virgin Valley and Moapa Valley combined. Just the graduating class of 2023 totaled 12,000 students, causing the University to break down graduation into the nine colleges making up the University. It took three days to graduate all 12,000 students.

When one considers this is only one university throughout the United States, the college degree does not seem to be the unique educational achievement that it once was. The college degree seems to be as common as the high school degree.

No one asked me but… Here is an interesting note I happened to run across somewhere in my days as a history teacher. It is the eighth-grade final exam in Salina, Kansas in 1895. According to a Smokey Valley Genealogical Society document this exit exam for eighth graders took five hours to complete and covered the following areas of study: Grammar, Arithmetic, United States History, Orthography, and Geography. Each category had 7-10 questions the student had to successfully answer.

Here are some examples of the questions. see how you would do:
• Grammar Question 2: Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications. Question 4: What are the principle parts of a verb?

Arithmetic Question 1: Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic. Question 4: District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month and have $104 for incidentals? Question 6: Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months at 7 percent.

U.S. History Question 8: Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography Question 3: What are the following, and give an example of each: trigraph, subvocal, diphthong, cognate letters, lingual.

Geography Question 1: What is climate? Upon what does climate depend? Question 6: Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.

It causes one to take a different prospective on what an eighth-grade education meant at that time. That would have been my grandfather’s class. My biological father had an eighth-grade education and the man who raised me had a high school education. I would suggest that a high school education in their day was the equivalent to, or better than, a college education today.

No one asked me but… A trip to So. Cal. would not be complete if it did not cause one to wonder why anyone would want to live there.

According to Google Maps, it is about 284 miles from Las Vegas to Long Beach, California. The app told me it is a four-and-a half hour drive. Apparently, those who created this App have never made the trip and therefore based this estimate on the seventy mile per hour speed limit. They did not seem to understand that the Cajon Pass is a 19.7 mile-long parking lot.

In Spanish, the word cajón refers to a box. This box is jammed full of cars and semi’s all traveling at anywhere from zero to 20 miles per hour. We averaged less than 50 miles per hour on this trip. This area was merely a prelude to the freeway systems of Southern California.

I have never seen so many automobiles in one place at one time in my life. It makes one wonder how the legislators of California have concluded they can push enough water from Lake Mead to turn the turbines to produce enough electricity for all of the electric vehicles they are requiring the citizens of the state to acquire in the next ten years.

I understand that these eco-nuts are hoping to turn the State of Nevada into one large solar farm to help meet their needs, but we are talking about a state that cannot even produce enough power to keep from suffering from brown outs throughout the state today. Call me selfish but I cannot bring myself to conserve water so that the people in California can indulge their idiocy.

They have a bill proposal in their legislature to ban all diesel-powered vehicles in the state in the next few years. One must wonder how they plan to transport the goods coming into their harbors daily without the diesel trucks and trains they are planning to ban throughout the state.

If electric vehicles are practical and sustainable, why does the government have to bribe people with a $7,000 tax credit to purchase one? The same might be asked of the solar panels to powers one’s house.

Before you scream “Luddite”, let me assure you that as soon as someone comes up with an optimal system to replace petroleum-based products I am all aboard. I am sure there were those who screamed idiocy when the country move from whale oil to gas for their lamps. However, it is ludicrous to step off the cliff without knowing where one would land.

No one asked me but… Just an observation, we saw a large public high school in Long Beach. It had a beautiful open campus. There was no chain link fence surrounding the campus, it did not appear to be overly saturated with cameras. It’s landscaping was inviting.

This is a great contrast to the present look of Moapa Valley High School which has taken on the appearance of, at best, a medium security prison.

I am aware of the concerns of the parents and the District, but the bad guys have already won if our school no longer looks like an inviting place for our students but a holding tank for our young.
Maybe we could open the campus just a little bit and make it the inviting place for the students and the community that it was before the mass panic.

Thought of the week…Graduation is a ritual event where they award you a diploma in the hope that you have learned enough to be able to read it.