Muslim Propaganda at the University of Chicago

The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago is Indiana Jones' museum. At least, it is the museum that Indiana Jones would have shipped the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant home to, if only he had been a real person. Not that even the Holy Grail would top the actual collections of the museum by much. Chicago had lots of archaeologists shipping stuff home. Visitors can see the sixteen foot tall human-headed, winged, guardian bull from the palace of Sargon II, the astonishing giant head of a bull made of polished black that guarded the entrance to the Hundred-Column Hall at Persepolis, and an almost equally remarkable bit of Islamic propaganda - written by the museum staff and posted in the section on ancient Megiddo - in which history is rewritten and Mohammed actually travels to Jerusalem. The Muslim propaganda wall plaque is headed:

Land of the Bible. 600 B.C. to the Present. Three Major Religions Grew in the Southern Levant

Right in the headline, the curator mis-states history to satisfy a political agenda. Judaism and Christianity "grew" in the southern Levant (defined by the museum as roughly the territory of modern Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories.) Islam did not. It "grew" in the Hijaz (Mecca and Medina,) nor did the scholars who defined the religion after the death of the Prophet live in the Levant. The plaque continues:

Long after the Canaanites and the Israelites, the Southern Levant has continued to play an important role in the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The golden days of Israel and Judah ended at the hands of the Babylonians with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 586 B.C. and subsequent mass exile of the Israelites. Although many returned to the Southern Levant under the rule of the Persians (529-332BC), they would not soon regain their autonomy. But Israelite religion continued to develop. At the turn of the first millennium AD, several religious sects broke away in response to Roman rule and the local political climate. One of these lines led, ultimately, to the tradition of modern Jewish religion.

Did the curator slip that bit of anti-Jewish sovereignty propaganda under your radar? The Israelites fail to "regain their autonomy" but continue to "develop" as a "religion." This is a standard line of argumentation according to which the Jews cease to be a political community and transition to being a religious community with, consequently, no entitlement to sovereignty.

Written out of history by the Oriental Institute is not only all evidence that the proto-Jewish community in Judea under the Persians at times enjoyed a limited degree of political autonomy, but the entire history and existence of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms. Since one of the strongest arguments that can be made by a national liberation movement is that the group claiming a right to sovereignty has a history of sovereignty, eliminating ancient Jewish kingdoms from the historical narrative reduces the historically based claim to legitimacy of the modern Jewish state, with real political implications.

Having skipped right over two centuries of Jewish political sovereignty in favor of an anti-Zionist story line that has the Jews abandoning political life after the Babylonian exile in favor of developing exclusively as a religion, we come to the advent of Christianity:

Jesus was born into this context, and was hailed by his followers as the Messiah, Son of God.

Fair enough. Scholarly and objective. But when we come to Mohammed, scholarly objectivity disappears.

Six centuries later, the Prophet Mohammed would visit Jerusalem where he would experience his Night Flight and Ascension to heaven.

Only the pious believe that the visit and night flight are actual, historical events. Mohammed's visit and Night Flight is a religious myth or dream, not an actual event. The Prophet never actually visited Jerusalem. The Quran speaks not of a visit to Jerusalem, but of a visit to the "farthest mosque." Scholarly dispute over the event centers around the question of how early the Quranic reference to "the "farthest mosque" came to be interpreted as a reference to Jerusalem. But note the wording of the plaque. Even a museum visitor who does not believe in night flights and ascensions to heaven, will read -- and quite likely accept as fact -- the notion that Mohammed's visit to Jerusalem was an actual, historical event. After all, this is the faculty of the University of Chicago saying that he did.

The assertion that Muhammad actually visited Jerusalem is a political statement which has the effect of making the groundless assertion in the headline -- that Islam grew in the Levant -- appear to be true. If Mohammed did travel to Jerusalem, if he actually set foot on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem becomes one of the places where the religion of Islam "grew." Because one of the arguments made by national liberation movements is that formative events in the history of the group claiming sovereignty took place on the land they are claiming, if we accept that the Prophet visited Jerusalem, the Muslim claim to Jerusalem is strengthened, with real political implications.

The problem with substituting political propaganda for history is that it alters our perceptions of the world, and our perceptions affect the actions we take. Schoolchildren throughout the Muslim world are taught history exactly as it appears on the wall of the Megiddo room in the Oriental Institute. Jesus was a man, not the messiah as his followers believe. The Jews are a religious group, not an historic Levantine nation, (and therefore have no claim to sovereignty.) Mohammed visited Jerusalem, (which makes it Muslim land).

Maybe we need to send Harrison Ford to the University of Chicago in his Indiana Jones hat, to teach the faculty of the Oriental Institute the difference between evidence-based scholarship and political propaganda.

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The Reality of School Corruption

The usual carelessness with taxpayer funds

"Don't confuse the issues with the facts," seems to be a principle that governs too many school boards.It is a major reason why school corruption is so pervasive and why it continues its insidious and unrelenting impact on school budgets. The facts are indisputable that there are not sufficient safeguards or effective monitoring of school operations, procedures and practices nor are there adequate school board policies to prevent and detect corruption.It is much easier to be in denial about the problem in order to protect the system rather than protecting the resources provided by the taxpayers for the education and development of the children.

Statements are often heard from school officials and board members that "there is enough oversight" and that "we have checks and balances."These statements are seemingly credible responses and there is no doubt that many board members and even school administrators believe it.However, it does not withstand the process of verification.For example, school audits do not provide sufficient school oversight.The fact is that the typical school audit is not designed to uncover fraud and stealing and it certainly is not designed to uncover waste and mismanagement.Auditors will tell you that fraud audits take far more time and are more expensive and must be contracted separately.

The Roslyn, LI school district where the superintendent and five others embezzled $11.2 million had its books audited yearly (how it was done so easily is revealed in a separate state audit report). It is a lesson for all school boards to learn from, but denial of the problem and belief that it "can't happen in our school district" seems preferable to facing the reality.

Obviously, the yearly audit did not uncover such a massive theft nor did audits uncover other embezzlement schemes not only on Long Island but in districts all over the country and this is documented in my book: School Corruption:Betrayal of Children and the Public Trust. The fact is that even when some boards were given warnings by auditors that there were financial management irregularities, they were ignored.The Roslyn School Board not only ignored such a warning, but also voted not to inform their insurance carrier that a potential problem existed.This action cost the taxpayers dearly because they lost the insurance coverage that would have protected them from the loss. Furthermore, an audit by the State Comptroller found that the auditing firm did not even follow standard auditing practices (they are now out of business).

What are the other checks and balances?Public scrutiny has worked at times but usually against great odds; however, aren't boards elected for this responsibility?Where are the school policies that address prevention and detection?The public has a right to credible and verifiable answers from every school board.

School officials and school board members have a responsibility to see that all the resources provided for the benefit of the children's education should be used wisely, efficiently, effectively, and be protected from any corrupt acts (cheating and deceit, waste and mismanagement, and fraud and stealing).Unfortunately, corruption is allowed to "fester" in school districts because the opportunities that exist to reduce the children's resources are not identified and addressed by prevention procedures and practices, effective oversight, and comprehensive school board policies.In fact, all of these issues have been identified, documented, and supported in a 348-page grand jury report that has just been released:

"Suffolk County (LI) public school districts have recently been plagued by a series of financial scandals unprecedented in their number and diversity. Although these crimes and misdeeds have ranged in nature from credit card abuse by administrators to the disappearance of grant monies received from the federal and state governments to outright theft, they have also had much in common. Each episode involved malfeasance by lone individuals or small groups.

"The Grand Jury finds that many of the school district administrators entrusted with safeguarding these millions of dollars have been lax in taking adequate steps to prevent theft, fraud and other malfeasance." "And most significantly, each episode arose out of an environment where strong internal controls in school business offices had come to be viewed as optional luxuries and the only consistent, independent watchdogs of school monies were determined private citizens.

Evidently, school audits, checks and balances, and safeguards, purported to be in place in school districts have either been absent or ineffective; instead, it finally took a grand jury to do a thorough job.It is also an example that to find such problems, boards must accept the fact that corruption occurs because the system makes it so easy.It is made easy because boards and administrators do not identify where the opportunities exist for corruption to manifest itself.The reason for this is that they are not only ill-informed about the problem, but even when given the opportunity to be informed, they would rather remain in denial.Only if they know how it happens, where in the district it occurs, who does it, etc. can preventiveaction be taken. When the grand jury looked for the problems, it found overwhelming evidence of corruption that could have just as easily been uncovered by local boards and administrators had they been proactive in combating corruption.

To make matters even worse is that too often the information about financial crimes is hidden from public view by the educational establishment; again, this was confirmed by the grand jury report"

"New York State Department B also employs staff auditors but in fifteen years it has never referred a single case of misconduct to the Special Commission."

Any board that believes that they and the school administration have done all they reasonably can to examine their practices and procedures and identified any opportunities that exist for corrupt acts to take place should be willing to prove it publicly.No excuse should be accepted that what happened on Long Island is not a lesson to be learned by all school boards and administrators because similar problems have occurred all over the country from the smallest to the largest school districts, state departments of education, school unions, U.S. Office of Education, and even associations representing school boards.

Stopping School Corruption:A Manual for Taxpayers (free download at yankeeinstitute.org) lists ten questions that any board should be willing to answer publicly in order to prove that they are fulfilling their responsibilities as fiduciary agents of public funds.Any board that can provide credible and verifiable answers to the questions should be most willing and proud to reveal the results publicly. Why fear to do so when it costs nothing?The fear, of course, is that the results of such a review may reveal facts that may be embarrassing and unpleasant as evidenced by the findings of the grand jury.

For example, is there an asset management program that protects against the loss of school assets?A new study conducted in all 48 contiguous states involving hundreds of school districts revealed that $250,000 in assets is lost each year to theft ($1.5 million in larger districts).In other words, school districts admitted that asset management is a problem; and, obviously, school assets are not being protected very effectively. Finding school assets missing without adequate explanation means that they were stolen and that is an act of corruption.Any school board should be willing to put their asset management program (if they even have one) to a rigorous test (outlined in the Taxpayer Manual). A comparison of the current asset inventory with what was actually purchased (school purchase orders) going back at least five years is a very objective way to prove whether or not corruption has taken place or if the opportunity exists for greedy hands to prevail.Asset management is only the first question to deal with in the Taxpayer Manual.

What training and education have board members received in how to protect school resources and how to maximize school resources?What training and education has been provided to board members for how to review and analyze a school budget?Doesn't the public deserve an answer?In fact, shouldn't board members be asking why they have not received such training and education?

When I suggested in my book that there should be independent auditing committees in every school district, I never thought I would see the day that it would be a reality: "As of January 1, 2006, all school districts (New York State) have an audit committee whose members assist the school board to fulfill its financial oversight responsibilities." This was part of a Five Point Accountability Plan that enacted by legislation and one that should be emulated by every state.

In addition, the grand jury recommended the establishment of an Inspector General Office for Education.The Five Point Plan, the auditing committee requirements, and the IG office are major and monumental steps in preventing and protecting schools resources from corrupt acts.They got it right, but will other states learn from their experience and action?Prevention is certainly preferable to reaction: "School district administrators and boards of education should carefully review the New York State Comptroller's annual reports and apply the lessons therein to their own systems. One of the most frequently cited abuses in these reports involves the reimbursement of employee expenses." School reimbursement expenses are another common source of corrupt acts and this opportunity for corrupt acts to take place prevails in all school districts.

If school corruption were not a pervasive and serious problem, why would New York resort to such drastic and comprehensive legislation?Why should school districts believe that they are somehow immune from similar corruption problems?What would be the results in every state if a grand jury investigated school districts in the same way as it did on Long Island? ........

A serious problem is that the public does not have easy access to information they need and although the information is all-public, and even though there are Freedom of Information requirements, many boards make it very difficult to obtain information:

"The Grand Jury found that taxpayers have no meaningful access to information about the largest school district expenditures - the salaries and enhanced benefits being paid to school district administrators.Remember that this grand jury had subpoena power and a team of auditors combing through thousands of documents, interviewing school officials, all the while clarifying volumes of sophisticated financial data. there has to be a better way to make the average citizen aware of the salaries and perks paid to administrators financed with their tax dollars," said DA Spota."

In conclusion, the following statements from the grand jury report put it all into perspective.

"Many of school districts' recent troubles stem from an overall lack of accountability. Administrators need not vouch for the data they provide to government and private auditors, nor are they held to answer when the numbers do not add up.

"The Grand Jury finds that the presumption that school districts have been in the care of educated professionals selected for their experience and financial knowledge has not stood the test of time.

"Management must show leadership in carefully safeguarding the public resources entrusted to them.To achieve these goals, management must first establish clear policies and procedures that will govern operations, communicate them broadly and then ensure that all employees comply with these policies and procedures."

What is so difficult to understand and what is so difficult to do?It costs nothing to do, not a single penny.What is required is to face the fact that corruption is a systemic and on-going problem so that appropriate actions can be taken. Why don't boards want to know about these problems and issues and how to deal with them?Isn't protecting the children and the resources that are provided for them their most important responsibility rather than protecting the system?Isn't this what they are elected to do? Learning from the mistakes and misdeeds of others, regardless of where they occur, should be a priority of all school board members and school administrators.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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