Opinion
By Dave Scott, 1-5-24
A discerning young Fernandina Beach student enrolled at Florida State College at Jacksonville demonstrated how much more perceptive she is than the far left indoctrinators that staff that institution anticipated.
“…..and that is the woke theory of how a guy can be a gal.”
This alert young freshman displayed that her thought processes aren’t susceptible to the barrage of woke silliness they spew when she pointed out to her family and friends the irrational nonsense the college was inflicting upon unsuspecting impressionable neophyte students in a course incoming freshmen are required to take.
According to her FSCJ orientation material (https://www.fscj.edu/student-services/first-year-experience) “All incoming Associate in Arts (AA) students are required to take “Strategies for the Pursuit of Knowledge (IDA 107) within their first 15 hours at FSCJ as part of their first year experience (FYE).”
After reading through the material supplied by the school to these young first year students, it’s obvious FSCJ desperately needs to make biology a required course and a prerequisite for the required “Strategies for the Pursuit of Knowledge” class.
The required “Strategies for the Pursuit of Knowledge” course promotes sexual reassignment or transgenderism as normal thereby endorsing this mental disorder as natural when it is anything but.
In a required biology course freshmen students would learn that there are two genetic identifiers which determine sex. Females have the XX chromosome and males have the XY chromosome. At fertilization, the female always contributes an X chromosome, and the male can contribute either the X or Y chromosome. If both sexual partners contribute the X chromosome, the offspring will be female. If the male contributes a Y chromosome, the offspring will be male. That is a scientific biological fact.
The illustration here is a sample of the questions from a quiz the Fernandina Beach student took.
Transgenderism is a mental disorder that merits treatment just like any other mental health disorder. Changing one’s sex is biologically impossible. Putting on a dress and lipstick does not make a guy a gal. A guy can dress and act like a woman, that is his right in a free and tolerant society, but there is nothing that dictates we are required to pretend with him. For example, his DNA remains that of a male and how will he explain prostate cancer to the gals in his bridge club if that occurs?
The transgender movement is part of “wokeism,” a far left ideology that demands that the vast majority embrace their minority view. This is a group that represents less than one-half of one percent of the United States population, an infinitesimal number. There are more members of the Flat Earth Society, a group less strident, but equally confused scientifically and factually.
People, like the author of this textbook and the classroom instructor are promoting transgenderism as normal. It is not.
Following is a passage from Chapter 9, Understanding the Civility and Cultural Competence, from the online text book “Strategies for the Pursuit of Knowledge” that is required for the class:
“More and more, gender is also a diversity category that we increasingly understand to be less clearly defined. Some people identify themselves as gender fluid or non-binary. “Binary” refers to the notion that gender is only one of the two possibilities, male or female. Fluidity suggests that there is a range of continuum of expression. Gender fluidity acknowledges that a person may facilitate between male and female identity.”
If that terminal loopiness wasn’t enough there are also charts displaying “Gender Pronoun Examples” that include made-up words such as “Ze,” Hir/Zir,” Hirs/Zirs,” and “Hirself/Zirself” and examples including: ”Ze is speaking” and “The backpack is zirs,” etc.
While mobs on U.S. college campuses freely and openly threaten, intimidate, harass, and viciously assault Jewish students this FSCJ text cautions against something called “microaggressions” or “inadvertent slights.” Deliberate acts of actual violence and threats are not addressed. Instead it lists categories and examples of “microaggressions” or “thoughts that might distress other students.” Nowhere is chanting “Kill the Jews” and “Hitler was right,” “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea,” vile antisemitic hatred spouted by student and faculty mobs on today’s campuses mentioned.
The entire text reads like something out of the Babylon Bee and proves there are no adults in the room at FSCJ, where mental illness is simultaneously celebrated and encouraged while rampant antisemitism on U.S. college campuses is never mentioned much less denounced.
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Appropriate Adjustments: In order to conform to FSCJ’s required curriculum, adjustments should be made to reflect the school’s identity. For example in the music department song titles and lyrics should be changed to reflect “gender fluidity,” which is described in the school’s textbook?
Based on Table 9.1 in the required text’s Gender Pronoun Examples the pronoun “she” in the following song titles can be changed to “Ze” as in “Ze Loves You”, “Isn’t Ze Lovely,” “There Ze Goes,” “My Baby Ze Left Me,” and so on. As I reread them they might also be interpreted as the drunken musings of a befuddled Inspector Clouseau.
Since bamboozling students appears to be the objective of the required “Strategies for the Pursuit of Knowledge” course, it seems appropriate that FSCJ’s alma mater or anthem should be “I’m My Own Grandpa,” altered somewhat here to fit the required course’s gender identities and to reflect the college’s overall flapdoodlery. Here’s how it goes:
Now, many many years ago
When I was twenty three
I was married to a widow
Who was pretty as could be
This widow had a grown-up daughter
Ze Had hair of red
My father fell in love with zir
And soon the two were wed
This made my dad my son-in-law
And changed my very life
My daughter was my mother
‘Cause ze was my father’s wife
To complicate the matters
Even though it brought me joy
I soon became the father
Of a bouncing baby boy
My little baby then became
A brother-in-law to dad
And so became my uncle
Though it made me very sad
For if ze was my uncle
That also made him the brother
Of the widow’s grown-up daughter
Who, of course, was my step-mother
My father’s wife then had a son
That kept them on the run
And ze became my grandchild
For ze was my daughter’s son
My wife is now my mother’s mother
And it makes me blue
Because, ze is my wife
She’s my grandmother too
Now, if my wife is my grandmother
Then, I am zer grandchild
And every time I think of it
It nearly drives me wild
For now I have become
The strangest case you ever saw
As husband of my grandmother
I am my own grandpa
I’m my own grandpa
I’m my own grandpa
It sounds funny I know
But it really is so
I’m my own grandpa
Hail FSCJ!
***
Speaking Of College. A number of Nassau County service clubs annually provide scholarships to deserving local high school students. Prior to awarding the scholarships interviews are conducted with potential recipients.
The president of one of these organizations related a story to me the other day about a pragmatic young local high school student he interviewed who knew precisely why she wanted the scholarship.
The prospective scholarship recipient had done her research he explained. She had investigated various fields of study, as well as her employment prospects and earnings potential in those fields following college graduation.
She dismissed the sciences including medicine, biology, engineering, etc. Those weren’t her interests, she lacked enthusiasm for them. She said her investigation into the humanities such as sociology, history, performing arts, philosophy, literature, etc. revealed that the time and money required to earn a degree in any of them wasn’t worth the investment. Based on her research college was not her best option.
She told the interviewer that based on her research and her interests she was going to pursue welding, a trade she calculated had an exceptionally high earnings potential in a field that fascinates her. “She didn’t need the scholarship for books and tuition,” he told me. “She said that since the trade school was located in Jacksonville she needed the money for room and board.”
He described the studious young woman as polite, impeccably dressed, exceptionally well spoken, and confident.
She was awarded a $2,000 scholarship.
Can anyone explain to me why, when this this industrious young woman graduates and steps into a job that pays $50,000 annually to start, she should be responsible for her former high school classmates’ student loans because they borrowed tax dollars to get degrees in Puppetry Arts and African-American Studies?
Certain welding job pay $200,000 a year plus depending on the specialty. Show me a humanities graduate making more than $40,000 a year with a degree in philosophy, environmental science, linguistics, ecology, African-American studies, counseling psychology, etc.
***
Copy Cat Bowl Game: I missed the New Year’s Eve Harvard versus the University of Pennsylvania in the Plagiarism Bowl. Claudine Gay, Harvard’s Most Valuable Player, is hoping that her performance will result in a nomination for the United States Supreme Court.
Gay, who is black, is also blaming her exit this week as Harvard’s president on racism. She’s got it backwards. It was racism that got her hired.
Gay, who still earns $900,000 annually as a Harvard instructor, also had an opinion editorial published in the New York Times this week blaming her downfall on racism. Neither she nor the Times revealed who wrote the piece.
***
News Stories I Love: Last month three armed teenagers robbing a check-cashing business in Commerce City, Colorado left their car running outside. Their getaway vehicle was stolen by one of their industry contemporaries, a woman, as the trio committed their robbery. A local news outlet, Denver Westword, reported the incident writing: “CCPD [Commerce City Police Department] said: “It happens to everyone, boys. Because the female car thief took their ride, the armed suspects were forced to flee on foot, and we caught two of them and two of their guns. So ma’am — whoever you are — we’d like to shake your hand. Then slap a pair of handcuffs on it because you’re also facing Motor Vehicle Theft charges.”
***
Drinking, Dining & Dancing: Within the past two months four Fernandina Beach restaurants closed (two this past week) three of them on South 8th Street.
The City of Fernandina Beach’s controversial capacity/impact fees keeps chalking up victims. The latest victim is Colleen Angel and her popular South 8th Street Hillbilly Hot Dog joint that was chased into the county by unreasonable fees. However, the new location in front of Ms. Angel’s “Amelia’s Best Barber Shop” near Sadler and South 8th didn’t provide the visibility or ambience required for the place, and she called it quits a few weeks ago.
The Korean eatery Area 51 Korean Grill at 510 South 8th shuttered about six weeks ago and the building is now for sale for $925,000 and comes with a fully equipped kitchen, dining room, new roof, etc.
The latest casualties are South 8th Street’s Burger King and downtown’s Joes’ 2nd Street Bistro. I‘ll miss Ricky and Marie Pigg’s linen table cloth eatery at Joe’s, particularly their French bouillabaisse one of the best I’ve ever eaten here or in France.
The word “restaurant” is a high compliment for a fast food joint like Burger King and I doubt it’ll be missed by anyone over the age of 16.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
