Pope Center for Higher Education

The Pope Center for Whatever is soliciting students to rate classes so they can weed out mean old faculty members who have political opinions.

If you're a student, or even if you play one on television, please take the survey and report your wild enthusiasm for the mos liberal course you can think of. If the Puppetshow is going to give away $250, let's at least make sure that someone who can actually think wins the prize.

Please forward this to any students you know at Chapel Hill.

A little while ago, I observed that Ms. Jane Shaw, the emerging queen of the Art Pope Puppetshow, had worked herself into a swivet because the mean old faculty at NSCU didn't want the University to take any more of the Puppetmaster's money. Well Ms. Shaw has now taken her case to the Independent, where they've printed her full-fledged defense of the Pope Center for Higher Education.

Shaw's blow-by-blow reporting of all the good and wonderful things about her organization is endearing and admirable. But it doesn't mean squat. Because in the minutia of her defense, the misses the rotten forest for the spindly trees. As I wrote in my first review:

Ms. Shaw appears truly confused as to why professors would dare to question the motives and challenge the integrity of the organization she recently joined. In the face of such confusion, I daresay the new Puppet didn't complete the level of due diligence she should have

What's more surprising to me is that the Independent allowed this commentary by Shaw in the first place. Maybe they needed some filler.

There's a new Puppet lurking in the halls of the Art Pope Puppetshow. Her name is Jane Shaw, and her credentials place her among the upper crust of free-market fundamentalists. With a career spent extolling the virtues of private enterprise (though never actually running a business), it's surprising that she landed in the Pope Center for Higher Education instead of the John Locke Foundation itself. She's infinitely more suited than Stagemanager Hood to be running the whole shooting match for the Puppetmaster. But that's another story.

This week Ms. Shaw slips into her whiniest self over the latest dust-up between the mean old faculty at NC State and Art Pope. As you may recall, a number of NC State professors recently complained about a planned deal between the Puppetmaster and the school. Mr. Pope wanted to buy himself his own private curriculum and the faculty, understandably, has said "no thanks." Now Jane Shaw is accusing the faculty of having a political agenda! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Among all the sideshows funded by Art "the Puppetmaster" Pope, one of the least appealing is the so-called Pope Center for Higher Education. Like the rest of the many-ringed circus, the Pope Center is a haven for people whose facts never get in the way of their ideology.

One amateur Puppet sent a letter to my wife today (anonymously, of course) that violates all decency. The correspondence came following a letter-to-the-editor she sent to the News and Observer when ABC was promoting its hit-piece on Clinton (Path to 9/11). Here's the opening:

I have read with interest your letter to editor in the N&O. I, too, am dismayed and angry ...

If you dare to enter the treasure trove of North Carolina Wingnuts you’ll find – as we say in the military – a target-rich environment. Especially at the Pope-a-dope Center, where ideology trumps intellect at every juncture . . . and liberal thinking is the source of all evil. Take George Leaf, for example (please!) and his dazzling insights on public education.

First the breathtaking generalization to obscure reality and truth:

Today, your typical high school graduate believes that school is just a rather boring, obligatory use of his time that is tolerable only because it leads to the paper credentials necessary to unlock the door to high-paying employment. Put a lot of young people with that attitude in a classroom and a professor has little choice but to water down the material and make sure he keeps the kids entertained.