A day without fishing is called...

...prom!

Quote of the Day (thanks MS)

Motivation is everything. You can do the work of

two people, but you can't be two people. Instead,

you have to inspire the next guy down the line

and get him to inspire his people.

Lee Iacocca

Quote of the Day

An expert is a person who has made all the

mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.

Niels Henrik David Bohr

Quote of the Day

No man will make a great leader who wants to

do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.

Andrew Carnegie

Quote of the Day

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt

until they are too strong to be broken.

Dr. Samuel Johnson

Christina Hoff Sommers

Guys, get to know a feminist named Christina Hoff Sommers.

Don't worry, she's not the Donna "Tornado" Lopiano type.

Sommers is one of those normal feminists (the kind that simply want equality) that points out the harm radical feminists (the kind taking revenge on their evil male oppressors) have done.

She wrote The War Against Boys in 2001. You can get the book on Amazon here.

I remember reading about it while I worked in administration. She pointed out the very things that I was seeing first-hand on my 4th/5th grade campus.

You can read an article by the same title from the May 2000 Atlantic Monthly here.

She probably has to don a Kevlar vest whenever she attends conferences.

We've all seen what the radicals have done to athletics. If you're a regular reader, you know their next target is engineering.

Remember New Application for Title IX back in March?

Sommers had just written Why Can't a Woman be More Like a Man? Yes, I joked that she should have paid more attention in high school health class. Sorry, but it was a line I just couldn't pass up.

Her latest article warns that applying Title IX to engineering (in the same way it's been applied to athletics) would be disastrous.

The Gender-Equity Hammer Comes Out

Title IX at the door

Women have surpassed men in most areas of education, but men continue to be more numerous in fields like math, physics, and engineering. For more than a decade, feminist groups have been lobbying Congress to address the problem of gender “injustice” in the laboratory. Their efforts are finally bearing fruit. Federal agencies are now poised to begin aggressive gender-equity reviews of math, science, and engineering programs. Groups like the National Organization for Women must be celebrating — but American scientists should brace themselves for the destructive tsunami headed their way.

Read the entire article here.

Title IX Used Against...Young Women?

What a mess Title IX has turned into!

It was originally supposed to allow for equal opportunities. Things like comparable sports offerings, facilities, equipment, coaching, etc. are what it should be all about.

Instead, it's been used in all sorts of ways that were never intended.

The dad of a girl in Nevada is using Title IX so his little baby won't have to choose between two sports.

Nevada doesn't have a true state championship in girls' soccer. That's because different parts of the state have their soccer season's at different times of the year. They've been trying to remedy that situation by moving the entire state to a fall soccer season.

Eric Johnson is trying to block the move, citing Title IX. It seems that his daughter, Emma, wants to play both volleyball and soccer. Moving soccer to the fall would mean she'd have to make a choice between the two.

Emma Johnson participated in soccer and volleyball as a freshman this school year but would have to choose between the two sports if soccer were moved to the fall.

If girls soccer moved to the fall, the only sports available to girls during the winter season would be basketball and bowling. Boys would have basketball, bowling and wrestling, and the Johnsons claimed that would violate Title IX.

Read more here.

What about all the young ladies who want a state soccer tournament? I'd be willing to bet that many of them aren't all that happy with what Title IX has become...

Quote of the Day

If you begin by saying, "Thou shalt not lie,"

there is no longer any possibility of political action.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Quote of the Day

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves,

and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Edmund Burke

Quote of the Day

The first duty of society is to give each of its

members the possibility of fulfilling his destiny.

When it becomes incapable of performing

this duty it must be transformed.

Alexis Carrel

Quote of the Day

A desk is a dangerous place

from which to view the world.

David John Moore Cornwell (a.k.a. John le Carré)

Quote of the Day

There are two educations. One should teach us

how to make a living and the other how to live.

John Adams

Quote of the Day

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

Derek Bok

Bottom Line: Title IX Quotas are BAD!!

Quote of the Day

It is difficult to say what is impossible,

for the dream of yesterday is the hope

of today and the reality of tomorrow.

Dr. Robert H. Goddard

Quote of the Day

In order to become the master,

the politician poses as the servant.

Charles De Gaulle

Quote of the Day

In order to be irreplaceable

one must always be different.

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel

Quote of the Day

Ambition drove many men to become false;

to have one thought locked in the breast,

another ready on the tongue.

Sallust

Quote of the Day (thanks MS)

Hard work spotlights the character of people:

some turn up their sleeves, some turn up

their noses, and some don't turn up at all."

Sam Ewing

Title IX Rant: The way you like it - all over the map!

Title IX activist Janet Judge "helped" URI with their decision on cutting men's swimming.

Many of these activists aren't concerned with equal opportunities, which is what Title IX is supposed to be all about. Instead, they use Title IX as a weapon in their bid for revenge.

Check out this interview and see what I mean. She was wronged in Little League baseball and junior high cross country. Now she's helping the feminists turn the tables on the males.

I wonder if Janet would feel the same if her children were boys who wanted to swim or rassle in college...

Read an article from 2003 on NOW's site featuring comments from Judge, Donna Lopiano, and others here.

A pal asked me in an e-mail what I think will happen when the pendulum swings back the other way. In other words, what will we hear from these same activists when (not if) the current undergraduate gender imbalance (substantially more women than men) evens out.

How will they deal with having women's sports cut?

What happens when their quota system begins to work against them?

We've already seen what they'll do. They'll scream bloody murder!

Back on January 30, I posted on the University of Cincinnati vs. the Title IX activists. The university dropped women's crew to club status. Read about it here.

Quote of the Day

I haven't yelled at anybody today. It's been a slow day.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Quote of the Day

He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit.

Sir Walter Scott

Quote of the Day

A gem cannot be polished without friction,

nor a man perfected without trials.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Quote of the Day

Only those who risk going too far can

possibly find out how far one can go.

T.S. Eliot

Quote of the Day

I think we consider too much the good
luck of the early bird, and not enough
of the bad luck of the early worm.

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Quote of the Day

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.

Confucius

Quote of the Day

How much time he saves who does not look to

see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

Marcus Aurelius

Quote of the Day

Ability may take you to the top, but

it takes character to keep you there.

John Wooden

How about a little help?

It's time to show how great the swimming community is. A friend (Iveta) in N.Y. is a native of the Czechoslovakia. She's got a little project going that we can help her with.

Seems a boy back in the Czech Republic is having a tough go of it (in and out of the hospital and mom's not in his life). He's kind of a geography nut and is very interested in the U.S.A. She's trying to get postcards sent to him from every state (as well as other countries).

I think it's more of a location/message thing than a volume thing. They're not trying for the Guinness World Records.

They're just trying to brighten up his life a bit with brief messages from all over.

Even though this blog's called Texas Swimming, we have readers from all over the country and world. How about helping us out?

Some day this week, won't you please take a minute to send this little guy a postcard? Write him a short message about where you live and what you do. His dad will help to get it translated, so don't worry about that.

It would mean so much to him to get messages from us.

Here's the address as it was sent to me:

Petr Gutweil

Oldrichova 42

128 00 Praha 2

Czech Republic

Those of you with your own sites can feel free to pass this along.

I hope y'all can spare a buck or two and ten minutes of your time sometime this week.

I can't thank you enough for your help.

Quote of the Day

I attribute my success to this -

I never gave or took any excuse.

Florence Nightingale

Quote of the Day

Never mistake motion for action.

Ernest Hemingway

Quote of the Day

Do not believe that it is very much of an advance

to do the unnecessary three times as fast.

Peter Drucker

Quote of the Day

We've gotten to the point where everybody's got

a right and nobody's got a responsibility.

Newton Minow

Quote of the Day

Think for yourselves and let others

enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

Voltaire

Quote of the Day

In this world a man must either

be a hammer or an anvil.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Quote of the Day

You can fool all the people some of the time,

and some of the people all the time, but you

cannot fool all the people all the time.

Abraham Lincoln