Lord Christopher Monckton interviewed on the CLIMATE CHANGE CON by Pauline Rose 8/2011

Interesting views on the problem with 'Education' these days... @ 55 minutes in:

"It is the lack of education in those three vital subjects... 

• The 'Classics' to tell us there's right and wrong
• The 'Sciences' to tell us where that right and wrong divide is
• The 'Religious Education' to tell us why that matters... that distinction.

We have to start with our own children and ensure that they are given those three types of education... and as a precursor to those three types of education... even before you went to university... you were taught three subjects:

• 'Grammar', a detailed knowledge of how your own language hangs together... as language is the pathway of thought.
• 'Logic', which included Mathematics... straight thinking... to ensure you think in a rational way... rather than in a purely emotional or biased or political way. 
• 'Rhetoric'... once you had learnt your own language thoroughly and learnt how to think logically... then and only then can you exercise your will and express yourself in a way that will come across as logical and indeed persuasive to others".

Four frogs sat upon a log that lay floating on the edge of a river.

Suddenly the log was caught by the current and swept slowly down the stream. The frogs were delighted and absorbed, for never before had they sailed. 

At length the first frog spoke, and said, "This is indeed a most marvelous log. It moves as if alive. No such log was ever known before".

Then the second frog spoke, and said, "nay, my friend, the log is like other logs, and does not move it is the river that is walking to the sea, and carries us and the log with it."

Then the third frog spoke, and said, "it is neither the log nor the river that moves. The moving is in our thinking. For without thought nothing moves".

The tree frogs began to wrangle about what was really moving. The quarrel grew hotter and louder, but they could not agree.

Then they turned to the fourth frog, who up to this time had been listening attentively but holding his peace, and they asked his opinion.

The fourth frog said "each of you is right, and none of you is wrong .The moving is in the log and the water and our thinking also".

The three frogs became very angry, for none of them was willing to admit that his was not the whole truth, and that the other two were not wholly wrong.

Then a strange thing happened. The three frogs got together and pushed the forth frog off the log and into the river.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.