Patrick Henry College & Brit Hume

[Avalux]

Anyone listening to the very scary founder of this college on Fresh Air (NPR)? Michael Farris founded Patrick Henry College in 2000 - a college for Christ and Liberty designed for home schooled children.

Did you know that 7% of the interns in Congress came from this college in 2004? That's 7 out of about 100 interns. Farris has made it his mission for graduates from his college to take over our government as he believes they should according to God's word. He's ranting about liberal colleges like Harvard and how dangerous they are.

Anyway, I think my head is going to explode listening to him talk about freedom, as he obviously doesn't have a clue what it means while he condemns homosexuality and the separation of church and state. He also claims to be an expert in constitutional law.

Back to my subject line - Brit Hume delivered the commencement address for the class of 2006 - all 49 of them. Please grab a barf bag before reading:

Commencement speaker, Fox News Managing Editor, Brit Hume, highlighted the affair with a warm, entertaining address, spinning anecdotes about network news and D.C. politics while extolling the virtues of a quality education like that enjoyed at PHC. Cautioning grads, however, that once in the workforce few will care from what college they hail, Hume assured all that, "If you're good, you'll get ahead -- guaranteed. Be patient, and always be positive." Closing on a solemn note, he shared the tragedy of his journalist son's unexpected death, and of the transforming season that followed.

"I somehow felt that God was going to rescue me," he quietly explained. "I felt closer to God in that darkness than I ever had, and I haven't been the same since."
http://www.phc.edu/news/docs/05222006Media.asp

Would be funny if it wasn't so disturbing.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. This intern thing shows me how far a school can go to help the students

if they take the time & effort to do it. Most schools don't give a shit what the students can/can't do as long as they pay the tuition. Too bad that the school has such a bias toward the rw.

[Hardrada]

9. That is so true.

My college seemed to have no useful connections but started sending pleas for money about two days after I graduated.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

2. Michael Farris is a rightwingnut Xtian with a head

the size of Texas, and he's one smarmy bastard. He ran for governor here last year, and Tim Kaine beat him, fortunately.

This Patrick Henry thing, I predict, will die of its own weight, and in not too distant a future. The following was in the Washington Post a week or so ago, and there's probably more about it to be found online. Those kids are little robots, and there won't be very many more of them feeding Congress as we change the complexion of the Senate and the House.

From the Post:

"5 Professors Leave Religious School

Patrick Henry Faculty Decry Academic Limits

Nearly a third of the faculty members at Patrick Henry College in Loudoun County are leaving the school because of what they described as limitations on their academic freedom.

They say Patrick Henry College, a Christian liberal arts school established in 2000 to attract academically gifted home-schoolers with the hope of sending them on to work on Capitol Hill or at the White House, does not value equally both parts of its mission: to offer students a strong biblical perspective while educating them according to a classical liberal arts curriculum. In one case, the professors said, faculty members were reprimanded for writing that the Bible "is not the only source of truth."

[Penndems]

8. He's most definitely a right-wing screwball

Ran for Congress twice in 1993 for the Eighth District (Jim Moran's seat). Farris is a lawyer by profession. He and his wife have ten children, all of them home-schooled - a fact he likes to brag about frequently.

Mike Farris doesn't do anything unless it benefits Mike Farris.









(updated for typo)

[Avalux]

11. Yeah, where's the freedom at Patrick Henry?

I hope your prediction is correct and that the extremism of such a venture will cause it to 'die' by its own hand (kinda like ebola virus).

Didn't know Farris ran for governor - ugh.

[etherealtruth]

3. 7% of the Whitehouse interns

...are from this college ... plus a "bunch" of congressional internships.

Frightening, very frightening.

[shoelace414]

4. they also have their students work for campaigns for free.

and pay their hotel and transportation costs.

[The Deacon]

5. Well...

Their fine education is worthless outside of Neo-Con Land - so far they have been rebuffed by three seperate accrediting bodies (well, the third, an accrediting body for bible colleges, not liberal arts colleges, hasn't turned them down yet, but also hasn't extended accreditation, making this the third graduating class with un-accredited diplomas.) Additionally some 5 out of 16 full time professors have decided NOT to sign their contracts for next year (there is no tenure at PHC) in protest for academic freedom. One of those professors was Dean of Academic Affairs.
I think we can probably look forward to this "college's" assets appearing on eBay in the not-too-distant future (especially as "graduates" and their parents discover their "degrees" entitle them to jobs involving the phrase: "You want fries with that?")

[Gabi Hayes]

6. they need to do what Falwell did to rescue their sorry, antediluvian asses

call Jesus!




http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon3.html

Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Buying the Right
By Robert Parry

On Jan. 28, 1995, a beaming Rev. Jerry Falwell told his Old Time Gospel Hour congregation news that seemed heaven sent. The televangelist hailed two Virginia businessmen as financial saviors of debt-ridden Liberty University, the fundamentalist Christian school that Falwell had made the crown jewel of his Religious Right empire. "They had to borrow money, hock their houses, hock everything," enthused Falwell. "Thank God for friends like Dan Reber and Jimmy Thomas." Falwell's congregation rose as one to applaud. The star of the moment was Daniel Reber, who was standing behind Falwell. Thomas was not present.

Reber and Thomas earned Falwell's public gratitude by excusing the Lynchburg, Va., school of about one-half of its $73 million debt. In the late 1980s, that flood of red ink had forced Falwell to abandon his Moral Majority political organization and nearly drowned Liberty University in bankruptcy.

Reber and Thomas came to Falwell's rescue in the nick of time. Their non-profit Christian Heritage Foundation of Forest, Va., snapped up a big chunk of Liberty's debt for $2.5 million, a fraction of its face value. Thousands of small religious investors who had bought church construction bonds through a Texas company were the big losers. But Falwell shed no tears. He told local reporters that the moment was "the greatest single day of financial advantage" in the school's history.

Left unmentioned in the happy sermon was the identity of the bigger guardian angel who had been protecting Falwell's financial interests -- from a distance and without publicity. That secret benefactor was the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed South Korean messiah who is controversial with many fundamentalist Christians because of his bizarre Biblical interpretations and his brainwashing tactics that have torn thousands of young people from their families. Moon also has grown harshly anti-American in recent years.

more on Moon from Parry:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon.html

[Scribe]

7. Brit Hume will hire them at Fox News.

[Justitia]

10. Does it blow anyone else's mind that Hume pimps his gay son's suicide

for money? To a "college" that would applaud the death of such a person?
I mean, I find this freaking bizarre!

Brit Hume is a monster w/no conscience.
I have seen him pimp the suicide of his gay son (Sandy Hume), who was being outed for his affair w/a prominent republican congressman (Bill Paxon - R, Staten Island) - FOR MONEY GRUBBING SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS - to virulently homophobic institutions!

I know I probably shouldn't use the phrase ("it blows my mind") in the discussion of someone who actually blew his brains out w/a hunting rifle, but I am literally at a loss for words!

Wow! I shouldn't be surprised, but what a MONSTER.

[Avalux]

12. Sickening, isn't it?

That's why I wrote that it would be funny if it wasn't so disturbing. And I have to wonder if Brit Hume really believes he's such a virtuous man, or if it's all an act? :scared:

[TlalocW]

13. Well, when you think about it

Hardcore evangelicals make up 7% of the American population (a number unchanged since 1994) so at least they're not over-represented in the intern population on Capitol Hill.

They'll go to their internships, continue hiding from the real world there, move on to work at other places that shield them from the real world, etc. exactly what they would do in any other situation.

TlalocW