Forever 21 and JC Penney Cave In to the Arithmetofascists!

So apparently the liberal-mathematists and gyno-equalityists had their collective panties all up in a bunch - literally - over some new t-shirts that were recently selling at JC Penney and Forever 21 retailers with positive messages of legitimate Math Skepticism targeted to young women. Their ires of outrage were particularly hackled by shirts with Constitutionally-protected messages of free expression such as "Allergic to Algebra" and "I'm Too Pretty to Do Math," which they "claimed" were "harmful" to young girls' "self-esteem" or "something."

The bleeding-heart liberals (and bleeding you-know-what womenals) are so deep in the pockets of Big Numeral that they have literally boycotted and petitioned these poor, innocent retailers into submission, forcing them to stop selling these shirts in their stores.

This is nothing less than an act of blatant discrimination against young Math Skeptics who happen to agree with these positive messages.

Worst of all, they are rather hypocritically targeting people with math allergies - a legitimate medical condition responsible for hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of missed hours of work and school annually, according to unverified statistics generated just now for the purpose of composing this blog post. Yet not once has the libero-gyno-educationo-cabal objected to t-shirts for peanut allergies or milk allergies. Interesting, isn't it?

Why the hypocrisy, liberals? Why aren't you boycotting the peanut allergy shirtists and petitioning the milk allergy shirt manufacturers? If you're going to object to allergy-advertising in clothing form, you should object to it equally, rather than singling out algebra allergy for your unwarranted attacks.

Of course, we Math Skeptics already know the reason for their hypocrisy. The liberals have been allied with the scientists and the numbers for decades in a great numero-scientific conspiracy to brainwash our children with math and science education. As the current JC Penney controversy demonstrates, this conspiracy is so pervasive that they can take down a Fortune 500 company like JC Penney for daring to speak out against the numerist agenda.

Truly these are sad times we live in. I'm reminded of a famous poem by German pastoralist Martin Niemöller, which I paraphrase thusly:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Math Skeptics
and there was no one left to speak out for us.

---

Numbers Without Numbers!

Stanford University psychology professor Michael Frank may be on to something.

He's trying to do away with numbers.

According to a blatant misinterpretation of a paper Frank recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, numbers are unnecessary for calculation, and we're much better off without them. Just what I've been saying for decades now. And our secret weapon in this War Against Numbers may be one of the oldest - the Japanese abacus.

By studying the behavior of participants in the Mental Calculation World Cup, the golden-throated songster and psychologist was able to observe wild arithmetists in their natural habitat, away from the constraints of human society. What he found was that the most successful participants eschewed numbers entirely, using the purely-visual Mental Abacus method to solve completely worthless math problems.

These results are promising, and may be the first real break we've had against the numbers in centuries. And I wouldn't expect the numbers to go down without a fight, either. Just watch - Big Arithmetic will soon be lobbying for a nationwide soroban ban and driving up prices on wooden beads.

I advise you to get yours now, because once sorobans are outlawed, only outlaws will have sorobans.

---

Tennessee Caves In To Big Arithmetic

Sad news to report this morning, my fellow Math Skeptics. It seems we've lost Tennessee.

A state that was once one of the proud resistors of the mathematical agenda - ranking consistently near the bottom of nationwide math scores - is now clearly in the pocket of the Arithmetic Lobby.

A column in today's The Commercial Appeal by Kevin S. Huffman, Tennessee commissioner of education, shows just how high up the calculatory corruption goes:

On Thursday, Gov. Bill Haslam announced that Tennessee students scored higher in all subject areas and grade levels (in grades 3-8) on this year's Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program achievement test than they did in 2009-10. This represents a critical step forward in the ambitious reform plan Tennessee articulated a year ago in its winning application for federal Race to the Top funding.

The TCAP results were impressive, particularly in math where student success rates grew by seven percentage points over the previous year.

Shameful, isn't it?

Tennessee used to be one of the good ones, proudly resisting the scientifico-mathematico cabal. They used to put teachers on trial for daring teach math and science in math and science classes.

Now they're just another cog in the numero-governmental conspiracy machine.

---