Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Scandalous Life of 8-Year-Old Stephen Miller
My third-grade class photo.
Last week, the left attacked Brett Kavanaugh for an uncorroborated attempted sexual assault when he was a high schooler. No time, no date, no place, no evidence, no witnesses … but, hey, he drank beer which is almost as bad. Many of us wondered, are they really going all the way back to high school to attack conservatives? Apparently, this was just the warm-up act.
The Hollywood Reporter ran a piece Wednesday by the third-grade teacher of Trump adviser Stephen Miller. (As opposed to my podcast co-host Stephen Miller.) Apparently, the eight-year-old Miller was a “strange dude” and is, therefore, unfit for any role in polite society. From the article:
Do you remember that character in Peanuts, the one called Pig Pen, with the dust cloud and crumbs flying all around him? That was Stephen Miller at 8. I was always trying to get him to clean up his desk — he always had stuff mashed up in there. He was a strange dude. I remember he would take a bottle of glue — we didn’t have glue sticks in those days — and he would pour the glue on his arm, let it dry, peel it off and then eat it.
Yeah, I did this. So did all my friends at Indian Bend Elementary School. (I only had guy friends; girls had cooties.)
Our teacher, Mr. Mulvahill, just assumed we were morons but the next time I’m nominated to the Supreme Court, I expect it to come up. That, and spending recess with two inverted Pringles in my lips and quacking like a duck.
I remember being concerned about him — not academically. He was OK with that, though I could never read his handwriting. But he had such strange personal habits. He was a loner and isolated and off by himself all the time.
I’m glad California’s third-grade teachers are shaming kids who have a tough time making friends; they’ve had it too easy for too long. I’d usually welcome the loners into my group so they could experience the joy of eating paste and not eating Pringles.
Mr. Mulvahill yelled at me a lot and I bet he drank a lot of beer.
At the end of the year, I wrote all my concerns — and I had a lot of them — in his school record. When the school principal had a conference with Stephen’s parents, the parents were horrified. So the principal took some white-out and blanked out all my comments. I wish I could remember what I wrote, but this was 25 years ago. I’ve taught a lot of third-graders since then. Of course, Stephen wasn’t political then — it wasn’t until later that he started to make waves.
Wait, an eight-year-old wasn’t political? I spent my third-grade weekends banging on the Supreme Court doors demanding the resignation of William Rehnquist. After all, both he and Sen. Goldwater refused to censure Mr. Mulvahill for yelling and drinking beer.
Dear media: Stop beclowning yourselves with these idiotic stories. Otherwise, an enterprising Ricochet editor will investigate your elementary school records to reveal you were as big of a moron as I was.
Published in General
Pig Pen was always my favorite character and I always wished Sparky had used him more often.
Wonderful piece, Jon. Congrats!
I just spent last weekend with my eight-year-old grandson. We both have a love for Ramona Quimby. As we rode our scooters up and down the driveway, we laughed and laughed at Ramona–the day she squirted all of the toothpaste into the sink, the day she wore her new pajamas under her school clothes, and so many more fun stories.
I think Beverly Cleary was writing about Ramona because there were too many third-grade teachers out there like Stephen Miller’s third-grade teacher. :-) No sense of humor. :-)
Interesting that the teacher’s name can’t be found–at least I couldn’t find it.
And since when can teachers say nasty things about their former students? They had better be careful or there will be a HIPAA law for them!
The paste at my elementary school had a nice smell to it. Pretty sure it was just assumed that the 1st and 2nd graders would try some. I certainly ate a little paste back in the day and it was completely harmless . . . unless . . . you don’t think that’s why I turned out like this?
Jon,
Isn’t it just obvious that anyone who is a conservative must be suffering from a very unbalanced childhood? This is the only explanation that a leftist who is incapable of expressing a rationale for their own views other than conformity would gravitate to. Of course, if we had access to the permanent record of leftists I am quite sure we would find many obsessive-compulsive control freaks. Of course, as conservatives, we respect people’s privacy and would prefer not to explore these things. As conservatives, we believe that the logic of our arguments should be what convinces. Argue the issue and don’t make an ad hominem attack. (where have I heard that before?)
Not only is the left addicted to the ad hominem, their addiction requires them to constantly up the dose. First, it was 12 years earlier in a workplace setting which by the admission of accuser didn’t involve any assault or any sexual harassment it was just a sarcastic insult. Next, you move on to 35 years earlier at a high school party which couldn’t be remembered. Finally, we have reached an 8-year-old in grade school.
How much would you like to bet that the next thing will be how just awful somebody was during their terrible twos. Wouldn’t eat their pureed carrots. Wouldn’t sleep all night waking mommy and daddy up. Hit their baby sister over the head with their favorite stuffed animal. The horror, the horror. This is obviously a complete disqualification for a government job.
Actually, now that I think about it, this plus a phony resume could pretty well do for government work.
Regards,
Jim
Let’s see … third-grade probably predated my habit of standing on my chair and bellowing “Deus vult.” That didn’t start until fifth.
Ai yi yi.
I was Pig Pen too. And peeling glue off yourself and eating it twas very bliss.
What is wrong with this woman? Was she intending the story to be funny and endearing, or was she bashing this poor little kid/man?
Ricky Pasquale was a paste eater. He also had a crush on me in 2nd grade. Ew, ick.
YHGTBSM
Muggeridge’s law in action.
I think any decent teacher fosters an internal sense of privacy for their students. It is a betrayal of trust to talk about them by name in a public medium.
What’s that old saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say shut the…up.”
I am horrified that a teacher would pillory an adult for who they were in a classroom at 5, 8, or 17, let alone put comments in an article.
There is no law, but there is common sense and decency.
Jules,
Again if we were interested in this kind of thing, I suspect that Democrats would get very low marks in grade school in common sense & decency. Actually, their recent performance at the Kavanaugh confirmation also gave them very low marks in common sense & decency.
Regards,
Jim
Paste was harmless, but sniffing the mimeographs . . .
(no one under 45 is going to get that, are they?)
I saw this one on twitter as well……and OMG it is so stupid. I guess if Senate committees are seriously going to discuss high school year books then we might as well go back to kindergarten.
Also….are you sure it wasn’t “Conservatarian” podcast host host Stephan Millar the teacher was thinking of??? The glue eating story explains a lot about his preference for Brooklyn BBQ. :)
Spelling test Friday. My favorite to sniff the test paper before getting all my words correct.
Yes. This is extremely unethical, and this teacher really ought to get in big, big trouble with the school district where he/she is employed. Maybe this person is not still teaching; even better–this is totally rude. Seriously. This is so wrong. I cannot imagine writing an article for a national news source that would name a child that I’d taught when the child was A LITTLE CHILD!!!! (for pity sakes) and think that it would be at all relevant now.
Okay, now I need to go sit down and be very calm and quiet for a while. Wow.
Seems like this could be a cool game. Most the Leftist I know are strange people with lots of skeletons. Let’s play.
Typical; all the best parts were redacted.
I saw a lot of commentary like this mocking the press for going back to Kavanaugh’s high school days. Now I see they are beyond mockery. I’d joke about them going after a person as a fetus, but they’re even worse than that.
This statement challenged my sclerotic memories, which are dredging up two different copiers at school. My recollections and Mr Google (who is evil) make me think that the mimeograph was the more expensive, black-inked version, which could make enough copies for the whole school before crapping out. But the cheaper version, which put out the fragrant, blue/purple-inked spelling test for @julespa came off the Ditto machine, which gave up after far fewer copies.
In that particular case, the sperm wouldn’t even meet the egg until a couple of years later. Connor was actually punished strictly for the sins of his father…. before he was even born.
Things like this make me grateful that most of my teachers were somewhere between 50 and death when I (dis)graced their classrooms. All of them should be dead now. As dead as any chance I ever had in politics. But if my 1st Grade teacher comes after me I’ll gently remind her that, between the two of us, only I consistently spelled my first name correctly.
I hate going to parent-teacher conferences but it looks like I’m gonna have to start going. My 14-year old is pretty bright and reasonably well behaved so they don’t require us to go. But, hey, those non-disclosure agreements aren’t going to sign themselves.
This kid had potential. I don’t see what the problem is. Four of us as members AFROTC were sent to an AFB that shall not be named, for flight physicals. It was a two day process, and the first thing we noticed was that nothing flew into the base after 2200 hours. On our last night on base we consumed some beer and then took my car and drove up and down the main runway trying to peg the needle on the speedometer. We were caught and told to return to the Bachelor Officer Quarters, and to remain there for the rest of the night. It was fun, but I’m sure that it screwed up my chance to become Secretary of Defense.
Whoa, open the memory door and things can come flooding back!
The Ditto machine:
I think this is the very model our school had. You attached the stencil along the top only, upended the white reservoir so the duplicating fluid would flow into the machine and cranked away, the stencil flapping as it turned.
The mimeograph machine:
The stencil was squarely attached at the top and then ve-e-e-e-ry carefully smoothed around the drum before releasing the side clamps. Slipshod work would cause creasing of the stencil and the production of a black line in the copies, or worse yet, tearing the stencil, which had to be retyped in its entirety – pleasing no one.
Yea, I remember that now. And running the film-chewing 16mm projectors with Terrence Fitzsimmons.
More evidence that conservatives are paste-eatin’ maniacs.
Is this possible?
A great way to reflect on the current insanity, Jon. Thanks for making me giggle, too.
In first grade, a friend of mine and I disappeared when recess ended and snuck into the school auditorium and played some of the musical instruments that were backstage. I may have killed a few ants with a magnifying glass when I was in second grade. Throughout elementary school I kissed several girls…with their permission…for the most part…as far as I can remember. In fourth grade I got into a fight with a class bully. He was impressed when I slugged him in the stomach and knocked him to the ground and conceded the fight. In fifth grade, a friend of mine and I made a dugout fort and smoked cigars and got really nauseous. That same year I was kicked off the school bus for a few days for shouting an anti-British, pro-Irish Catholic chant I learned from a Clancy Brothers record album. The bus driver was probably a pro-British Protestant or simply didn’t want to hear “…to Hell with King Billy…” over and over again. In high school, after card playing and gambling was banned in the cafeteria, a friend of mine and I were ‘caught’ playing Crazy-8’s with a deck of cards for fun – no table stakes – by the Dean of Discipline who threatened to call our parents and keep us after school. I encouraged him to do so (because I felt that his explanation to my parents would sound quite absurd)…but he thought better of it. I often imitated my teachers in high school. I was actually quite good at it. A friend of mine and I in high school rearranged the entire cabinet of Dewey-decimal reference cards in the school library…because we were bored. Another friend of mine and I in high school used to write announcements for organizations that didn’t exist that the principal would then read over the public address system during lunch. I got drunk on beer for the first time when I was 18, the legal limit in California at the time was 21…still is. While drunk I did a somersault over a sofa at the community clubhouse where our family lived and hit my head on a coffee table. My oldest brother Doug sat in a nearby armchair and watched me, quite amused. He may have also been drinking but he was sophisticated in the ways of partying since he had been away to college and was more reserved that evening and was simply enjoying my acrobatics on this occasion. My mother heard the din of the party, walked over to the clubhouse and ordered us to come home. She wasn’t very happy.
Okay, I feel better now. Hopefully I can still be considered for a position in the Executive Branch.
He does not deny it.