Where in the World Is Doug Philips (Who Is a Tool)? Part 8

[hoipolloi]

6 hours ago, Howl said:

Hanging out donating plasma is one of the more depressing things I've heard in a long time. 

If you want to donate, you donate blood, right?  If you need $$$$, you donate plasma.  Google says you can donate plasma twice a week, if you wait 48 hours between donations. 

And somehow, selling your plasma is more acceptable and ladylike then, say, going to school, earning a degree & credentials, and getting a real job in a field you've prepared to enter.

 

[Queen Of Hearts]

12 hours ago, Quinquagenarian said:

 Keeping Up Appearances Reboot might fit them well as a reality show.

Nooooooooo!  Please don't taint my favorite show with having any connection to the Tool family.

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

I know this is from a few pages back, but I'm hoping someone can help me find more information about JTits heading to Scotland. We know that he's going to be a graduate student at St. Andrew's University, but do we know which of the colleges he will be attending, or what his field of study will be? 

I'm kind of freaking out, because I know someone who's a senior lecturer at St. Andrew's, and his wife, who is getting a PhD there. (They have different fields, so they're not at the same college.) Rufus help me, my online FJ life is *severely* colliding with my "real world" life. Someone fetch the smelling salts! 

[AnnaSofia]

https://st-andrews.academia.edu/JoshuaPhillips

Joshua T Phillips

University of St Andrews, Mediaeval History, Graduate Student

Historical Theology

 

Joshua T. Phillips is Manager of Marketing and Communication at Veritas Press. Joshua received his BA in Theological Studies from Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida and is currently pursuing an MLitt in Mediaeval History at the University of St. Andrews. He and his beautiful bride Delaney are expecting their first child.

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

Thank you, @AnnaSofia! If JTits is studying for an"MLitt in Mediaeval History", he probably won't have much contact with the people I know. (They're at St. Mary's College, the School of Divinity and the School of Management.) I'm still mildly weirded out, but less so. 

[hoipolloi]

36 minutes ago, AnnaSofia said:

Joshua T. Phillips is Manager of Marketing and Communication at Veritas Press. Joshua received his BA in Theological Studies from Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida and is currently pursuing an MLitt in Mediaeval History at the University of St. Andrews.

Just lost a LOT of respect for the U of St A and any degrees they award.

Looks like foreign visa student tuition money trumps academic integrity.

ETA: no offense intended to your friends, @WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? - perhaps the admissions standards vary by school or college. 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

8 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

ETA: no offense intended to your friends, @WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? - perhaps the admissions standards vary by school or college

No problem. ☺ My people have degrees from good universities in the US (2 BAs, 3 MAs, and 1 PhD), so I didn't take it as a slight upon their abilities. 

I wonder how a JT will do as a grad student? I hope he will be mentally stretched by his learning. I don't know all that much about him, or any of the other Phillips "kids", but I can't imagine that Doug Phillips, who is a tool, or Beall encouraged much creativity or critical thinking. 

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

I don't know all that much about him, or any of the other Phillips "kids", but I can't imagine that Doug Phillips, who is a tool, or Beall encouraged much creativity or critical thinking. 

Have to say that the home schooling DPIART showcased on Doug's Blog and elsewhere looked & sounded dreadful.

Case in point: DPIART recommending the incredibly shitty & racist G.A. Henty books as pinnacles of great literature:

Quote

[Doug Phillips] More than any other series of which I am aware, the Henty novels have given young men a passion for history. Henty has proven that parents need not give their children the latest froth and drivel to satisfy their intellectual curiosity. Boys, even young boys, are capable of reading and benefiting from substantial literature.
The boys I know who read a Henty novel, tell me that they must read a second and a third and a fourth. Their love of Henty drives them to study in greater depth the magnificent of heroes and histories found in Western literature. I appreciate the Henty series because it sets strong, masculine, and Christian men before the boys of this generation.

 

[acheronbeach]

2 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Just lost a LOT of respect for the U of St A and any degrees they award.

Looks like foreign visa student tuition money trumps academic integrity.

ETA: no offense intended to your friends, @WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? - perhaps the admissions standards vary by school or college. 

I'm not terribly familiar with Joshua Titus Phillips, Reformation Bible College, Veritas Press, or Delaney.  What do you think University of St. Andrews should've been concerned about when JTits applied or submitted his work to his graduate supervisors?  

This isn't snark; I'm genuinely curious, because when I worked at Big University, all they looked at was grades and a semi-coherent application.  Nobody looked beyond that unless we got bad press so I imagine St. Andrews doesn't either.  

[byzant]

3 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

Thank you, @AnnaSofia! If JTits is studying for an"MLitt in Mediaeval History", he probably won't have much contact with the people I know. (They're at St. Mary's College, the School of Divinity and the School of Management.) I'm still mildly weirded out, but less so. 

But unfortunately St a isn't really a collegiate univerisity while  you have Mary's  and Sally's ( and regs for the boffins:) ) they are actually under one umbrella not like Oxford or Cambridge where individual colleges have a separate identity. 

I' m ashamed for  my lovely colleagues in the medieval history department would allow this. It was always a secular and supprorive environment and I still miss my crypt grad office! 

[Palimpsest]

4 hours ago, AnnaSofia said:

https://st-andrews.academia.edu/JoshuaPhillips

Joshua T Phillips

University of St Andrews, Mediaeval History, Graduate Student

Historical Theology

 

Joshua T. Phillips is Manager of Marketing and Communication at Veritas Press. Joshua received his BA in Theological Studies from Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida and is currently pursuing an MLitt in Mediaeval History at the University of St. Andrews. He and his beautiful bride Delaney are expecting their first child.

Magnificent sleuthing. 

I am so disappointed that he isn't going for the Divinity MA.  That would have rocked his religious boat beyond belief.  However, even the Mediaeval History curriculum will probably blow his mind.  In a good way.

4 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Just lost a LOT of respect for the U of St A and any degrees they award.

Looks like foreign visa student tuition money trumps academic integrity.

ETA: no offense intended to your friends, @WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? - perhaps the admissions standards vary by school or college. 

Well, St. Andrews has a student body that is 30% international.  But they will, I hope, not award a degree unless the student not only pays the money over BUT also  satisfies them that the student has passed their rigorous academic standards.

Perhaps JTits will end up like Bill Potter; a perpetual ABD or ADT unless he pulls his academic socks up and earns that masters.

55 minutes ago, byzant said:

I' m ashamed for  my lovely colleagues in the medieval history department would allow this. It was always a secular and supprorive environment and I still miss my crypt grad office! 

I'm not (explained below).  Unless St. Andrews has descended into being a diploma mill, and I hope it has not.

I rarely disagree with @hoipolloi, so I hope she forgives me this time.

I hold no brief for Joshua Titus, but if he has the money and managed to fulfill the entrance requirements to St. Andrews, best of luck to him.  He may be in for the shock of his life, but he didn't take the easy course of an easy  PhD from an unaccredited university in the US.  He did have to submit a paper for acceptance at St. Andrews and (if he wrote it himself) it isn't bad.

I think it is really important that prestigious universities flex their acceptance criteria and take chances on homeschooled kids, and people who got their BAs or BScs from "inferior" places, for post-grad studies.  JTits seemed to have work studied his way through Reformation Bible College.  He may have thought that was his only option at the time, but now he is going secular.  Well  - power to him.  But I hope his mind gets blown.

Yes, I actually want JTits to succeed on his own and ace that MA.  In the same way that I want @woonaluna to ace her studies.

I don't think we should blame either of them for their father's actions.  I want them to succeed, against the odds, and leave the Tool and Chris Jeub way, way, behind them. 

Hope that makes sense.

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, acheronbeach said:

What do you think University of St. Andrews should've been concerned about when JTits applied or submitted his work to his graduate supervisors?  

Reformation Bible College is not accredited. This is really a significant problem. Without accreditation, there's no evidence that a college's or university's courses or programs meet any professional standards for its stated fields of excellence, regardless of what the FL "Commission for Independent Education" might say or do. Here's what RBC itself has to say:

Quote

 

“RBC is an unaccredited college and is in compliance with Section 1005.06(1)(f), Florida Statutes pursuant to religious institutions. The Commission for Independent Education has determined that RBC has met the requirements of state law and is not subject to governmental oversight.

RBC has worked to develop solid relationships with several leading seminaries in the United States. These seminaries have been impressed by the caliber of our students and the rigor of our curriculum. They have agreed to honor our students’ RBC credentials for application to their programs.”

 

As a side note, a search at that commission's website does not turn up a listing for RBC that I could find, using RBC's stated academic areas . Please let me know if you find otherwise.

@Palimpsest - your points are well-taken and this could be a good move for JT for many reasons.

[Jigsaw3]

Ahh, the ugly secret of some top-flight universities in the UK: because their master's programs are unfunded, their admissions criteria is a bit looser than you might expect, especially for international students. It's not that hard to get admitted, although I am a little surprised that they let him in with an unaccredited BA.

HOWEVER... he's not getting any funding. JTits is going to be paying for every penny of that degree and his living costs on his own. Funding for international students only goes to the top flight. The university saves its own internal scholarships for the superstars, the students they actually want there. There are prestigious external scholarships, but if he was getting one of the big ones we would have heard about it. No Marshall, no Fulbright, no Rhodes (Oxford only) or Gates (Cambridge only), no research council funding: he would have told us if he'd gotten those, because those scholars boast about their awards (as they should.) Maybe he's getting some scholarships from churches at home? A thousand here, a thousand there?

AND it's a lot harder to get out than to get in. If he wants to graduate, he's going to have to produce high quality work to their standards. That's where, I'm afraid, the jury is out. He'll need to do serious academic thought. And he will need to pull a high 2.1 to even think about continuing to a PhD. We'll have to check back in next summer to see if he manages to pass.

[hoipolloi]

2 hours ago, Jigsaw3 said:

No Marshall, no Fulbright, no Rhodes (Oxford only) or Gates (Cambridge only), no research council funding: he would have told us if he'd gotten those, because those scholars boast about their awards (as they should.)

Can anyone from an unaccredited school even apply for one of these deservedly prestigious awards?

My guess is no, but don't know for sure. 

[Leftitinmysnood]

@acheronbeach, Veritas Press belongs to the Doug Wilson-defends-pedophiles empire and had a little plagiarism skirmish a couple years ago. https://www.google.com/amp/s/adaughterofthereformation.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/plagiarism-wilson-and-the-omnibus/amp/

[Howl]

Idle speculation here:  Isn't St. Andrews the obvious choice because of Spanky's Calvinist Scotland fetish or Scottish Calvin fetish, plaid, whatever, you know what I mean?  Just sad that Spanky's daughter won't be going to grad school, too. I'm sure some aspect of the Sproul empire is picking up the tab. 

I also worked for a Big University, assisting grad students in three different departments over the course of my time there.  In these departments, grad admissions were extremely rigorous, and were based solely on the student's statement of purpose, submitted written work, and three academic letters of recommendation. 

For the MA, there were three semesters of seminars - three seminars each semester.  The prospectus for the thesis was submitted and defended in the third semester and the fourth semester was devoted to writing the thesis.  The thesis was considered, for students who were planning to continue to the PhD, a sort of mini dissertation.  

Some students thrived in this environment; occasionally, some were simply overwhelmed with the sheer amount of reading that was assigned and had to be assimilated with each seminar, which culminated with the submission of a substantial written paper at the end of each semester for each seminar.  Two of these departments required the completion of the MA as a prerequisite to being considered for admission to the PhD program.  

Can anyone clarify for me if the Master's program in Scotland is similar to this  (numerous seminars, which meet once a week for three hours) and a thesis or does one simply work with tutors who guide the student's study?

And let me tell you, professors can smell bullshit and sloppy thinking a mile away.  Plus, I can't think of a more difficult path to parenthood than having one parent in grad school! But good luck to them; many have done it before and survived.  

And wrapping this around: There's no question that Beall loves being a mom, and knowing that the first grandkid is on the way, but son and DiL are far, far away, must be hard for her, as it would be for most first-time grandparents. 

[Jigsaw3]

Yes, that's the other thing..

At St Andrews, faculty won't tolerate doctrine or personal beliefs masquerading as research. JT is going to have to back up every statement he makes, and "Daddy says so" won't cut it.

@Howl, the MLitt is 2 taught semesters (small group seminars) and a one semester research thesis. One of the modules is a Sources and criticism course, and a language course is also an option (master's students are usually required to become proficient in at least one research language, probably Latin in this case.)

[Jigsaw3]

And since I'm now invested in this topic:

JT is going to have to get a UK student visa (£348) and Delaney will need a dependent's visa (£348). Each will have to pay a health care surcharge (£150 each) -- but that means that Delaney's birth will be covered, so that's a win for them. Total cost of their visas is approximately £1000 ($1280 US.)

TO get a visa, JT must show that he has enough money to cover his whole tuition (£17,800, I believe) and must show that he has £1015 per month in maintenance (living costs). Delaney will need to show that she has £680 per month to support herself (to a maximum of 9 months.) She'll be able to work while they're in the UK, but I believe prospective income is not counted in her required support (and anyways, she'll have a newborn at some point.) There are also rules about how to demonstrate that they have the funding, but it basically boils down to having easily accessible cash in an account with JT's name on it.

So they need to show that they have £36,000 before they can be issued their visas. That's approximately $46,250 in US.

Obviously, JT and Delaney might not need all that money to live on if they're frugal, but they have to prove they have it before they get their visas. Doug Phillips must have some money squirrelled away somewhere, possibly in JT's name? Either that or he's taken out a huge student loan. Godspeed, JT. Study hard and justify that cash.

(Feel free to clarify if there are any calculation mistakes... but it's close enough for snark purposes!)

[refugee]

20 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Have to say that the home schooling DPIART showcased on Doug's Blog and elsewhere looked & sounded dreadful.

Case in point: DPIART recommending the incredibly shitty & racist G.A. Henty books as pinnacles of great literature:

 

Well, yes, if you severely restrict their reading and ban all the books that might have interested them, then Henry books might offer the adventure and “romantic” (in the sense of soul-stirring, the kind of feeling that has kids pick up long sticks and pretend to sword-fight, whether they are knights of the realm or Jedis) food for the imagination that young minds crave.

I read a few. Even in my brainwashed state, they came across as formulaic. Seemed like an excuse to write about battle movements, loosely framed in a “story.” My kids and I agree that the modern sci-fi writer Jack Campbell, for all his flaws, could write rings around Henty in terms of battle scenes.

But “Hentys” sure were popular in the homeschool crowd.

[refugee]

14 hours ago, Jigsaw3 said:

Ahh, the ugly secret of some top-flight universities in the UK: because their master's programs are unfunded, their admissions criteria is a bit looser than you might expect, especially for international students. It's not that hard to get admitted, although I am a little surprised that they let him in with an unaccredited BA.

HOWEVER... he's not getting any funding. JTits is going to be paying for every penny of that degree and his living costs on his own. Funding for international students only goes to the top flight. The university saves its own internal scholarships for the superstars, the students they actually want there. There are prestigious external scholarships, but if he was getting one of the big ones we would have heard about it. No Marshall, no Fulbright, no Rhodes (Oxford only) or Gates (Cambridge only), no research council funding: he would have told us if he'd gotten those, because those scholars boast about their awards (as they should.) Maybe he's getting some scholarships from churches at home? A thousand here, a thousand there?

AND it's a lot harder to get out than to get in. If he wants to graduate, he's going to have to produce high quality work to their standards. That's where, I'm afraid, the jury is out. He'll need to do serious academic thought. And he will need to pull a high 2.1 to even think about continuing to a PhD. We'll have to check back in next summer to see if he manages to pass.

I might not be inclined to call it an “ugly secret.” One of our kidults was accepted at a university in the UK, was excited about going there, had every intention of working hard and meeting the tough standards to graduate.  For various reasons, the plan changed. I have every confidence the kid could have made it work, despite an unconventional homeschooling background, having been at the top of their (public school) high school classes when we stopped homeschooling.

I’m glad the opportunity was there, though, for an unconventional student with a high drive to succeed.

I’m really pissed at the US higher educational system (specifically funding options that leave people in crippling debt or cause them to turn away from earning a degree altogether) at the moment, so don’t mind me.

[Palimpsest]

My guess has always been that the Phillips grandchildren all inherited trust funds from Howard.  I can't see how they provide for themselves otherwise.  Joshua has also had a couple of years to save up some cash while working for Veritas. 

And a couple of points about academics:  Reformation Bible College is indeed unaccredited.  They would say this is from choice so the ebil secular gubment can't annoy them with curricula and unGodly stuff.  OTOH, they would claim that they have rigorous academic standards and provide a great "Classical Education."  It is just that everything is taught through the prism of Reformed Calvinism.  

The absence of that prism is going to shock Joshua.  However, with his unaccredited degree from RBC he should already have a working knowledge of Greek and Hebrew.  He may be better prepared than we think.   https://www.reformationbiblecollege.org/academics/

Also, I just skimmed the RBC faculty.  I noticed two professors with actual earned PhDs:  one from the University of Edinburgh and the other from Durham.  I expect Joshua's references for St. Andrews came from them.  https://www.reformationbiblecollege.org/academics/#faculty

It is also probably going to shock Joshua to the core that many of the research papers coming out of the Mediaeval History Dept. at Durham focus of women and some seem to have a distinctly feminist bent.

I'm not worried about the good people of Fife or his fellow students.  I'm sure they can handle a Reformed Calvinist know-it-all punk, whether he tries to convert them or not.  I think Joshua will learn a lot from the experience.  And probably Delaney will too.

However, I really want to be a fly on the wall in any class when Joshua starts spouting revisionist history learned from the great Bill Potter, ABD, or faux intellectualism gleaned from that famed Duck Biologist Geoff Botkin.

And just imagine him in a university cafe expounding on the glories of the Titanic Society.  Or trying to explain that the Hazardous Journeys were incredibly important for World Dominion.  He's going to be torn limb from limb - intellectually, of course. 

[AnnaSofia]

25 minutes ago, Jigsaw3 said:

 Doug Phillips must have some money squirrelled away somewhere, possibly in JT's name?

Out of Doug's kids, JT and Justice were the only legal adults during The Fall of the Tool, and Justice was barely 18, so it would make sense that if Doug needed to get assets out of his own name, JT might have been his go-to.

That said, I personally can't fathom Doug letting that much money go to something like this, when it could be financing another "television" project, or otherwise being used to plot Dougie's comeback. I can't believe he wouldn't have weaseled it back, somehow. As for Howard, it's possible, but I'm putting my imaginary internet money on Delaney and some sort of inheritance from RC Sr.

I think limited finances are one reason JT ended up at Reformation Bible College in the first place, and he didn't earn his BA until he was 24. Howard died five years ago, and I think if JT had money/options back then, he might have done things differently. RC Sr., on the other hand, only passed away last fall, and it generally takes some time to settle an estate. That would fit.

[hoipolloi]

22 minutes ago, AnnaSofia said:

I'm putting my imaginary internet money on Delaney and some sort of inheritance from RC Sr....I think limited finances are one reason JT ended up at Reformation Bible College in the first place, and he didn't earn his BA until he was 24.

Bingo X 2.

Of the two families, it seems far more likely that Sproul Sr's estate would be supplying any money for this younger generation. I've long said that DPIART absconded with $$$ & goods (e.g., Canon L lenses) after the demise of VFI/VFM -- he'd probably been squirreling the $$$ away for years beforehand. A narcissist like him wouldn't "share" it with anyone else though when it could be spent glorifying himself with trips to NYC & Lady Flo's events. If he were spending it on his family, one would think that Beall & the kids at home would not be living pillar to post or selling their plasma to survive, as their IGs suggest.

Re: RBC. While JT would certainly find the "school" to be theologically acceptable & was probably welcomed as the child of family friends who were/are of the right religious beliefs, wasn't he also doing some kind of social media or other tech work there while attending? I assumed that the job was part of a financial aid package.

[nickelodeon]

OKAY, but Medieval Studies has enough of a problem with white supremacists glomming onto the field with their fantasies of white-power-fairylands without the spawn of Rapist Doug (P) and Racist Doug (W) being there. Saying a prayer for the medievalists of St. Andrews and their sanity.

[Palimpsest]

3 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

Of the two families, it seems far more likely that Sproul Sr's estate would be supplying any money for this younger generation. 

Yes, this is a better theory than Howard Phillips leaving much, although how Liberty, for example, can afford her life-style is beyond me.   She can't grift everything.

How stinkin' rich was Sproul Sr?  I know he wrote eleventy books but I wonder how much he also earned (or gleaned) from the Ministries above and beyond the royalties.  He could have paid himself very well, of course, as head honcho of Ligonier.  Still, whatever Sr. left also had to be shared among Vesta, Sherrie, Spanky, eleven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

In other news, I fear the Tool is way too confident that his 11 part WWII series will be shown on TV.  I vaguely remember that he had 2 lawyers financing the pilot.  It was rumored to have been picked up by the History Channel (owned by Discovery Networks).

Bobby and Tommy Bowden may have scared up additional funding through their Christian contacts.  Evangelical Christians unite with the disgraced Tool, yet again.  The man is unsquashable, but why hire the grimy Doug?  I suppose Bobby had some scandal too and got dumped with prejudice as a coach.

I don't like the sound of Bobby Bowden:

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/sports/2018/08/03/bobby-bowden-wades-into-supreme-court-case-support-school-prayer/900728002/

https://www.tigernet.com/update/Bowdens-featured-in-Bobby-Bowden-goes-to-War-18879