Luckily, my head already exploded this morning, so this story, from College Fix, did no further damage:
The student newspaper at Evergreen State College has a section in its opinion pages described as “for people of color by people of color.”
“This should be a place where we can be us without it being overshadowed by the dark cloud that is living under white supremacy and having to see things from a white perspective. This is why when we do cover these issues it will be in the context and from the perspective of POC and POC only,” according to the section’s editors as they reintroduced it to readers in September.
The anonymous column, known as “POC Talk,” debuted in the bi-weekly Cooper Point Journal last year and returned this fall to the newspaper’s pages following racial unrest that erupted at the public university this past spring.
“Dear White people, please take a step back, this isn’t brown-people-answer-white-people’s-questions-hour, we’re asking specifically for submissions from POC,” the section’s editors added in their September intro. “As being told no seems to be a difficult concept for some of y’all I await your emails about the Irish, how the term white fragility is mean (great example of white fragility) and how we need to view people through a color-blind lens (just lol). You will 100% not get a response!!!”
I want to hear prominent voices in the black community, Democrats, and progressives, condemning this. Republicans and conservatives can’t because that will mean they are racists.
Is this school receiving federal funds? It shouldn’t be.
Cue the “white racism is different from black racism, which isn’t really racism but a reasonable response to historical and cultural factors” apologists! A white school that dared to have a “white opinions only” section in a school publication would be attacked far and wide as an example of alt-right creep. There is no difference.
“Once when I was reporting, Lyndon Johnson’s top guy gave me the word they were looking for a successor to J. Edgar Hoover. I wrote it and the day it appeared Johnson called a press conference and appointed Hoover head of the FBI for life… And when he was done, he turned to his top guy and the President said, “Call Ben Bradlee and tell him fuck you.” I took a lot of static for that–everyone said, “You did it, Bradlee, you screwed up–you stuck us with Hoover forever.” I screwed up but I wasn’t wrong.”
—-Washington Post Editor-in-Chief Ben Bradley (Jason Robards, Jr.) in “All the President’s Men.”
Surely I wasn’t the only one who immediately thought about this anecdote (apparently true) from the film version of the Woodward and Bernstein book about the Post’s Watergate investigation. All yesterday, the news services were following the New York Times “scoop,” based on anonymous leaks out of the Trump Administration, claiming that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was about to be canned within days, with CIA head Mike Pompeo, a Trump favorite, taking his place.
I know a little bit about leadership and the kind of people who get to the top of the heap, the Presidents of the United States. I also know how I would think if I disliked and distrusted a newspaper and someone betrayed me within my staff, resulting in a premature revelation of my plans. Unless I regarded a personnel matter as essential, I’d change course to discredit the leaker and make the newspaper look bad.
The media has been speculating that I fired Rex Tillerson or that he would be leaving soon – FAKE NEWS! He’s not leaving and while we disagree on certain subjects, (I call the final shots) we work well together and America is highly respected again! https://instagram.com/p/BcLCXDYgQed/
Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, a serial illegal Mexican immigrant who had been deported five times and was wanted for a sixth deportation, shot young Kate Steinle in the back in 2016. Since this occurred shortly after Donald Trump, announcing his candidacy for President, had decried Mexico “sending us murderers” across the border, Zarate took on the role of Trump’s Willie Horton. Zarate admitted to the shooting, but said that he had just found the gun on the street, and fired accidentally. The jury found him not guilty on murder and manslaughter charges, but he was convicted on a gun charge.
Ethics Observations:
President Trump, and a lot of media commentators, pronounced the verdict “disgraceful.” The President’s Twitter rant:
The Kate Steinle killer came back and back over the weakly protected Obama border, always committing crimes and being violent, and yet this info was not used in court. His exoneration is a complete travesty of justice. BUILD THE WALL!…The jury was not told the killer of Kate was a 7 time felon. The Schumer/Pelosi Democrats are so weak on Crime that they will pay a big price in the 2018 and 2020 Elections….A disgraceful verdict in the Kate Steinle case! No wonder the people of our Country are so angry with Illegal Immigration.
Ugh. The question before the jury was whether Zarate murdered Steinle, not whether immigration enforcement is too lax, not whether he was a bad guy, not what previous crimes he had committed. The verdict was no more disgraceful that O.J.’s acquittal, George Zimmerman’s acquittal, Casey Anthony’s acquittal, the acquittals in the Freddie Gray case, or any other acquittal where the prosecution does not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Nobody not on the jury or the courtroom has any basis or justification to attack the verdict.
The President’s comments are embarrassingly ignorant or dismissive of the basic principles of our criminal justice system.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions‘ statement following the verdict was better, but still wrong:
“While the State of California sought a murder charge for the man who caused Ms. Steinle’s death—a man who would not have been on the streets of San Francisco if the city simply honored an ICE detainer—the people ultimately convicted him of felon in possession of a firearm.When jurisdictions choose to return criminal aliens to the streets rather than turning them over to federal immigration authorities, they put the public’s safety at risk. San Francisco’s decision to protect criminal aliens led to the preventable and heartbreaking death of Kate Steinle. I urge the leaders of the nation’s communities to reflect on the outcome of this case and consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to cooperate with federal law enforcement officers.”
This “but for” argument is a “Back to the Future”/”Terminator” con. The fact that it was Zarate who picked up an abandoned gun that discharged and killed Steinle—this is what the jury concluded—and not a Cub Scout, a fumble-thumbed bank teller, a stoned gay guy or Pablo Sandoval is 100% moral luck. Yes, if Zarate was in Mexico—or Iowa—Steinle might be alive today. Or maybe not. Also if the US gave more aid to Mexico and it wasn’t such a hell hole that its citizens keep coming here illegally, she might be alive. Maybe if Zarate’s mother had been killed by an android from the future before she met Zarate’s father…
The reason to enforce immigration laws is that they are important laws and should be enforced. Steinle’s death and Zarate’s acquittal don’t affect those facts one way or the other. Continue reading →
“Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting? Is it the candidate who doesn’t have a penis? I’d say so.”
—-Detroit attorneyDana Nessel, a Democrat and a misandrist running for Attorney General of Michigan by suggesting that all men should be assumed to be sexual harassers and predators.
I want to tell you what you can expect me not to do. I will not sexually harass my staff, and I won’t tolerate it in your workplace either. I won’t walk around in a half-open bathrobe, and I’ll continue to take all sex crimes seriously just like I did as a prosecutor.
I wonder how feminists would react if a male candidate said,
I want to tell you what you can expect me not to do. I won’t try to influence judges to make bad rulings by wearing tight clothes and wiggling my hips. I won’t take says off because I have a period, or break down in tears under stress. I won’t try to win cases by sleeping with lawyers and judges, or not report sexual misconduct because I’ve exploited it to my own advantage.
Nessel should meet exactly the same fate as a male candidate who made those bias-promoting, sexist remarks. Continue reading →
(Although it was reportedly a rough morning for the former Eleanor Coulouris 67 years ago_)
Or so I was told.
1. It’s NOT okay to be white? CNN Commentator Angela Rye, formerly executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus, told CNN audiences that “white, liberal women” were the cause of the pressure on iconic Michigan Representative John Conyers to resign from Congress. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi would have never called for Conyers to resign if it weren’t the other “white, liberal women” pressuring her to do so. Rye, who earlier in the week said that a racist double standards was causing Conyers to be pressured to resign while white Democratic Senator Al Franken was not, said,
“I think Nancy Pelosi made a commitment to the members of the Congressional Black Caucus that she would not call for Conyers resignation before due process was allowed to take place. Now she’s being faced with the pressure of white, liberal women for the most part who have told her she needs to say something different.”
Race-baiting and using racism as an excuse for any criticism of black politicians is still the reflex response of far too many Democrats, in part because they face no consequences for doing so, and because any whites who object are tarred as white supremacists.
Until the news media and progressives have the integrity to treat this tactic for what it is, and as exactly as intolerable as white racism, the nation will continue to split hard along racial lines. I guess that’s what the Left wants.
How can CNN justify continuing to employ a “contributor” like Rye—it has some others, too—who is a stone-cold racist?
How can anyone who abhors racism in all its forms continue to patronize an intentionally racial division-promoting news source that does employ someone like Rye?
Here, for people like Rye—you know, stupid people—are some reasons Al Franken’s situation is distinguishable from that of Conyers: he is thirty years younger and shouldn’t have retired about a decade ago anyway; he, unlike Conyers, hasn’t flatly denied all of the allegations against him as they keep on coming; a Senator resigning is a bigger deal than a Representative resigning; and Nancy Pelosi doesn’t oversee Senate Democrats.
Also there are no reports of Franken habitually meeting with female staffers without his pants on. It’s small thing—well, not that small—but still…
2. No, really, it isn’t OK...In related news,Texas State University student journalist Rudy Martinez wrote an article entitled “Your DNA Is An Abomination”—referring to white DNA, of course—for The University Star, the University of Texas student publication. The piece also advocated the death of whites, which is unpleasantly close to calling for them to be killed. If you think I’m going to point out that any student who wrote this about blacks in a student newspaper would be quickly disciplined, while the newspaper editor responsible for publishing such vile material was hounded of campus, you’re right. If the University of Texas administrators had any integrity, common sense or guts, it would, this is what would happen. At least the president of Texas State, Denise M. Trauth, said that “The column’s central theme was abhorrent and is contrary to the core values of inclusion and unity that our Bobcat students, faculty, and staff hold dear.” That’s nice. Why is Texas State graduating racists? From the column:
“Ontologically speaking, white death will mean liberation for all. Accept this death as the first step toward defining yourself as something other than the oppressor. Until then, remember this: I hate you because you shouldn’t exist. You are both the dominant apparatus on the planet and the void in which all other cultures, upon meeting you, die.”
Denise Cervantes, The University Star’s editor-in-chief, pulled the column and apologized, saying “We acknowledge that the column could have been clearer in its message and that it has caused hurt within our campus community. We apologize and hope that we can move forward to a place of productive dialogue on ways to bring our community together.”
Did you miss The Great Pie Controversy? Then sit down, children, and hear the tale…
It all began when White House spokesperson Sarah Hucklebee Sanders posted a photo on Thanksgiving showing a pecan pie she baked for Thanksgiving. Above is the 2:40 p.m. tweet. The next day, American Urban Radio Networks Washington bureau chief April Ryan tweeted her doubts that the pie was real, implying that Sanders was a liar. She needed to “show it to us on a table,” Ryan demanded, and had to see “folks eating it and a pic of you cooking it.”
Now, let us pause and ponder what would make someone react like that to a simple declaration that someone had baked a pie for Thanksgiving. Why would anyone set out to embarrass and impugn an individual’s honesty over something so innocuous, based on no evidence or good reason at all? This isn’t journalism. It ‘s just meanness, motivated by sheer bias and hate. Conduct like that is so contrary to the Golden Rule that it constitutes tarnish.
And, of course, Ryan’s demands were also stupid and unreasonable. How would Sanders, where she so inclined, produce photos of guests eating a pie after it had been eaten?
Never mind. This example of disgusting and gratuitous reporter enmity was quickly picked up by the anti-Trump journalism establishment as an actual news story. Continue reading →
World traveling married couple Joseph Dasilva, 38, and Travis Dasilva think it’s’ cute and funny to take what they call “belfies,” as in “below-the-belt selfies” at historical, religious and cultural sites in other nations. They then post the disrespectful photos to Instagram. Above the witty pair is shown at Bangkok’s Wat Arun, or Temple of the Dawn, baring their asses. Unfortunately, such conduct is illegal in Thailand. The Dasilvas were arrested at the Bangkok airport, fined 5,000 baht ( about$154) each, and will be facing charges of public indecency.
So these two travel the world showing utter contempt for historic and cultural sites, then when they get into trouble, the United States spends money and time to try to secure their release from their well-deserved arrests….It remains a mystery why anyone over the age of 4 would find this “Traveling Butts” theme to be funny. Yet, their account had more than 14,000 followers before it was deleted. I find that following far more unsettling than the fact that two adults would engage in this type of offensive conduct.
What do you want to bet that these two boors loudly condemn the President for projecting a poor image of the U.S. abroad? Continue reading →
1 Straight to the top of the charts…When we put together the definitive list of President Trump’s Top Ten (Top 100? Top 1000?) stupid, undignified and self-wounding tweets, yesterday’s sequence of unsubstantiated videos–from a radical right wing British group— of alleged violence by Muslims has to be on the list. I could counter that the eruption of indignation by the vast majority of people who can comprehend what’s wrong with this is a bit annoying from the progressive side—the official Obama Administration position that Islam is a lovely religion of rainbows and unicorns and that Muhammad doesn’t instruct his followers from the grave that infidels are scum and deserve to die is far more dangerous than Trump’s hate-tweets—but that would obscure the key point. Trump’s retweeting is ugly, unnecessary, undignified, looks bigoted, and plays into the hands of the worst of his enemies, who express themselves like this.
Now we have to listen to that dishonest and contrived 25th Amendment garbage again, which never quite stopped anyway. Once again, the President has blown more wind into the sails of anti-democratic hypocrites like Ezra Klein, who argues for a Constitution and Separation of Powers-wrecking version of impeachment to get rid of Trump. No, Trump hasn’t gone crazy: he’s exactly the man we elected, and exactly as able to do his job as he ever was. Tweeting irresponsibly is not a high crime and misdemeanor. Being Donald Trump is not a high crime and misdemeanor.
But the President is playing with fire by encouraging the large political movement that would criminalize not agreeing with their world view. That’s as indefensible as it is idiotic.
2. This much is clear. It is now clear that NBC only fired Matt Lauer because an explosive Variety exposé was on the way, and it was a close call at that. It is pretty clear that the mystery of why NBC rejected journalist Ronan Farrow’s investigative reporting on Harvey Weinstein has been solved: NBC had its own lurking sexual misconduct cover-up to worry about. It is, or should be clear from Variety’s reporting that the astounding brazenness of Lauer’s conduct had to be common knowledge among Lauer’s colleagues and NBC executives, and that they unethically applied The King’s Pass, deliberately allowing Lauer to abuse and terrorize female employees, some of whom played along to get along. TMZ uncovered an old interview in which Katie Couric happily revealed that one consequence of working with Matt was that she got her butt pinched a lot. Nobody paid attention, in part because our pathetic news media buried it. Continue reading →
Garrison Keillor, who hosted the popular radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” for decades until his retirement last year, has been fired from Minnesota Public Radio after allegations of “inappropriate behavior,” MPR confirmed in a statement Wednesday.
“Minnesota Public Radio is terminating its contracts with Garrison Keillor and his private media companies after recently learning of allegations of his inappropriate behavior with an individual who worked with him,” the statement read.
I’m not surprised. In fact, when I read Keillor’s head-exploding rationalizations for Al Franken in an op-ed yesterday, also in the Post, I thought, “Hmmmm. This sounds like the logic of a sexual harasser to me. I wonder…?” Foolishly, I didn’t post my suspicions; it was a late cut from today’s Warm-Up.
In his op-ed, “Al Franken should resign? That’s absurd.”, Keillor made the astounding illogical leap of equating the tearing down of statues of historical figures whose conduct was offensive by current standards to excusing current individuals whose conduct—in this case, sexual harassment and assaults—would be acceptable under past standards.
To facilitate this unethical argument and wishful self-applying excuse, the plummy-voiced progressive minimized the complaint of Franken’s first reported victim. I’m numbering each awful section:
Sen. Al Franken…did USO tours overseas when he was in the comedy biz. (1) He did it from deep in his heart, out of patriotism, (2) and the show he did was broad comedy of a sort that goes back to the Middle Ages. (3) Shakespeare used those jokes now and then, and so did Bob Hope and Joey Heatherton when they entertained the troops. (4) If you thought that Al stood outdoors at bases in Iraq and Afghanistan and told stories about small-town life in the Midwest, you were wrong. (5) On the flight home, in a spirit of low comedy, Al ogled Miss Tweeden and pretended to grab her and a picture was taken. (6) Eleven years later, a talk show host in LA, she goes public, (7) and there is talk of resignation. This is pure absurdity, and the atrocity it leads to is a code of public deadliness. No kidding.(8)
I don’t bother with New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman here, for the most part. He constantly discredits himself by intentionally misleading his gullible readers, hiding the ball, engaging in deceit as an advocacy tool, over-stating and hyping and generally bolstering his progressive opinions with a nauseating combination of intellectual dishonesty, hypocrisy and condescension. I have no patience with such columnists, or any publication that inflicts them on its readers.
A parallel in the sportswriting field is the much lionized Thomas Boswell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who writes for the Washington Post. Boswell has written several books, and is regarded by many as a deep thinker about baseball. (My wife and I once were friends with a couple that socialized with the Boswells, and invited us to join the four of them for an evening. I told them that I could not stomach being in the same room with the guy.) Many years ago, Boswell was writing about the individual talents of the Boston Red Sox, a topic I know at least as much about as he does. In assessing then-Sox catcher Jason Varitek, Boswell noted that “Tek” led the league in passed balls, leaving the impression that this demonstrated a serious flaw in his catching abilities. But I knew, and more importantly Boswell knew, that the Red Sox had a regular rotation starting pitcher, Tim Wakefield, who was a knuckleballer, and was the only starting pitcher in the league who threw that confounding pitch. If a catcher regularly catches a knuckleball pitcher, he leads the league in passed balls, usually by a large margin. Always. It has nothing to do with how good a catcher he is, and Varitek was a very good catcher. Yet Boswell deliberately cited the statistic without explaining to his readers what it meant in Vartitek’s case. He did this because he was trying to argue that Boston had defensive problems. This is unethical advocacy, and unethical journalism.
After that, I only read Boswell’s columns to document his dishonesty. I was never disappointed. He’s a cheat, relying on the ignorance of his audience to deceive them.
Paul Krugman is like that. After I posted the quote from Jonathan Haidt’s speech in which the professor perfectly described the ideology-driven betrayal of the culture and our democracy by institutions of higher education, I recalled a recent Krugman piece in the Times that I had instantly dismissed as classic deceit. One passage was literally the anti-matter version of Haidt’s hard truth regarding the rot in our colleges, a deliberate lie that denied the existence of the problem in order to further Krugman’s perpetual attack on Republicans and conservatives.
Ethics Alarms 