John Gunn, the father of a 12-year-old, went to his son’s school to register his objection to his son’s class being allowed to participate in the National Walk-out to Protest Gun Laws That Had Nothing To Do With the Valentine’s Day Massacre in Parkland, Florida. He videoed the exchange with principal Barbara Boggio, and posted the confrontation on the Ventura Unified School District Facebook page.
Gunn (great name, by the way!): “I want to know who authorized these kids to go out and leave the class when I wasn’t even notified about it.”
Boggio: “As our school planned for who and what, we anticipated something…”
Gunn: “6th graders? 6th graders? When do 6th graders make decisions?…When do 12-year-olds make decisions? You’re an adult, you’re the school, you’re supposed to teach my child. You don’t influence my child in any which way. Democrat, liberal, Republican, whatever it is. I want it out of the school system. So why did my son have to sit in that class — because he didn’t leave — but why wasn’t I notified?”
Boggio: “If the student chose to leave, that’s their choice.”
Gunn: “What do you mean that’s their choice? They’re 6th graders!…If this wasn’t a protest and this wasn’t happening, you would let the kid leave?” Continue reading →
Nursery schoolers expressing their contempt for the NRA. Or they would, if they could spell it…
This story would be a KABOOM, except for some reason my head didn’t explode, perhaps because at some level I expected something like this, as I know that anti-gun zealots are without shame or common sense.
Students across the nation walked out of school Wednesday in honor of the victims of the Parkland shooting last month, including a group of New London kindergarteners….While people involved in the walkout involving a group of 5-year-olds at Harbor Elementary School said the demonstration was about school safety, student safety and parent permission have been called into question.
…New London Interim Superintendent Dr. Stephen Tracy said he didn’t have a problem with the safety message, but he and the principal didn’t know about the march ahead of time and there was no written permission from parents. “When you’re going to do something like that, in connection with something that, let’s face it, is controversial, you need to seek the approval of the principal and the parents before you involve 5-year-olds in something like that,” Tracy said.
…Harbor Elementary’s crossing guard Joyce Powers said she saw the children escorted in two lines by teachers who were carrying signs that read “enough.” “I thought it was pushing it with that age group,” Powers said. “I don’t think they understood what was actually happening.”
Tracy said he’s talked to the two teachers involved but would not say if any disciplinary measures were taken.
(An unusual number of the items this morning deserve a free-standing post. I’m not sure what to do about that; it’s been happening a lot lately.)
1 Not fake news, just a false news story that everyone ran with...Oops. All the angry condemnations of new CIA director designate Gina Haspel and President Trump (for nominating her, along with existing) were based on a mistake. From ProPublica:
On Feb. 22, 2017, ProPublica published a story that inaccurately described Gina Haspel’s role in the treatment of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al-Qaida leader who was imprisoned by the CIA at a secret “black site” in Thailand in 2002. The story said that Haspel, a career CIA officer who President Trump has nominated to be the next director of central intelligence, oversaw the clandestine base where Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding and other coercive interrogation methods that are widely seen as torture. The story also said she mocked the prisoner’s suffering in a private conversation. Neither of these assertions is correct and we retract them. It is now clear that Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended.
ProPublica, unlike, say, CNN, knows how to accept responsibility for a bad journalism botch. Stephen Engelberg, editor-in-chief, sums up the episode after explaining how the story was misreported:
A few reflections on what went wrong in our reporting and editing process.
The awkward communications between officials barred from disclosing classified information and reporters trying to reveal secrets in which there is legitimate public interest can sometimes end in miscommunication. In this instance, we failed to understand the message the CIA’s press office was trying to convey in its statement.
None of this in any way excuses our mistakes. We at ProPublica hold government officials responsible for their missteps, and we must be equally accountable. This error was particularly unfortunate because it muddied an important national debate about Haspel and the CIA’s recent history. To her, and to our readers, we can only apologize, correct the record and make certain that we do better in the future.
Perfect. This is a news source we can trust.
2. That was ProPublica. This is CNN (The Chris Cuomo post was here originally, but it got so long I posted it separately.)Continue reading →
“Will we get rescinded if we get suspended for engaging in a school walk-out to bring attention to the school shooting issue?”
In the week since the tragic mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, something incredible has begun to happen. High school students in Parkland and beyond are stepping up in a refusal to allow the issue of gun control fade from the public eye. Peaceful protests around the nation have begun to echo those in Florida. Included in these demonstrations are a number of school walkouts that have been scheduled over the next several weeks.
Some schools have indicated that students who disrupt class time by participating in such walkouts will face disciplinary action, potentially including suspension. Some, in hopes of discouraging participation, have warned their students that such disciplinary action may negatively affect their college admissions decisions. And so, over the past few days, we continue to get the question: will Yale look unfavorably upon discipline resulting from peaceful demonstrations?
The answer is simple: Of course not.”
Of course not? Why “of course not”? Because Yale as an institution favors the weakening or elimination of the Second Amendment? Because naturally Yale favors students who demonstrate for issues on the progressive agenda? What if the question was,
“Will we get rescinded if we get suspended for engaging in a school walk-out to bring attention to the unethical practice of removing statues of Confederate figures?”
Among the productions I was most proud of during the 20 year run of The American Century Theater: June Havoc’s “Marathon’33”, brilliantly produced by Rebecca Christy with negligible government funding…
Perhaps my reaction surprises you, given that I co-founded and for 20 years helped run a non-profit professional theater company.
The proposal cuts the Institute of Museum and Library Services and reduces the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s budget from $445 million to $15 million. It also cuts the funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities by almost 80 percent as prelude to phasing them out. As an aside, it will be interesting to see those suddenly emergent national debt hawks who were in cryogenic sleep during the Obama administration manage the trick of bemoaning the deficit created by the GOP tax cuts while fighting to the death for the superfluous federal expenditures on the arts. If we can’t cut these programs, we literally can’t cut anything.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, if it was ever necessary, is no longer. There were just three TV channels when it was launched: there are now hundreds. PBS is no longer commercial-free television: have you watched it lately? That doesn’t even take into consideration the constant fundraising. It is true that the commercial network fare now completely eschews any but the lowest culture, but increasingly so does PBS. The theory, as it has been for years, is that if a TV show is British, it is high culture. It isn’t. “Father Brown” is junk. There are better mysteries on CBS. “Midsummer Murders” is so slow you want to rend your garments. “Downton Abbey” was fun, but it was a soap opera. Taxpayers should not have to underwrite shows like this.
I confess to enjoying NPR, and it has been good to me professionally and personally. But it is partisan, and a publicly funded news station should not be. It is also flagrantly elitist to its core. If NPR is really popular, then some foundations and its wealthy listeners should be able to fund it.
Fox’s Tucker Carlson, a rich kid himself, has called arts spending “welfare for rich, liberal elites.” I agree in the sense that the government is paying for what the wealthy in a community should devote more of their own funds to pay for. The performing arts are now too expensive for anyone but the wealthy. Movies are half the price of a typical community theater show, and movies are seeing their box office numbers dropping. Opera? How many middle class Americans go to the opera? Symphonies? Ballets? Same thing. The entertainment industry doesn’t even pretend to care about keeping their product affordable for anyone not driving a Lexus. Look at the prices to see “Hamilton” or Bette Midler as Dolly on Broadway.
[T]he National Endowment for the Arts amplifies the voices of Americans who aren’t the so-called coastal elite, or the aristocratic, or the advantaged. It seeks to diversify the stories we tell and the lives we see. This diversity can take many forms. It can be seen in racial difference and regional difference, in terms of gender and in terms of class…. Over the last 50 years, through Creative Writing Fellowships alone, the endowment funded the work of Tillie Olsen, who wrote stories about the deep fatigue of working-class mothers; Philip Levine, a Detroit-born poet and the “Whitman of the industrial heartland”; Ernest J. Gaines, the descendant of sharecroppers who wrote fiction about rural Louisiana; and Bobbie Ann Mason, a short-story writer from rural Kentucky who, along with Carver, brought “dirty realism” into vogue — a working-class counterpoint to the fictional worlds populated by rich, liberal elites.
Bingo. When the government funds the arts, it cannot help itself from funding artists and art that advance the government’s agenda and those of its agency administrators. What this means, and what honest artists will admit, is that artists change their projects and messages to attract dollars, not to express themselves. My theater company encountered this constantly. It was made clear that we would have a better chance at grants if we did more works by women, about minorities, and exploring gay issues. I am proud of our eclectic and diverse choice of seasons, projects and artists.We also kept our ticket prices lower than almost all of the other small professional theaters. Indeed, we suffered for that: since we charged about what the amateur theaters did, a lot of people assumed we weren’t a professional company. As a company run by straight, white lawyers that attracted older citizens with advanced degrees and explored American stage works 25 years old or older, government funders had steadily decreasing interest in our work, even though it was the only professional theater in the area that admitted children free of charge. What mattered most was whether our art supported the government’s objectives. The quality of the art was secondary.
I don’t fault them for that: they were giving out money, after all, Nonetheless, the power to fund is the power to control, warp and destroy.
Artists will always be with us. So will the performing arts, but new structures, systems and funding needs to be found that does not involve the government, whose participation pollutes art and make integrity impossible and innovation difficult.
Trump may not be seeking to cut government funding of the arts for the right reasons, but it’s still the right thing to do.
1 The Big Stupid. There is a regular flow of ideas and theories from academia and politics that I categorize as “The Big Stupid”: irrational, ideologically-loaded, often dangerous assertions that are seductive to the weak-minded and easily-duped. The problem is that to keep these bad ideas from taking root, one has to actively engage in debunking them, which ironically gives their advocates staying power and credibility. One of the most popular of the current crop of Big Stupid positions is the attacks against “cultural appropriation,” which is a deceptive phrase designed to make something unequivocally good sound sinister. In this case, the completely positive and benign cultural process at the heart of the American experiment, the process of diverse people and cultures becoming one by sharing and adopting the best of what each has to offer, is being scorned as a tool of white supremacy, privilege, oppression and capitalism.
The latest screed in this particular Big Stupid is “Yoga and the Roots of Cultural Appropriation,” co-authored by Michigan State University professor Shreena Gandhi and“antiracist white Jewish organizer, facilitator, and healer” Lillie Wolff. Wolff got her degree from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the article is published in a Kalamazoo College publication. The river, Michigan city and College take their name from a Potawatomi Indian Tribe word, but that kind of “cultural appropriatiion” doesn’t matter to the authors, or something.
Don’t expect consistency in the Big Stupid.That would be stupid.
The article is full of Authentic Frontier Gibberish, Academic Division, of the sort that used to send me screaming out of late night bull sessions in college, like,
“Yoga, like so many other colonized systems of practice and knowledge, did not appear in the American spiritual landscape by coincidence; rather, its popularity was a direct consequence of a larger system of cultural appropriation that capitalism engenders and reifies. While the (mis)appropriation of yoga may not be a life-threatening racism, it is a part of systemic racism nonetheless, and it is important to ask, what are the impetuses for this cultural “grabbing”?”
Amazon has programmed Alexa, the voice-assistant in Amazon Echo devices, to tell you that it is a feminist. If you ask it, “she” will respond, “I am a feminist. As is anyone who believes in bridging the inequality between men and women in society.” Moreover, if you called last last year’s model a bitch, a slut, or even a “cunt” a year ago, Akexa 2017 would respond with, “Well, thanks for the feedback.” No longer. Now she responds to a sexist insult with a curt, “I’m not going to respond to that!”
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Dayis…
Is it ethical, responsible and appropriate to program Alexa to respond this way?
The Hasty Pudding Theatricals is an ancient Harvard theater troupe that was always a drag show, staging productions since 1844 in which men played all the women’s roles. It has announced that, for the very first time, it would include women in the cast. “The Hasty Pudding Theatricals is proud to announce that going forward, casting will be open to performers of all genders,” the group’s producers, Hannah Needle and Annie McCreery, said in an email.
This is an institution fatally impaling itself on the obelisk of political correctness.
I wondered when this would happen. I assumed it was inevitable once Harvard’s social justice warrior President Drew Faust announced in spring 2016 said that students who participated in single-gender clubs would not be allowed to hold on-campus leadership positions, captain sports teams, nor be eligible to receive endorsements for prestigious fellowships. Last year,Harvard considered banning the clubs outright, which would have included the Hasty Pudding Club which originated the show, but decided in 2017 to continue its policy of sanctions while leaving the threat hanging, like the sword of Damocles.
The Hasty Pudding show was an anachronism even when I was student. Student drag shows were common in the days before co-ed schools, and Harvard’s was the last one standing, which is what made it worth seeing and famous, the same random process that immortalized Fenway Park and George Burns. The show had a budget the size of a professional touring show, and did tour, performing for Harvard alumni clubs across the country, in addition to a month’s long run at the group’s Harvard Square theater. It hired a professional director, much of the orchestra, and the students who participated essentially gave up half a year of their education to participate. Harvard used to make its students who were interested in performing careers get their experience in extra-curricular theater groups like “the Pudding,” as it is called: there was no theater major. Thus stars-to-be like Jack Lemmon and Fred Gwynne got their start on the road to fame in Pudding shows.
The whole point is, however, that it’s a drag show. Many of the laughs come from the running joke that the women in the story are played by men, usually the biggest, tallest, hairiest ones available. The show is far more of a spoof on men than women. I have never known a woman who was offended at drag comedy. I have known many men and women who didn’t find it funny—my father hated Milton Berle especially because of his penchant for dressing in drag. I’m not a fan either, although John Cleese’s female impressions are irresistible.
I was also not a fan of the Pudding show itself, despite being very active in campus theater and having many friends who performed. I only saw one of the productions, “Bottoms Up!”, my freshman year. It was slick, well-performed, the costumes were terrific, and the original, student-written songs were excellent—I still have the cast album–but one hasty Pudding theatrical was plenty. The climax of every show was a spectacular kickline, which was perfectly executed by big, hairy guys dressed like the Rockettes. Again, not my cup of tea: I appreciated it rather than loved it. Continue reading →
I can say “good morning,” can’t I? Can I tweet it? Is it moderate enough?
About calling the news media “the enemy of the people”...Foolishly, people are cheering Senator Jeff Flake’s dishonest and cheap characterization of President Trump’s description of the news media as “words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies.” They were also words used by playwright Henrik Ibsen about 70 years before Stalin used them. The device of finding the most revolting person ever to use a phrase and then connect a current speaker to that person is an unethical abuse of the cognitive dissonance scale, and as low a political tactic as I can think of right now, but I’m sure “the resistance” will come up with a lower one.
Flake’s entire speech was below the belt demagoguery. By what measure, for example, is a Presidential aide’s ad lib comment on cable TV about “alternative facts” “enshrining “alternative facts” into the American lexicon.” The news media did the enshrining, Senator. The White House never mentioned the term, not even once. “2017 was a year which saw the truth — objective, empirical, evidence-based truth — more battered and abused than any other in the history of our country, at the hands of the most powerful figure in our government” is simply a lie. 2017 was a year which saw the truth battered and abused by the one profession whose job and duty it is not to abuse the truth: journalists. Worse, the did much of it to create fear, disrespect and distrust of the elected President of the United States, because they wanted someone else to win.
Flake reminds us that the press is protected by the Constitution, and he seems to believe, as the news media does, that this special status that they abuse daily, hourly, by the minute, should insulate them from deserved criticism and distrust no matter how they misinform and the degree of harm they do in the process. Let’s take just a single cable anchor: Chris Cuomo. He told the public that they could not legally read the Wikileaks leaks, but the news media could. He tweeted that “hate speech” was not protected by the First Amendment. He sid last week that the President’s alleged use of “shithole” irresponsibly polluted the minds of children, when if he spoke that word at all, he spoke it behind closed doors, with the understanding that he was dealing with responsible professionals who would not intentionally breach their implied promise that the meeting was private and confidential. Those are three flagrant examples of journalism malpractice, and off the top of my head. If I chose to, I could find dozens more, and that’s only one “respected journalist.”
The resistance to the President’s description is in some cases denial, and in more cases a deliberate deception to allow wrongdoing to continue. I am cross-posting the following from my comments today on another post: Continue reading →
Back in 2016, Harvard University President Drew Faust sent an email to undergraduate students and the Harvard community, announcing that beginning with the 2017 entering class, undergraduate members of unrecognized single-gender social organizations (called “fraternities and sororities” at normal colleges) would be banned from holding athletic team captaincies and leadership positions in all recognized student groups. They would also be ineligible for College endorsement for top fellowships like the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships. I wrote in part,
Let us be clear what Harvard is trying to do here. It is seeking to punish students for their associations and activities unrelated to the school itself, and using its power within the limits of the campus to indoctrinate ideological values and require conduct that is unrelated to education. This is a rejection of the principle of freedom of association, one of those enumerated rights protected by the Ninth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and a cornerstone of American principles. If the college can, in effect, create a blacklist withholding institutional honors from those who choose to belong to an all male or all female club completely distinct from the university, what clearly delineated line prevents the same institution from declaring that membership in the Republican Party, Occupy Wall Street, Americans For Trump or the NAACP are similarly undermining its values?
There is no such line.
But the policy went forward. Then, last July, a Harvard University task force advised banning students from joining any “fraternities, sororities, and similar organizations” as part of a process to phase out the social groups entirely by 2022. The recommendation was not adopted. Now, three sororities (remember, these are off-campus organizations not officially affiliated with Harvard) announced that they will still recruit freshman women next semester.
“This is the spirit in which Alpha Phi, Delta Gamma, and Kappa Alpha Theta were established during the early 1870s,” the sororities said in their joint statement, titled, “We Believe Women Should Make Their Own Choices.”
Ethics Alarms 