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[–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S,M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

New thread posted: https://saidit.net/s/CultureWarRoundup/comments/8grw/offtopic_and_loweffort_cw_thread_for_october_11/


Per user suggestion, until traffic on this sub picks up a bit, I'm going to create a single thread that may correlate to several weeks' worth of threads in the subreddit. We have this option because saidit's automoderator doesn't appear to have the "auto-post new threads" feature. There is no cutoff that will generate a new OT/LE thread, but practically-speaking, it will probably be somewhere in the 2-3 weeks/100 comments range to start. We have flexibility at the expense of a small amount of convenience.

That said, here is the cross-link to the current OT/LE on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/CultureWarRoundup/comments/q0yrmd/october_04_2021_weekly_offtopic_and_loweffort_cw/

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High school begins all staff meetings with ‘commitment to dismantling whiteness’

Richfield High School Principal Stacy Theien-Collins revealed her school’s commitment at last Monday’s school board meeting, Alpha News.com reports.

“We’re going to start like we start all of our high school meetings, which is with our Richfield High School vision of equity,” Theien-Collins told the board. She noted “100% of her staff” added input on this “vision” last school year, and that every Richfield staff member created “a personal vision of equity.”

Richfield’s commitment states:

“At Richfield High School we believe in providing a rigorous and equitable education reflecting the strengths and experiences of our community. We believe students learn best when they feel safe and affirmed in who they are. Therefore, we commit to dismantling policies and processes that benefit whiteness and other systems of privilege.”

The Richfield Public Schools’ “equity” page states the district is “committed to viewing and analyzing all of [its] work through a racial and cultural equity lens so that each individual can learn, grow and excel.”

[...]

Alpha News notes Richfield schools recently were embroiled in controversy over a sex education curriculum in which students were requested to “role play as gay and transgender characters navigating sex scenarios.”

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[Andrew Sullivan] Dave Chappelle Is Right, Isn't He?

The use of trans people in this way follows a pattern. The woke left uses gay people in the same way: calling all of us “queer” to ensure our continued marginalization, merging us into postmodern categories like “LGBTQIA+” to deny our distinctive human experiences, erasing gay men and lesbians whose politics are not far-left and whose lives are not much different than our straight friends, describing gay men who are attracted to the same sex and not always the same gender as transphobes, literally falsifying history and re-making the English language to make it conform to their ideology.

The weapons deployed in pursuit of this fantasy are those that are always used by those seeking to impose utopia on free people: the brutal hounding of dissent, the capture and control of every single cultural institution, the indoctrination of the young, cancellations, bullying. The costs are mounting. Across the West, people are being fired, targeted, prosecuted, even jailed, for stating biological facts. Children are being medicated with off-label drugs — “puberty blockers” — that can permanently sterilize them, arrest their neurological and mental development, and deprive them of the ability as adults to experience an orgasm.

I didn’t know the latter until I read the account by two leading transgender surgeons in medical treatment of children with gender dysphoria on Bari Weiss’s substack. These doctors are not marginal to the field. They are: “Dr. Marci Bowers, a world-renowned vaginoplasty specialist who operated on reality-television star Jazz Jennings; and Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist at the University of California San Francisco’s Child and Adolescent Gender Clinic.”

They explain that when you halt puberty in a natal boy with a penis, and then switch the kid to female hormones, the genitals remain like a child’s, never develop the sensitivity of adolescence and there is therefore not enough penile material to invert into a created vagina. Surgeons sometimes have to take parts of the colon to patch it together. Money quote:

“If you’ve never had an orgasm pre-surgery, and then your puberty's blocked, it's very difficult to achieve that afterwards,” Bowers said. “I consider that a big problem, actually. It’s kind of an overlooked problem that in our ‘informed consent’ of children undergoing puberty blockers, we’ve in some respects overlooked that a little bit.”

The purposeful, life-long removal of sexual pleasure by operating on children? Where are we, Somalia? How on earth can a pre-pubertal child meaningfully consent to that? The reason we are told it is hateful and insensitive to discuss these actual realities is that, if we did, we’d be horrified. Which is why I’m not surprised that when these two leading trans physicians proposed an op-ed on this subject for the NYT — a big scoop — they were turned down, on the grounds that the subject was “outside our coverage priorities right now.” Yet the paper just published this piece, which urges less gate-keeping and describes the current situation as “100 percent justifiable and safe.”

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[Matt Taibbi] The Cult of the Vaccine Neurotic

If you’re thinking it was only a matter of time before the mere fact of molnupiravir’s existence would be pitched in headlines as actual bad news, you’re not wrong: Marketwatch came out with “‘It’s not a magic pill’: What Merck’s antiviral pill could mean for vaccine hesitancy” the same day Merck issued its release. The piece came out before we knew much of anything concrete about the drug’s effectiveness, let alone whether it was “magic.”

Bloomberg’s morose “No, the Merck pill won’t end the pandemic” was released on October 2nd, i.e. one whole day after the first encouraging news of a possible auxiliary treatment whose most ardent supporters never claimed would end the pandemic. This article said the pill might be cause to celebrate, but warned its emergence “shouldn’t be cause for complacency when it comes to the most effective tool to end this pandemic: vaccines.” Bloomberg randomly went on to remind readers that the unrelated drug ivermectin is a “horse de-worming agent,” before adding that if molnupiravir ends up “being viewed as a solution for those who refuse to vaccinate,” the “Covid virus will continue to persist.”

In other words, it took less than 24 hours for the drug — barely tested, let alone released yet — to be accused of prolonging the pandemic. By the third day, mentions of molnupiravir in news reports nearly all came affixed to stern reminders of its place beneath vaccines in the medical hierarchy, as in the New York Times explaining that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who initially told reporters the new drug was “impressive,” now “warned that Americans should not wait to be vaccinated because they believe they can take the pill.”

Since the start of the Trump years, we’ve been introduced to a new kind of news story, which assumes adults can’t handle multiple ideas at once, and has reporters frantically wrapping facts deemed dangerous, unorthodox, or even just insufficiently obvious in layers of disclaimers. The fear of uncontrolled audience brain-drift is now so great that even offhand references must come swaddled in these journalistic Surgeon General’s warnings, which is why whenever we read anything now, we almost always end up fighting through nests of phrases like “the debunked conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was created in a lab” in order to get to whatever the author’s main point might be.

This lunacy started with the Great Lie Debate of 2016, when reporters and editors spent months publicly anguishing over whether to use “lie” in headlines of Donald Trump stories, then loudly congratulated themselves once they decided to do it. The most histrionic offender was the New York Times, previously famous for teaching readers to digest news in code (“he claimed” for years was Times-ese for “full of shit”) but now reasoned a “more muscular terminology,” connoting “a certain moral opprobrium,” was needed to distinguish the “dissembling” of a politician like Bill Clinton from Trump’s whoppers. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” could be mere falsehood, but “I will build a great great wall” required language that “stands apart.”

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Earth-Salter Apartheid

As a fan of speculative dystopian fiction, and as someone who’s studied real-life historical apartheids and exclusionary societies, I consider it a perverse privilege to be able to document exactly such a transitional period—that “B” between Point A (old America) and Point C (“You’re white? Go pave a road”). Because make no mistake—that’s where we are right now: on the path to an antiwhite racial dystopia. We’re not there yet; we may in fact be at the last juncture where the brakes can be applied. But the car’s only moving in one direction, and it’s toward that dystopia, not away from it.

For those of us who see this period as a novel’s prologue, it’s vital to not fall victim to the grandiose alarmism that affects the work of bad scribes. There’s not going to be a race war, or a civil war, or secession, or “national divorce,” or racial “homelands.” It’ll be a banal apartheid. Most whites will just keep on keeping on. Never underestimate mankind’s capacity to absorb a beatdown.

And that’s especially true of apartheids in which the elite members of the group getting beaten down are in on it. That might be the only thing that old hag got right with Handmaid; from what I recall of the film, elite women were the most brutal enforcers of the female slavery system. There are multiple historical examples of members of an oppressed group collaborating with their oppressors, and by studying those precedents, we can better understand what makes our coming dystopia so much worse.

[...]

Our incipient American apartheid is based solely on tearing down. On being antiwhite for the sake of it, as opposed to being antiwhite because others believe they can “build better.” That’s why this incoming apartheid is dystopian and dysgenic. Again, say what you will about the brutality of SA apartheid, Nazi Germany, British colonialism, and Manifest Destiny, but those things were carried out by people who genuinely believed that they deserved the reins because they could forge something greater.

American blacks don’t deny that they’re disproportionately arrested and incarcerated. They don’t deny that they disproportionately score low on standardized tests. They don’t deny that they can’t achieve employment or college admission without the “extra help” of affirmative action and diversity quotas. In fact, they wallow in these ills; they’re the first to cite them as proof of their “oppression.”

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French mayor says foreigners are ‘ethnically cleansing’ French natives in certain neighborhoods

In certain French regions, the immigrants who settled there are harassing the indigenous population to the extent that it amounts to “ethnic cleansing,” said Gilles Platret, mayor of the central French town of Chalon-sur-Saône, on the news program of the popular CNews television channel.

“In certain neighborhoods — and I am going to use a strong word that will raise some eyebrows — I sense a certain ‘ethnic cleansing,’ meaning that you have people of foreign origin who are slowly hunting what demographic experts call the ‘natives,’ that is people who are from that county, to make place for themselves,” said Platret, who belongs to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party.

“We see people of immigrant background in neighborhoods physically and verbally assaulting older people. They tell them that they ‘must clear out,'” said Platret.

His statement caused some rumblings in the studio, but Platret continued:

“The words (i.e. how you say it) do not matter. In more concrete terms, people not belonging to a Muslim group are being pushed out through violence, threats, and insults. They are being ejected from these neighborhoods and that is a reality.”

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Economics professors argue abortion is beneficial because it reduces black birth rates

A group of 154 economists, many of whom are professors, recently submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court ahead of a December 1 hearing on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.

The brief states that the court should strike down a Mississippi law that prohibits abortions after 15 weeks because abortion access has “changed the arc of women’s lives.”

Particularly, the economists say, black women have benefited from abortion more than any other racial group, as seen by the higher rates of abortion.

[...]

The College Fix reached out to five of the signers of the amicus brief to ask them if they had any concerns that their amicus brief could be interpreted to mean that abortion is good for society because it leads to fewer black babies.

The Fix also asked if the professors believe government entities should help black women have more abortions.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

wish they could legalize it for black women only

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St Andrews reverts to 16th Century Calvinism: Instead of original sin, students now have to acknowledge 'personal guilt'

You would be forgiven for thinking that universities are secular institutions. But it turns out that the University of St Andrews is reverting to something akin to 16th Century Calvinism: except that this time it is preaching the doctrine of ‘personal guilt’ rather than ‘original sin.’

The university has introduced new induction modules for students (or should I say converts?) for students on sustainability, diversity and consent, and will not allow students to matriculate if they do not pass. How do students pass? By agreeing with certain statements, such as “acknowledging your personal guilt is a useful start point in overcoming unconscious bias.”

Surely St Andrews — and indeed, all universities — should be focusing on providing quality teaching and learning for their students, rather than forcing undergraduates through a tick-box exercise that adds nothing to the pursuit of academic debate and inquiry? After all, does an 18-year-old who wants to undertake a BSc in Molecular Biology really need to ‘prove’ their purity and acquiescence in order to be allowed to study at a particular institution?

It’s easy to see the test as a form of indoctrination: few students will dare to sacrifice themselves as free speech martyrs, or risk alienating themselves from their peers by admitting that they are non-believers. But then they won’t have to, because the reality is the test achieves nothing. Rather than genuinely exploring and analysing the notion of privilege, undergraduates will simply learn what statements they need to agree with in order to pass, and therefore any ‘atonement’ will be purely performative.

There is also a deep irony that the test is supposed to help teach ‘good academic practice.’ Good academic practice should be about fostering intellectual curiosity, weighing up evidence, considering alternative opinions, and trying to come to original, convincing conclusions — it should not be about blindly following dogma.

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DEI vs. USD: The woke blob swallows the University of San Diego.

Many conservative parents looking for moderately traditional college options for their children seek schools that are under the protective cover of a church. The University of San Diego (USD), a Catholic school with a law school not unfriendly to conservatives, may once have been such a safe haven, but no longer. Under President James Harris, the school has undergone a kind of hostile takeover by the forces of wokeness. The story of what happened to USD provides a cautionary tale to parents, donors, and students trying to outrun the spread of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI), as detailed in a new report entitled “The Woke Takeover at University of San Diego.”

Until the George Floyd-BLM riots, USD had standard-fare diversity classes and diversity committees. Then, in Fall 2020, Harris and Provost Gail Baker established an Anti-Racism Task Force (ARTF), which established four sub-committees: Anti-Racism Training; Policies related to Acts of Intolerance and Acts of Hate; Faculty Recruitment, Hiring & Retention; and Student Recruitment and Retention. Its 28-page report, containing 41 recommendations, was released in December 2020.

[...]

Every element of the student experience is to be oriented toward DEI indoctrination. Test scores will no longer be consulted for admissions, since they discriminate among students. Instead, grade point averages and answers to personal insight questions determine admissions. Before accepted students even get to campus, their orientation in DEI begins with “Torero Circles,” an online training for incoming students. The first week of Circles concerns “diversity, inclusion and community” through a course designed around “key concepts” like “identity, bias, power, privilege, and oppression, to understand the benefits of a diverse community, and to develop skills related to ally behavior, self-care, and creating inclusive spaces.” Later weeks concern academic success.

Students get another dose DEI in August after their arrival on campus, where they celebrate “Diversity, Inclusion, Social Justice & Changemaking Day.” Students engage in dialogue about the urgent challenges of institutional racism in our day. Student orientation, captured in part in this video, pushes white students to acknowledge their unearned privilege as it points to a “white racial identity.”

Students are directed to “living-learning communities” (LLC) for required classes after orientation. LLCs point students to leftist community activism with courses like “Introduction to Changemaking,” “Writing as a Form of Advocacy,” and “Introduction to Ethnic Studies.” USD’s general education requirements have doubled the number of explicitly-dedicated DEI credits needed for graduation under Harris.

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Environmentalism is class war by other means: Scenes of furious motorists clashing with eco-snobs make it all crystal clear.

Modern politics starts to make a lot more sense when you realise that a lot of the mad movements that have sprung up of late are just waging a class war by other means. The woke middle classes demonise working-class people as unreconstructed bigots, Remaoners rail against the ‘uneducated’ throng, and bourgeois environmentalists block roads in an attempt to make the lives of the drivers they’re blocking tougher and more expensive.

Every so often the mask slips and the class dynamics become crystal clear. That’s precisely what happened earlier today on Wandsworth Bridge in London. Members of Insulate Britain, the Extinction Rebellion offshoot now 11 days into its road-blocking campaign for double-glazing, were filmed being dragged out of the road by enraged working-class men who did what the authorities couldn’t and cleared the road of these Home Counties irritants.

‘It’s a fucking ambulance, you stupid prick, get out the road’, one furious motorist shouted, in one of the viral clips of the clash, as he and others dragged protesters out of the path of said ambulance. It perfectly summed up the mix of fury and bemusement with which most people look upon Insulate Britain. By the Blackwall Tunnel, which IB was also blocking, a woman was filmed begging the protesters to let her through so she could get to her sick mother in hospital, slamming the assorted crusties for their selfishness.

That IB, XR or whatever this lot will call themselves next week, are dominated by middle-class people isn’t a slur — it’s an empirical fact. Last year, academics from the University of Exeter, Keele University and Aston University published research showing that XR activists are overwhelmingly middle-class, highly educated and southern. A whopping 85 per cent of them have degrees. (Incidentally, going on the snaps of those arrested in recent days, a surprisingly large proportion of them appear to be vicars.)

Those scuffles on the roads have beautifully illustrated what has been clear for some time: that eco-activism is essentially comfortably off middle-class people agitating to make ordinary people’s lives worse. Their mission flows from their tactics. They block a road and a load of people’s days are ruined. Meanwhile, the protesters’ overriding goal, spelled out in their leading lights’ public statements, is to bring about a society in which cars, flights and ‘non-essential consumption’ are banned.

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[–]fschmidt 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

That's too bad because most people of all races are genetically defective mutants, and whites are no exception.

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Hoax alert: East Carolina student arrested for sending fake racist invite to rival fraternity party

A black East Carolina University student was arrested last week on charges he sent a fake racist party invitation to a rush event hosted by a rival fraternity.

James Edwards, 19 (pictured), allegedly sent an invite to a party being thrown by a campus fraternity that said, “Theta Chi rush party. PNMs (potential new members) and girls only. No blacks. Girls 5$ @door. Call or text.” The message, posted on the social media site Yik Yak, included the name and contact information for a Theta Chi member.

Edwards is a member of Pi Lambda Phi, a rival fraternity. The Pi Lambda Phi website lists him as the vice president of recruitment for the fraternity.

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The New Secession Movement

A new poll from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics finds that large portions of the American public now favor blue and red states going their own ways to form separate countries. The survey results, writes political scientist Larry Sabato, highlight the “deep, wide and dangerous divides” between Trump and Biden voters, presaging a new secession movement. But the schism was already evident in the increasing number of state and local officials enacting laws and policies that ban travel and restrict commerce with other American places with governments they object to—a trend that the Covid-19 emergency has only deepened. In everything from tax policy to travel to contracting rules, a secession movement within the states has been building for years.

California recently banned any state-sponsored travel by its employees to Ohio, based on a 2016 law that imposes penalties on states that California officials deem to be discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender residents. At issue is Ohio’s new “conscience clause” law, which allows a medical provider to refuse to perform certain procedures, such as gender-transition surgery, if they violate a doctor’s religious or moral beliefs. The Golden State originally passed the 2016 legislation after North Carolina enacted a bill requiring people to use public bathrooms based on their birth gender. Five other states—Washington, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Connecticut—joined California in restricting commerce with North Carolina. Since then, the number of laws that allegedly run afoul of California’s 2016 measure have proliferated—and so have the bans. California now restricts government-financed travel in 18 other U.S. states containing 116 million people—including both Carolinas, both Dakotas, Texas, and Florida. Most recently, California applied its restrictions to states that require transgender athletes to participate in high school sports based on their birth gender—even though prominent LGBTQ athletes such as Martina Navratilova have endorsed a similar policy.

Once states and cities embark on these kinds of prohibitions, there’s nothing to stop them from spreading. And they have. A decade ago, for instance, Los Angeles restricted travel by city employees to Arizona because of its immigration policy and urged city departments not to do business with firms in the state. Among other things, city police refused to send helicopter pilots to training sessions taking place in Phoenix, and city council members refused to attend a National League of Cities conference in Arizona. A few years later, L.A. added its own restrictions on travel to North Carolina and Mississippi over their transgender bathroom laws.

[...]

Ordinarily, the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which gives the federal government the right to regulate trade among the states, prohibits such restrictions, but courts have recognized the right of states to impose bans during emergencies. Yet, as with lockdowns, states continually expanded their travel bans based on emergency powers, in the process voiding the intention of the drafters of the Commerce Clause for unprecedented periods. New York’s travel and quarantine rules lasted ten months, Maine’s for more than a year, and Hawaii’s for a year and a half—and counting. Governors frequently jousted over the restrictions, with officials in Florida, New York, and Rhode Island waging a war of words at various points during the pandemic.

The power of the Commerce Clause is fading in other troubling ways. State laws like California’s 2016 LGBTQ discrimination measure are designed to extract some economic toll on other states, but even more powerful economic weapons are available. One troubling trend has been the decline of Commerce Clause protections against states’ reaching into other locales for taxation of citizens and businesses, resulting in an increase of out-of-state punitive actions. For generations, U.S. courts, led by the Supreme Court, interpreted the Commerce Clause as requiring a firm to have some physical presence in a state to be subject to taxes there. But the rise of remote work and technological advances like cloud computing have prompted states to redefine what constitutes a business’s “presence,” sparking widespread poaching of tax dollars. During the mid-2000s, for instance, New Jersey revenue agents stopped thousands of trucks with out-of-state license plates and impounded them, demanding that the owners pay a steep minimum corporation tax simply because the trucks were using the state’s roads to deliver remotely ordered products from businesses that had no presence there. The practice spread to other states and became punitive. Colorado legislators even passed a resolution urging their revenue agents to target trucks from states that had pursued Colorado companies.

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Report: Too Many White People Studying Racial Disparities in Health Care

Is studying racial disparities in health care just another example of white supremacy run amok? A recently published investigative report suggests the answer is yes.

"‘Health equity tourists': How white scholars are colonizing research on health disparities," reads the headline of the report, which appeared last week on the health care-focused website Stat. Such research is now "in vogue," writes national science correspondent Usha Lee McFarling, who appears to be white. "Journals are clamoring for it, the media is covering it, and the National Institutes of Health, after publicly apologizing for giving the field short shrift, recently announced it would unleash nearly $100 million for research on the topic."

Isn't that good? Not really. The heightened focus on racial health disparities has created "a gold rush mentality where researchers with little or no background or training in health equity research, often white and already well-funded, are rushing in to scoop up grants and publish papers," to the detriment of BIPOC researchers who are eager to push back against what they see as a form of colonialism.

"Medicine does that, they Columbus everything," said Monica McLemore, an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who is pictured in the article wearing a shirt that reads "Educated & Blaccinated." She is concerned about the influx of white researchers interested in her field of study—reproductive health in marginalized communities—and what she describes as a concerted effort to "invisibilize the essential work of women of color."

One particularly "glaring example" cited in the report was the Journal of the American Medical Association‘s (JAMA) publication in August of a special issue focused on "racial and ethnic health disparities in medicine." Rather than being celebrated for highlighting these issues, the journal was denounced as "an illustration of the structural racism embedded in academic publishing" because none of the five research papers included in the special issue had a lead author who was black.

Ignore racial differences? Racist!

Study racial differences? Double racist!

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Fairfax County ends arrest blotter over concerns data could be used in effort to deport immigrants

Fairfax County police have stopped publishing a weekly arrest blotter after county officials found it violated a policy that restricts the dissemination of personal information that could aid immigration enforcement.

Immigrant rights and civil liberties groups had been pushing for the change, arguing the weekly compilations that include arrestees’ addresses and other details could allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to target immigrants for deportation and raise privacy concerns.

But open-government advocates and some politicians have criticized the move, saying it decreases police transparency and keeps critical safety information from the public, including details about some violent, sex and property crimes.

[...]

Fairfax County police said the disclosure of arrestees is required by the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), so the information cannot be restricted altogether. The department will continue to publish crime statistics and a weekly highlight of a selection of serious crimes.

The group ACLU People Power and others began lobbying for the change in arrest reporting after the county Board of Supervisors adopted a “Trust Policy” in January. The policy requires the county to cooperate with ICE when mandated by state or federal law but otherwise restricts the county from releasing the personal information of county residents that ICE could use to conduct immigration enforcement. The policy was a response to stepped-up ICE activity during the Trump administration.

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School boards group asks Biden to consider labeling opponents ‘domestic terrorists’

The National School Boards Association has asked President Biden to look into slapping a “domestic terrorist” label on “angry” parents and community members who speak their minds at board meetings.

“America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat,” the group says in its letter to the president. “[As] acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

[...]

But some of the instances cited by the NSBA in its letter appear to be free speech, to say nothing of “terrorism.” For example, the group cites a person yelling “a Nazi salute in protest to masking requirements,” while another’s actions “prompted [a] board to call a recess because of opposition to critical race theory.”

As repugnant as it may be to some, doing a Nazi gesture in opposition to mask mandates in a public forum is protected speech … as is someone speaking out against critical race theory.

It’s certainly not “terrorism” to go over a speaking time limit or to refuse to sit down, and definitely not something worthy of anything beyond the purview of local law enforcement.

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DHS to Shield Majority of Illegal Aliens From Deportation, Including Mentally Ill Criminals

Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is no longer going to "deport people solely because they are undocumented" and is advising ICE to consider shielding mentally ill criminals from deportation in the name of "achieving justice."

[...]

"Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday said immigration officers can no longer detain and deport people from the U.S. solely because they are undocumented," CNBC reported.

"The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen will not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them," Mayorkas' new guidelines state.

None of the thousands of illegal aliens he's allowing to march into our country every single day are "undocumented."

They are fully documented, they just throw their documents in the garbage before crossing because they know that means Mayorkas will give them special treatment and allow them to stay.

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The NYT's Partisan Tale about COVID and the Unvaccinated is Rife with Sloppy Data Analysis

A widely shared article recently appeared in The New York Times’ “The Morning” newsletter titled “Red Covid,” authored by David Leonhardt. This article, presented as news reporting and not an opinion piece, argues that deaths from COVID-19 are “showing a partisan pattern,” with the worst impacts of the disease “increasingly concentrated in red America.” Given that this narrative perfectly flatters a liberal sense of superiority, it has predictably gained substantial traction on MSNBC and on Twitter.

One particular claim in the Times' article caught my attention: that there is a clear and strong association on a county level between COVID deaths and support for Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Specifically, the article alleged that those counties which voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump had more than a four-fold greater mortality rate than those counties which decisively voted against Trump. If true, that would indeed be a striking observation.

But, as is often the case with epidemiological observations, the question is more complicated than two variables. There are three analytic errors that can lead someone to make false conclusions from what appears to be a meaningful association between two variables: bias, confounding variables, and random statistical error. In this case, the Times’ analysis failed to discuss significant confounding variables.

Age is a common confounder in public health research, and COVID-19 is no exception. The mortality burden of COVID-19 is not randomly distributed across age groups. Indeed, age appears to be the “strongest predictor of mortality” from COVID-19, with one’s risk of death increasing exponentially with age. According to CDC figures, the oldest populations experience a rate of death 570 times higher than that of the youngest populations. This is precisely why older populations were vaccinated first; we knew that prioritizing this population would have the most dramatic effect in curtailing hospitalizations and deaths. Yet the crude county-level analysis reported in The New York Times failed to adjust or account for age at all.

Why is it especially important that we adjust for age when comparing COVID-19 mortality rates in “red” counties with “blue” counties? Because age is not randomly distributed geographically, nor is it randomly distributed on a partisan basis. Republican voters tend to be older than Democratic voters. And rural counties, where Trump won by the largest margins, have older populations than suburban and urban counties. So this means that age is clearly a third, unaccounted for factor that is associated with both the independent variable (a county’s political affiliation) and the dependent variable (COVID-19 fatality rate) in question. This makes it a significant confounder that could easily exaggerate or distort the measured effect and lead one to spurious conclusions.

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HOAX: Black woman charged after allegedly posing as white male and sending violent, racist notes to neighbors

Police identified Terresha Lucas, a 30-year-old African-American female, as the suspect behind the notes, charging her with eight counts of making terroristic threats, according to a police statement.

Police said that residents of Manning Drive in Georgia began receiving notes in December from a person claiming to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan. "Lucas allegedly described herself as a six-feet-tall white male with a long, red beard who did not live in the neighborhood," the police statement said.

[...]

"The notes threatened to burn their houses down and kill them and said that they didn't belong in the neighborhood," he said.

"Subsequent notes with similar verbiage were placed in residents' mailboxes on Feb. 17, Feb. 22, March 1 and March 3. After a six-month absence, the final note was placed on Sept. 6. Shumaker said there were likely more notes written," the police statement said.

According to CBS46, the notes were received by at least seven black people who lived in the neighborhood. The notes reportedly contained the N-word and talked about hanging people and killing kids.

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Hoax alert: Black student admits to writing racist graffiti in high school bathrooms

Following a raucous and emotional classroom walkout last week to protest racist messages in a Missouri school’s bathrooms, a black student ended up admitting responsibility for it.

The graffiti at Parkway Central High near St. Louis included a “racial slur for African Americans […] as well as a statement wishing the death of Black people,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

During the walkout, students “yelled questions” and cursed at Parkway Principal Tim McCarthy, shouted “no justice, no peace” and complained about feeling unsafe at school.

Parkway School District Superintendent Keith Marty (left) said in a statement the fact that the culprit is black “does not diminish the hurt it caused or the negative impact it has on our entire community.” This is an almost-verbatim response from a similar incident four years ago.

[...]

A district spokesperson said officials “don’t know why” the (black) student wrote the graffiti. Marty added “We cannot presume the reasons a student would do this,” which is another almost-repeat statement from 2017’s hoax.

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Stop “Civil Rights” Abuse: States must block the federal government from countermanding localities with fake constitutional protections.

In late August, as students headed back to school, the Biden Department of Education made clear to parents what close observers had predicted: this administration defines “civil rights” as “whatever the left happens to prefer.”

Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona announced that his Office for Civil Rights (OCR) would investigate five states that have prohibited universal mask mandates. He declared that these investigations would explore whether such prohibitions violate Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and interrogate “each state’s compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,” which guarantees people with disabilities “an equal opportunity to receive program benefits and services.”

The Biden administration, it seems, believes that a student has a civil right to have his school board force his peers to wear a mask.

This is a willful and arbitrary exercise of power, and a revealing one. If the political polarity of masking were reversed, one could easily imagine the Biden administration arguing that mask mandates discriminate against students with disabilities—students like Daniel Volodin, who has autism and epilepsy and is being denied in-person instruction by the Abermarle County school district because he is unable to wear a mask all day.

That argument would, in fact, have greater merit than the grounds cited by the Biden administration. No “investigation” should be necessary to determine the legal question of whether prohibiting a mask mandate violates Title II of the ADA. It either does or it doesn’t.

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There is no such thing as white privilege: Even swearing is now classified as ‘white privilege’. What a load of bollocks.

So now wearing second-hand clothes is a sign of ‘white privilege’. Just when you thought you’d heard it all from the loopy identity lobby, they come out with the idea that putting on a vintage dress or a musty old man’s shirt you bought from Oxfam is proof that you enjoy racial favouritism. This crackpot claim is made in a course being foisted on students at the University of Kent. If you can wear second-hand clobber without this being held up as yet another example of the ‘bad morals of [your] race’, then you are apparently white and you’re definitely privileged.

I have so many questions. First, who exactly is going around saying to ethnic-minority people who dare to don vintage fashion, ‘Oh God, how typical of your race to wear second-hand clothes?’. I am going to say ‘nobody’. When racist toerags do accost people who look different to them, it is usually not to critique their Seventies florals or dad’s old blazer. Secondly, it will surely be news to all the less well-off white kids who have little choice but to wear second-hand clothes – ‘hand-me-downs’ – that their repurposed trainers and patched-up jumpers are proof of their privilege. Some of us who crazily cling to the belief that class and income remain the key shapers of privilege in our society might even say that the wearing of second-hand clothes in such circumstances is proof of the absence of privilege. Mad, I know.

The Kent course, titled ‘Expect Respect’, is only the latest example of students being inculcated into the ways of moral conformism. It’s a mandatory module, which takes four hours to complete, and is designed to raise students’ awareness about white privilege, microaggressions, pronouns and other riveting topics. The module includes a ‘white privilege quiz’ – such fun! – in which the freshers are grilled over the societal benefits enjoyed by whitey. Apparently if you can swear without being called a disgrace to your race or go shopping without being followed or harassed, then you enjoy white privilege. Students who correctly identify all the indicators of racial privilege get a gold star. Presumably those who don’t get branded with the letter ‘R’ for racist.

The list of things that are apparently signs of white privilege grows longer and more demented by the day. Saying ‘I don’t see colour’ is white privilege. Eating French food is white privilege. Drinking milk is white privilege. Saying ‘I don’t have white privilege’ is white privilege. Of course it is. ‘For white people to dismiss the benefits they’ve reaped because of their whiteness only goes to show how oblivious – and privileged – they really are’, says one writer. This is the Kafkaesque trap of identity politics. There’s no winning in this slippery game. Refuse to acknowledge another person’s race and you’re racist. But obsess over another person’s race and presumably you’re also racist. Saying ‘I don’t see difference’ is racist. But saying ‘Oh you seem different, where are you from?’ is racist too. Confess your white privilege, and clearly you’re privileged. Deny it and you’re really privileged. It’s like being an old lady on a ducking stool in medieval times. Float, you’re a witch. Die, you’re a witch.

The idea of ‘white privilege’ sums up how toxic identity politics has become. The belief that folk with white skin have certain privileges conferred upon them is widely held in millennial circles, in the education system, in much of the political sphere, in popular culture, and in the opinion-shaping – or rather, orthodoxy-enforcing – world of social media. Even the BBC is getting in on the act, no doubt as penance for the sin of being ‘hideously white’ (in the words of its former director-general, Greg Dyke). BBC employees are given diversity training that involves taking a ‘privilege test’. BBC Bitesize, Auntie’s educational wing, last year provided a lecture for schoolkids on white privilege. ‘White privilege’ is not something that was ‘made up to make white people feel bad’, it said. Defensive much?

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The White Backlash That Wasn’t: Opposition to critical race theory is broad and bipartisan.

Over the past year, the left-leaning media has peddled the narrative that an emotional constellation of “white resentment,” “white fragility,” “white rage,” and “white fear” drives opposition to critical race theory in America’s public schools. Now NBC News claims it can prove it.

In a long story featuring analysis of demographic data, NBC News reporter Tyler Kingkade and data editor Nigel Chiwaya claim that the parent uprisings against critical race theory, which have occurred in more than 200 school districts across the country, are a “backlash” against “rapid demographic change” and “the exposure of white students to students of color.” Or, to put it bluntly, it’s the ugly reaction of white racism in the face of rapidly integrating schools. As left-leaning Slate concluded, NBC’s reporting proves that fear of “white replacement” and the desire to “protect whiteness” motivate the anti-critical race theory movement.

There is only one problem: NBC’s analysis is nonsense. The report, like the left-wing narrative about critical race theory more generally, fails both statistically and imaginatively. NBC News builds its narrative on the claim that “many of the school districts facing backlash over equity initiatives are diversifying faster than the national average.” The report provides data for 33 school districts, which undermine its argument in two ways: first, one-third of these districts have diversified slower, rather than faster, than the national average; and second, according to NBC News’ own reporting, there have been anti-critical race theory protests in at least 220 school districts nationwide, which means that NBC failed even to analyze 85 percent of the evidence.

But the NBC report, like almost all mainstream media coverage, fails an even greater imaginative test: these publications cannot imagine a world outside the framing of the 1960s civil rights era, comparing opposition to critical race theory with racial segregation, Jim Crow, and the Ku Klux Klan. NBC suggests darkly that these communities “have long segregated their schools” to exclude blacks, while the Slate piece makes a more explicit comparison between parent protesters and “Louisiana’s White League,” “racist mass shooters,” and the “Capitol insurrectionists.”

These comparisons fall apart after the most basic examination. Parents in Loudoun and Fairfax County, Virginia, whom the NBC News report cast in a negative light, aren’t old-line racists and segregationists but educated, affluent, and diverse citizens in the elite suburbs surrounding Washington, D.C. Contrary to the narrative about white families lashing out against an influx of black students, Loudoun County has roughly the same proportion of blacks as it did 20 years ago; the highest rate of population growth has been among Asians and Latinos, who, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, oppose critical race theory by a two-to-one margin—the same as white voters. In nearby Fairfax County, the leader of the parent opposition is an Indian-American woman, Asra Nomani, who has blasted critical race theory for reducing academic standards and discriminating against high-performing Asians.

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Someone Orchestrated the Border Crisis: America increasingly resembles a failed state.

From D.C.’s perspective, then, the crisis is nearly over. The optics are under control: there are migrants visibly expelled from the country, there is a visible law-enforcement surge (albeit mostly Texan, not federal), and the media is effectively prohibited from direct access to the site. You’d think the last bit would be something media would protest, but no: excepting a few citizen journalists and right-of-center outlets who mean nothing to the federal apparatus, media acquiesces to the restrictions. They are the willing handmaidens of the elite narrative, not its skeptics—and certainly not its opponents.

Confronted with a truly historical event—it’s impossible to think of anything quite like fifteen thousand foreigners establishing an ersatz colony on American soil in the past century—the intent is to memory-hole it. There isn’t even a meaningful inquiry into why it all happened.

That doesn’t mean there are no answers. The answers exist. Todd Bensman of CIS did what virtually no member of the media has done—excepting one Los Angeles Times reporter I’m aware of—and crossed into Ciudad Acuña to talk to directly to the migrants on the Mexican side. What he found was surprising, and shocking. The Haitians reported that they, longtime residents of Mexico, were abruptly released by Mexican authorities to proceed north and cross into the United States in mid-September. The reason given: a gift in celebration of Mexican Independence Day. So they did—by the thousands.

Someone orchestrated this.

Who? To what end? These are questions a press corps competent to its putative purpose might pursue. These are questions to which a government genuinely concerned with the welfare and sovereignty of the United States might demand answers—and accountability. Neither media nor the federal government will do anything like that. We are left to ask it ourselves, and we start with the understanding that if Bensman’s account is accurate, then the Haitian incursion and encampment, stupendous and alarming as it is, is not the real crisis. Don’t misunderstand me: it’s a crisis in full, but it’s a crisis covering for something else.

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Why Aren’t Men Going to College? Do disappearing college males know something we don’t?

Political future #1. Just over forty years ago, President Ronald Reagan ushered in a low-tax revolution which made it possible for better educated people, not only to get higher paying jobs, but to keep and enjoy the financial fruits of their labor. But between society’s current need to pay down the Covid-juiced federal debt and the rise of progressive thinking in the Democratic party, the probable tax burden on high earners has clearly diminished what ambitious workers can expect to receive for their labors. This development may not be as important to women, for whom the ability to earn a prestigious career title is still a historical novelty. But believing that some future progressive government will always provide them with at least a comfortable lifestyle, many young men might feel it’s not worth the educational effort required to achieve the shrinking financial reward.

Political future #2. Everything noted above, except that with fewer Americans working hard to produce needed goods and services the government goes broke, reducing once-promised entitlements to a trickle. In which case, what’s a better way for today’s young man to invest his time: earning an expensive university degree or going to work long enough for his brother-in-law, the electrician (plumber, bricklayer, or carpenter), to learn a useful trade? Name one novel or movie about some dark economic future where the most privileged male survivors are waving their college diplomas.

An abusive and uncaring educational system. In the 180 years since Horace Mann’s invention of our public school system, the nature of manufacturing has evolved from a reliance on physical labor to sophisticated industrial robots, the nature of military service from riding horses to mastering smart weapons, and the nature of accounting from paper journal keeping to the use of computerized spreadsheets. Yet in all that time the underlying structure of K-12 education, with its fixed grade levels, uniform class structure, one-size-fits-all curriculum, and nine-month school year has remained essentially unchanged—a testament to society’s interest, not in addressing the unique instructional needs of each child, but in challenging teachers and administrators as little as possible. After 13 years of enduring such a system—which consistently ranks near the bottom of international comparisons—is it so improbable that a good portion of young men, more impatient by nature than women of their age, might have had enough of any schooling?

Useless coursework. In 2005, Dr John Ioannidis, co-director of Stanford University’s Meta-Research Innovation Center, published an influential study which showed that much of what for passes for ”settled science” in medicine, biology, economics, education research, the social sciences, and other university disciplines cannot, in fact, be replicated. In other words, by the ultimate test of scientific validity—getting the same result from repeating the same experiment—a lot of what professors teach their students isn’t true.

Indeed, concerns about what is called “experimental irreproducibility” have been growing for nearly a decade. In 2012, scientists at the biotech firm Amgen found they could confirm the results of only six of 53 supposedly landmark cancer studies published in prominent journals. Four years later, Nature conducted an online survey of scientists, 70 percent of whom said they’d tried and failed to reproduce their colleagues’ published findings.

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The Linguistic Equivalent of War: Today’s progressives are heirs to a long tradition of abusing words to advance their policy goals.

A day before an ISIS attack killed 13 Marines in Kabul, President Joe Biden declared cybersecurity “the core national security challenge we are facing.” Cybersecurity is critical. But with the Taliban retaking Afghanistan after being routed by the U.S. military two decades ago, calling it the “core” national security challenge of our time was bizarre. Still, Biden’s August comments were an improvement from June, when the president declared climate change the greatest threat to American security.

You would think that the commander in chief responsible for one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in decades would choose his words more carefully. But that’s not how his party tends to operate these days. George Orwell warned of the dangers of imprecise political speech in his seminal essay “Politics and the English Language.” The problem, in Orwell’s telling, is that “political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.” Political speakers reach for muddled, vague language to sell the public on their indefensible policies. This is bad enough, but it presents a broader issue because “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

Orwell’s diagnosis is as true in America today as it was when he wrote those words 75 years ago. And while both political parties are guilty of indulging in bad rhetoric that corrupts policy, Democrats are the more frequent and more serious offenders, largely because linguistic manipulation is central to so many progressive political ideas.

Twentieth-century progressives, for example, were enamored with philosopher William James’s idea of “the moral equivalent of war.” In his 1964 State of the Union address, President Lyndon Johnson declared “an unconditional war on poverty,” inaugurating an era of U.S. leaders declaring war on concepts. More than a decade later, President Jimmy Carter directly quoted James in a speech calling the energy crisis the “moral equivalent of war.” By now, we’ve seen the fallout of the twentieth century social policy’s moral crusades. As Charles Murray shows in Losing Ground, poverty rates began climbing in the 1970s, despite the expansion of government power and spending inaugurated by Great Society antipoverty programs. Medicare, another campaign in the War on Poverty, is projected to run out of money by 2026.

Democrats today don’t speak in such martial terms as their mid-century predecessors, but the broadness of their vision and goals—and the language they use to describe them—is a contributing factor in spreading already-ineffective federal agencies even thinner. In addition to a resurgent Taliban and the global challenge presented by an increasingly aggressive China, the Department of Defense must tackle climate change. With inflation rising, members of the congressional Squad want the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to focus “on eliminating climate risk and advancing racial and economic justice.” And the Centers for Disease Control, whose botched coronavirus response shows that it can barely handle its core mandate, was te

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Is Long Covid a myth? Middle-class hypochondria seems to play an important role in this ill-defined condition.

Discussing the cultural influences on the idea of Long Covid is controversial. Experts who have raised cultural factors have been demonised and harassed. And yet it’s a discussion we must have, especially us in the UK. As a headline in The Sunday Times asked back in June, ‘Why is Britain now the capital of Long Covid?’. We really are the capital. Where early Covid victim Italy has not seen a huge wave of Long Covid cases, and where even the United States hasn’t been overrun by people who claim to suffer from these strange long-term symptoms, the ‘situation in the UK has been very different’, as The Sunday Times says. Numerous Long Covid clinics were lined up here, we were told that a million or more Brits were suffering from it (now being revised down), and the media couldn’t get enough of grim, nightmarish tales about this disease.

Of course there could be any number of reasons for this disparity between nations. Perhaps Britain is just better at diagnosing Long Covid. An Italian doctor told The Sunday Times that Italy’s first-ever Long Covid clinic shut down after just six months, and this may have simply been down to the fact that Long Covid ‘is not one of the main topics on the public agenda. There isn’t a large public-health structure devoted to this problem.’ Others have noted how national, cultural factors help to shape ‘health-seeking behaviour’. Dr Rubeshan Perumal of the University of Cape Town says Long Covid is a problem in South Africa, but it is not comparable to the presumed extent of Long Covid in the UK. ‘Contextual factors play into health-seeking behaviour’, he says. ‘Some societies are better able to provide a platform for people to express their difficulty in recovering from Covid. It may be easier to express your difficulties in [the UK].’ Maybe where South Africans are more likely to persevere through fogginess and tiredness and muscle ache – out of necessity, no doubt – Britons are given to saying, ‘I can’t do this. Diagnose me.’

Jeremy Devine, a psychiatrist at McMaster University in Ontario, has caused a storm by digging down into the psychological and cultural factors that might lie behind Long Covid. He doesn’t deny that there are after-effects from Covid, but he believes that the ‘hysteria’ over Long Covid has convinced many people they have it, when they don’t. ‘It’s psychosomatic’, he says. ‘People don’t fully appreciate the ability of the psyche to convince itself that it’s sick. I don’t think people are overtly malingering. I do think they fall into a cycle of disability and it stems maybe from this subconscious desire to be sick in some cases, maybe just a belief that they are sick rooted in depression and anxiety. This is in a way a kind of mass hysteria: the more attention you give a syndrome like this, the stronger it becomes.’

A ‘subconscious desire to be sick’ – this may be a very controversial idea, and no doubt offensive to some, but it does capture something about our times. One of the most curious and worrying features of our era in which so many areas of life have been medicalised and pathologised, where feeling stressed about exams is reimagined as a mental illness and where it can be positively status-boosting to suffer from certain mental and physical ailments, desiring to be sick, or at least desiring a diagnosis that explains why you are the way you are, has become quite commonplace. It makes sense to me that in the Covid era, when so many people felt fearful, uncertain about the future and locked into their own little worlds, some would seek out a diagnosis to describe their emotional state as much as their physical one. Is it possible that middle-class hypochondria, a feeling of dread among one time go-getters who were laid low by the Covid crisis, led to an explosion in claims of Long Covid?

Jeremy Devine has also controversially dug into the national cultural factors that might be shaping the Long Covid phenomenon. ‘The reason this is so prevalent in the UK is because of the chronic fatigue lobby’, he says. ‘They have shaped the discourse on Long Covid. You guys are the origin.’ In mentioning chronic fatigue syndrome – also known as ME – Devine has tapped into deeper and more complicated questions that we really should discuss out in the open far more than we do. The question of whether some people seek medical diagnoses for what are in truth personal difficulties. The question of whether the cult of medicalisation is so entrenched that people are now wrapping diagnoses around themselves like comfort blankets, in the belief that a doctor’s note is all they need to make sense of their personal failings, fears or sense of exhaustion. The question of whether the undoubted problems that can attend recovery from viral infections in some people have been transformed into definitive illnesses – ME, Long Covid – which people covet in order to make sense of themselves and their lives.

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Fully Oligarchic Luxury Californication

What California is creating can be best described as oligarchic socialism, a form of collectivism that combines hierarchy with “equity,” regulation with oligopoly, and progressive intentions with feudal results. Like so much else, the pandemic has accelerated this trend, vastly enriching the tech elite, while turning much of the working and middle classes dependent on what Marx called “the proletarian alms bag.”

In contemporary California, traditional notions of economic development and upward mobility have been replaced by subsidized housing, a state bailout for renters in default emergency aid to small businesses and enhanced unemployment payments. Once all the state’s new commitments are met California’s much ballyhooed $75 billion surplus, Chapman economist Jim Doti estimates, shrinks to a still considerable $25 billion.

With such a rich surplus, other states would consider either spending the extra cash, as Texas and other states do, on economic development, either through tax cuts, regulatory holidays, or incentives. But work and upward mobility for the middle and working classes are no longer a prime concern in the Golden State. “The culture for much of California, driven by state politics, is one of benefits (and now guaranteed income), not a jobs strategy or expectation,” suggests Michael Bernick, a former director of the state’s Employment Development Department.

Bernick notes that this approach—as opposed to boosting employment—is also popular both with the tech oligarchs and bureaucrats who together dominate the state. The synergy between Silicon Valley wealth and the expansive welfare state is clear: with seemingly unlimited capital gains and income receipts, the state can fund ever more dysfunctional schools at a high level, pay enormous pensions, and generally expand the role of a state government.

This faith in government seems odd given its record of incompetence, from the high speed rail fiasco to forcing a bailout of the marijuana industry. The state has also mishandled unemployment claims, according to the Los Angeles Times, with more than a million Californians awaiting unemployment checks that were delayed or frozen. Worse yet, the state last year gave payments of $11 billion to various scammers, including people in jail and criminals from Nigeria and Russia.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Black students harass white peers at Arizona State U. multicultural center

This past Thursday, a pair of black female Arizona State University students came upon two white male peers in the campus multicultural center … and promptly began berating them for the invasion of their “space.”

The women, identified as Mostadi and Zara, took immediate offense to a laptop sticker one of the men had which says “Police Matter.” The other male wore a shirt which reads “Didn’t Vote for Joe Biden.”

In video of the encounter, the men tell the female duo “We’re just tryin’ to school” and “It’s just a sticker.” Mostadi or Zara replies “But this is our space […] you’re making this space uncomfortable.”

One girl continues: “You’re white! Do you understand what a multicultural space– it means you’re not being centered!”

In response to one of the men asking “White isn’t a culture?” she tells him “No, it’s not a culture! White is not a culture!” She yells: “This is the violence that ASU does and this is the type of people that they protect! This white man thinks he can take up our space … they think they can get away with this s**t!

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

UW-Madison department to faculty: participate in annual 'anti-racist' experience, or lose your pay raise

Some faculty and staff members at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will be required to participate in annual "anti-racist practices" or will forfeit "pay plan and merit increases.

The move, announced Aug. 23 on the school’s website, applies to the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Staff in this department will be required to “participate annually in at least one experience that enhances their understanding of diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism.”

Staff will be required to document these experiences in their annual activity reports and self-evaluations and is required in order to be considered for departmental awards and salary increases.

Mandatory compliance with the policy will begin in the fiscal year 2023.

The school’s website said that this requirement came from the CALS Equity and Diversity Committee, which “emphasized the need for employees to understand systemic racism and to learn anti-racist practices.”

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Lancet accused of sexism after calling women ‘bodies with vaginas’: The prestigious medical journal has prompted a wave of anger online after a 'well-meaning but unhelpful attempt to be inclusive'

The Lancet medical journal has been accused of sexism after describing women as “bodies with vaginas” on the cover of its latest edition.

A tweet sharing the front page has provoked a wave of criticism, with academics cancelling their subscriptions and resigning as reviewers, doctors blasting the phrase as “dehumanising” and activists suggesting the term is “unhelpful” for broader debates about inclusivity.

The cover refers to an article, titled ‘Periods on Display’ and published on September 1, which reviews an exhibition on the history of menstruation at the Vagina Museum in London. In the piece, the writer says "women" four times, but also uses the phrase "bodies with vaginas" once.

It is a quote including this latter term that the Lancet's editors chose to use on the front page. “Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected,” it says.

While the language is an attempt at inclusivity it has prompted a furious response, with some academics suggesting they will never work with the journal again.

[–]Node 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

“bodies with vaginas”

This appears to be a technically accurate characterization of a female, even if they typically only have one 'official' vagina.

Bodies with a vagina might be the better form.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

That would also refer to female non-human mammals.

[–]Node 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That was more of a grammar nitpick. Just adding "human" would narrow it down to our species, and hopefully not include those 'surgically created vaginas' we've had to read about recently.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Texas sues Biden over ‘illegal’ transgender, pronoun mandates

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking the Biden administration to court over an “unlawful” federal mandate which seeks to force businesses to concede on the use of sex-based bathrooms, dress codes, and pronouns as subjectively determined by employees, regardless of their actual sex.

On September 20, Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), its chairwoman Charlotte Burrows, and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, petitioning the Northern District of Texas federal court for “declaratory and injunctive relief” from Burrows’ June 15 guidance.

The guidance document outlined a requirement for employers “to allow exceptions from their generally applicable workplace policies on usage of bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers … dress codes, and pronoun usage, based on the subjective gender identities of their employees,” according to the lawsuit.

In contrast, Paxton’s office released a statement declaring that “States have the sovereign right to enact their own policies regarding things such as bathroom usage,” characterizing the move by the EEOC as “an extreme federal overreach by the federal government.”

Paxton himself added that “States should be able to choose protection of privacy for their employers over subjective views of gender, and this illegal guidance puts many women and children at risk.”

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Black man arrested for ‘N-word’ graffiti, swastikas at Emory University

Emory University’s Police Department on Wednesday arrested the man accused of writing racial slurs and swastikas at its autism center in early August.

Roy Lee Gordon Jr. (right) is charged with second-degree burglary, Emory officials said in a news release that indicated Gordon is also the same person who allegedly wrote the “N-word” and drew swastikas at the Emory Autism Center last month. He is a former employee of the university.

A police mugshot published by the Atlanta Journal Constitution shows that Gordon is black. This is the first time his race has been revealed publicly.

Although Emory officials have known the man accused of the racial vandalism is black since early August, they have not informed the campus community of his race, which may have put a different interpretation of the incident on it.

Asked for a mugshot and information on what Gordon is accused of stealing, and what his possible motivation was for allegedly committing these acts, Emory spokesperson Gana Ahn told The College Fix on Thursday that, “Unfortunately, we are unable to share any additional details beyond what is in the statement.”

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[Glenn Greenwald] New Proof Emerges of the Biden Family Emails: a Definitive Account of the CIA/Media/BigTech Fraud | An axis of the CIA, Big Tech and the DNC-allied wing of the corporate media spread an absolute lie in the weeks before the 2020 election. We now have definitive proof.

A severe escalation of the war on a free internet and free discourse has taken place over the last twelve months. Numerous examples of brute and dangerous censorship have emerged: the destruction by Big Tech monopolies of Parler at the behest of Democratic politicians at the time that it was the most-downloaded app in the country; the banning of the sitting president from social media; and the increasingly explicit threats from elected officials in the majority party of legal and regulatory reprisals in the event that tech platforms do not censor more in accordance with their demands.

But the most severe episode of all was the joint campaign — in the weeks before the 2020 election — by the CIA, Big Tech, the liberal wing of the corporate media and the Democratic Party to censor and suppress a series of major reports about then-presidential frontrunner Joe Biden. On October 14 and then October 15, 2020, The New York Post, the nation's oldest newspaper, published two news reports on Joe Biden's activities in Ukraine and China that raised serious questions about his integrity and ethics: specifically whether he and his family were trading on his name and influence to generate profit for themselves. The Post said that the documents were obtained from a laptop left by Joe Biden's son Hunter at a repair shop.

From the start, the evidence of authenticity was overwhelming. The Post published obviously genuine photos of Hunter that were taken from the laptop. Investigations from media outlets found people who had received the emails in real-time and they compared the emails in their possession to the ones in the Post's archive, and they matched word-for-word. One of Hunter's own business associates involved in many of these deals, Tony Bobulinski, confirmed publicly and in interviews that the key emails were genuine and that they referenced Joe Biden's profit participation in one deal being pursued in China. A forensics analyst issued a report concluding the archive had all the earmarks of authenticity. Not even the Bidens denied that the emails were real: something they of course would have done if they had been forged or altered. In sum, as someone who has reported on numerous large archives similar to this one and was faced with the heavy burden of ensuring the documents were genuine before risking one's career and reputation by reporting them, it was clear early on that all the key metrics demonstrated that these documents were real.

Despite all that, former intelligence officials such as Obama's CIA Director John Brennan and his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper led a group of dozens of former spooks in issuing a public statement that disseminated an outright lie: namely, that the laptop was "Russian disinformation.” Note that this phrase contains two separate assertions: 1) the documents came from Russia and 2) they are fake ("disinformation"). The intelligence officials admitted in this letter that — in their words — “we do not know if the emails are genuine or not,” and also admitted that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.” Yet it repeatedly insinuated that everyone should nonetheless believe this: 🖼️

But the complete lack of evidence for these claims — that even these career CIA liars acknowledged plagued their assertions — did not stop the corporate media or Big Tech from repeating this lie over and over, and, far worse, using this lie to censor this reporting from the internet. One of the first to spread this lie was the co-queen of Russiagate frauds, Natasha Bertrand, then of Politico and now promoted, because of lies like this, to CNN. “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,” blared her headline in Politico on October 19, just five days after the Post began its reporting. From there, virtually every media outlet — CNN, NBC News, PBS, Huffington Post, The Intercept, and too many others to count — began completely ignoring the substance of the reporting and instead spread the lie over and over that these documents were the by-product of Russian disinformation.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The Subjugation of the Deplorables: They know it’s illegal. They just don’t care.

Never mind that, a year and a half after the commencement of the March 2020 lockdowns, and in the face of mounting inflation, Americans have stubbornly managed to stabilize the economy. Never mind that myriad struggling mom-and-pop landlords are irreparably harmed by an arbitrary, zero-sum handout to tenants at the expense of landlords. And never mind that, as constitutional scholar Eugene Kontorovich wrote last month, the Biden administration was “clearly using a public health emergency as a substitute for economic legislation—and this is what the moratorium always was.”

As Kontorovich concluded, the eviction moratorium—both in its initial decree and its lingering vitality—was always a quintessential example of Rahm Emanuel’s injunction to “never let a serious crisis go to waste.” But the COVID era has furnished countless examples of progressive governance-by-crisis, from the local or municipal level to the state and national level.

Everywhere one looks, going back to those first two weeks of “15 days to slow the spread,” COVID has legally emboldened a pan-institutional ruling class that was already champing at the bit to consolidate its ideologically monolithic rule and subjugate all free-thinking “deplorables” who so much as seemed hesitant to advance it.

As the 2021-2022 school year begins, this subjugation can be expected to rapidly accelerate and metastasize. Ron DeSantis, stalwart governor of my new adopted home state, Florida, now finds himself in the midst of intense litigation for the right to—wait for it—leave masking decisions for elementary school-age children in the hands of parents, not the left-wing public school foot soldiers. This, notwithstanding the rudimentary truism of our federalist constitutional structure that sovereignty below the federal level inheres in states and not their various municipalities, let alone those municipalities’ public school bureaucrats. That basic principle did not stop Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper, whose ruling had to be stayed by Florida’s First District Court of Appeals.

But why should it? None of this is actually about the rule of law. It is about two things: power tout court, and preferential allocation of scarce, zero-sum resources so as to benefit the Left’s favored groups (such as aggrieved tenants and teachers unions) and punish the Left’s disfavored groups (such as landlords and parents skeptical of the benefits of forcing their young children to wear a face diaper in school all day). That is what matters to folks like President Biden and Judge Cooper.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

To My Daughter's Therapist: You Were Wrong

It has been some months since you and my daughter had the last of four sessions. In the third session I was invited to sit in on a discussion of the effects of T, testosterone, on a human female body. You smiled calmly as you led us through a series of Powerpoint slides, explaining that my daughter’s reproductive organs would atrophy, that she would grow a beard, that her voice would deepen, and that “the phallus” would become enlarged. I sat listening, summoning all of my own skills as a clinical psychologist to not let a tirade loose at you in front of my brittle and fragile 17 year old.

[...]

I asked what it was specifically about my daughter that convinced you that medical transition would be the right course of action to relieve her distress. You said, “He has Gender Dysphoria.” I said, “She has an eating disorder, body dysmorphia, and ADHD, all of which seem to have some overlapping features with Gender Dysphoria. Why wouldn’t you assess for and treat those before triggering any kind of medical intervention?”

I asked you what happens if my daughter, upon taking T and going through the changes you described, is not relieved of her dysphoria. What if her feelings and symptoms of self-loathing, dissociation, anxiety, depression, and self harm become exacerbated? You visibly cringed at my questions and responded that most people who transition are satisfied with their results and don’t regret their decision. I asked where I might find peer-reviewed longitudinal studies that suggest that affirming and facilitating social and medical gender transition produce happy, well-adjusted teens and young adults. You said you would gladly send me links to those studies. The links never came.

[...]

Thinking back to that conversation I feel a delayed sense of dread as that was before I knew that major medical and mental health associations, the law, and key players in our state and federal government had also adopted a gender identity affirming stance, albeit for their own personal and political purposes. At the time I was unaware that in some instances parents had been reported to Child Protective Services just for refusing to address a child with his or her chosen name and preferred pronouns. In a way, though, I’m glad for my ignorance because I believe my forceful early pushback saved my child’s life. I would not take any of it back.

[...]

A critically important thing that we learned along the way is that my daughter, as many other young people who declare transgender identity in adolescence, is on the autism spectrum. She was diagnosed by an experienced child and adolescent psychiatrist and is now coming to understand how certain aspects of her autism resulted in collapsing and narrowing her focus into gender identity as a way of explaining and coping with what made life so difficult for her during her middle and high school years. She is learning to reconcile with being socially awkward and having idiosyncratic interests and will be better for it as she inhabits her full adult self sometime in her late 20’s. She is a brilliant and beautiful human being whose entire future came so close to being stolen from her by the gender transition industry. It is alarming that an entire generation of gifted children who may be on the autism spectrum is being sterilized in what amounts to a eugenics experiment with the participation of big-name medical and professional institutions, and to the benefit of a novel category of mental health practitioners: gender therapists like you.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Teaching children to hate each other

The influence of identity politics has become a serious problem in Britain’s schools. Some teachers now seem to think it is acceptable to present critical race theory or ideas of ‘white privilege’ as fact. And others choose to exploit their position by filling young, impressionable minds with religious bigotry.

Take, for example, what happened a few months ago at Richmond Hill Academy, a multi-ethnic, religiously diverse primary school in Leeds. A Muslim supply teacher, covering a Year 6 class, reportedly told her 10- and 11-year-old pupils that ‘white people and white children think they are superior’. She also said she was ‘happy’ and ‘proud’ to be a Muslim because it meant she ‘knew respect’. And, to top it all off, she allegedly accused one Muslim pupil of not being her ‘level of Muslim’ because the pupil in question supposedly did not always eat halal meat.

It beggars belief that a teacher could peddle such divisive nonsense to a class of impressionable pre-teens. And the fact she did so at a school with such a diverse student population only makes matters worse.

The headteacher, Anna Mackenzie, handled the situation well. After being told what had happened by the pupils involved, Mackenzie pulled the supply teacher out of the class and ordered her off the school’s premises. According to the GORSE Academies Trust, which runs Richmond Hill Academy, the matter has been referred to the local authority and to the agency which provided the supply teacher.

Nevertheless, this case raises serious questions over the regulation of supply teachers in the UK – and whether the process is open to abuse by those wishing to exert undue influence over young people. There are safeguarding and social-cohesion issues to consider here, too. Schools – especially those in diverse areas – should be places in which pupils of different ethnic and religious backgrounds mix and form bonds. They should not be taught to hate each other.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Domelife: Sterile subhumanity is our lot under the theocracy of disease.

In Seeing Like A State, James C. Scott identified the phenomenon of merging scientific technocracy with the State as High Modernity. High Modernity serves a similar function to the Dome without the easily identifiable physical presence. It is the established religion of our economic zone, faith in a technocratic vision of permanent management. From stars to microbes, no organism capable of detection will be left alone. Dissenters represent a crack in the glass, an intolerable existential threat.

The media describes these malcontents as bleach injectors and swallowers of horse deworming formula, but their real sin is the refusal to defer to High Modernity-approved experts. Whether we are fighting a war against global terror, racism, viruses, or white supremacy, the target is the same: grow the surveillance state, gather data, build an apparatus of global security and control, and wear down objections to the hegemony of the Dome. In the name of safety, be it from terrorists or microbes, no one will be allowed to opt out.

A disappointingly large group of people who see themselves as educated free-thinkers have thoroughly adopted the rhetoric of pharma lobbyists. They talk about the rubes who sent their children to die in Iraq, who watched them die of opioid overdoses, and mock them as hicks who refuse the vaccine because they believe it magnetizes the body. The coming caste system is almost too good for them.

Why revel in these caricatures and delight in the agonizing hospital deaths of the unelect? High Modernity is a religion, and to depart from it would be to exile oneself to the land of the heretics. For millions, to distrust the media would be to live without their substitute for hope in the heavens. If they lose faith in the benevolence of the CDC and Silicon Valley and the pharmaceuticals, then they face the same problem which makes the dissenters nervous: there’s nowhere else to go.

In their rush to triumph, those who control the institutions are hasty. If they move fast and break enough things they think they can hold the loyalty of those addicted to the highs of two-party political hatreds. But they break too much. The ACLU, guardian of civil liberties, says that violations of biological autonomy are a way of protecting civil liberties. But people are not stupid. They know Satoshi Omura won a Nobel Prize for discovering Ivermectin. They know billions of people have taken it. They are aware of the long catalogue of lies from the establishment as well as the revolving door between the CDC and the pharmaceutical companies. To be forced to surrender bodily autonomy is bad. But to turn their bodies over to institutions which sowed so much disinformation that their prime supporters, Democrats, are the most uninformed demographic regarding SARS-CoV-2 death rates, is out of the question. The lies are too visible and the main thing propelling High Modernity’s dreams of control through this civic crisis is not Science but simple old-fashioned two-party hatred.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, Your Kid’s Trans Thing is a Phase

When I was a kid, my family had a set of rotadraw circles that fascinated me. These were circular plastic stencils. First, you drew in all the stenciled openings for “1,” then rotated the circle one phase and filled in those for “2,” etc. This process took concentration and careful alignment. Slowly, the underlying drawing was being built, but you would not be able to recognize it until you completed the task and lifted the stencil off to reveal it. The anticipation was agony. It was brilliant.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that toy recently, and our culture’s general impatience. Just over a year ago, our then 15-year-old son announced to my husband and I that he thought he might be trans. As my other essay described, this was not just totally out-of-the-blue, but totally out-of-character.

As many other parents have described, this announcement usually triggers a brutal, all-encompassing, multi-front campaign into finding a therapist, reading the latest research, exploring anti-depressants, physical and cognitive assessments, re-evaluating and adjusting your child’s friends and internet influences, reinvesting in family time, and hopefully building a support group. It isn’t easy.

As this process plays out, parents are filling in the stencils, shifting the circle, and following the guidelines. Literally – this is how mature parents are designed to work. Life has taught us to look before we leap. Years of observation and self-reflection have revealed to us that humans sometimes want things or do things that are short-sighted and harmful to ourselves and others. A little bit of time, a deep breath, a small moment away to stop and think and gather more information can prevent a lot of errors.

But teenagers are not capable of this. They lack the ability to accurately estimate risk. They are impulsive. They misread social cues. They can be aggressive. Their brains are literally under construction at this point. Their prefrontal cortex won’t be fully formed until they are around age 25. These trans-identified kids are prematurely lifting off their rotadraw stencil, declaring that they are absolutely certain they know what the final design should be, and demanding the permanent markers, scissors and glue to form it the way they think some intangible gender spirit tells them it should be. They literally cannot think logically about this topic. They only think emotionally.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

For Best Picture Contenders, Race and Sex Inventory Time Is Here

On Wednesday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which presents the Oscars, quietly launched its new RAISE platform, an online system designed to collect identity and content information from the producers of films in the 2021 Best Picture race. Last year, 366 films qualified, so the impact will likely be wide. Responses are required by Nov. 15. The demand for data begins implementation of previously announced Oscar representation and inclusion standards: Films that don’t meet inclusion thresholds won’t be excluded until the 2024 show, but detailed reporting begins now.

“We are pleased to announce the official launch of the Representation and Inclusion Standards Entry platform (RAISE), designed to facilitate the confidential collection of data and information relevant to the Academy’s Representation and Inclusion Standards,” said a Wednesday email, apparently intended for contenders, from the Academy’s Office of Representation, Inclusion and Equity.

Every would-be contender will receive a RAISE identification number on completing the data form. “A RAISE ID will be required in order to complete the submission,” the email said of this year’s Oscar process.

The platform is open only to those who have submitted a film. But a user-provided glimpse at its opening pages and the initial sections connected with its On-Screen Representation, Themes and Narratives Standard—one of four standards, two of which must be met to qualify for future Best Picture awards—reveal an expansive, detailed and insistent approach to data collection.

“All submissions will be monitored and analyzed to identify key trends relevant to the industry,” says in introduction to the platform. “Submitters are encouraged to share as much data as possible across all the standards.”

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

German ministers crack down on 'gender neutral' language in universities

Last month, nine German universites including Konstanz and Stuttgart released common guidelines which gave advice to staff and students on how to avoid the use of masculine and feminine forms of nouns.

However, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder, 54, has slammed the new gender neutral language regulations at universities as 'indoctrination'.

He has also ordered a review into the contents of the guides saying that language cannot be 'prescribed' and that students who do not use the new terminology should not be marked down.

The special language guides warned against the use of male forms of words to refer to groups of men and women - which has been traditionally used in German to address groups in general.

Speaking to local newspaper, Augsburger Allgemeine, Mr Söder, who is also the leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) party, said that it would be intolerable if academics were to mark down students who failed to use the new gender conventions.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ahh, so we're reliving that part of the Twenties: The Moral Panic about Eugenics Poses a Threat to Abortion Rights

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

World Economic Forum tells U.S. colleges to 're-educate the racists among us'

“Fighting racism demands confrontation at all levels on college campuses by uprooting racist institutional designs inherent in campus-wide admissions systems, recruitment, scholarships, cultures, and histories,” researchers from KAIST-Korea Policy Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution wrote.

The World Economic Forum is an organization that advocates for cooperation among the world’s largest governments and corporations. It is also known for its “The Great Reset” series, a provocation to redesign the global economy following COVID-19 and the lockdown-induced global recession.

The article calls for using “data-driven methods” to measure racial “climates,” as well as “promoting anti-racist culture and policies” through projects such as Centers for Racial Justice.

Additionally, universities must “support affected minorities at various levels,” which — includes “educating people to eradicate their hate” through mandatory diversity training, according to the researchers.

Aiming to solve underrepresentation among faculty and the student body, the researchers also propose a “diversity barometer'' that can “track such progress and hold university leadership accountable” through periodical reviews.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

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Anti-white bias in the classroom is real, and it's toxic

The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state's largest teaching union, is providing its members with a seminar focused on the New York Times podcast, Nice White Parents, Todd Shepherd of Broad and Liberty reported. This podcast describes itself as a series dedicated to "building a better school system, and what gets in the way." And, as this advertisement shows, "what gets in the way" is merely a trope for "blame white people."

The seminar will happen through Zoom over three weekends between Oct. 4 and November. It is union-funded indoctrination at its worst. It is propaganda seeking to indoctrinate teachers across the state that, essentially, white parents are the root of all evil when it comes to education problems in our country. Teachers will then pass on this indoctrination to students.

"Nice White Parents is a halfway interesting, largely self-absorbed podcast that seeks to blame rich, white New York City liberals for lagging achievement in an urban school," Max Eden, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told Broad and Liberty.

"At a time when students are facing unprecedented learning loss and at the beginning of what’s certain to be another administratively and pedagogically fraught school year, the fact that Pennsylvania’s largest teachers union is conducting a lengthy seminar series on this New York Times podcast is worse than a bad joke," Eden said. "It shows that their priorities are on broadcasting culturally left bona fides rather than helping students recover and learn."

I understand that this is teachers union propaganda, designed mostly to shift blame from its own institution's role in destroying public education. It takes some gall to attack any parents, given that the teachers unions have put so much pressure on them and harmed their children so much by keeping schools closed. Yet the ugly racial aspect of this propaganda should not be overlooked, either.