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DECEMBER 16,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

WHAT A DISGRACE – FROM AMERICAN MILITARY NEWS:   The National Football League (NFL) appears to have caved to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party, publishing on Wednesday a map that showed Taiwan belonging to China.  The map was published as part of the NFL’s announcement that “18 teams have been granted access to 26 International Home Marketing Areas (IHMA) across eight different countries.”  Among the countries listed is China, which includes Taiwan, according to the league’s map.
“NFL fandom begins with our clubs,” Christopher Halpin, NFL Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, said in a statement. “This important initiative enables NFL teams to develop meaningful, direct relationships with NFL fans abroad, driving fan growth and avidity globally. We were very pleased with the number, creativity and level of commitment of club proposals across the board in this initial application period and look forward to teams launching their efforts early next year.  Blah, blah, blah.  The reality is that our major sports organizations are kowtowing to Chinese propaganda demands.  Some heroes.  Maybe some player will eventually take a knee for America.

December 16, 2021       Permalink

CRIME IS GRIPPING THE ELECTORATE – OVERNIGHT:  One of the first rules of journalism is that you cannot tell people they don't see what they actually see.  Democrats tried that once before, in the seventies and eighties.  Crime wave?  What crime wave?  The American people reacted to the Dem fantasies by sending realist Ronald Reagan to the White House.

The Dems are doing it again.  Crime?  You mean there's crime?  A few Democratic officeholders are sane enough to concede that there is indeed crime, but the reality of the situation doesn't seem to bother the great philosophers of the Democratic Party.  The polls tell the story.  From the Washington Times:

Almost 90% of U.S. voters are concerned about the wave of violent crime spreading across the country, according to a new survey by a nonpartisan group.

Rasmussen Reports released the survey on Wednesday that shows 89% of likely voters are concerned about violent crime, including more than half (69%) of whom are “very” concerned. The statistics are up from July when 79% said they were concerned, including 49% who were very concerned.

The telephone and online poll of 1,000 likely voters was conducted between Dec. 13-14 and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

It comes as criminal justice experts are warning that the rise in homicides in 2020, the biggest one-year increase in 60 years, continued into this year.

FBI statistics show that homicides jumped by nearly 30% last year compared with 2019, from 16,669 to 21,570.

According to the Council on Criminal Justice, the number of homicides in 22 cities was 4% higher during the first nine months of this year than in the same period in 2020 and 36% higher than in 2019.

“Homicide increases above and beyond normal seasonal changes remain deeply troubling and require immediate action from policymakers,” the D.C.-based nonpartisan think tank said last month.

The report notes that the homicide numbers are significantly lower than the nationwide historical peaks of the 1990s.

COMMENT:  Now that we see the very leftish mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, call for law and order, we know that the crime issue is taking its toll on the "let's defund it" princes and princesses of her party.  Pretty soon she'll be wearing a badge and packin' a Glock 9mm. 

Crime, a weak foreign policy, and inflation, are sinking the Democratic Party...for now.

December 16, 2021       Permalink 

DECEMBER 15,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

WELCOME TO NEVE – FROM THE JERUSALEM POST:   Archaeologists excavating a grotto in northwest Italy discovered the burial of a 10,000-year-old infant – the oldest known findings of newborn bones – giving researchers a peek into Mesopotamian society and early human fossils.  The findings, a summary of which were published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Scientific Reports on Tuesday, occurred in the Grotta Arma Veirana cave in Italy, which was being explored by an archaeological team at the University of Colorado (Denver). The bones were well-preserved, making it easier for researchers to identify the age and gender of the ancient remains.  The girl, dubbed “Neve” by researchers, was around 40 to 50 days old at the time of her burial, according to the study. Neve was buried with 60 shell beads, four pendants and an eagle-owl talon adorned on her corpse, providing a glimpse into the burial customs of that era.  "The evolution and development of how early humans buried their dead as revealed in the archaeological record has enormous cultural significance," researcher Jamie Hodgkins said in a press release.  Leading members of the Democratic Party are demanding to know whether Neve was pro-choice.

December 15, 2021       Permalink

ANOTHER EDUCATIONAL BREAKTHROUGH; THE EXCITEMENT BUILDS – OVERNIGHT;  The state of California, where criminals control whole sections of cities, has come up with the latest, brilliant, educational idea.  Read about it.   Tell your friends.    From American Greatness: 

Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento City, and San Diego Unified school districts have found a novel way to improve academic results—they’re getting rid of D and F grades. One imagines this will improve results immediately. On paper.

Reporting from San Francisco, KRON 4 News, writing in semi-literate English, informs us, “If a student fails a test or doesn’t complete their homework, they’ll be able to retake the test and get more time to turn in assignments.” 

The assistant principal at Fremont High School in Oakland, speaking in semi-literate English, told KRON, “Right now, we have a system where we give a million points for a million pieces of paper that students turn in, without much attention to what they’re actually learning.” 

I don’t think anyone will dispute that schools are not paying much attention to what kids are learning. But banning Ds and Fs won’t help students as much as it will help teachers and principals in these districts look less awful by comparison, or else make comparisons with schools that retain a full grading system impossible. The real goal is to rescue teachers’ unions and professional administrators from what they’re doing to the kids. 

To take a random example from the English readers on my desk, a seventh grader of a century ago, learning, no doubt, in a one-room schoolhouse with just enough funding for these text books, would have read Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Keats, Poe, Ruskin, Sir Walter Scott, Longfellow, Kipling, Thoreau, Whitman, Washington, Lincoln and Marcus Aurelius, to cite just a small subsection of the included authors. Selections range from stories and poems to nature study, science, and history. These authors have long since gone the way of the D and F grades: Better to eliminate challenging material than create the impression students are failing. Which really means—better to eliminate material than create the impression that teachers are failing to teach their students.

For all their supposed erudition, leftists have always had trouble with symbolism. That is, they tend not to understand that a concept may represent another concept, rather than being the thing itself. They think that by getting rid of bad grades, they can get rid of what the bad grades represent – failure, ignorance, and laziness, on the part of students and teachers both.

Just as they think that by getting rid of terms like “fat,” they can make people healthier and more “body-positive.” Or that by replacing “fireman” and “policeman” with “firefighter” and “police officer” they can end male dominance in these dangerous professions. Or that they can make a man into a woman just by changing what he calls himself—and that it’s a triumph when one of these “women” joins a girl’s swim team and smashes all previous records by a gigantic margin. 

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  It's well worth it.  Many years ago an outstanding young black woman, an activist in the civil rights movement, complained to me about the status of that crusade.  "Our movement," she said, "isn't about what you can get away with, and that's what it's become."  And indeed, that's what it seems to be today.

Ditto education.  We're bombarded with new "concepts," "narratives," and "symbolisms," but it seems the general trend is downward, toward gimmicks and tricks and excuses, and not real nourishment of the mind. That is held to be an obsolete notion, or the theme of the "oppressor."

December 15, 2021       Permalink