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JULY 17, 2022

THERE IS HOPE!  THERE IS HOPE!  Want to read an encouraging "feel good" story?  Here it is. 

Many American colleges and universities are falling apart, turned into Marxist playgrounds by children posing as professors.

Realizing that current institutions are probably beyond repair, a group of scholars and intellectuals have decided to form a new university based on classic standards and practices.  It's called the University of Austin, and it's just getting started, and I like what I see.  From the New York Post:

Fed up with the increasingly woke and intolerant political climate on American campuses, former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss last year announced the launch of The University of Austin, a new four-year college dedicated to “the fearless pursuit of truth.” The college aims to welcome its first class of full-time four-year undergraduates in 2024, and last month, its first summer program, “The Forbidden Courses” series, admitted 80 students from colleges across the US.

“This is an insanely intelligent group of people — a genuinely thoughtful, bold group of kids. And it bodes very, very well for the future of the institution,” University of Austin founding faculty member Peter Boghossian told The Post. A former professor at Portland State who came under fire for publishing hoax papers in woke academic journals, Boghossian taught a course at the University of Austin called “Street Epistemology,” about conversational techniques that help people think more critically about deeply-held beliefs.

During the two, week-long summer sessions, funded entirely by donor contributions and held at a temporary location in Dallas, students attended small, discussion-based seminars, such as “Critical Thinking and Freedom of Expression” taught by feminist and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, alongside shorter workshops, like “How to Be Liberal in an Illiberal Age” taught by Weiss.

Eighty students attended the first summer sessions at the University of Austin, taught at a temporary space in Dallas, with the cost entirely covered by donors.

Author Rob Henderson, known for coining the term “luxury beliefs” to describe woke ideology, taught a seminar called “The Psychology of Social Status” and said he was blown away by his politically diverse students who ranged from “proponents of Marxism” to “defenders of monarchy as their favorite political system.” But one thing clearly united all his students: when he asked how many held back their opinions out of fear of social repercussions, he said nine out of ten raised their hands.

“Whenever I spoke with students, they seemed relieved to interact with others in an environment where they didn’t have to fear being ostracized,” Henderson told The Post. “I don’t think they wanted to be in an environment where everyone agreed with them. They really wanted to be free to disagree. I’ve never seen so much intense good-faith discussion in any academic environment before.”

Since launching the school, Weiss has enlisted a powerhouse board of advisors including former New York magazine columnist Andrew Sullivan, former ACLU president Nadine Strossen and economist Glenn Loury as well as big-name trustees like Palantir CEO Joe Lonsdale. The Post talked to three students who attended the summer program about their experiences and asked if the University of Austin should set a new standard for liberal arts education in America.

Hanna Nour: “It was like night and day compared with my previous experiences.”
Hannah Nour came to the University of Austin after being attacked by students at her Florida campus for criticizing Islam.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing, and send to friends.  Ah yes, there is hope.  And we have students from all backgrounds who want to grab onto that hope.

There will be establishment "educators" who will want to destroy the University of Austin.  They will be joined by party-line "journalists."  We must stand against them and protect this new prize.

July 17, 2022       Permalink

JULY 16, 2022

DO YOU REMEMBER HER FROM THE TRUMP PRESS CONFERENCES?  DO YOU THINK WHAT SHE SAYS HERE SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED?  YEAH, I THINK SO.  We still have not nailed down the source of the Covid 19 virus.  Maybe some people just don't want to know.  Maybe some don't care.  But we must know if we've just experienced a medical accident or a deliberate release.  A familiar face gives us her take, and it's serious.  From Daily Mail: 

Former President Donald Trump’s adviser believes Covid-19 could have leaked from a Wuhan lab where scientists were working on vaccines for similar viruses.

Infectious diseases expert and former presidential Covid adviser Dr Deborah Birx told The Mail on Sunday that coronavirus ‘came out of the box ready to infect’ when it emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2020. 

The adviser said most viruses take months or years to become highly infectious to humans. But, Dr Birx said, Covid ‘was already more infectious than flu when it first arrived’.

She said that meant Covid was either an ‘abnormal thing of nature’ or that Chinese scientists were ‘working on coronavirus vaccines’ and became infected.

‘It happens, labs aren’t perfect, people aren’t perfect, we make mistakes and there can be contamination,’ she said. 

She accused China of initially covering up how infectious Covid was. 

Birx said Covid’s infectiousness was consistent with a virus which had been experimented on in a lab. 

'In laboratories you grow the virus in human cells, allowing it to adapt more. Each time it passes through human cells it becomes more adapted,’ she said.

Because people can catch Covid asymptomatically – meaning they don’t show symptoms – Dr Birx argues a Wuhan scientist could have easily walked out of the lab with it. 

'Someone working in the lab with one of the strains could’ve caught it and not known they had it,’ she said.

Dr Birx also added that lives could’ve been saved if China had admitted the virus spread asymptomatically, when it was first discovered.

‘China was implying that they were containing it, but asymptomatic spread cannot be contained without testing,’ she said. 

‘I think the world lost several months of preparation because we were thinking there wasn’t that level of human-to-human spread when there clearly was.’

Dr Birx’s comments came a month after the MoS revealed that the head of the World Health Organization privately believes the Covid pandemic started following a Chinese lab leak.

China has repeatedly denied claims of a lab leak and branded the idea as a ‘conspiracy theory’. 

But alternative theories – that Covid came from human contact with bats or from a meat market in Wuhan – are not backed by evidence.

The lab leak theory was touted early on but was shut down by liberal media who ridiculed the idea and even branded it racist.

It took many mainstream left leaning news sites more than a year from the spread of the virus, to concede that the lab theory held weight. 

When Donald Trump, on May 1, 2020, said he had 'a high degree of confidence' that the virus escaped from a lab, the New York Times, CNN, and NPR were quick to mock his comments.  

CNN was almost gleeful in its mockery of the idea that the virus could have come from a laboratory. 

The Washington Post, New York Times, and NPR were equally dismissive of suggestions that the virus could have come from a laboratory. 

Few were able to suggest that COVID-19 could have stemmed from a research facility without backlash but that didn't stop some media, including the Daily Mail, from questioning the narrative.

Fox News's Tucker Carlson was also clear in demanding an investigation into whether it could have escaped from the lab.

Finally, in early 2021, came the first signs that opinion was beginning to change.

COMMENT:  The disgraceful attempts to policitize the story in order to humiliate President Trump  were a low point in the history of the American media.  We were told to "follow the science" while "journalists" trampled on that same science.

We need a full investigation into the origin of the virus, like the probe following the Shuttle Challenger disaster.  We cannot depend on the press to inform us.

July 16, 2022       Permalink