Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

MAY 28, 2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:  Tell me, how often do we have good news from Hollywood?  Well, we have some.  I'm not kidding. 

FROM REDSTATE:  Things have been pretty bleak and heartbreaking of late, so here’s some good news.  “Top Gun: Maverick” has been lighting up movie screens and — based on my own personal social media observations — is routinely inspiring clapping and cheering from American audiences. And that’s not even the best part. The second installment of the 1986 Tom Cruise classic is achieving its success without the help of a formerly very vocal Chinese investor, internet and tech giant Tencent.  Remember the flight jacket, scrubbed in the 2019 trailer of certain flags to appease Chinese censors? My how things have changed. 

To the joy of Taiwanese audiences hitting the theaters this week, Top Gun: Maverick features a prominent shot of the Japanese and Taiwanese flags—national symbols that were scrubbed from a 2019 trailer.

The flags were initially replaced by random symbols, drawing sharp criticism as an example of Hollywood caving in to China’s political demands. But in a rare U-turn, which has yet to be explained, they have reappeared in the film’s worldwide release.

“It is unprecedented,” Ho Siu Bun, a film critic in Hong Kong, told VICE World News.

“Major film studios have never been shy about pandering to the Chinese market. And even if it is a simple scene, editing is very costly. So no one knows why they changed it back."  Maybe Hollywood is starting to read the trade winds, and maybe they're not blowing in China's direction.  That would be a great treat.

May 28, 2022       Permalink  

OUR STUDENTS ARE HURTING – OVERNIGHT:  Yes, we're thinking about the shootings in Texas and the fear that must be running through students and teachers all over the country.  It could happen to them.  It could happen while political society spends its time assigning blame and does precious little to prevent the next tragedy.  Kamala Harris was out today demanding a new assault-weapons ban.  I'm so excited.  Hasn't she heard that the last one didn't work?  Does it even matter to her?

But our students are hurting in other ways.  The latest research shows what many had feared – that the lockdowns and lockouts during the height of the pandemic had a devastating effort on learning, and on the psychological health of the young.  Please read.  From College Fix:

Remote and hybrid learning during the COVID pandemic led to large declines in academic achievements, especially in high poverty districts, according to a study from Harvard University economist Thomas Kane.

“High poverty schools were more likely to go remote and the consequences for student achievement were more negative when they did so,” the research team with Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research reported.

Some school districts have more work to do to recover these academic losses than others. However, the vast majority of academic losses came from high poverty districts, according to the study.

To avoid this damage from being permanent, the study suggested that schools spend more on academic recovery.

“The correlation between the share of a year of unfinished learning and the share of an annual budget received in federal aid is positive (.35), largely because both are positively related to poverty,” the study stated. “If the achievement losses become permanent, there will be major implications for future earnings, racial equity, and income inequality, especially in states where remote instruction was common.”

The high poverty districts that switched to remote learning for most of 2020-21 will need to spend almost all federal aid on academic recovery to make up for student losses, according to the study.

Currently, the American Rescue Plan requires school districts to spend at least 20 percent of funds toward academic recovery, though the Harvard researchers believe it should be higher.

“District spending should be matched to the magnitude of their students’ losses,” Kane (pictured) told The College Fix via email on May 16. “Districts should reassess their recovery plans to ensure they have a package of interventions planned over the next two years to help their students recover.”

When asked if funding should be tied to a pledge to not go remote in the future, the economist and education professor told The Fix that public health researchers should “assess the evidence on the efficacy of school closures last year,” which should inform future decisions.

COMMENT:  Not the first time we've heard this, and the poor always take the greatest hit.  Hmm, I wonder where all that federal aid went?  Wasn't it in the trillions?  Who benefited?

We're also learning that the mental health of students was damaged.  Their social health was damaged.  We don't know what will happen to them when they hit college.  Will colleges be forced to lower standards?  They always seem willing to do so if some goal set by the political left needs to be met.

More study is needed, but the picture is grim.  Add to it the possibility of an economic downturn, and the morale and spirit of the nation can begin to look like 1979.  Then we had a Reagan to restore the national fabric.  Do we have one now?  Send me names.

The article contains these words:  "We may well have damaged our children irreparably.”

What a legacy.  And foreign enemies are watching.

May 28, 2022       Permalink

MAY 27, 2022

LET US NOT FORGET WHAT OUR ENEMIES ARE PLANNING – OVERNIGHT:  We have had news overload recently.  It is virtually impossible for the average reader or viewer to process the flood of information, and misinformation, that has come our way, and there is a tendency to forget that, outside the headlines, there are people doing very serious things that can have very serious consequences here at home.  From Reuters:   

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on two Russian banks, a North Korean company and a person it accused of supporting North Korea's weapons of mass destruction program, increasing pressure on Pyongyang over its renewed ballistic missile launches.

The latest American move came a day after China and Russia vetoed a US-led push to impose more United Nations sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile launches, publicly splitting the UN Security Council for the first time since it started punishing Pyongyang in 2006.

The vetoes came despite what the United States says was a sixth test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by North Korea this year and signs that Pyongyang is preparing to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017.

The US Treasury Department in a statement said it targeted Air Koryo Trading Corp as well as Russian financial institutions the Far Eastern Bank and Bank Sputnik for contributing to procurement and revenue generation for North Korean organizations.

Washington also designated Jong Yong Nam, a Belarus-based representative of an organization subordinate to the North Korea Second Academy of Natural Sciences (SANS), who Washington said has supported North Korean organizations linked to the development of ballistic missiles.

North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"The United States will continue to implement and enforce existing sanctions while urging the DPRK (North Korea) to return to a diplomatic path and abandon its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles," the Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in the statement.

China has been urging the United States to take action - including lifting some unilateral sanctions - to entice Pyongyang to resume talks stalled since 2019, after three failed summits between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then-US President Donald Trump. The United States has said Pyongyang should not be rewarded.

COMMENT:  As the Russian invasion of Ukraine showed us, a decision by one man in a foreign capital can upend our plans and our priorities.  Today it is land war in Europe, something many believed could never happen again.  Tomorrow it could be a North Korean move against South Korea or Japan.  Or it could be a Chinese attempt to take Taiwan, which is the likeliest scenario. 

Some American administrations come to office hoping to avoid foreign threats so as to enact their domestic agendas.  Then there comes the morning surprise, and a new and frightening world.

May 27, 2022       Permalink