SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:58 P.M. ET:

THE MEDIOCRITY FLOWS – FROM THE WEEK:   Students at Oberlin College are asking the school to put academics on the back burner so they can better turn their attention to activism. More than 1,300 students at the Midwestern liberal arts college have now signed a petition asking that the college get rid of any grade below a C for the semester, and some students are requesting alternatives to the standard written midterm examination, such as a conversation with a professor in lieu of an essay.  The students say that between their activism work and their heavy course load, finding success within the usual grading parameters is increasingly difficult. "A lot of us worked alongside community members in Cleveland who were protesting," Megan Bautista, a co-liaison in Oberlin's student government, said, referring to the protests surrounding the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by a police officer in 2014. "But we needed to organize on campus as well — it wasn't sustainable to keep driving 40 minutes away. A lot of us started suffering academically."  To keep driving 40 minutes away?  You mean they drive cars?  Run on fossil fuels?  The disgraceful hypocrites.  The climate monsters.  And who's buying those cars?  Probably those obsolete, pre-progressive creatures called moms and dads.  I think this is a bad dream.

TIME TO RETIRE, NANCE – FROM CNS:   House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said at her press briefing on Wednesday that she is “proud” of President Barack Obama who “will again show the power of his moral courage when he visits Hiroshima” on Friday.  The United States military dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945 and another on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945.  I have no idea what she means, since Obama has never shown much courage, moral or otherwise.  If she means that Obama will apologize for the use of an awful weapon that ended the most ghastly war in history, then she'd better be prepared for a backlash.  The bomb allowed hundreds of thousands of American boys to survive the war, and millions of Japanese to survive as well. 

A GOOD STEP FORWARD – FROM GIZMODO:   If you live in British Columbia, don’t try to sneak out a quick text while driving just because you don’t see any cops on the road. The RCMP, Canada’s version of the FBI, have started using DLSR cameras attached to massive scopes to spot distracted drivers from as far as three-quarters-of-a-mile away.  We all instinctively know to hide our phones while driving when we see a police car, but that doesn’t make using them any less illegal. (And it’s incredibly dangerous too, by the way.) To catch drivers in the act, traffic services in British Columbia have been using spotting scopes—which feature a distinctive bend to make them more comfortable to use—for years now. Now the police are adding a 24.2-megapixel DSLR to the rig to capture photos of the illegal act.  Good.  Texting while driving is incredibly dangerous, reckless, and irresponsible.  Penalties should be severe, including the permanent loss of license. 

May 25, 2016