The Good, the Bad, the Uncertain

Making Sense of Recent News Stories. Big and Small 

GOOD: “Mussolini” School Board Smack-Down

The COVID pandemic and the lockdowns imposed in response to it has given politicians and regulators all over the world a taste of real power. Nowhere is this more obvious than with local school boards that have been not only dictating COVID response measures, but also introducing values-based ideology into school curricula without parents’ permission.

There are dozens of videos you can watch on YouTube that show parents fighting back. This one is a special pleasure: An unbelievably arrogant school board administrator gets what’s coming to him. Click here.

BAD: Old Style Racism in America Is Real

Critical Race Theory postulates that America is systemically racist. Systemic means “of or relating to systems, such as laws and regulations.” There is no doubt that the Ivy League colleges are systemically racist against Asian-Americans, because they have actual regulations that limit the number of Asian-Americans they will accept. And there’s no question that the provision of the recently enacted American Rescue Plan relief program that gave preference to “farmers of color” over white farmers was systemically racist. Click here.

But I’ve yet to discover an example of a US law or regulation that is prejudicial against African-Americans or other people of color.

The problem with the systemic racism argument is not only that its logic is faulty. Or even that it perpetuates the problems it inveighs against. Like equating catcalling with rape, it directs the political debate and focus away from a real issue – actual, old-fashioned anti-Black racism, which exists in plenitude across the country.

Three examples:

 * A bank called the police on a man trying to cash his paycheck. Click here.

* A man at Walmart got questioned by the police about whether his children are really his. Click here.

* And here’s a guy that got arrested for being Black while taking out his trash. Click here.

UNCERTAIN: New World’s Record

Shortly after Veronica Ivy (born Rachel McKinnon), a Canadian philosophy professor and cyclist, won a world cycling championship, a British rapper named Zuby posted a video of himself casually breaking the British women’s dead lift record during a workout at his local gym.

Along with an image of his lift, he wrote:

I keep hearing how biological men don’t have any physical advantage over women. So watch me destroy the British Women’s dead lift record without even trying!

PS: (I identified as a woman whilst lifting the weight. Don’t be a bigot!)

Fair? Unfair? Is gender just a social construct? You decide. Click here.

GOOD: 12-Year-Old Girl Astounds Experts With Her Art

This is the sort of story that usually turns out to be a fraud, but it’s so much fun you want to believe it. Click here.

BAD: The Worst of the Worst in Baltimore 

I’ve been going to Baltimore regularly for 25 years. In that time, I’ve seen it go from not-so-bad to one of America’s top 10 Shithole Cities. (Along with Chicago, San Francisco, and Atlanta.)

The streets are potholed. The infrastructure is disintegrating. Crime – especially violent crime – has skyrocketed. Real estate values are down. Way down. And wealthy taxpayers and successful businesses are fleeing.

But that’s not the worst thing that’s happening in Baltimore. The worst thing is this: 41% of Baltimore’s high school students earn below a 1.0 GPA. Click here.

SCARY: FBI Urges Americans to Report Peers and Family Members  

On July 11, the FBI posted a tweet suggesting that Americans should monitor family members and peers for sinister “signs.”

The tweet read:

Family members and peers are often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence. Help prevent homegrown violent extremism.

Then it provided a website for reporting people exhibiting “such signs.”