The Expanding Vacuous Universe

This is what passes for a logical argument in Washington today:

In case you ever need an example of failed reductive thinking

The argument is so flawed it can’t even be classified as a logical fallacy. In fact I’m not even sure if it can be called an argument anywhere outside of politics.

Beyond the stupidity of Robert Reich’s (Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary) claim, the founding fathers already established the reason the seat of the Federal Government should not be placed under the power of a state legislature, but rather under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. Of course the Constitution is not reason enough for today’s enlightened Democrats not to vote for D.C. statehood, which would give the D’s 2 more guaranteed Senate seats. No, the postmodern Dems - who plant evidence of racism in every case they deem worthy of debate in the media – insist that “equity” demands statehood of the peoples of the District of Columbia. More legislators and bureaucracies, isn’t that just what Washington needs?

Oh, and about that name, “District of Columbia,” they’ll keep the initials but due to it’s racist roots change it to the “Douglass Commonwealth” in honor of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who lived there for 17 years. No, I’m not kidding.

Take a bow all you educators who’ve been “teaching for social justice” instead of ability to think. You’ve done a cracker jack job of undermining the foundations of the finest democratic republic the world has ever experienced, hence transforming it into one of the most vacuous places on the planet.

Rise And Burn

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

 

T.S. Elliot, The Wasteland

A few days ago I took this picture from my deck of a mourning dove perched in my Norway maple tree, which was in bloom (and I had the allergies to prove it).

Yesterday morning, snow.

Today, frost. Well, more of a hard freeze actually: Metro Detroit Forecast: Freeze Warning in effect this morning. Not just in the Metro area but across most of the state, hitting the fruit belts where the freeze will be devastating to cherry, peach and apple farmers whose trees are all in bloom.

Nor is it just Michigan, half the nation is in freeze mode (h/t Upcountry):

And this, as our government moves to kill fossil fuel production in this country to save the planet from global warming.

A note to our Overlords: you are not in charge; you didn’t cause this crop-killing deep freeze and you can do nothing to stop it.

You didn’t do this on your own, Somebody else did that for you.

I leave you with this song which I stumbled across last year and forgot to post during April; I don’t want that to happen again so here you are.

April in Detroit

Brace Yourselves For A Long, Hot Summer of Racial Healing

Babylon Bee

Don’t anyone think for even one itty bitty minute that the conviction of Derek Chauvin on all charges will bring about an end to the wilding, rioting and other violence aimed at the police in particular and whitey in general. It won’t. The riots are bigger than George Floyd, bigger than the judicial system: there’s an entire culture of systemic racism that must be burned down, to the ground.

If you don’t believe me just ask MSNBC Analyst Jason Johnson, he’s absolutely outraged that he got exactly the verdict he wanted.

“I actually always thought that he would be found guilty because it’s sort of a cultural make-up call, but I’m not happy. I’m not pleased,” Johnson began. “I don’t have any sense of satisfaction. I don’t think this is the system working. I don’t think this is a good thing.”

Or another MSNBC contributor Eddie Glaude, who seemed to suggest that police officers might retaliate over the conviction of Derek Chauvin.

“We have been preparing for the violence of protests.Now we need to prepare for the reaction of the police. We were prepared for the protesters and what they might do if the verdict came down in a way that they were not satisfied. Now we need to be mindful of what it means…”

And From Fox who report that BLM leaders say this is just the beginning:

Bryan Llenas spoke with protesters on the ground in New York City who said they’re marching because this is just the beginning of restoring justice.

We also spoke to Hawk Newsome, who is a leader of the Greater New York BLM group, who said that this verdict actually justifies the violent and the non-violent protests. He says that it was the violent protests and the rioting that actually helped bring about this verdict… And now they believe that with this threat of rioting and the mixture of violent and nonviolent protests, that this is why they received the result that they did.

And you can bet that there’s nothing like success to guarantee ongoing “rioting and…violent and nonviolent protests.”

And wherever there be justice to be done, the professional ‘Just Us’ brothers will be there.

All the usual suspects show up to pray and cry with the victim’s family

Even our erstwhile President-In-Name-Only (PINO) had thoughts:

 

Biden said the murder, captured on video, had “ripped the blinders” off for the whole world to see America’s “systemic racism,” which he described as a “stain on our nation's soul.”

And naturally the nation’s preeminent expert on race relations wished to weigh in:

All of which, taken as a whole, means that we can expect a long, hot summer.

Because there’s a lot more of that racial healing that Barack Hussein Obama gave us that needs to be imposed on the country.

I don’t know what came first, racism or race baiters; but I do know who doesn’t wish the controversy to end, and why. So if there isn’t adequate display of the former it is up to the later to create it. Trust they will never, ever, let a good crisis go to waste. So there will be racism this summer, and it will be avenged. Even if we need to break a few eggs.

If you haven’t got the real thing a reasonable facsimile will suffice

Uh Oh! Who Turned The Light On?

Several of you posted links to and excerpts from the letter by Andrew Gutmann, the man pulling his daughter out of a private New York school, that’s gone viral. Today we’ll look at it again, but first let’s review some of the back story leading up to it.

The school in question is Brearley, the New York private school. With $54,000 a year tuition it enrolls children of the elite from all walks of life. The story was covered by Bari Weiss. In case you’ve forgotten, Weiss is the former New York Times Op-Ed editor/writer who resigned, noting on her way out that Twitter had become the paper’s ultimate editor:

As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.

This story explains why freedom of speech is an endangered concept in this country. It’s under a sustained,coordinated attack by academia, whose job is to explain it, the media, whose job is to use it and the government, whose job is to protect. None of them are doing their job.

The story actually begins with Paul Rossi, a math teacher at another New York elite school, who first spoke out against the school’s embrace of critical race theory ideology at a mandatory, whites-only student and faculty Zoom meeting. He subsequently wrote an essay titled I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated in which he accused the school of “indoctrinating” kids with an obsessive emphasis on race and stanching dissenting viewpoints.

Paul Rossi, math teacher. Looks like an ordinary bloke. Offense: un-woke

While not technically dismissed, Mr. Rossi has been told to stay off campus and teach remotely “for his own safety.” He expressed support for Andrew Gutmann whose letter stirred the brew at the elitist girls’ school, saying “Parents have a moral duty to protect their children from psychological abuse, and I commend any who choose the harder road.”

I was informed by the head of the high school that my philosophical challenges had caused “harm” to students, given that these topics were “life and death matters, about people’s flesh and blood and bone.” I was reprimanded for “acting like an independent agent of a set of principles or ideas or beliefs.” And I was told that by doing so, I failed to serve the “greater good and the higher truth.” 

I suggest you read the whole thing. Has someone flipped the light switch? Has the light begun to sneak in?

Apparently the Rossi situation spurred Andrew Gutmann to action. His letter, sent to all the other parents of Brearley students, unloads on the school’s overload of wokeness:

The administration and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob, and then allowing the school to be captured by that same mob. What follows are my own personal views on Brearley's antiracism initiatives… 

If the administration was genuinely serious about ‘diversity,’ it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead, the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of thought…

I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness.” If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about so-called “equity,” it would be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets. If the administration was genuinely serious about “diversity,” it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead, the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of thought. And if Brearley really cared about “inclusiveness,” the school would return to the concepts encapsulated in the motto “One Brearley,” instead of teaching the extraordinarily divisive idea that there are only, and always, two groups in this country: victims and oppressors. 

Seriously, read the whole thing. And don’t skip the comments, a lot of support along with a fair share of people who clearly stand with the woke. 

Brearley's exhaustive anti-racism calendar for the school year of 2020 to 2021 which includes training sessions for parents. Makes you wonder when they have time for educating the children. 

 

Perhaps the most telling aspect of this little morality play being acted out in real time is the fact that neither the New York Times (America’s Newpaper of Record) nor The Washington Post (Democracy Dies In Darkness) have covered either story. Nor have they covered any other stories concerning the ideological takeover of the schools…or media. When you’re part of the cabal you decide all the news that’s fit to print.

Uh oh! Who switched the light on?

Correction: original post had confused Grace School with Brearly. They are separate bastions of elitism.

“Of A Sudden We’ve Slipped Into Some Golden Age of Horror”

When last we saw Calvin he was happy as a lark,

oblivious to the fact he was about to walk straight into reality.

Reality is that strange realm were life becomes a series of one tough lesson after another.

And reality, well, like truth, a lot of people prefer to ignore it until it they can no longer get around it.

At which point it’s sometimes too late to deal with it effectively.

It seems that there are now a few people on the team that’s worked diligently to bury reality for years who have recently had the wool removed from their eyes. All of a sudden they’ve found that reality is blocking their path. People such as Glenn Greenwald:

Journalists, Learning They Spread a CIA Fraud About Russia, Instantly Embrace a New One. The most significant Trump-era alliance is between corporate outlets and security state agencies, whose evidence-free claims they unquestioningly disseminate.

And Matt Taibbi:

The Sovietization of the American Press. The transformation from phony "objectivity" to open one-party orthodoxy hasn't been an improvement.

Even Bill Maher is whining about cancel culture and media propaganda these days.

Maher: Shouldn't Liberal Media Have To Answer For Making The Audience Believe A "Bunch Of Crap About COVID?" But when all of our sources for medical information have an agenda to spin us, yeah, you wind up with a badly misinformed population including on the left.

While none of them are on our side ideologically it does make one nostalgic for the olden days when our opponents had a grasp on and respect for truth, and reality – two mandatory prerequisites for actually solving problems instead of just taxing and whining about them. It’s not much, but at least it’s a start

Once your balloon pops reality comes at you awfully fast. Perhaps a few more people will begin to notice the great misdirection that has plunged our country into chaos, debt and ultimately serfdom if we don’t reverse it.

The preoccupation is not an accident, it’s the design

Enjoy Your Day, Reality Returns Soon Enough

It’s Sunday, the beginning of a new week. How are you feeling?

Go ahead, choose your balloon. Swing open a window,

unlatch a door

and slip into the world you’ve chosen, if only for a little while. Monday will be here soon enough, and with it reality.

So enjoy your day.

Waiting On The Talking Points

I told you this Jon Gabriel tweet attachment would prove to be as evergreen as his infamous 2014 tweet about all the racial healing going on.

And the past month or so has given the media several opportunities to apply it.

Most recent is the FedEx shooting in Indianapolis. The MSM is now awaiting the race and religion of the shooter to determine whether to memory-hole the incident or blame all gun owners as mass murderers.

You can pretty much guess the race of the perp/victims of the other recent shootings by how much you’ve heard about each of them. For example, note how little you’ve heard about the Colorado grocery shooting where the shooter turned out to be a Muslim, and therefore another victim of America’s systemic racism and Islamophobia.

Not sure how we’ll proceed if the FedEx shooter turns out to be just another crazy white cat.

But I’m guessing more gun control.

That’s the ticket: more gun control and defund the racist cops. What could go wrong?

A New Way To Think About the Voter’s Right Act

Yesterday’s WSJ had an article on the inherently hellish nature of homeowners’ associations (HOAs). Like so many things, the author notes that HOAs were born of good intentions but eventually move sideways and end up enforcing the reasonable along with the increasingly ridiculous rules with “equal gusto.”  

She notes that HOA rules start out reasonable but quickly proliferate into the sublimely foolish. The people who are inclined to establish such rules often have undiagnosed psychological problems with their mother/father and hold extremely strong views on everything. And they believe that everyone else should be required to share their views. All of which explains why the author says she will never again buy a property governed by a HOA.

I would rather just live in a van down by the river, where at least no one tells me what color I can paint my van, what type of tires I need to have, or what size holiday décor I am allowed to hang from the rearview mirror.

She notes that it doesn’t matter what type of HOA is established they all end up in one in circle of Dante’s Inferno or another. She ranks them from Co-op boards, assigned to the ninth circle, to single-family HOA boards which she places in the fourth circle, astutely noting that

Like any humans given power over others, HOA boards inevitably get drunk on the stuff, so HOA rules and fees proliferate like perfectly fertilized weeds.

It’s strange that people easily grasp this inherent human foible when dealing with a microcosm like a HOA but entirely lose the concept when pulling the lever for politicians who are given ten-thousand times that amount of power over them. Odder yet, homeowners would never let people who didn’t live in their co-op/condo/neighborhood vote in the election of their board members but seem quite okay with anybody and everybody voting, sometimes twice, in their national elections.