Christopher Walken dances to “Come and Get Your Love”
This video absolutely freaks me out, but what do you expect with **Christopher Walken**? I didn't know the man even danced, but I recall that when a reader posted the video in the comments not long ago, they added that Walken was once a dancer. Indeed, *Wikipedia* notes that "Walken initially trained as a dancer at the Washington Dance Studio before moving on to dramatic stage roles and then film." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Walken
And what a song to make the man move his bones! Yes, there are stunt doubles in there, but most of the hoofing is done by Walken himself.
I had forgotten who did that song, which really is a toe-tapper, so I looked it up, finding that it was done in 1974 by **Redbone**, the first Native American band to have a big hit (this song went to the top 4 on Billboard). Here's a live performance of "**Come and Get Your Love**", written by two of the band members, Pat and Lolly Vegas (Lolly is the lead singer, Pat on bass). Oddly, it starts with 45 seconds of an Indian dance. **The lyrics are strange and enigmatic**, but the tune and performance are great, which of course is why Walken danced to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbone_(band) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_and_Get_Your_Love https://genius.com/Redbone-come-and-get-your-love-lyrics
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D.C. Circuit Rejects Key Challenge Of President Trump To McGahn Subpoena
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a major reaffirmation of congressional authority on Friday when it ruled Friday, 7-2 that the House has legal standing to use the courts to compel McGahn to appear in response to a House Judiciary Committee subpoena. I testified repeatedly in Congress in support of the McGahn subpoena (including in the Trump impeachment hearing) and said that I believed that the White House was not just wrong on the law but would ultimately fail in this effort. I have been a long advocate of congressional standing as an academic, columnist, and a litigator, including my prior representation of the United States House of Representatives in the Obamacare litigation (where we prevailed on standing for the House). I disagreed with an earlier decision against the House. I am obviously gratified by the result in this case. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000173-c95d-dc7c-a9ff-ff7f07b00000 https://jonathanturley.org/2019/12/04/turley-testifies-at-trump-impeachment-hearing/ https://jonathanturley.org/2020/02/03/how-the-house-lost-the-witnesses-along-with-the-impeachment/ https://jonathanturley.org/2015/09/09/federal-court-rules-that-house-has-standing-in-historic-challenge/
The White House can still raise other issues the appeals court left open other legal arguments against the subpoena to McGahn. That includes appearing only to refuse to answer certain questions on the basis for privilege or other objections.
However, the ruling reaffirms this critical access of the House to the courts to force compliance with its subpoenas. D.C. Circuit Judge Judith Rogers wrote “To level the grave accusation that a President may have committed ‘Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ the House must be appropriately informed. And it cannot fully inform itself without the power to compel the testimony of those who possess relevant or necessary information.”
This is the second recent set back for the White House in the D.C. Circuit. Recently, the court reversed a panel in the Michael Flynn case and sent back his case to Judge Emmet Sullivan for a final resolution of the motion to dismiss the case. While I have strongly disagreed with Sullivan’s actions (as did a couple of judges in the Circuit), I repeatedly stated that I expected the D.C. Circuit to reverse and send the matter back to Sullivan. The reversal was not an endorsement of his controversial actions but the basic principle that a trial court should be allowed to rule and complete the record before appeal. I agree with that decision and only hope that Sullivan will consider the concerns of many of us (including fellow jurists) over his prior conduct and orders in the case. These charges will be dismissed and the D.C. Circuit makes it clear that the law in overwhelming in favor of dismissal. If Judge Sullivan does not dismiss the charges, he will be reversed. The only question that remains is whether he will use this hearing for any purpose other than applying that clear legal standard. https://jonathanturley.org/2020/06/28/making-trouble-how-the-flynn-case-became-a-dangerous-game-of-legal-improvisation/ https://jonathanturley.org/2020/06/24/the-d-c-circuit-orders-dismissal-of-the-flynn-case/
This is a far more important ruling. It is extremely important to our constitutional system for the House to be able to enforce such subpoenas. Indeed, I hold an even broader view of legislative standing. I previously addressed this importance in testimony before Congress: https://jonathanturley.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/turley-enforcement-testimony.pdf
I have repeatedly testified before Congress on the single most valuable change that would counter the usurpation of legislative authority: legislative or member standing. I have long advocated the right of members to seek judicial review in alleged violations of the separation of powers. While I understand the reluctance of courts to consider political questions, a separation-based challenge is not a political but a structural question that is committed to the courts. Indeed, “standing” does not appear anywhere in the Constitution as a term or even by reference. It is a creation of the courts and has radically changed over the years to create a growing barrier for access to the courts. We now face a situation where major alleged violations of the Constitution are raised but there is no one who clearly has the standing to force judicial review.
Medical-journal article suggests eliminating applicants to med school if they’re racists
There is no area these days that is immune from charges of systemic racism. The authors of the article below, published in *The Journal of General Internal Medicine* (JIGM) single out medical education. You can read the article by clicking on the screenshot below, or get the pdf **here**. Below the first screenshot you can find a *precis* of the journal article from the Yale School of Medicine website, but it's not much shorter than the original two-page article, which will be the one I'm discussing and quoting from. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11606-020-06079-4.pdf
At any rate, medicine may indeed have racists working in it—indeed, there's some evidence quoted in the article that black patients don't get treated as well, medically, than white ones, and also some quasi-racist misconceptions about blacks from doctors. But I'm not so sure you'd call that "systemic" racism—a racism imbued in the system.
But never mind about that. Insofar as there is racism in medical education, the question is how to eliminate it. The authors propose a simple solution: keep racists from getting into med school. They couple that with the notion that you'd want to preferentially admit students not just who aren't racists, but who are deeply committed to social justice. After all, you can not be a bigot but have other interests besides further social justice.
This all raises several questions. Is the ditching of racist candidates something we should be concentrating on?. If so, how do we do it? What degree and kind of racism should keep you out of med school? Will the proposed methods work, or just drive bigotry underground? Is *any* racism grounds for dismissing a candidate? If a candidate isn't that committed to social justice, but has other extraordinary talents that are worthwhile (outreach, general empathy, etc.), will those help her? I don't know the answer to any of these questions, except that the methods proposed are rather authoritarian and would seem to be easily obviated by bigoted students intent on becoming doctors. The set of procedures (there are many) smacks of the approved "diversity statements" that some schools require from candidates for academic jobs—statements that can get you rejected at the outset even without your credentials being vetted (see posts **here**). https://whyevolutionistrue.com/?s=Diversity+statements&searchsubmit=Find+%C2%BB
The obligatory disclaimer: First, I support initiatives to increase the diversity of medical school students and their teachers, as well as medicine in general. Further, I'm not denying that minority students may face bigotry in medical school, or patients may face bigoted doctors. Nor am I not in favor of letting invidious racists into med school if their bigotry is seen as a serious problem. But, as authors like Robin DiAngelo incessantly inform us, *all* white people are racists to some degree (we have "implicit bias"), so the problem becomes *what degree of racism is tolerable in a med school applicant?* And that's where the problem comes in, because the ways these authors suggest for sniffing out the racists smacks of heavy-handed Critical Race Theory. They even mention intersectionality, for you might want to sniff out those who are bigots on several axes.
Let's review the methods the authors suggest for ferreting out racists who apply to med school. These come after the authors argue that "medicine is a white space" (i.e., it is full of prejudiced white people intent on "marginalizing the black person, actively reminding him of his outsider status to put him in his place"). They cite some evidence of racism, and do note that med schools have tried to dismantle the "white space" with diversity-enhanced curricula and faculty, as well as "education on implicit bias and microaggressions." But, they imply, this is not enough:
*We propose a more direct way to address racism in medical training: stop admitting applicants with racist beliefs.*
. . . Medical school admissions and residency programs could build on some of these current modes of evaluation to ascertain whether applicants hold racist beliefs or invalid and fixed views on biological differences between races.
This already raises red flags. How "racist" is "racist enough to get your application deep-sixed?" Since everyone has implicit bias, there must be some threshhold specified that will get your application booted no matter how good your qualifications are. Further, what are "invalid and fixed views on biological differences between races"? This is in fact an area of ignorance and controversy. Certainly there *are* biological differences between races (I prefer "populations" or "ethnic groups" to avoid the loaded and controversial idea of "race"); for one thing, their pigmentation and morphology differ, and those are biological differences. I suspect there are physiological differences as well, though their size and their relevance to medical care are unknown.
The ways of vetting (all indents are quotes from the *JIGM* article):
**1.) Questionnaires.**
*For example, a short questionnaire could be used to flag significantly uninformed individuals who may not yet be ready to care for patients or interact with their non-white peers in a respectful manner. Applicants could be given surveys adapted from studies on implicit and explicit bias.*
As far as I know, "implicit bias" tests have been found to be flawed and faulty. But that aside, questionnaires, interviews, and essays will of course alert students who, knowing that even the hint of racism is grounds for dismissal, will do all they can to look like social-justice warriors. Explicit bias tests must surely be easy to defeat, and it can't be that hard to tweak an essay to look really woke, even if you're a Proud Boy.
**2.)** **Essays**.
*Application essays are also opportunities to understand an applicant’s views on race in medicine. Many medical schools, including Yale School of Medicine, include secondary essay prompts about applicants’ perspectives on “diversity.” These essays could be enhanced to more clearly elicit applicants’ positions on race: for example, reflecting on their own racial or ethnic identity; or responding to selected passages by prominent scholars on race and medicine, such as Dorothy Roberts or Harriet Washington.*
Again, if you have any neurons at all, you can simply say what you want the committee to hear. In contrast, you can't fake your credentials, test scores, or college grades, or (unless you're Lori Loughlin's kids) your accomplishments.
**3.) Interviews.**
*Interview questions evaluating applicants’ views on race could be similar to essay prompts or they could be more direct questions, such as “Do you think Black patients are more likely to be poor historians than white people––and if so, why?”*
Now what would you say to answer that question if you wanted to get into med school. The right answer is clearly "no". (I don't even understand the question, though.)
**4.) MMIs.** (These are "multiple-mini-interviews––where applicants rotate through several rooms responding to different prompts––to assess qualities such as communication, empathy, professionalism, integrity, and ethical reasoning. My emphasis below
*MMI scenarios could be based on discriminatory experiences reported by minority faculty, trainees, and students: a peer implying that an underrepresented minority (URM) medical student was admitted only because of “affirmative action”; a professor suggesting that race is biological; or an attending telling a patient not to take a racial slur “so personally.* ***Due to the intersectional nature of identity, MMI scenarios could be designed to touch on multiple forms of discrimination simultaneously****. MMI stations could also ask applicants to respond to a summary of a study on racism in medicine.*
This has a bizarre similarity to those "quick dating" scenarios where someone rotates among potential dates quickly, spending a few minutes with each. It also reminds me of rushing at fraternities in college: an experience so distressing, because you knew you were being evaluated quickly and on the basis of a few sentences, that I dropped out after the first day. To me, this doesn't sound like a good way to vet candidates.
**5.) Student-hosted discussions.**
*Student-hosted discussions of race in medicine could involve students and trainees of color engaged in racial justice work or affiliated with groups such as the Student National Medical Association (SNMA) or the Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA). Host students or trainees could then evaluate candidates’ racial attitudes in a more informal setting.*
Given the wokeness of students these days, this sounds even more fraught. One misstep, or one misinterpreted word, and you're gone. And if you don't adhere down the line to Critical Race Theory, you'd be toast.
**6). Interviews by community members.**
*Interviews by minority community members could assess applicants’ attitudes about non-white patients. In White Coat, Clenched Fist, Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan described such a strategy. He recounted how parents from the South Bronx formed Lincoln Hospital’s Pediatric Parents Association (PPA) and participated in interviewing residency applicants in the 1970s. Mullan recalled that “mothers from the PPA spoke up right from the start, often asking tough questions about applicants’ attitudes towards blacks or Puerto Ricans.*
I'd prefer to leave the professionals—those who work for med schools, do the vetting, especially if the admissions committee is diverse (see recommendation #7). If this strategy was so efficacious, how come it appears to have died in the Seventies.
**7.) Diversifying admissions committees.**
*Diversifying and educating admissions committees and interviewers is essential, because they will be responsible for locating a given candidate on a continuum of racial attitudes which would then be weighed as part of their overall candidacy.*
I have no issue with this, though diversity historically has rationales other than sniffing out racists. Rather, on admissions committees it's a way to ensure that minority candidates get a fair vetting, at least partly from those in their own ethnic group who, presumably, have had similar experience.
As the authors note, these procedures aren't designed just to eliminate students who are racists, but *to "select for students who are committed to social justice."* But why limit these methods to med schools.? Since all areas of academia, especially STEM fields, are said to be "white spaces" and riddled with systemic racism, why limit this kind of vetting to med schools? After all, don't those fields also need scholars committed to social justice? One might answer that, well, it's especially important for doctors to treat patients in an unbiased fashion, but biases in fields like STEM are said to cause large amounts of harm, both psychologically and to people's career prospects. Indeed, this is the reason why schools like the University of California are mandating diversity statements for job applicants in other fields.
Finally, as I noted above, what about those students who are neutral on the racism scale, perhaps showing a tiny bit of implicit bias but with no outright racism, but with a terrific background in other desirable traits, like doing outreach or having terrific lab skills that could make him a great medical researcher? How much racism counts against these other talents? In the University of California, those other talents aren't even considered unless your diversity statement passes a threshold of acceptability (and that bar is pretty high).
In the end, the authors admit that people can change (then why boot out the purported racists at the outset?), but they don't use a very good example to show that:
*To be sure, people’s beliefs can evolve, especially in environments that strive to change curricula, diversify medical schools, and counteract racism in medical culture. This was the approach taken by the Black Panther Party, which not only rigorously evaluated physicians for their commitment to racial justice before allowing them to practice in their clinics, but then required those physicians to receive a “re-education” on race and anti-colonialism even after they had been accepted as volunteer medical staff.*
"Re-education" smacks not of the realization that you could do better, but of an attitude drilled into people through force and propaganda. That's hardly, I think, what the authors would want to inflict on med students. Or would they?
In a specific and limited way
On Tuesday, something remarkable happened. Brandon Lewis, a British Government minister, stood up in the House of Commons and announced that the Johnson administration which blights us all is preparing to break the law "in a specific and limited way".
You try that the next time a polis stops you for speeding. "Sorry officer, but I was only breaking the law in a very specific and limited way." After all it's not like you speed every single time you get behind the wheel of a car, you only did it on this occasion because you were desperate to get home before the chlorinated chickens came home to roost.
Or we could have murderers arguing that because they only offed that one annoying prick in an Audi who had nicked their parking space in the Aldi carpark then ate their liver with a bottle of cheap chianti that they were only breaking the law in a very specific and limited way. I mean you kill and consume just one annoying Audi driver and all of a sudden you get called a murdering cannibal, like you're Jeffrey Dahmer or something. This however, is the British Government's defence.
The Attorney General, who's the top legal voice in the Government should resign. Or at least she should resign if she had the slightest trace of integrity left. But since we're talking about Suella Braverman here, we already know that she is to integrity as Orville the Duck is to cage fighting. However Suella Braverman and her counterpart in the Lords Robert Buckland have sworn to uphold the law, and now they are the chief legal representatives of a government which has just asserted that the law doesn't apply to it. They're either hypocrites, or they are superfluous to purposes, or both. But they'll keep quiet and keep their jobs.
The professional code for barristers in England makes it clear that if a barrister advises a client that a certain act is unlawful, but their client insists that they're going to do it anyway in demands that the barrister defend the behaviour, the barrister should not continue to represent that client. The barrister should resign from representing a client who breaks the law in clear defiance of the barrister's advice. As a senior barrister of many years' standing the Lord Chancellor Robert Buckman must know this. Likewise Lord Keen, the Advocate General and the UK goverment's most senior legal advisor in Scotland, hasn't resigned. Similar conditions apply in the ministerial code which binds all government ministers. You don't break the law. Breaking the law is a resignation matter. Alternatively, if you're one of the most senior lawyers or a minister in this Conservative government, you know that breaking the law is just fine and dandy. What's important is the ability to get away with it.
Surely if the UK was perfectly fine with breaking international law, then it didn't have any need to leave the EU in the first place. All those laws about the permitted curvature of bananas from all those unelected bureaucrats who get up the noses of Tory Brexiteers along with the cocaine could just have been ignored. Instead we've had four years of Brexmess, and now at the very point in time when the UK needs friends and allies the most, the British government has decided to trash what is left of any residual goodwill that the UK might still have left.
This is a government which doesn't hesitate to break the law. Laws are for little people. It is after all a government led by an Etonian who was a member of the Bullingdon Club for over privileged tossers at Oxford University, one of whose rituals is to trash the restaurants where they book their regular dinners. It's illegal to commit criminal damage. At least it is for the rest of us. The habits of youth are the habits that Johnson continues in public life. He unlawfully prorogued Parliament and lied to the Head of State. His senior advisor broke lockdown regulations with the risible excuse that he had childcare needs and then that he had to drive to test his eyesight. And now he's destroying the devolution settlement and the Good Friday Agreement.
When a government breaks the law it breaks the very thing that it uses to govern. It tells the public that laws can be broken. It means that the signal is given from the very top that justice and law do not apply. All that matters is the power of the state. That's the road to autarky. It's how democracy dies. That's what this Government's internal market bill represents.
As well as trashing international law with regard to Northern Ireland, this is a bill which also unilaterally undermines the devolution settlements of Scotland and Wales. It contains a provision for an unelected committee of Conservative placepersons who will decide whether legislation in Scotland and Wales is aligned with the UK internal market. That unelected committee will have the power to strike down laws passed by the democratically elected parliaments of Scotland and Wales.
Here in Scotland, Baroness Davidson's sock puppet DRoss has embarked on an attack on the SNP who in his estimation are to blame for the no-deal Brexit that is rapidly approaching. It would be nice to say that we've reached the nadir of SNPBad here, but since this is the Tories we're talking about, problably not. According to DRoss it's all the fault of the SNP that the EU isn't rolling over and agreeing to the UK's impossible and mutually contradictory demands. Which if true can only mean that the SNP weilds huge influence in EU circles who are willing to obey their every demand. So rejoining the EU ought to be really simple for an independent Scotland then, shouldn't it DRoss. He needs to be reminded of his own logic next time he claims, as he most assuredly will, that Scotland won't be able to get back into the EU. His idiotic claims might have some traction with his dwindling band of followers, but they will not have any purchase in the rest of Scotland which knows full well that the SNP have consistently opposed Brexit and the fault for the current disaster lies fully with DRoss's party.
Meanwhile there are persistent rumours that Boris Johnson is planning to stand down as Prime Minister. He's made a huge mess, he's taken the UK to the brink of disaster and there's no apparent way out of it. Reports have been circulating that Johnson will resign citing ill health as the reason. It wouldn't be the first time that he's walked out on his responsibilities after nine months. His legacy will be that he's created the conditions for a Scotland which is ready to walk out of the UK and ready to embark upon the building of a better Scotland - in very specific and unlimited ways.
No, Twitter Should Not Take Down The McConnell Parody
For years, I have criticized those who have called for increased censorship on the Internet, including regulation of political speech by companies like Facebook and Twitter. There is a legitimate debate over the continued use of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act by these companies when they are engaged in such censorship (and alleged viewpoint bias). However, President Donald Trump’s call for Twitter to take down a parody of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is wrong on a number of levels. It would only fuel the erosion of free speech on the Internet in curtailing political commentary. https://jonathanturley.org/2020/05/04/china-was-right-academics-and-democratic-leaders-call-for-censorship-of-social-media-and-the-internet/
Yesterday, President Trump struck out at the picture of McConnell in a Russian military uniform:
The tweet says:
*Why does Twitter leave phony pictures like this up, but take down Republican/Conservative pictures and statements that are true? Mitch must fight back and repeal Section 230, immediately. Stop biased Big Tech before they stop you!*
It is a particularly curious objection from a politician who regularly parodies his political opponents with insulting names and descriptions. Parody is one of the oldest forms of political discourse. Since Hegemon of Thasos, *parodia* has been a literary device and an important form of political speech. Parody and satire have long been used to emphasize (and often exaggerate) political objections to our leaders.
In *White v. Samsung Elec. Am*., Inc., 989 F.2d 1512, 1519 (9th Cir. 1993), then Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in dissent that “The First Amendment isn’t just about religion or politics – it’s also about protecting the free development of our national culture. Parody, humor, irreverence are all vital components of the marketplace of ideas.” The Supreme Court has repeated affirmed the importance of parody and satire as protected speech. In *Campbell v. Acuff-Music, Inc*., 510 U.S. 569, 579 (1994). Justice David Souter noted that “parody has an obvious claim to transformative value.”
Even vulgar parodies have been protected like the fake advertisement featuring evangelical minister Jerry Falwell: “At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. ‘[T]he freedom to speak one’s mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty–and thus a good unto itself–but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole.'” *Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell*, 485 U.S. 46, 50-51 (1987) (quoting *Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of U.S., Inc*., 466 U.S. 485, 503-04 (1984)).
This parody of McConnell as “Moscow Mitch” may be unfair and insulting but it is quintessential political speech and should be protected. There is a legitimate criticism of companies like Twitter and Facebook for biased policies, but that should be part of a call for less, not more, censorship.
It is not just Trump who is calling for increased censorship. I have criticized Democratic leaders who have made such limitation and regulation of free speech a central cause for their party.
Hillary Clinton has demanded that political speech be regulated to avoid the “manipulation of information” and stated that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg “should pay a price for what he is doing to our democracy” by refusing to take down opposition postings. In Europe, free speech rights are in a free fall, and countries such as France and Germany are imposing legal penalties designed to censor speech across the world. Joe Biden has pushed for these companies to delete criticism of mail-in voting. https://jonathanturley.org/2020/06/25/biden-pushes-facebook-and-twitter-to-remove-trump-criticisms-of-mail-in-voting/
Many of us in the free speech community have warned of the growing insatiable appetite for censorship in the West. We have been losing the fight, and free speech opponents are now capitalizing on the opportunity presented by the pandemic. Representative Adam Schiff sent a message to the heads of Google, Twitter, and YouTube demanding censorship of anything deemed “misinformation” and “false information.” Schiff told the companies that they needed “to remove or limit content” and that, “while taking down harmful misinformation is a crucial step”, they also needed to educate “those users who accessed it” by making available the true facts.
All of these calls from the left and the right are efforts to control the speech of political critics and dissidents. These companies should be criticized for the bias shown in past actions, which I have previously addressed. However, do not be misled by the fact that these voices are coming from opposite sides of our political debate. They are unified in the desire to curtail the most powerful forum for free speech in the history of humanity: the Internet. It is the bane of the existence of politicians around the world and they want to control it. To do that, they have to get free citizens to call for their own censorship. Many have yielded to that siren’s call to the peril of free speech. https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/499874-twitter-and-trump-raise-stakes-in-fight-over-free-speech-in-america
That is far too high a price to pay to protect Sen. McConnell from the insults of political parody.
The solid ground
It's very possible that Scotland has reached the tipping point, when it shifts from being a country which is ambivalent about independence to becoming a nation which is resolved that it can only reach its full potential if it has all the powers of an independent state. There have been reports this week of a secret poll on independence, whose results were let slip in an article in the Guardian by a former advisor to the Treasury, Prof Mujtaba Rahman. According to the professor, the cabinet was told that 56% of people in Scotland support independence. While he has refused to reveal his sources, the professor confirmed to The National that the figure was correct.
If all recent public opinion polling had been reporting that support for independence was somewhere in the higher 40s percentile as it remained for years following the 2014 referendum, we could dismiss this latest report. However the 56% figure comes following a series of opinion polls all of which have shown support for independence to be in the 51% to 55% range. That makes it a far more plausible result. If it is indeed true, it confirms that support for independence is continuing its incremental rise as more and more people look upon the British Government and realise that Scotland could do far better, despite the best efforts of the vast majority of the media in Scotland. There is now, for the first time, a solid ground of majority independence support in Scotland, and that's before an official campaign has even begun
Meanwhile the Johnson administration continues its descent into the murky depths of the incoherent deceit which is the only thing that it's world beating at. This government's Brextremists, which is all of the government, are now complaining that the current deal breaches the UK's sovereignty. Yet this isn't a deal which anyone forced on them. It wasn't Theresa May. It wasn't remainers. It wasn't Brussels. This is a deal which was signed by Boris Johnson last year and which he announced as a triumph. He even put it to the electorate in the General Election in December 2019 and won an 80 seat majority on the back of it.
Most objective observers, as well as critics of the Conservatives, believbe that there are no discernible benefits to no deal. It will destroy swathes of the British economy, put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk, and alienate the UK's closest allies. Yet so far the British Government has not clearly articulated just why this no deal Brexit that they're taking us all into is so great for the UK. All we get is waffle about UK sovereignty and the ability to make trade deals freely. Yet they don't want to explain just how they're going to manage that after demonstrating to the world that the British Government's word is worth about as much as a Dominic Cummings assurance that he went to Durham for an eye test.
Today Jonathan Jones, the head of the legal department in the UK civil service, resigned his post over reports that the British Government wants to rip up parts of the Brexit deal for Northern Ireland and trash the Good Friday Agreement. His resignation suggests that there is a dispute within the topmost levels of the British Government about the lawfulness of Johnson's decision.
Today former Prime Minister Theresa May, who bears a considerable amount of the responsibility for getting the UK into this mess by going full tilt for a hard Brexit and refusing to take the views of remainers into account, has attacked the Johnson administration. In a speech in the Commons she pointed out that if the British Government takes this step, it will only prove to other countries that it cannot be trusted to act in good faith if they sign a treaty with it.
In an interview with STV on Monday night, part time branch office manager DRoss insisted that a no deal Brexit could offer "great benefits" to Scotland and went so far as to claim that a UK government which rips up international treaties was acting responsibily. But then Douglas only has his job because the bosses in his party decided to rip up the result of a democratic election amongst party members, so he is operating with a very loose definition of responsible.
DRoss made his claim despite the fact that none of the Brextremists in the Conservative party were publicly advocating a no deal Brexit before or during the EU referendum, insisting instead that achieving a deal with the EU would be the easiest negotiation in the world. Some of them even warned that saying there was a risk of a no deal Brexit was scaremongering of the worst sort. And yet here we are, with Baroness Davidson's muppet on TV trying to sell us a no deal Brexit.
This is the man who asserted that he'd stand up to Johnson when he felt it was necessary to defend Scottish interests. But he can't even stand up to Johnson when we're facing the catastrophe of a no deal Brexit on top of the Conservative decision to end furlough payments even though the pandemic has far from run its course. He's never stood up to Johnson before, he sure as hell isn't about to start now.
Johnson's bad faith and untrustworthiness has been noted in Europe. So for example the Spanish newspaper El Pais warns that Brussels has been put on alert by an apparently treacherous manoeuvre which runs the risk of blowing up bridges. **https://elpais.com/internacional/2020-09-08/el-jefe-del-departamento-legal-del-reino-unido-dimite-tras-los-cambios-en-el-plan-del-brexit-autorizados-por-johnson.html**
The UK is being crushed to death by its own delusions. The British state of British nationalist Brexit imagination is far removed from what the rest of the globe sees. The Conservatives still believe in a UK that bestrides the world stage like a colossus, imposing its will on lesser breeds and going unchallenged. The reality is a British state which has never come to terms with its loss of Empire, which is lost in a reverie of past glory, and which is blind to the harsh truth that the UK is merely a medium sized European state with pretensions far beyond its abilities. However more and more people in Scotland see the truth and have come to realise that Scottish independence is not an unrealistic proposition. It's the dreams of British nationalism which are unrealistic, unfeasible, and unattainable.
Scottish independence is nothing more than the desire to live in a normal country which engages with the rest of the world on a basis of realism. As the Johnson administration becomes increasingly unmoored and lost the waves of fantasy which is all that Britannia rules over these days, that 56% support for independence is only going to grow. Only an independent Scotland provides the solid ground of reality upon which we can build a better country.
Mt Tom – #1LinerWeds
Several weeks ago, our daughter Faith and I decided to go for a day hike during the week she was to be on vacation (last week). I wanted to “hike” the Holyoke, Massachusetts canal system. It’s about 3.5 mi (6 km), paved and flat. Faith has done urban hikes such as this with me before. I also suggested that it might be nice to get an areal view of Holyoke. Faith determined that Mt. Tom was the nearest peak, but it was questionable whether we would be able to see Holyoke from the summit.
It didn’t matter. Hiking with Faith is fun. She’s a very experienced hiker, but she is patient, prepared and informed. Hiking to the summit of Mt. Tom was actually well described in a book of New England hikes that Faith had. On the way to the parking area, she read several key points. The trail is 1.2 mi (2 km) long. The summit is 1,202' (366m) high. Faith expected an elevation gain for us between 700' (213m) and 900' (274m). That didn’t sound so bad. Being in deep lush woods was a wonderful experience.
The first sign that the article in the book was short of accurate was when we passed a “glacial bolder.” The book said we would pass that after about 3/10ths of a mile. Faith estimated that we had already walked 7/10ths of a mile as we passed the bolder.
A while later, we came to a vista where we could look down on the valley below. I jokingly said to Faith,
***“We could share a picture from here and say it was the summit – who would know?”***
Yes, yes, we would. We continued onward and upward. Reaching the top did feel good. We got a glimpse of Holyoke on the way, but the view in that direction from the summit was obscured by trees. The view of Easthampton, MA was spectacular.
This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner, If you would like to join in on the fun, you can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.
I don’t think Faith objected to doing the research.
I don’t know the scale of her map, but I know that the closer those concentric lines are, the steeper the terrain.
Sorry Maddie. Actually, Maddie is not well suited for hiking.
My guide and our trail. It was easy hiking at first.
Glacial bolder.
“I assume that’s the glacial bolder, but we’ve gone way more than 3-tenths of a mil
Seriously, who would question it if we said this was from the summit?
At least we don’t have to hike on that.
When I was in high school, four of us painted our school’s name on the side of rocks such
I had hoped that this was the dam at Holyoke. Unfortunately, it is Nashawannuck Pond in Easthampton
This rocky area provided a wonderful view of the CT River Valley.
“This way, Dad.
The path ahead
I think that’s the s
Easthampton, MA. Faith and I agreed that the sidewalk looked a little dicey
There were lots of birds flying. I got a picture os an eagle, but he was heading away. I’m not sure what this is, but it’s the best shot I got.
Portions of the lodge’s foundation still remain
There used to be a lodge at the summit. That’s long gone and has been replaced by radio transmission tower
Yeah, we wn’t be going in there.
This tree has taken root in the glacial bolder and managed to grow to a considerable height
Good morning
Another sunny day has arrived. If you are wondering what the cloud is on the left of the picture, it is my thumb. I could have removed it by shifting the picture frame, but nobody is perfect and these things happen, especially when taking a quick photo with the telephone camera.
At the moment I am completely alone at home. Mr. Swiss had a dental appointment this morning already at 8.00 am and got himself a taxi to get there. It was really a little early for a golden oldie to make the journey with his scooter and it is better to do it in comfort. He is also having a tooth removed. He has a second appointment this evening to finish the repair work and we are hoping that the job will then be completed: although dental work is an eternal event. It begins when you lose your milk teeth up to when you get your third set of teeth.
I have been lucky in a way. I have had my problems, even picked up a gold tooth at the back on the way, but since visiting regularly to the dentist, no big deal. Now and again perhaps a tooth filling might crumble away, but over the years, thanks to modern dental technique and a good family dentist, they are more or less stable. I just got myself a new electric toothbrush as the old one gave up after many years.
Yesterday I decided to make a tour of the surroundings and was quite pleased to see the animal show out on the fields. It seems that the cow night shift is now over. The days no longer have such intensive heat and the cows are on the pastures again.
I decided to move in a little closer, but they were too busy munching away at the fresh grass, probably making the most of it, as during the Winter it will only be hay. This one seemed to have a punk hairstyle, compensating for the horns that she never had after being removed as a calf. I wonder if she misses them.
Moving on I saw that one of the horses was getting some beauty treatment.
The goat pair were also keeping an eye on things, but also relaxing in the sun.
Not to mention the chicken family, complete with rooster and that was some rooster. He towered above everything keeping order. Of course these are the special hens. Otherwise there are 200 hens all in their movable houses, the egg specialists. The hens are kept in a place with shelter and a large space on the field for a walk now and again. This group live on the farmhouse grounds. Growing up in a large town like London, I very much appreciate the open air life and the sights I have in my little Swiss village.
Yesterday was really a wonderful afternoon for a wheelie in my chair to the farm.
I treated myself to a new toy yesterday, something I wanted for some time. I am on a cooking trip at the moment. After a few years I have begun to bake a cake now and again and pep up my cold cut meals in the evening. I only have to take care of Mr. Swiss and son No. 1 and myself of course, but cooking now has a completely different perspective for me. I was cooking to feed the five thousand for many years for the family but now Mr. Swiss no longer eats so much, being compensated by No. 1 son that eats everything that is left, with the exception of mushrooms or green vegetables. I still enjoy my food, but one plate does me nicely and perhaps a little more.
Anyhow, my cookery company are offering a Hot air fryer. It is like a deep fryer but does not need litres of oil. Just put in the ingredients, perhaps french fries or some meat like chicken, add 3 spoons of oil and switch it on. You get the same crispy food as from the old fashioned deep fryers without the smell and mess of the old system. I know a few people that have one and they find them very good. I am also getting it for a very good price, being a member of the group. Watch this space for further reports when I have it.
I also did my first attempt at a Russian salad yesterday. Mr. Swiss likes it and often bought a tin of the veg to make a salad with. All it is is a mixture of potato, peas, carrots, beans cut in small pieces and mixed with a salad sauce - no magic involved. I decided that I had the veg at home, some frozen, some fresh, so cut it all up and cooked it for a few minutes in my microwave adding a little bouillon when cooking. Afterwards, just a normal salad sauce, also made by me, and mix it all up and serve. It turned out quite well and I knew what we were eating. I never did like tinned food. The whole process only took a couple of minutes. While it was cooling down I got on with my computer bits and pieces. Anyhow the main thing was that they all liked it. I really try to cook healthy. I have the time and it's fun to do.
Mr. Swiss has now just returned from the dentist with a tooth less, but he survived. He has also booked his taxi for this evening's ride. I am glad he is safe and sound back at home.
And now to continue with normal daily life at the Angloswiss den. Have a good day and may everything be smooth runnings. See you later. On my way home yesterday these two passed me, on a ride from the local stable. I sometimes I wish I could ride a horse, everything is so near where I live.
i would want to find something to earn money on this
i would want to find something to earn money on this
The Justice Department Is Wrong In Seeking To Take Over The Defamation Case Against Trump . . .
The Department of Justice (DOJ) moved yesterday to take over the representation in the defamation suit brought by author E. Jean Carroll, who has accused President Donald Trump of raping her. I strongly disagree with the use of the Justice Department in such circumstances. However, the court may have little choice to grant the motion. This is a case where the legal answer is not the right answer.
The brief motion filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York relies on the Federal Tort Claims Act to seek to take over the litigation. It is based on attenuated logic that, while the alleged rape occurred 30 years ago, Trump’s denial (which is the basis for the defamation claim” occurred while he was president. As a result, the Justice Department is claiming that the comment was made as part of his official duties and thus it should be defended by the Justice Department, and not private counsel.
In my view, the framing of the comment as an official act is wrong and this move undermines the integrity of the Justice Department. Barr defended the decision. There is case law supporting the position. It has been used by other presidents. I strongly disagree with the request, which presumably came from the White House. That is where the primary blame should fall. From the first year of the Administration, I have been critical of the President’s blurring the lines between his private and official legal cases. This has been a long pending lawsuit handled by private counsel. It should have remained so. Indeed, Trump has the advantage in the litigation, as discussed below. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/barr-invokes-westfall-act-to-explain-justice-dept-intervening-in-defamation-case-against-trump/2020/09/09/ed98fbd1-18c8-40cc-9787-9ce8ba1ba969_video.html https://jonathanturley.org/2017/04/24/the-contingency-presidency-presidential-immunity-invoked-in-kentucky-case-by-trumps-local-counsel/
Barr could reasonably view this as a nondiscretionary act on his part once the request is made, particularly given past invocations during the Bush and Obama Administrations. However, I would argue that there is discretion here. The issue is the meaning of “while acting within the scope of his office or employment.” The case law has added a broad interpretation to the mandatory language of the Act. This decision is consistent with that case law. I believe that the Act should be amended to exclude clearly personal matters like this one.
Nevertheless, the correct decision under the law would be to grant this ill-conceived motion. The reason is the Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2679(b)(1), which states: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/2679
“(2) Upon certification by the Attorney General that the defendant employee was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose, any civil action or proceeding commenced upon such claim in a State court shall be removed without bond at any time before trial by the Attorney General to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place in which the action or proceeding is pending. Such action or proceeding shall be deemed to be an action or proceeding brought against the United States under the provisions of this title and all references thereto, and the United States shall be substituted as the party defendant. This certification of the Attorney General shall conclusively establish scope of office or employment for purposes of removal.”
I do not see the room for judicial discretion in this “shall” provision. It was written to give entire discretion to the Justice Department in certifying such cases.
There is an irony here for critics however in opposing this motion. For years, critics have argued in federal court that tweets and comments by the President in areas like immigration should be treated as official statements. Indeed, the Ninth Circuit adopted such an approach in prior litigation. https://jonathanturley.org/2018/06/28/the-travel-ban-and-the-courts-red-hen-moment/
However, this is clearly a personal matter and not a comment on any government policy or action. It should not be a matter for the Justice Department. None of this gives credence to the underlying claim. This would be a very difficult case to prove. Carrol is essentially suing over what is called an “exculpatory no” statement in criminal law. Trump had every right to deny the underlying rape, but he did so as an individual, not as the president
Chicago public schools adopt the 1619 Project
I'm not a big fan of the New York Times's **1619 Project**, though I think its aims—letting people know that the aftereffects of slavery still weigh down America—are admirable. But I'm wary of its historical inaccuracies, called out by several prominent historians, of its main message that America is affected in nearly every aspect by "systemic racism", and, above all, by the efforts of the paper to propagandize American schoolchildren with its own unvetted view of history. (What other bit of NYT journalism has been explicitly designed to be part of a school curriculum?). In view of this, I thought it was a travesty that Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Project's creator, got the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for commentary for her essay on the Project. It seemed to me that the Prize was given not for quality but for wokeness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project
On the other hand, it's out of line for Trump to de-fund school districts who adopt the project into its curriculum, as school curricula are the ambit of local school districts, cities, and states—not the President. Here's his Big Threat.
Department of Education is looking at this. If so, they will not be funded! **https://t.co/dHsw6Y6Y3M**
But I was surprised to hear that in fact the Chicago Public Schools, as reported in this *Tribune* article (click on screenshot) have quietly adopted that curriculum, for I'd heard no intimations of it previously. And I don't know how it got adopted.
The report of Chicago's ideological curriculum came in one short sentence (my bolding):
Mayor Lori Lightfoot fired back at President Donald Trump’s weekend threat to cut federal funding for public schools that teach the “1619 Project,” calling it “more hot air.”
. . .The New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project” looked at slavery and how it shaped America. Although widely celebrated, the Pulitzer Prize-winning project has drawn criticism from some conservative politicians and scholars. [**JAC**: It's not just conservatives who have criticized the project, so this sentence is editorializing.]
**But Chicago Public Schools has adopted it as part of its curriculum, which Lightfoot defended on Tuesday by saying it’s important for students of all backgrounds to understand slavery**. Lightfoot also said Trump has “no power to try to take funding from any school district.”
“If he does, obviously, we will see him in court,” she said.
Now I like Mayor Lightfoot: she's tough and a straight shooter, and she even called out violence and looting when they occurred as part of the demonstrations in Chicago. But I wonder if she was able to get that curriculum adopted on her own. For it's not just an understanding of slavery that the project teaches, but also some aspects of Critical Race Theory, including the prevalence—indeed, *ubiquity*—of racism in every aspect of American life. It's also historically inaccurate, but neither Hannah-Jones nor Lightfoot seem to care too much
Song on a watermelon keyboard
I'm not sure what the "Playtron" is, but it appears to be a controller that, combined with a synthesizer and conductive objects (in this case, fruit) you can play music. The instrumentalist is **Mezerg**, a "one man band" who plays other instruments, like **the theramin**, **on his channel,** https://themusicman.uk/mezerg/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-rlFaSBLg8 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUaQxmkh81tJAWrreHe3CJg
Beyond this I know nothing, but thought it was cool for soeone to play music on slices of watermelon. If you want to see the controller, or buy one, the link is below, in the YouTube description
Washington Man Indicted For Allegedly Stealing Police Rifle During Riot In Seattle
We have been discussing the notable reliance on federal as opposed to state charges to prosecute crimes during the recent protests. The shifting of these cases into the federal system is being done with the support of local police. The result can be enhanced sentencing as well as political cover. The latest example is Jacob D. Little, 24, who allegedly stole a high-powered rifle from a patrol car during a riot in Seattle. https://jonathanturley.org/2020/07/30/another-protester-arrested-after-being-identified-by-distinctive-tattoo/ https://jonathanturley.org/2020/07/06/wisconsin-man-faces-federal-extortion-charge-for-demanding-money-food-and-booze-from-businesses//
Little was charged in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Friday with possession of a stolen firearm. That charge may be expanded later given an allegation that he tried to sell the weapon (which gives this case more of a federal or interstate foot print than some of the earlier cases that we discussed).
Notably, the indictment below reveals that it was the Seattle Police Department that first investigated and identified Little, but then had the federal authorities take the case.
Seattle officers fled the vehicle when confronted by a riotous mob. Six patrol cars were torched that night. Among items stolen was a Colt M4 rifle with a suppressor. Prosecutors allege that Little is shown in photos taken by police and in videos posted on YouTube taking the heavy bag from a Seattle police vehicle. Little also apparently posted an image of himself on Snapchat in which he is posing in front of the same vehicle. Police later found matching clothing in his home as well as various guns. The stolen gun was identified by serial number as well as markings (and fire extinguisher residue).
The Justice Department refers to messages from Little on the Internet “that he has removed the sling and suppressor and the ‘red dot’ (a type of optical sight) from the rifle. All those accessories were present on the rifle when stolen from the Seattle Police vehicle.” https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/everett-washington-man-charged-federally-possessing-firearm-stolen-seattle-police
The indictment has a variety of high-quality pictures that allegedly show Little at the vehicle and removing the gun bag. Notably, Little in the indictment papers seems to fashion himself as a type of gangster, including a Facebook account for “Jacob YG Little” — “YG” typically stands for “Yung Gangsta.”
One heartbreaking part of the indictment details Little’s parents being confronted with the evidence against their son:
“Also on July 20, 2020, LITTLE’s parents went to the EPD North Precinct and spoke with investigators. Investigators showed LITTLE’s parents photographs of the suspect taken on May 30, 2020. Investigators asked them what they saw in the photos. LITTLE’s parents were initially quiet. S.L. then began crying and at one point pointed at the photographs and said “That is not the son I raised.” Detective Magan interpreted this to mean that S.L. recognized the person in the video as LITTLE and that she was disappointed to see him engaging in such actions. When investigators again asked what they saw in the photos, S.L. said she saw Jacob holding something. Detective Magan released LITTLE, who departed from the precinct with his parents.”
Possession of a stolen firearm is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Assistant Principal Under Fire For Video Screaming “F**K The Police”
Lysenko was shown recently on a video screaming “F**k the Police” and other profanities. That is a common form of political expression. The problem is that, in addition to be anti-police, Lysenko is the assistant principal of Spencerport High School. As will come as no surprise to readers of this blog, I do not support Lysenko’s views but I strongly oppose those who want to discipline or fire him because of his exercise of free speech
In the video, Lysenko was part of protests that followed the death of Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York, which we discussed earlier. The death raises very serious and disturbing questions of police abuse and racial justice. https://jonathanturley.org/2020/09/04/rochester-case-raises-new-questions-about-police-abuse-and-spit-hoods/
In the videotape, Lysenko (who teaches outside of Rochester) is denouncing the response of the police to the protest by saying “We didn’t do anything but chant and sing,” Lysenko says in the video clip. “Our peacekeepers ended up shooting pepper spray at us for singing and chanting and telling them what a s—-y-assed job they were doing. They can f— right off America! F— the police. F— Rochester Police Department.” Not to forget his manners, he then ends with “thank you.”
In response, the Spencerport Central School District released a statement that, although the district supports “racial equality and systemic change,” it does not condone an employee using profane language on social media. Accordingly, “This will be addressed as a confidential, personnel matter.” https://www.spencerportschools.org/news/what_s_new/response_to_social_media_video_at_protest
The controversy has divided the community with some calling for Lysenko to be fired while thousands of others signed a change.org petition in support of him. https://www.change.org/p/spencerport-school-district-keep-steve-lysenko-at-spencerport?recruiter=501832565&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_abi&utm_term=psf_combo_share_initial&recruited_by_id=8b7920a0-e2d9-11e5-91c0-89868c3aca08&utm_content=fht-24524934-en-us%3A0
Lysenko has been outspoken in his support of Black Lives Matter. On June 3 on Twitter, he declared “To any students-past or present-who follow me here: know that when you post “#WhiteLivesMatter, you are condoning White Supremacy. I that I will not abide!”
That last statement raises an issue of what Lysenko means by not “abiding” opposing views. However, so long as such intolerance is not displayed at school, Lysenko should be free to express his views outside of his employment. In the video, he identifies himself not as an assistant principal but an officer with a local anti-racism group.
Here is the video: Lysenko video https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2243656/Video-Assistant-principal-says-f-police-Rochester-protests.html
We have previously seen teachers (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,and here) students (here, here and here) and other public employees (here and here and here) fired for their private speech or conduct, including school employees fired for posing in magazines (here), appearing on television shows in bikinis (here), or having a prior career in the adult entertainment industry (here). We previously discussed the Vermont principal who was removed for expressing her opinion of Black Lives Matter on her personal Facebook page. We also recently discussed the firing of a Michigan coach who expressed support for President Trump. However, this did not begin with the recent protests. We also discussed a teacher who threatened other teachers who supported police. http://jonathanturley.org/2011/10/12/georgia-court-rules-against-teacher-who-lost-job-after-posting-facebook-pictures-drinking-in-europe/ http://jonathanturley.org/2009/04/02/model-teacher-english-teacher-faces-possible-discipline-over-modeling-career/ http://jonathanturley.org/2009/02/09/beaver-damned-wisconsin-teacher-suspended-for-picture-on-facebook/ http://jonathanturley.org/2008/07/09/teacher-marie-jarry-sues-school-over-howard-stern-bikini-controversy/ http://jonathanturley.org/2008/05/04/florida-high-school-teacher-fired-over-internet-pictures-and-part-time-work/ http://jonathanturley.org/2009/04/17/model-teacher-high-school-coach-fired-for-posing-for-playboy/ http://jonathanturley.org/2008/11/14/north-carolina-teachers-disciplined-for-facebook-comments-and-photos/ http://jonathanturley.org/2011/02/21/dallas-officer-suspended-over-facebook-postings/ http://jonathanturley.org/2009/07/23/florida-city-manager-fired-after-disclosure-of-wifes-work-as-adult-film-star/ http://jonathanturley.org/2008/11/22/gunn-control-parents-demand-that-porn-star-be-fired-as-lunch-lady/ http://jonathanturley.org/2008/03/06/nebraska-police-officer-fired-over-assocation-with-kkk-linked-group/ http://jonathanturley.org/2008/02/06/court-of-appeals-upholds-termination-of-police-officer-over-private-porn-site/ http://jonathanturley.org/2010/05/25/high-school-football-coach-removed-after-allegedly-sending-explicit-pictures-to-his-20-year-old-girlfriend/ https://jonathanturley.org/2020/07/30/this-is-a-new-day-folks-professor-threatens-k-12-teachers-who-post-pro-police-anti-black-rhetoric/ http://jonathanturley.org/2009/05/09/christian-college-suspends-student-for-work-as-gay-porn-actor/ http://jonathanturley.org/2011/06/14/court-rules-against-school-in-disciplining-of-teens-for-myspace-parody/ http://jonathanturley.org/2011/02/15/high-school-student-suspended-for-insulting-teacher-on-facebook/ http://jonathanturley.org/2010/06/25/prison-guard-fired-for-posing-for-playboy/ http://jonathanturley.org/2011/10/21/parents-demand-california-school-board-member-resign-after-disclosure-of-confidential-marriage-to-murderer/ https://jonathanturley.org/2020/06/16/vermont-principal-put-on-leave-for-not-agreeing-with-black-lives-matters/ https://jonathanturley.org/2020/07/22/was-this-michigan-teacher-fired-after-tweeting-support-for-trump-and-reopening-schools/
I hope that all of the roughly 4000 signatories to the petition in support of Lysenko would oppose his firing even if the controversial statement were flipped. I doubt that but from a free speech perspective it does not matter. The price of free speech is tolerance for views that we may find offensive or disturbing. Unlike Lysenko, we do “abide” opposing views. Some may not deserve free speech protections but they are protected nonetheless.
Did CNN edit out a bit about the Jews from Martin Luther King’s last speech?
Malgorzata called my attention to **a post on a pro-Israel website,** ***FirstOne Through***, which claims that CNN edited Martin Luther King's famous "**I've been to the Mountaintop" speech**, given on April 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. And they edited it, as the site avers, to remove an approving reference to the Jews' trek to the promised land during the Exodus (a journey that, while Biblical, is also fictional). https://public-api.wordpress.com/bar/?stat=groovemails-events&bin=wpcom_email_click&redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Ffirstonethrough.wordpress.com%2F2020%2F08%2F12%2Fcnn-eliminates-jews-from-martin-luther-kings-final-speech%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1AkQHUAAkTqXcXD8ehDuwBbEO5IuNEq-8ZawH1vVU_4IETK5xLoaXeUmg&sr=1&signature=aa7e13a53f40a9621e481ff7a68a41ba&user=68477391&_e=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&_z=z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ve_Been_to_the_Mountaintop
King's speech was delivered to support the strike of Memphis sanitation workers for equity, decent pay, and other rights, and it also called for peaceful protest. The speech ends with these famous and prophetic words (listen at 41:48):
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. *Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.*
What an orator that man was! He starts off low key and finishes with a full-on stemwinder of a sermon. The ending was indeed prophetic, for King was assassinated the very next day by James Earl Ray.
Here's the full audio of that speech, 43 minutes long. There's also **a full transcript on** ***American Rhetoric***, labeled "authenticity certified", and I can't find any errors in it, though I haven't compared it to every word with the recording below. (The site also has the full audio.) https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm
*FirstOne Through* highlights these words near the beginning: 1 minute and 19 seconds in. If you listen to the audio, you'll see they're accurate. I've bolded the words at issue.
Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" I would take my mental flight by Egypt **and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt** through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there.
The site then notes that CNN, in **its transcript of the speech published in 2018**, seems to have edited it. As FirstOne Through notes: https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/04/us/martin-luther-king-jr-mountaintop-speech-trnd/index.html
Just after the one minute mark of his **speech** in the third paragraph, King set the stage to compare the journey of African Americans from a life of racism to one of liberty, much as the biblical Jews left slavery in Egypt to their promised land. It served as a foreshadow to the end of the speech in which King compared himself to the Jewish prophet Moses who went “up to the mountaintop” to look over to the “promised land” in which he could not enter, even as the Children of Israel succeeded in their trek. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKWCxKq0i1k
The actual words King said, and you can hear them at :
“*Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?” I would take my mental flight by Egypt* ***and I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt*** *through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn’t stop there.”*
But **CNN** removed the words in red [JAC: bold] above “*and I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt”* which described the Jews as “God’s children” who left slavery towards their promised land in Israel. Instead, the CNN text reads like a general travelogue, stripped of any significance. The promised land is sanitized of its Jewish essence, and applicable to any and all. https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/04/us/martin-luther-king-jr-mountaintop-speech-trnd/index.html
The site suspects there was an anti-Israel or anti-Zionist motive for the editing:
CNN edited one of the greatest speeches in modern history which continues to be read to this day, and removed the plight of the Jews and their three thousand year old-Zionism, presumably to make a political point. And a very noxious one at that.
In case CNN changes its two-year-old post, I took a screenshot of its transcript so you can see where the phrase has been cut.
Now I don't know if CNN removed the phrase deliberately, or it was simply a slip-up. I put both speeches in different Word documents and compared them, and I couldn't find any omissions like the one above, though there are some minor differences of wording.
You can draw your own conclusions. Although I find it hard to believe that CNN would remove that phrase as a criticism of Israel or the Jews, well, the phrase is gone and we have no idea why. A bit of Googling shows some allegations that CNN has an anti-Israel bias (e.g., **here** and **here**), but I haven't followed up on these. https://www.camera.org/article/cnns-anti-israel-bias-surfaces-again/ https://campus.zoa.org/video/ron-dermer-blasts-cnn-for-anti-israel-bias/
You be the judge.
A screw-up (mine)
About half an hour ago I put up a post ("Did CNN edit out a bit about the Jews from Martin Luther King’s last speech?") about Martin Luther King's famous "I've been to the mountaintop" speech, comparing **a transcript from CNN** with an "authenticated" one from ***American Rhetoric***. As the website ***FirstOne Through*** noticed, the former had left out a bit about the Jews' exodus from Egypt, taking this to mean that CNN had a bias against Israel or Zionism and deliberately edited out the passage. I did a "compare documents" for the two transcripts, and while I found some changes in wording between them, I couldn't find an omission as big as the removal of the phrase about the Exodus. So I left the CNN omission as a mystery, possibly, but not strongly, suggesting an anti-Israel bias. https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/04/us/martin-luther-king-jr-mountaintop-speech-trnd/index.html https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm https://public-api.wordpress.com/bar/?stat=groovemails-events&bin=wpcom_email_click&redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Ffirstonethrough.wordpress.com%2F2020%2F08%2F12%2Fcnn-eliminates-jews-from-martin-luther-kings-final-speech%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1AkQHUAAkTqXcXD8ehDuwBbEO5IuNEq-8ZawH1vVU_4IETK5xLoaXeUmg&sr=1&signature=aa7e13a53f40a9621e481ff7a68a41ba&user=68477391&_e=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&_z=z
Greg Mayer did a similar comparison, but using a better version of "compare documents" that shows all three documents (the two originals and the highlighted differences) in a single window, and found a number of disparities between the CNN and American Rhetoric transcript, mostly involving omissions of stuff from CNN that appeared in the "authenticated" transcript. As Greg wrote me:
Regarding the "Mountain Top" speech draft, the CNN transcript lacks a number of lines, scattered throughout the text-- involving Greeks, sanitation workers, Vanderbilt University, etc.-- that indicate there was no animus in the errors (assuming American Rhetoric is a correct transcript). The CNN transcript includes named mentions of Jews—"Amos", the "Levites", while the "redacted" bit is only an allusion.
The guy at First One Through may most charitably be viewed as paranoid.
Clearly I didn't do due diligence in the comparison, so I've taken that down that post and apologize if you had to read it. CNN's treatment of the speech must be regarded as slipshod and inaccurate, but there's no indication of malfeasance or anti-Zionism.
Loopring Monthly Update — 2020/08
his month we released Loopring Wallet’s smart contract v1.1 and started the app’s UX/UI redesign. We hope to invite users to an early beta in September. Loopring protocol 3.6 is close to code-complete (a quite special new feature was added, read below!) and the external security audits will start in two weeks.
Loopring Protocol
Our upcoming Loopring 3.6 release has been undergoing an internal audit this month. In the upcoming month, we will start audits with external partners. We further improved our circuits and contracts’ efficiency with a significantly reduced cost per transaction as a result. We will continue measuring different workloads to make sure everything works as efficiently as expected.
We are also finalizing a feature of Loopring 3.6 that we have not yet talked about: AMM. **Loopring 3.6 will support both orderbook-based and AMM-based trading on layer-2** and allow settlement between regular orders and AMM pools directly. We will share more details about this much-requested feature in the coming weeks.
For more info on Loopring 3.6, check out this presentation (slides or video) from EDCON. [AMM is not discussed therein, as it is more recent.] https://medium.com/loopring-protocol/loopring-protocol-3-6-features-and-challenges-edcon-presentation-673c6f9e9dd6
Loopring Exchange
We edited the liquidity mining dashboard on Loopring.io to display realtime stats for our liquidity mining campaigns, now showing reward pool, duration, spread requirement, etc. Currently, liquidity mining campaigns are running for the USDT/DAI, USDC/USDT, GRG/ETH, and BZRX/ETH trading pairs. We will add another one this week. https://loopring.io/trade/USDT-DAI https://loopring.io/trade/USDC-USDT https://loopring.io/trade/GRG-ETH https://loopring.io/trade/BZRX-ETH
https://loopring.io/account/liquidity-mining
The Loopring Exchange now gives maker orders a rebate on every order filled: 8% of the taker trading fee is given to makers. Also, the taker fee schedule has changed, and instead of ranging from 0.06% to 0.1%, taker fees now range a bit higher, from 0.06% to 0.2%. So, given the default taker fee of 0.2%, 1.6 bps (0.2% * 8%) is given to makers on their volume. **This means makers now have negative fees (earning fees to trade)**. You can see maker rebates accrue daily on your account’s dashboard. [Note, there are no additional gas fees to trades, the fees are all-in.] https://medium.com/loopring-protocol/market-maker-rebates-new-fee-schedule-implemented-on-loopring-exchange-79b1df71434c
Life Network For Women
I know in my own life that there have been many times I've just wanted and needed a word of encouragement. There have been many times I just needed some inspiration, I needed help in life. So you know what I did? I created this powerful Life Network For Women digital network- for you!
We give love the way we want love, we become the friend that we want to have, I decided to create this Life Network For Women so that you, your friends, your family can have access to the encouragement, life lessons, teaching, and motivation that I wished I had had earlier in my life.
I wanted to gather a tribe of some of the best spiritual-life teachers, bloggers, writers, podcasters, social media personalities, TV hosts, and much more, to come forth and to help you *with whatever you need in life*. We are building an army of encouraging, Christian, life-empowering women... and some men too...
I am so excited, because that dream that I've carried for probably 15 plus years now... has become a reality! The Life Network For Women is finally here.
And there are so many people joining us- whether it's a spiritual word of encouragement that is going to start your day out right, a powerful teaching of the Word of God that will help you understand, a motivational video or podcast to lift you up- or even somebody that can show you how to start up a business or get your finances on the right track. Or just somebody that's helping you put your makeup on right... I wanted all that- and it is all here in the Life Network For Women!
I am so excited, because we have our tribe connecting with us to provide you this material faster than we can even get it loaded :) So expect a whole bunch of new content every day!
Adrift Over The Atlantic: How The President and The Press Destroyed
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the recent controversy surrounding *The Atlantic* article on alleged comments by President Donald Trump disparaging veterans and war dead buried at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery. I have been highly critical of President Trump response, particularly his calling for the firing of a Fox reporter for confirming elements of the story. In truth, Fox did not confirm that Trump called the dead buried at the French cemetery “losers” and “suckers.” Indeed, Fox reporter Jennifer Griffin said today that her source did not hear those references to those buried at the cemetery. However, there are sources that have said that Trump used such terms to describe Vietnam veterans. Conversely, in an interview with CNN, the author of the article Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was confronted by strong rebuttals by various officials over the assertion that the cancellation of the Trump visit was due to his concern over his hair or a disparaging view of the fallen. When asked about documents and witnesses suggesting that the cancellation was weather related as claimed, Goldberg simply seemed to shrug and say that those accounts might be true but that Trump still holds disrespectful views of veterans. That was hardly a resounding defense of those elements of his article. Moreover, when the evidence was presented that the helicopter was grounded, Goldberg noted that the grounding is insulting to Marines who said that they can fly in any weather. However, again, that is not what the story said and it was the military that objected to flying (the issue was not that the helicopter could not fly but that it would have to fly too low for the safety of the President). The problem for many in the public is that we have lost any presumption that either the president or the press is a reliable source in such controversies. Indeed, according to polls, a majority find both untrustworthy. This is where the cost of such eroded trust are the highest. After years of lying or bias, both sides have left the public with no credible basis to know the truth in a major scandal https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/ https://jonathanturley.org/2020/09/06/162397/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=2lRyVzHdtfo&feature=emb_logo
Until this week, the most famous quote related to World War I’s Battle of Belleau Wood was U.S. Marine Capt. Lloyd Williams’ declaration to a French commander: “Retreat, hell! We just got here.” Now, a more famous quote could well become President Trump’s alleged description of the battle’s fallen Americans as “losers.” https://thehill.com/people/donald-trump
Like the war itself, today’s political battle is between entrenched forces — Trump and Republicans on one side, Democrats and the media on the other. In the middle are the rest of us. The lack of movement by public opinion may not reflect an even split of support but, rather, a widespread view of both sides as equally unbelievable.
This latest controversy was triggered by an Atlantic article written by the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. The article alleges damaging statements by Trump, such as dismissing the dead buried at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery as “losers” and “suckers.” What is most striking about this story is that, ordinarily, it would be entirely unbelievable. What person, let alone an American president, would refer to brave Americans in such terms?
The problem is, Trump has made a long line of such unbelievable comments and then lied about them. Indeed, in denying this latest story, he insisted “I never called John [McCain] a loser.” Yet, in 2015, he indeed did say of McCain, a former prisoner of war, “I like people who weren’t captured,” and later referred to the former Republican presidential nominee with “I don’t like losers.”
He later retweeted a headline: “Donald Trump: John McCain Is ‘A Loser.’ ” A Fox News reporter said that her own sources confirmed that Trump disparaged veterans and did not want to drive to the cemetery. Trump has reached a point where there is nothing that most of us would rule out in terms of shocking or offensive statements. He often refers to people as “losers” and allegedly once said that of those who fought in Vietnam instead of getting a deferment or medical exclusion, as he did. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fox-news-backs-part-of-atlantic-report-that-trump-disparaged-fallen-soldiers
If an article included such an alleged statement by either President Bush, it would have been dismissed instantly as ridiculous. Over the past three years Trump has made himself vulnerable to such allegations, due to his history of outrageous remarks.
Yet the same is true of the media. Three years ago, a story of this kind would have been devastating for any president — but the media has rendered itself as unbelievable as the subject of its current ire. While denouncing Trump as a pathological liar, the media has been pathologically biased. Polls consistently show the media racing Trump to the bottom on trustworthiness. Most of the media now feeds a steady diet of unrelentingly negative stories to a shrinking audience of true believers.
As a result, the media has hit a historic low, with less than half of the populace finding it credible. Some polls show that the only group deemed less trustworthy than Trump is the media. The Knight Foundation has found that three-fourths of the public believe the media is too biased; some 54 percent believe reporters regularly misrepresent facts, and 28 percent believe reporters make things up entirely. https://knightfoundation.org/reports/american-views-2020-trust-media-and-democracy/
There is a reason for this view of bias: It’s true. Many journalists do not attempt to hide their anti-Trump agendas. In the age of “echo-journalism,” it is even viewed as an essential commitment on some networks. False stories about Trump or Trump aides have been published regularly, only to be quietly withdrawn or “corrected” after the news cycle has run. https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/28/media/msnbc-lawrence-odonnell-deutsche-bank/index.html https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40414886
Indeed, as reporters pummeled the White House with angry questions over the Atlantic story, a press conference held by Democratic nominee Joe Biden was the very image of deference and decorum. Reporters seemed to go out of their way to confirm months of criticism over the softball treatment given to Biden. Atlantic staff writer Edward Isaac Dovere asked Biden: “When you hear these remarks — ‘suckers,’ ‘losers,’ recoiling from amputees — what does it tell you about President Trump’s soul and the life he leads?”
There was a time when a statement in a major publication was taken as true. My children, however, have no such presumption about any news source. Even more disturbing, neither do I these days. The Atlantic article embodies the discomfort with movement journalism. It has been the repository of all things anti-Trump, with such articles as “*Donald Trump, the Most Unmanly President*” and “*Donald Trump is a Broken Man*.” Past claims in the Atlantic on the Trump campaign, like former Attorney General Jeff Sessions colluding with Russians, were debunked by the special counsel investigation. In an age of echo chamber journalism, The Atlantic is deafening.
The core alleged comment, attributed to unnamed sources, has been denied by a host of officials who were with Trump in France at that time, including figures like former national security adviser John Bolton. The article also states that Trump did not visit the cemetery in part over his concern that the rainy day would mess up his hair, but White House documents show that, as stated at the time, the military notified his staff that the presidential helicopter should be grounded. Bolton has confirmed the weather was the reason and noted that, if this story were true, he would have made it a chapter in his anti-Trump book. Trump might not have wanted to go, but the reason was a bad helicopter day, not a bad hair day.
Other allegations include Trump deriding the death of the son of Gen. John Kelly at his Arlington gravesite. Kelly has not commented on whether Trump expressed disbelief that such men would give their lives for their country: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Kelly should now confirm or deny it. Indeed, if true, what many of us do not get is why Kelly would not only ignore such a vile question but continue to serve as Trump’s Homeland Security secretary and, later, as White House chief of staff.
The real story this week is not whether Trump or The Atlantic are lying but why either possibility is viewed as equally plausible. The public is left with an incredible tale told by two equally noncredible sources. That is the real story — and a truly sad one
Nick Cohen on the dangers of right-wing vs. left-wing extremism
One of the comments I get a lot—both on this site and in private emails—is that I spend too much time bashing the Left rather than going after Trump and his minions. I've tried to respond repeatedly, but somehow my message doesn't get through.
So let me say this again. I am a liberal, a Democrat, and I despise Trump and what the Republican party has become—and has been for a long time. Trump is a serious danger to the American republic, and getting rid of him in November should be the highest priority of anyone who cares about America. He is a bully, a narcissist, and deeply unhinged; in fact, I suspect he's got some neurodegenerative condition, though it may only be fulminating and acute narcissism.
Okay, got that?
Now I could spend a lot of time, as many Left-wing writers do on their websites, excoriating Trump and calling out his follies (in fact, I do that a fair amount). But then there would be nothing to set me apart from the gazillions of Leftists who write nearly identical can-you-believe-this-man articles about the horrors of Trump and Trumpism. I don't want to just say "me too" in post after post about Trump. It's terribly boring for me.
Instead, I have found a comfortable niche calling out the excesses of the Left. I do this for several reasons: to try keeping my side of the spectrum fairly pure, sane, and non-hypocritical, because I fear that these excesses may help Trump gain a second term, and because I don't think people see these excesses reported in the mainstream media ("MSM", as it's now called). Sure, you can see them reported by the gloating right-wing media: *Fox News*, *Breitbart*, and college sites like *Campus Reform.* But most readers here don't read those sites, and a lot of what they write about is exaggerated, and certainly biased toward the Right. Readers here are definitely left of center, and so perhaps I can inform them a bit. It's not that I set out to cater to the political tastes of a known group of readers (that's what the *New York Times* does), but that readers have gravitated here because, I guess, they want to read what I have to say, and to chime in with other people who are largely (but not completely) like minded.
So I write about what interests me, and what interests me more than just getting rid of Trump, about which I can do little save vote (and call him out from time to time), is staving off the fulminating wokeness of the Left. Andrew Sullivan does that, too, though he's more to the right than I, and there are others in the Left-wing niche, like Jesse Singal. That niche is comfortably spacious, and I enjoy occupying it more than I would adding one more Trump-bashing post to those that fill the Internet.
But it behooves us from time to time to remember that our main goal has to be the expulsion of Trump from the White House. And rather than say it myself, let me quote another Leftie, the estimable Nick Cohen. In his latest piece in the *Guardian*, Cohen, who's done his share of Left-bashing, reminds us that the Right is worse than the Left (though perhaps not a lot worse than the most extreme members of the Left). But the Right has power, and the radical Left doesn't
Here are a few quotes from Cohen's piece:
. . . in this terrible year, it is worth saying that moral equivalence is not the same as practical equivalence. As the world stands, the fight against the radical right is a fight for the preservation of liberal democracy. The fight against the far left is a fight for justice for the individual denied the freedom to express his or, and more frequently today, **her opinions** without post-Stalinist inquisitors demanding she confesses her ideological crimes or lose her job. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/14/sacked-silenced-academics-say-they-are-blocked-from-exploring-trans-issues
Both fights are essential but the difference in scale is so enormous it barely makes sense to put them in the same category. The best way I can explain why is to imagine an American announcing they were voting for Donald Trump because they were repelled by how the *New York Times* and US universities had **removed journalists and academics** who would not bow their heads and bite their tongues. You would, I think, tell them that their sense of proportion was so out of balance it was a wonder they did not topple over. Trump has the power to threaten the American constitution. He has stuffed his administration with cronies and **relatives**, and damned thousands of Americans to needless deaths from Covid-19. He is hoping to retain power by encouraging **far-right terrorism** and **ballot rigging**. Given the anarchic glee that Trump and the Republicans display when they block defensive **measures against global warming**, his defeat is a necessity not just for the United States but for humanity. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/07/new-york-times-editor-resigns-tom-cotton-oped-protests https://www.gq.com/story/trump-kids-profit-presidency https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2020/sep/01/donald-trump-appears-to-defend-kenosha-gunman-video https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54011022 https://www.carbonbrief.org/four-more-years-of-donald-trump-could-delay-global-emissions-cuts-by-10-years
I don’t deny that leftish cultural influence is a form of power. If you are forced out of your job in a university or publisher, or told what you can and cannot teach, think and write, it is a power that can crush you. But political power with the ability to crush tens of millions of people is in the hands of the radical right. And not just in the United States. Britain, Hungary, Poland, Russia, India, Turkey, Brazil and the Philippines are democracies that have been taken over by governments that to varying degrees despise independent checks and are determined to humble any institution that might curb them.
. . . However vicious it may be, the far left has not overrun the western centre-left as the radical right has overrun mainstream conservatism. Labour MPs were willing to give up their careers to fight against antisemitism and the toleration of totalitarian ideas and regimes. Compare that with the US, where only Mitt Romney and a handful of Republican politicians have risked losing office by fighting to stop their party becoming Trump’s personality cult. British Conservatives who were prepared to oppose the national catastrophe of a no-deal Brexit were either purged by Johnson, in an example of the Stalinism on the right, or walked away from the party in despair at the last election. They showed a courage their successors lack. With only months to go before we could crash out of the single market and customs union, no prominent Conservative politician is prepared to speak for the national interest or even debate it.
finally,
Conservatives have written with accuracy about how cancel culture and political correctness have moved disgusted voters rightwards. They always forget to mention that the converse also applies. Trump has destroyed America as an example for the world to follow and authorised every reaction against it. Extremism begets extremism. When you have an unapologetic racist as American president, all opposition is legitimate and the most zealous opposition can feel the most legitimate of all. As I say, you should not have to choose. But if you must, fight the power that presents the greatest threat, because once the far right is defeated, it will be easier to fight the far left.
I agree with all of this, so let this stand as the way I feel about the Right versus the Left— in America, the UK, and the other countries Cohen mentions above.
And while I'm at it, you won't often see criticisms of Islam, or the theocratic perfidies of Islamic countries, in the Left-wing media. But you'll find those critiques here.
Virtually Insane: School Sends Police To Home
We have previously followed the suspensions and discipline of students under zero tolerance policies that are used by teachers to justify zero judgment or responsibility. I have long criticized zero tolerance policies that have led to suspensions and arrests of children (here, here and here and here and here and here). Now this insanity has gone insane after a Colorado school district called police because a 12-year-old boy flashing a clearly toy gun *in his own home*. While the teacher told police the orange gun marked “Zombie Killer” was clearly a toy, the police went to the home of Isiah Elliot on a welfare check and the boy who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities was suspended. Does that make sense as opposed to a simple call to the parents? http://jonathanturley.org/2014/03/05/ohio-child-suspended-for-level-2-look-alike-firearm-aka-finger-gun/ http://jonathanturley.org/2010/06/18/zero-tolerance-zero-intelligence-school-bans-eight-year-olds-patriotic-hat-due-to-use-of-tiny-soldiers/ http://jonathanturley.org/2010/04/21/terror-tots-girl-suspended-for-terroristic-threat-in-pointing-finger-at-teacher-and-saying-pew-pew/ http://jonathanturley.org/2011/02/02/high-school-student-is-expelled-and-criminally-charged-for-spitballing/ https://jonathanturley.org/2020/02/07/pennsylvania-teachers-call-police-on-six-year-old-girl-who-pointed-finger-gun-in-class/ https://kdvr.com/news/problem-solvers/12-year-old-suspended-over-toy-gun-seen-in-virtual-class/
We have been dealing with the insanity of zero tolerance rules for years. Here is a prior column on the subject (and here). Children have been suspended or expelled for drawing stick figures or wearing military hats or bringing Legos shaped like guns or even having Danish in the shape of a gun. Various criminal and disciplinary cases were opened for finger guns. Despite the public outcry over the completely irrational and abusive application of zero tolerance rules, administrators and teachers continue to apply them blindly. If you do not have to exercise judgment, you can never been blamed for any failure. Conversely, even when the public outcry results in a reversal, teachers and administrators never seem punished with the same vigor for showing no judgment or logic in punishing a child. http://jonathanturley.org/2009/04/21/lockdown-high-zero-tolerance-policies-and-authoritarian-learning/ http://jonathanturley.org/2007/08/18/boys-and-toy-guns/ http://jonathanturley.org/2011/02/22/colorado-boy-arrested-for-inappropriate-stick-drawing/ http://jonathanturley.org/2010/06/18/zero-tolerance-zero-intelligence-school-bans-eight-year-olds-patriotic-hat-due-to-use-of-tiny-soldiers/ http://jonathanturley.org/2013/05/31/kindergartner-is-interrogated-for-two-hours-by-police-and-school-officers-without-calling-his-parents-for-bringing-toy-gun-to-school/ http://jonathanturley.org/2013/03/06/step-away-from-the-danish-maryland-seven-year-old-boy-suspended-for-nibbling-lunch-tart-into-gun-shape/ https://jonathanturley.org/2014/03/20/ohio-school-district-upholds-punishment-of-10-year-old-boy-for-using-finger-gun/
Now the insanity has gone virtual. Rather than change the policy when it shifted to virtual learning, the school just blindly continued to treat kids at home like they were in the classroom.
The school does not see what everyone is upset about. The Grand Mountain school said in a statement: “We follow all school board policies whether we are in-person learning or distance learning. We take the safety of all our students and staff very seriously. Safety is always our number one priority.” https://grandmountain.wsd3.org/
Safety? It was a toy gun in the home of a kid. They were so concerned for the child that they suspended him.
Two rays of sunshine
Today's guest picture is another from our son Tony taken in sunny East Wemyss.
It was a rather grey morning here with occasional drizzle so it was very lucky that a visit brightened it up a lot. Our son Tony stopped taking pictures in East Wemyss for long enough to come down to Langholm with his partner Marianne and have lunch with his sister and niece. This required a drive of over 100 miles each way so we were very pleased that they was able to come.
Evie was very pleased too and took Marianne out into the garden to show her where to find the flowers.
Tony made himself doubly welcome by mending one of our kitchen chairs before sitting on it to eat his lunch. As he loves to fix things, this was a treat for him as well as for us.
After lunch we went for a walk to the park with Evie. We were dressed suitably for a late summer day in Langholm...
...and it was just as well that we were because we hadn't gone far before it started to rain. By the time that we got to the park, the rain had got heavier and a meeting of the Total Admiration of Evie Society had to be held under a large and sheltering tree.
The rain eased off to a drizzle after a while and we continued our perambulation of the park. stopping under another handy tree when the rain got heavier again for a few minutes. This gave me a chance to take a picture of the church....
...mainly to point out that it is opening again after a long lockdown closure, though there won't be any singing going on.
We were soon able to resume our circular tour and passed some wild flowers as we walked along the riverside path.
Evie had conveniently fallen asleep for her afternoon nap during the walk and when we got to the park bridge, the company split up in the increasingly heavy rain after a meeting of another chapter of the Evie Admiration Society. Mrs Tootlepedal, Marianne and Tony headed home, while Annie and I pushed the snoozing society star down to the riverside again.
I was able to point out a dipper to Annie...
...and she spotted a family of wagtails popping busily along the rocky shore.
Evie was still asleep when we got home and we left Annie gently rocking the pushchair in the front room while the rest us enjoyed a cup of tea and some vigorous discussion in the kitchen. Tony has some very reprehensible views about cyclists but perhaps we shouldn't blame him too much as he has to drive his work van round the busy streets of Edinburgh and city cycle commuters can be a pain.
Evie woke up in time to say goodbye to our visitors as they set off back to East Wemyss. (They sent a message later to say that they had arrived safely.)
I did take a few non family pictures during the day. I checked on the birds before our visitors arrived. There was hot competition for the right to be the fourth siskin on the feeder.
One siskin had learned the benefits of coming out of the shadows as a surprise manoeuvre.
A green finch smiled sunnily.
I also had time to look at the flowers with Evie.
She loves to pick a flower so it is a good thing that there are plenty of calendulas still growing.
I'll have to teach her about dead heading as it is keeping the red poppies going splendidly.
I was struck by how good the astilbes are looking...
...and I always find it hard to pass a clematis without a twitch of the shutter finger.
I cooked some soup for lunch and while it was cooking, I stole a moment to watch a sparrow ignoring a hanger on.
The sparrow looked calmly triumphant when the siskin fell away. Siskin? What siskin?
After our visitors had gone, we were able to watch the last kilometres of toady's mountain stage of the Tour de France. This turned out to be very exciting and I stopped to the end of the stage. Then I put my own cycling gear on and got my bike out.
Needless to say, it promptly started to rain. I waited for a few minutes and when the rain stopped, I set off. Within three minutes, it started to rain again and it got heavier by the minute, but I was wise to it by now and kept my head down and pedalled on. Sure enough, it stopped again after a couple of miles and I continued to the top of Callister...
...in damp and grey conditions but with no rain.
I might not have been quite so keen to run the risk of getting wet again if my legs hadn't been in tip top condition. The six months of steady cycling are paying off and after my short rest, I feel up to pedalling uphill into a wind without crying. The wind was not strong but it was quite a noticeable wind and I see from my computer that I cycled five miles back down to Langholm at over 20mph again. I ended up doing 20 miles, 17 of them in the dry so I can't complain.
Mrs Tootlepedal made us scrambled eggs for our tea and I made semolina and stewed rhubarb for afters, so all in all, it was a very satisfactory day, one firmly entered on the credit side of the great ledger of life....
...except that in the hustle and bustle, I didn't find a very good flying bird of the day. But then you can't have everything. It did fly off soon after I took the picture.
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Labor Day 2020
Labor Day 2020 http://nofacilities.com/2020/09/07/labor-day-2020/
Today is Labor Day, a national holiday in the United States. It’s supposed to be a day when we celebrate the contributions workers have made to the strength and prosperity of our country. The gallery below is a collection of images from the exhibit at the Connecticut Historical Society Museum I visited in August. Most of the images have a (sometimes lengthy) caption that explains it. That’s my post, just the gallery. And, since the Editor cannot view the captions without encountering the Block Editor, I’m giving her the holiday off. Any typos you find are my fault.
If you are in the US (or anywhere that celebrates this day) I hope you enjoy the holiday.
Weapon and ammunition assembly in the Cold Firearms Company in Hartford, CT
President Roosevelt acted to gear up production of military equipment, initially to supply England and other allies in the war against Germany. He invited William Knudse
William Knudsen accepted President Roosevelt’s request that he manage military production. He gave up a $300,000-a-yeas job to join the Defense Advisory Council – service for which he was paid a dollar a year by the US governmen
Fred Geier, president of the Cincinnati Milling Machine company visited Germany during the 1930s and saw that war was coming. He stepped up production at his company. During the war, Geier’s company produced a new machine tool (the tools required to build everything else) every 17 minutes. Total American machine tool production nearly doubled by the end of 1941 and continued to grow after that.
Boeing manufactured the two most heavily used bombers during the war. The B-17 Flying Fortress working the European theater and the B-29 Super Fortress used in the Pacific. Boeing built almost 13,000 B-17s and almost 4,000 B-29s. Each B-29 contained more than 165,000 individual parts.
Meanwhile Pratt ad Whitney, here in Connecticut, manufactures over 170,000 Twin Wasp engines which powered B-24s, C-47s, F4F Wildcats, F6F Hellcats and the P-47 Thunderbolt.
The Arsenal of Democracy was the production effort that supplied the US military and our allies with the equipment necessary to win the second world war
Harley Davidson, founded in nearby Springfield, MA continued building motorcycles for the war effort. They produced over 90,000 motorcycles during the war.
Caterpillar Tractor build diesel equipment used by Navy “Seabees” and combat engineers to produce power and build landing strips. Caterpillar doubled its workforce during the war and produced more than 51,000 vehicles for the military and in use building the 1,600 mile long ALCAN Highway to Alaska.
Connecticut was a center of precision manufacturing before the war and continued to supply critical components during the war, including propellers built by Hamilton Standard in my adopted home town of Windsor Locks, CT.
Connecticuts awesome manufacturing capacity was put to work supplying bearings, munitions, ball bearings, parachutes, 74 submarines and hundreds of surface ships.
On June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt signed an executive order prohibiting racial discrimination in hiring for national defense work. The military remained segregated but industrial assembly lines were integrated. This was not without conflict. Racial tensions were common and a race riot in Detroit caused over $2 million in property damage and resulted in 34 deaths. This poster mentions that “racial inequalities would have to be confronted in the postwar era.” That continues to be necessary today. However, the Arsenal of Democracy transformed the industrial heartland and economic geography of the nation
By the end of the war, over 6 million women had been drawn into the wartime industrial effort
Not Rosie the Riveter. She wasn’t a single woman but millions of women across the country
Chance Vought Aircraft promotional poster praising the women among their essential workforce
Cutting and assembling parachutes at Cheney Manufacturing in Manchester, Connecticut
Fuel oil and refined products delivered around the world and manufactured goods delivered (by rail) from manufacturing site across the country to ports on every coast.
A
A mundane Sunday sermon on the nonexistence of the afterlife
While driving back from the grocery store (I shop early), I was forced to listen to Krista Tippett's "On Being" show on NPR. It's the show I love to hate, and because my radio dial is set on the local public radio station, I have to hear her on Sunday morning drives. What I love best of all is when she nearly reduces herself to tears with the depth of her own profound utterances. She always sounds like she's on the verge of sobbing.
Today Tippett broadcast an old interview with the Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet **Mary Oliver**, who **read some of her work at the end of the show**. One of the poems that struck me was about mortality (Oliver died of cancer). The poet asked whether, when she died, she would vanish forever or live again in some form. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Oliver https://onbeing.org/programs/mary-oliver-listening-to-the-world/
When I heard those lines, I thought, "You're not having an afterlife, for we're evolved beings." This sentiment now comes naturally to me since I've studied evolution for so long, as well as religion and theology and their penchant for wish-thinking.
Although theologians have tied themselves in knots trying to show that evolution is perfectly compatible with God and an afterlife (see *Faith versus Fact*), these apologetics always have the air of desperation. First, you have to reject the stories of Genesis (or, in Islam, the Qur'an) about the creation. One is forced to say, **as did Andrew Sullivan**, that they were just metaphors, adding perhaps that people of those times could not have understood the idea of evolution. That's why God had to put it in the form of a fairytale. https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2011/10/06/andrew-sullivan-is-a-mush-brained-metaphorizer/
But that has its own difficulties. Why, if the Bible is the word of God, wasn't he able to discuss evolution? "'Verily, all ye men came from a long process in which animals changed slowly,' spake Moses." Well, we can leave that aside, but then you have to take issue with church fathers like Aquinas and Augustine the Hippo, who believed the Bible literally.
And if you think creation is a metaphor, then you have to explain why, if you're a Christian who thinks we have souls, at what point the soul "evolved" in humans (actually, Catholics think that the soul is an exception to evolution: God stuck one in us instantly at some point, but left out all the other birds and beasts). Further, you have to explain why, if we really did evolve, genetic calculations show that we could not all have descended from just two progenitors—Adam and Eve. A Sophisticated Catholic (or evangelical Christian) would then have to say that Adam and Eve are in some sense also metaphors. You can see the sweating theologians trying to deal with this **over at** ***BioLogos***. (The Catholic church leaves no wiggle room here: the Catechism states clearly that you cannot *not* accept Adam and Eve as the literal progenitors of all of us. https://biologos.org/common-questions/were-adam-and-eve-historical-figures/
But you must explain as well that if we really didn't descend from Adam and Eve, whose actions got us all the Original Sin, then how did that sin get into us all? Again, theologians have answers, but they're ludicrous and make me laugh. For if the Original Sin is just a metaphor, then the whole Christian story of sin and redemption falls to pieces.
Many Muslims just reject the idea that the Quran'ic story of creation is a metaphor, and deny evolution altogether. This is why Turkey has banned the teaching of evolution in schools below the college level, and why I had such trouble getting *Why Evolution is True* published in Muslim countries. (It's now said to be out in Egypt, published by the government press, but they've made it almost impossible to get hold of.)
Edward Feser, cocksure in his delusional theology, has declared that **no animal beside humans go to heaven**. (Say goodbye to Fido and Fluffy!) But if there's any lesson from evolution, it's that this form of human exceptionalism is bunk. Not only aren't humans be the special objects of God's creation (we have 4-million year old fossils of our ancestors, for crying out loud), but if at some point we were given an afterlife by some unevidenced act of God—and that's connected with our "immortal soul"— and other species don't live on after death, at what point was the afterlife graciously bestowed on us? At the same time we got a soul? Or, you can aver that *contra* Feser, *every* creature goes to heaven (including rotifers?), but I don't know anybody who thinks that. https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2015/10/27/edward-feser-no-dogs-go-to-heaven/
We have to face it: if you accept evolution, the most parsimonious hypothesis is that we're part of a stream of genes extending back to the dawn of life, and there's no evidence that we have features that couldn't have evolved but were instilled by gods. And that rules out the possibility of souls and afterlives. Those, of course, were already ruled out because there's no evidence for them—they are wish thinking, pure and simple.
When theologians babble and blather, explaining how exactly God inserted his finger into the evolutionary process to ensure that we'd live on after death, they are trying to make a virtue of necessity. The afterlife is wish-thinking, pure and simple—something that Freud tried to tell us decades ago. Nobody, not even an eloquent poet, is going to live on after death.
But you knew this all already, right?
Amen.
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Baroness David
According to recent reports, a furious Baroness Ruth Davidson contacted the BBC's Brian Taylor directly to tell him not to refer to her as Baroness Davidson after he called her Baroness Davidson in a report for BBC Scotland news. A spokesapologist for the Scottish Tories later said that the title Baroness gives the wrong image because it plays into a stereotype of out of touch and unaccountable Conservatives that the Tories are desperate to move away from. However they are not so desperate that they won't actually stop trying to be out of touch and unaccountable and rewarding one another with seats in the Lords where they can continue to influence our laws and our lives free from being answerable to the public. They just want us to stop talking about it.
So, just to be clear, Baroness Davidson doesn't want us to call her Baroness Davidson. That's Baroness Davidson. Whatever you do don't say Baroness Davidson. What is the world coming to, when you can't even take a peerage as a reward for defenestrating the guy who took over as leader of your branch office following a democratic vote of party members without people insisting on calling you Baroness Davidson and reminding everyone of your utter lack of respect for democracy and political accountability. Baroness Davidsons deserve more respect.
Normally I don't use the stupid wee titles that politicians get awarded by their pals as rewards for failure, but in the case of Baroness Davidson I'm prepared to make an exception. Baroness Davidson has worked hard for her title. It's a constant reminder of Baroness Davidson's lack of respect for democracy, or indeed her utter failure to grasp its basic principles.
It's not like Baroness Davidson hasn't earned it. After all Baroness Davidson did go very far out of her way to knife Jackson Carlaw in the back. She wasn't even distracted on the way to that secret meeting in Douglas Ross's house by a bilingual Gaelic roadsign. Did you know that Gaelic for Baroness Davidson is *Bana-bharan Nic Dhaibhidh*? Baroness Davidson should be told, in case Baroness Davidson sees it on a roadsign and Baroness Davidson's party wants to complain about Gaelic roadsigns confusing people about the fact that the not-the-leader of the Conservatives in Scotland is Baroness Davidson who has no respect for democracy.
I'm not a politician who's heading for immunity from democratic scrutiny after overturning the outcome of a democratic ballot for the leader of her own party, but all this criticism of Baroness Davidson for not wanting to use the title Baroness Davidson is really getting a bit petty. Baroness Davidson has every democratic right not to want the title of Baroness Davidson. However it needs to be said that if Baroness Davidson doesn't want us to refer to her as Baroness Davidson because she's afraid that if the voting public realise that she's a democracy denying Baroness Davidson they'll be less inclined to vote for Baroness Davidson, then surely Baroness Davidson shouldn't have accepted the title of Baroness Davidson in the first place. Because otherwise Baroness Davidson is a hypocrite who wants the advantages of being an unaccountable Baroness Davidson but none of the potential downsides that flow from voters actually getting to express an opinion about Baroness Davidson's party.
But then I'm not Baroness Davidson, just an ordinary punter who believes that politicians ought to be held accountable to the voting public, unlike Baroness Davidson. And also unlike Baroness Davidson, I've heard of the Streisand Effect whereby complaining about something that you don't want people to know only makes more people know about it. Or as it's now known in Scotland, the Baroness Davidson effect. Which is *èifeachd Bhana-bharan Nic Dhaibhidh* in Gaelic. You know, in case you see it on a roadsign.
Baroness Davidson was always a media construct. Her much vaunted political skills rested largely on the fact that she got a free ride from the media. Now Baroness Davidson is demanding that the BBC do her bidding, and continue to assist her. The BBC seems to have capitulated. Since Baroness Davidson made her petulant demand, the BBC has not referred to her as Baroness Davidson. That speaks volumes about the relationship between the BBC and Baroness Davidson.
This is a politician who plotted in secret to overturn a democratic decision of her own party members, who then accepted a seat in the House of Lords as a reward where she will forever escape being held to account by any voters or any election, and who has the unmitigated gall to insist that she's going to hold the Scottish people to account for a promise that she claims the SNP leadership made. At the next election Baroness Davidson will join with DRoss in stomping around Scotland, insisting that Scotland cannot be allowed to decide for itself when or if it wishes to revisit the question of independence, as she readies herself to go to the Lords, don an ermine robe, and enjoy a cushy career at the taxpayers' expense for the rest of her life without ever having to worry about what the voters think. But then she doesn't care much about Scottish public opinion just now, her elevation to the Lords merely formalises it.
So yeah, she needs to be reminded at every opportunity that Baroness Davidson is not a title of respect, it's a badge of disgrace and a sign of her utter contempt for democracy, for political accountability, and for the right of the voters to make politicians answerable for their actions.
If Baroness Davidson really doesn't want us to call her Baroness Davidson, that's Baroness Davidson's prerogative. We can just call her Shameless Opportunistic Hypocrite Davidson instead. Or Rape Clause Ruth to her friends. Or we can just ignore her wishes in the exact same way that she is determined to ignore the wishes of the people of Scotland, and call her Baroness Davidson anyway. If you don't want people to use a title because you're afraid that it makes you look as though you have contempt for democracy, then perhaps you shouldn't have contempt for democracy and shouldn't have accepted the title in the first place.
Baroness Hypocrite's hypocrisy will not derail Scotland's journey to independence, and then her pretty little title will be as irrelevant and meaningless as the barren mess of her political career. She won't be called Baroness Davidson in an independent Scotland where there is no House of Lords. So if Baroness Davidson doesn't want to be called Baroness Davidson, we can help her with that.
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Darwin next for cancellation?
A couple of upset readers sent me links to the article below, but I don't think it's time to get upset quite yet. It's not clear that the Cancel Culture will come for Darwin, though the *Telegraph* article below implies it. What it actually reports is that the Natural History Museum in London is assaying its evolution collection just in case they have to censor it because it bespeaks of "colonialism." But nothing has been done yet beyond a survey.
Further, it would be hard to "cancel" Darwin, as he's simply too important a figure in history and biology, to write him off. Nor was he a racist in the usual sense. He and his family were abolitionists, and Darwin couldn't abide the poor treatment of blacks he saw in South America. Yes, he made some bigoted statements, and was occasionally a white supremacist in his writings, but he was in fact less of a racist then most Brits of his time. If they're going to come for Darwin, and put a caveat next to all his works because of his supposed racism, then there's no hope for any white person before, say, 1930.
And, as we know, these caveats tend to bleed over into the work itself, so if Darwin gets canceled, that's an inducement for teachers not to *assign* his works, like *The Descent of Man*, as students would object. Nor would the students want to read his work, as they'd concentrate on statements in *Descent* and *Voyage of the Beagle*, and ignore everything else: all the wonderful information and theory in a dozen books.
Here's the gist of the article, and, as you see, it's way too early to start defending Darwin against cancellation:
The Natural History Museum will become the latest institution to review it’s [SIC!] collections after an audit warned its Charles Darwin exhibitions could be seen as “offensive”.
An internal review, sanctioned in the wake of the **Black Lives Matter** protests, has led to an audit into some rooms, statues, and collected items that could potentially cause offence. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/27/will-black-lives-matter-end-helping-donald-trump/
It warns that collections which some may find “problematic” could include specimens gathered by Darwin, whose voyage to the Galapagos Island on HMS Beagle was cited by a curator as one of Britain’s many “colonialist scientific expeditions”.
Museum bosses are now desperately seeking to address what some staff believe are “legacies of colonies, slavery and empire” by potentially renaming, relabelling, or removing these traces in the institution.
The executive board told staff in documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph that “in light of Black Lives Matter and the recent **anti-racist demonstrations around the world**” the museum would undertake a review of existing room names and “whether any statues (or collections) or could potentially cause offence”. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/26/aggressive-crowd-black-lives-matter-protesters-confront-diners/
One of the institution's directors said in internal documents that new action taken to address these issues would alter “the use and display of our collections and public spaces”.
Note the improper "it's" in the first line. What kind of paper would let that in? At any rate, let's not get our knickers in a twist about this quite yet.
The paper adds, though, that Joseph Banks's collections might be "canceled" as well as stuff relating to Thomas Henry Huxley, who lectured to poor working-class people about science:
The presence of a statue depicting Thomas Henry Huxley, known as Darwin’s Bulldog, could be questioned due to the scientist’s racial theories.
But wait! There's more! Could Linnaeus himself be on the chopping block?
The museum holds one of the largest collections of items gathered by Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish scientist who devised the Latin naming system of different species.
He thought Africans "indolent", and his naming system could be seen as erasing indigenous terms for specimens then collected and renamed by European naturalists.
If the Torygraph writer knew anything about biology, he would know that Linnaeus's system of binomial nomenclature, using Latin names, doesn't erase *any* names, whether they be indigenous or European names. It's a system of scientific nomenclature, not folk nomenclature. Most people don't even know any scientific names save *Homo sapiens.*
Anyway, rest easy folks—at least for a while!
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Adrift Recovering Addict Prays For Rescue . . . Saved By Priests In Floating Tiki Bar
I had to share this story. Jimmy MacDonald is a former addict who has been sober for seven years. He found himself floating away without a paddle in an overturned kayak. He prayed to God for rescue and suddenly saw in disbelief a floating Tiki bar with Catholic priests coming to his aid. If that does not prove the existence of God, I cannot imagine what you are waiting for. https://wnyt.com/albany-new-york-news/jimmy-macdonald-of-albany-was-rescued-from-lake-george-by-paulist-fathers-priests-on-a-floating-tiki-bar/5850670/
A former amateur boxer who now is a drug treatment counselor, Johnson was kayaking along the shore just north of Lake George Village in New York.
The priests were from the Paulist Fathers, a Catholic retreat on the lake. One heard the cries for help and pulled him to safety.
All of the priests then said a prayer for Johnson.
Fortunately, he accepted the help but this is more obvious than the old joke of the drown man in terms of divine intervention.
The story goes that a man was stuck in his house as water rose in a storm. However, he had faith and prayed to God. He had no fear because “God will save me.” Just then a man in a canoe came by and offered the drowning man a life jacket. “No thanks,” the man said, “God will save me!” The water continued to rise.
Then a man in a motorboat came by and called for him to climb in. The man dutifully replied “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.”
Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, “Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety.” The man again replied, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.”
So the helicopter flew away. Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to heaven where he sees God and was a bit peeved and complained that “I prayed every day and was a very religious man. I did everything the prayer books told me to do, so I have to ask you, why did you let me drown?”
Then God replied, “Who do you think sent the canoe, the motorboat, and the helicopter?”
The moral of the story is that, when a Tiki boat filled with priests comes to your rescue, climb aboard.
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Good morning
I am hoping for a bit of sun today. Yesterday was such a dreary day, and not very warm. I can hear you knocking at the door Autumn and I am sure you will soon be here. The tree opposite already has some red edges on the leaves.
Otherwise I was in action this morning. We have a window that is being renewed in the kitchen. It had a cat flap built into it and through the tension caused by it in the glass, a crack occurred in the window. We repaired it with sellotape, thinking one day there will be no cat flap and we will then get a new window. Now the time has come. Tabby, our last feline, left us a couple of months ago for her 10th life and our village tradesman is organising the new window. This morning he came along to get the right measurements for ordering the new window which will be delivered in a couple of weeks. He is a super guy and is very reliable. He was only here for about a quarter of an hour.
Now life is back to normal and the week begins again. Yesterday I did not go so far, but went for a wheelie in my chair around our part of the village.
I wheeled past one of the next door neighbour's villas. It looks like something from a Hollywood film with its large size and the garden with the tree avenue. It used to belong to the founder of a company, but he passed away some time ago, and it was bought. I never see anyone actually that lives there, but now and again there are gardeners at work.
I met these two rabbits sitting in a garden on my way. They were not very active, just sitting and watching. They looked quite well fed.
There was a third rabbit, but kept himself to himself and did not mix with the other two.ood views to be had in our village with the backdrop of the Jura mountains. When you leave our estate, it is mostly open farmland and farmhouses.
I had a look to see if there were any cows around, but the field was empty except for the hay trough, which was also empty. It seems the cows are now restricted to their various barns and are doing the night shift on the fields.
I was only away for about an hour yesterday and when I returned home I decided to bake some small cakes. I had a fresh lemon and made some lemon cakes which everyone was happy about.
No. 2 son was on the telephone. It was his eldest son's birthday yesterday, 3 years old. Time really flies quickly, and now No. 2 granddaughter will be a year old in November. It is lovely to see them even if only on the messenger.
Today I will be on a shopping trip this afternoon. Otherwise I will just be pottering around at home playing housewife. Have a good beginning to the week.
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'who loves you'
I'm posting this because it's been languishing in the archives for a while. I also realize that the Four Seasons group isn't everyone's cup of tea. It's not my favorite cup of tea, but they did have some good songs, and among the best is **this one**. (I also like "Walk Like a Man" and "My Eyes Adored You," the latter marred by the execrable line, "Walkin' home every day over Barnegat Bridge and Bay.") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Loves_You_(song)
"Who Loves You", released in 1975, wasn't written by Frankie Valli but by Judy Parker and Valli's longtime songwriter Bob Gaudio (writer of, among other songs for the group, "Sherry", "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Walk Like a Man", "Dawn (Go Away)", "Rag Doll", "Bye Bye Baby", and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You"). This video is labeled "official music video", and may be lip-synched, but still shows the recording group. Yes, the clothes are atrocious Seventies quasi-disco garb, but so what? This is still way above the vast pile of pap that presently passes for pop.
What I like about this song is the unusual intro, with the cymbals giving way to the group's patented vocal harmony. There's also a much longer musical break than usual for the group. AND. . . . it's got a good beat and you can dance to it. Seriously, this is the kind of song that makes you want to get up and dance immediately, like the Jackson Five's "**I Want You Back**." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3Q80mk7bxE
You might want to put in the comments below the songs that always make you get on your feet. I'd like to hear what people have to say.
There's **a mangled version of this song** in the movie "Jersey Boys" (2014), directed by Clint Eastwood (!). It's a strange movie, with good bits ruined by the actors narrating to the camera. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rbgksE9zkE
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@craigy
