Category Archives: culture

“Stand for Something”

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Howard Silver, commissioner of the National Basketball Association, in the aftermath of a tweet by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey,said in a CNN interview cited by The Wall Street Journal‘s Notable & Quotable,

I think in this day and age, you really do have to stand for something[.]

This is after Rockets players apologized to the PRC for their GM’s tweet, Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta ran away from his GM’s tweet,

Listen….@dmorey does NOT speak for the @HoustonRockets.

and the NBA as a whole affirmed their preference for PRC money over honor.

The NBA really does have to stand for something.

Absolutely.  Except when the NBA comes in for opprobrium from the PRC over a tweet supporting the citizens of Hong Kong. Then the league and its players and team management cower down.

Stand for freedom for the citizens of Hong Kong? They can’t: there’s no headroom under the bed.

Racism in School Admissions

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Federal District Judge Allison Burroughs, of the Massachusetts District, has ruled in a Harvard admissions case that racism in its admissions process is entirely jake.

Race conscious admissions will always penalize to some extent the groups that are not being advantaged by the process, but this is justified by the compelling interest in diversity and all the benefits that flow from a diverse college population.

With that, Burroughs has exposed her own racist bent.  Her “justification” is just her cynical rationalization of her racism. It stinks.

The WSJ editors in that piece also noted Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s own tortured effort to correct racism in school admissions in his Fisher v University of Texas opinion:

…he wrote that different treatment of an individual because of race is “inherently suspect” and requires “strict scrutiny.”

No, different treatment of an individual because of race wants no strict scrutiny; it wants no scrutiny at all. Such treatment needs to be proscribed altogether from our schools.  To start with.

These folks, Harvard management personnel and bench-sitters alike, more than merely being racist, insult minorities, and actively hold them down, by insisting they just can’t cut it in an evenly done endeavor; they must have that artificial handicap applied. It’s redolent of Woodrow Wilson on segregation: “segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.”

And they punish the successful by telling them they’re too good for their own good.

Hong Kong Police out of Control?

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Or is it President Xi Jinping’s staff member, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who’s out of control? Or has she simply lost control?

First, the police shot, at point blank range, an 18-yr-old student (and arrested him for his role in the shooting), during the then-latest round of violence that Lam’s police have been provoking with their approved-thug attacks, water cannon, pepper spray, cudgels, brandished firearms, and then shooting those firearms into the air.

Then, Lam made a classic despotic move: banning facemasks during public gatherings of three or more folks (imagine getting fewer than that at a pedestrian crosswalk).  She even invoked a British colonial law to rationalize that ban.  In response to that latest attack on freedom, Hong Kong citizens protested in their tens of thousands again.

And one of Lam’s policemen—who wasn’t even in uniform—shot a 14-yr-old child.  Then arrested him for rioting and assaulting police. Apparently, it really is illegal in Xi’s/Lam’s Hong Kong to interfere with a police bullet making its lawful rounds.

“Rioting”

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Recall the teenage protestor in the Hong Kong protests earlier this week, the one who was shot in the chest at point blank range by a Hong Kong cop who thought he was being threatened by the boy.

A Hong Kong court charged 18-year-old student, Tsang (Tony) Chi-Kin, with rioting, a charge carrying a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Tsang was among seven people charged with rioting on Thursday.
The secondary school student also faces two additional counts of attacking two police officers, punishable by up to six months in prison.

Riotous bastard dared to interfere with the cop’s bullet.  Nor were the cops in any great hurry to get the boy treatment or to let any protestors help him.  Despite that, he’s in stable condition in a Hong Kong hospital.

This is the kind of despotic tyranny that People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping intends to impose on Hong Kong.  And on the Republic of China later.

Politicizing Tragedy

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Recall a mass shooting in 2018 at a Thousand Oaks, CA, bar in which 13 were killed and a dozen injured.  Recall further that Ventura County Sergeant Ron Helus was killed as he moved to stop the killer from doing more.

Various charity activities since had raised thousands of dollars for the families of other police officers who’d also died in the course of their several duties, and

The Blue Bowl, a charity flag football game, was intended to raise money for the family of fallen Ventura County Sergeant Ron Helus as well as [those] other officers killed in the line of duty….

However, Thousand Oaks Police Chief Tim Hagel has pulled his department out of the event, leading to its cancelation, and all that money already raised for those other officers’ families is

now being returned to donors….

All, and solely, because Trump supporters would be speaking at the event.

Mike Randall, Fallen Officers Foundation Vice President:

He [Hagel] basically said over and over in the conversation, “This is not Trump country, that slogan ‘Make America Great’ is not favorable, popular, within 1,200 square miles,” that we don’t want Republicans here. I could not believe it[.]
“The only thing,” and I quote, “the only thing you [could have done to make] this worse, Mike, was to invite Dick Cheney and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.”

Now, no one will get any aid. Never mind that the collected speakers would have been an ecumenical group: Governor Gavin Newsom’s public safety liaison, Trump supporter and Hollywood icon Scott Baio—a fellow congregant of Helus’ at church—Trump-supporting singer Joy Villa, and others.

Hagel didn’t approve, so everyone gets cut off.  No one gets needed financial assistance.

This stinks.  But more dangerous than just the odor of this move, Hagel has shown that he doesn’t “serve and protect” all the citizens of Thousand Oaks.  Only those of whom he personally approves.