Category Archives: culture

“Diverse Community”

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The City Council of St Louis Park, MN, a Minneapolis suburb and in Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s (D, MN) district, has objected to our nation’s Pledge of Allegiance to the point of voting to stop their practice of reciting it prior to Council meetings.

The mayor objected, and so did 100 protestors present for the vote—when was the last time 100 protestors assembled for a city council meeting?  Despite that, the Council’s vote was unanimous: 5-0.

The amendment to the council’s rules was characterized as an effort to serve a more “diverse community….”

More diverse.  Except for those who don’t think in the correct manner about the right things.  Except for those who love and respect our national flag.

There isn’t any more diverse community than the United States.  Or it used to be that way, before the Left and its Progressive-Democratic Party political arm started excluding those whom they hold in disfavor.

Cynicism

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Hong Kong Chief Executive and People’s Republic of China Senior Employee Carrie Lam claims that her Extradition to the PRC Bill is “dead.”

However, the subheadline says it all:

We hope people will not read a different meaning just because we are using a different word

She continues, after all, to refuse to explicitly withdraw her bill.  “Trust me.”

The people of Hong Kong are right to be…skeptical.  Lam really does need to go, as do most of her subordinates down through several layers of her hierarchy, but PRC President Xi Jinping is unlikely to permit it.

Forced Busing

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Lance Morrow wrote about forced busing in a “back to the future” piece in The Wall Street Journal. Here’s the larger, more important thing about that early forced busing, of which Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate was so proud and about which Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden was so helpless to comment on.

Forced busing, as bandied about today, is all about using children as tools to achieve a political goal. As in other milieus, we see an example of the Left not seeing people, here children, as human beings, but only as machines for achieving the Left’s goal.

Beyond that, this dehumanization of children masks the true purpose, however clumsily done, of forced busing. It was not that black children could learn only by being next to white children. It was to end the travesty of “separate but equal,” which actually led to unequal—lesser—allocation of teaching resources and teachers to black schools, which deprived black children of the opportunity to learn at all.

Starbucks Fail

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A Starbucks in Tempe, AZ, had one of its baristas ask five police officers who were having a pre-shift coffee either go sit somewhere else or leave altogether because one customer felt “threatened” over their being where the customer could see them.

In the hoo-raw ensuing, Starbucks spokesman Reggie Borges said

We have a deep respect for the Tempe Police and their service to the community.

That’s plainly not true. If Starbucks really cared, if it had any actual respect for the police—much less a shred of self-respect—it would have had a better-trained crew of baristas who wouldn’t knee-jerk insult cops over a snowflake’s made-up beef.

A day after the story broke, Rossann Williams, Executive Vice President and President, US Retail for Starbucks said this:

On behalf of Starbucks, I want to sincerely apologize to you all for the experience that six of your officers had in our store on July 4. When those officers entered the store and a customer raised a concern over their presence, they should have been welcomed and treated with dignity and the utmost respect by our partners (employees). Instead they were made to feel unwelcome and disrespected, which is completely unacceptable.

These are empty words, whether sincerely offered or just marketing damage control. What’s necessary is actual, visible changed behavior over a sustained period of time.

It’s also sad that no one else spoke up and told this barista to seat the cops with him.

Aside from the simple courtesy of such a gesture, it might also be the case that other patrons wouldn’t feel safe without the cops around. Especially with someone possessed of so little respect for law and order so close by.

The Cost of a Celebration

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President Donald Trump held America’s Independence Day celebration with a Salute to America, centered at the Lincoln Memorial.

Together, we are part of one of the greatest stories ever told—the story of America.  Today, just as it did 243 years ago, the future of American Freedom rests on the shoulders of men and women willing to defend it.

Just to pick out a couple of things: The Wall Street Journal cited “Democrats” complaining about

the use of military hardware for a traditionally nonpartisan celebration.

Because defending our nation’s existence and celebrating those who do that defense isn’t nonpartisan.  Sure.

And this one:

The Pentagon has said it wouldn’t have cost estimates until next week at the earliest.

I have some estimates now—not on the costs of the military units’ performances, but on those costs unique to their participation in the Salute to America celebration.

The aircraft—and their pilots—used consisted of

B-2 stealth bomber
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
F-22 Raptor
F/A-18 Hornet
Air Force One
Marine One

Their cost that’s unique to the celebration is a good approximation of zero.  Those sorties flown—every single one of them—count as nav currency sorties and formation-keeping currency sorties, and they are a direct substitute for sorties that otherwise would have to be flown as part of any pilot’s currency training.  Furthermore, the fuel and maintenance resulting from the sorties also are already accounted for in those required currency sorties.

M1 Abrams tanks
M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles

Here, the costs will be somewhat incremental, but some—the transport part—will count for existing currency requirements, similarly to the aircraft costs.

The incremental costs just aren’t that great.