Tag Archives: culture

It’s a Start

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But it can’t possibly be the final answer; it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has issued the final rule regarding college/university sexual harassment complaints and how colleges/universities must handle them. Along the way, DeVos revoked with finality the Obama DoEd rule that eliminated the rights of the accused.

It allows both the accused and accuser to submit evidence and participate in cross-examination in live proceedings, and both parties can also appeal a school’s ruling. Victims-rights advocates say the provision for cross-examinations could traumatize those alleging misconduct and potentially keep them from filing complaints at all.
It also allows institutions to choose one of two standards of evidence—”clear and convincing,” or the lower “preponderance of the evidence,” which just requires a greater than 50% likelihood of wrongdoing—as long as they apply the standard evenly for all cases

The victim’s rights advocates objections can be dismissed out of hand—they’ve never been interested in due process or the rights of the accused.

However.

There should be no ability for the accuser to keep appealing until she gets the ruling she wants. A ruling that the boy didn’t do what he was accused of doing should be final.

Too, there should be no choice in the standards of evidence. The accused too often is being charged with a crime or a near crime. The only legitimate standard of evidence should be clear and convincing, and any…guilty verdict…should be required to be arrived at “beyond reasonable doubt.”

Furthermore, there needs to be a better limit on the cases a college/university is permitted to investigate. An outside, unaffiliated party should determine whether the misbehavior being alleged would be a crime. If the determination is that a crime is being alleged, then the matter should be turned over to the police—not the campus police, but the local police or sheriff’s department—for investigation. If appropriate, the case then should be turned over to the local prosecutor. Colleges/universities are not qualified to investigate allegations of crimes.

This rule is far better than the travesty that Obama and his Education Department inflicted on our students. That was a very low bar, though.

Education Standards

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A St Paul, MN, public schools educator helping teachers decried insistence that consistent standards be applied to students and their school performance.

A child living in poverty with a single, working parent, little support, marginal technology, and a spotty Wi-Fi connection cannot be held to the same standard as a child of a well-educated family, whose parents are working from home, with ample technological devices, high-speed connectivity and support.

Of course, he can. The child either has mastered the material and is qualified to move on, or he has not. An honestly assigned grade is an index of the level of mastery.

The reason(s) for a failure to master are what is worthy of addressal. Inadequate teaching, immaturity of the child’s development relative to the material, incapacity of the child, unavailability of the needed materials and/or inadequate access to available material (perhaps due to the effects the “educator” listed) are a few such reasons.

It’s breathtaking that someone styling herself an educator is confused by this.

Personal Responsibility and Black Americans

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Surgeon General Jerome Adams, among too few others, has pointed out that part of the reason the Wuhan Virus is hitting minorities so much harder than others—with blacks getting the bulk of the ink on this—is because of their inaction on factors under their control.  Leave aside factors like the pre-existence of health conditions like obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, medical conditions that are generally beyond their control. Leave aside, further, that individual life-style choices can nevertheless significantly affect, if not eliminate, those conditions.

In addition to suggesting that blacks should put more of their personal attention toward those medical conditions, Adams was so rude as to suggest that blacks should exercise an additional measure of personal responsibility and do better about complying with CDC guidelines regarding preemptive measures: frequent hand washing, shelter in place except for essential tasks, and use face coverings/keep safe distances from others when in public (especially the former when the latter isn’t possible).

Of course, the Left, with its race-baiters at the fore, objected, vehemently and in their own racist way.

To assert that blacks have the power to affect their own destiny was deemed racist, heartless, and outrageous.

Well, of course it was. No less a light than that icon of the Progressive movement, Woodrow Wilson, insisted to blacks that they should be grateful for the protections of segregation.

Blacks, in the eyes of the Left, simply aren’t capable of personal responsibility.

Micromanagement

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California’s Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has published a list of activities he deems permissible for Californians to engage in while they’re outdoors.

Specific activities, carefully enumerated. Not principles of (social distancing) behaviors, particular behaviors.

Activities Newsom will allow [scroll down to Outdoor recreation] include

  • badminton—singles, mind you, doubles are too many
  • BMX biking—but not just pedaling around neighborhood
  • gardening—again, singles. Your kids or spouse aren’t allowed to help
  • car-washing—here, too, no spousal or kid help. And if it’s a kid chore, he’s on his own
  • tree climbing—unspecified as to whether a boost up is allowed
  • picnics (with your stay-home household members only)—but these persons aren’t allowed to participate with you in any of the above. Go figure
  • throwing a football, kicking a soccer ball (not in groups)—apparently you have to go get your own football or soccer ball after you’ve thrown/kicked it. Or maybe you’re allowed to get your dog to fetch

The list goes on. Throwing a baseball or a frisbee isn’t enumerated, so those likely are barred. Newsom claims his list is non-exhaustive, but it’s entirely too detailed and picayune to believe that it’s not nearly so.

This is the sort of micromanagement that demonstrates both the incredible insecurity of the micromanager and his tyrannical tendencies.

This is not the freedom and personal responsibility that Californians used to have.

Rates

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The Wall Street Journal had a piece Sunday that talked about the plans of nations around Earth are forming “to reopen parts of daily life.” I’m more interested in the…slant…made plain in the WSJ‘s subheadline:

Nearly 54,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US, as calls for more federal aid to states continue to grow

The focus is made even more obvious in the body of the article; these are a couple of examples:

Nearly 2,000 people died from Covid-19 in the US on Saturday, bringing the death toll to almost 54,000….

And

In Israel, where nearly 200 people have died from Covid-19, many stores and beauty salons were authorized to reopen….

How many people have recovered from the Wuhan Virus in the US? How many people have recovered from the Wuhan Virus in Israel? Such clarifying data are carefully omitted. Maybe that’s because those data might contradict the narrative.

Even the graphic near the end of the article focuses on deaths while carefully ignoring the recovereds.

Nor is there mention of the quite low mortality rates and how those rates are declining further as more is learned about components of the numerators of those rates, components like the numbers who were infected but asymptomatic or who were infected but sufficiently mildly so that they didn’t see a doctor or saw one, but were sent home with only mild, ordinary treatments.