Tag Archives: culture

Lost in the Reporting

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The People’s Republic of China had a nearly complete map of the Wuhan Virus genome two weeks before that government published the data for the world to deal with. The article’s author went on to emphasize the value of those two weeks to the various efforts to find ways to deal with the virus.

The extra two weeks could have proved crucial in helping the international medical community pinpoint how Covid-19 spread, develop medical defenses, and get started on an eventual vaccine, specialists have said.

There is this, though, in the second paragraph:

Documents obtained from the US Department of Health and Human Services by a House committee and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show that a Chinese researcher in Beijing uploaded a nearly complete sequence of the virus’s structure to a US government-run database on December 28, 2019.

That’s those two weeks prior to the PRC’s formal release. The US database was the National Institutes of Health’s genetic database, GenBank.

Hmm….

But NIH didn’t just sit on the genome. They deleted it on 16 Jan 2020, four days after the PRC’s official release on 12 Jan. Supposedly, NIH officials had asked Dr Lili Ren of the Beijing-based Institute of Pathogen Biology, who had uploaded the genome to GenBase, for more information and got no response. Furthermore, the requested information were submission-related technical matters that had nothing at all to do with the actual genome map she’d uploaded, nor had they with any of the science related to her upload.

So, rather than actually looking into the mapping, they just blew it off and deleted it after Ren didn’t answer—apparently without considering the possibility that she was actively blocked by the PRC from answering.

However, the sequence published on January 12, 2020 [by the PRC], was nearly identical to the sequence that was submitted by Lili Ren.

Again, I say, hmm….

The PRC was complicit in the spread of the Wuhan Virus Situation, but it’s clear that the Dr Francis Collins-run NIH delay and then suppression of Ren’s genome map was at least as complicit in the damage done our nation and the world at large.

Pick One

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Progressive-Democratic Party politicians insist that illegal aliens should be allowed to go anywhere they want as they wait—months to years—for their court dates.

But they want travel documents on those Americans who are transporting them by bus.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is demanding that nearly two dozen charter bus companies sending New York City-bound migrants to “transit” stops in the Garden State provide advance notice.

And this:

For each migrant bus, Murphy is asking the companies to disclose the number of single adults traveling alone; the number of passengers traveling as part of a family, including the number of families with children under 18; the number of children under 18; and the number of chaperones (other than family members) for otherwise unaccompanied minors.

Notice that. Murphy doesn’t care who these illegal aliens are so they can be tracked until the show up for their court date—or dishonestly don’t show up—he just wants to know how many they are. While demanding to know what bus companies are transporting them.

This is the Progressive-Democratic Party demonstrating its utter contempt for us ordinary Americans.

Racism Strikes Deep

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Chicago’s Progressive-Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson is making his go-to move regarding the influx of illegal aliens Chicago is experiencing (I don’t say “suffering;” that’s what Texas and Arizona border cities and towns are doing): he’s playing his race card in objecting to Texas’ Republican Governor Gregg Abbott helping the illegal aliens flooding across his State’s border to accept Brandon’s open-arms invitation of them with his loud and proud sanctuary city status.

…Johnson condemned Governor Greg Abbott…in a recent MSNBC appearance, arguing he has been “attacking” cities run by Black leaders with waves of migrants.

No, Abbott is transporting illegal aliens, all of whom are volunteers for the trip, to sanctuary cities. Providing sanctuary to illegal aliens is the destination selection criterion. That cities that satisfy that criterion happen to be run by Progressive-Democrats is just that—an irrelevant happenstance. And that those Progressive-Democrats running sanctuary cities happen to be black is just that—an even further remote irrelevant happenstance.

Only a racist manufactures a race beef when there is no beef to be had, and it’s especially pernicious when the race card player knows full well there’s no race beef to be had.

Claudine Gay’s Resignation Letter

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Here it is, via Ricochet’s Editors [emphasis in the original]:

Dear Members of the Harvard Community,
It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president. This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries. But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.
It is a singular honor to be a member of this university, which has been my home and my inspiration for most of my professional career. My deep sense of connection to Harvard and its people has made it all the more painful to witness the tensions and divisions that have riven our community in recent months, weakening the bonds of trust and reciprocity that should be our sources of strength and support in times of crisis. Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor—two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am—and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.
I believe in the people of Harvard because I see in you the possibility and the promise of a better future. These last weeks have helped make clear the work we need to do to build that future—to combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth. I believe we have within us all that we need to heal from this period of tension and division and to emerge stronger. I had hoped with all my heart to lead us on that journey, in partnership with all of you. As I now return to the faculty, and to the scholarship and teaching that are the lifeblood of what we do, I pledge to continue working alongside you to build the community we all deserve.
When I became president, I considered myself particularly blessed by the opportunity to serve people from around the world who saw in my presidency a vision of Harvard that affirmed their sense of belonging—their sense that Harvard welcomes people of talent and promise, from every background imaginable, to learn from and grow with one another. To all of you, please know that those doors remain open, and Harvard will be stronger and better because they do.
As we welcome a new year and a new semester, I hope we can all look forward to brighter days. Sad as I am to be sending this message, my hopes for Harvard remain undimmed. When my brief presidency is remembered, I hope it will be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity—and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education. I trust we will all find ways, in this time of intense challenge and controversy, to recommit ourselves to the excellence, the openness, and the independence that are crucial to what our university stands for—and to our capacity to serve the world.
Sincerely,
Claudine Gay

Couple things about this. First and foremost is the letter’s existence. Harvard allowed her to resign, and Harvard is retaining her as a professor. Harvard has not fired her for cause, of which there are two (as I wrote earlier): her dishonesty and her bigotry.

Her bigotry was made blatantly manifest during her testimony late last year before the House Education and the Workforce Committee wherein she refused to condemn the antisemitic bigotry going on at the school over which she was presiding, and which she affirmed in the weeks following with her overt denials that there was anything wrong in her testimony.

Her dishonesty is plainly demonstrated by her plagiarism—and not just that she did it once or twice, an occasion that could be written off as hugely sloppy personal editing, but by the vast frequency with which she engaged in her naked, unattributed copy-pasting.

Then there’s her professional victimhood move in playing that race card—her ouster was fueled by racial animus. I have no doubt that she did get some scurrilous correspondence in response to her own behaviors. However, the thrust of the push to get her out was fueled by her own rank bigotry and disgusting dishonesty, either one of which should have been, and should be, disqualifying for her continued association in any way with Harvard.

And this: there is not a syllable of apology for her misbehaviors that have brought her to this partial pass. There is not a single minim of acknowledgment of her misbehaviors. It’s almost as if the lettered (now ex-) President and still professor is incapable of recognizing bigotry and dishonesty when it’s inside her.

Finally this: it says volumes about the moral failure of the Harvard management team that they have made the conscious decision to retain this paragon of dishonesty, this epitome of bigotry, as a professor, presuming to teach young minds.

President Plagiarist

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Harvard’s, not the one currently sitting, on occasion, in the White House. Claudine Gay has been caught out again.

Seven of Gay’s 17 published works have already been impacted by the scandal, but the new charges, which have not been previously reported, extend into an eighth: In a 2001 article, Gay lifts nearly half a page of material verbatim from another scholar, David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.
That article, The Effect of Minority Districts and Minority Representation on Political Participation in California, includes some of the most extreme and clear-cut cases of plagiarism yet. At one point, Gay borrows four sentences from Canon’s 1999 book, Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts, without quotation marks and with only minor semantic tweaks. She does not cite Canon anywhere in or near the passage, though he does appear in the bibliography.

Gay’s…performance…goes downhill from there.

Is it the case that here, too, every word she writes is a lie, including “and” and “the”?

In the end, on Tuesday she resigned as Harvard President. The Harvard management team cravenly allowed her to resign, rather than firing her for cause—of which there were two: her dishonesty and her bigotry. Harvard management, even more cravenly, are keeping her on the professorial payroll. Never mind that she should be fired altogether for cause—of which there are two: her dishonesty and her bigotry.

It’s unfortunate that Harvard continues to employ this person, and her continued employment demonstrates that the school doesn’t care about her dishonesty or her bigotry. From that, Harvard should be disqualified from any further government funding, from any level of government.