An Education Failure

A Miami-Dade police officer’s 14-year-old daughter dissed her teacher at Pinecrest Cove Preparatory Academy charter school, and her father was called to the school.  The video at the link shows the ensuing abuse: the “father” whipped his daughter with his belt, slugged her, yanked her hair.  Fortunately, no serious physical damage appears to have been done, but I have to wonder about the emotional damage, I have to wonder about the quality of her home life, and I have to wonder whether that life might have been a factor in her relationship with her teacher.

But that’s not what the only thing wrong here (the cop has been charged with a felony child abuse beef, so there may be a measure of justice coming on that front).

Look at the video carefully.  The abuse occurs in the school’s office with two school employees alternately watching and going about their business (one is at the bottom of the video imagery; she’s not easy to see).  They didn’t lift a finger to intervene, they didn’t say a word in intervention.  The employee plainly visible just goes on about her job, if not her duty; the other employee is similarly uninvolved.  The reporter narrating the scene says this woman was pregnant and feared for her baby’s welfare as well as the 14-year-old; maybe that’s an excuse.  But she waited until the cop had left before she called any authority or otherwise reported the beating.  The reporter didn’t say anything about the other woman, who was similarly too timid to act, but without an apparent excuse for her avoidance.

This…timidity…gives charter schools a bad name.  And it’s despicable in its own right.

“Not Culturally American”

That’s what April Ryan, CNN’s star news analyst has said about First Lady Melania Trump.

Not culturally American.  Never mind that Melania Trump emigrated to the United States and has enthusiastically embraced our American culture with open arms and all her heart.  She’s as American as it gets.

Since Ryan wants to go there, let’s do.  Who’s really not “culturally American?”  How about ex-First Lady Michelle Obama who never thought well of our country and only claimed pride in it when hubby Barack started gaining ground in the 2008 Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential primaries and she started gaining status?

How about that same hubby who spent his eight years in office playing un-American identity politics, calling cops ignorant, and ridiculing Americans as bitter Bible-clingers and gun-toters?

How about Hillary Clinton, who spent her campaign ridiculing Americans as irredeemably deplorable misogynistic and racist homophobes because they didn’t support her campaign?

And how about April Ryan who insists that a white woman émigré isn’t culturally American?

Ryan’s attitude is disgusting.  And CNN is just as disgusting for condoning such smears by its…associate.

Free Speech of the Left

Recall Kanye West’s remarks supporting President Donald Trump, even though he disagrees with Trump on a number of questions, and West’s further remarks saying that 400 years of slavery was a choice—and his follow-on statement that the latter remark was “just an idea.”  Just an idea that Americans who happen to be black don’t all have to think alike—they’re as free to think and speak their own minds rather than engaging in Left-approved group think as any other American.

In a clear demonstration of West’s point, we get this from a pair of denizens of the Left:

A Detroit radio station said it will ban Kanye West’s music over controversial comments the rapper made earlier this week that slavery “was a choice.”

Hosts Shay Shay and BiGG of 105.1 the Morning Bounce made the announcement Thursday on Facebook with the hashtag “Mute Kanye.”

These two went further:

We don’t want to hear Kanye’s music, we don’t want to play Kanye on our show, we don’t want to talk about Kanye anymore.  So we are taking a stand and we aren’t playing his music anymore; we just are refusing to give him a platform.

Not only that.  Because they don’t want to hear it, these two are dictating what their listeners will be permitted to hear, and they’re dictating to their listeners how they’ll be allowed to evaluate what they are permitted to hear—because Shay and BiGG think their listeners are too grindingly stupid to think for themselves, or their listeners must be required to think only Left-approved thoughts and evaluate with Left-approved paradigms.

They have to be kept locked away in the mental prison that West talked about.

And Leftists, of which Shay and BiGG are only too typical, are the keyholders.  Because there’s only way right way to think and to speak, and these personages Know Better.  George Orwell would be proud: censorship is free speech.  Or Vladimir Putin: there is no free speech, only permitted speech.

“Conflicted”

In a Sunday Wall Street Journal op-ed, Peter Funt opined about the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner’s post-dinner speech that was delivered by Michelle Wolf.

Many pundits were as conflicted about Ms Wolf’s act as they are about how to cover the Trump administration….

Only the pseudo-journalists of the NLMSM would be conflicted about reporting truthfully, whether about a revered administration or a despised one.

Teachers Unions

…and their strikes’ impacts.  Look at the Arizona teachers union strikes, for instance.

Arizona parents scrambled to find alternative arrangements for their children as the state braced for a third day of teacher walkouts.

It’s estimated that at least 800,000 Arizona students have been affected by the strike that started Thursday, with some school districts in the state closed until further notice.

It isn’t only the children that these strikers are holding hostage for their demands.  It’s the parents, too, who must take time off from work to take care of their children with those kids denied access to schools and education.

The teachers unions complain about low pay.  They’re ignoring, though, the even lower pay of many of those parents who are being harmed by these teachers union strikes.  Jennifer Goehring, a nurse, a former teacher, and a union supporter but not of the strikes:

It’s holding the parents hostage because they are having to scramble to find people to watch their kids.  It’s placing an undue hardship on families just trying to stay afloat. I don’t like the kids being used as pawns.

Goehring, by the way, alternates with her husband to watch their children and several others whose families couldn’t take off work during the walkout.  Others, plainly, are trying to fill in to ameliorate, at least a little, the damage the teachers unions are causing.

And this:

Churches, community centers, youth clubs, food banks, and community organizations are offering free and discounted services to help take care of students.

Who’s paying for all of this support for those parents and their children?  It isn’t the teachers unions, who are causing the expenses.  Bet on it: they won’t reimburse these facilities after the fact, either.