Tag Archives: responsibilities

A Thought on Kipp

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Since I’m thinking about things today.

KIPP Public Schools is a nation-wide charter school organization that has had outsized success in teaching its students, as has virtually all charter and voucher schools and school organizations in the US.  It had a motto, Work Hard. Be Nice., which it scrapped in an attempt to pander to the woke gangs.

In defense of that move, Kipp Co-Founder Dave Levin wrote a Letter to The Wall Street Journal. Toward the end of that letter, Levin made the remarkable claim that

Hard work is essential. Character matters.

Which is true for most of us, but it seems petty rationalization from Levin. If he really believed in the importance of hard work and character, he and his organization would not have struck their Work Hard. Be Nice. motto altogether.

Work Hard. Be Nice. Create our Future.—adapted from Kipp’s claimed Vision statement—would have been a fine update.

But no.

It’s Been Going On for a Year

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This is what Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, in a series of tweets, said so weakly about antifa on 2 July 2019 after that gang assaulted journalist Andy Ngo and others, putting them in the hospital:

Portland has always been a beacon of free speech. We are proud of that history.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 1, 2019

But in the last couple of years, some have increasingly used their opportunity to exercise their 1st amendment rights, as an opportunity to incite violence.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 1, 2019

Over the weekend some chose to engage in violence in Portland, which is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 1, 2019

Wheeler then said ‘twarn’t him:

I wasn’t even here. I wasn’t even in the United States. I was with my family in Ecuador on a wildlife tour.

Because he was out of all contact with the world.

No, wait–his Number Two wasn’t following the command set and instructions he’d left behind when he went on his trip.

No, wait–no one was following the corporate culture he’d so carefully set up when he took office.

Now we have this:

Police in Portland, OR, declared a riot around 11 pm local time Saturday as Independence Day marked the 38th consecutive day of civil unrest in the city.

Not peaceful protesting for 38 days, civil unrest—and Saturday was the second consecutive day the police have had to declare a riot and move to disperse the gathered thugs and rioters.

Riot? The “gathering” was shooting fireworks, not into the air in celebration, but directly at the Multnomah County Justice Center. Yes, riot.

This is another example of Progressive-Democrat governance.

New Case Rates and Death Rates

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Current data indicate a reduction in new (read: confirmed) cases of Wuhan Virus—45,000 cases on Independence Day vs 50,000 cases the day prior.  Fun with statistics: that’s a 10% drop—wow.

It is promising, but a single datum isn’t very dispositive.

What really interested me, though, is this, also presented in the article at the link:

In contrast to the surge in positive diagnoses, the death rate has slowed mostly to the hundreds a day in recent weeks, from a peak of more than 2,000 daily during several weeks in April.

And:

Infectious-disease epidemiologists caution that deaths typically lag behind other indicators, as the disease often progresses over the course of weeks in the most severe cases.

The rise in new case detections has only been in progress for a week, or so, and many of those detections are the result of massively increased testing finding massively increased existing infections (hence my correction above to consider “confirmed” rather than solely “new”).

With this virus’ incubation period of 2-14 days, and the fact that, if the infection proves fatal to an individual, that will occur generally from 4-11 days after hospitalization, I’ll be looking at hospitalization rates over the next week, or so, and mortality rates over the latter half of July. Those are the data most likely to be associated with the recent rise in cases detected.

New/confirmed infection rates by themselves are pretty meaningless.

And We Believe Him

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Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has been outed: he did black face a few years back and a mock rap Christmas song in which he used “n—-” lots of time.

Now the Precious Ones are shaking their fingers at him very firmly, and he, having already absented himself from his show for a separate violation of woke-ness, is saying words of apology for those prior crimes.

Actually, though, Kimmel’s apology (really more of a counter attack against those presumptuous enough in his eyes to object to his past) is wholly unnecessary. The ones who should be apologizing—with a true and honest apology—are the Woke/Racist/Sexist Left who manufacture out of the æther racist (in Kimmel’s case), or sexist, or offense du jour… beef where none exists.

After all, Kimmel’s jokes were in bad taste, and they weren’t funny except to a special few, but at bottom, there was nothing racist about them. They were just bad taste, unfunny jokes.

Woke, Party, and Racism

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Thugs are tearing down statues of Ulysses S Grant—who fought against Democratic Party-defended slavery militarily and, as President, politically. Progressive-Democratic politicians are carefully silent about this anti-slavery move.

Why might that be?

Here’s one possibility: the then-Democratic Party’s 1868 Presidential campaign slogan as they ran against Grant was

Our ticket, Our Motto: This is a White Man’s Country; Let White Men Rule.

Which, under current Left Woke Rules, raises the question: how can any black politician be a member of the Progressive-Democratic Party? Why haven’t they been canceled?