Tag Archives: responsibilities

Trust

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Harvard’s governing body, the Harvard Corporation, has overruled the recommendation of the school’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences to confer graduation on 13 students who were suspended over their participation in riots protests in support of Hamas as Israel committed the heinous sin of defending itself against Hamas’ war of extermination against Israel. Harvard Corporation has decided not to allow the 13 to graduate—at least not yet. Both the students and the FAS have chosen, so far, not to go through the school-mandated process of appeal of the suspensions, which could result in one or some (or all) of the suspensions being lifted, thereby allowing those students to graduate.

Then, there’s this response by Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government in the FAS:

I would expect a faculty rebellion, possibly a faculty rebellion against the entire governance structure, because there’s already a fair amount of mistrust toward the Corporation to begin with….

Trust is a two-way street. It’s not possible to trust faculty members who so openly support terrorists and who so openly disdain Israel and, apparently, Jews in general. And who appear to disregard school procedure when the procedure becomes inconvenient. If there is the faculty rebellion, the participants will be self-identifying as ready for termination for cause. Hopefully, the Harvard Corporation will have the moral, as well as legal, courage to carry out the firings promptly.

Biden Had a Bad Day

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Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden had a tough time reading his teleprompter during his speech to the NAACP last Monday. He misread no less than nine times, errors ranging from what otherwise could have been written off as minor misspeaks to major errors that can be ascribed only to his deterioration.

The White House staff had to issue corrections in the What He Meant to Say vein.

OK.

But far worse than that is what that same White House staff did to the official record of his speech. They altered the transcript of his speech—that official record, made explicitly to record for history the actual event—to “correct” those errors, to pretend they didn’t exist. Acting Deputy Press Secretary Sam Michel:

We’re focused on the substance of the transcript and the heart of President Biden’s speech….

Not the truth of what he said, but the “substance” as defined after the fact—what Biden said is what those staffers say he said, not what Biden actually said.

This alteration of history is extremely dangerous to our nation. If we’re not allowed to know what happened in the past—whether those happenings are major or trivial—we’re not going to be able to do better in that future. The only ones who will be able will be those who know, and keep to themselves, those historical facts.

And what they do that’s better will be better only for their own gain and power.

They’re Not Journalists

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Just the News had a Saturday article that debunked the claims—claims actively supported by the press—by a plethora of insurers that climate change is responsible for their changing policies, increases in premiums and deductibles, and growing numbers of exclusion clauses in the policies they do sell.

I’m interested in one apologia for the press offered by Ryan Maue, a research meteorologist [emphasis added].

Journalists aren’t equipped to go into the studies. They’re not economists. They’re not climate scientists. They’re journalists. They’re supposed to ask questions and dig deeper by going to ask all the sources, or go find experts either to talk on the record or off the record. And for whatever reason, this field just does not do that.

No, they’re not journalists. Among other criteria for journalism and those who claim to practice the form was a long ago editorial criterion requiring a journalist to produce two (or more) on-the-record sources to corroborate any number of anonymous claims the journalist might include in his piece. The journalism practice, the practice’s editors, and the practice’s writers have long since walked away from that criterion.

The question then becomes: what concrete, publicly measurable standard of journalistic integrity is used today in the practice of journalism? The answer is none. At least that’s the implication from the myriad times I’ve asked that question of a number of those claiming to be journalists, and the zero times I’ve gotten a response.

The current crop are not journalists; they are proselytizers when they’re not being propagandists.

Joe Biden’s Dishonesty and Joe Biden’s Decline

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Just the News calls all of these “whoppers;” I have a slightly different view.

  • Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden claims that inflation was at 9% when he took office when it actually was 1.4% then and didn’t reach 9% until the second year of his term.
  • Biden claims to have reduced the Federal government’s deficit by some $1.7 trillion, when what reduction that did occur was the result of Wuhan Virus Situation stimulus spending expiring.
  • There was no reduction from anything Biden did.
  • Biden claimed gasoline was at $5, on average, when he took office and was then-currently $3.39. Actual average pricing was $2.334 when he took office, and at the time he made his…claim…gasoline cost $3.76.

These are straight up lies, easily checked, and he—at least his advisors—knew better and know better.

Then there are these claims:

  • Biden says his uncle was eaten by cannibals. There is no evidence to support that claim beyond the unadorned fact that the airplane carrying his uncle crashed in the Pacific Ocean near New Guinea.
  • Biden says he was at Ground Zero the day after the 9/11 terrorist attack. In his 2007 book—published just 6 years after the attack—he wrote that he was in DC on that day after.
  • Biden claims his son Beau, who died in Walter Reed from brain cancer, died in Iraq.
  • Biden attacked Special Counsel Hur for asking him about Beau’s death. The interview transcript makes it clear that Hur did not; Biden himself brought up the matter of his son’s death.

These aren’t lies; these are nothing more than the confused ramblings of an old man in mental decline.

Deadlines

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Columbia’s management team gave terrorist supporters a deadline to clear their campus “encampment,” and when the campers ignored the deadline, managers issued them a new deadline. When the terrorist supporters seized and occupied a school building, managers gave them a deadline by which to clear out. And then another.

Terrorist supporters seized a Rhode Island School of Design building, and that school’s managers have issued a deadline. As seems typical of school management teams, the design school’s administrators have yet to announce consequences for demonstrators if they do not comply with the 8 am deadline.

And at MIT:

Anti-Israel agitators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took back their campus encampment after it was initially cleared by police.
…
Protesters at MIT were given a Monday afternoon deadline to voluntarily leave or face suspension. Many cleared out of the area, according to the school spokesperson. Dozens of protesters remained at the encampment through the night.
No arrests had been made as of Monday night, according to the MIT spokesperson.

This sort of thing is all too common, and it’s not unique to today’s school disruptions. As far back as Vietnam War college and university protests, disrupters would occupy school buildings, and school managers would issue deadlines to clear out after deadlines to clear out.

In all those cases, it became necessary, ultimately, for campus and local police, augmented in some cases by State police, to go in and forcibly root out the occupiers.

Enough. It’s time—long past time—for school managers to learn what should by now be the obvious lesson. Deadlines are useless except to the occupiers; all the deadlines do is demonstrate the timidity of school managers.

The correct answer to all of these test questions is to send the campus and local police right in immediately after the campers have encamped and the occupiers have occupied, and root them out. And apply suitable corrective action: expelling the students participating, firing professors (tenured or not) participating, and charging those who’ve committed crimes—vandalism, for instance, is rampant among occupiers—with the relevant charges, and then taking them to trial—no settlements, no plea bargains.