Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has shocked the world with his blood-soaked reign including his orders to police to murder drug suspects and his bragging about his own murders. Thousands of suspected drug dealers have been killed under Duterte. Duterte has mocked those who object to the extrajudicial murders, including teenagers found dead. Now Duterte is telling police to kill his son (who has been implicated in drugs and corruption) is he is found to be involved in the drug trade.
Category: Society
We have been discussing how discrimination and speech regulation have become acceptable in the cause of diversity or equality for many activists. The latest example was seen at the premiere of a new documentary about comedians called “Building the Room.” The director is Sharaz Higgins who implemented “justice pricing” which originally planned to charge cis white men $20 and everyone else $10. After an outcry, he dropped the “privilege price” to $15. He and his colleagues obviously missed the point. The problem was not the price but the discrimination. To make matters worse, Higgins did interviews under a false name, Sid Mohammed, to avoid being attacked for his discriminatory policy.
White supremacist Dylann Roof says that he has something of a problem on his hands: he has court-appointed counsel who happen to be Jewish and Indian. He has asked the court to replace Alexandra Yates and Sapna Mirchandani in his appeal of his death sentence for the massacre of nine people in the Emmanuel AME Church during a Bible study in 2015. Roof appears to believe that the right of counsel includes the right to white counsel. It doesn’t. The court should not be a vehicle for racial or religious discrimination to cater to the wishes of a homicidal fanatic. More importantly, that is the view of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has reinstated the defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone by the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. The decision by Judge Katherine Forrest is an interesting application of the rarely successful “group defamation” claim. The decision comes as the Rolling Stone magazine itself has been put up for sale. As I have previously written, the editors failed on almost every level in the scandal, including failing to fire author Sabrina Erdely for the article alleging the gang rape of a freshman identified as “Jackie” at the University of Virginia. The panel in Elias v. Rolling Stone, 16-2465-cv, consisted of U.S. Circuit Judges José Alberto Cabranes and Raymond Lohier Jr., with U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York sitting by designation. The vote was 2-1.
On college campuses, faculty and students are facing new microaggression rules of ill-defined terms or images that, while not expressly racist, still constitute offensive speech. This week the President of Lipscomb University, Randy Lowry, apologized for hosting African American students at his house with a display containing cotton. Likewise, in Killeen, Texas. Hobby Lobby has been criticized on Facebook by Daniell Rider for selling cotton decor products because it raised painful memories of slavery. The Cotton Industry (which advertises “Cotton: The Fabric Of Our Lives”) has not been heard from on the latest claim of cotton as a fiber microaggression.
USFSP regional chancellor Sophia Wisniewska has been fired after the school learned that she went to Atlanta to ride out Hurricane Irma while allegedly suggesting that she was still at her post in St. Petersburg. USFSP regional chancellor Sophia Wisniewska was cited for her alleged incompetence and “lack of leadership” — a view of System President Judy Genshaft that some on campus contested.
Continue reading “Academic AWOL: USF Fires Chancellor For Fleeing To Atlanta During Hurricane Irma”
Below is a column that I wrote for the Hill Newspaper in response to a “fact checker” column by the Washington Post. I have written for the Washington Post and have great respect for the publication. Indeed, I have objected to the attacks by President Donald Trump on the Post and the New York Times which remain two of our premiere journalistic organizations. However, I was frankly floored by the column by Glenn Kessler in criticizing White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I have discussed previously how there has been a palpable bias in reporting on the Trump Administration. It is often that case that some journalists are not simply satisfied with disagreeing with the Administration. They sometimes take judgment calls or opinions and declare the Trump side to be simply factually incorrect. This relieves the need for readers to address the opposing view of controversies like the alleged misconduct of former FBI director James Comey. Those views are simply dismissed as untrue. This is a prime example.
Here is the column:
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been channeling his best Marie Antoinette this month in responding to widespread and growing hunger in the country. Maduro went on the news to told citizens to eat rabbits. The problem is that Venezuelans have been putting bows on the rabbits and adopting them as pets rather than eating them.
Below is my column in the Hill Newspaper on the allegations raised by the White House over the alleged misconduct of former FBI Director James Comey. It is clear that Comey violated FBI rules and regulations — offenses that would have likely cost any of his subordinates their jobs at the Bureau when he was director. However, there remains a virtual news blackout on the obvious violations and their implications.
Here is the column.
We have been discussing how faculty around the country are supporting the abandonment of free speech principles to bar speakers and speech with which they disagree. The most extreme form of this rejection of classical liberal values is the antifa movement. We have seen faculty physically attack speakers or destroy messages that they oppose. We have also seen faculty physically attacked and intimidated. In some of these incidents, other faculty have supported students in shutting down speakers or fellow academics (here and here). The latest example of faculty opposing free speech is a letter of over 200 University of California, Berkeley professors and faculty are calling for the shutdown of classes and activities during “free speech week.” To the dismay of these professors, free speech week will include speakers with whom they disagree. Thus, they have posted a letter that not only seeks a boycott of free speech but have proclaimed that certain speech (in this case speech they do not like) is unworthy of free speech protection. Note the faculty and Ph.D students are calling for a boycott of classes and all campus activities, not just the speeches themselves. Turning off the lights and fleeing the campus at the approach of opposing views hardly fits with the school’s motto of “Fiat Lux” (Let There Be Light).
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has become an international pariah for his orders to police to murder drug suspects and his bragging about his own killings. Thousands of suspected drug dealers have been killed under Duterte. For that reason, many of us were alarmed by President Donald Trump’s praise of Duterte as “a good man” and praising his crackdown on drugs. Duterte however shows no ability to control himself any more than his son (who has been implicated in drugs and corruption) or his henchman . . . or his mouth. Last week, Duterte was asked by the head of the country’s Commission on Human Rights (CHR) about the killing of teenagers by his police and supporters. Duterte’s response was to ask if CHR head Chito Gascon was a pedophile. It is the type of disgusting and dismissive attitude that Duterte has shown all notions of human rights or human decency.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
It comes with much personal reflection that after the United Methodist Church’s Annual Conference for the Pacific Northwest Conference area, encompassing where I live in Washington State, I decided to leave the church after seeing what I believe to be the church leadership moving away from spirituality and Christian teachings to a place where members of the hierarchy in our conference use the Church as a platform to pontificate a particular flavor of politics, aligning itself with an American political party, promoting organizations that provide legal advice to those who evade the law, and worst of all having members that promote an organization that advocates the killing of law enforcement officers. This is a sad outcome, but it represents an evolution of thinking becoming endemic to particular districts. I do not believe that most of the districts approve generally of these changes but unfortunately for me they encompass the area I reside. The best choice for me was to end my relationship.
Continue reading “The United Methodist Church And My Loss Of Faith In Its Mission”
Berkeley geared up for the arrival of a conservative speaker, Ben Shapiro, on campus yesterday with a huge police presence, closed buildings, and . . . counseling. The counseling is for students and employees whose “sense of safety and belonging” becomes compromised by having a conservative speaker like Shapiro speaking somewhere on campus.
Thomas Jefferson called an educated public as “the only safe depositories of their own liberty.” If so, a new poll conducted by the University of Pennsylvania suggests that we have a serious problem. The poll made a truly alarming finding that many Americans cannot name a single first amendment right. Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center found 37 percent could not name any of the five rights protected by First Amendment and fewer than half (48 percent) could name freedom of speech.