Elder of Ziyon is one of the must goes for news of Israel’s war with Hamas. A few days ago they had a post of an interview with a man named Dr. Harold Rhode who holds a doctorate in Islamic history, lived in Muslim lands for a very long time and has been an advisor on the middle east for more than a quarter of a century. His perspective on what’s going on is the type of info people need if they want to understand Hamas et/al:
And the peace we are looking for is that you will stop fighting, and we will stop fighting, and everyone will live together in peace. But the Muslims do not have a concept like that. They won’t stop until the whole world will be Muslim. They follow what their prophet Muhammad did. He signed a 10-year ceasefire with Quraysh. After 2 years, Muhammad realized Quraysh had weakened — so he attacked them, and won. There is a classic Latin phrase “Bellum omnium contra omnes, pace inter omnes interpellatur,” that war is the natural state of man, interrupted by periods of peace.
We do not look at life like that, but historically most people do. From a Muslim point of view, they can agree to have relations with their enemies — whether they be Muslims, Jews, or anybody else. They can make temporary agreements just like their prophet did. Those agreements can be renewed, renewed, and renewed. But to think that the Saudis see peace the way we Jews see it is a pipe dream.
In 1949, after Israel’s War of Independence, there was a peace conference in Rhodes. The Arabs insisted the borders be called “ceasefire lines” and not borders. The situation was not set in stone. Arabs do not have the concept that when the fighting is over, we can be friends
To them the war never ends which is why you must never show weakness. That’s also why the “protestors are shoving western cities around. As long as their response if weak they will assert themselves, once you respond with strength and it cost them something, then it will change.
For theses reasons none of our parishes, clergy, parish leadership, and staff as official, public representatives of the Catholic Church, can support, or publically [sic] be affiliated with CUSH.”
Father Reesman said the following to KCE Monday evening:
” [The letter] was shared first with the pastors of Saint Mark and Saint Mary’s Parishes before it was made public, and after I had first discussed the issue with them. If there are any ongoing questions from the parishes or their leadership about the contents of this letter, we will handle them on a case by case basis.”
It seems when you push back against gay porn in schools and drag queen story hours, good things happen which is what happened when the folks at Mass Resistance got involved.
Speaking of Push back some armed home invaders got some pushback last week that left one dead, two arrested and the family safe. A sheriff evaluated what they family did and gave it a thumbs up
I like the way Dave and Susie handled this attack. It appears that they must have discussed home invasions and developed a plan. Not responding verbally to the home invaders kept the crooks wondering where their victims might actually be located. And blocking the door with the couch caused their attacker to focus on that chore instead of keeping his full attention focused on looking for victims. Susie gets points for maintaining an open line of communications with the 9-1-1 dispatcher. And Dave was also very smart to put his gun down and meet the police officer with empty hands. Latest reports are that police investigators see no legal problems for Dave & Susie and, in addition, a series of other home invasions may be cleared by this shooting and the subsequent arrests.
Loftis announced that South Carolina will divest $105 million worth of Disney debt securities due to concerns over the company’s leadership and its embrace of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) principles.
Loftis said Disney has abandoned its fiduciary duty to shareholders in favor of ESG, which he defined as a “speech and behavior code that was … created by the left and delivered to everybody else.”
“The sane, sober, talented, mature people are gone, and now you have the gender studies crowd running Disney,” Loftis said, “That’s why their movies are flops and their market cap, I think, is about half what it used to be. It’s a tremendous loss to America — we all grew up on Disney,” he added.
Note the argument made, not because Disney is woke but because “woke” costs them cash. That’s the type of pushback shareholder listen to.
Finally the Harvard Crimson published a dissenting opinion calling for President Gay to go.
We are tired of reading about Harvard’s failures every time we check the news. We are sick of reporters hassling us for interviews in the Yard. We don’t want to return home for break and get pestered by friends and family, asking what is happening on campus or how we’re holding up in this awful environment. Our classes and our studying should not be interrupted by noisemakers and megaphones. Signing an affirmation that we will follow the Harvard College Honor Code before we take our final exams should not feel like a farce.
Students are not the only ones frustrated. Faculty are concerned with her academic misconduct too, though many refuse to go on the record, perhaps for fear of the consequences (a fact the Board’s opinion notes but seems not to take to heart).
Donors are tripping over each other to sever ties with the University. A senator has written in the Wall Street Journal that he was accosted in Widener Library. Congress has launched — and now expanded — an investigation into Harvard. Early application numbers have dropped sharply compared with peer institutions, perhaps in response to the turmoil.
It’s that pushback that is the real driver here and is the only thing that drives leftists away.
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One of the reasons why both antisemitism and the violence of the left continue unabated is the complete lack on incentive to stop doing these things.
As long as laws are not enforced, except against those who fight against such things , they will continue.
In a famous scene in the John Wayne movie True Grit this is illustrated
Society has had enough of the “let him be” and I fear that unless things change quickly citizens themselves will decide to apply the alternate as the norm.
The distinct difference between this stuff happening in areas controlled by the left and places controlled by the right is striking, but not as striking as the number of leftist willing to tolerate all this crap for the sake of fitting in with the right people.
It’s always amazed me how so many people willingly choose hell over heaven but my amazement to that pales before the number willing to choose hell on earth.
I hear Elon Musk is getting ready to start his own university.
This is a smart idea, given what being taught at colleges these day and the attempt to view even math and science through the lens of DEI rather than objective fact it would seem there would be a market for a school that actually you know teaches real skills.
Idiocracy was not a how to guide, but our colleges are lurching toward it.
The degree that all things have become one big grift is really something and the speed that this had taken place has been really something too.
But like most things that are unsustainable they tend to collapse, first slowly then very very quickly.
Don’t Worry, as Cardinal George told you there will be someone to pick up the pieces and start again.
Finally a quick word on the death of Mr. Hoge.
He lived a long useful life and because of this and his abiding honesty bad people tried to make trouble for him.
They not only failed but he mocked them ruthlessly on a regular basis for the rest of his life to make sure they knew he failed, this is what happens when you have someone who has brains in places where most people don’t have places and faith to go along with it.
His tweets were a joy, his post were deep, particular those involving space but having him as a friend was the real treasure.
He gave me the black fedora I have as a gift. Every time I put in on for the rest of my life I will remember him. That’s a better gift that the hat itself.
Everyone dies, my suggestion is to try and live as good as he did.
Last Thursday, Chicago’s new mayor, Brandon Johnson, the candidate of the far-left Chicago Teachers Union, held a press conference. It was one of those dog-and-pony shows, also in attendance was the city’s police superintendant, Larry Snelling a Johnson appointee, and other municipal officials.
Armed with brochures, Johnson unveiled the “People’s Plan for Community Safety.” Who are the people that devised the plan? Presumably that group doesn’t include cops and crime victims, and it almost certainly doesn’t include the South Side family who had two cars stolen in separate incidents last month. One theft was a carjacking that was captured in a horrifying video.
Crime was the main campaign issue in this spring’s runoff election for mayor. Paul Vallas, a moderate Democrat, promised to beef up law enforcement. It was the center piece of his lackluster campaign. Johnson, appealing to his African American and leftist whites, vowed to attack crime at the root causes–just like the outgoing mayor, Lori Lightfoot.
Predictably, Johnson and the other city officials at the presser focused on the “root causes” of Chicago crime.
From the event’s press release:
There is a shattered sense of safety in Chicago that has been driven by decades of purposeful disinvestment in our communities. It is time for a new community safety approach – one that addresses the root of the problem by investing in our people and neighborhoods to secure a safer Chicago for generations to come. The People’s Plan for Community Safety calls upon our entire city, and especially those most impacted by violence, to create solutions together.
Lightfoot’s failures as mayor went beyond law enforcement. But Chicago tried the healie-feelie approach to crime under Lightfoot. It didn’t work.
Chicagoans voted to double-down on dopey.
Commenting the next day on the Morning Answer with Dan and Amy, co-host Dan Proft threw a penalty flag at Johnson’s root causes crimefighting strategy. Reminding listeners that Johnson is half of a two-parent household, Proft said Johnson is focusing on the wrong root causes.
Indeed.
A few days earlier in the Wall Street Journal, Proft noted, Jason L. Riley pointed his finger at the true root cause of rising crime rates, the proliferation of fatherless households since 1960. Referring to what is known as “the success sequence,” Riley wrote:
A decade ago, New York City launched a campaign to combat teen pregnancy. It featured ads on buses and subway cars that read: “If you finish high school, get a job, and get married before having children, you have a 98% chance of not being in poverty.”
He continued:
We could use more of that moralizing from public officials, whether the issue is solo parenting, substance abuse or crime. The success sequence works to keep people not only off the dole but also out of trouble with the law. High-school graduates and children raised by both parents are much less likely to end up in jail. “Virtually every major social pathology,” political scientist Stephen Baskerville writes, “has been linked to fatherless children: violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, unwed pregnancy, suicide, and psychological disorders—all correlating more strongly with fatherlessness than with any other single factor, surpassing even race and poverty.”
Chicago, and most American large cities, as well as many suburbs and rural communities, have been on a failure sequence for decades.
I’m not claiming to have the answers to turning around the failure sequence, ignoring the problem, along the lines of placing electric tape over the check engine light on your car when it flashes, of course means more failure. And yes, there are single moms who do a stupendous job raising kids.
One time-tested way out of poverty is quality education. Utilizing education to achieve success worked for that Founding Father without a father, Alexander Hamilton.
But Johnson, a former Chicago Public Schools teacher who was a longtime paid organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, even while serving as a Cook County commissioner, remains overly loyal to the CTU.
Also last week, the Chicago Board of Education, which includes six Johnson appointees, approved a resolution, in the name of equity of course, that has long been on the CTU’s anti-education wish list, removing the ability of students to attend high schools–better high schools–outside of their neighborhoods. Most of the students who benefit from the doomed program are minorities. Of low-income 11th-grade CPS students, less than 20 percent of them score at grade level in reading and math.
In another attack on students, the state’s private school tuition tax credit program, the Invest in Kids Act, which was signed into law six years ago by a Republican governor, will be allowed to expire next year.
Chicago–and Illinois–are focusing on the wrong root causes.
Jedediah Tucker Ward:It’s not hypothetical to Dr. Pavel, he wrote it.
Michael Grazier:So he says.
Jedediah Tucker Ward:So he says under oath.
Class Action 1991
There are three reasons why we should not be surprised at either the testimony of these “ladies” who are running elite colleges concerning calling for the genocide of Jews
or the sudden volte face when no longer under oath from Penn
Statement from President Gay: There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students. Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic…
You see when under oath you are in a position that there are sanctions for lying so as long as they were under oath they didn’t want to assert something that would have been provably false. Particularly with GOP representatives ready to call them out on it.
But once they were no longer under oath, they could make any assertion they wanted without fear of the law.
2. Support for Antifa & BLM
The second reason is less legalistic. At colleges all over the country we have seen people support and even join in on the looting and torching of American cities since 2018. We have seen such actions defended and even promoted by groups on campus with facility and administration giving very public support to such things.
Given those facts how could they credibly claim that such statements are violations the policies of their universities.
3. He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune:
The third reason is a bit more mercenary and can be summarized in one word: CASH:
Over 200 US universities including elite institutions Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been accused of raking in $13 billion in “undocumented contributions from foreign governments,” according to a new report.
I’ll say this for these universities, when someone buys them they stay bought.
4. No Enemies on the Left
Finally let’s look at a simple reality.
If I walked onto the campus of Harvard, or MIT, or Penn or frankly almost any university in Massachusetts and sat down to pray my Rosary with a sign next to me that said:
There are two genders
Transgenderism is a form of mental illness
Marriage is between a man and a woman
I would likely at best be escorted forcibly off campus and at worst surrounded and attacked by a raging mob of leftists with no consideration of my 1st Amendment rights. After all I’m a conservative Catholic who actually believes
But the reality is that those people who are screaming “From the River to the Sea” and calling for the death of Jews are reliable votes for Democrats and for all the failings of modern Universities they can do the Ghastly Tom Hagen Math:
Right now the left has the Gays and the Transgenders and the Hollywood elites & media in which they are overrepresented and they figure that’s the best things to have, but in America Islam is a thing of the future. In 20 years the children of Muslims now being raised on the tenets of Sharia law in America will be old enough to vote and Democrats going to make sure they get those votes when the time come, not now but 10-20 years from now.
It’s only been seven years since I wrote those words but they are certainly coming true.
Frankly if they wanted to deflect the question all they would have had to say, is something like:
“While I and the university find such speech horrific as long as it’s just speech it’s not actionable under the Constitution. The first amendment doesn’t have an exception for ‘evil'”.
Alas for them, such a statement would be the source of many lawsuits for all those who have been cancelled, fired and harassed over the last few years for having mainstream conservative opinions.
The left never expels useful idiots until their usefulness is over.
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