Category Archives: Culture

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Harvard University defends anti-Semitism and racial discrimination

Also see: William Teach, “Trump Admin Cancels $2.3 Billion In Funding To Harvard“

Hahvahd University is a private school, over which President Donald Trump, the hopefully soon-to-be-closed Department of Education, and the federal government in general have no direct authority. With an endowment of $50.7 billion as of the end of its 2023 fiscal year. Founded October 28, 1636, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, as well as the wealthiest.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Harvard Says It Will Fight Trump Administration Demands

The government has threatened to withhold nearly $9 billion in grants and contracts

By Douglas Belkin and Sara Randazzo | Monday, April 14, 2025 | 5:02 PM EDT

Harvard University said Monday it will resist the Trump administration’s demands to change its governance structure over campus antisemitism concerns, saying the government is overstepping its authority.

The response is likely to set up a fight between the nation’s wealthiest university and the federal government, which has threatened to withhold nearly $9 billion in grants and contracts to the school and its affiliated hospitals.

“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Harvard President Alan Garber said in a letter to the school’s community.

Harvard’s response is the most significant pushback against the government since it began making demands on universities earlier this year.

The Trump administration task force on antisemitism wrote the school earlier this month asking it to take nine actions that “we regard as necessary for Harvard University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.”

Harvard came under fire following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and the subsequent pro-‘Palestinian’ and pro-Hamas demonstrations on campuses across the country. We previously noted the turd-in-the-punchbowl performances of then-Harvard University President Claudine Gay, Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth, and Liz Magill, then the President of the University of Pennsylvania, in testimony in Congress. The three university presidents, intelligent and highly educated woman all, managed to all flub the answer to an obvious question, all in the same manner, and all of which reeked of collusion. When put under pressure, they all proved to be as dumb as a box of rocks.

Most of the demands concern how the university operates. The government is asking for a comprehensive mask ban as well as changes to governance, leadership and admissions and an end to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs.

Notably the government also is seeking to reach into the classroom, demanding “necessary changes” be made “to address bias, improve viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture,” which fuel antisemitic harassment, the task force’s letter said.

I admit to being somewhat less than impressed with how Harvard is educating its students these days. The Editorial Board of the Harvard Crimson seemed to think that Dylan Roof, the South Carolina mass murderer, was coddled due to his white privilege because the police brought him food after his arrest, when he said he was hungry. Not feeding Mr Roof, who told the police he hadn’t eaten for a couple of days, would have been a civil rights violation which could have tainted his arrest. It took me, with my baccalaureate degree from the not-so-selective University of Kentucky, about three seconds to find that information.

DEI? Havard has already lost when the Supreme Court declared Affirmative Action programs which discriminate against non-favored racial and ethnic — read: white and Asian — groups to be illegal in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, declaring what we all knew, that the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment prohibited Affirmative Action using racial preferences in collegiate admissions, so ‘DEI’ programs were always legally suspect.

Why, I have to ask, does Harvard want to defend racial discrimination and anti-Semitism? Harvard has a fairly large number of Jewish Americans among its alumni, and some of those wealthier alumni have been saying that they will simply not consider applicants from colleges which have tolerated and defended anti-Semitism on campus. It would seem that the elites’ hatred for President Donald Trump is leading them to defend the indefensible.

Hahvahd can, of course, afford defunding by the federal government, due to its huge endowment, and they have every right to refuse the President’s demands. But the University, in the end, is an institution by and of Western civilization, and not supporting Western civilization against the forces of barbarism — and supporting the ‘Palestinians’ and Hamas is most certainly supporting barbarism — is a prescription for suicide.

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Throwing good money after bad

It was thanks to Robert Stacy McCain that I saw this tweet from the Defender of the Republic.

Britney Spears has a guesstimated net worth of $60 million, according to Forbes, or perhaps a paltry $40 million, estimated by Celebrity Net Worth. The Defender wondered why no one could help a clearly wealthy and attractive woman. I know virtually nothing about Miss Spears, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer is that no one has helped her because she doesn’t want to be helped.

Which brings me to the more serious:

Only two people have successfully completed the Kensington ‘wellness court’ so far. The Parker administration wants to expand it.

Nearly two-thirds of the more than 40 people brought before the court since late January have dropped out of treatment within days, and then failed to appear at follow-up hearings.

by Ellie Rushing | Wednesday, April 9, 2025 | 5:19 PM EDT

In the nearly three months since the city launched its Neighborhood Wellness Court — the new fast-track court program for people in addiction arrested in Kensington — only two people have successfully completed drug treatment.

Nearly two-thirds of the more than 40 people brought before the court since late January dropped out of treatment within days, and then failed to appear at follow-up hearings, according to an Inquirer review of the cases.

But Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration says those numbers don’t define the program’s success, and has asked City Council to approve about $3.7 million in additional funding to expand it.

The additional money, officials said, would allow the court to operate five days per week, instead of one, and hire seven new staff members to oversee it.

Those numbers are so bad that even the very liberal and sympathetic Philadelphia Inquirer had to question things.

Parker and her team have touted the court as a key part of their goal to shut down the open-air drug market in Kensington and restore a neighborhood that, for years, has been overrun with public drug use, dealing, and homelessness.

But the data out of the early, pilot phase of the court has raised questions about its effectiveness, and for some, underscores the challenges of trying to force people in addiction, many with complex physical and mental health issues, into treatment before they might be ready.

“It raises red flags about consent, red flags about effectiveness, certainly about expense,” Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke said during a budget hearing this week. “Frankly, it’s hard to reconcile.”

Kensington is that wonderful neighborhood in Philadelphia which is internationally known for its open-air drug trade and legions of junkies camped out or conked out on the public sidewalks near the Frankford-Market St line SEPTA elevated train station. You want pictures? Here’s a google search for images for junkies passed out Kensington.

Let’s tell the truth here: in their few lucid moments, junkies might want help, but most of their conscious and semi-conscious thoughts are about how to score their next fix. As well-intended as Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ program is, only two have completed the program, and two-thirds dropped out of the program within days. Mrs Mullins wants to throw more money at the program, the triumph of hope over experience, and it could at least be argued that it will be more successful as time passes and experience is gained, but the sad reality is that the mind of the addict is not rational. We might save some, but we’ll never save all.

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That thing that never happens has happened again Another male wins a girls track and field event.

We reported, on April Fool’s Day, on Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Susan Snyder‘s fawning story on Will Thomas, the male University of Pennsylvania swimmer who claimed to be a woman named “Lia,” giving Mr Thomas’ explanation that he performed so much better competing against women than men because he was so much happier and “that happiness translated into feeling better in the water and being able to give my all in a way that I wasn’t able to before and that showed in my results,” not because he is a 6’2″ or 6’3″ tall male, who had gone through male puberty and had male musculature, shoulders, and hips.

I guess that Zachary Rose must be much happier, too!

Trans track athlete wins varsity girls competition after previously placing last against JV boys: report

By Ryan Morik, Scott Thompson, Fox News | Saturday, April 5, 2025 | 7:51 AM EDT

Lia Rose, who reportedly used to compete as Zachary, won the high jump at the Portland Interscholastic League Varsity Relays. Photo by Ida B Wells High School, via the New York Post.

A transgender athlete took home first place in a varsity high jump competition at an Oregon high school meet Wednesday, roughly two years after finishing last while competing against junior varsity boys, according to a report. Lia Rose, who reportedly used to compete as Zachary, won the high jump at the Portland Interscholastic League Varsity Relays with a height of 4 feet, 8 inches, beating the second-place finisher by two inches.

According to athletic.net, while competing against JV boys May 3, 2023, Zachary Rose finished 11th out of 11 competitors with a jump of 4 feet, 6 inches.

So, from worst to first, huh?

In two years, he managed to improve his jump by two inches, and the second-place finisher, a real girl, matched his two-year-old, last place male finish.

The winning height in that meet was another foot higher.

According to online records, Zachary Rose competed in the boys’ category in 2023. The following year, Lia Rose also competed in the same category. But this year, Lia Rose was listed as competing in the girls category.

The public schools refused to confirm that “Lia” — did he choose that name to honor Mr Thomas? — and Zachary Rose are the same individual, citing privacy rights, but if they were different people, the schools would have had no concerns stating that.

Lia’s victory comes roughly two weeks after Ada Gallagher, a trans track athlete in the Portland area, blew out the competition.

Gallagher, a state champion last year, finished at 57.62 in the 400 meters, with Franklin High School’s Kinnaly Souphanthong coming in second at 1:05.72. Gallagher’s teammate, Quinnan Schaefer, was behind Souphanthong at 1:07.13

So, in the 400 meter race, Mr Gallagher beat the first real female competitor by 8.10 seconds, while the difference between second and third, among real girls, was less than 1½ seconds.

How many more times will it take for this thing that never happens happening again to make our good friends on the left realize that males and females are simply different, different in ways that no amount of hormone therapy or surgery can change, and different in ways that make a difference when it comes to athletics? Will Miss Snyder, or anyone else at the Inquirer report on this? Will we see it in The New York Times or The Washington Post?

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The left want to control language; don’t let them!

We have previously noted how the left attempt to use control of language to control the argument. The Associated Press Stylebook, which is used by many, though certainly not all, credentialed media sources, specifies language which reinforces the notion that a person can define his ‘gender’ as something different from his biological sex, and that such choices can, should, and must be accepted by society as real. The First Street Journal maintains its own Stylebook, and we do not go along with the silliness of the AP.

The Philadelphia Inquirer either uses the AP Stylebook, or maintains its own policies to identify the ‘transgendered’ by the gender they claim to be rather than their actual sex, but reporter Susan Snyder decided to go one step further, and hammer down on the feminine pronouns, just to make sure the reader got it. Continue reading →

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Once more, the Philly Inquirer goes all-in to support transgenderism Every bird, every reptile, and every mammal has the ability to distinguish between males and females of their own species, but apparently human liberals have 'educated' that right out of themselves.

We have referred to America’s third-oldest continuously-published daily newspaper as The Philadelphia Enquirer, as RedState writer Mike Miller mistakenly referred to it, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I sometimes think of it as very apt. The newspaper, the past winner of twenty Pulitzer Prizes, has gone all-in on promoting the ‘transgender’ agenda, and once again they’ve published a sob story about a mentally-ill boy who thinks he’s a girl.

Parents of trans Colonial athlete speak out against PIAA rule change: ‘Having her play sports with males would be cruel’

Continue reading →

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Why don’t we return to charitable giving? Why must everything be through the government?

It was back in 2023 that one of my fellow parishioners at St Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church told us that the Estill County Community Food Bank was losing the ‘extra’ money coming from the federal government in COVID-19 ’emergency’ money was ending. The parish council then decided that we would take up a quarterly extra second collection specifically for the Food Bank, and I’m happy to say that most of those second collections netted slightly over $1,000 for the organization.

I thought of that when I saw the tweet on the right from WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, and the following (brief) story:

Delaware Food Bank loses nearly 1M meals after Trump administration ended food aid funding

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He didn’t have to be an [insert slang term for the anus here]

It might seem like an unimportant story in Saturday morning’s Washington Post, and the ruling won’t affect all that many people, but it demonstrates the willingness of some people to be absolute assholes — note that I used the word directly rather than my more usual [insert slang term for the anus here] — for no good reason. Yes, sometimes we need government officials to be [insert plural slang term for the anus here] for the good of government and of the country, but this kind of behavior over pettiness is just plain stupid. Continue reading →

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Soft-peddling the Gangs of Philadelphia

Ellie Rushing, from her Twitter profile.

If there’s one thing of which no one can accuse Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Ellie Rushing it’s laziness. Her author profile states that her beat is “cover(ing) criminal justice and law enforcement in Philadelphia, including how crime and the court systems impact communities,” and there’s certainly plenty of that in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia.

Miss Rushing gave us a deep look into the West Philly gang Young Bag Chasers, about whom we have nine times previously noted. Despite the fact that we were reliably informed by the newspaper that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, and that we have previously reported that the newspaper really, really, really doesn’t like to refer to gangs as gangs, Miss Rushing, though using other descriptions occasionally for prosaic reasons, does refer to “YBC” as a gang occasionally.

But, sadly enough, in a very in-depth article, one that the research of which must have put the reporter in some physical danger, Miss Rushing gives us far too many excuses as to how and why the gang became a gang and the gang members became gang members. Continue reading →

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Not everything has to be a federal government project!

Under our 47th President, the sensible people in charge are looking at all of the spending in which the federal government engages. With the FY2024 federal budget deficit at $1.83 trillion — that’s trillion, a thousand billion, or a million million dollars — and FY2025 possibly going to be more, the Trump Administration is taking a battle axe to spending where it can, because a battle axe is what is needed. Tiny little cuts by going over everything with a fine-toothed comb will never work, because there’s always some purportedly good reason to spend for someone’s pet project. The battle axe method is the right thing to do, and then, after that is done, we can check to see if anything truly essential was cut and needs to be restored.

Trump administration freezes $12 million meant to help Philly plant thousands of trees

Continue reading →