Category Archives: Culture

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The most important news this Saturday Yes, Liz Magill is gone, but Army beat Navy to win the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy.

I wrote, in a comment on one of Robert Stacy McCain’s articles, “The over/under on Dr Magill’s resignation date is Monday, December 11th. There’s a meeting of the Board of Trustees set for Sunday, Sunday! afternoon.” Well, the lovely Dr Magill didn’t make it to Sunday, resigning on Saturday.

Breaking: Penn’s Magil Resigns.

by Robert Stacy McCain | Saturday, December 9, 2023

Mere hours after I blogged about this (“‘Context Dependent’: Ivy League President Belatedly Realizes Maybe She Answered That Question About Genocide Wrong”), now the University of Pennsylvania’s embattled President Liz Magill has resigned:

University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has resigned as president of the university in the wake of intense backlash over her failure during a recent congressional hearing on Capitol Hill to say whether advocating for the genocide of Jews is permissible on campus.

“Dear members of the Penn community,” the university began in its announcement. “I write to share that President Liz Magill has voluntarily tendered her resignation as President of the University of Pennsylvania.” Continue reading →

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Journolist Linda Blackford needs to get out more often She was fooled by a statistic that anyone could have seen was bogus

No, that’s not a typographical error in the headline: The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.

Linda Blackford’s biography blurb with what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal states that she “writes columns and commentary for the Herald-Leader. She has covered K-12, higher education and other topics for the past 20 years at the Herald-Leader.” You’d think that someone who has lived in and around Lexington for at least twenty years would be somewhat familiar with the Bluegrass State.

But, when the Williams Institute of UCLA’s law school reported that Kentucky had the highest percentage of homosexuals and transgendered people in the country, 10.5%, Mrs Blackford reacted with glee, and jumped right into a celebratory column. Unfortunately, that column is no longer available, because she had to issue a correction, using the same url:

It turns out Kentucky is NOT the gayest state in the U.S. | Opinion

by Linda Blackford | Friday, December 8, 2023 | 6:44 PM

Late Friday, the Williams Institute at UCLA issued an apology for a data error that said Kentucky had the highest rate of LGBTQ adults in the nation.

“We made a mistake, and we apologize to Kentucky and to you,” the release said. “We know there is a growing and thriving LGBTQ community in the Bluegrass State. But our report issued earlier this month incorrectly stated that Kentucky had the highest percentage of people identifying as LGBTQ. That percentage is 4.9 percent instead of 10.5 percent and in line with the national average of 5.6 percent.” Continue reading →

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Aren’t our universities supposed to be institutions supporting Western civilization? As for Presidents Gay, Kornbluth, and Magill, they're toast, and their careers are over; it's just a matter of counting down the days.

At least as of 9:58 AM this morning, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill still had a job, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer’s story, “Penn President Liz Magill faces mounting pressure to resign from Capitol Hill as university backs her: The school says president Liz Magill is staying put while rebukes increase over her comments on antisemitism on campus.” But the hits keep on coming, From The Wall Street Journal:

Penn Donor Threatens to Rescind $100 Million Gift Unless President Is Ousted

Warning from financier Ross Stevens comes as congressional panel announces investigation into antisemitism at Penn, MIT and Harvard

By Melissa Korn and Joseph De Avila | Thursday, December 7, 2023 | 11:26 PM EST

The turmoil engulfing the president of the University of Pennsylvania over her handling of antisemitism on campus intensified Thursday as a major benefactor threatened to withdraw a $100 million donation. Continue reading →

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Is Penn President Liz Magill as dumb as a box of rocks?

We reported, on Tuesday, how University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill not just toast, but toast which has fallen on the floor, buttered side down, after The Philadelphia Inquirer noted her terrible performance before a congressional committee:

When given the chance, though, the presidents — Dr Magill, Harvard president Claudine Gay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth — at times didn’t directly answer, struggling to explain the point at which hate speech rises to the level of incitement of violence — or, when students or faculty should be disciplined for it.

“It is a context-dependent decision, congresswoman,” Magill said when asked repeatedly if calling for the genocide of Jews violates Penn’s rules or code of conduct.

What? If the question had been about calling for the killing of blacks or Hispanics or homosexuals, is there any doubt, any doubt at all, that Dr Magill’s answer would not have been that it was a “context-dependent decision”?

At least as of this writing, Dr Magill still has her job, but I wonder just for how much longer that will be: Continue reading →

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Liz Magill is not just toast, but toast which has fallen on the floor, buttered side down

We have previously reported how University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has completely fouled up the school’s response to the antiSemitism on campus, costing the Ivy League university the good will of its many deep-pocket alumni donors.

Well, she may have just fired herself! From The Philadelphia Inquirer: Continue reading →

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If using rape to terrorize Jewish women helps achieve a ‘Palestinian’ nation, Pramila Jayapal Williamson is not ready to allow “hierarchies of oppressions” to stand in the way!

One would think that women, conservative, moderate, liberal, and even whacko hard left, would all be united on one question, namely that rape is a bad thing, a horrible thing, an assault on everyone’s dignity. But that’s apparently not the case when it comes to at least some women, namely those who support the ‘Palestinian’ cause.

CNN host clashes with progressive Democrat over Hamas’ use of sexual violence: ‘You turned it back to Israel’

Jayapal claimed she had specifically condemned Hamas’ attacks against Israeli women

By Hanna Panreck, Fox News | First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023 | 2:27 PM EST

CNN host Dana Bash clashed with progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., over the lack of widespread condemnation of Hamas’ use of sexual violence against Israeli women during their Oct. 7 attacks.

I’m putting the rest of this below the fold, because it includes the video of the interview. Continue reading →

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Killadelphia

According to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Crime Maps and Stats page, there have been 383 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love as of 11:59 PM EST on November 30, 2023.

With November 30th being the 334th day of the year, that works out to an average of 1.1467 homicides per day in Philly, which, multiplied by 365 yields a projected 418.5479 murders for the year. That’s a heck of an improvement, even if it’s still ridiculously high, but anything under 422 killings will give Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and most-of-the-year Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw a four-year average slightly under 500 per year.

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The Journolism of The Philadelphia Inquirer

No, that’s not a typographical error in the headline: The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias. We have previously written about the journolism of The Philadelphia Inquirer, often enough that this is the fifth article with that title. The newspaper reported:

Haverford College holds vigil for Palestinian student shot in Vermont

Haverford students, alumni, and staff gathered in Founders Hall to light candles and offer support for Kinnan Abdalhamid, the West Bank-born biology major and member of the school’s track team.

by Max Marin and Ximena Conde | Tuesday, November 28, 2023 | 7:21 PM EST

Jason J Eaton, mugshot by Burlington Police Department and is a pubic record.

Haverford College held a vigil on Tuesday in support of a Palestinian student who was shot in what authorities are investigating as a potential hate crime in Vermont on Saturday.About 200 Haverford students, alumni, and staff gathered in Founders Hall around 4:30 p.m. to light candles and offer support for Kinnan Abdalhamid, the West Bank-born biology major and member of the school’s track team, who was one of three victims of Saturday’s shooting.

Abdalhamid remains hospitalized in Burlington along with his two friends, Hisham Awartani and Tahseen Ahmed. The three college students, all 20, were visiting Burlington for the holiday weekend when a man opened fire on them without warning.

Note the publication date of the newspaper’s article: Tuesday, November 28th, at 7:21 PM EST. The reporters let readers know that this is being investigated to see if it was a hate crime, referencing an article published the previous day at 8:58 AM, and updated at 6:56 PM, in which it was reported:

Given the unprovoked nature of the attack and soaring tension around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Murad said it was understandable to suspect hate-based motivations at play in the case, but urged the public to withhold speculation as the investigation continues among local, state, and federal authorities. “We still do not know as much as we want to know.”

Returning to the originally cited article in the Inquirer:

Haverford’s vigil was structured in the Quaker tradition where students held long moments of silence broken only when someone was motivated to speak. One Palestinian student broke down in tears as she addressed the room. As two friends flanked her for support, she said there was no doubt in her mind the shooting was a hate crime.

“Palestinians’ suffering has to be recognized,” she said. “We’re humans.”

Authorities said the men were walking to a relative’s house in Burlington after a family gathering when Jason J. Eaton stepped up onto a nearby porch and, without a word, fired four shots from a Ruger .380 pistol, injuring all three.

While the motive remains unclear, authorities noted the victims were speaking in a mixture of English and Arabic, and two of them were wearing keffiyehs. The U.S. Department of Justice is assisting with an investigation into whether the unprovoked attack was a hate crime. Eaton, 48, was arrested Sunday and pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder on Monday.

OK, fine. But there is absolutely nothing in the Inky’s reporting to tell you that the suspect, Jason Eaton, was off his rocker, suffering from depression, coocoo for Cocoa Puffs, and mostly a political whacko:

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain, Suspect in Shooting of Palestin-ian Students ‘Strug-gled With Depression’

According to NBC, Eaton appears to have a YouTube account that has playlists with videos that include “Expose Fauci,” long COVID, economics, and how to use brain crystals for “psychic powers.” An Instagram account that appears to belong to him also shows him on a farm and cooking.

In an X account that appeared to belong to Eaton, he describes himself as a “radical citizen…patrolling demockracy and crapitalism for oathcreepers.” A 2022 archived version of that same account, which contains the same photo, has a more subdued bio that describes him as a Vermont dad and part-time farmer. The archived X account also provides a link to a Substack, with the “wandering ramblings of a reformed broker on the ADHD/ASD spectrum.” The Substack only has one post, which is an essay on how restaurants can retain dishwashers.

I guess that part wouldn’t fit Teh Narrative, but actual journalists, rather than journolists, would have included it. It should be noted that the published reports about Mr Eaton and his mental health issues are dated on the morning of the 27th, and updated at 7:07 PM the same day, fully a day prior to the Inky’s story.

The mugshot of Mr Eaton? The newspaper doesn’t usually publish them, despite mugshots being easily available from the Philadelphia Police Department, but when it comes to a blue-eyed, blond-haired white guy? While the photo credit notes that it came from the Burlington Police Department, I found it in this article in the Inquirer.

Did the Inquirer actually lie to its readers? Nope, there’s nothing that I spotted which was demonstrably untrue. But the newspaper omitted a lot of facts, enough to be called lies of omission by some, facts which would change the impression that the article was intended to give.

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You go, girl! Go ahead and hurt your own cause! Climate activist Greta Thunberg goes all out anti-Semitism

We have previously noted the definition of “intersectionality,” and how the perhaps less than genius thinkers on the left misuse it to tell us that all leftist causes are related, mixing together things which would curdle new milk. An interesting example is the mixing of feminism and transgenderism, hich leads to the amusing fact that, at least in some things, the best woman for the job is a man male.

Now, William Teach’s sort of favorite whipping girl, Greta “How dare you!” Thunberg, has hurt her own cause by mixing it with today’s oh-so-popular anti-Semitism. From The Times of Israel:

Climate activist Thunberg flogged for ‘crush Zionism’ chant

by Canaan Lidor | Tuesday, Kislev 15, 5784 | 6:23 PM Jerusalem Time

Footage showing climate activist Greta Thunberg chanting “crush Zionism” at a recent pro-Palestinian rally in Sweden is provoking harsh-worded criticism of her by prominent Jewish environmentalists.

If you can’t access the Times website, you can find the story here as well. You can see the original of the tweet here, which shows you the video, not just thye still in the screen capture I took ands used.

The actions by Thunberg, whom many regard as a symbol of the environmentalist movement, reflect how “large parts of ‘the left’ or ‘progressives’ have been intellectually captured by a naive, distorted and frankly bigoted anti-Zionism,” Nigel Savage, a UK-born environmental activist and founder of Jewish environmental nonprofit organization Hazon, tells The Times of Israel Tuesday.

Savage, whose Jerusalem-based group was established in 2000 and holds environmentally oriented bike rides in New York, adds: “It is a microcosm of a far larger and far greater challenge. It’s sad and disturbing.”

Now I will admit it: I can kind of see Miss Thunberg’s reasoning. In saying that Israel should be crushed, she is taking the side of poverty and savagery over prosperity and Western civilization, and if there’s one thing the global warming climate change activists hate, it’s prosperity and Western civilization, despite the fact that they are living with the benefits of prosperity and Western civilization.

I will admit to wondering how Miss Thunberg got from her native Sweden to Amsterdam without the use of fossil fuels, or from where the puffy coat and its insulation came without the use of petroleum, but I’m hardly the first person to point out her climapocrisy.

Miss Thunberg, of course, has the freedom of speech, and can say any fool thing she wishes, but I am amuse by the fact that she is hurting her own cause by siding against Israel and Jews, Jews who just might be the voters who put the Democrats over the top to control Congress and get the climate policies she wants enacted into law.

So, you go, girl! Go ahead and hurt your own cause.