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The people in Philly can feel in their bones what The Philadelphia Inquirer won’t report

Another soul was sent untimely to his eternal reward in the City of Brotherly Love yesterday, but Philadelphia, which had been one ahead of its daily total for last year, fell behind by two, as four people were murdered on April 6, 2021. The numbers remain so close that no conclusions can reasonably be drawn as to whether 2022 will see more homicides than last year, but unless there is a very drastic change, 2022 will certainly exceed 2020’s 499 murders.

    70% of Philadelphians believe public safety is the most important issue facing the city, poll finds

    The number of residents who said crime, drugs, and public safety was the No. 1 issue — about 70% — has increased by 30 percentage points compared to August 2020.

    by Anna Orso | Wednesday, April 6, 2022

    More than half of Philadelphia residents do not feel safe in their neighborhoods at night, two-thirds have heard gunshots in the last year, and an overwhelming majority see public safety as the biggest issue facing the city.

    That’s according to a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which surveyed 1,541 Philadelphians in January on issues related to crime, policing, and the twin impacts gun violence and COVID-19 have had on residents’ outlook. It was conducted after 2021 saw record numbers of people killed or injured by gunfire.

    Among Pew’s starkest findings was that the number of residents who said crime, drugs, and public safety was the No. 1 issue — about 70% — has increased by 30 percentage points compared with August 2020, the last time Pew conducted such a survey. It’s the highest percentage any topic has received since Pew started polling more than a decade ago, said Katie Martin, senior manager of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Philadelphia research and policy initiative. . . . .

    And while more than half of Black and Hispanic residents said gun violence has had a major effect on quality of life in their neighborhoods, less than 20% of white residents said the same.

There’s a lot more in the original, and while Philadelphia Inquirer articles are hidden behind a paywall, you can see a few free articles a month.

The last quoted paragraph I included reflects the city very well. Though the Inquirer has referred to Philadelphia as a “black city”, the  2020 census found that just 38.3% of the city’s population were non-Hispanic black, and Hispanics, who can be either black or white, made up 14.9%. Between non-Hispanic whites, 34.3%, Asians, 8.3%, and “other groups,” 4.3%, the city is 46.9% non-black, and it doesn’t take a terribly large percentage of the Hispanic population being white to get the city to majority non-black. The non-Hispanic white population of the city have certainly declined, but they are hardly gone. If white residents do not see crime as the most serious problem, the way black and Hispanic Philadelphians do, much of that can be attributed to the fact that, while the city’s overall population are quite “diverse” — a word I’ve come to despise — internally the city is highly segregated.

In being highly segregated, white residents can afford to see crime as a less serious problem, because crime hits white residents far less frequently. The Inquirer is very, very good at covering stories in which the victim was clearly an ‘innocent,’ a ‘somebody,’ or, most importantly, a cute little white girl. When Samuel Sean Collington, a Temple University student approaching graduation was murdered. Mr Collington was a white victim, allegedly by a black juvenile in a botched robbery. On December 2, 2021, the Inquirer published 14 photographs from a vigil for Mr Collington, along with another story about him. Five separate stories about the case of a murdered white guy. The newspaper even broke precedent when it came to Mr Collington’s murder by including the name of the juvenile suspect in the case, and delving into his previous record.

Oh, it’s not as though the Inquirer doesn’t publish stories about black victims, at least when it comes to black victims who are ‘innocents’. The murder of Samir Jefferson merited two stories, and four stories about the killing of 13-year-old Marcus Stokes.[1]I did note my suspicion that young Mr Stokes might not have been quite the innocent the Inquirer, and writer Anna Orso, made him out to be. A story is merited if the victim was a local high school basketball star, and cute little white girls killed get tremendous coverage: a search of the newspaper’s website for Rian Thal returned 4855 results! But for the vast majority of black victims, Inquirer coverage is a couple paragraphs, mostly in the late evening, and which have disappeared from the main page of the newspaper’s website by morning, if even that much.

Why? It’s simple: reporting about black bad guys getting killed by other black bad guys, in the words of the Sacramento Bee, “perpetuat(es) stereotypes about who commits crime in our community.” In her “apology to black Philadelphians and journalists,” publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes did not use those specific words, but the effect has been the same: no reporting of stories which might tell readers what they already know: that the vast majority of the murder victims, and their killers, in the City of Brotherly Love are black males who have been involved in the gang or criminal lifestyle.

However, despite the Inquirer’s attempt at minimizing crime in black neighborhoods, while reporting on it more diligently when the victims and perpetrators are white, because under Miss Hughes the newspaper is determinedly “anti-racist,” nobody is fooled. Part of the issue is that the newspaper’s paid circulation is pathetically low: the Philadelphia metropolitan area has roughly 6,108,000 people, meaning that the Inquirer’s circulation is paid for by a whopping 1.67% of what ought to be its service area. The circulation numbers are total, but even if all of its circulation was in the city itself, it would be paid for by just 6.35% of the population.

Pretty poor for the nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper!

An Inquirer graphic shows how concerned Philly residents are. The people who are more heavily impacted by violence are more concerned, and most white residents simply are not; the gang bangers are shooting up Kensington and Strawberry Mansion, not Rittenhouse Square or Society Hill. The newspaper might not report much on killings in minority neighborhoods, but the people who live there know what happens. And while the Inquirer deliberately eschews publishing the photos of black victims and perpetrators, the television stations there are not so reticent.

Television is, after all, a heavily visual medium, and the television news broadcasts reach far more people than the Inquirer: the Inquirer itself reported that WPVI drew 287,000 viewers for it’s 6:00 PM local newscast, in February of 2018, and 163,000 for the 11:00 PM news show, while the newspaper had a circulation of 101,818 daily copies in May of 2019. WPVI, which has higher ratings than the other Philadelphia stations, is still only one of four.

Of course, local television news is free — although most people are paying for cable subscriptions — while newspapers cost money, but it would seem that a lot more people watch the local news on television than read the newspaper. There is something to be said for providing your customers what they want.

The Inquirer, under Miss Hughes and Executive Editor Gabriel Escobar, deliberately censor their coverage, to meet their “anti-racist” goals, but the truth leaks through. When the newspaper reported on the shooting of a 13-year-old boy at the intersection of 49th and Hoopes Streets, simply printing the location told Philadelphians that it was in a heavily black neighborhood, and while the newspaper didn’t report it, the victim was, in fact, black. When the paper reported on the targeted shooting death of a 15-year-old boy near Tanner Duckrey School, just printing the victim’s name, Juan Carlos Robles-Corana, told readers that the victim was Hispanic.

And so we have the report on how people feel about the issues in the city, and with the Inquirer publishing it, we can see that the propaganda the paper is trying to push has not resulted in people being misinformed. They know what is happening around them!

Also see: Republican registrations surge in Pennsylvania in warning sign for Democrats

Perhaps even more pathetically, white Philadelphians are contributing to the crime wave. Yes, the city is plurality non-Hispanic black, and yes, black voters traditionally give around 90% of their votes to Democrats, but softer-than-soft on crime District Attorney Larry Krasner was re-elected with 71.81% of the vote in November of 2021. That number has to include a whole lot of votes from the liberal white areas, from the voters who saw the impact of violence on the quality of their lives as having a minor (49%) or no (33%) impact. It’s easy to be sympathetic to liberal causes when it’s not in your back yard.

I have complained, more than once, that the Inquirer tries to hide the full truth, because the full truth does not match their editorial philosophy, but, in one very obvious sense, they really haven’t hidden the truth from the black and Hispanic populations of the city; those residents can see and hear and feel what has been happening around them. It’s actually the white residents of Chestnut Hill and Manayunk who have been deceived.

References

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Lexington prosecutor Lou Anna Red Corn lets more killers off leniently She is failing the people of Kentucky!

We noted, just last week, on April 2nd, that Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn had a history of giving accused murderers the opportunity to plead guilty to manslaughter instead, and get reduced sentences. Well, here she goes again!

    Suspects accused of killing 2 men in a Lexington gang retaliation take plea deals

    by Jeremy Chisenhall | Wednesday, April 6, 2022 | 6:00 AM EDT

    John George Boulder IV, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

    Four men have pleaded guilty to reduced charges for their involvement in a deadly daylight shooting that Lexington prosecutors say was a gang retaliation.

    A Lexington gang planned to retaliate against two 18-year-olds because members of the group believed those two made “disparaging remarks” about a dead gang member, according to court records. Dwayne Slaughter and Darrian Webb, both 18 years old, died in the shooting on Oct. 19, 2019. All four suspects entered guilty pleas in Fayette Circuit Court Friday.

    Three of the men who pleaded guilty in the deadly shooting are among the 14 people who have been indicted in a related organized crime case, according to court records. The fourth suspect hasn’t been criminally connected to the gang but was accused by a witness of being part of the same group.

    The shooting happened on Oct. 19, 2019, at the intersection of Winchester Road and Seventh Street. De’Shaun Quantrell Armor, Sevion Mitchell and Kenneth Jakobe Jackson were in a vehicle driven by John George Boulder IV when they pulled up behind a vehicle with the two victims inside, according to court records.

    Armor, Mitchell and Jackson were all armed, according to court records. The suspects opened fire and dozens of shots rang out in the middle of the intersection, leaving Slaughter and Webb dead, according to court records. A third person in the victims’ vehicle was injured but didn’t die.

There’s much more at the linked original; the mugshots were not included in the Lexington Herald-Leader original, but looked up and added by The First Street Journal. Mr Armor’s mugshot was not available.

These are some bad dudes! The Fayette County Detention Center had not one but six mugshots of Mr Boulder, from six separate arrests, the first dated September 9, 2017, not quite four months after his 18th birthday.

Sevion Mitchell, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

Messrs Armor, Mitchell and Jackson were each charged with two counts of murder when they were first indicted, while Mr Boulder, who was not armed at the time of the killings, was charged with facilitating murder. Following ‘mediation’ to work out a plea deal, Mr Armor pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter as well as to charges of evidence tampering and evading police; other charges were dismissed. Prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced to seven years in prison for each manslaughter count and one year for each of his tampering and evading convictions. No recommendation was made as to whether the sentences should run consecutively or concurrently.

Mr Armor pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter, as well as one count each of tampering with evidence and evading capture. Prosecutors recommended seven years in prison for each manslaughter count and one year for each of his tampering and evading convictions.

Messrs Mitchell and Jackson, who were juveniles, 17, when the killings occurred, each pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter, with other charges against them dismissed, and the prosecution recommended that both be sentenced to seven years for each of their manslaughter convictions; again, no recommendation was made concerning whether the sentences run consecutively or concurrently. Depending upon how Fayette Circuit Judge Thomas L. Travis sets their sentences on June 15th — he does not have to accept the prosecutors’ recommended sentences –these thugs could be out of jail while still in their twenties, still in their prime crime-committing years.

According to reporter Jeremy Chisenhall’s story, the shooting in the middle of an intersection, at busy Winchester Road and Seventh Street, by a Speedway gasoline station and mini-mart, left 37 shell casings recovered by investigators; these guys were firing and endangering more than just the two 18-year-old rival gang members, but bullets could have struck innocent bystanders as well.

Kenneth Jackson, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

Was the evidence against these gentlemen on the shaky side? Did Miss Red Corn fear that the state might lose if it went to trial? Why ‘mediate’ lenient sentences?

Under KRS §507.020, murder is a capital offense in Kentucky. Under KRS §532.030, the punishment for a capital offense shall be:

  • death; or
  • imprisonment for life without benefit of probation or parole; or
  • imprisonment for life without benefit of probation or parole until he has served a minimum of twenty-five (25) years of his sentence; or
  • imprisonment for not less than twenty (20) years nor more than fifty (50) years.

Miss Red Corn could have gotten these very bad guys off the streets for a long, long time. She could have gotten them locked up until they were at least middle-aged, possibly until they were elderly, or even gotten them locked up until they die. She could have done her duty to the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky!

Instead, she followed her recent pattern, of taking the easy way out, by allowing negotiations which could have these criminals out early.

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Philadelphia, which ended its indoor mask mandate on March 2, is looking at a new one

Cheryl Bettigole, from BillyPenn.

We have noted Philadelphia’s Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole and her desire to control, control, control people’s lives. We pointed out that even as countries around the world, and many American cities and states were loosening or dropping restrictions on people that had been imposed due to the COVID-19 panicdemic — and no, that’s not a typo — the lovely Dr Bettigole, on Groundhog Day, said that Philadelphia is likely “several months” away from being able to drop its current restrictions.

Exactly four weeks later, on Wednesday, March 2nd Philadelphia ended its indoor mask mandate, and the Commissioner was forced to say said that she hoped that there is “enough immunity in the city that we really are at an end point.”

Now, not quite five weeks later, we find this:

With COVID-19 cases inching up in Philadelphia, city urges a return of masks indoors

As cases start to rise, Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said “now is the time to start taking precautions.”

by Rob Tornoe | Tuesday, April 5, 2022

COVID-19 cases have once again started to increase in Philadelphia, and health officials are encouraging residents to consider wearing masks indoors in public spaces.

As of Monday, Philadelphia was averaging 94 new COVID-19 cases per day over the past two weeks, an increase of more than 50% over the past 10 days, according to the city’s health department. Test positivity rate has also inched up to 3.1% from a low of 2% in the beginning of March.

The city said 48 patients with COVID-19 are being treated in Philadelphia hospitals, five of whom are on ventilators.

Also see: William Teach: Raleigh To Charge Un-Vaxxed Employees $50 A Month Health Surcharge

The slight uptick in cases comes as Europe has seen a wave of new infections brought on by a subvariant of omicron — known as BA.2 — which now accounts for nearly three-quarters of new COVID-19 cases in the United States, according to the CDC.

“As we see more cases of COVID-19 in the city, everyone’s risk goes up. That means that now is the time to start taking precautions,” Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said in a statement. “It’s not required yet, but Philadelphians should strongly consider wearing a mask while in public indoor spaces.”

Philadelphia’s COVID-19 response level remains “all clear,” meaning there are no restrictions or vaccination requirements across the city. The city will require masks in indoor public places if two or more of the following are true:

  • Average new cases per day are more than 100 (currently at 94)
  • Hospitalizations are more than 50 (currently at 48)
  • Cases have increased by more than 50% in the previous 10 days

There’s more at the original, but it seems inevitable: Philadelphia will reimpose its mask mandate, and Dr Bettigole will be happy and dancing, though she might at least do the latter behind closed doors, where the people can’t see her glee. I do have to wonder, though: after two years of the city’s bovine feces, just how many Philadelphians will obey a new mask mandate?

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Killadelphia A 15-year-old was killed, possibly as a result of an earlier fist fight.

A 12-year-old, the son of criminals, takes a shot at the police, and winds up dead. A 15-year-old is arrested for shooting at teenaged girls in a fleeing car, hitting two of them, and the police say that he is a suspect in two other shootings as well. A 17-year-old is accused of shooting and killing a Temple University student in a botched robbery.

Is it any wonder that Philadelphians are applying for concealed carry permits at a record-breaking pace?

    13-year-old boy shot in head in West Philly

    The victim was sitting alone in a car at 49th and Hoopes Streets when someone started shooting shortly before 8:30 p.m., police said.

    by Robert Moran | Monday, April 4, 2022 | 9:55 PM EDT

    A 13-year-old boy was hospitalized in critical condition after he was shot in the head Monday night in the Mill Creek section of West Philadelphia, police said.

    The shooting was reported shortly before 8:30 p.m. at 49th and Hoopes Street.

4931 Hoopes Street, listed for sale at $125,000, from Zillow.com.

Hoopes Street consists almost entirely of two-story row homes, in not the best or repair, and 49th in that area is no better, yet people are being charged $1,195 a month to rent these marginal residences, at least according to this listing on Zillow. A vacant lot at 4935 Hoopes Street is being listed for $50,000, while this disaster at 4931 Hoopes is being listed for $125,000.[1]Here are the other three photos of 4931 Hoopes Street, from the current Zillow listing. Those photos will eventually disappear from the listing if that dump is ever sold. No wonder people in this neighborhood have little hope; they’re being robbed just to live in dumps! Yet it was a neighborhood which got a 13-year-old boy shot in the head; what could have been worth that in that neighborhood?

    The boy, who lives in the neighborhood, was sitting alone in the front passenger seat of an Acura SUV when someone approached the car from that side and opened fire, said Capt. John Walker, commanding officer of the Shooting Investigation Group.

The police believe that the victim was personally targeted, and several shots were fired at him. As of Tuesday morning, Fox29 is reporting that the victim is still “fighting for his life,” so he is not a current homicide statistic.

What does it say that I have quite reasonably referred to a 13-year-old boy as a “statistic”?

A 15-year-old boy was shot dead in the city earlier in the day, and police said that at least 20 shots had been fired in the confrontation. Fox29 reported, that a law enforcement source said that investigators believe the shooting may have stemmed from a fist fight earlier in the day.

At some point it has to be asked: what can a 15-year-old, an eighth grader, and a 13-year-old have done to have caused their enemies to hunt them down and assassinate them in deliberate, targeted killings? One murder was possibly a revenge engagement from a fist fight? If that’s the case, then investigators will know with whom the fist fight occurred, and he’ll be caught. One kid is dead, and another will be locked up, hopefully for the rest of his miserable life, behind a fist fight?

In just the first three days of April, ten people, all of them black, were shot in the city, two fatally, and it’s nothing other than routine in the City of Brotherly Love. 125 people have been murdered in Philly as of 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, April 4th, and April 4th in 2021 was the end of a weekend.

Also read: The Philadelphia Inquirer: ‘I just need to know why.’ Mother pleads for answers in the slaying of son, 15.

This is a cultural thing, an urban culture which glorifies carrying guns to the point that adolescents are doing so, exhibiting the quick, responsive, irresponsible and immature judgement of adolescents, and other adolescents are frequently the victims when these kids start firing away. But no one will ask why this is the case, no one will even acknowledge that this could be the result of an urban culture, because that will lead to the obvious point: this is a primarily black phenomenon, and to point out that is raaaaacist.

It ought to be obvious: you cannot address a problem, and certainly cannot solve a problem, if you will not admit the problem, if you cannot discuss the problem, and no one wants to do that, not with this problem. The political, intellectual, and journalistic leaders in the city would rather ignore the problem, would rather see the killing continue, than to risk being labeled racists by doing the very radical thing of just telling the truth.

We have previously noted that not only does The Philadelphia Inquirer decline to print such news itself, but has criticized other media for reporting the news the editors of the Inquirer believe should be ignored.

Of course, the people of Philly know that the problem of killings in the city is a largely black problem; just because the Inquirer specifically, and the rest of the media more generally, try to obscure that doesn’t mean that the public are unaware. When Philadelphians hear that these killings are happening in Kensington or North Philadelphia or Strawberry Mansion or around Temple University or in West Philly, they know that these are heavily black neighborhoods. The primarily law-abiding black residents in those areas have to dread what can happen on their streets, and the wealthier white liberals don’t need to care, because Chestnut Hill and Rittenhouse Square just don’t experience that violence. The truth is that black lives don’t matter, not in Philadelphia, at least they don’t matter enough to address the problems.

References

References
↑1 Here are the other three photos of 4931 Hoopes Street, from the current Zillow listing. Those photos will eventually disappear from the listing if that dump is ever sold.
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A Democrat says the quiet part out loud Former Representative Ben Chandler admitted that he tried to confuse voters about his own positions

Albert Benjamin Chandler III, a Democrat, and the grandson of former Governor, Senator and Commissioner of Baseball A B “Happy” Chandler, won a special election in 2004 for the Sixth District congressional seat, and was re-elected in 2006, 2008 and 2010. In 2012, he was defeated by Republican Andy Barr, who continues to hold the seat today.

An article on the Lexington Herald-Leader’s website references Mr Chandler and his electoral history.

‘All politics is national’: How Kentucky’s congressional districts have slid off the map

by David Catanese | Thursday, March 31, 2022 | 10:27 AM EDT

WASHINGTON Four years ago, Andy Barr had a real race on his hands.

An outside Republican group poured more than $3.5 million into Lexington’s 6th Congressional District to counter the nationally recruited Amy McGrath’s $8 million warchest.

Barr survived the rough and expensive environment, but only by 3 percentage points.

Now his former battleground seat in the heart of Kentucky’s commonwealth looks downright hospitable, if not sleepy.

The article continues to tell readers that every congressional district in Kentucky has a party favorability rating in double digits, five for Republicans, and one, in Louisville, for Democrats. Mr Barr’s district actually has the smallest partisan advantage, at 13%.

The Bluegrass State was the friendliest in the South for Democrats, with Democrats winning most gubernatorial races, and controlling the state House of Representatives up until the 2016 elections. But it was tough going for Mr Chandler in the Sixth District, and he told the reporter how he held on for as long as he did:

Lexington’s 6th Congressional District used to fall in the competitive category when Chandler held the seat for four terms. But Chandler, now the CEO of The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, says he had to practice the “politics of confusion” in order to survive in a place where most identified as conservative.

“I had to confuse my constituents so they couldn’t tell whether I was a liberal or a conservative or a moderate,” he said, noting that endeavor became more difficult as data showed him that an increasing amount of his constituents were primarily depending on conservative media outlets like Fox News, which blared narratives that tarred his entire party with the same broad brush. “When that’s the case and you’re a Democrat, you clearly are looking at a hell of an uphill battle.”

Translation: Mr Chandler had to lie to the voters to win the races he did.

Mr Chandler lost to Mr Barr in the 2012 elections, but Democrats in the Bluegrass State held on to a majority in the state House of Representatives until the 2016 contests. The Sixth District, which includes more liberal Lexington, is Kentucky’s second most Democratic district, and, as the cited article pointed out, Amy McGrath Henderson, who wasn’t an incumbent, ran a competitive race against Mr Barr in 2018. Is it possible, just possible, that Mr Chandler lost in 2012 at least in part because the voters in the district were not as confused about him as he thought he could make them? Given that Democrats controlled the state House of Representatives following both the 2000 and 2010 elections, it wasn’t as though Republicans could gerrymander the district against them.

Mrs Henderson tried to confuse the voters as well, spending a clear pile of money — $8,274,396 to Mr Barr’s $5,580,477 — on mailings and television ads telling us how moderate and patriotic she was. However, she attended a fund raiser in Massachusetts and said, “I am further left, I am more progressive, than anyone in the state of Kentucky.”

There’s a simple truth here: while Mr Chandler and Mrs Henderson both tried to fool the voters of the Sixth District, Mr Barr has not, because the voters in the Sixth more closely match conservative Republican principles.

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The freedom to tell the truth Swimmer had to wait until she exhausted her eligibility before she spoke out

When I saw the article referenced below, I guessed that University of Kentucky women’s swim team member Riley Gaines was a senior, and her UK biography page confirmed that.

    Swimmer who tied with Lia Thomas says female athletes ‘not OK’ with trajectory of women’s sports

    by Cameron Jenkins | Friday, April 1, 2022 | 10:28 AM EDT

    A University of Kentucky swimmer who tied in fifth place with Lia Thomas during the NCAA swimming championships’ 200-yard freestyle claimed that many female athletes are “not OK” with the trajectory of women’s sports.

The First Street Journal’s Stylebook specifies that we always refer to the ‘transgendered’ by their real names, the names given at birth, and not the made up ones they use. Further, we always apply the honorifics and pronouns appropriate to their biological sex. However, we do not change the direct quotes of others.

    “The majority of us female athletes, or females in general, really, are not OK with this, and they’re not OK with the trajectory of this and how this is going and how it could end up in a few years,” Riley Gaines told Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) during an interview on her podcast “Unmuted with Marsha.”

    Gaines’s comments refer to NCAA rules that allow transgender women to compete in women’s competitive sports, Fox News noted.

    Thomas last month became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division 1 national championship in any sport when she finished first in the 500-yard freestyle race — a moment that many conservatives have criticized as unfair.

    Gaines described to Blackburn during the podcast the emotions she felt when she realized she had tied in the 200-yard freestyle with Thomas.

    “I touched the wall and saw there was a five by my name indicating that I got fifth … I also looked up, and I saw the number five by Lia’s name and so, in that moment, I realized we tied,” Gaines said. “It was kind of like a flood of emotions. I was extremely happy for the girls above me who conquered what was seemingly impossible by beating Lia.”

I have previously noted my belief that Will Thomas deliberately threw his last couple of races, after he had won the women’s 500-yard freestyle championship, but there’s no way I could prove that.

Miss Gaines noted that, in her tie for fifth in the 200-yard race, the organizers had only one fifth-place award, which she understood. The organizers decided, however, that they’d give the award to Mr Thomas, and send Miss Gaines’ her award in the mail. The organizers could have brought Miss Gaines and Mr Thomas out together, holding aloft the single fifth-place trophy together, but putting 6’3″ Will Thomas and 5’5″ Riley Gaines side-by-side would have resulted in a photograph which just further pointed out the differences between Mr Thomas and female athletes.

I might not have paid any attention to this one, but the University of Kentucky is my alma mater. Naturally, I did a site search of the Lexington Herald-Leader’s website for Riley Gaines, and that newspaper, which heavily covers UK athletics, had nothing on Miss Gaines’ comments[1]As of 5:18 PM EDT on Saturday, April 2, 2022.. I was not surprised.

The Kentucky Kernel, UK’s independent student newspaper, did cover the story.[2]Full disclosure: I wrote for the Kernel while in graduate school, 1980-1982.

Why did I guess that Miss Gaines was a senior? Because her UK career is over; she’s exhausted her eligibility, so she can’t get kicked off the team, can’t lose her athletic scholarship. While she’s a very good swimmer, and her first-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle helped UK to its first Southeastern Conference championship in 2021, she’s not a serious contender for a spot on the Olympic team. Hailing from Gallatin, Tennessee, her future career prospects in that conservative state are not likely to be seriously damaged by her saying, in public, what so many other female swimmers have said anonymously.

References

References
↑1 As of 5:18 PM EDT on Saturday, April 2, 2022.
↑2 Full disclosure: I wrote for the Kernel while in graduate school, 1980-1982.
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Lexington prosecutor Lou Anna Red Corn lets another killer off leniently

Lou Anna Red Corn, from her official biography page, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

On January 10, 2022, James Edward Ragland II, 31, was sentenced to ten years in the state penitentiary for shooting and killing Iesha Edwards, 27, outside what Lexington Herald-Leader euphemistically called a “gentleman’s club.” Originally charged with murder, Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn allowed Mr Edwards to plead down to manslaughter.

On January 19, 2022, Malachi Jackson, now 20 but 16 at the time of his crime, charged with the murder of 15-year-old Kevin Olmeda, was allowed by Miss Red Corn to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault, and first-degree criminal attempt to commit robbery. With a recommended sentence of 15 years by the prosecution, time already served taken into account, and the state minimum of 85% of sentence required, Mr Jackson could be out of jail by the age of 31.

On February 11, 2022, Jemel Barber, 23, was sentenced to twenty years for the killing of 40-year-old Tyrece Clark. Mr Barber was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter and second-degree robbery, down from murder, by Miss Red Corn, and if he serves his full sentence, including time already served, he could be out by age 39.

On March 11, 2022, Xavier Hardin, 21, was allowed by Miss Red Corn to plead guilty to manslaughter, assault and wanton endangerment charges in the killing of Kenneth Bottoms Jr., 17, and charges of murder were dropped. The shooting was caught on security tape in Fayette Mall.

And here she goes again!

    Lexington man gets 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in a deadly shooting

    by Christopher leach | Friday, April 1, 2022 | 10:23 AM EDT

    The man who shot and killed a 44-year-old man in March 2020 was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday.

    Seantel Watson, via WKYT-TV.

    Seantel Watson, 34, was originally charged with murder for shooting and killing Larry Steven Rose Jr. but was convicted of a lesser charge. Watson turned himself in one week after the deadly shooting. The charge was amended down to manslaughter when Watson accepted a guilty plea deal on Feb. 14, nearly two years after the shooting. The shooting took place on Smith Street near Transylvania University on March 6, 2020.

    A call of shots fired came in shortly after 3 p.m. and Rose was pronounced dead just over 30 minutes later.

Prosecutors recommended he be sentenced to ten years, which Judge Thomas Travis accepted. The murderer manslaughterer received credit for the slightly more than two years he has already spent behind bars. Mr Watson, 34, if released after serving the state minimum of 85% of his sentence, could get out when he’s just 40 years old. His victim will still be dead.

I have to ask: at what point does the Commonwealth’s Attorney start prosecuting murderers for murder? At what point does Miss Red Corn stop treating killers leniently?

Oh, wait, I already know: Miss Red Corn will prosecute Bemjamin William Call to the full extent of the law, because he is accused of beating John Abner Tyler to death in a Lexington parking garage. The Herald-Leader ran four separate, sympathetic stories about the victim. Mr Abner was not another black male with a shady past, or a black dancer at a strip club, but a white man ‘married’ to another white man.

In Lexington, the sentence for killing someone depends on whom was killed.

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The Washington Post makes itself ridiculous Democracy dies in political correctness

Seventy-six years after D-Day, British author J K Rowling enraged the left with her tweet suggesting that the word for “people who menstruate” is woman! Heaven forfend! Miss Rowling dared, dared! to suggest that menstruation is limited solely to women, that men can’t menstruate.

Yeah, I know: that’s pretty much what anyone would have said in the 20th century, and before, but last century’s people were just so unenlightened! Miss Rowling has been criticized as a TERF: trans-exclusionary radical feminist:

    So, first, a primer: TERF is an acronym meaning “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.” While the term has become controversial over time, especially with its often hateful deployment on social media, it originally described a subgroup of feminists who believe that the interests of cisgender women (those who are born with vaginas) don’t necessarily intersect with those of transgender women (primarily those born with penises).

    To some feminists, that notion is obvious: the experience of having lived as male for any period of time matters. But some trans scholars and allies say that notion is in and of itself transphobic, since it means that trans women are somehow different from women, or that they’re not women at all.

And today we have the apparently very #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading Washington Post, kowtowing to modernism:

    Pregnant people at much higher risk of breakthrough covid, study shows

    By Amy Goldstein and Dan Keating | Thursday, March 31, 2022 | 6:00 AM EDT

    Pregnant people who are vaccinated against the coronavirus are nearly twice as likely to get covid-19 as those who are not pregnant, according to a new study that offers the broadest evidence to date of the odds of infections among vaccinated patients with different medical circumstances.

    The analysis, based on medical records of nearly 14 million U.S. patients since coronavirus immunization became available, found that pregnant people who are vaccinated have the greatest risk of developing covid among a dozen medical states, including being an organ transplant recipient and having cancer.

    The findings come on top of research showing that people who are pregnant or gave birth recently and became infected are especially prone to getting seriously ill from covid-19. And covid has been found to increase the risk of pregnancy complications, such as premature births.

There’s more at the original.

You know, I get it: the Post’s stylebook required “pregnant people” instead of “pregnant women,” because it might just hurt some people’s precious little feelings, but I have to ask: how can the article authors, or the editors of the Post, expect readers to take this article, and the information it contains, seriously, when it was so obviously written unseriously? How many potential readers saw the headline, rolled their eyes, and just skipped it for something more intellectual, like the comics?

When I opened the article, there were 720 comments, and through as many as I skimmed, the vast, vast majority were commenting on the silliness of referring to “pregnant people”. One commenter, styling himself rwessel51, said, “I jumped from the headline straight to the comments.”

The information in the article was serious:

    The analysis found that the 110,000 pregnant individuals included in the study were 90 percent more likely to have been infected with coronavirus than the same number of people who were not pregnant. The next-highest risk — 80 percent greater — was among organ transplant recipients. The elevated risk among those two groups was higher than among patients with compromised immune systems, who had 60 percent greater odds of coronavirus infection.

People Women who were fully vaccinated either before or during their pregnancies had significantly less protection from contracting COVID-19, and more likely to have become seriously ill with the disease, than women who were not pregnant. That’s serious, and serious information, and much of it was just wasted because the Post descended into the silliness of political correctness.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
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A public service homicide It shouldn't be any surprise the Philly has become like the Wild, Wild West, when the sheriff has apparently left town

The initial reports were that the store owner shot and killed a would-be robber in the City of Brotherly Love. After the initial, confused reports, things were clarified:

    Armed robbery suspect shot, killed by customer in North Philadelphia store, police say

    Fox 29 News | Wednesday, March 30, 2022 | 1:42 PM EDT | Updated 5:41 PM EDT

    Crime scene. Photo via Steve Keeley, Foxn29 News.

    PHILADELPHIA – Authorities say a suspected armed robber was shot and killed by a customer at a North Philadelphia corner store Wednesday afternoon.

    Officers from the Philadelphia Police Department were called to the 1400 block of Master Street around noon for reports of a shooting.

    A police source told FOX 29’s Jennifer Joyce that two young men wearing masks entered the store and approached a man in his 23-year-old man waiting for a food order. One of the robbers hit the man in the head with the gun and a struggle began.

    The robber handed the gun to his accomplice at which point law enforcement sources said the customer shot the armed robber twice in the abdomen. The customer is licensed to carry a firearm, according to police sources.

    The suspect was taken to Temple University Hospital by responding officers but later succumbed to his injuries. The second robber fled the store after the shooting and has not been captured.

    Law enforcement sources say the customer was released and is unlikely to be charged. The entire incident was captured on store surveillance that has already been turned over to investigators.

When I checked the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page on Thursday morning, I found the number of killings unchanged since the previous day, which means that the Department did not consider the killing of this thug to be a crime. Some of us might even consider it a public service.

I had figured that, being a day later, even The Philadelphia Inquirer ought to have something on this story, but, unless I completely missed it, there was no story on it on either the newspaper’s website main page or specific crime page.

The bodega in which the shooting occurred is on the corner of Master and 15th Streets, close to Temple University, and it isn’t a slum. Rather, 15th Street is lined with fairly new construction three-and-four-story residences, with the look of having been constructed to house Temple students.

We noted, just a couple of weeks ago, that applications for concealed carry permits in Philadelphia had surged, and the reasons are clear: the city is not protecting citizens from the gang-bangers and the criminal class, and the public increasingly feel the need to protect themselves. When the District Attorney, a George Soros stooge, won’t prosecute crimes, won’t put the bad guys behind bars, what real choice do Philadelphians have?