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February 2, 2015

My Problem with Sarah Palin

By Selwyn Duke

With Sarah Palin once again hinting at a presidential run, pundits and politics wonks are all the more aflutter with 2016 talk. The predictable slings and arrows of the surly left are coming her way, while her excited fans are firing up the troops. Then there are those who say that while they like the ex-governor, they don’t believe she could win the presidency. My focus, however, is a bit different: I have an objection to Palin — one relating to something of which most are unaware.

Before getting to that, please indulge me as I ask a few questions that establish where we all stand. Are you adamantly pro-life, or might your position change if (as in polling) the question is framed as a woman’s “right to choose”? Do you stand foursquare against amnesty, or could you be persuaded to accept a “path to citizenship” for illegals? Do you uphold the proper and only definition of marriage, or have the unrelenting attacks on tradition worn you down to a point where you might conclude, “Well, none of this affects me, anyway”?

If you’re unwavering on all those issues, as I am, you’re a real Sarah Palin conservative.

Or are you?

You see, I’m pretty sure how Palin would answer those questions — and one answer is a real problem.

(more…)
February 2, 2015

California Common Core: Kids Graded on “Gratitude,” “Sensitivity to Others”

By Selwyn Duke

The United States may be producing only one-tenth as many scientists as does China, but if California is any guide, Americans may soon excel in at least one area: “sensitivity.”

That is, as defined by modern educational overlords.

It’s all part of the new standards of Common Core, the controversial education program pushed by Barack Obama and the Department of Education.

Read the rest here.
January 28, 2015

The Northeast Nanny-staters Who are and the Blizzard that Never Was

By Selwyn Duke

Call it the Blizzard of Oz. The “Snowstorm of the Century” Monday was supposed to be historic.

All we got was histrionics.

It turned out that the real blustery wind was hot air — and the worst accumulation was the knee-deep nanny-state politicians who think some snow warrants a travel ban.

In New York, the little man behind the curtain was Governor Andrew Cuomo, who, as usual, provided more bluster than any storm ever could.

I knew the blizzard would be a relative bust. How? Because they often are. Everything is over-hyped today, from the weather to entertainment to sports to hopey-changey politicians.

(more…)
January 28, 2015

Crazy on Campus: U.S. Colleges — Where Truth Is Always Stranger Than Fiction

By Selwyn Duke

“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them,” noted 1984 author George Orwell. Yet even he might be surprised at what passes for scholarship at today’s American colleges. And many parents certainly would be shocked to learn what their $35,000 to $120,000 — the current average public/private cost of four-years’ college tuition and fees — is buying.

A good example is a new course offering at Arizona State University concerning the “Problem of Whiteness.” While the class syllabus isn’t available online, Campus Reform’s Lauren Clark tells us, “According to the class description on ASU’s website, students will be reading The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, Critical Race Theory, Everyday Language of White Racism, Playing in the Dark, and The Alchemy of Race and Rights.”

Clark also appeared in a Friday segment of Fox and Friends, where she spoke to co-host Elizabeth Hasselback. As TalkingPointsMemo.com wrote of the exchange:

“All of these books have a disturbing trend and that's pointing to all white people as the root cause of social injustices for this country,” Clark said.

Hasselback then asked Clark whether ASU would dare offer a course called “The Problem With Blackness” or “The Problem With Being Female.”

“I don't think that would fly at the university,” Clark responded.… “Having a class that suggests an entire race is the problem is inappropriate, wrong, and quite frankly, counter productive.”

Read the rest here.
January 27, 2015

Charge: Police “Steal” $100,000-worth of Legal Guns and Ammo From Citizen

By Selwyn Duke

Imagine you get into a loud argument in your home with an adult son. Though it’s resolved peacefully, the police had been called.

They then confiscate your legal firearms and ammunition — valued at $100,000.

Even though you’ve been convicted of nothing.

Even though you weren’t even charged.

And here’s the kicker: The police say they’re going to keep your property.

Read the rest here.
January 27, 2015

N.Y. Times Practically Invented No-go-zone Story, but Fox Is Threatened With Suit

By Selwyn Duke

“Je ne suis pas Fox News!” seems to be the attitude of Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. She threatened to sue the station last week over its reporting on her city’s “no-go zones,” areas where non-Muslims are wary to tread but that Hidalgo claims don’t exist. Said she, “When we're insulted, then I think we'll have to sue; I think we'll have to go to court in order to have these words removed.” But if this is going to be her course, a lot of litigation lies before her. And first on her list could be the periodical that, we’re told, practically started the no-go-zone story: the ultra-liberal “newspaper of record,” the New York Times.

Critics may wryly note that, unlike the two Muslim terrorists committing the Jan. 7 massacre at her city’s Charlie Hebdo offices, Hidalgo’s remedy for speech she dislikes would be, at least, a purely legal attack. But unlike the assault on Charlie — a magazine that disgorges truly vile material — the mayor’s efforts amount to an attack on truth.

Read the rest here.
January 27, 2015

U.K. Christian School to be Shut Down After Gov’t Brands Students “Bigots”

By Selwyn Duke

The government officials allegedly asked 10-year-old students what lesbians “did.”

Another bureaucrat queried a young boy on what a Muslim was.

And, apparently, they didn’t get the answers they wanted.

Because one Christian school is now being actively monitored by the state — and another is going to be shut down.

The latter is the Durham Free School in Gilesgate, County Durham, United Kingdom, where government inspectors labeled the pupils “bigots,” branded the institution “an educational failure, and said some children displayed ‘discriminatory views’ toward people of other faiths,” reports the Daily Mail. The school’s known “trespass”?

Read the rest here.
January 26, 2015

State Persecuting 88-year-old Doctor Who Treats Poor From His Car

By Selwyn Duke

Doctors’ house calls are considered a thing of the past, but not in the appointment book of Dr. Carrol Frazier Landrum, an 88-year-old physician from Edwards, Mississippi. The good doctor will see you no matter who you are, where you are, or how much money you have — as long his 2007 Toyota Camry can deliver him to your location. But now his state’s medical board wants to see him gone.

Dr. Landrum, a WWII veteran, was forced to make a change after crime drove him from his Edwards, Mississippi, office two years ago, and he couldn’t find another space suited to his practice. "I had my car, and I realized I could do most everything out of it that I needed to be doing," said Landrum, according to the Clarion-Ledger. The paper continued, and “for many in [sic] the town of Edwards' 1,034 residents and others in the metro area, that car has become a lifeline — it's the makeshift office of the 88-year-old Dr. Landrum, who is the only practicing physician in the town.”

Read the rest here.
January 21, 2015

Shut-up, White Boy! Professors: White Men Should Speak Last

By Selwyn Duke

We look to a day when people will not be judged by the content of their character, but by the color of their skin.

And the configuration of their chromosomes.

This seems the hope of a panel of professors and activists at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, assembled to improve campus race relations and tackle matriculator misogyny. And relating to this they put forth an idea:

Women and blacks should be called on first in classroom discussions.

Read the rest here.
January 20, 2015

Punishing Success: Basketball Coach Suspended for Beating Opponents Too Badly

By Selwyn Duke

Athletic coaches have sometimes been fired for failing to forge winning teams. But now we hear about a high-school girls’ basketball coach who has been suspended for being victorious.

The victim of his own success is California resident Michael Anderson, now serving a two-game suspension because his team was too good. As CBS Los Angeles tells us:

Coach Michael Anderson, who coaches both the junior varsity and varsity squads of Arroyo Valley High School’s girls [sic] basketball, was handed the suspension after defeating Bloomington High School 161-2.

Anderson faced criticism over his decision not to take out his starters until the third quarter, and he was accused of running up the score.

This action is an outgrowth of the “self-esteem” movement, the idea that a thorough shellacking could bruise feelings and egos. And forget about frowning on scoring highly; there’s a growing trend today in children’s sports to not keep score at all lest some little snowflakes’ psyches should melt.

Read the rest here.