Category Archives: Media
Robert Lee Removed From University of Virginia
ESPN removed Robert Lee from the University of Virginia. Not the statue. Robert Lee the announcer. He’s the guy scheduled to do the play by play for Virginia’s opening game against William & Mary. In the hope of avoiding offense, ESPN removed him from the game.
Robert Lee and the Horse He rode in On
Meanwhile USC students want Traveler the Trojan Horse removed from Southern Cal games. Traveler was also the name of Robert E. Lee’s horse. That would be Robert Lee the general, not the announcer.
No Statue of Limitation in Identity Politics
Tear ’em all down.
Mark Lilla is a liberal history professor at Columbia. He blames identity politics for Democrats’ failure to win elections. The professor thinks the left focuses too much on what keeps us apart rather than on what brings us together. He says his conservative students make arguments based on ideas and principles. But his liberal students make their arguments based on identity.
Here’s a link to his latest book The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics. And here are a couple of reviews from The Guardian.
Alt Right Antifa Moral Equivalency
Democrats, the media, CEOs, Republican leaders, conservative pundits, and Mexican bandits hammered Trump for saying there were two sides to the Charlottesville brawl.
And if there were any “very fine people” in Charlottesville, as Trump said there were, they weren’t to be found among the alt right or antifa combatants. Maybe he meant very fine thugs.
Moral Equivalency
The moral equivalency thing is what really brought trouble for Trump. The idea that neo-Nazis and KKK types were the moral equals of the protesters they were fighting was too much.
Maybe, but the antifa types are pretty bad. Here’s Jonah Goldberg:
These goons and thugs oppose free speech, celebrate violence, despise dissent, and have little use for anything else in the American political tradition. But many liberals, particularly in the media, are victims of the same kind of confusion that vexed so much of American liberalism in the 20th century. Because antifa suddenly has the (alt-)right enemies, they must be the good guys. They’re not. And that’s why this debate is so toxically stupid. Fine, antifa isn’t as bad as the KKK. Who cares? Since when is being less bad than the Klan a major moral accomplishment?
So maybe it’s not moral equivalency. Just Extremely Ugly vs Very Ugly.
Google Engineer James Damore
There are certain things one doesn’t ask in polite elite society. Lucky for you you’re nowhere near there. You’re in Bokbluster, so I’ll ask:
Is it possible, on average, that girls don’t like math as much as boys? It’s possible, on average. Unless you’re Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard.
Is it possible, on average, that girls are less fond of computer engineering than boys? That’s a possibility too. Unless you’re another Harvard guy, former Google engineer James Damore.
Damore’s Downfall
Damore wrote a 10 page memo (screed to the politically correct among us) asking if it’s possible that women are underrepresented in engineering because of biology rather than bias.
Google management was having none of that. Here’s Google CEO Sundar Pichai:
To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.
Coming down firmly on the side of bias, he fired Damore.
Eavesdropping Trump Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull Phone Call
The Washington Post published a leaked transcript of President Trump’s phone call to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
Never Trumper David Frum in The Atlantic said, “Leaking the transcript of a presidential call to a foreign leader is unprecedented, shocking, and dangerous.”
The administration claims it’s going after leakers not journalists. Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein said, “Reporters who publish information are not committing a crime.”
But will Sessions pressure the press to give up its sources?
