The incorrectness of attractive women

Boxing promoter Dean Lonergan has reacted to concern about the presence of ring girls at Saturday night's fight between Jeff Horn and Michael Zerafa by replacing them with men.

A local councillor objected to the planned use of ring girls at the event in Bendigo, saying it was "not respectful of women."

Lonergan responded by saying the women had applied for and been given the job, but were now being prevented from working.

The promoter said he would be employing "fight progress managers" in the role instead.

Come fight night, various men stepped in to the ring to hold the round cards, with announcer Dan Hennessey discussing the change with the fans in Bendigo.

"In reference to rings girls, these roles will now be known as 'fight progress managers'," Hennessey said.

"Secondly, the women who applied and were selected to be fight progress managers will be replaced by men, notwithstanding, the three ladies have been paid."

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Why Did a Baltimore Command Officer Call off the Pursuit of a Suspect Who Shot at Cops?

Seldom does one see the folly of timidity demonstrated so quickly or with such clarity. Would that police managers across the nation heed the lesson provided this week in Baltimore.

Here’s what happened: At 1:16 a.m. Tuesday morning, a police officer was on a traffic stop in West Baltimore. Without apparent provocation, a man passing by in a silver SUV tried to run over the officer. The officer escaped injury and broadcast a description of the car, which another officer spotted about a mile away. When that officer made a traffic stop, the driver exited the SUV and began firing at the officer with a handgun. The officer was not hit and a car chase ensued, with the SUV leading police on city streets until reaching Interstate 295, at which time a police major ordered the pursuit terminated over “safety concerns.”

The officers involved in the pursuit, indeed officers everywhere, were flabbergasted. Here they had a suspect who had attempted to kill two police officers, and yet he was allowed to escape because some desk-bound major was afraid of what might happen if the chase had continued.

What those pursuing cops understood, what any cop should understand, but what that major clearly did not, was that the escaped suspect, if unidentified, would be free to roam the city until he perceived the next opportunity to kill some unsuspecting cop. And if the suspect was identified, officers would have to search for and arrest him, perhaps at a time and place that offered him advantages he did not have when the chase was imprudently called off.

And as fate would have it, it was less than 48 hours later that officers encountered the man once again, this time in East Baltimore, chasing him through the streets before shooting and killing him. A police officer was shot in the leg and a woman was injured, either by a bullet or shrapnel. Officers recovered the suspect’s gun at the scene.

All in all, a satisfactory outcome under the circumstances, with the suspect dead and non-life-threatening injuries to a police officer and a passerby.  But it might have turned out far worse, and if it had, that cowardly major would have borne some share of responsibility. I don’t know anything about this major, but I’m confident I know his type, for I have seen the likes of him slithering into positions of responsibility over the course of my police career.

I have written on this subject before, but this incident in Baltimore prompts a revisit.  To outsiders, all cops might seem more or less interchangeable. But cops themselves know they can be assorted into three categories: Real Cops, Slugs, and Climbers. Real Cops are those who can be called upon to handle the most dangerous and complicated aspects of police work. Slugs are those who show up to work and do the bare minimum required to earn their biweekly paycheck. And Climbers are those whose eyes are on the next rank, doing whatever it takes to pass the tests and move up the chain of command. To achieve this they must share some traits with both the Real Cops and the Slugs. They must do enough police work to claim some shred of credibility before the promotional boards, but they must be cautious enough to avoid the kind of controversial incidents that stall advancement and doom cops to a career in patrol, which to a Climber is a fate worse than death.

And what a Climber fears most is being held responsible when something bad happens. That’s how you get people like that Baltimore P.D. major calling off a pursuit down a freeway at one in the morning. Yes, the suspect had tried to kill two cops, and yes, there was little traffic at that hour of the night, but if the suspect had crashed and injured some innocent motorist or pedestrian, the decision to continue the pursuit would have been questioned. What is never questioned is what might happen after the pursuit is called off. From that major’s perspective, if the suspect goes on to injure or kill a cop or someone else, well, those are the breaks, but at least he can’t be blamed for it.

It is this attitude, the one that assumes anytime a cop is involved in a shooting or use of force he must have somehow erred, that has permeated the upper ranks of many police departments, apparently to include Baltimore’s. It is the same attitude that engenders incidents in which police officers are doused with water, resulting in humiliation for the dousees but no repercussions for the dousers.

And now, in a matter of just a few short weeks, we’ve gone from water to bullets, and a major in the Baltimore Police Department thinks it’s too risky – on a freeway at one in the morning – to pursue the man who had just tried to kill two of his officers.

Baltimore has recorded 227 homicides so far this year, a rate of almost one per day. It will never improve as long as the city’s cops are hamstrung by timid managers as they were Tuesday morning.

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Kirsten Gillibrand’s Exit Proves Abortion Isn’t Enough to Win 2020

Kirsten Gillibrand was applauded by many in the media as the Democratic presidential candidate focused on “women’s rights,” or, more specifically, abortion. But, in the end, that wasn’t enough to win Democratic voters – never mind general-election voters.

On August 28, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand ended her presidential bid after failing to qualify for the next Democratic presidential candidate debate, scheduled for September 12.

“I wanted you to hear from me first, that after more than eight incredible months, I am ending my presidential campaign,” she announced to her supporters in a video posted on social media.

While the other Democratic candidates pinpointed abortion as a major 2020 issue, Gillibrand made it her campaign’s foundation.

The senator “entered the race pitching herself as the voice of feminism and the defender of families and women’s equality,” New York Times’ political reporter Shane Goldmacher recognized on August 29. That’s because Gillibrand “championed a new ‘Family Bill of Rights,’ pioneered a new litmus test to select only judges who supported Roe v. Wade and traveled to Republican-controlled states to protest new restrictions on abortion.”

And yet, Goldmacher added, “of the six female candidates, she was the first to call it quits.”

On Gillibrand’s campaign website, her first priority listed is “fighting for women and families.” And the first way she planned to do that was by stressing, “We need to protect women’s rights and access to the health care they need.” In other words, abortion.

According to her site, Gillibrand argued that “Reproductive rights are civil rights” while expressing support for Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

“Kirsten has pledged to only nominate judges who will commit to upholding Roe, and she was the first candidate to put out a comprehensive reproductive rights agenda,” the site continued.

If elected president, Gillibrand promised not only to “codify Roe into law,” but also to end the Hyde Amendment, which generally bars federal funding for abortion. She also vowed to “protect Title X funding and Planned Parenthood.” This was a new fight: the nation’s largest abortion provider refused millions in Title X federal family-planning funding in August after new regulations prohibited the funding from going toward organizations connected to abortion.

Last, but not least, her site reads, Gillibrand would “guarantee access to reproductive health care?—?including abortion?—nationwide.”

In her fight, Gillibrand saw the pro-life movement as the enemy. In early June, she made headlines after going so far as to liken abortion opposition to racism.

At the same time, Gillibrand assumed all women were with her, at least in her language. Later that month, she won applause from many in the media after her performance in the first round of debates where she made lengthy comments about abortion – comments “to America's women and to the men who love them.”

“Women's reproductive rights are under assault by President Trump and the Republican Party,” she began on June 27, before criticizing states for trying to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Gillibrand also identified herself as the “fiercest advocate for women's reproductive freedom for over a decade,” even though, she later admitted, other women were energized. In other words, all American women “are on fire.”

“Our rights are under attack like never before by President Trump and the Republicans who want to repeal Roe v. Wade, which is why I went to the front lines in Georgia,” she continued.

And that she had.

In May, Gillibrand visited Georgia to protest the state’s new abortion restrictions, and repeated her promise to nominate Supreme Court justices who backed Roe v. Wade. For her efforts, media recognized her as the “first 2020 White House hopeful to say she’d nominate only Supreme Court justices who consider the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion settled law.” Three months later, on August 18, she traveled to St. Louis to criticize to Missouri’s new abortion ban too.

She also proved herself an ally to Planned Parenthood. When Planned Parenthood refused millions in Title X funding rather than stop performing or referring abortions, Gillibrand accused the Trump administration of “trying to hold health care providers hostage.”

Of the Democratic candidates, Gillibrand has by far received the most money from Planned Parenthood while serving as a federal candidate. According to Center for Responsive Politics data, the senator has gotten more than $50,000 from Planned Parenthood since 2006.

She had support – just not enough.

The reason “why her candidacy never picked up steam was always a little bit of a mystery,” according to FiveThirtyEight writer Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux.

Thomson-DeVeaux suggested that Gillibrand “was running against a number of other women who are also strong on issues like abortion rights and equal pay” and “Without another signature issue to help her stand out, she often got lost in the melee of the primary.”

Supporting unrestricted abortion, in other words, isn’t enough for Democratic voters. And it’s certainly not enough for American voters in general, the majority of whom want restrictions on abortion.

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TV Stations Across America To Bring Back National Anthem

It’s about time this tradition came back. Patriotism wasn’t controversial yesteryear. American was good. Communism was bad. The Bible was true. People worked hard. Marriages stayed together. Kids got spanked. Life was good.

And it’s not like life is bad now. By every conceivable measure, we are materially better off (even if our souls appear to be withering at an alarming rate).

Air conditioning is pretty much everywhere (except in crazy New England). TVs are either 70 inches wide or fit on our refrigerator doors. We have satellite uplinks to every piece of knowledge humanity has formalized since, oh, Alexandria — and the uplinks fit in our pockets.

Hearts can be transplanted. Cars are safer and more comfortable (though decidedly less cool).

But material prosperity does very little for the soul.

And, it turns out, it does very little for loyalty to one’s country as well. Just look at developed countries — it seems that as wealth increases, loyalty to one’s country decreases.

Patriotism has been — and continues — dropping, the New York Post reported in July.

Nexstar Media Group, however, wants to reverse that, at least in part.

The 171 Nexstar TV stations across the country are going to bring the national anthem back to the public airwaves — a place the anthem has been missing from for far too long.

When television first began to spread across the country, stations regularly closed the broadcast day by airing test patterns and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

As 24-hour programming grew in popularity, the opportunity to close out the broadcast day shrunk, and eventually the idea of the national anthem being played on TV “just because” was lost entirely.

I had to explain this to my own children not very long ago.

I’m not sure which baffled them more — a seemingly random playing of a song at the same time every day or the idea that things didn’t air on TV 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (By the end of our conversation, they knew that the song and the playing of it was not random.)

Beginning on Sept. 2, Nexstar stations will begin playing the anthem again, but this time at the beginning of the day.

Nexstar has also added a brilliant twist to the revived tradition. Each morning, a unique version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” will play, performed by up-and-coming musicians, according to KSN News in Oklahoma.

“Nexstar’s core mission is to provide exceptional service to the local communities where we operate across America through our organization-wide commitment to localism, unbiased local broadcast journalism and telling the local stories that matter to our viewers and their families,” Tim Busch, president of Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc., said in a news release, according to The Hill.

“Nexstar’s local teams take great pride in their ability to bring the local communities they serve together and that is why we are excited to partner with BMI and Belmont University to broadcast this new daily series featuring the Star-Spangled Banner that will air 365 days of each year,” Busch said.

“This unique collaboration supports higher education in business for the music and entertainment industry, while providing aspiring professional artists and songwriters a national distribution platform to showcase their respective talents.”

The collaboration between the network and musicians will not only bring back a patriotic tradition, but it will also provide a chance for aspiring artists to get national exposure.

As globalism and attacks on America’s history and founding (like The New York Times’ “1619 Project”) increase, patriotism will decrease even faster than it has been.

One remedy for that, however, is to bring patriotism back to the forefront of the entertainment industry. Showing pride in this country and our traditions will help reinvigorate that lost patriotic spirit.

Returning the national anthem to TV daily can help make that happen.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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