To kill a classic: school ditches Harper Lee
The United States is grappling with the legacy of one its greatest books over fears its handling of race may make teachers and pupils uncomfortable.
School authorities have pulled To Kill a Mockingbird from a required reading list for children aged 14 to 15 because it was a “difficult book” that raised “thorny subjects”. Harper Lee’s classic 1960 novel about a white lawyer defending a black man wrongly accused of rape in Alabama in the 1930s has long been a staple in schools, as well as the subject of deep controversy. It frequently appears on lists for both America’s greatest novels and its most banned.
A school board in Mukilteo, near Seattle, removed the book from its ninth grade curriculum, claiming it “reflects a time when racism was tolerated”.
The book’s use of a racial slur was also cited as a reason to remove it, while Atticus Finch, the lead character depicted as a hero in the 1962 film starring Gregory Peck, has been accused of not taking a harsh enough stance against racists.
John Gahagan, a school board member, said he read the novel last week for the first time in 50 years. “It’s a difficult book and a lot of thorny subjects are raised,” he told The Seattle Times.
“We felt that some teachers may not feel comfortable guiding their students through it.”
He said the novel “reflects a time when racism was tolerated”, adding: “Atticus is in everyone’s memory the great hero, but in fact he was kind of tolerant of racism around him. He described one of the members of a lynch mob as a good man.”
Gahagan, who emphasised To Kill a Mockingbird was not being banned and teachers were free to choose to teach it, also objected to Lee’s use of the n-word. “It never has a discussion about why that word is bad, why it is hurtful or why it should not be used,” Gahagan said. “You don’t really get the perspective of the pain that might cause people of colour.”
Despite the controversy surrounding To Kill a Mockingbird, it remains immensely respected and loved. Last month it won a New York Times poll of the greatest books of the past 125 years, with readers saying it had changed their lives and transformed how they viewed race.
Lee, who was white, died in 2016 at the age of 89. Her estate has been contacted for comment.
*******************************************
America's monetary authorities are doing nothing to stop the destruction of America's savings
Australia's top financial commentator, TERRY MCCRANN notes the inaction on inflation by the Fed
The only actual policy decision the Fed made at its first meeting back for the year was to print yet another $US30bn of money through February.
So for all the talk of the Fed ‘turning hawkish’ in the face of high single-digit US inflation that it could no longer ‘not see’, it’s actually continuing in near-hyper pump-priming mode for at least another month.
It’s not only still printing money, it’s kept its official interest rate at zero (technically, 0-0.25 per cent), saying only that it expects it will “soon” be appropriate to raise it.
In his press conference, Fed chairman Jerome Powell made it explicit that “soon” was the next meeting.
“I would say that the committee is of a mind to raise the Federal Funds rate at the March meeting,” Powell said.
Let me point out that is all of a month-and-a-half away. Unlike our Reserve Bank which meets monthly – next Tuesday, and then again on March 3 - the Fed won’t meet again and (possibly/probably) hike until March 16.
Gee, talk about hastening slowly; the Fed would not only be outdistanced but twice-lapped by a sluggish clapped-out snail.
The Fed is quite simply a disgrace.
It’s hard to know which is the more pathetic – that pitiable spineless individual who’s its purported ‘leader’ or the nine vegetables sitting around the board table nodding compliantly like funfair dummies.
Talk about so unknowingly announcing your own ineptitude, I doubt that I’ve seen a more revealing admission than the key sentence in the Fed statement.
“With inflation well above 2 percent and a strong labor market, the Committee expects it will soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate.”
Inflation well above 2 per cent, and yet it would only be “appropriate” to raise, from zero let me remind you, “soon”? Not now, immediately; far less two, or indeed six months ago?
Inflation in the US has actually been over 5 per cent – the Fed is supposed to keep it no higher than 2 per cent - since the middle of last year and is now at 7 percent.
So this was like noting that Hitler had marched into Poland – or Putin into Ukraine – and that so “soon” it might be “appropriate” to start spending a few more dollars on defence.
The Fed has spent that last year variously ‘not seeing’ inflation in the US or dismissing it as ‘transitory’.
Now at least it “sees” the inflation, but is desperately trying to go softly-softly in fear of Wall St throwing a tantrum – when it should be precisely targeting a huge drop in the share market and significant rises in interest rates across the yield curve.
This is because asset values – the most obvious ones of shares and property, but also bonds, both government and corporate – are grotesquely over-inflated and all down to those zero rates and trillions of dollars of Fed-printed money.
I’ve loosely suggested the Dow needs to go back below 20,000 as an indicator of what’s needed to get back to economic and financial sanity, with our index going back (at least) below 5000.
That’s why I’m not particularly impressed by the claims of Wall St “adjusting” to Powell’s – fake and spinelessly pathetic – supposed “hawkishness”.
The Dow has come back all of 9 per cent from its early-January ludicrous record high, but it’s still around 34,000; although tech stocks have taken a (very slightly) bigger hit, with the Nasdaq off 15 per cent.
The Fed should have ‘surprised’ the greediest people on the planet by – so very belatedly - hiking 0.5 per cent. It really should have been 1 per cent but I would have taken 0.5 per cent.
**********************************************
Pennsylvania Court Rules Mail-in Ballots Unconstitutional
The Commonwealth Court ruled that Act 77, which allowed residents no-excuse absentee vote by mail in Pennsylvania, violates Article VII, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania constitution.
Commonwealth Court President Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt wrote, “If presented to the people, a constitutional amendment to end Article VII, Section 1 requirement of in-person voting is likely to be adopted. But a constitutional amendment must be presented to the people and adopted into our fundamental law before legislation allowing no-excuse mail-in voting can be ‘placed upon our statute books.'”
The ruling states, “Act 77, inter alia, created the opportunity for all Pennsylvania electors to vote by mail without having to demonstrate a valid reason for absence from their polling place on Election Day, i.e., a reason provided in the Pennsylvania Constitution.”
“The central question presented in this matter is whether Act 77 conforms to Article VII of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which article governs elections,” the ruling continues. “In resolving this question, we recognize that ‘acts passed by the General Assembly are strongly presumed to be constitutional’ and that we will not declare a statute unconstitutional ‘unless it clearly, palpably, and plainly violates the Constitution. If there is any doubt that a challenger has failed to reach this high burden, then that doubt must be resolved in favor of finding the statute constitutional.’”
The Pennsylvania Department of State said in a statement to Forbes it “disagrees with today’s ruling and is working to file an immediate appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.”
Pennsylvania’s Act 77 that greenlit no-excuse, mass mail-in voting in 2019 was actually a compromise forged between legislative Republicans and Democratic Governor Tom Wolf. Republicans voted for it 27-0 in the Senate, and 105-2 in the House. Democrats did not support it in the Senate and split their votes against it in the lower chamber.
Mass mail-in ballots should absolutely be banned across the country. It leaves so many doors open for doubt and cheating, just as we saw in the 2020 election chaos.
https://dailypatriotreport.com/pennsylvania-court-rules-mail-in-ballots-unconstitutional/
**********************************************Liberties Are Only Kept Safe by the Limitation of Government Power
An old fight continues
I was recently struck by the explosion of the federal government’s size and reach, as well as its apparent ambition to super-size itself even more, in an unusual way.
I had been looking up something in one of my old public finance textbooks, when I came across a section on the size and growth of government. What struck me was that the authors used exclamation points (an almost extinct species in such writing) over two decades ago to describe government’s expansion, particularly at the federal level. But the rate at which government has recently metastasized leaves those exclamation points in the dust. We would also have to use all caps today (as in “YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE WON”). From said book: total expenditures by all levels of government in 1990 were substantially smaller than just one of the recent stimulus bills.
That explosion of the federal government’s grasp, and the extent to which its attempted reach exceeds its grasp, has made limits on federal power once again among the most central political issues. Unfortunately, ignorance of our Founding severely impoverishes that discussion.
A good example comes from Richard Henry Lee, born January 20, 1732. Lee put forth the motion calling for the colonies’ independence. He was a leader in the Continental Congresses. He was elected Senator from Virginia, even though he opposed the Constitution’s ratification for lacking “a better bill of rights.”
But particularly important to America’s creation were Lee’s essays under the pseudonym, The Federal Farmer. His Letters from the Federal Farmer, which were both widely published in newspapers and sold thousands of copies as a pamphlet, provided impetus to the Bill of Rights, and his words deserve remembering:
We must have our rights maintained
A free and enlightened people...will not resign all their rights to those who govern...they will fix limits to their legislators and rulers...[who] will know they cannot be passed.
[Hope] cannot justify the impropriety of giving powers, the exercise of which prudent men will not attempt, and imprudent men will...exercise only in a manner destructive of free government.
National laws ought to yield to inalienable or fundamental rights—and ...should extend only to a few national objects.
It must never be forgotten...that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power.
Our rights must be equal
I can consent to no government, which...is not calculated equally to preserve the rights of all orders of men.
We ought not...commit the many to the mercy, prudence, and moderation of the few.
In free governments, the people...follow their own private pursuits, and enjoy the fruits of their labor with very small deductions for the public use.
The people have a right to hold and enjoy their property according to known standing laws, and which cannot be taken from them without their consent.
Every government is a threat to our rights
We cannot form a general government in which all power can be safely lodged.
“Should the general government...[employ] a system of influence, the government will take every occasion to multiply laws...props for its own support.
Vast powers of laying and collecting internal taxes in a government ...would be...abused by imprudent and designing men.
Men who govern will...construe laws and constitutions most favorably for increasing their own powers.
Our countrymen are entitled... to a government of laws and not of men... if the constitution...be vague and unguarded, then we depend wholly on the prudence, wisdom and moderation of those who manage the affairs of government...uncertain and precarious.
Liberty, in its genuine sense, is security to enjoy the effects of our honest industry and labors, in a free and mild government.
How can we protect ourselves from government abuse?
All wise and prudent people...have drawn the line, and carefully described the powers parted with and the powers reserved...what rights are established as fundamental, and must not be infringed upon.
The powers delegated to the government must be precisely defined... that, by no reasonable construction, they can be made to invade the rights and prerogatives intended to be left in the people.
We must consider this constitution, when adopted, as the supreme act of the people...we and our posterity must strictly adhere to the letter and spirit of it, and in no instance depart from them.
Why...unnecessarily leave a door open to improper regulations?
The first maxim of a man who loves liberty should be never to grant to rulers an atom of power that is not most clearly and indispensably necessary for the safety and well-being of society.
Our true object is...to render force as little necessary as possible.
Historian Forrest McDonald described Richard Henry Lee as committed to the belief that “men are born with certain rights, whether they are honored in a particular society or not,” and the result was that he was “imbued with an abiding love of liberty and a concomitant wholesome distrust of government.” And he made that plain to anyone who was willing to hear, as when he said “To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying.”
His generation had learned of the need to keep government within narrow limits, as there are very few areas in which it can advance our general welfare, as opposed to some Americans’ welfare at other Americans’ expense. At a time when those limits have been eroded to the point that people can wonder if there are any surviving limits in many areas, we could benefit by relearning the wisdom Lee helped pass on nearly three centuries ago.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13965&omhide=true&trk=rm
***************************************************Conservative Activist Brandon Straka Sentenced to Home Detention and $5,000 Fine
A conservative activist has been sentenced to three months of home detention and a $5,000 fine.
Brandon Straka, 45, of Nebraska, was sentenced on Monday for his participation in the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol building.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich accused Straka of abusing his online platform to encourage people to attack on Jan. 6 and defend the events that unfolded on that day.
“Election challenges are fought in the courts, not by storming the Capitol,” Friedrich said, calling Straka’s use of social media “deeply disturbing.”
Straka, a Democrat-turned-Republican, pleaded guilty in October to a disorderly conduct charge, a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of six months imprisonment.
Straka founded the “WalkAway” movement, which encourages disenchanted Democrats and liberals to move right. The former hair stylist in 2018 posted a video titled “Why I left the Democrat Party,” which went viral.
He told the judge he and his social media followers don’t condone violence. Straka said his relationship with his fans and followers isn’t just about politics, “it’s about love.”
“It’s not who they are, and it’s not who I am, which is why they love our movement,” he said.
Straka didn’t enter the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and wasn’t accused of doing so. According to court documents, he was accused of encouraging protesters to take a police officer’s shield.
Straka in a statement said he joined in chants after he “observed others yelling to take a U.S. Capitol Police Officer’s shield,” and told the judge he was “deeply sorry and ashamed,” the Huffington Post reported.
“Even if he didn’t personally engage in violence or property destruction during the riot, Straka encouraged and celebrated the violence of that day,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brittany Reed wrote in a court filing.
WUSA-9 reported that the judge was skeptical about the defendant’s statements.
“He wants me to believe he was there completely oblivious to what was going on around him, that he was just a peaceful protester, and it’s very hard to believe that based on his conduct and his statements,” Friedrich was quoted as saying by the news outlet.
Straka’s attorney, Bilal Essayli, accused prosecutors of attacking Straka’s First Amendment rights and “attempting to make a public example of a prominent Trump-supporting influencer.”
However, Friedrich said Straka wasn’t being punished for his political views or personal beliefs.
“None of the criminal conduct to which Mr. Straka has admitted is covered by the First Amendment,” the judge said.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Straka and Essayli for comment.
****************************************
My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
*****************************************
/>
Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
No comments:
Post a Comment