Ripped From The Headlines?

There are days while I scroll through Twitter that I come upon a headline that seems to be ripped from a satirical source, such as The Onion or The Beaverton. Today was one such day.

RON DESANTIS’S NEW CIVICS INITIATIVE INVOLVES TEACHING KIDS SLAVERY IN AMERICA WASN’T THAT BAD

Sadly, the source for this headline is Vanity Fair, and is yet another potent reminder of the steady, seemingly inexorable, decline of the United States, where lies are truth and truth are lies.

Lest young people come to see their country in a less than favourable light (i.e., as the rest of the world sees them), the Florida governor is acting with resolve and dispatch, leaving teachers attending Florida Department of Education conferences this summer stunned.

Tatiana Ahlbum, a 12th-grade government and economics teacher at Fort Lauderdale High, said it was stressed that the majority of enslaved people in America had been born into slavery, that the colonies bought fewer enslaved people from the transatlantic slave trade than has been previously portrayed, and that less than 4% of enslaved people worldwide lived in America, without noting that that percentage still constituted millions of people. 

Meanwhile, another slide reportedly quoted George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as saying they wanted to get rid of slavery, while crucially leaving out the fact that both men enslaved people, with the latter owning more than 600 in his lifetime and also famously raping at least one of them. Ahlbum added that few of the facts presented included cited sources. “We were not told which documents stated this or how to find them, just that they existed,” she said.

And that church and state separation thingy? 

The founding fathers didn‘t actually mean that. Incredibly, several slides reportedly stated that this is a major “misconception.” During a breakout session, presenters reportedly mentioned, more than once, “the influence Jesus Christ and the Bible had on the country’s foundation.” Richard Judd, a Nova High School social studies teacher, told the Times, “There was this Christian nationalism philosophy that was just baked into everything that was there.” He added that “ending school prayer was compared to upholding segregation.”

But perhaps DeSantis's heart is in the right place, He just doesn't want people to feel bad about themselves. 

The news of these conferences, which are voluntary, comes months after DeSantis signed a bill banning public schools and private businesses from making white people feel bad during lessons or training about discrimination.

Florida has traditionally been seen as the place old people go to die. It would seem that description can now be aptly applied to young minds as well. 

 

UPDATED: Live And Let Live?

I generally abide by a pretty simple philosophy: don't bother other people. By that, I don't mean  we should not be involved in other people's lives in a positive way; I simply mean that we should not feel compelled to share opinions that serve no constructive purpose. For example, if you don't care for the fact that some may have an orientation different from your own, or a skin colour that is not white, just keep it to yourself. The world really is not thirsting for your views.

Today, of course, thanks to the ubiquity of corrosive social media, far too many see it as their mission to criticize and denounce others who don't meet their 'standards'. For reasons known only to themselves, they believe they are in possession of the key that unlocks the door labelled Truth. It amazes me, for example, of how many claim to know the mind of the deity and take it upon themselves, with Taliban-like ferocity, to try to dictate standards of behaviour. One look at the furor that has ensued from the repeal of Roe Vs. Wade amply illustrates that fact.

But perhaps I digress. What has prompted this post is an ugly incident that occurred recently aboard a bus in Hamilton. The perpetrator, a man named Chris, is pictured below.

Although no longer available, I watched the entire video in which Chris, an obviously unhinged, intolerant hatemonger, unleashed a barrage of his bile on two young HSR passengers, and later made a racist suggestion to a young man of South Asian descent.

In the video, Chris is sitting on an HSR bus headed toward Gage Park's Festival of Friends. He had also livestreamed at the festival for the past few days.

"I don't know what this goofball, weird, transformer looking fool is laughing at," Chris says, pointing toward a passenger seated in front of him.

"Does anyone love you?" responds the rider, seemingly in defence. 

Chris could be heard mocking the people he is filming, asks the rider what their pronouns are and insults the rider some more.

"You're deflecting because nobody gives a s**t about you," the rider responds to Chris in the video.

Chris tells the rider to "get off the bus and say that to me" before threatening to hit the rider and making more transphobic comments.

"If you're a man, I'll smack you out," he says in the video.

Chris then starts to insult another rider for the next minute or so of the video.

He then looks at a third rider, who is a person of colour, and makes a racist comment, suggesting the rider "go back to Pakistan."

As Chris begins to exit the bus, he accuses one of the first two riders of kicking him.

"Do it again, motherf****r," he says as he holds a clenched fist to the face of one of the riders.

"I'll kick your f***ing head off," he says while exiting the bus and starts walking into Gage Park, swearing some more.

The video is hard to watch, but what especially bothered me, in addition to the vituperation, was that no one else on the bus (an older woman, a young woman and the South Asian) did anything to stop this attack. While one does not expect heroics, the very least they could have done was to inform the driver and insist that Chris be put off the bus. If that failed, I would have taken his picture and called the police after telling him to stop.

I am by no stretch a hero, but intervening in a situation like this should be our default position as responsible citizens. Full stop.

UPDATE: I am happy to cite a CBC report about an arrest being made by Hamilton Police in the above incident.

On Wednesday afternoon, the police service said officers arrested 41-year-old Christopher Pretula, charging him with assault and utter threat.

The police service is also applying to lay a hate crime charge.

"We recognize the impact hate has in our community.... We continue to encourage people to come forward to report in order for police to investigate and charge accordingly," police spokesperson Jackie Penman told CBC Hamilton.

"Reporting is an important step in addressing and rooting out hate in Hamilton."

Despite Our Conceit, The Earth Does Not Need Saving

George Carlin probably said it best, but letter-writer Patrick Cowan makes the same point in the following:

The Earth does not need saving. And the human race is its least qualified saviour

Andrea Mandel-Campbell writes: “Opting out of the climate crisis clearly is not an option. We need to get ready for the next revolution in the fight to save the planet: protecting and restoring what is left of our natural world.”

Our planet has survived long periods during which its atmosphere and oceans lacked oxygen. It has endured ice ages and periods of extreme heat, neither of which human beings could have survived. A meteorite struck what is now the Yucatan Peninsula and exterminated most dinosaurs without knocking Earth off its stride.

Trust me: 1. Earth does not need saving. 2. If it did, human beings would be among its least qualified saviours. 3. Earth is not “our” planet. If anything, we belong to the Earth, which can and likely will dispose of us quite unceremoniously one day. 4. Human beings have to be among Earth’s most arrogant inhabitants and eco-warriors number among the most arrogant human beings.

Feline Ferocity

I don't approve of this at all! I only bring it to your attention for your collective disapproval 😁

The American Dream - A Trenchant Interpretation

I have likely posted this in the past, but a repeat viewing in these troubled times is surely warranted: George Carlin parsing the truth about the 'American Dream'. As always with Mr. Carlin, be aware that the following contains language that may be offensive to some.

UPDATED: One Thing About Moudakis

 He certainly doesn't play political favourites.

UPDATE: Graeme MacKay is no slouch either:

Warning Signs

 

I realize there are some who see the Liberal Party of Canada as our natural governing party, and hence are perhaps too forgiving when wrongdoing is detected. While I am certainly glad that it was Justin Trudeau who presided over the past two-year-plus of our pandemic (a Conservative administration during our crisis being unthinkable), I do not subscribe to the notion that one particular entity should be above criticism or accountability.

And there is much to criticize about the current incarnation of the Liberals who, the longer they are in power, steadily revert to their old ways. The SNC Lavalin scandal immediately comes to mind, plus the fact that they are far too close to the corporate sector. (On that note, for example I have little doubt that despite the problems at Rogers, their acquisition of Shaw will ultimately be approved.)

Heather Scoffield turns her attention to the matter of the Liberals and public trust, citing both the Rogers debacle and the accusations of political interference in the Nova Scotia mass shooting probe:

On Monday, in one corner, we had the contrite and apologetic corporate executives ready to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at a problem to make it go away.

In the other corner, we had a federal minister talking tough, assuring the public he had let that company have it, in no uncertain terms, and it had better shape up — or else.

Tough words, but why so much secrecy around discussions?

Government officials, the CRTC and the company alike have already shown a proclivity to discussing solutions in secret on this file. Talks between Champagne and the telcos’ CEOs were in private. Undertakings by Rogers were widely redacted. And there’s been little to assure the public or parliamentarians they’ll get a full public airing of all of the details in the future, let alone a government that wants to tangle with telcos.

The past may be an indicator of future performance. 

While the Liberals’ record on regulating the internet and its players hasn’t led to the fireworks of its dealings with SNC-Lavalin, it does have a history. Rogers had a large outage of its wireless services in April 2021, with little regulatory followup.  

Too big to touch? 

As for the government's apparently too-close relationship with the RCMP, which is supposed to be free from political interference, Scoffield has this to say: 

And just across the street, we had a minister and the head of the RCMP protesting hard that neither they nor their surrogates had overstepped.

 The subtext of the hearing on the Nova Scotia shooting was whether the Liberals put their thumb on the scale of the legal system in an attempt to bend the outcome in favour of their political agenda  [i.e, their firearms legislation].

That the Liberals are trust-challenged is the final point the writer makes: 

The common thread is their collective challenge of maintaining the trust of the public in their ability to keep a reasonable eye on things when there’s trouble, and ensure the public interest is respected in the midst of turmoil and competing interests.

Ultimately, it is up to a vigilant public to hold the Liberal Party to a higher standard than they are used to. In that, we must not fail.