What’s interesting in the news today?
Open Thread, you decide.
Here’s a few I found interesting.
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Let’s start with a video, and some honesty for a change in the gun control debate.
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Here’s more from CNSNews
“CNSNews.com asked: From what was said today, it seems in fact that gun control hurts the African American community.
“It absolutely does, there’s no doubt about it,” Hutcherson said. “It began that way with history. You see why there was so much gun control earlier in life–in American life–because it controlled African Americans.
“Gun control is about controlling people,” he said. “We need to understand that those who need to be trained, who need to be armed is the African American community, and I don’t understand why any African American that is there in Congress right now would have the slightest thought about taking guns away from African Americans. We need them.””
While I agree with what the Rev. has to say, some have other variations of this theme that don’t sound as appealing. The idea of people being able to arm themselves for protection is fine. Taking gang members and training them to become military grade gang members isn’t as appealing. These are after all the type of people that folks are arming themselves to protect against.
From TheBlaze
“The Minister Louis Farrakhan, 79, delivered his annual Saviors’ Day sermon on Sunday. As is usually the case, the three-hour address covered a variety of topics ranging from current events to the faith leader’s contentious views on race relations. Of particular note was an economic plan he posited — one in which African Americans would come together to invest in land — and a pledge to reach out to gang leaders to ask them for assistance in protecting the Nation of Islam’s interests.”
“But the more intriguing portion of the speech focused upon gangs and efforts to seek leaders and members of these groups out for the sole purposes of protecting the Nation of Islam. Here’s how DNAInfo.com describes Farrakhan’s framing of the proposal:
Instead, Farrakhan had a different idea for how to address gun violence. In addition to sending letters to black military leaders, Farrakhan said he planned to contact the city’s gang leaders to recruit gang members to “protect” any land the Nation of Islam may buy in the future.
“All you gang bangers, we know you love to shoot, but you’re killing yourselves,” Farrakhan said.
Rather than killing one another, Farrakhan spoke directly to gang leaders, telling them, “We want to make you a defender of the territories that your nickels, dimes and dollars and hours will buy.” He continued, explaining that gang bangers have much to teach the National of Islam about self-defense, while simultaneously condemning them for needless violence.”
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The end of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act? That’s the one Holder and Obama use to justify their attempts to block Voter ID laws in the South.
From HotAir
“The Voting Rights Act gave the federal government greater powers to prevent racial discrimination. For the past 48 years, the Justice Department has routinely monitored elections and reviewed changes to any voting rules, ranging from poll locations and hours, to registration and identification requirements and the redrawing of legislative district lines.
The issue before the Supreme Court in next Wednesday’s oral arguments in “Shelby County v. Holder” is just one part of the Voting Rights Act – Section 5 – which requires 9 states and parts of 7 others to obtain Justice Department approval, known as “preclearance,” before changing voting laws or maps.
Some of the states covered in full by the Act, like Alabama, where the plaintiff’s case originated, contend that Section 5 is an outdated burden, because racial discrimination is “scattered and limited.””
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And yes Your Honor, we can force your wife to violate her religious beliefs, if you’ll let us.
From CNSNews
“While presenting an oral argument in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last fall, a lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department told a federal judge that the Obama administration believed it could force the judge’s own wife—a physician—to act against her religious faith in the conduct of her medical practice.
The assertion came in the case of Tyndale House Publishers v. Sebelius, a challenge to the Obama administration’s regulation requiring health-care plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.”
“In the face of this argument, Judge Walton asked an interesting question. His wife, a graduate of Georgetown Medical School, is a physician. She has incorporated her medical practice. Does that mean, according to the Obama administration’s argument, that the federal government can force her to act against her religious faith in the conduct of her medical practice?
Berwick effectively answered: Yes.”
No wonder the judge granted Tyndales request for an injunction.
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Wandering Views 
I absolute agree with Mr. Hutchinson. If every Law abiding citizen in this country, be they Caucasian or People of Color, there needs to be an effective firearm safety program. I have my friends who are Army Vets from Nam who are People of Color. They are well armed, well trained and decent law abiding citizens. I pity the “gang member” that enters their home or property uninvited.
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About the Voting Rights Act.
Virginia is one of the affected states. This is firsthand experience.
Last year, I was involved in a congressional campaign. One of my husnabd’s retired SF colleagues was running for congress in our congressional district. I was a volunteer for his campaign from Day 1. We had to get enough signatures to put him on the ballot. The problem was that, according to the rules, the one gathering signatures and the one signing had to be from the congressional district in question. Normally not a problem. But, because of the census, our district lines had been re-gerryymandered. There were 2 plans, and, well, the DOJ had until after the signature deadline to sign off on one of the plans. They signed it about a week before the deadline. Because of this, we limited ourselves to the overlap areas of both plans, which greatly diminished the pool of signatures we could gather, and signature gatherers, and we gathered twice as many signatures as we needed, because we knew some would be thrown out. If they had not signed until after the deadline, it would have pushed the republican Congressional primary in the stste of Virginia until Aug. That would have hindered fundraising and campaign efforts for all the Republican congressional tickets in most of the state. I’m very surprised DOJ didn’t drag their feet more on signing off.
Also, it made me wonder at the time if the presidential candidates who didn’t get their signatures in ran into that same problem.
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Section 5 was good and necessary….. 50 years ago. Now it’s outdated and unnecessary. But as Obama and Holder have shown, it can still be used to help stop real reform and common sense changes. Plus they benefit from it’s antiquated restrictions.
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With C. Hagel as SecDef and Monsuer Kerry as SecState, we’re in much trouble.
But that’s part of the plan.
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A few comments in regards to yesterdays comments;
ricky — I don’t think we necessarily disagree, we’re just talking about different aspects. For me economic factors are important and thus I tend to see the decline of affordable tuition. unions and economic mobility as major factors in the social decline of the American working class white or black. As a social conservative you tend to emphasis the moral causes. In fact, each aspect whether it be economic or social tend to correlate to poverty, the question tends to revolve around what is the best means to alleviate poverty. Since both economic and socail causes tend to reinforce each other a cycle needs to be broken. A look at international success in terms of high income mobility and social mobility indicates its more successful to concentrate on economic issues — the Scandinavian model suggests low or no tuition, strong unions, etc are a successful means to increase mobility and at the same time minimize or lower social problems.
Americans tend to look for moral solutions and causes; more so than Europeans at any rate. And in fact the American left (including many Democrats like Moniyhan) is as likely as the right to emphasis a moral position. Its a rather cumbersome starting point and tends to create emotional reactions to programs which should be judged in a more pragmatic tone. The simple fact is income mobility is far more prevalent in social democracies than in US/UK economies and social ills are far more prevalent in countries that follow the US/UK free market economic policies. Pragmatism dictates a longer look at the social democratic method.
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kbells — I don’t doubt sports can generate a profit at the college level but even there they are a break even enterprise as most profits (dervied mostly from football) are channeled into other sports or reinvested in the program. I highly doubt football team profits are used to fund a new philosophy chair.
Competitive sports don’t belong in the school system anymore than competitve dance, music etc. Phys. ed and intramurals on the other hand are essential to a school and academic achievement as is music and art classes. However, I pay for my daughter’s competitive soccer and ballet outside of school as do many other parents. Competitive sports in Canada (and elsewhere) takes place largely outside of the school system.
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HRW, I agree that we are focusing on different parts of the picture.
I would argue that no place has more social mobility (up and down) than Texas. There are few places on earth that are less socialist than Texas.
Scandanavians are very different than Americans. Culturally, they are homogeneous. They are less religious, independent and violent. If Charles Murray were to write The Scandanavian Bell Curve, there would be one bell curve. The US has at least five.
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HRW, I am interested in the Canadian education system. Are there 12 grades? Is there a college tract and a vocational tract? Is your per student spending less than or greater than the US?
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AJ — The average student cost a lot less than the average. Now that sounds wrong but it isn’t. A few special needs students will cost the system three four or even ten times most students and thus they drive up the mean cost of education but the median will be a lot less. The true cost of an average A/B student is less than 10,000. It may in fact be only 5,000. Most private schools in this area charge between 8 to 13,000 with the religious schools charging the lower end and the more British style prep the upper end. This is actually higher than the average student which in Ontario is 9,000.
At $9000, and given all the extra costs of special ed, liability, higher salaries, etc., this is a fairly efficient system. And in the case of Ontario, very good (third best in the world).
There really isn’t room for alot of criticism.
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Ricky — I’ll get back to you later — I need to be a free taxi service
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HRW, I remember those days. I am going to see a high school basketball game myself here in a few minutes.
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ricky — you referenced Murray — here’s my review of his latest book
So where to begin….I was well aware I would not like this book when I decided to read it but I was still surprised how annoying I would find it.
Murray correctly identifies a problem; the decline of the working class but everything after that identification is simply wrong.
He identifies the rise and benefits of the cognitive class occurring when post-secondary first became widely available in the 60s but then in a later discussion he dismisses a return to the 60s tax structure as a solution. However, its the 60s tax structure which enabled post secondary education to become widely available and if cognition or brain power is to be celebrated cheap post secondary education needs to be widely available.
His statistical picture of the upper class and working class suffers from the absence of the middle class. Furthermore his graphs commit grade seven errors of bias by deliberating choosing y values which will exaggerate the change and difference of information.
He waxes nostalgically for the virtues of the founding fathers; nevermind his only evidence is some travel literature written by Europeans. Its pretty easy to claim hard work or industry when slaves do it for you. Similarly, religiosity in America is probably higher now than in revolutionary America and definitely during the 1890s – 1920s.
Much of what he describes as a decline in virtues (honesty, marriage, religion, industry) more accurately correlates to the decline of the working class not the cause of decline. In fact the economic decline may have cause the decline in virtues ie he has it in reverse. In all of this he fails to seriously discuss the decline of manufacturing and its role or even mention the role of the war on drugs in increasing the incarceration rate.
His entire virtues argument suffers when compared to the success of the European welfare state which he admits has done a good job but he like all conservatives for the last 50 years predicts it will decline soon.
In the conclusion, he rambles somewhat philosophically about the nature and needs of society and individuals. He critizes the Euro welfare state for preventing self-actualization through work (seriously thats the best he could do). He presents different scenario but doesn’t’ say anything of relevance and to be truthful I was too annoyed to take the last 20 pages seriously.
You can check out the rest of my book reviews at
http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5889085?shelf=%23ALL%23
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Ricky — the Canadian education system is fragmented. Education is strictly a provincial responsibility with bizarre results ie high school students frequently have to take extra courses when changing provinces, post secondary credits rarely transfer and I can’t even teach outside of Ontario.
Ontario has four separate systems – public, Catholic, French public and French Catholic. the latter two are so small they often cooperate with each other or purchase services from the other two systems. The four different systems are an historical accident and they differ very little today. The Catholic schools can’t discriminate against non-Catholic so although confirmation and first communion are part of grade seven and eight, nothing prevents non-Catholics from enrolling which they frequently do.especially if its closer or has newer facilities. At the high school level, Catholic high schools have a mandatory world religion course but that’s the only difference. Most of my students once they graduate from grade eight enroll in the nearby Catholic high school because its closer. Thus, Muslims outnumber Catholics at this particular school — non-religious outnumber both. Given this, there’s been steady pressure to merge the different systems or to open it up to other religious groups. Elsewhere, the western provinces have one public school system with funding for independent religious schools who affiliate themselves with a public school board. Quebec and New Brunswick have dual language based systems while the other eastern provinces have only one system. Newfoundland used to have a parish based system of all denominations but thats been changed to one public system.
All are K-12 except Quebec which is K-11 and then has academic/vocational schools for two more years. Ontario used to have a grade 13 which was strictly for university streamed students but that ended. However, many students will take five years to finish the four year program, the fifth year now referred to as a victory lap. This allows them to bump up their average and take more university prep courses. High schools feature different streams but there are a few vocational schools in larger cities. My daughter’s school has a french immersion stream, academic, applied, basic and an international diploma programme. A relatively new innovation for my board is the disappearance of local catchment areas and open admission across the board. Each school features different specialties and tries to attract students board wide (you might call this internal competition) and draw students away from the Catholic system. My daughter’s school for example features concentrations or majors in construction, strings, and the arts. Other schools are self-paced, have sports academies or accommodate junior hockey schedules, or have concentrations in theater, technology, catering/restaurant, etc. I’ve been quite impressed as pf late by our high schools.
There are very few liberal arts colleges — colleges are strictly vocational whereas the universities are professional and academic. From my own experience in the US, I can’t see much difference except in Ontario there are no vouchers or charter schools. And at the post secondary level there is a strict separation between college and university.
When I brag our education system in number three, its based on the international rankings of Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia schools. Quebec is evaluated separately and the other system/provinces are much smaller.
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“I highly doubt football team profits are used to fund a new philosophy chair.”
But they are not costing the school as you originally said.
“Competitive sports don’t belong in the school system anymore than competitve dance, music etc.”
Why not? Competition is something the students will encounter in their adult life. When should they learn about it?
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kbells — competitive sports have nothing to do with education. And yes college football makes money but high school sports don’t and money could be better spent elsewhere.
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HRW, Thanks for the explanation. To support your final point, one of the high schools in a Dallas suburb has a $60,000,000 football stadium.
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hwesseli
Sports do belong in high school. Many students stay academically eligible just so they can play sports. Some wouldn’t graduate without that incentive.
The high school teams give many towns unity and cohesion. Have you ever traveled through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska or any other states? There are signs at the entrance of most towns telling which teams of which year won District or state championships. Watch “Hoosiers.”
My present town had a 2 time state champion wrestler, Heavyweight Roger McCovey.
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hwesseli, so far your argument against high school and college sports consist of a couple statements of your opinion, while we have come up with several good reason to keep them. Again why? The parents like them, the students benefit from them and the entire community gets something out of it.
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Personally I think it is a matter of blue state elitist not liking anything that people in Nebraska and Texas and Alabama like and are better at then they are.
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