Daylight Shifting Time

As I write this, it's approximately 11 p.m., except it's really 10 p.m., but we say it's 11 p.m., because in the summer the daylight lasts until 7 p.m. but people want there to be daylight until 8 p.m..

For Three Hours, I Was Terribly, Terribly Wrong

 "-- You probably won't see conservatives burning down government buildings, looting pharmacies, and assaulting police officers."

...okay, so here is my response. Obviously, most of the things I listed in November as to what you probably won't see conservatives do after a Biden victory did not take place on January 6, but one, assaulting police officers, certainly did happen, amid the contemptible rioting at the U.S. Capitol Building.

One could argue that these weren't true conservatives, but that's a little too close to the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. One could also contend that the people invading the Capitol Building were not merely acting like Antifa, but actually were Antifa. I'm willing to believe that some of them were, but also willing to believe that most of them were actual Trump supporters.

Is Trump responsible for what happened? As I've written before, much of what he says and tweets is reckless. However, the fact that he told his supporters that they should "peacefully and patriotically" make their voices heard. The media who keep airing clips of his use of the word "fight" -- a word used in a non-physical context by maybe every human being ever involved in politics -- but not airing those key words are part of the problem.  

Last year, Michelle Obama et al were quick to regurgitate the statistic that "93%" of the protesting for BLM was peaceful. 

(A few words about this. The March for Life to end the legalization of abortion takes place every January, and in non-pandemic years brings several tens of thousands of activists to march on Pennsylvania Avenue. Let's say there's a lean year, and "only" 10,000 people attend, and exactly 93% of them keep it peaceful, meaning 700 of the pro-lifers are smashing windows, throwing Molotov cocktails, burning down buildings, and physically attacking police officers and other people. Raise your hand if you think the media would focus on the 9,300 of the activists who were peaceful, rather than the 700 who were not...)

Anyway, if "only" 7% of BLM protesters riot, then maybe people should ask themselves if around 7,500,000 people who voted Republican in the fall election should be held accountable for the actions of a couple of thousand.

Finally, if you were one of the people who watched rioting took place not for three hours but rather for a few months, not in one city, but in 140 cities, and not five but rather 35 people were killed, and you either looked the other way, made excuses, or said that it should continue, then I don't want to hear a word from you right now. Those of us who criticized that rioting are qualified to criticize this rioting. The rest of you can sit down. 

If Joe Biden Wins, Here's What You Won't See

If Joe Biden's campaign survives any challenges made regarding his lead in the electoral college, and he is named the 46th president of the United States, what you don't see afterwards is as important as what you do see. For example:

-- You probably won't see conservatives burning down government buildings, looting pharmacies, and assaulting police officers. Conservative protests usually take the form of people praying while on their knees, or Tea Party activists wearing their polo shirts and khaki shorts, holding the American flag, and then leaving the park -- which they inhabited with a permit -- in better condition than when they found it.

-- You probably won't notice conservatives demanding time off from work or school so they can sit home and sulk for three days/two weeks/four years. They'll be disappointed for a few days, perhaps criticize Democrats, mail-in balloting, and the not-even-trying-to-hide-it-anymore media, look forward to 2022, and then get on with their lives.

-- You probably won't see Tiktok videos of conservatives making tearful, mostly incoherent rants while in their cars.

-- Most likely, you won't see anti-Biden protesters make the trip to the inauguration, sit on the ground, make sure that the camera is running, and then do this.

In a way, it would be satisfying if some conservatives would behave like this, just to see whether progressives recognize the way they've been acting for four (or twenty) years.

The Left's Obviously Coordinated Message on Twitter: They Have No Lives

I'm a Twitter lurker, in that I don't currently have an account, but I can read threads when other sites link to them. Apparently, numerous left-wingers are posting this, today, even while some batches of votes are being "discovered" (and other batches of ballots discovered in the trash):

"I love seeing TRUMP lose, it's my daily medicine, my weekly energy, my monthly inspiration and my yearly motivation. His loss is the only reason i'm still alive, i was born to love and enjoy the failure that he has achieved."

This has two examples of comma splices. A sentence can have only one main clause, but each of these sentences has two. If someone were to express such a pathetic expression of one's life that seeing a political candidate lose is his or her sole reason for existing as a living person, then (s)he should be using a semicolon rather than a comma after the word "lose" and again after the word "alive," or, if one prefers the comma, then a conjunction can be used immediately afterwards.

More importantly, however, just imagine your life being this devoid of meaning that this would be something you would actually proclaim. Add to that the inability of expressing such a trite thought without the help of copy and paste.

Member of an "Idea" Arrested for Assaulting Trump Supporter in S.F.

Good news: there has been an arrest after the incident over the weekend, when someone from a horde of Antifa/BLM protesters brutally attacked Philip Anderson, an African-American man who was protecting a fellow demonstrator. Philip Anderson and others had gathered in San Francisco to protest the actions taken by Facebook and Twitter to suppress the emerging story about Hunter Biden's laptop. Anderson's colleague was being attacked, as was Anderson when he tried to shield his colleague from danger. A masked coward/fascist (who probably fancies himself an "anti-fascist") struck Anderson in the face, and the latter lost one or two teeth. Wow, nothing says that you believe that black lives matter quite like punching a Black man and calling him the N-word...

According to The Hill, "Adora Anderson, 35, was arrested on Sunday and booked on charges of mayhem and hate crime enhancement, according to a police statement."

Savannah Guthrie will probably respond to this by asking President Trump, for the eighteenth time, whether he condemns white supremacists, even though white supremacists, as awful as they are, are not the group committing assault, vandalism, murder, and destruction in our nation's cities. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has assured us that Antifa is not an organization but rather just "an idea." An idea that burns down police stations, apparently.

Attacks on A.C.B. Emanate from the Left -- and Have Nothing to Do with "Laundry"

Since being nominated, and in spite of impressive credentials and poise, Amy Coney Barrett has been attacked for her experience as Justice Scalia's clerk, her religion, having five children by birth, and adopting two children from Haiti.

However, some appear to be upset most by Sen. John Kennedy (R - La.). Taking a break from more serious inquiries, Kennedy -- who'll almost certainly vote to confirm -- asked Barrett who does the laundry in her house. Barrett laughed, but some had a "visceral reaction" to what they deemed a sexist question.

Clearly, he asked this due to Barrett's (comparatively) large family, not her gender. (Doesn't this question imply that Kennedy doesn't assume who does the laundry?) There is precedent for lighthearted questions during confirmation hearings -- for example, when Sen. Amy Klobuchar asked Elena Kagan which Twilight character she preferred.

Attacks on Barrett -- such as that from this member of the sisterhood, who said that Barrett has a "clown-car vagina" -- emanate from the left...selective, manufactured outrage notwithstanding.

Justice Ginsburg

Rest in Peace, RBG. Health-wise, she seemed to have everything but the kitchen sink thrown at her. In spite of my disagreements with many of her legal decisions, I firmly resolve to show far more respect to Justice Ginsburg than many leftists showed immediately after the passing of Justice Scalia, four and a half years ago. (Michael Ian Black, for instance, immediately tweeted no words but a grinning photo of President Obama -- and, just to be clear, the photo was older and had nothing to do with Scalia's demise.)

In spite of their differences on the bench, Scalia and Ginsburg were close friends until death, something that we could all learn from in this day and age.

Ryan Christenson and the Forearm Bump Gone Awry

 ...so the latest tempest in a teapot is about a bench coach for the Oakland Athletics, who stands accused of twice making a Nazi salute after his team beat the Texas Rangers, 6-4. No one making a fair assessment of the video can possibly believe that Ryan Christenson did any such thing.

He went for a "forearm bump," but held his arm up the wrong way. Then, someone, seeing how it looked, adjusted his arm for him. Then Christenson made the gesture again, as if to say, self-effacingly, "I was doing it THIS way, like a schmuck..."

Anyone who believes that he was doing a Nazi salute is a sturdy moron who should not be operating a motor vehicle.

Media Gaslighting, Early July 2020 Edition

-- President Trump visited Mount Rushmore for a speech; the media called Mount Rushmore a monument to white supremacy that honors two men who owned slaves, and say it was built on land stolen from Native Americans. You may be surprised to learn that this is not how the monument was described when it was visited by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders. Nothing about either Mount Rushmore or what we know about Mount Rushmore has changed in the past twelve years. So what has?

-- The president's speech was uplifting and unifying, and warned against the current trend of cancel culture and the push to destroy monuments. The media, perhaps listening to the wrong speech, described Trump's words as "dark" and "divisive," and pretended that cancel culture and the tearing down of monuments were figments of the president's orange imagination. Tammy Duckworth claimed, without any supporting evidence, that the president was defending "traitors" and "Confederates." I wish there were a follow-up question so we could find out, with the terms "traitors" and "Confederates," Duckworth was referring to Ella Fitzgerald, Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, Louis Armstrong, Muhammad Ali, or the Tuskegee airmen, whom the president had praised.

-- While discussing COVID-19 policy with respect to the upcoming new school year, Kayleigh McEnany said the following: "The president has said unmistakably that he wants schools to open. And I was just in the Oval talking to him about that. And when he says open, he means open and full, kids being able to attend each and every day at their school. The science should not stand in the way of this. And as Dr. Scott Atlas said, I thought this was a good quote. Of course, we can do it. Everyone else in the Western world, our peer nations are doing it. We are the outlier here. The science is very clear on this, that for instance, you look at the JAMA Pediatric study of 46 pediatric hospitals in North America that said the risk of critical illness from COVID is far less for children than that of seasonal flu. The science is on our side here, and we encourage for localities and states to just simply follow the science, open our schools. It’s very damaging to our children. There’s a lack of reporting of abuse, there’s mental depressions that are not addressed, suicidal ideations that are not addressed when students are not in school. Our schools are extremely important. They’re essential and they must reopen. Yes."

Several media outlets then proceeded to quote McEnany, but carefully snipped her words exactly at the words, "the science should not stand in the way of this." Just a few sentences later, of course, McEnany's context is clear -- that the science will not stand in the way of the administration's directives because the science does not contradict the directives. Science is on their side, McEnany said, but, rather than merely question that statement, which would have been in bounds, the media actually made believe that she was implying that the administration was acting in spite of science, which is an absurd and unfair allegation for the media to make, but also the type of attack that has become all too common.

-- The president was also recently asked about the incidences of African-Americans dying while in police custody, and responded by pointing out, accurately, that more Caucasians die in police custody. Media outlets rushed to "correct" his comment by stating that African-Americans die at a greater proportion than their percentage of the population would suggest, implying systemic racism as responsible for the disparity -- but virtually none of them mentioned proportionality to the rates of violent crimes committed, which account for the difference in outcome.

Here's the thing, Fourth Estate: if you are as tired as I am of hearing the phrase, "fake news," then perhaps one antidote would be to stop peddling it as often as you do.

Losing Your Job for Valuing Everyone's Life?

This week, Campus Reform reported that The University of Massachusetts-Lowell has recently terminated its dean of the Solomont School of Nursing, Leslie Neal-Boylan, reportedly in response to a letter she sent out to students and the school community.

Did Neal-Boylan make an insensitive comment about George Floyd? Advocate for renaming a library after David Duke? No. Here are the shocking, offending words:

"I am writing to express my concern and condemnation of the recent (and past) acts of violence against people of color. Recent events recall a tragic history of racism and bias that continue to thrive in this country. I despair for our future as a nation if we do not stand up against violence against anyone. BLACK LIVES MATTER, but also, EVERYONE'S LIFE MATTERS...No one should have to live in fear that they will be targeted for how they look or what they believe."

Terrible, right?

...wait.

Yes, most level-headed people will find nothing fireable in that excerpt -- and, at the same time, sadly recognize what part somebody else considered to be fireable. After someone contacted the university, via social media (of course), that Neal-Boylan included the phrase "EVERYONE'S LIFE MATTERS," Neal-Boylan was gone within days. The only encouraging part of this story is that she is vigorously advocating for herself, and, on social media (of course), many others are advocating for them, as well. Two candidates who were considering joining that faculty -- due to their admiration of Neal-Boylan -- are now apparently reconsidering.

In an unrelated/related story, Grant Napear is out as the play-by-play announcer after a tweet. Former King DeMarcus Cousins asked Napear for his take on Black Lives Matter. Napear's response:

"Hey!!!! How are you? Thought you forgot about me. Haven't heard from you in years. ALL LIVES MATTER...EVERY SINGLE ONE!!!"

Welp! That's it. He's gone. Napear apologized on his way out the door for his, uh, hateful words, saying that he didn't realize that the phrase "All Lives Matter" is "counter to what BLM was trying to get across."

If anyone thinks that saying that "all lives matter" is somehow hostile to any one group, then obviously there's some sort of failure to communicate.

As I blogged in January 2017, in "Of Lives and Mattering,"

I do understand that most who say "black lives matter" do believe that other lives matter, as well, but they also believe that African-Americans are being disproportionately targeted by police. One may agree with that assertion. One may disagree. But at least the conversation can begin from there.

But if "BLM" deserves the benefit of the doubt, then the same is true for "ALM." If people should not mentally add "only" to someone else's "Black Lives Matter," then others should not mentally add "Except Black Lives" to someone else's "All Lives Matter."

Then there are the shoddy Internet comparisons. One argues that saying "all lives matter" is like a fire department hosing down all the houses on the street, not just the one burning, because "all houses matter." Or a surgeon operating on every bone in your body, not just the one that is broken, because "all bones matter." But I look at the lives being lost on the news. Folks, it's not just one house on fire. I see many broken bones, and they're not all one color.

Do I understand why people choose to say something as specific as "Black Lives Matter"? Of course. The killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd are three worthy examples. I won't throw shade on someone who takes the time to focus on their needless, unjustified deaths. Conversely, though, people who choose to include other people's lives, rather than to focus only upon one race, are not white supremacists for doing so. Actual white supremacists -- actual ones, not just anyone who disagrees with a leftist -- probably wouldn't be caught dead saying something as unifying and anodyne as "all lives matter."

Arbery, Taylor, and Floyd should be alive today. Forcing Leslie Neal-Boylan and Grant Napear out of their jobs will do N-O-T-H-I-N-G to advance anyone's cause. It will only alienate many people who want to be allies, because they used the "wrong three words" to express their support.

Say what you want to say. But no one should lose a job for saying that every single life has value.

Don't Surrender Your Cities to Mobs

...so now the South Philadelphia statue of Christopher Columbus is being removed, due to several days of fighting between those who want to tear it down and those who want to leave it up.

Many people recognize that Columbus has a checkered history, but tearing down monuments does nothing to help people learn about the nuances of one's achievements and sins. 

It's not only Christopher Columbus and Confederate generals. Recently defaced was a statue of Matthias Baldwin, a 19th-century abolitionist. Elsewhere, "activists" are stating aloud their plans to tear down Emancipation Memorial, a Washington, D.C. statue funded by former slaves, depicting President Lincoln helping a newly liberated slave to rise off his knees.

If any changes are to be made to our landscapes with respect to murals, statues, and other monuments, they should come after long, careful, well-reasoned discussion, and not in reaction to vandalism and mob violence. Thoughtful conversation is how a civilized society should be operated; one should never reward criminal behavior with positive reinforcement or capitulation. Unfortunately, the precedent has now been set.