Teach your children well

The New Neo Posted on by

Now we have an effort to teach “gender fluidity” in middle and high school:

Fairfax County Public Schools released a report recommending changes to their family life curriculum for grades 7 through 12. The changes, which critics call radical gender ideology, will be formally introduced next week…

“Students will be provided definitions for sexual orientation terms heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality; and the gender identity term transgender,” the district’s recommendations state. “Emphasis will be placed on recognizing that everyone is experiencing changes and the role of respectful, inclusive language in promoting an environment free of bias and discrimination.”

Eighth graders will be taught that individual identity “occurs over a lifetime and includes the component of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

“Individual identity will also be described as having four parts ”“ biological gender, gender identity (includes transgender), gender role, and sexual orientation (includes heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual).”

The district will also introduce young teenagers to the “concept that sexuality is a broader spectrum.” By tenth grade, they will be taught that one’s sexuality “develops throughout a lifetime.”

“Emphasis will be placed on an understanding that there is a broader, boundless, and fluid spectrum of sexuality that is developed throughout a lifetime,” the document states. “Sexual orientation and gender identity terms will be discussed with focus on appreciation for individual differences.”

This is so general that it’s hard to get a bead on what would actually be taught, but that may be part of the plan. I doubt it’s just a call for tolerance of differences and an admonition to avoid name-calling (neither of which I would object to); this sounds like a great deal more than that. And starting this in seventh grade, when children are vulnerable to all sorts of confusion and stress around issues of their burgeoning sexuality anyway, seems like an effort at indoctrination.

There is disagreement between the Fairfax School Board spokesperson and the head of a parents group opposing the measure about whether students can opt out, with the parent saying they will not be able to and the Board person saying they will. But even if they are allowed to opt out, doing so places that student in the spotlight and highlights their disagreement with the curriculum, and could have a chilling effect on exercising the right. In addition, I would imagine that many parents of a religious bent might end up feeling the need to pull their children out of public school if they find the curriculum is more than just a discussion of respecting everyone and not calling anyone names. The curriculum changes do not appear to have come as a result of any sort of demand by parents; au contraire.

It is true that gender is not always a simple thing in the biological sense (take a look at this, for example, if you don’t believe me). But that is a fairly advanced topic in biology that is not needed for junior high or high school students. The aforementioned tolerance for differences and admonition to avoid name-calling ought to suffice in that age group. Apparently in our current brave new world it does not.

Despite denials, the curriculum change certainly appears to be related to the following, although it’s not part of exactly the same action:

The Fairfax County Public School Board in Virginia voted Thursday to add “gender identity” as a protected class to its non-discrimination policy despite heated remarks during the meeting from parents who are concerned about the implications of the change.

Fairfax County School Board member Elizabeth Schultz, the only member who voted against the change, said the Board was warned by a local school official that federal funding could be pulled if the change was not adopted. She called it a case of federal overreach that must be opposed.

The memo warning about federal Education Department funding was issued by Steven A. Lockard, the deputy superintendent of the Fairfax County Public Schools, just prior to the vote.

It states: “The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education is requiring that school divisions 1) revise their non-discrimination policies to include gender identity, and 2) hire a consultant to advise on revisions to regulations and, more generally, how school divisions should handle individual cases of transgender students. If the School Board amends Policy 1450, we will be able to tell them that we have already done the two things that OCR is requiring.”

“If FCPS refuses to amend its policy, OCR has the right to recommend the termination of federal funding to FCPS,” Lockard’s memo emphasized.

Will this memo end up being sent to every school district in the US? If not, why Fairfax County? Has it been designated some sort of pilot program for the feds?

[NOTE: Much more can be found here.]

We’re in the very best of hands

The New Neo Posted on by

How reassuring:

A well-known U.S. hacker told F.B.I. agents he took momentary control of an airplane’s engines mid-flight by hacking into its inflight entertainment system, according to a document filed in U.S. federal court and obtained by APTN National News…

he document shows F.B.I. agents investigating Roberts believe he has the ability to do what he claims: take over flight control systems by hacking the inflight entertainment computer.

Roberts has not yet been charged with any crime. The allegations contained in the search warrant application have not been proven in court.

Roberts is the founder of One World Labs and he is widely viewed as an expert on counter threat cyber security.

And then there’s this:

One of three conductors aboard the Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia this week told investigators she heard the locomotive’s engineer say the train had been struck by an object, National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said Friday.

The assistant conductor said she overheard radio transmissions made Tuesday by Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian and the engineer of a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) train.

“She recalled that the SEPTA engineer had reported to the train dispatcher that he had either been hit by a rock or shot at, and the SEPTA engineer said that he had a broken windshield, and he placed his train into emergency stop,” Sumwalt said. “She also believed that she heard (the Amtrak) engineer say something about his train being struck by something.”

As part of the investigation of the Amtrak crash, the engineer of the SEPTA train will be contracted. This is interesting information, as well:

The locomotive’s windshield was shattered in the derailment. But Sumwalt said there is “particular damage” to the lower portion of the windshield that the FBI will examine. He described it as a “circular pattern that emanates out just a bit.”

This may turn out to be a false lead. But it could be the tip of a very disturbing iceberg.

At least three jurors cried, but Tsarnaev did not…

The New Neo Posted on by

…as he was sentenced to death.

I don’t think the jurors cried from sympathy. I think they cried from excess of emotion, relief, and exhaustion. It’s somewhat surprising that in Boston, a town where 62% had favored a life sentence, the jury was willing to impose the death penalty. But these jurors had already been death-penalty-qualified in order to be able to serve.

Tsarnaev’s cool demeanor during the trial only solidifies my opinion that he’s a psychopath. His lawyer, Judy Clarke, who had never lost a death penalty case until now, had said:

“If you’re looking to me for a simple and clean answer as to why this young man, who had never been arrested, who had never sassed a teacher, who spent his free time in school working with disabled kids ”¦ if you expect me to have an answer, a simple, clean answer as to how this could happen, I don’t have it,” Clarke told jurors in her closing statement. “I don’t have it.”

I do. But it’s an answer—psycopathy—that doesn’t really answer much of anything, because it’s something we do not understand.

To those who say “he’s a jihadi terrorist” I say “Of course.” But, unlike a lot of terrorists (including his older brother, Tamerlan), I don’t think philosophy or religion was the primary motivator in Dzhokhar’s case, although it certainly was something he spouted. But, as I wrote in my PJ piece back in July of 2013, in which I quoted psychopathy expert Hervey Cleckley’s definitive work The Mask of Sanity:

”¦[T]he [psychopath’s] central personality”¦[is] covered over by”¦a perfect mask of genuine sanity, a flawless surface indicative in every respect of robust mental health. .. [T]hose called psychopaths are very sharply characterized by the lack of anxiety (remorse, uneasy anticipation, apprehensive scrupulousness, the sense of being under stress or strain)”¦

It is my opinion that when the typical psychopath”¦occasionally commits a major deed of violence, it is usually a casual act done not from tremendous passion or as a result of plans persistently followed with earnest compelling fervor. There is less to indicate excessively violent rage than a relatively weak emotion breaking through even weaker restraints.

Dzohkhar’s jihadism was “a relatively weak emotion breaking through even weaker restraints.” It seems as though Tsarnaev didn’t care much whether his victims lived or died, but it also seems as though he only cares marginally more whether he lives or dies.

Once more, with feeling: the late, great, Maya Plisetskaya

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s one more video to show you at least a tiny bit of what made Maya Plisetskaya one of the most wonderfully unique dancers who ever lived.

Some dancers do the steps more perfectly, with a more elegantly stretched and lengthened line. Some look less like real women and more like ectomorphic fantasy creatures. Some have more beautiful faces. Most dancers in the corps of any major, and most minor, companies today have more strongly arched and gracefully curved feet. And on and on and on.

It doesn’t matter. Plisetskaya dances, and her dancing is so vitally alive that it makes the others look like mannered mechanical dolls. This is especially true of the dancers of today, so many of whom seem to be performing without all that much joy. You want to see joy? Take a look at this, every last bit of it:

What can you say about apocalyptic jihad?

The New Neo Posted on by

It turns out that the answer is “a great deal.”

The first weekend in May I attended a conference held in Boston entitled “GenerationCaliphate: Apocalyptic Hopes, Millennial Dreams and Global Jihad.” It was organized by Richard Landes, millennial scholar, inventor of the term “Pallywood,” blogger at The Augean Stables, exposer of the suspect nature of the claims about al Durah’s death, author of the book Heaven on Earth, brilliant and original thinker, and a person I’m happy to call my friend.

This was a scholarly conference, but that certainly didn’t mean it was dull. Au contraire; it was very lively.

One of the strongest impressions I got from the conference is how many people there are who have dedicated their lives to studying the history of Islam and Islamic thought, and how much information they have gleaned about how that thought informs the motives and expectations of modern terrorists. Many of us non-experts tend to think of terrorists as more grounded in the present than they apparently are, and to ignore what seem to be their wild fantasies about the end of the world and fail to appreciate how very much those apocalyptic dreams are informed by Islam and its history.

Something else that struck me about the conference was how it illustrated that although many of us (and I include myself here) tend to think everyone fighting terrorism is on the right, there are some people on the left who are very concerned about terrorism and take it very seriously, but that there are some rather large rifts between those of the right and left who share this common cause and common interest in combating terrorism.

There were too many erudite and engrossing speakers at the conference to describe each one, but some highlights (in addition to the aforementioned Richard Landes) were, in no particular order:

(1) Graeme Wood, who wrote an article in The Atlantic back in February (I discussed it here) on the subject of the apocalyptic belief system of ISIS.

(2) Timothy Furnish, an expert in the more ancient history of the Capiphate and of Islamic end-time beliefs, and how they are influencing modern politics.

(3) Jeffrey M. Bale, who discussed the many reasons why so many people refuse to take the ideology behind Islamic terrorism seriously, prominently including what he calls “mirror imaging,” which is the tendency to project one’s own thoughts and beliefs onto others.

(4) David Cook, a professor of religion and an expert on Boko Haram.

(5) JM Berger, who gave a fascinating talk on the increasingly sophisticated ways in which Islamic terrorists use modern social media to transcend geographic limitations.

(6) Itamar Marcus, founder of Palestinian Media Watch, an invaluable site for studying the ferocity and hatred expressed in Palestinian propaganda. I’ve already discussed his website in this post, but I suggest that if you haven’t looked at it, please do.

(7) Charles Jacobs, founder of the Boston branch of CAMERA, founder of the David Project, and instrumental in the fight against slavery in the Sudan, was a forceful speaker who explained why some of the Jewish organizations traditionally involved in the fight against anti-Semitism and intolerance (such as the Anti-Defamation League) have been reluctant to involve themselves very heavily in these issues.

(8) David Redles spoke on a topic I’d never really heard about before, how apocalyptic thinking figured in Nazi ideology.

(9) Paul Berman, one of the liberals at the conference and author of the well-known book Terror and Liberalism, spoke of how terrorism presents the west with a crisis among the left, particularly its intellectuals, and academia.

One of the scheduled presenters was Hirsi Ali, whom I’ve long admired. I was much looking forward to her appearance in such a relatively small venue. She was due to speak on the second day, but unfortunately she had to cancel. I wasn’t privy to her reasons, although I’m sure she had them. It certainly didn’t escape anyone’s notice, however, that the evening after the first day of the conference, when we went back to our rooms, the news of the attack and shootings in Garland, Texas aimed at Pam Geller and the free speech event was being broadcast.

Geller’s conference was very different from ours both in tone and purpose. But even academic get-togethers such as the one I attended provide substantial security details these days. That this is so is a sad commentary on the growth and scope of terrorism today; I doubt that such a presence (at least not so large a presence) would have been necessary prior to 9/11. But that’s the reality of our times.

[ADDENDUM: Richard Landes has kindly provided a set of recommended articles and website links connected with the conference and its authors. You can read them here; they are listed towards the bottom of the page.]

Amtrak didn’t install an older system that would have prevented the crash

The New Neo Posted on by

Congress had mandated that a new “positive train control” automatic braking system be installed on all passenger and major freight railroads by December 31 of this year. Had that system been in place in Philadelphia, the Amtrak disaster would not have happened.

However, it turns out that if an already-existing, older and less sophisticated system had been in place, that would have prevented the crash as well. But Amtrak had decided not to install it on that side of the curve, although it had been in place for years on the other side of the same curve. Their reasoning was as follows:

If Amtrak Train 188 had been heading to Philadelphia from New York City, it would not have derailed at the sharp Frankford Junction curve, because an automatic braking mechanism has been in place for years on the southbound side of the tracks to stop a speeding train.

But Amtrak never installed the same electronics on the northbound side, so Train 188 was able to enter the curve where the speed limit is 50 m.p.h. at more than 100 m.p.h.

Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman said in an interview that the lack of the automatic-braking control on one side of the curve was “a loophole” that he was unaware of until Train 188 derailed Tuesday, killing eight people and injuring about 200.

He said that the railroad had not installed automatic-braking technology on the northbound side of the curve under the assumption that trains just leaving 30th Street Station would be slower than those barreling south from New York.

So this was a judgment call made years ago, and until last week the call had seemed reasonable.

We still don’t know what caused the crash, but we do know that the train actually sped up considerably as it approached the curve. The engineer is said to have sustained a concussion and lost his memory of the events that preceded the crash, and the investigation proceeds.

Ramadi falls…

The New Neo Posted on by

…to ISIS.

This means a death sentence for a lot of people:

“We have not received reinforcements from the government, and there will be a massacre of these people like there was in Speicher,” said Dahl. He referred to a former U.S. military base near Tikrit where an estimated 1,700 Iraqi soldiers were captured and killed en masse by the Islamic State last summer.

In the comments to the article you can see quite a few that blame Bush.

A little delayed today

The New Neo Posted on by

I just got back from a trip to NYC and am somewhat behind in a host of tasks. So further posting will be delayed till this evening.

It was beautiful in New York. Here are some of the things I saw at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. I recommend them highly this time of year:

Spring2015 021

Spring2015 026

Tree peonies. Just about the most beautiful flowers in the world. Not the easiest plants to grow though, unlike regular peonies, which thrive in New England. The photos don’t show how huge they are, either—bigger than a hand.

Let’s see…

The New Neo Posted on by

…whether it’s still considered perfectly okay for Clinton partisan George Stephanopoulos to be among the press covering the presidential campaign in 2016, as well as controversies about the Clinton Foundation, after this revelation. ABC seems to think he’s just as objective as ever; no problem.

At least he has now recused himself from moderating the debates. But they don’t need him; they’ve got plenty more who are every bit as objective as Stephanopoulos.

Obama the knave: the long view

The New Neo Posted on by

When you blog you write an awful lot, day after day after day. That means that you forget some of what you wrote—perhaps not “forget” exactly, but it slips your mind and it’s only on looking at it again that it rings a bell of familiarity. Sheer volume of output can do that.

Recently I came across an article I wrote in October of 2009 about what I thought Obama’s plan for the US and the world might be. When I recently came across that essay again by chance (prompted by a commenter mentioning Reagan’s “city on a hill” remark) it had only a vague ring of familiarity. I was surprised, also, by how early in the game I’d written it, which shows how easy it was to see much of what Obama was up to even then. I will never understand why more people didn’t see it, sense it, feel it.

Here’s an excerpt:

Obama may not be speaking in openly religious terms as Reagan did, but he nevertheless looks on America in a way that could be seen as religious: he sees it as a nation conceived in original sin, one that has gone on to commit offenses against the world for which it must now atone. And Obama views himself as the special instrument through which America can finally purify herself, join the world of other nations as an equal rather than a leader, and go forth and sin no more.

You might say that Reagan believed in American exceptionalism, whereas Obama believes in Obama’s exceptionalism.

Please go back and read it.

[NOTE: The article only discussed part of Obama’s motivation, because even by that time I believed he was a committed leftist as well: see this and this.]

Maligned UVA dean sues Rolling Stone and Sabrina Erdely

The New Neo Posted on by

An excellent move:

Nicole Eramo is seeking more than $7.5 million in damages from Rolling Stone; its parent company, Wenner Media; and Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the investigative journalist who wrote the explosive account of sexual assault on the campus in Charlottesville.

Eramo, who is the university’s chief administrator dealing with sexual assaults, argues in the lawsuit that the article destroyed her credibility, permanently damaged her reputation and caused her emotional distress. She assailed the account as containing numerous falsehoods that the magazine could have avoided if it had worked to verify the story of its main subject, a student named Jackie who alleged she was gang-raped in 2012 and that the university mishandled her case.

“Rolling Stone and Erdely’s highly defamatory and false statements about Dean Eramo were not the result of an innocent mistake,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Charlottesville Circuit Court. “They were the result of a wanton journalist who was more concerned with writing an article that fulfilled her preconceived narrative about the victimization of women on American college campuses, and a malicious publisher who was more concerned about selling magazines to boost the economic bottom line for its faltering magazine, than they were about discovering the truth or actual facts.”

Preach it sister, preach it!

You can find many of my previous posts on the UVA Rolling Stone story here. In my opinion, both the periodical and reporter Erderly were guilty of everything Eramo’s suit alleges, and more. I am very glad (in case you hadn’t noticed) to see that lawsuits are forthcoming. Perhaps—perhaps—this will have a chilling affect on the next publication that tries to stir up public opinion and outrage with such an obviously suspect story, if the penalties end up being high enough.

One can dream, anyway.

I stand by my original position that universities shouldn’t be investigating rape allegations anyway and that the police should be in control. If the allegations don’t constitute a crime or a possible one, the university not become a kangaroo court. Of course, the universities still would have to figure out what to do with an accused student in the meantime, but in the “Jackie” case there was no actual accused student, there was an entire fraternity.

I also don’t think universities can or should patrol the bedroom negotiations of its students. If students want to be treated like modern-day adults and be allowed the freedom to screw around as they wish, then they should have to act like adults and take responsibility for it. I am very serious, and seriously libertarian, about this. In my day students were protected from some of these complexities—certainly not all of them!—by stricter rules about being in each others’ dorm rooms or the bedroom floors of fraternities or sororities. Now that those rules are gone, and students want complete freedom, they should be prepared to deal with it, and let the police handle the serious problems when they arise.

Obama to liberals: my way or the highway

The New Neo Posted on by

Now it’s liberals’ turn to feel the sting of Obama’s sharp tongue. They seemed to have had no problem with his previous personal attacks on Republicans for disagreeing with him, or with secrecy on the contents of previous bills. And in addition to his nastiness towards Republicans, Obama didn’t really seem to respect or confer with them (the liberals in Congress), either. Nevertheless, for the most part, they sucked it up for the good of the party and the Cause.

But now Obama has really let them have it for disagreeing with him on the trade bill. Here’s Brent Budowsky on the subject:

I spent many years working for senior Democratic Senators such as Lloyd Bentsen and House Democratic leaders beginning with the legendary Speaker Tip O’Neill, and have never seen any president of either party insult so many members of his own party’s base and members of the House and Senate as Mr. Obama has in his weeks of tirades against liberals on trade.

In Mr. Obama’s speech at Nike last week, his comments to Matt Bai of Yahoo over the weekend, and White House press secretary Josh Earnest’s comments to reporters on Monday, Mr. Obama and his White House staff have repeated a string of personal insults directed against prominent liberal Democrats in Congress, liberal Democrats across the nation, organized labor, and leading public interest and environmental groups who share doubts about the TPP trade deal…

Mr. Obama’s tirades on trade have included accusations that these liberal Democrats are ignorant about trade policy, insincere when offering their opinions, motivated by politics and not the national interest, and backward looking towards the past. Obama’s repeated attacks against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in which he charged that Warren’s concern about the trade bill is motivated not by a reasoned view of what is right for America but by her personal political motivations, is one of the most dishonest and repellant examples of character assassination and contempt by any American president, against any leading member of his own party, in my lifetime.

Budowsky seems surprised, and I suppose it’s possible that the Democratic targets of Obama’s ire might be surprised too. But if so, they shouldn’t be. Have they not paid attention to what’s happened lately to Democratic Senator Menendez? More importantly, have they not paid attention to Obama’s style and approach to his opponents in the past, and to his propensity for nasty tactics, going all the way back to his earliest days as a rookie politician? Personal attack is not just a tool in his arsenal; it’s the main tool in his arsenal.

I guess they figured the crocodile would never eat them. But it’s a hungry crocodile.