From the southernmost tip of Key West, Florida, Cuba lies about 90 miles away. Americans of Cuban descent in south Florida hope to make that trip in their own boats to bring supplies of water, food, medicine to protesters.
Opposition to CRT, or "critical theory," or whatever it's called next, is not confined to one race or tribe or gender or political party. Recently on this blog you've seen fathers and a teacher and people of three different races speaking up. Today's post features a fourth race.
We (include me) take a stand against demonizing any race and turning Americans into enemies of each other -- against telling kids they must affirm stories they don't believe, telling them that their neighbors hold them back, shaming them for sins they did not commit.
To affirm a pro-human stand on these issues, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism has recently been organized.
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
You undoubtedly noticed that the situation in Grace Church School of New York violates the first amendment of the U.S. constitution. The right to speak freely, within limits of civility, is an American freedom that should be (and used to be) encouraged in every American school.
The Head of School admits to Rossi that he has grave doubts about what's going on, that the school is "demonizing white people for being born" in this "anti-racism" ideology of theirs:
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Paul's students told him they were afraid to speak freely. They have told him that they may never challenge any "anti-racist" teachings in their classes. In fact, a faculty email recommended that the teachers "officially flag students who appear “resistant” to the “culture we are trying to establish.”
When Paul asked a colleague what would constitute "resistance" to the school's culture, these ideas were identified as unacceptable and resistant: a colorblind attitude (disregarding skin color), a belief in merit (character or conduct that deserves honor or reward), and just silence. These kids are to be singled out and reproached if they dare to express doubts.
It sounds more like brain-washing than education. Parents are spending tens of thousands of dollars to submit their children to this.
Paul Rossi thinks this new "culture" is mis-named. It is actually a new racism.
He says, "I find the claim that exposing 11th and 12th graders to diverse views . .will only “confuse” them . . to be a fundamentalist religion, not an educational philosophy."
(cont'd tomorrow)
Paul Rossi loved being a teacher, but that career may be over. He says, "I refuse to stand by while my students are indoctrinated."
At a racially segregated meeting of white-only students and faculty, they were informed that "objectivity," "individualism," "fear of open conflict," and a "right to comfort" are simply white feelings. Undesirable.
He questioned whether they should say that any human feeling or value belongs to just one race. Sounds like racism. He wanted to give the students a good example by being brave enough to ask a big question like this. A few days later, the Head of School wrote out a reprimand of Rossi to be read publicly to every student in the school by the advisors.
Accusations against him include creating "dissonance" and "neurological disturbance." He tried to bring in a professor from Brown University, but wasn't allowed to because this non-conforming black man would only "confuse and enflame" students. They would allow his views to be presented to the students if a white man said them. Huh? Watch the video.
Adversarial - that's how our culture largely views the relationship between science and faith today. We hear attacks on faith coming from scientists and attacks from the faith community on the reliability of science, both sides doubting the honesty of the other.
Reasons to Believe takes a stand against this narrative. Led by scholars who are both credentialed scientists and devoted Christians, they claim that both nature and the Bible reveal characteristics of the one true God.
From their website:
"[P]eople have a fundamental desire to understand our world, the universe beyond it, and the implications of that knowledge for their beliefs. As an international, interdenominational ministry, our purpose is to show that science and the Christian faith are allies, not enemies.
"Our commitment to sound reason and scientific research puts RTB in a unique position to engage in gentle, respectful dialogue with people from various worldviews. Our mission is to bring hope to people by illuminating and clarifying God’s role as Creator and highlighting his purposes for creation, especially for human beings."
A living animal develops from a single cell to completion in this video, created by a European filmmaker and biologist.
All the cells look alike. But watch for signs that some of them must have changed to create a heart, or muscles, or a circulation system. Though they have the same DNA, cells develop differently in order to create body parts for distinct functions.
It's not random. It's called cell differentiation.
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Kenny Xu calls his organization "Color Us United," described as "Advocating for a Race-Blind America." Its foundational principle is that people are not defined by the color of their skin, but instead by their many choices and values.
"We want to return to the America where we accepted our fellow countrymen, but did not demand they be like us or even like us.
"Color Us United will speak out against anyone who wants to foment anger by claiming Americans are divided. We will push back against government and corporation that promote quota type policies."
Kenny Xu is another person of color who takes a stand against the racism of CRT and its attendant cancel culture, as Africa Brooke did (yesterday's post). Undeterred by fear of cancellation for his non-PC opinion, he claims that system-wide racial discrimination in America is in the past.
As evidence, he cites the example of Vietnamese immigrants coming to the U.S. without even the ability to speak English. In one generation they were able to succeed to the point that their children achieved college degrees at a higher rate than even white Americans.
“Asian Americans showed that critical race theory cannot be true.”
He published his book this month:
Those are the words of Africa Brooke, London-based writer and consultant, and this is her story.
Looking back on the past two years, she soaked in wokeness and critical race theory. Deep in "social justice echo chambers" and "constant fight mode," she lashed out at people who didn't supported Black Lives Matter strongly enough or didn't share correct opinions.
Then she began to ask this important question, had she sufficiently looked into the organizations she supported, or did she just follow trends blindly? And she made a change.
Her conclusion:
"I can no longer be an active participant in any culture or movement that encourages groupthink, outrage on demand, fear and violence, revamped segregation, fabricating history, cancellations masked as accountability, self-centredness, normalisation of racism towards white people, the disempowerment of black people masked as social justice, the constant redefining of existing language, ignoring self-responsibility, constant pathologizing, oppressed vs oppressor mentality, and the pressure to conform and comply..."
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Austin Harvest's open-air fresh produce and floral shop opened last summer. The students "came up with the name, they came up with the manifesto, they designed the way it looks. They choose what we sell. … Nothing is being done apart from them making the decisions.” This teaches agency - the truth that what you do matters, that your choices make a difference.
Two businesses partner with By the Hand to provide mentoring, to provide skill training like flower arranging, and to provide the produce at their cost.
There's no better education/transformation than actual experience. These students will never forget their successes and mistakes in managing this business and working together.
Faith-based By the Hand Club for Kids provides hot meals, tutoring, chapel, Bible study to kindergarten-through-college students who are failing. They specialize in reading skills, a major indicator of future success.
from Stream
Homicides in Chicago (2020) increased 50% over 2019. Some of its neighborhoods are not doing very well. But Austin has something to be proud of, and students are doing it.
The community of Austin has about 19 liquor stores. Only 2 grocery stores remain after a third one pulled out. Maybe it was badly managed or maybe insurance went through the roof, the reason could be anything. But grocery stores are few, liquor stores abound.
"By the Hand Club for Kids" organized a forum for their kids to interact with community leaders (including a former Bears linebacker) about potential solutions . . and that's how "Austin Harvest" got started.
"We were asked to knock down a liquor store, open up a fresh market and provide produce at a reasonable price to our seniors,” says a director of the Club. It's a boon to the community, less fortunate people, and even to the students themselves.
Back in 1776, 95% of Americans were farmers. Today, only 1% are employed in farming. Agricultural technology made every farmer's efforts so much more productive in our 200+ intervening years that our society now has more than enough to eat and 94% choose to do something else. Food today is comparatively cheap and we don't need everyone working to produce it.
If you were a farmer back then who lost his farm, you didn't think "I'll go back to school and become an actuarial analyst." Because that didn't exist. Eventually whole industries, not available at that time, were created by non-farmers to serve other human needs and desires.
All of this is to say, Automation will not steal all the jobs from human beings.
According to this expert, the pace of automation adoption during the pandemic was rapid - sometimes five years' worth achieved in five months. And yet, coming out of the pandemic we have no lack of jobs but rather a lack of workers to apply for them.
from Mind Matters
Work life - whether or not you commuted to an office - seems to be changing more than we thought. Lots of small businesses shut down for good during the lockdowns, jobs were lost, and cities that used to swell up with workers on weekdays still are not back to that norm.
The pandemic shook up work life. Many workers are not going back to the same old thing. They started a new business, or they prefer getting those unemployment checks, or they're just determined to work from home (yesterday's post).
For whatever reasons, a lot of jobs are not being filled.
And now there's a movement that encourages people to quit their jobs this fall. (Per this author, if I spent time on Tik Tok or Reddit I would have known this sooner 😉.) It's called the Great Resignation of 2021, and up to 25% of employees plan to do it according to a recruiter. Time will tell.
Whether or not that prediction is right, a tight labor market means that employers will try to make better offers as they compete for workers. Hopefully, more productivity and better quality of life for everyone will result.
from FEE
Apple, Inc., wants employees to get back to work, literally - back to their offices. A new policy, introduced by Tim Cook himself, tells them that they will be back at least three days per week with the option to work from home on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Apparently those employees really got into the remote work routine in 2020. Two days per week at home is more flexible than what they probably had pre-pandemic, but not good enough today. Eighty of them wrote an open letter to management to express their disapproval.
They say that many may quit their Apple jobs if they can't have a flexible remote schedule. Some are still worried about covid contagion. And some claim the company will not listen to employees' concerns.
This article claims that the company has failed in "emotional intelligence" (EQ): "Apple's Remote Work Policy Is a Complete Failure of Emotional Intelligence."
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
A Super Heavy booster is on the launch pad right now at Starbase (near Boca Chica, Texas). This prototype was built only to be ground-tested.
But the next Super Heavy booster will fly. It will launch the spacecraft Starship into orbit, then descend back to earth and land. Standing 230 feet tall, it's the first stage of SpaceX's fully reusable transportation system for space travel which was "designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the ability to carry in excess of 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit.
Starship itself is 165 feet, so the two stages combined will be nearly 400 feet tall. It will surpass the 363-foot Saturn V, which flew NASA astronauts to the moon in 1969.
"Starship" is the new spacecraft that SpaceX is developing to go to the moon and then to Mars. Its last test flight in May successfully achieved an altitude of about six miles and came back down safely (the previous prototypes exploded).
But it won't really get away from planet Earth without a booster rocket.
So SpaceX is also developing the Super Heavy rocket to do that. The rocket plus the new spacecraft constitute the Starship system. Together, the two components will do a test flight soon to launch Starship (the upper stage of the system) into orbit around Earth.
But first the new rocket has to be tested, and it's already on the launching pad.
(cont'd tomorrow)
If you have kids or grandkids, here's a fun craft to do with them that will answer questions they may have about the American flag. You might have questions answered too, so enjoy learning:
Two huge hydrogen bombs fell out of a plane over North Carolina. A surfer's camera randomly took a picture of a great white shark right below him. A Soviet submarine captain ordered a nuclear torpedo to be fired on the U.S.
The bombs didn't explode, the shark didn't bite, and the captain's order was countermanded. Author Eric Metaxas suggests that divine providence guards us from those near-misses that we had no idea about.Robert Woodson has worked for decades to transform "lives, schools, and troubled neighborhoods from the inside out by involving those suffering the problem, empowering local leaders to identify capacities of residents and help them to achieve their potential."
His organization just released a new vision for unity and racial pride based on America's foundational documents:
Thomas Jefferson, delegate from the state of Virginia, was chosen by the Continental Congress in 1776 to write up a formal declaration of the intention of the colonies to actually start a new nation, to separate themselves from Britain.
Eric Metaxas has immigrant parents, his dad from Greece and his mom from Germany. They raised him to love America. "When my parents passed the Statue of Liberty in the ships that carried them to our shores, they didn’t roll their eyes — they were deeply moved."
