Daily Archives: January 3, 2021

Why is there not a single trans voice featured in Harry and Meghans first podcast? Its a question that needs answering. The half-hour recording the couples first since signing a $25 million deal with Spotify sets out to explore the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on, as the Duchess herself puts it, people from all walks of life. Given this description, excluding the trans community from participating seems, at best, problematic perhaps even sinister. Why leave trans people out in this most public of discourses?

This editorial decision a slap in the face for an already marginalized community seems all the more surprising because of who has made it. While the rest of us have spent 2020 hunkering down and cursing the gods, Harry and Meghan have made no bones about aggressively pursuing woke dollar. They have unblinkingly positioned themselves as the millennial king and queen of political correctness, frequently releasing videos in which they rail vaguely against privilege. Memorably, Harry used one of these videos to say the British Commonwealth, the institution for which his grandmother is the living embodiment, needs to acknowledge the past even if it is uncomfortable.

Anyway, the podcast deal announced very shortly after the $100 million Netflix deal is the latest escalation in this campaign: a kind of high stakes meta psychodrama in which these two pushy ex royals ride the Windsor family brand as far as they can stateside, at the same time apparently subverting the journalistic media they claim to loathe by lucratively becoming part of it. The company they have formed for this purpose, Archewell, has described the podcasts it will henceforth expensively produce as being to build a community through shared experiences, narratives and values.

The first podcast, trans people ostracization aside, is everything youd expect. It begins with the regal thanking of healthcare and frontline workers (as if the sacrifices these people have made have been made for the duke and duchess themselves). Meghan then rather grandly explains that she has spent the holiday season, not, as you might expect, counting her money, but contemplating all people who have experienced uncertainty and unthinkable loss as a result of COVID-19.

After that, there is just time for Harry to urge listeners to sit back and grab a cozy beverage, before the platitudes begin rolling in, in earnest. Various guests mostly liberal celebrity friends of the couple start by unselfconsciously describing themselves (philanthropist, poet, an explorer of consciousness etc.) before, against a deeply irritating Disney-style soundtrack intended to guide the listeners emotional response, delivering statements such as: humanity is ready for a new story. Through new context, new meanings, new relationships, we are giving birth to a new humanity.

At one point a woman who is described as a person who brings healing to communities of color tells us something I have learned about myself this year is how much of a spiritual practice simplicity and solitude can be. Another described as a democracy advocate tells us: most of all, I gave myself permission to be sad, so I could find joy on the other side.

Throughout, its this type of fare, precisely the sort of thing one suspects that people who have to worry about such base concerns as working to put food on the table, tend not to say to one another. Surprisingly, no one quotes Maya Angelou until the 18th minute, but when it comes its a zinger: my wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are and to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. (You go, Meghan.)

Amazingly, and revealingly, of all the contributors, it is Elton John who sounds most sane and connected to reality. He speaks frankly about the nightmare of alcoholics being unable to attend AA meetings during lockdown and the manner in which normal people have had to deal with losing loved ones and jobs. Its been the worst year Ive ever known, and Im 73, he says.

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And then were back to meaningless platitudes. Without the dark, the stars cannot shine, someone says. A self-described street poet tells us: 2020, thats a very hard year for me to call my friend. And then Meghan begins to bring proceedings to a close by informing the listener: no matter what life throws at you, trust us when we say: love wins. Harry agrees. Love always wins, he says, supportively. So true, Meghan adds.

Perhaps there is a demographic that finds this kind of thing not only edifying, but enlightening. If there is, my suspicion is these people value style above substance: they prefer the manner in which things are said in a smoky, croaky, faux intellectual voice, perhaps than the content of what is being said. Certainly, Meghan is very pleased with her voice. She seems lately to have obviously styled her intonations on those of Barack Obama himself, the great liberal deity with the quadrophonic voice. If this podcast venture doesnt work out, shes certainly got a future in the ASMR game.

Ultimately, the podcast is a bit of a cheat the contributions by Meghan and Harry are mercifully minimal. Instead, they use the old trick of all journalists paid by the word for interview pieces: they just provide short links to the words of others. But we will find out more about them as people, presumably, in subsequent episodes, when they will have to sing rather harder for their supper by filling the airtime themselves. Then well really discover the scale of their ambition for world domination, and also, perhaps, the reason for their strange erasing of trans people from the COVID record.

This article was originally published on The Spectators UK website.

Read the original here:

Harry and Meghan's podcast of political correctness - The Spectator USA

Editor:

As a former Cub and Boy Scout, I was very disappointed when the Boy Scouts caved to political correctness and started enrolling girls. My Boy Scout leaders taught us how to be responsible, caring and productive men. I dont know what the Girl Scouts taught because it was meant for girls.

I was sad to read that the Girl Scouts sued the Boy Scouts over enrollment issues (Legal battle between Girl, Boy Scouts heats up, Reading Eagle, Dec. 27). This is another example of how political correctness is negatively affecting organizations geared to teach boys and girls how to be good people.

It is a shame that this age of ridiculousness has just about ruined two organizations that were founded to educate, encourage and allow youth to develop leadership skills and respect nature.

How about we let boys be boys and girls be girls. Lets appreciate the different developmental needs of boys and girls.

How about we go back to common sense?

How about we stop pretending that all this nonsense is moving our country forward when all its doing is causing more division.

I remember my oath and still try to live by it: On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and Country and obey Scout law, to help other people at all times to keep myself physically strong mentally awake and morally straight. How about we go back to that, or does it just make too much sense?

Eric Mazur

Bern Township

Here is the original post:

Letter: Lawsuit over Scouting a sign of some sad trends - Reading Eagle

Why is there not a single trans voice featured in Harry and Meghans first podcast? Its a question that needs answering. The half-hour recording the couples first since signing a $25 million deal with Spotify sets out to explore the psychological impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on, as the Duchess herself puts it, people from all walks of life. Given this description, excluding the trans community from participating seems, at best, problematic perhaps even sinister. Why leave trans people out in this most public of discourses?

This editorial decision a slap in the face for an already marginalised community seems all the more surprising because of who has made it. While the rest of us have spent 2020 hunkering down and cursing the gods, Harry and Meghan have made no bones about aggressively pursuing woke dollar. They have unblinkingly positioned themselves as the millennial king and queen of political correctness, frequently releasing videos in which they rail vaguely against privilege. Memorably, Harry used one of these videos to say the British Commonwealth, the institution for which his grandmother is the living embodiment, needs to acknowledge the past even if it is uncomfortable.

Anyway, the podcast deal announced very shortly after the $100 million Netflix deal is the latest escalation in this campaign: a kind of high stakes meta psychodrama in which these two pushy ex royals ride the Windsor family brand as far as they can stateside, at the same time apparently subverting the journalistic media they claim to loathe by lucratively becoming part of it. The company they have formed for this purpose, Archewell, has described the podcasts it will henceforth expensively produce as being to build a community through shared experiences, narratives and values.

The first podcast, trans people ostracisation aside, is everything youd expect. It begins with the regal thanking of healthcare and frontline workers (as if the sacrifices these people have made have been made for the duke and duchess themselves). Meghan then rather grandly explains that she has spent the holiday season, not, as you might expect, counting her money, but contemplating all people who have experienced uncertainty and unthinkable loss as a result of Covid-19.

After that, there is just time for Harry to urge listeners to sit back and grab a cosy beverage, before the platitudes begin rolling in, in earnest. Various guests mostly liberal celebrity friends of the couple start by unselfconsciously describing themselves (philanthropist, poet, an explorer of consciousness etc.) before, against a deeply irritating Disney-style soundtrack intended to guide the listeners emotional response, delivering statements such as: humanity is ready for a new story. Through new context, new meanings, new relationships, we are giving birth to a new humanity.

At one point a woman who is described as a person who brings healing to communities of colour tells us something I have learned about myself this year is how much of a spiritual practice simplicity and solitude can be. Another described as a democracy advocate tells us: most of all, I gave myself permission to be sad, so I could find joy on the other side.

Throughout, its this type of fare, precisely the sort of thing one suspects that people who have to worry about such base concerns as working to put food on the table, tend not to say to one another. Surprisingly, no one quotes Maya Angelou until the eighteenth minute, but when it comes its a zinger: my wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are and to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. (You go, Meghan.)

Amazingly, and revealingly, of all the contributors, it is Elton John who sounds most sane and connected to reality. He speaks frankly about the nightmare of alcoholics being unable to attend AA meetings during lockdown and the manner in which normal people have had to deal with losing loved ones and jobs. Its been the worst year Ive ever known, and Im 73, he says.

And then were back to meaningless platitudes. Without the dark, the stars cannot shine, someone says. A self-described street poet tells us: 2020, thats a very hard year for me to call my friend. And then Meghan begins to bring proceedings to a close by informing the listener: no matter what life throws at you, trust us when we say: love wins. Harry agrees. Love always wins, he says, supportively. So true, Meghan adds.

Perhaps there is a demographic that finds this kind of thing not only edifying, but enlightening. If there is, my suspicion is these people value style above substance: they prefer the manner in which things are said in a smoky, croaky, faux intellectual voice, perhaps than the content of what is being said. Certainly, Meghan is very pleased with her voice. She seems lately to have obviously styled her intonations on those of Barack Obama himself, the great liberal deity with the quadrophonic voice. If this podcast venture doesnt work out, shes certainly got a future in the ASMR game.

Ultimately, the podcast is a bit of a cheat the contributions by Meghan and Harry are mercifully minimal. Instead, they use the old trick of all journalists paid by the word for interview pieces: they just provide short links to the words of others. But we will find out more about them as people, presumably, in subsequent episodes, when they will have to sing rather harder for their supper by filling the airtime themselves. Then well really discover the scale of their ambition for world domination, and also, perhaps, the reason for their strange erasing of trans people from the Covid record.

More here:

Harry and Meghan's podcast of platitudes - Spectator.co.uk

Letters that appeared on The Durango Heralds opinion pages in 2020 reflected the breadth of issues in La Plata County and the variety of perspectives that can be applied.

In the first few months of 2020, the Herald published numerous letters supporting an end to single-use plastic bags. Green repeat-use bags also plummeted in popularity. Dont use a bag at all, said one writer use a cart.

Then the enormity of COVID-19 struck and letters about bags abruptly ceased.

Beginning mid-March the coronavirus became the topic, many letters offering similar messages: Mask-shaming was criticized, as were businesses lax in requiring masks. Tourists were not wearing masks. Lets reduce the anger in the country, and its not Republicans versus Democrats, but life or death, wrote another. A couple of others said the virus was being blown out of proportion and fostering political correctness.

Parks should be open, including a track for high school runners since it is much safer outdoors.

A subsequent big issue of the year for letter-writers was the proposed pedestrian bridge that would cross over busy 32nd Street on the west side of the Animas River. Its potential appearance in a high-in-the-air-location a first along the Animas River Trail grated. How could this have been sprung on us? many asked, having been unaware of the many months of city planning behind it. (The citys acquisition of property on the east side of the river will make possible a subsurface crossing instead.)

National attention to racism particularly in regard to public sculpture trickled down to Durango when it was pointed out that Toh-Atin Gallerys Chief on 9th Avenue might be racist in its design and should go. In a flurry of letters, the sign was condemned and defended. The sign remains, as its owners said theyve heard no criticism from the Native Americans they know.

In the November elections, the two county commission races were at the forefront. Independent candidates, for all their appeal, discovered one value of party membership: Democrats are disciplined in writing letters supporting their own. Other political topics included opposition to the electoral college; praise for incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton, who would lose his primary; and a letter urging the eventual winner, Representative-elect Lauren Boebert, to be more positive. Readers were cautioned about leftism and power-drunk Democrats.

Numerous letters faulted Republicans, especially Sen. Cory Gardner, for their allegiance to President Trump.

Letter-writers split on the issue of reintroducing wolves to the wilds of Colorado: Some welcomed the prospect, while others feared their arrival.

Dozens of perennial topics arose, such as the desire for La Plata Electric Association to free itself from a 30-year contract with Tri-State Generation and Transmission (although one letter praised its move toward more renewables).

Writers expressed general concern for the homeless and support of their temporary camp at Purple Cliffs, although one writer argued that providing more services attracts more homeless.

The Herald was faulted for not printing more positive news in a time of crisis; for twisting virus reporting to criticize the president; and for endorsing Michael Bloomberg in the Democratic primary for president.

Several letters said Michael Smedleys writing of the Action Line column would be missed.

Community members who took the time to write their opinions to the Herald did not disappoint in 2020. We look forward to more of the same in 2021.

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Our View: Looking back at 2020 in Letters to the Editor - The Durango Herald

Many in Connecticut, including most of its news organizations, are gushing about President-elect Joe Biden's choice of state Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona, a Meriden native, to be secretary of the U.S. Education Department. News reports say the president-elect picked Cardona in large part because of the support he and Governor Lamont have given to keeping schools open amid the virus epidemic.

This gush couldn't be sillier.

For most schools in the state are not really open but operating entirely with internet classes or alternating erratically between in-person classes and internet classes. Since March when the governor began exercising emergency power to rule by decree during the epidemic, he has dictated to businesses, restaurants, and even churches, but he has only urged schools to stay open, declining to order them to do so, lest he offend the teacher unions, the most feared special interest. His position and the commissioner's in favor of keeping schools open has been only a pose, though those gushing about Cardona misrepresent it as policy.

Having been commissioner for less than a year and a half, Cardona can't be blamed for not having changed much about Connecticut's schools. But then he can't be credited with much either. The embarrassing gap between the performance of white and minority students, which has caused years of handwringing, has not diminished during Cardona's tenure, nor has student performance improved generally. Nor has there been any candid acknowledgment from anyone in authority that school performance is not at all a matter of school financing but mostly a matter of parenting and that the state's main education policy is only social promotion, which cripples education.

Able as Cardona may be, having been a teacher, principal, and assistant superintendent, he has not made Connecticut's schools any more of an example and has no national reputation.

So why his selection by the president-elect? It is because of his heartening personal story and, more so, his Puerto Rican ancestry. The Democratic Party is obsessed with racial, ethnic, and gender balance, the president-elect has been told that he must have a Hispanic in his Cabinet, and choosing Cardona mobilizes political correctness against support for putting a national teachers union leader in the education secretary's office.

Indeed, not being a teachers union leader may be the highest qualification that can be expected from an education secretary appointed by a Democratic president.

Until the 1980s the state's political parties put much effort into balancing their state tickets by ethnicity, often splitting the gubernatorial nominations between Irish and Italians, assigning to Poles the nominations for the old congressman-at-large seat, and reserving treasurer nominations for Blacks and secretary of the state nominations for women. There was often room somewhere for a Jew, and political anti-Semitism was extinguished with Abraham Ribicoff's narrow election as governor in 1954. A woman easily made it to the top when Ella Grasso was elected governor 20 years later.

But ethnicity in politics doesn't resonate much in Connecticut anymore, perhaps because the state has grown up a bit politically and because, while the rise of someone from a disadvantaged group is always encouraging, it has happened often enough for people to realize that, if just given a chance in power, the disadvantaged can disappoint as much as anyone else and that no matter who wins, taxes go up but student test scores don't.

Education in the United States is almost entirely local and the federal education secretary has little authority over it. Mostly he can distribute federal money, highlight what he considers improvements, and make noise.

President Trump's education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has not been very expert but at least knows that teacher unions serve teachers, not students. If Cardona even hints at such understanding, his ethnicity won't save him or the president from the fury of the unions, which already may be resentful that they aren't getting all the patronage they expected.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.

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So what exactly are Cardona's qualifications? - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com