School Governing Body member Henry Charles said... “During the process we were asked what criteria are we going to use with race. I stood up and said I would score five for coloureds and I’ll score four for black people... They said coloureds and blacks are the same and I said but this is a coloured area and they said I am being racist. We want a coloured principal because this is a coloured area”....
The department spokesman Oupa Bodibe said: “The department has learnt the disturbing news that the community in Klipspruit West has rejected the principal because of skin colour. This action is strongly condemned, as it runs against the non-racial principles of our society. Educators are appointed on the basis of qualification and experience.”
IN THE COMMENTS: Paco Wové asks:
So, why are you getting news from South African school districts? Do you have some kind of Racial Grievance Aggregator news feed software running?
I answer:
I have a Google alert set up for Robin Givhan, whose writing I enjoy. Her name appeared in an article in IOL (which I'd never heard of) called "Why Serena was victorious in her nakedness," which I clicked on but wasn't interested in blogging. There was a 5-item "most read" list on the page:
1. News of son's death kills dad
2. Man breaks car's window, tries to snatch girl from dad
3. School racism row: Parents don’t want a black principal
4. Fears of ‘Ramaphosa camp’ purge
5. Kushe ucansi emcimbini kamaskandi eMabhida
Tempting as #5 is, I chose #3.
On a more serious note, surfed said...
The predominately black inner city high schools schools in my city get black principals EVERYTIME and have for decades upon decades upon decades. The thought of a white principal at these schools is laughable - call it what you will. I know, because I spent 37 years as a teacher there for immigrant and refugees there. There's much more I could elaborate on but won't. It is what it is.
I said that very thing just a few days ago. So great minds think alike. A least I've heard they do. I don't know. Maybe great minds don't think alike. But I've heard it. From great scholars. The greatest. So I'm pleased either way.
I can vouch for Meade. He really did say that. About Spicer and O'Reilly. Not about great minds thinking alike. I don't think they do. See?
Trump even likened Spicer’s daily news briefings to a daytime soap opera, noting proudly that his press secretary attracted nearly as many viewers....
During an intimate lunch recently with a key outside ally in a small West Wing dining room, for instance, Trump repeatedly paused the conversation to make the group watch a particularly combative Spicer briefing....
ADDED: Also in the comments on that other post and before Surfed made his proposal, EDH wrote:
Here's what I propose: Trump hires Bill O'Reilly. They set up a fake "old school" cathode ray tube TV cabinet in the Oval Office. Bill O'Reilly then does The O'Reilly Factor show live in person from inside the hollowed-out TV cabinet while Trump watches the program.
That's what I said when Meade called me over to look at this:
I fired it up in my computer, because I knew I wanted to blog about it. I was in tears at 0:20, when the voices started and experienced chills seconds later. It's that song. My God! Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together....
An exploding grid of thousands of faces — digital photographs submitted by people who made online donations to Mr. Sanders — accompanies the song’s chorus: “They’ve all come to look for America.” Only in the last seconds of the commercial, as the candidate smiles delightedly from behind a microphone, is his unmistakable voice-over heard, approving the ad....
Children and young adults are the main focus, all of them with much to look forward to; the ad’s tagline promises them “a future to believe in.” (Still, older women — possibly the strongest demographic of his chief rival, Hillary Clinton — might well be moved by the music of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, both 74, the same age as Mr. Sanders.)
Uh... yeah.
ADDED: This post originally pinned the tears point for me at 0:25, but when I read Surfed in the comments — "It had me at 20 seconds... Best campaign ad of the election so far. I'm old and sentimental - mea culpa." — I suspected that I'd looked at the time a few seconds after it affected me. I was right about that, and I've corrected the post. 0:20 it is.
AND: It's the best political video ad I've ever seen, save one. The one is this:
The fighters used the time to carry out a series of car bombings followed by a wave of ground attacks in and around the city that eventually overwhelmed the American-backed Iraqi forces.
Once the storm subsided, Islamic State and Iraqi forces were intermingled in heavy combat in many areas, making it difficult for allied pilots to distinguish friend or foe, the officials said. By that point, the militants had gained an operational momentum that could not be reversed....
IN THE COMMENTS: SJ said: "It's hard to fight a war without putting soldiers on the ground in the area. Airplanes are useful, but they can't win a war by themselves." Surfed said: "Right out of the 1965 operational playbook of North Vietnamese General Vo Giap. Get close and intermingle in combat - it negates America's strengths in airpower and artillery. One place - Ia Drang Valley."
"The vibrations were good, but the times were bad."
The film came out in 1970, but it depicts the protests that took place at Columbia University in 1968.
ADDED: Maybe someone could make a movie about the Wisconsin protests of 2011 and call it "The Sandwich Manifesto." The protest scenes here were very similar to some of the scenes in that trailer, and — as noted earlier this morning — Scott Walker has made sandwiches his trademark.
IN THE COMMENTS: Surfed reminds us of the old notion that men have 2 brains, and I said: "We always assume that the genital 'brain' is the lesser brain, but what if it's a genius compared to the brain brain?"
EDH said: "Vindication for those who thought Herman Cain's tax plan was 'the balls.' 999."
The Fountainhead was a better read, a more cogent and focused book and you get the same dose of the philosophy....
Addendum: In the movie Dirty Dancing (1987) Baby confronts Robbie to pay for Penny's abortion. Robbie refuses to take responsibility and preaches “Some people count and some people don’t” and then hands Baby a used paperback copy of The Fountainhead saying, “Read it. I think it's a book you'll enjoy, but make sure you return it; I have notes in the margin."
Said I, in the comments to this morning's Drudge in B&W post, which invoked the popular novel "Shades of Grey, " and prompted a commenter (Surfed) to ask "to what effect have these novels affected [sic] Althouse that they are constantly (if not on an everyday basis) referred to? Is this a question best posed to Meade?" I said:
I don't read many novels, and I don't read any novels that are not on a fairly high literary level. So, genre romance and porn aren't in my Kindle.
I am interested in the culture... and in sexuality, so I'll talk about what it might mean that so many women are reading a novel that depicts sado-masochism. In fact, Meade and I just had big conversation about that. I wondered whether women's fascination with this kind of fiction indicated that something is missing in present-day sexual relationships. Meade expressed the view that this is what women over the ages have in fact found titillating. I didn't disagree, so it's not as though we were opposed. I think it's a good issue, worth discussing, so feel free to carry on with that.
I'm making this into a new post, because I really do think it's a good topic for discussion and would like you to carry on — in this discussion or whatever other activities you have in mind. For example, Surfed asserted that he has "used the novel to great effect in my own personal life these last 6 months or so." All right then!
I've made a "Shades of Grey" tag so you can see the old posts on the subject and see what I've already said about this series of books.
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