Biden's Failure in Afghanistan

The top headlines at the New York Times right now, "LIVE: As Major Afghan Cities Fall With Stunning Speed, U.S. Readies Evacuation," and "Afghanistan’s Unraveling May Strike Another Blow to U.S. Credibility."

And from Frederick Kagan, whose father recently passed away, at the New York Times, "Biden Could Have Stopped the Taliban. He Chose Not To":

The Taliban is sweeping across Afghanistan seizing more than a dozen provincial capitals in the past week, and is poised to seize more. Afghan defense forces, finding themselves mostly cut off from U.S. air support, haven’t been able to stop them, and the Afghan government may not survive for much longer. The United States has all but abandoned the country.

A disastrous Taliban takeover wasn’t inevitable. President Biden said his hands were tied to a withdrawal given the awful peace deal negotiated between the Trump administration and the Taliban. But there was still a way to pull out American troops while giving our Afghan partners a better chance to hold the gains we made with them over the last two decades.

Mr. Biden chose otherwise. The way he announced the drawdown and eventual departure of American troops — at the start of the fighting season, on a rapid timeline and sans adequate coordination with the Afghan government — has in part gotten us into the current situation.

Reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of keeping American military forces in Afghanistan indefinitely, even at very low numbers. I and others have argued that the investment, including the risk to American personnel, is worth it to prevent militant groups from once again overrunning the country.

Mr. Biden believes that further expending U.S. resources in Afghanistan is “a recipe for being there indefinitely.” He rightly notes that President Trump had left him few good options by making a terrible deal with the Taliban. That’s a fine argument, but it explains neither the hastiness nor the consequences we are now observing: the Taliban overrunning swaths of the country, closing in on Kabul, pushing the Afghan security forces and government to the brink of collapse and prompting the Pentagon to prepare for a possible evacuation of the U.S. embassy.

A responsible withdrawal needed more time and better preparation. History will record Mr. Biden, a supposed master of foreign policy for decades, as having failed in this most critical assignment.

As U.S. military planners well know, the Afghan war has a seasonal pattern. The Taliban leadership retreats to bases, largely in Pakistan, every winter and then launches the group’s fighting season campaign in the spring, moving into high gear in the summer after the poppy harvest. At the very least, the United States should have continued to support the Afghans through this period to help them blunt the Taliban’s latest offensive and buy time to plan for a future devoid of American military assistance.

American diplomats could have used this time to negotiate access to regional bases from which to continue counterterrorism operations. Simultaneously, the American military should have prepared contingencies in case those negotiations failed. And even that plan would have meant contending with an increasingly brazen Taliban. (A report by the special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction said the Taliban launched its latest offensive after U.S. and coalition forces officially began drawing down in May.)

Adopting a more judicious approach would have required Mr. Biden to accept two things in addition to a longer timeline: the temporary deployment of additional U.S. forces and the slightly increased risk of American casualties.

Sending additional troops into Afghanistan could have allowed the United States to carry out the withdrawal safely without severely disrupting military support...

It's a bloody, horrific debacle.

I fear most for the women and children, who're not doubt facing a grim future.

Still more.

 

Afghanistan on the Brink

The Taliban should be taking over any minute now, it's that bad.

If this isn't banner headlines in newspapers across the country in the morning, the publishers are idiots and traitors --- and no doubt in the tank for our bumbling, fumbling chief executive.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Taliban captures four more key Afghan cities on its way to encircling Kabul":

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban completed its sweep of Afghanistan’s south Friday as it took four more provincial capitals in a lightning offensive that is gradually encircling Kabul, just weeks before the U.S. is set to officially end its two-decade war.

In just the last 24 hours, the country’s second- and third-largest cities — Kandahar and Herat, respectively — have fallen to the insurgents, as has Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province, where American, British and NATO forces fought some of the bloodiest battles of the conflict.

The blitz through the Taliban’s southern heartland means that the insurgents now hold at least half of the country’s 34 provincial capitals and control more than two-thirds of the country — weeks before the U.S. plans to withdraw its last troops. The Western-backed government in the capital, Kabul, still holds a smattering of provinces in the center and east, as well as the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

While Kabul, the national capital, isn’t directly under threat yet, the resurgent Taliban was battling government forces in Logar province, some 50 miles from the capital. The latest U.S. military intelligence assessment suggests that Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days and that, if current trends hold, the Taliban could gain full control of the country within a few months. The group has already taken over much of the north and west of the country.

In the south, the insurgents stormed the capitals of Zabul and Uruzgan provinces, in addition to Helmand.

Attaullah Afghan, the head of the provincial council in Helmand, said that Taliban fighters captured the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah following heavy fighting and raised their white flag over governmental installations. He said that three national army bases outside of Lashkar Gah remained under control of the government.

Atta Jan Haqbayan, the provincial council chief in Zabul province, said that the capital, Qalat, fell to the Taliban and that officials are in a nearby army camp preparing to leave...

Keep reading.

 

Alex Haley's 'Roots'

An all-time American classic, no question.

At Amazon, Roots.

'The Night House' Review

At Variety, "‘The Night House’ Stars on the Film’s Loud Jump Scares and Female-Led Horror":

“The Night House,” the upcoming psychological horror directed by David Bruckner, follows the trend of recent films, like “The Invisible Man,” “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” by centering on female protagonists dealing with grief and trauma. However, this movie sets itself apart by cranking up the volume on the jump scares

During the Wednesday premiere at the Cinépolis Chelsea in New York City, the “Night House” stars discussed the film and some of the reviews that have called it “one of the loudest horror movies ever made.”

Rebecca Hall plays Beth, a woman dealing with the sudden suicide of her husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), whom she can still somehow sense around her maze-like house as she discovers dark secrets about his past.

When asked about the importance of telling female-led horror stories, she added with a laugh, “It’s as important to tell them with women at the front as it is to tell them with men at the front, so, you know, you might as well!”

Jonigkeit even compared Hall’s performance to one of the female icons in the horror genre.

“Even as far back as ‘Misery’ with Kathy Bates, I think there are so many really strong female characters that are getting in the forefront. This genre has created a bunch of opportunities for amazing performances, and Rebecca’s is definitely up there with the top of them,” Jonigkeit told Variety.

In film critic David Ehrlich’s review for IndieWire, he called “The Night House” “shudderingly intense and sadistically loud” with jump scares that “often arrive without any warning whatsoever.” Meanwhile, Variety critic Dennis Harvey praised composer Ben Lovett‘s “effective score” that contributed to the film’s “discomfiting atmosphere.” The film’s co-writer Ben Collins and Lovett offered differing takes on the several reviews that have referenced the jarring jump scares and score.

“David Ehrlich called it the loudest horror movie ever made. I don’t agree with him necessarily — I would like it to be true just because it’s a nice thing to say,” Collins told Variety.

He also noted that the film “does get loud at times,” but says it was intentional...

Sounds good to me. 

My eldest son and I occasionally see horror flicks together.

We're going to see this one on Saturday night --- I hope my heart holds out, lol. 

  

She's Still Got It

Ms. Kate Upton --- and boy does she still have it!

On Twitter:

Matching sets make my life so much easier 🙌🏻 pic.twitter.com/iIzAam0L0q

— Kate Upton (@KateUpton) August 11, 2021

Babe Roundup

At Country Girls below:

Also, massive Daisy Dooxx.

And wonders never cease.

Gladys Knight, 'Midnight Train'

She's so beautiful.

Glady Knight & the Pips.

Senate Democrats Pass $3.5 Trillion Social Spending Legislative Boondoggle

I could go for a lot in the package, as being neoconservative, I support a robust social safety net, but the traditional conservative in me is disgusted by all the poison-pill elements of the legislation, which covers every from carbon taxes, climate change efforts, added powers for the I.R.S., and especially the legalization of millions of illegal immigrants.

It's actually a shocking bill.

At LAT, "Senate approves Democrats’ $3.5-trillion budget blueprint in another win for Biden":

WASHINGTON — Democrats pushed a $3.5-trillion framework for bolstering family services and health and environmental programs through the Senate early Wednesday, advancing President Biden’s expansive vision for reshaping federal priorities just hours after handing him a triumph on a hefty infrastructure package.

Lawmakers approved Democrats’ budget resolution on a party-line 50-49 vote, a crucial step for a president and party set on training the government’s fiscal might at assisting families, creating jobs and fighting climate change. Higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations would pay for much of the plan.

Passage came despite an avalanche of Republican amendments intended to make their rivals pay a price in next year’s election for control of Congress.

House leaders announced that their chamber would return from summer recess in two weeks to vote on the fiscal blueprint, which would disburse the $3.5 trillion over the next decade. Final congressional approval, which appears certain, would protect a follow-up bill to enact the spending and tax changes from the threat of being killed by a Republican filibuster in the 50-50 Senate.

Even so, passing that follow-up legislation will be dicey: Democratic moderates who are wary of the massive $3.5-trillion price tag are sparring with progressives who demand aggressive action. The party controls the House with just four votes to spare, while the evenly divided Senate is under the party’s control only due to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. Solid GOP opposition to the legislation seems guaranteed.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), once a maverick congressional progressive voice but now a national figure wielding legislative clout, said the measure would help children, families, elderly and working people — and more.

“It will also, I hope, restore the faith of the American people in the belief that we can have a government that works for all of us, and not just the few,” he said.

Republicans argued that Democrats’ proposals would waste money, raise economy-wounding taxes, fuel inflation and codify far-left dictates that would harm Americans. They were happy to use Sanders, a self-avowed democratic socialist, to try to tar all Democrats backing the measure.

If Biden and Senate Democrats want to “outsource domestic policy to Chairman Sanders” with a “historically reckless taxing and spending spree,” Republicans lack the votes to stop them, conceded Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “But we will debate. We will vote.”

The Senate turned to the budget minutes after it approved Biden’s other major objective: a compromise bundle of transportation, water, broadband and other infrastructure projects costing about $1 trillion in new and old spending. That measure passed 69 to 30, with McConnell among the 19 Republicans backing it. It will need House approval next.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) assured progressives that Congress would pursue sweeping initiatives that go beyond the infrastructure compromise, in a nod to divisions between the party’s moderates and liberals that he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) need to resolve before Congress can approve Democrats’ fiscal goals.

“To my colleagues who are concerned that this does not do enough on climate, for families, and making corporations and the rich pay their fair share: We are moving on to a second track, which will make a generational transformation in these areas,” Schumer said.

In a budget ritual, senators plunged into a “vote-a-rama,” a nonstop parade of messaging amendments that often becomes an all-night ordeal. This time, the Senate held over 40 votes before approving the measure around 4 a.m. Eastern time, more than 14 hours after the procedural marathon began.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) missed the budget votes to be with his ailing wife.

With the budget resolution largely advisory, most amendments were offered not in hopes of passing but to force the other party’s vulnerable senators to cast troublesome votes that can be used against them in next year’s midterm election.

Republicans crowed after Democrats opposed GOP amendments calling for the full-time reopening of pandemic-shuttered schools, boosting the Pentagon’s budget and retaining limits on federal income tax deductions for state and local levies. Those deduction caps are opposed by lawmakers from upper-income, mostly Democratic states...

Still more.

Breaking: U.S. Prepares to Evacuate Afghanistan

Breaking news, but not surprising.

It's getting grim over there.

A.P. has a detailed report this morning, "Taliban take Afghanistan’s third-largest city in onslaught."

And at NYT, "Marines Prepare for Possible Evacuation of Americans in Afghanistan":

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Pentagon is moving thousands of Marines into position for a possible evacuation of the American Embassy and U.S. citizens in Kabul as the Biden administration braces for a possible collapse of the Afghan government within 30 days, administration and military officials said.

The sharply deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, as the Taliban rapidly advance across the north and Afghan security forces battle to defend ever shrinking territory in the south and west, has forced the Defense Department to accelerate plans to get Americans out of the country. Officials say any evacuation will involve a robust use of American military force to move people to Hamid Karzai International Airport to waiting military transport planes and to protect them en route.

American negotiators are also trying to extract assurances from the Taliban that they will not attack the embassy if they overrun the capital, two American officials said.

The 30-day estimate is one scenario and administration and military officials insist that the fall of Kabul might still be prevented if Afghan security forces can muster the resolve to put up more resistance. But while Afghan commandos have managed to continue fighting in some areas, they have largely folded in a number of northern provincial capitals.

The Taliban seized the strategic city of Ghazni, about 90 miles south of Kabul, on Thursday, putting the group in a better position to attack Kabul after its recent string of victories in the north.

And as Ghazni fell, Taliban fighters broke through multiple front lines in Kandahar, pushing deep into the city. As Afghanistan’s second-largest city, Kandahar is historically and strategically important. The Taliban, led by Mullah Mohammad Omar, began their insurgency there in the 1990s.

Herat, a city in western Afghanistan near the Iranian border, was also in an increasingly dangerous position as Taliban fighters flooded in.

A senior official in the Biden administration said in an interview that the Taliban might soon take Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province and the country’s economic engine, which is now effectively surrounded by the Taliban. The fall of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kandahar, which has all but collapsed, the official said, could lead to a surrender of the Afghan government by September. Another senior U.S. official described the mood in the White House as a combination of alarm and resignation — at the rapid pace of the Taliban offensive and the collapse of Afghan national forces, and over how the situation could continue to worsen. There has been a constant stream of video teleconference calls every day this week, the official said.

Three contingents of Marines are preparing for the possible evacuation of the American Embassy, officials said. A Marine battalion of several hundred is already on the complex grounds, responsible for evacuating the embassy, which has 4,000 employees, including 1,400 Americans, officials said.

In addition, the Pentagon is moving a Marine expeditionary unit, with more than 2,000 Marines, into position closer to the air route over western Pakistan, known as the “boulevard,” where it can dispatch its forces into Afghanistan as a rapid response team that would be able to begin an embassy evacuation within a day of orders, officials said. And as a contingency plan in case any embassy evacuation turns into a fight with the Taliban, Defense Department officials have tasked thousands of Marines to begin a training exercise that can, if necessary, quickly be turned into an evacuation deployment, the officials said. The Marines in the exercise have been told that they may need to be ready to deploy next week within 96 hours, officials said.

Asked during a news conference on Wednesday whether the Pentagon was speeding up any evacuation of people from the embassy, a spokesman for the Defense Department, John F. Kirby, demurred.

“We’re focused on the security situation that we face now, which again we’ve acknowledged is deteriorating,” he said. “We are certainly mindful of the advances that the Taliban have made in terms of taking over yet an increased number of provincial capitals.”...

Who lost Afghanistan? Why, Joe Biden, of course. *Shrug.*

And is it possible? I'd argue it's inevitable. While withdrawal is the zeitgeist right now, one the Taliban take over, it's going to be a bloodbath. 

 

Margaret Walker, Jubilee

At Amazon, Margaret Walker, Jubilee: A Novel.

More Cuomo

Lots more.

Here, "In Resignation Speech, Cuomo Makes a Last Play to Preserve His Legacy."

And, "Cuomo Resigns Amid Scandals, Ending Decade-Long Run in Disgrace":

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said on Tuesday that he would resign from office, succumbing to a ballooning sexual harassment scandal in an astonishing reversal of fortune for one of the nation’s best-known leaders.

Mr. Cuomo said his resignation would take effect in 14 days. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, will be sworn in to replace him, becoming the first woman in history to occupy New York State’s top office.

“Given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing,” Mr. Cuomo said in remarks streamed from his office in Midtown Manhattan. “And therefore, that’s what I’ll do.”

Mr. Cuomo’s dramatic fall was shocking in its velocity and vertical drop: A year ago, the governor was being hailed as a national hero for his steady leadership amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The resignation of Mr. Cuomo, 63, a three-term Democrat, came a week after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded that the governor sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, including current and former government workers, by engaging in unwanted touching and making inappropriate comments. The 165-page report also found that Mr. Cuomo and his aides unlawfully retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public and fostered a toxic work environment.

The report’s findings put increased pressure on Mr. Cuomo to resign, with even President Biden, a longtime friend, advising him to do so. It spurred the State Assembly — Mr. Cuomo’s last political bulwark in an Albany increasingly arrayed against him — to take steps toward impeachment. And it left Mr. Cuomo with few, if any, allies to fight on with him.

The fallout from the report was swifter than even those closest to Mr. Cuomo expected. He quickly became isolated and grew more so by the day. His top aide, Melissa DeRosa, resigned Sunday. On Monday, the speaker of the State Assembly, Carl E. Heastie, made clear that there would be no “deal” to allow Mr. Cuomo to avoid an impeachment that appeared increasingly inevitable.

In the end, Mr. Cuomo followed through on the advice his top advisers and onetime allies had been offering: leave office voluntarily.

By stepping down, Mr. Cuomo dampened talk of impeachment in the State Assembly, which is dominated by Democrats, and left open the possibility, however remote, for a political revival.

In a 21-minute speech that was by turns contrite and defiant, Mr. Cuomo decried the effort to remove him and acknowledged that his initial instinct had been “to fight through this controversy, because I truly believe it is politically motivated.”

“This situation and moment are not about the facts,” he said. “It’s not about the truth. It’s not about thoughtful analysis. It’s not about how do we make the system better. This is about politics. And our political system today is too often driven by the extremes.”

The governor said he took “full responsibility” for his actions as he denied ever touching anyone inappropriately. He sought to frame the allegations from 11 women as stemming from generational differences and even thanked them for coming forward.

“In my mind, I have never crossed the line with anyone,” Mr. Cuomo said. “But I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn.”

At one point, he addressed his three daughters directly to let them know that “I never did and I never would intentionally disrespect a woman.”

“Your dad made mistakes,” he said to a room filled with staff members, some of them teary-eyed, most caught by surprise. “And he apologized. And he learned from it. And that’s what life is all about.”

His speech was prefaced by a 45-minute presentation from his personal lawyer, Rita Glavin, who blamed the media for creating a frenzied environment. She sought to cast doubt on many of the women’s allegations and the level of seriousness of some of the others.

“This report got key facts wrong,” she said. “It omitted key evidence, and it failed to include witnesses whose testimony would not support the narrative that it was clear this report would weave from Day 1.”

It was a taste of the bare-knuckled counterattack that Mr. Cuomo had been eager to launch and was considering in the days after the report came out. Instead, he appeared to conclude, as many of his advisers already had, that no path existed for him to stay in office.

Mr. Cuomo still faces potential legal liability, particularly from the accusation that he groped an executive assistant, Brittany Commisso. She filed a criminal complaint with the Albany County sheriff’s office last week.

From the start, Mr. Cuomo’s tenure in office was a study in vivid contrasts, marked by a head-spinning scale of accomplishment — the passage of marriage equality, raising the minimum wage, the construction of bridges and train stations — and political scandals, such as his decision to shut down a panel investigating public corruption before its work was completed.

His demise stunned Albany, where Mr. Cuomo had governed with an outsize presence for more than a decade, wielding the State Capitol’s levers of power with deft and often brutal skill, both alienating allies and keeping them in check. Most politicians — Democrats and Republicans — welcomed Mr. Cuomo’s decision and offered Ms. Hochul their support. Few thanked Mr. Cuomo for his years of service. Some could barely contain their glee.

“It was past time for Andrew Cuomo to resign, and it’s for the good of all New York,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has been repeatedly attacked and disparaged by Mr. Cuomo over the years.

Mr. Biden took a different tone, saying he respected the governor’s decision to resign and praising his accomplishments. “I thought he’s done a hell of a job,” he said, mentioning infrastructure, voter access and “a range of things.”

“That’s why it’s so sad,” Mr. Biden added.

As recently as February, it was largely assumed that Mr. Cuomo would coast to a fourth term next year — eclipsing the three terms served by his father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, and matching the record of Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller — perhaps positioning himself for even higher office.

But that notion was shredded by a steady drumbeat of sexual harassment allegations earlier this year, coupled with troubling reports about his administration’s efforts to obscure the true extent of nursing home deaths during the pandemic, an issue that has been the subject of a federal investigation.

The allegations led to a barrage of calls for his resignation in March from top Democrats, including Senator Chuck Schumer and most of the state’s congressional delegation. Under immense pressure, and in an effort to buy himself time, Mr. Cuomo authorized Letitia James, the state attorney general, to oversee an investigation, urging voters to wait for the facts before reaching a conclusion.

The Assembly also began a wide-ranging impeachment investigation earlier this year. That inquiry was looking not only at sexual harassment allegations, but also at other accusations involving Mr. Cuomo’s misuse of power, including the possible illegal use of state resources to write a book about leadership last year for which he received $5.1 million, as well as his handling of nursing homes.

The inquiry was unfolding slowly, but the attorney general’s report eroded what little support Mr. Cuomo had in the Assembly. Mr. Cuomo was left with two options: step down or risk becoming only the second New York governor to be impeached in state history.

The last elected New York State governor, Eliot Spitzer, also resigned, after it emerged in 2008 that he had been a client of a high-end prostitution ring.

Multiple claims of sexual harassment. Eleven women, including current and former members of his administration, have accused Mr. Cuomo of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior. An independent inquiry, overseen by the New York State attorney general, corroborated their accounts. The report also found that he and aides retaliated against at least one woman who made her complaints public.

Nursing home Covid-19 controversy. The Cuomo administration is also under fire for undercounting the number of nursing-home deaths caused by Covid-19 in the first half of 2020, a scandal that deepened after a Times investigation found that aides rewrote a health department report to hide the real number.

Efforts to obscure the death toll. Interviews and unearthed documents revealed in April that aides repeatedly overruled state health officials in releasing the true nursing home death toll for months. Several senior health officials have resigned in response to the governor’s overall handling of the pandemic, including the vaccine rollout.

Will Cuomo still be impeached? The State Assembly opened an impeachment investigation in March. But after Mr. Cuomo announced his resignation, it was unclear whether the Assembly would move forward with its impeachment process. If Mr. Cuomo were impeached and convicted, he could be barred from holding state office again.

Looking to the future. Mr. Cuomo said on Tuesday that his resignation would take effect in 14 days, and that Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, would be sworn in to replace him. She will be the first woman in New York history to occupy the state’s top office.

In recent months, Mr. Cuomo had tried to steer attention away from the investigations and scandals that had battered his administration, seeking to counter his critics’ contention that he had lost the capacity to govern. His top advisers believed that the good will he had amassed during the pandemic would allow him to survive, despite the findings from the state attorney general’s investigation, which was being conducted by a team of outside lawyers...

LAUSD Struggles to Fill Thousands of Positions

I hadn't thought about this. 

They're hurting for teachers, counselors, school nurses (and no doubt more).

At LAT, "Thousands of vacancies for L.A. teachers, counselors, nurses remain days before school starts":

Days before the academic year starts, a well-funded hiring spree for Los Angeles schools is falling short of its goal to provide unprecedented and critical mental health and academic support as a shortage of teachers and other professionals collides with pandemic recovery goals.

The staffing ambitions of the nation’s second-largest school district have been sweeping — targeting hires to meet academic needs, mental and physical wellness and campus sanitation. And in all areas, staffing appears to be strengthened compared to pre-pandemic levels. But it’s also not what officials had hoped for — and leaders worry that important needs will not be met effectively.

Shortfalls are particularly pronounced in positions serving students most in need of academic and mental health recovery. Many teachers and counselors promised to elevate achievement and well-being of Black students haven’t been hired. Hundreds of special education and math teacher posts — the hardest to fill in normal times — are vacant. School nurses and mental health specialists are seemingly impossible to find. Half of the openings remain for school facilities and cleaning staff.

In all, the district had hoped to hire the equivalent of 4,389 full-time positions that require a professional credential for teaching or a related field. This would include librarians, principals, other administrators and counselors. Of these open slots, 2,000 — less than half — had been filled as of July 29, the most recent date for which figures are available.

Several school board members and leaders of local advocacy groups found the number of vacancies worrisome.

“There has never been a more compelling need for support services and qualified teachers for our most vulnerable students,” said Katie Braude of Speak Up. “LAUSD must find a way to meet the immediate needs of students returning from a year and a half of limited instruction.”

“The staffing shortage should NOT be another disproportionate inequitable impact on our most vulnerable students,” said Ana Ponce, executive director of Great Public Schools Now, in an email.

Board member George McKenna wanted to see disaggregated numbers geographically pinpointing the vacancies — data that were not presented to the school board at its Tuesday meeting. In his prior service as a district administrator, he became familiar and frustrated with the high vacancy and turnover rate at schools that served large numbers of low-income and minority students.

A scramble is on to fill vital positions by the Aug. 16 start of school, but if schools were to open immediately, 479 classrooms would be staffed with substitute teachers. While the district is hiring continually, the classroom vacancy number has dropped by only seven teachers in the last 12 days. One problem is that some teachers are leaving the classroom to fill other vacancies, such as for reading specialists, administrative positions and other out-of-classroom jobs, leaving their principals with last-minute openings to backfill.

Administrators described hiring efforts that include using job boards, social media, virtual job fairs, workforce centers, referrals, radio and print advertising and outreach through parent groups and labor unions.

“During these unprecedented times, we are hiring everywhere,” Chief Human Resources Officer Ileana M. Dávalos said.

Los Angeles Unified is not alone in facing a hiring crunch. Even before the pandemic, teacher retirements were outpacing new teachers...

Keep reading.

 

James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain

At Amazon, James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain (Vintage International).

Zero Covid

It's Kat Rosenfield, "The zero COVID delusion: We’ve been led to believe that if we just care enough and try really hard, we can stop getting sick and save lives":

During World War Two, ordinary citizens were encouraged to plant victory gardens, collect scrap metal and carpool to save fuel, always with the understanding that these measures would somehow contribute to victory. The propaganda of the time was heavy on the same ‘do your part’ messaging that we’ve seen during the COVID pandemic, giving meaning to people’s sacrifices by characterizing their efforts as a patriotic duty and a moral imperative — and by strongly implying that those who balked at those sacrifices were on the side of the bad guy. One of the most famous posters from the era shows a snappily-dressed man behind the wheel of a car, with a ghostly, familiar figure sporting a toothbrush mustache in the passenger seat.

‘When you ride ALONE,’ the poster warns, ‘you ride with Hitler!’

The moral and patriotic imperatives of our current moment are different. (A 2020 version of that same poster might read, ‘When you ride TOGETHER, you ride with Death!’) But they offer the same comforting assurance: that together, if we just try hard enough and follow the rules, we can beat this thing.

Therein lies the problem.

We cannot beat this thing.

The notion that we could literally stop the spread of COVID by locking down and vaccinating it out of existence was always a fantasy. As National Geographic recently noted, ‘only two diseases in recorded history that affect humans or other animals have ever been eradicated’. (Only one of these viruses, smallpox, was a danger to human beings; the other is a bovine disease.) Every other virus, from ebola to influenza to the bubonic plague, still exists among us; we’ve just learned to live with them, and to control them as best we can through inoculation, preventive measures, and treatment for those who get sick.

Until very recently, we lived with them relatively easily. Take the flu: every year, it ripples through the American population. And every year, people deal with it according to their own personal set of priorities and risk tolerances. Some are content to take their chances. Some get a flu shot to protect themselves or their loved ones. Some take additional precautions because they’re immunocompromised or otherwise at above-average risk. But every year, no matter what, tens of millions of Americans catch the flu. Some get very sick. Some die.

Yet we still don’t assign a moral element to the flu season — even though every person who dies from the flu caught it from somebody else. Nobody hisses through their teeth at the selfish irresponsibility of people who don’t upend their lives to avoid getting the flu; nobody tells you that you have an individual moral duty to stop the spread of endemic viruses, generally. Co-existing with other creatures is the price of admission for planet earth, and that includes the millions of microorganisms that have evolved over the course of millennia to survive by making us sick.

But COVID — and more specifically, the messaging around it from our authority figures — changed how we conceive of our relationship with viruses...

Still more.

 

 

Paige's Clean and Jerk

She's funny.

Also, "Melissa Benoist in 'Homeland'."

And,  "Kara Del Toro in White Bikini."

Can @PaigeSpiranac set the World Record in the clean and jerk?💪🏋️‍♀️

Let's find out... pic.twitter.com/6RqdUKZy4x

— PointsBet Sportsbook (@PointsBetUSA) August 4, 2021

Families' Anxiety Skyrocketing Amid Surge of Delta Variant

Folks are worried, although by now Delta's just hype. Yet, for some families, any risk risk is too much.

At LAT, "Delta variant is sucking the joy out of back-to-school 2021":

Back-to-school 2021, with California campuses fully open for 6 million children, was supposed to herald relief — even celebration — for a mostly normal school year ahead. But a surge in the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus has reignited parents’ anxiety — and, for many, the safety and quality of schooling once again feel uncertain and tenuous.

“I wanted to be excited about a new school year, but now I am having to think: ‘Am I putting our health at risk by going to school in person?’” said Irma Villalpando, who has two high school daughters at the Maywood Center for Enriched Studies. “I am feeling very sad because I think that it is going to be another very difficult year.”

Some parents have frantically explored limited online options. And questions over safety protocols are taking on an urgent tone: What happens if someone at my child’s school tests positive? What happens if my child is exposed — will their class be quarantined? Will their school close? Are all teachers vaccinated? What about coronavirus testing?

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health disclosed last week that there were seven outbreaks in youth settings during the final week of July — the most since December. Most were associated with youth sports — and heavily associated with poor health safety practices, such as inconsistent mask wearing, lack of physical distancing and failing to isolate sick individuals and their close contacts.

Recorded cases and hospitalizations are up for children — although without any associated deaths, said county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. Documented cases among children through age 11 increased from 47 to 319 when comparing the two-week period ending June 26 with the two weeks ending July 24, according to county data. For ages 12 to 17, the number of cases rose from 34 to 211. Hospitalizations remained rare, about 1 in 100 cases among those 12 to 17.

“We recognize that, given our recent increases in cases, there is anxiety around school reopening,” Ferrer said.

Even so, there’s no indication the Delta variant will stop campuses from reopening for full-time, in-person classes — albeit with safety measures, most notably an indoor mask mandate and, in some places, outdoors as well.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday uttered a refrain common to him and other political and education leaders.

“Over the course of the next few weeks, we’re getting all our kids safely back into in-person instruction,” Newsom said at an event highlighting reopened campuses in San Bernardino. “And we’re doing it in a sustainable way.”

Ferrer, L.A. County Office of Education Supt. Debra Duardo and others spoke in similar terms during an online forum for parents earlier in the week, saying that returning to campus is vital because it offers direct academic intervention, crucial social interaction and ramped-up mental health support.

“We are confident schools have done an excellent job following all the mitigation strategies to prevent the spread of COVID,” Duardo said...

Keep reading. 

Cuomo Resigns

Finally, sheesh. 

And good riddance to the muthafuck.

At NYT, "Cuomo Resigns Amid Scandals, Ending Decade-Long Run in Disgrace":

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said Tuesday he would resign from office, succumbing to a ballooning sexual harassment scandal that fueled an astonishing reversal of fortune for one of the nation’s best-known leaders.

Mr. Cuomo said his resignation would take effect in 14 days. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, will be sworn in to replace him.

“Given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing,” Mr. Cuomo said from his office in Manhattan. “And therefore that’s what I’ll do.”

The resignation of Mr. Cuomo, a three-term Democrat, came a week after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded that the governor sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, including current and former government workers, by engaging in unwanted touching and making inappropriate comments. The 165-page report also found that Mr. Cuomo and his aides unlawfully retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public and fostered a toxic work environment.

The report put increased pressure on Mr. Cuomo to resign, leading to new calls to do so from President Biden, a longtime friend of the governor, and other Democratic leaders who had withheld judgment until the report’s findings were made public, and leaving Mr. Cuomo with few, if any, defenders.

The report’s fallout had left Mr. Cuomo increasingly isolated: His top aide, Melissa DeRosa, resigned Sunday after concluding the governor had no path to remain in office, according to a person familiar with her thinking. In the end, Mr. Cuomo followed through on the advice his top advisers and onetime allies had been offering: leave office voluntarily.

Mr. Cuomo stepped down as he faced the specter of forced removal from office through impeachment and was poised to become only the second governor to be impeached in the state’s history. Following the report’s release, the leaders of the State Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, began moving to draft articles of impeachment and appeared to have enough support to pass them.

The dramatic fall of Mr. Cuomo, 63, was shocking in its velocity and vertical drop: A year ago, the governor was being hailed as a national hero for his steady leadership amid the coronavirus pandemic. His political demise stunned Albany, where Mr. Cuomo had governed with an outsize presence for more than a decade, wielding the State Capitol’s levers of power with deft and often brutal skill.

As recently as February, it was largely assumed that Mr. Cuomo would coast to a fourth term next year — eclipsing the three terms served by his father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, and matching the record of Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller — perhaps positioning himself for even higher office.

But that notion was shredded by a steady drumbeat of sexual harassment allegations earlier this year, coupled with troubling reports about his administration’s efforts to obscure the true extent of nursing home deaths during the pandemic, an issue that has been the subject of a federal investigation.

The allegations led to a barrage of calls for his resignation in March from top Democrats, including Senator Chuck Schumer and most of the state’s congressional delegation. Under immense pressure, and in an effort to buy himself time, Mr. Cuomo authorized Letitia James, the state attorney general, to oversee an investigation into the claims, urging voters to wait for the facts before reaching a conclusion.

The Assembly, where Mr. Cuomo had retained a small well of support among a bloc of Democrats, had also begun a wide-ranging impeachment investigation earlier this year. That inquiry was looking not only at sexual harassment allegations, but also at other accusations involving Mr. Cuomo’s misuse of power, including the possible illegal use of state resources to write a book about leadership last year for which he received $5.1 million, as well as his handling of nursing home data during the pandemic.

The inquiry was unfolding slowly, but the attorney general’s report eroded what little support Mr. Cuomo had in the Assembly and accelerated impeachment efforts. The turning point came when Carl E. Heastie, the Assembly speaker, whom Mr. Cuomo’s critics had accused of covering for the governor by stalling the impeachment inquiry, declared that Mr. Cuomo had “lost the confidence of the Assembly Democratic majority” and “he can no longer remain in office.”

By then, Mr. Cuomo was left with two options: to step down or risk becoming the first New York governor to be impeached in more than a century, a stain on his legacy. The resignation of Mr. Cuomo, who has repeatedly denied inappropriately touching anyone, follows the resignation of the last elected New York State governor, Eliot Spitzer, who stepped down in 2008 after it emerged that he had been a client of a high-end prostitution ring.

In recent months, the governor had tried to steer attention away from the investigations and scandals that had battered his administration, seeking to counter his critics’ contention that he had lost the capacity to govern...

Still more. 

Douglas Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name

At Amazon, Douglas Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.

The People vs. Critical Race Theory

At the American Mind, "There won’t be a second chance to take back hijacked American schools":

With a speed that has astonished ordinary Americans, a vocal minority of “critical race theorists” has blitzed K-12 education with sweeping changes of law and policy. The New York Times’ 1619 Project has been the tip of the spear of their movement to put anti-American narratives of race and power at the heart of American curricula.

Even at the very highest levels of prestige, the examples now are legion. At the Dalton School in New York City, faculty signed a letter with a long list of recommendations, including: yearly anti-racist training for employees, an expanded diversity bureaucracy with at least 12 positions, and employee anti-racism statements. Prestigious exam schools predicated upon admitting excellent students and outstanding staff have been pushed to abandon entrance tests in the name of equity (not to be confused with equality).

Not to be outdone, the Illinois Board of Education recently amended a rule to establish “culturally responsive” teaching standards. The regulations require educators to recognize that there is no one “‘correct’ way of doing or understanding something”; to acknowledge that “systems of oppression…in our society…create and reinforce inequities”; and to “work actively against” those systems in order to “understand how the system of inequity has impacted them as an educator.” The amendment mandates that teachers adopt a narrow political ideology that includes a view of American history, society, and law that most citizens reject. The prioritization of this agenda comes at a time when many students are not even in the classroom.

Majority Report

The spirit that moved the Illinois Department of Education saturates social media and is omnipresent on elite college campuses. But there is also good news. Despite what the media and the academy would have you believe, the American people think that free speech, equal opportunity under the law, and the principles of the founding should still govern the day-to-day lives of citizens. A recent survey of 800 Illinois residents sponsored by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) strongly suggests that efforts to politicize public education do not align with the values of the majority of citizens. Rather than imposing a partisan agenda through rules and regulations from an agency, citizens should have an informed debate about public school curricula and teaching standards.

To judge from Illinoisans’ assessment of their K-12 schools, the conversation is overdue. Forty-eight percent of respondents think that schools are doing a “worse than good” job (6 percent answered “excellent”). To improve that number, schools would be well served by focusing on preparing students for lifelong success rather than imposing policies and advocating a socio-political position that is at best controversial.

They should also recommit to teaching civic literacy. ACTA’s survey found that the push to implement new curricula aligned with the NYT’s 1619 Project is disfavored by many in the state, however popular it may be with elites and activists. Presented with two views, nearly half (48 percent) of respondents chose “K-12 schools should focus on teaching students about American founding principles and the documents that established the first free and democratic country in the world” as closest to their own, compared to 38 percent who would prefer that K-12 schools “teach children to understand that America is founded on slavery and remains systemically racist today.” Large majorities of Republicans (78 percent) and Independents (69 percent) favor “teaching students about American founding principles,” along with one-quarter of Democrats. What this indicates is that a sizable number of people in a very blue state do not think schools should prioritize the main thesis of the 1619 Project. Instead, they want students to understand the fundamentals of American history and the principles of American government.

Critical race theory and action civics are also unpopular with the people of Illinois. A majority of respondents indicated that students should receive a fair and balanced education when it comes to United States history. Question 21 on the survey presented respondents with three statements: a) “K-12 teachers should work to expose students to a variety of perspectives about the country’s founding and history, and to equip them to think critically about its successes and failures”; b) “K-12 teachers should embrace progressive viewpoints and perspectives when teaching U.S. history, to encourage students to advocate for social justice causes”; or c) “Unsure.” Out of these three options, 62 percent chose a), 23 percent picked b), and 15 percent were unsure. Illinoisans want teachers to focus on the facts and principles of American history so that children know the nation’s story, understand the propositions of our government, and can evaluate the struggle to live up to these ideals.

Nor do respondents desire to see the K-12 system prioritize social justice ahead of the basic knowledge and skills that students need for professional success. When presented with two options—“Teacher preparation programs in Illinois should focus on making teachers better equipped to help students develop core skills and competencies” and “Teacher preparation programs in Illinois should prioritize teaching progressive viewpoints and social justice advocacy”—57 percent chose the first option. As it turns out, people care about preparing students with the knowledge they need to succeed in a competitive workforce and within their communities.

The viewpoints of activists are also at odds with those of most Illinoisans on issues of free speech, equality, and meritocracy...

Keep reading.

 

Tamyra Mensah-Stock

Everybody's All-American. 

At Fox News, "Olympic gold medalist wrestler Tamyra Mensah-Stock: ‘I love representing the US':Mensah-Stock began wrestling in the 10th grade in Katy, Texas."

Tamyra Mensah-Stock wins the gold for this post-match speech giving her success over to God, and praising the opportunity to represent America! She shares a great message for young women striving for excellence, no matter the field. Congrats, Tamyra! #TeamUSA #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/9xetbtettF

— Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) August 4, 2021

The Walls Are Closing In on Cuomo

It's bad.

At NYT, "Facing Loss of Supporters, Cuomo Gains Attention From Prosecutors."

More Cuomo blogging here.

'Sweet Carolline'

Neil Diamond.

The song is a magnificent chart-topper, but controversial, as critics attacked Diamond as pervy.

Irvine Great Park

This is a great piece. Of course, I live in Irvine so it's of natural interest to me.

That said, I had no idea about the raw politics surrounding this issue. It's pretty fascinating, actually. 

At LAT, "Irvine’s ultimate NIMBY fight: A cemetery for veterans deemed an undesirable blight":

In Irvine, every detail is intentional.

From the lush parks to the sparkling pools of its master-planned villages, the city offers a perfect balance of nature and suburban life.

Even the street names in its Great Park neighborhoods, which have popped up over the last decade around the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, were developed in consultation with a feng shui master.

But there’s one amenity that Great Park neighbors say will never fit: a veterans cemetery.

A nearly decade-long battle over a military cemetery in the city has pitted veterans, residents and politicians against one another, with every side asserting support for their preferred location and myriad reasons why the plan hasn’t advanced.

The hostile reaction to the cemetery has stunned veterans, who point out the military’s historical role in the area — both with the El Toro base and the nearby Tustin base, both of which closed in the 1990s. To them, the cemetery is a fitting tribute to those who served, and Irvine’s central location would benefit loved ones who want to visit.

“The opinion on Irvine from veterans ranges from negative to hostile, with profanity thrown in,” Vietnam veteran Bill Cook said. “You’d think Irvine started with an F when I talked to these people.”

But the push to honor veterans proved no match for powerful forces in Irvine: a developer who had other plans, residents who worried about traffic and property values, and a sense that a cemetery simply didn’t fit into the community’s ideas for a place where homes now regularly sell for more than $1 million.

“When you buy a million-dollar home, you don’t want to open up your door and have a cemetery right there,” former Irvine Mayor Christina Shea said. “It just kind of gives a sense of sadness and a continual reminder of death and your own mortality. I wouldn’t buy a home next to a cemetery. I want a golf course, a lake, a park or something like that.”

In a county often criticized for its “not in my backyard” mentality, Irvine has long railed against anything that doesn’t fit with its idea of a master-planned community. When the El Toro base was decommissioned in 1999, residents successfully beat back a proposal to turn the land into an airport, instead opting to transform it into a park with athletic fields, a water park and plenty of open space. In 2018, a plan for a homeless shelter at the Great Park was nixed after vehement opposition.

The controversy over a cemetery has been brewing since at least 2014, yet veterans — thousands of whom settle every year in Orange County after retiring from the military — say they’ve largely been sidelined from discussions. Instead, they’ve been met with consternation from the Great Park’s closest neighbors and hand-wringing from the city’s politicians, they say.

Some are so frustrated by years of delays and fighting over a location that they’ve scouted a site on county land in Anaheim Hills instead. The Orange County Board of Supervisors gave the project a major boost on Tuesday by allocating $20 million from the county’s general fund for site development. The Anaheim City Council this month showed unanimous support for the cemetery.

In the years following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military sought out the land that would eventually become the El Toro base as a place for Marines to train for battle in the Pacific Rim. Tens of thousands of service members and civilians moved through its gates annually, turning the base into a mini-city complete with homes, a church and a school.

For more than 50 years, El Toro played a critical role in conflicts across the world, including Vietnam and Desert Storm. It’s where men and women leaving for deployment said goodbye to their families — sometimes for the last time...

When I was just ten years old, when my family used to drive south from the City of Orange to San Juan Capistrano to visit my uncle and his family, we could see the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro from the 5 freeway, and the Tustin Marine Corps airbase is right next to Irvine where I live. When I was a kid you could see the "Huey" helicopters from the base flying all around Orange County, especially near the beaches.

Enough about that. Obviously this piece brings back a lot of memories.

Still more.

Jill Leovy, Ghettoside

At Amazon, Jill Leovy, Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America.

New Airstrikes in Afghanistan

Following-up, "U.S. Moves to Evacuate Afghan Translators as War Winds Down."

So Biden's a warmonger? Who knew? 

At NYT, "U.S. Airstrikes in Afghanistan Could Be a Sign of What Comes Next":

WASHINGTON — The White House authorization of one more bombing campaign in Afghanistan, just weeks before the U.S. military mission is set to end, has a modest stated goal — to buy time for Afghan security forces to marshal some kind of defense around the major cities that are under siege by a surging Taliban.

But the dozens of airstrikes, which began two weeks ago as the Taliban pushed their front lines deep into urban areas, also laid bare the big question now facing President Biden and the Pentagon as the United States seeks to wind down its longest war. Will the American air campaign continue after Aug. 31, the date the president has said would be the end of combat involvement in Afghanistan?

The White House and the Pentagon insist these are truly the final days of American combat support, after the withdrawal of most troops this summer after 20 years of war. Beginning next month, the president has said, the United States will engage militarily in Afghanistan only for counterterrorism reasons, to prevent the country from becoming a launchpad for attacks against the West. That would give Afghan security forces mere weeks to fix years of poor leadership and institutional failures, and rally their forces to defend what territory they still control.

Pentagon and White House officials say the current air campaign can blunt the Taliban’s momentum by destroying some of their artillery and other equipment, and lift the sagging morale of Afghan security forces...

Yeah. Right. *Eye-roll.*

Still more.

 

Democrats 'Distance Themselves' From Cuomo, Go Through Empty Pantomime of 'Calling For' Cuomo to Resign

At AoSHQ:

Journalists used to deploy a euphemism -- "distancing himself" -- to apply to politicians who offered up some kind of criticism of one of their own party.

It meant nothing. It did not advance any case against the wrongdoer. It did not call for any concrete action to be taken against the politician in bad odor.

It's just a transparently self-serving minimum-possible-effort maneuver to keep yourself from being associated with someone you're clearly associated with.

You're just "distancing yourself" from the stink.

But not doing anything to clean it up.

Democrats are now doing a lot of Distancing Themselves with Cuomo...

Still more.

 

Unfit for Office

At the New York Post, "Andrew Cuomo Has to Go - Right Now."

Andrew Cuomo Under Fire and Desperately Fighting for His Political Life

Here's statement from yesterday, "Full Response: Gov. Cuomo Denies Allegations In Sexual Harassment Report."

And at the New York Times, "Under Fire and Alone, Cuomo Fights for His Political Life," and "‘Completely Violated’: Women Describe Cuomo’s Groping and Intimidation."

Also, "Biden Says Cuomo ‘Should Resign,’ as Sexual Harassment Findings Emerge."

Plus, the paper's editorial, "You Should Resign, Governor Cuomo."

Paige

Starting off with, "Heather Graham in "Killing Me Softly."

And, "Alessandra Ambrosio Green Summer Hot Get Away."

Finally, Ms. Paige:

A $5 Million Fine for Classroom Discussions on Race? In Tennessee, This Is the New Reality

My position remains the same: Leave the issue up to local school boards, and especially voting parents in school districts, and let colleges and university do what that want, promoting intellectual inquiry.

This seems a bit much.

At Education Week:

Tennessee aims to levy fines starting at $1 million and rising to $5 million on school districts each time one of their teachers is found to have “knowingly violated” state restrictions on classroom discussions about systemic racism, white privilege, and sexism, according to guidance proposed by the state’s department of education late last week.

Teachers could also be disciplined or lose their licenses for teaching that the United States is inherently racist or sexist or making a student feel “guilt or anguish” because of past actions committed by their race or sex.

The guidance received immediate backlash from advocates of students of color in the state who say it would have a disproportionate impact on already underfunded, majority Black and Latino school districts.

The new guidance lays out the complaint process that a current student, parent, or employee can initiate against a district if they believe an educator has violated the law, but it does not elaborate on what specifically school districts are banned from teaching, as many teacher advocates had hoped. Instead, it cites 11 broad concepts that teachers can’t teach or use materials to promote. For example, students can’t be told that they are “inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously,” or bear responsibility for past actions committed by members of their race or sex. Experts have called the language of these laws vague.

Tennessee’s department of education will allow the public to weigh in on the rules until Wednesday, Aug. 11, according to the Tennessean...

Still more.

Amy Chua at Yale

It's from Elizabeth Bruenig, who is a phenomenal writer.

She used to write at both WaPo and the New York Times. I'll bet she's making bank now, and I'm surprised the Atlantic has such deep pockets. *Shrug.*

At Atlantic Monthly, "The New Moral Code of America’s Elite: Two students went to Amy Chua for advice. That sin would cost them dearly":

Every striver who ever slipped the rank of their birth to ascend to a higher order has shared the capacity to ingratiate themselves with their betters. What the truly exceptional ones have in common is the ability to connect not only with their superiors but also with their peers and inferiors. And only the rarest talents among them can bond authentically—not just transactionally—with the people who will help them be who they want to be in the world. It’s a preternatural, almost Promethean gift if you have it, and Amy Chua does.

Thus begins the scandal dubbed “dinner-party-gate,” the latest in the annals of Amy Chua, Yale Law’s very own Tiger Mom, whose infamous defense of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the “dinner-party-gate” of its day approximately three years ago. Then, as now, Chua’s differences with some denizens of her milieu played out in the press, vituperations, allegations, insinuations, and all.

But whatever Chua had done this time, it was either so terrible that it was unspeakable, or so minuscule that it didn’t warrant mentioning in the pages of The New York Times, New York magazine, or The New Yorker. Even so, each outlet gave the mysterious affair a lengthy report. The New York Times declared the conflagration “murky,” something to do with Chua breaking her 2019 agreement with Yale Law School about socializing with students in off-campus settings; The New Yorker noted that the alleged get-togethers had taken place during the pandemic, and considered the rest “a riddle.” Nobody could produce a complainant or a victim; the only thing anyone seemed able to verify was that, whatever Chua had done last winter, the result was that this coming fall, she would no longer be leading a first-year “small group”—intimate cohorts of first-semester law students who are guided through their first few months by a faculty member who teaches, advises, and, per a 2020 budget memorandum from the Law School, likely lunches and dines with the lawyers-to-be.

The reporting left open a pair of related questions: What, exactly, had happened? And, perhaps more salient, if what took place really was something on the order of a minor violation of an ad hoc agreement between Chua and the Yale Law School dean, Heather Gerken, why had the news spilled into the nation’s most prominent news outlets rather than fading below the fold of a campus daily?

It appears to me that what transpired amounts to a skirmish between a notorious professor and an administration that seemed so eager to relieve itself of her presence that it lunged at an opportunity to weaken her position at the expense of two students who were left to deal with the consequences of the ultimately aborted campaign. Still, the answer to the latter question is more revealing than any single aspect of the whole affair. It has to do with the culture of elite institutions, where putatively righteous ends justify an array of troubling means, and noble public virtues like fairness and safety cloak more prosaic motives—the kind of vulgar envy and resentment that people with the best manners deny.

Everyone is just trying to get ahead, after all; this is no less true, and perhaps even more true, at a place like Yale Law School. It just comes more naturally to some than others. In that case one must take matters into one’s own hands.

The proximate drama begins with a trio of second-year law students, friends and acquaintances for a time. There was a person I’ll call the Guest—all three students asked not to be named, and, believing young people should have a chance at carrying on after having their reputation destroyed or destroying the reputation of others, I agreed—who was born and raised in California. He’d arrived at Yale Law School optimistic and younger than most, having come directly from UCLA. During his first semester, he’d befriended the Visitor, a young woman from a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, who had arrived on campus from Emory. The two made a happy pair: the Guest dreamier and prone to touches of poetry, occasionally drawn to Byzantine history and Christian theology; the Visitor shrewd, practical, and levelheaded, with a keen focus on the concrete facts of policies, problems, current affairs. After working together on a major project that fall, they became and remained close.

And then there was the Archivist, a young man whom the Guest had also befriended early in his time at Yale. The two young men bonded after meeting in their contracts class, after which they would find one another at bars and parties to chat about history, politics, and other shared interests. They met up in New York City for a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Guest eventually gave the Archivist a key to his apartment, where the latter would often stop by to visit or do his laundry. In the second semester of their second year, things seemed placid.

And they may have remained that way, had it not been for a minor snag in the Guest’s academic year that put him on a path that would eventually lead him to Amy Chua’s doorstep.

A natural provocateur, Chua has vexed the Law School for years: First with Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a wry ode to the high-pressure parenting tactics of Chinese matriarchs, which didn’t thrill the gently-brought-up sorts who sometimes pass through New England’s finest universities; then with The Triple Package, a book co-authored with her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, on the specific qualities that enable certain cultural groups to succeed in America relative to others—you can imagine how that went over—then with a Wall Street Journal op-ed taking a stand for the embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who, she said, was a “mentor to women,” including her own daughter. All throughout, Chua routinely scandalized the school by making edgy comments (allegedly remarking that Kavanaugh preferred his female clerks on the comely side, for instance, which Chua says is a gross distortion) and, yes, having students over for dinner, serving alcohol, and declining to filter her decidedly piquant inner monologue.

There is another side to Chua. It seems that for every student who emerges from her acquaintance embittered and put off, someone else comes away with nothing but the fondest of feelings for her. Her Twitter feed is peppered with spontaneous congratulations for her accomplished students, and features photos of the professor embracing former protégés in celebration of their success. During this latest contretemps, students advocated in Chua’s favor—quietly, perhaps, but with no less fervor than their anti-Chua counterparts. On April 1, a student emailed a trio of Law School deans: “Professor Chua cares more about her students than any other professor I’ve encountered at YLS. Professor Chua does more to advocate for her students than any other professor I’ve encountered at YLS. Professor Chua does more to mentor her students than any other professor I’ve encountered at YLS,” he insisted. “As you are all likely aware, I am far from the only student who feels this way. Does that not count for anything?” A PDF compilation of student and alumni letters in support of Chua spanned nearly 70 pages of similar sentiments.

Chua’s gift for relationships has also vested her with a great deal of power. Chua does know judges; she does have connections. It’s inconceivable that anyone on staff at Yale doesn’t. But Chua’s roster is either unusually expansive or perceived as such or both, and her status as a legal-career “kingmaker” has cast her in a supercharged penumbra. It’s the sort of mystique that can breed all kinds of resentments, especially in an environment where relationships with people in power are a finite resource.

Then there are Chua’s private, personal relationships—most notably, with her husband, Rubenfeld, a fellow Yale Law professor whose time at the university has been stained of late by allegations of sexual misconduct with students. Per a 23-page brief prepared by Yale Law Women, a respected student advocacy group with a formidable reputation for defending women’s interests on campus, the Rubenfeld saga stretches back to at least 2008, when a poster on the Top Law Schools forum obliquely mentioned rumors of monthly parties at Chua and Rubenfeld’s residence. A decade hence, Dean Gerken hired Jenn Davis, an independent Title IX investigator, to look into a range of allegations concerning Rubenfeld’s behavior with female students, from drunken, unwelcome, off-color remarks to unwanted touching and attempted kissing, on and off school grounds. Rubenfeld has categorically denied the claims. In its report, Yale Law Women said that fear of retaliation by Chua—concern that she would sabotage opportunities for career advancement—discouraged women who resented Rubenfeld’s advances from complaining about them to the administration.

At the conclusion of Davis’s investigation, Rubenfeld was suspended from his duties for two years, a penalty that took effect in 2020. Instead of closing the matter, Rubenfeld’s penalty seemed to strike concerned student groups such as Yale Law Women as a half-measure that would leave the matter to simmer until student turnover and the passage of time permitted another eruption.

Not that the Guest had any reason to contemplate any of this when, early in the spring semester of 2021, he decided to step down as an executive editor at the Yale Law Journal. The Guest, who describes himself as half-Korean, had misgivings about the way the journal’s staff had responded to his questions about the lack of racial diversity in its ranks, and his suggestions for addressing it. Still, even after making his decision, the Guest felt uncertain and unsettled. He confided this to the Visitor, who as a Black student at Yale Law had wrestled with similar questions, and she took it upon herself to bring them up with Chua during a Zoom meeting that served in place of the professor’s usual office hours. At that point, the Visitor recalls, Chua casually offered to talk with the two of them about the Journal affair at her home in New Haven, and the Visitor called the Guest to pass the invitation along.

Unfortunately for the Guest, the Archivist happened to be doing his laundry at his friend’s apartment when the call came, and he overheard the conversation, later documenting it as follows:

Feb. 18. I go over to [the Guest’s] to do my laundry. While at his apartment, I hear him call [the Visitor], who explains to him that Chua has just invited them over for dinner tomorrow. They discuss what to wear and what they should bring (ultimately deciding to bring a bottle of wine). [The Guest] makes zero mention of going over because of any personal crisis. After the phone call, he says that he’s been invited to a dinner party at Chua’s. [The Guest] implores me not to tell anybody so that Chua doesn’t get in trouble.

Despite his gumshoe efforts, the Archivist seemed to come away with a vastly different impression of the meeting than Chua, the Guest, or the Visitor.

The Guest and the Visitor independently told me that the meeting took place sometime in the afternoon, and that Chua offered cheese and crackers, but mentioned that she had dinner plans later on. The Guest recalled that he offered the bottle of wine as a hostess gift, which Chua accepted, though she drank only canned seltzer; the Guest opened the wine, meanwhile, and recalls pouring some for himself.

The Visitor recalled a fairly serious conversation: Chua offered advice about how the Guest should handle the brewing tempest his decision had spawned in their shared teapot. “He was getting press requests,” the Visitor told me. “Should he talk to the press? Professors are like, ‘What happened?’ Should he tell professors? Should he tell anyone? Or should he internalize it? Should he tell judges? Judges are clearly going to know about this, and I’m sure they do. And she wanted to know the full story of what happened. I think a big question was ‘Did I make a mistake?’”

The Guest came away from the conversation feeling reassured. The Archivist, however, was perturbed. Earlier that day, he’d texted two friends that the Guest and the Visitor were “going to dinner” at Chua’s, which, he added, they were “banned by the law school from doing.” One friend replied that this was weird, to which the Archivist replied: “Weird is a nice way to put it!” Chastened, the friend tried again: “So they are still ok with nepotism and complicity as long as it benefits them?” That was the ticket. “Yup!” the Archivist replied. Moments later, the Archivist sent a text that seemed to be more of a press release than a remark: “I think it’s deliberately enabling the secret atmosphere of favoritism, misogyny, and sexual harassment that severely undermines the bravery of the victims of sexual abuse that came forward against Rubenfeld,” he declared. How, why, or whether the Guest or the Visitor actually did any such thing was evidently left to the reader to infer.

Later that night, the Archivist logged a call with the Guest in which, he later said, the Guest sounded “extremely intoxicated”; the Guest denies that he was. By March, the Journal imbroglio was boiling over into the public sphere. Several of the school’s affinity groups had released statements, and the Journal had released information about the racial makeup of its editors—then the conflict came to the attention of conservative media outlets. Once more, the Guest had a series of questions for someone familiar with bad press.

This time, the Guest and the Visitor brought a premade date-and-cheese plate, the sort of appetizer offering, I gather, that you pick up at Wegmans on the way to Bible study. Again the two of them joined Chua at her New Haven manse for what sounds more like a media-strategizing session than the kind of debauched rager that would eventually possess the imaginations of Chua’s campus detractors. Again, the Archivist recorded the get-together in his notes: March 13: [The Guest] texts me again at 9:18 PM that he’s outside, indicating he has once again gone to Chua’s but won’t commit to saying so in writing

At that point, it seems, the Archivist had finally had enough. It was time to tell the administration what they had done.

When I was a little girl growing up in suburban North Texas not so very long ago, my grandmother, a housewife of the ’60s, would turn my cousins and me outside to play in the summer so she could sit at her kitchen table and chain-smoke her way through her library of paperback bodice-rippers. And when one of us would inevitably bolt back inside to complain about being annihilated with a Super Soaker at close range or nailed with a Nerf dart to the eye, she would always eject us with the same dismissal: Don’t be a tattletale. As far as childhood admonishments go, it was an interesting one—she wasn’t telling us not to do something, but rather not to be something...

Keep reading.

 

Oh Look! Medical Schools Join the Crazy Train!

It's Katie Herzog, writing at Bari Weiss's Substack, "Med Schools Are Now Denying Biological Sex: Professors are apologizing for saying ‘male’ and ‘female.’ Students are policing teachers. This is what it looks like when activism takes over medicine."

It turns out Ms. Herzog's doing a series of essays on this:

During a recent endocrinology course at a top medical school in the University of California system, a professor stopped mid-lecture to apologize for something he’d said at the beginning of class.

“I don’t want you to think that I am in any way trying to imply anything, and if you can summon some generosity to forgive me, I would really appreciate it,” the physician says in a recording provided by a student in the class (whom I’ll call Lauren). “Again, I’m very sorry for that. It was certainly not my intention to offend anyone. The worst thing that I can do as a human being is be offensive.”

His offense: using the term “pregnant women.”

“I said ‘when a woman is pregnant,’ which implies that only women can get pregnant and I most sincerely apologize to all of you.”

It wasn’t the first time Lauren had heard an instructor apologize for using language that, to most Americans, would seem utterly inoffensive. Words like “male” and “female.”

Why would medical school professors apologize for referring to a patient’s biological sex? Because, Lauren explains, in the context of her medical school “acknowledging biological sex can be considered transphobic.”

When sex is acknowledged by her instructors, it’s sometimes portrayed as a social construct, not a biological reality, she says. In a lecture on transgender health, an instructor declared: “Biological sex, sexual orientation, and gender are all constructs. These are all constructs that we have created.”...

Ms. Herzog's great, and Ms. Weiss is a national treasure.

Still more.

Interesting Thread, and Worth Your Time

From Liz Wolfe:

Nasty replies to this original tweet are quite sad because they show that tons of adults are unable to assess risk. Risk to children, people in their 20s & 30s, of dying from COVID (even w/o vaccines for under-12s) is astonishingly low––lower than risk of death by car accident. https://t.co/nAcuBUGwvF

— Liz Wolfe (@lizzywol) July 31, 2021

Novak Djokovic Loses, Throws Tantrum in Olympics Farewell

I like the guy, but he's volatile and a sore loser. He hit a line judge in the neck last year. 

He's won three grand slam tournaments this year, and he'd hoped to make this year a "Golden Slam" with another victory in Tokyo.

Now he's out. 

At NYT, "Novak Djokovic, King of the Olympic Village, Loses Run at Golden Slam":

Novak Djokovic was trying to win all four Grand Slam tennis tournaments and the Olympic gold medal in a calendar year. That dream ended with his loss against Germany’s Alexander Zverev. https://t.co/bfd2TNLptg

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 30, 2021

TOKYO — Novak Djokovic’s dream of a Golden Slam ended in the early hours of another thick night at the Olympics, on one last searing winner off the racket of Germany’s Alexander Zverev.

Zverev stormed back from a set and a service break down to beat Djokovic, the world’s No. 1 ranked men’s player, 1-6, 6-3, 6-1, scoring a stunning upset of an all-time great who had seemed nearly invincible lately and well on his way to pulling off a feat no male tennis player had achieved.

Djokovic was trying to win all four Grand Slam tournaments and the Olympic gold medal in a calendar year. He had won the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon and came to Tokyo looking for the fourth jewel. The United States Open takes place at the end of the summer.

Djokovic appeared to be on cruise control when he broke Zverev’s serve to get to within three games of the match in the second set. Zverev swatted a ball skyward in frustration. He appeared destined to meet with a quick end, like Djokovic’s first four victims in Tokyo.

But with little to lose, Zverev began unleashing his booming serve and setting up a series of crushing forehands to take control, and Djokovic started inexplicably spraying his shots off the court.

“Terrible, just terrible,” Djokovic said, when asked how he was feeling at the end of a night that also included a loss in the mixed doubles semifinal.

Djokovic tried to slow Zverev’s momentum with a long bathroom break between the second and third sets, as he has done in tense moments in the past. But it didn’t work and in the two-of-three-set format he did not have the cushion that the marathon afforded during Grand Slam matches, which require three of five sets to win...

Very interesting. 

Apparently Tokyo was an image rehab event for him. Djokvic was even photographed doing the splits with Belgian gymnasts.

Rough life. 

Deputy Involved Shooting in East Los Angeles

At LAT, "Sheriff expresses ‘grave concerns’ over fatal shooting by deputies captured on video":

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Friday evening released footage from body-worn cameras that shows several deputies shoot to death a man who was armed with a knife — an incident that Sheriff Alex Villanueva, in a rare criticism of his own deputies, said has given him “grave concerns.”

The Sheriff’s Department published the footage a day after family members of David Ordaz Jr. held a news conference outside the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles to announce they were suing Los Angeles County and the four deputies involved in Ordaz’s shooting. Their attorneys also released a video, recorded by a bystander, that shows the moment Ordaz, 34, was fatally shot.

Villanueva, in a statement issued Friday night, said one of the deputies had been relieved of duty and had his police powers suspended, pending an investigation by Sheriff’s Department homicide detectives. He didn’t specify which of the four deputies had been suspended, and the department didn’t immediately return a request for clarification.

The Sheriff’s Department said it will forward the investigation to the FBI for review.

The Sheriff’s Department released excerpts of body-worn camera footage on Friday, along with portions of the 911 call that brought deputies to Ordaz’s East Los Angeles home in the 100 block of North Rowan Avenue the afternoon of March 14.

“Yes, hello, um, I’m currently with someone who is telling me they’re suicidal,” a woman, who later identifies herself as Ordaz’s sister, is heard saying. “I was just wondering if you could guide me on what I can do to help them.”

She told a dispatcher they were sitting in Ordaz’s car, parked outside their family’s home. The dispatcher asked whether Ordaz had any weapons.

“Yeah,” Ordaz said, “I do.”

His sister said he was carrying a knife. The dispatcher asked whether it was a pocketknife...

“It’s a big-ass butcher knife,” Ordaz said. Asked whether he had a history of mental illness or disability, his sister said Ordaz hadn’t been diagnosed with any conditions but had been having suicidal thoughts “for a while.” “He’s also talked about suicide by cop, so I am afraid for that,” she added...

Still more.