Boots & Sabers

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Category: Culture

Don’t let your regrets be found on a path untraveled

by | 0700, 30 Apr 24 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a look:

Graduation season is upon us. Our youngest two children will accept their college diplomas this year along with thousands of others across the country. As these graduates embark upon the sea of adulthood, I offer five pieces of advice that will serve them well.

 

First, do not have debt. If you have debt, pay it off as soon as possible and do not take any more debt. This might mean living meagerly for some time and making hard choices, but living without debt liberates you from servitude and creates a foundation upon which to build wealth at any income.

 

Without debt, every dollar earned can be spent on savings (for gaining financial freedom), necessities (for a life without want), or giving (to make your community better). You will have to resist the temptations of consumerism and get comfortable with having less than your friends. Work hard, be frugal, save for big purchases, and live beneath your means. Your mental health will be better, and your 40-year-old self will thank you for the financial freedom you gave them.

 

Second, do your own laundry. This is a metaphor to do everything for yourself. You are an adult now. Act like it. Do your laundry. Iron your clothes. Clean the bathroom. Do the dishes. Keep your car maintained. Make the grocery list. Shop for the economical phone plan. Buy birthday and anniversary cards for your family. Make the appointment with the doctor. Go to the dentist twice a year. If you don’t know how to do something, ask or find a YouTube video to show you how.

 

Doing things for yourself is not just about getting the task done. It is about severing dependency from your parents and giving yourself the confidence and self-assurance that only comes from living independently. Even if your parents offer to do something for you, kindly decline their generosity. You will never be respected as an adult until you act like one. Nobody respects the 24-year-old whose mommy does their laundry.

 

Third, travel. Don’t add debt to travel, but travel nonetheless. Drive somewhere. Hike something. If you can, fly somewhere. Take a bus. Take a train. Go alone. Split a room somewhere with friends. Camp. Travel to other places. Meet different people. Eat strange foods. Experience different cultures. Whether it’s a weekend in Memphis or a month in Europe, make travel a priority within your means.

 

Travel is the great teacher. There are things to learn by being somewhere, talking to people, touching things, and experiencing life that cannot be taught from a page or screen. Go educate yourself about the world by being out in it. Break out of your comfort zone or find another one. You will never have another time in your life with as few encumbrances as you have now. Don’t let your regrets be found on a path untraveled.

 

Fourth, work hard. Irrespective of your chosen profession, working hard will always serve you well. Yes, I know it sounds trite and you might think that you work hard already. Work harder. There are only a handful of things that differentiate mediocre employees from exceptional employees. Work ethic is one of those things.

 

Doubtless, your first few jobs out of college will be a grind. As the youngest person on the job, you get the most menial, tedious, grunt kind of work. Do it. Do it well. Do it with pride. Learn to grind. Learn to embrace the suck. Every great career starts with the grind and you don’t get to tell war stories as a seasoned professional at the top of your craft if you don’t put in the grind.

 

Finally, go to church, or synagogue, or temple, or whatever your faith commands. When you are out in the world, you are unmoored from the stable docks of your youth. It can be lonely. At church you will find that stability and a fellowship of people who will help share your burdens. It is also increasingly difficult to make friends as an adult. That is why so many of people’s truly good friends are the ones they met in their youth.

 

From the Christian perspective, which is my own, church also provides that sense of perspective and contentment that will get you through the tough bits. To know that you are adrift in an infinite sea of humanity across time and space, and yet still seen and held precious by your loving Lord is humbling and uplifting. You do not struggle or succeed alone. You are never alone.

 

For the graduates, your age of adolescence is over. Now your age of adulthood begins. Go live it.

 

 

Mexican President *hearts* Cartels

by | 1904, 26 Apr 24 | , , | 0 Comments

Um. okay. This explains a lot.

The claims by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador are clearly at odds with the reality of millions of Mexicans who live in areas dominated by drug cartels. The cartels routinely demand protection payments from local residents and kill or kidnap them if they refuse to pay.

 

A reporter asked López Obrador whether drug cartels behaved well when he visited the township of Badiraguato, Sinaloa — the hometown of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, which he has controversially visited as president about a half dozen times.

“Always!” López Obrador responded, adding that “Sometimes we come upon people who are strange, but respectful.”

 

Continuing on the subject of drug cartels at his morning news briefing, López Obrador said “There is something people should know.”

 

“Fortunately, the attacks that happen in this country generally occur between (criminal) groups,” the president said. “They respect the citizenry.”

 

López Obrador has long refused to directly confront the cartels, who he claims were forced into criminality by a lack of opportunities. His “Hugs, not bullets” strategy offers job training programs for youths so they won’t become cartel gunmen.

Antisemitic Students Reach Impasse with University

by | 1829, 26 Apr 24 | , , | 16 Comments

This should be easy. Expel them all. Kick them off campus. They can protest on someone else’s time and property.

Student negotiators representing the Columbia encampment said that after meetings Thursday and Friday, the university hadn’t met their primary demand for divestment, although they had made progress on a push for more transparent financial disclosures.

 

“We will not rest until Columbia divests,” said Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a fourth-year doctoral student.

 

Columbia officials had earlier said that negotiations were showing progress, although a heavy police and security presence remained around the campus.

 

“We have our demands; they have theirs,” said Ben Chang, a spokesperson for Columbia University, adding that if the talks fail the university will have to consider other options.

Difference Police Response to Protests in TX and CA

by | 1938, 24 Apr 24 | , , , | 2 Comments

Heh

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.

 

At the University of Texas at Austin, hundreds of local and state police — including some on horseback and holding batons — clashed with protesters, pushing them off the campus lawn and at one point sending some tumbling into the street. At least 20 demonstrators were taken into custody at the request of university officials and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, according to the state Department of Public Safety.

 

A photographer covering the demonstration for Fox 7 Austin was arrested after being caught in a push-and-pull between law enforcement and students, the station confirmed. A longtime Texas journalist was knocked down in the mayhem and could be seen bleeding before police helped him to emergency medical staff who bandaged his head.

And at the University of Southern California, police got into a back-and-forth tugging match with protesters over tents, removing several before falling back. At the northern end of California, students were barricaded inside a building for a third day at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. The school shut down campus through the weekend and made classes virtual.

Retail Stores Ditching Self-Checkout Due to Theft

by | 0736, 24 Apr 24 | , , | 1 Comment

Shift.

Walmart is continuing to remove self-checkout machines from its stores in what it claims is an effort to improve the ‘in-store experience’ for customers.

 

In two stores – in Shrewsbury, Missouri, and Cleveland, Ohio – the retailer said it would replace kiosks with staffed checkout lanes which will ‘give our associates the chance to provide more personalized and efficient service.’

 

In reality, many retailers are ditching self-checkout kiosks because they are especially vulnerable to shoplifters – and the biggest retailer in the world’s U-turn could be a landmark moment.

In a related note:

Although the company is ditching the cashier-less checkout system at its Amazon Fresh grocery stores, it plans to sell the technology to more than 120 third-party businesses by the end of the year. Reaching that goal would double the number of non-Amazon enterprises that use Just Walk Out compared to last year.

The cashier-less system is the perfect antidote to the theft problem of self-checkout. I used the automated system in the San Francisco airport a while ago. It’s really simple. You scan your card when walking into the store. You can’t get into the store without scanning your card. When you have what you want, you just leave. The products all have RFID chips and are scanned on the way out with no effort. Theft is near impossible without an RFID blocker big enough for the products. I suppose you could bring in a lead-lined tote, but that’s a lot of effort for your average shoplifter.

The problem is cultural. I don’t want to scan my card before I know if I’m going to actually buy anything. Also, there is no “appeal process” if the price is wrong or it scanned wrong or whatever. I don’t want to have to call some number to resolve a $2 mistake.

With labor rates continuing to rise, retailers will continue to seek ways to reduce labor spend and expensive automated technologies will continue to evolve.

 

Environmentalists Want Us to Shower Less

by | 0725, 24 Apr 24 | | 0 Comments

No.

After spending two weeks with the indigenous Yanomami people in the Amazon rainforest, he determined to do his bit for the environment, installing a rainwater harvester and solar thermal hot water facilities into his London house, and tracking his water use. Over the following years, he started showering less and less. These days, it’s around once a month. He sink washes daily, using a cloth to clean his entire body, and shaves using one cup of water. Nobody says that he smells.

They are being polite.

Leftist Activist Quits Job Over DEI

by | 2050, 23 Apr 24 | , | 1 Comment

I encourage you to go read this entire post by a former professor in Texas who just quit. It is a marvelous bit of insight into the mind of someone who was shaping young minds a few short weeks ago. She is not an educator. She is an activist. It helps explain what’s happening on campuses this week.

No, I quit my dream job because my life is more expansive than just a job and because I have irreconcilable differences with my employer, the Government of the State of Texas.

“You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.”

My partner, Kate, and I have never felt at home in this state. I will not go into detail so as not to offend the many wonderful Texans I know and love, but this has never been our place.

 

We loved Seattle, my grad school home, but I know many wonderful people who lived there and then left due to the weather or the people’s reserved demeanor. But Kate and I cherished every moment we spent in the Pacific Northwest. It felt like home to us. Part of this is undoubtedly due to Seattle’s welcoming culture toward LGBTQ people, which we have experienced to a lesser extent here in Austin.

 

[…]

 

Since the pandemic, our sense of not belonging in Texas has intensified. The state took a disappointing approach to COVID-19, refusing to let the university require masking and returning us to the physical classroom too quickly.

 

Our lives didn’t matter to my employer, and this angered me.

 

The state has since attacked DEI programs, and I’ve watched marginalized students shed tears as centers that were formerly beacons of light for them are now shuttered. I recall a trans student telling me early in my career at UT that they felt so at home because of the awareness and resources available to trans people. I wonder if they would still feel the same way if they were a student here today. I strongly doubt it.

 

It is one thing to live in a country where the government is regressive and makes decisions I don’t agree with; it is quite another to work for a fundamentalist state with so much control over my job and that regularly threatens to do more damage. The latter has proven much harder for me to reconcile.

 

[…]

 

If I had fallen in love with Austin or felt at home in the state, I might want to stay and fight the power. After all, these atrocities are not unique to Texas.

 

I have spent the last seven years educating young people here, and I frequently tell them that they will one day change Texas. I still believe that. I am leaving them and my remaining warrior colleagues to carry on that work with all my love and support from afar.

Protests Erupt on American Campuses

by | 2002, 22 Apr 24 | , | 4 Comments

While I don’t discount the possibility that some of these protestors have informed and honorable intentions, the vast majority of them appear to just be hateful bigots. While everyone has a right to protest, they do not have a right to prevent people from living their lives.

Protests against the war in Gaza have spread from Columbia and Yale to other universities as officials scramble to diffuse a burgeoning protest movement.

Dozens of students were arrested at Yale on Monday, while Columbia cancelled in-person classes over fears of antisemitism on-campus.

 

Similar protest “encampments” have sprung up at other campuses, including Berkeley in California.

School officials are under increasing pressure to calm campus tensions.

SCOTUS hears Case On Banning Homeless Encampments

by | 1953, 22 Apr 24 | , | 0 Comments

This should be pretty simple. The Constitution is silent on homeless people, thus laws about them are up to the states.

A majority of Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared sympathetic to an Oregon city making it a crime for anyone without a permanent residence to sleep outside in an effort to crack down on homeless encampments across public properties.

 

The case, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, carries enormous stakes nationwide as communities confront a growing tide of unhoused residents and increasingly turn to punitive measures to try to incentivize people to take advantage of social services and other shelter options.

 

“These generally applicable laws prohibit specific conduct and are essential to public health and safety,” argued the city’s attorney Theane Evangelis during oral arguments, which stretched more than two and a half hours.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said in a decision last year that a homeless camping ban amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment” under the 8th Amendment. But several members of the high court’s conservative majority took a critical view of that conclusion.

 

“Have we ever applied the Eighth Amendment to civil penalties?” asked a skeptical Justice Clarence Thomas.

USC Cancels All Graduation Speakers

by | 0740, 20 Apr 24 | , | 0 Comments

Liberals ruin everything.

Amid the decision to cancel this year’s valedictorian speech, the University of Southern California announced it would be eliminating all outside speakers and honorees from its main-stage commencement taking place next month.

In a memo released on Friday, the university said, “To keep the focus on our graduates, we are redesigning the commencement program. Given the highly publicized circumstances surrounding our main-stage commencement program, university leadership has decided it is best to release our outside speakers and honorees from attending this year’s ceremony.”

Teen Arrested to Thwart School Massacre

by | 0814, 19 Apr 24 | , | 9 Comments

It’s good that the police were able to intervene before the teen did something. Clearly this is another isolated, mentally ill teen who needs help.

A transgender 18-year-old planned a school shooting because he ‘wanted to be famous’, according to cops who arrested him after finding his 129-page ‘manifesto’.

 

Andrea Ye, whose preferred name is Alex, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with making threats of mass violence after allegedly planning to shoot up Wootton High School in Rockville, Maryland.

 

Police swooped on Ye after finding a ‘manifesto’ written by the teen which they said ‘writes about committing a school shooting, and strategizes how to carry out the act’.

 

In the pages, Ye allegedly wrote that he ‘wants to be famous’ and contemplated targeting an elementary school as ‘little kids make easier targets’.

 

[…]

 

Montgomery County Public Schools told Fox that Ye is an active student at Wootton High School in Rockville but has been attending through a virtual program and hadn’t been on campus physically since 2022.

 

Police reportedly said in court records that Ye’s sex is female but he uses male pronouns.

UTD Eliminates DEI Positions

by | 0755, 19 Apr 24 | , , | 0 Comments

Of course, we all need to be vigilant about DEI being infused in other ways, but this is manifestly positively. When I see these stories about universities and companies eliminating DEI positions, it does make me marvel at how much cost has been ladled onto students and taxpayers by these universities for things that had zero – or, perhaps, negative – value for the students’ education.

More than three months after a law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education went into effect, the University of Texas at Dallas has announced it will officially be eliminating around 20 positions. 

 

According to a recent announcement from the university, they will be closing the Office of Campus Resources and Support to comply with state law. 

 

“As a result, effective April 30, 2024, the Office of Campus Resources and Support (OCRS) and approximately 20 associated jobs will be eliminated,” UTD President Dr. Richard C. Benson announced in a letter.

 

Benson added that all employees being affected will be able to apply for other open positions on campus and directed hiring managers to give “these experienced and talented individuals careful review when making their hiring decisions.”

 

The elimination of these positions at UTD follows the University of Texas laying off dozens of employees working in DEI positions. 

Young Black Voters Dissatisfied with Biden

by | 1843, 18 Apr 24 | , | 0 Comments

Young black folks don’t have the same personal relationship with the civil rights era. Like the rest of us, they are concerned about the economy, border, and crime.

“It is a generational divide. They don’t know the people who fought and died for their rights,” said Terrance Woodbury, a Democratic pollster, whose polling has found a nearly 30-point gap in support for Democrats among Black voters 18 to 49 years old relative to Black voters over 50. The latter group, he said, “does know those people. They saw that fight. Some of them were in that fight.”

 

Young Black voters point to higher costs of living, crises abroad and the old ages of both major candidates — Biden, 81, is the oldest U.S. president, and former President Donald Trump is 77 — as reasons for their discontent. They also say that they feel their lives have not improved under Biden’s presidency and that they have seen little of his campaign promises to lower housing costs, relieve student loan debt and promote racial equity.

 

These gripes are not unique to young Black voters. In polls, focus groups and interviews, record numbers of Black Americans across ages and genders have expressed disenchantment with Democratic leaders. And the generation gap in support for Democrats is not unique to one race. While most young voters support Democrats and turned out en masse during the 2020 presidential and 2022 midterm elections, many have also said they are deeply dissatisfied with the party and see less reason to turn back out for them.

Police Break Up Terror Cell in New York

by | 1743, 18 Apr 24 | , | 0 Comments

It’s good to finally see a bit of pushback on the hate. Again, we all have a right to protest. It’s protected by the 1st Amendment in the U.S. What you do not have a right to do is squat on private property, destroy property, or disrupt the lives of others. The fact that you are all worked up over something doesn’t mean that I have to be.

Dozens of students have been arrested after police cleared an encampment set-up by pro-Palestine protesters at Columbia University in New York.

The university’s president said that the “extraordinary step” came after multiple warnings and was necessary to provide a safe environment.

Among the participants in the protest was Minnesota politician Ilhan Omar’s daughter, who has been suspended.

[…]

Protestors had constructed an encampment of about 50 tents on campus on Wednesday – and overnight hundreds of students and others had rallied with them.

 

USC Won’t Allow Muslim Valedictorian to Give Speech

by | 0727, 17 Apr 24 | , | 0 Comments

Interesting

What was supposed to be a time of celebration for Asna Tabassum – the University of Southern California’s 2024 valedictorian – has turned to disappointment after the university denied her the chance to give a speech at commencement over security concerns.

 

“Over the past several days, discussion relating to the selection of our valedictorian has taken on an alarming tenor,” USC Provost Andrew Guzman said in an online campus-wide letter. “The intensity of feelings, fueled by both social media and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, has grown to include many voices outside of USC and has escalated to the point of creating substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement.”

 

Tabassum, a first-generation South Asian-American Muslim, would have delivered her speech at the graduation ceremony on May 10.

 

[…]

 

USC student advocacy group Trojans for Israel accused Tabassum of sharing a link in the bio of her Instagram page that calls Zionism “a racist settler-colonial ideology” and advocates for the “complete abolishment” of Israel, it wrote in a social media post.

Although nobody is really talking, it seems clear that Tabassum is an antisemitic bigot and USC is worried about protests at graduation. I can understand that USC wants to preserve the graduation as an event to be enjoyed by all of the graduates. It’s not about this one person. Graduation is about hundreds of graduates and their families celebrating their achievement. They don’t deserve to have their day ruined by a circus.

On the other hand, Tabaddum earned the privilege to speak. One would hope that she has the class to keep her speech to traditional topics and not delve into world politics. One would hope.

Were it me, I would let her speak and beef up security with a wide security perimeter to keep any protests at a distance. I would also insist that her speech be approved in advance. Sure, she could go off script, but hopefully they can instill in her the responsibility to make the day about her classmates and not about her.

Ford Drops Prices to Lure EV Buyers

by | 2015, 11 Apr 24 | , , | 2 Comments

Market working.

DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford Motor is lowering the starting prices of some all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup trucks as it prepares to resume shipping the vehicles after quality issues.

 

[…]

 

The cost reductions are the latest electric vehicle price changes for the broader automotive industry amid slower-than-expected consumer adoption. Ford’s cuts come three months after it adjusted Lightning prices, including increasing some model prices.

When Liberals Quote the Bible

by | 0954, 6 Apr 24 | | 1 Comment

Wow…

I’ve always been fond of the Bible verse “The truth will set you free.” John 8:31 32 (ESV). But quite frankly, I’ve never quite understood what it meant. So, I did some research, and the best explanation I could find was… Honesty brings peace and self-respect.

That is absolutely NOT what that verse means. Like… not even close. Even a cursory bit of research by someone completely unfamiliar with the Bible would tell you that.

t.u. Fires DEI Staff

by | 1850, 5 Apr 24 | , , | 0 Comments

Progress.

The University of Texas at Austin has sent layoff notices to an estimated 60 staff members who previously worked in diversity, equity and inclusion roles, according to the Texas NAACP and the Texas Conference of American Association of University Professors.

 

The staffing cuts come as the university works to comply with the state’s anti-DEI law, or SB17, that bans public colleges and universities from maintaining DEI offices, holding mandatory DEI training, and having departments focused on “promoting differential treatment” based on race, sex or ethnicity.

 

In a statement released Wednesday, the Texas NAACP and AAUP said impacted staff members were given a 90-day layoff notice. Forty of those employees were from the Division of Campus and Community Engagement, which will be closing, the statement said. The office was formerly called the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement before SB17 went into effect in January.

Brian Davis, a university spokesman, said he was unable to confirm the number of jobs that are being eliminated. Davis told CNN in an email that the university would not comment beyond a letter President Jay Hartzell’s released to the campus community earlier this week.

 

Hartzell said in the letter that the university is redirecting funds from DEI initiatives to “teaching and research.”

Imaging spending money on teaching and research. How progressive.

State Bar Tries to be Less Racist

by | 1835, 5 Apr 24 | , , | 1 Comment

Victory? I guess? But if the results of the program are the same, it doesn’t seem like much of a victory. Liberals have no problem saying one thing to appease the law and then doing whatever they want.

The State Bar of Wisconsin said that under terms of the settlement, its “diversity clerkship program” would continue unchanged under the new definition.

 

But the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which brought the lawsuit in December, declared victory, saying in a statement that “mandatory and annual State Bar dues will not fund internships and policies primarily based on race, but rather on merit and diversity of viewpoint.”

 

The original definition of “diversity” for the Wisconsin program said the concept includes race, ethnicity, gender identity and other factors. The new definition simply says it involves “including people with differing characteristics, beliefs, experiences, interests, and viewpoints.”

 

Under the deal, the bar association must also clearly say in all materials related to the program that race is not a factor in considering participation in the program, according to the conservative law firm.

 

The bar association also may not say that only law students from diverse backgrounds, with backgrounds that have been historically excluded from the legal field, or who have been socially disadvantaged are eligible, the law firm said.

 

The program in question offers summer internships for first-year law school students at top law firms, private companies and government offices. Past participants have included Alliant Energy, Froedtert Health, the Kohler Co., the city of Madison, the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the state Department of Corrections.

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