Harvard University’s HR department offers a course on microaggression.
Maybe they should offer one on macroaggression, too.
In the Harvard course, participants “(T)hrough small and large group discussion, participants will examine the differences between intention and impact and learn key strategies for addressing microaggressions in ways that foster shared understanding and growth.”
A few days ago, Harvard President – and accused plagiarist, viciously self-serving academic bureaucrat, non-scholar (she’s published eleven papers – typically that might get you in the door for a shot at an entry-level assistant prof job at a state school,) and destroyer of careers of people who do not chant the DEI mantra that has made her rise possible - Claudine Gay testified in front of Congress about whether there was a possibility that she should consider showing a bit of concern that some of her students were calling for Auschwitz 2.0.
She said it depended upon the context.
While it would seem calling for genocide should be considered a macroaggression, Gay could see neither the moral depravity nor the pathetic, self-serving hypocrisy of her having adamantine rules about things like accidentally mispronouncing a name – microaggression – while being able to wishywash away the universal, terminal and transgenerational threat of wiping out Jews as needing “context.”
Not only did she keep her job, she was given a strong note of support from the Harvard board, unlike her compatriot at the University of Pennsylvania who was tossed out faster than you can say intersectional oppression. Like Harvard, Penn was threatened with massive cuts in alumni donations; unlike Harvard, Penn has only a $16 billion dollar endowment that covers merely 18% of the cost of running the school.
Harvard’s got $50 billion in the bank and makes more than twice as much money from its endowment – 45% of operating costs - as it does from tuition – 20%. In other words, a few hundred million in lost donations here or there doesn’t mean that much to Harvard, but for Penn…see ya’, madam president.
Quick question: I wonder how much of Harvard’s endowment is invested in Palestinian businesses or Palestinian Authority bonds or that planned, before the recent unpleasantness, sun, sea, and sand no Jews allowed Gaza resort? I’m thinking it’s not that much.
And in case you are not convinced that a fish hates from the head down, Alaska Senator – and Harvard alum – Dan Sullivan was back on campus last weekend. He was in Boston, he wrote for The Wall Street Journal, for the Army-Navy football game so he took a wander over the Cambridge and was met with this when he stopped in at the library:
“When I walked upstairs to the famous Widener Reading Room, I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Sullivan wrote. “Nearly every student in the packed room was wearing a kaffiyeh. Fliers attached to their individual laptops, as well as affixed to some of the lamps in the reading room, read: ‘No Normalcy During Genocide—Justice for Palestine.’ A young woman handed the fliers to all who entered. A large banner spread across one end of the room stated in blazing blood-red letters, ‘Stop the Genocide in Gaza.’”
He continued: “If students were handing out fliers and hanging large banners in the Widener Library Reading Room denouncing, say, affirmative action or NCAA rules allowing men to compete in women’s swim meets, Harvard leaders would shut them down in a minute. But an anti-Israel protest by an antisemitic group, commandeering the entire Widener Reading Room during finals? No problem.
Is that what Ms. Gay meant when she testified that ‘it depends on the context?’”
Speaking of evil people with money, Hunter Biden boldly took to the steps of the Capitol to boldly declare that he would not go inside the Capitol to answer questions from a congressional committee.
Couple that with the House deciding to go forward with a formal impeachment inquiry of dad Joe and what could you get?
First, you definitely get even more sickened by DC, but that’s a given. Second, do you get Joe gone? Third, do you get Hunter to pony up, both his taxes and the truth?
Except for those people who have put in earplugs and donned blinders and then went into a cave and then collapsed the entrance and then dug a hole in the cave floor and then stuck their head in it, it is crystal clear that the entire Biden family – including Joe – is in the selling Joe business, which, like being a prostitute, is a pretty easy business to be in because you get to keep what you sell.
It is also rather apparent that Hunter and Jim got work because they promised people a piece of Joe and no other reason. The defense of “well, they said they could influence Joe but they actually didn’t so it wasn’t illegal or improper or anything” is already being touted.
First, ick. Second, that only changes the crime to “attempted…whatever.” Third, it is rather funny that their defense amounts to “we’re not evil, just stupid and incompetent.” And fourth, of course, it’s a lie.
So, impeachable? Well, yes, especially measured against the extremely low bar set by by the Trump impeachments.
You talked to someone in Ukraine?!? Out!!!
But then, the wall. The Biden family economics are so convoluted, wind-around, twisty, inaccessible (ChiComs going to testify?) tortuous, and self-dealing that – at least from a media point – they can be (and have been) spun and obfuscated and lied about to the public quite easily.
The media has already accused Republicans like Jim Jordan and James Comer of perpetuating an Ahab-like white whale hunt and the labyrinthine circle-back nature of the information could sadly lead to the inquiry turning into a quest for Mobius Dick.
But even though the Bidens have intentionally created a financial grey area (grey areas are wonderful places to hide anything, from money to votes ) there is clearly enough evidence to justify the probe and practically enough to essentially end the probe.
Do you think Attorney General Merrick Garland will offer to dismiss all the charges against Hunter if he agrees to testify against his father? Happens all the time in real justice systems…
Well, it might not be that easy, but it will be easier than trying to prove Trump colluded with Russia – that’s because the Biden’s actually did what they are accused of and Trump didn’t.
Speaking of greedy incompetents with money, we come to the homelessness question.
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development just released a new report on the national state of homelessness: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2023-AHAR-Part-1.pdf . The report states that there are about 630,000 homeless people in the country, with about 180,000 in California.
But California’s really big, so it’s number should be higher, you say? California has about 12% of the national population and about 30% of its homeless, so, no.
California has a lot of homeless people.
California spends a lot of money on homeless people.
Well, you get what you pay for.
The state will spend $7.2 billion dollars this fiscal year. – that’s about $40,000 per homeless person.
The city and county of Los Angeles themselves will spend a combined $1.8 billion dollars – that’s about $26,000 per homeless person….sorry, Angelino experiencing an unhoused state.
Every homeless person in the state is entitled to food stamps – that’s about $2,400 per year. Every homeless person in the state is entitled to Medi-Cal (that’s what medicaid is called in the Golden State) – that’s a cost of about $8,600 per year (though the value to the recipient is much higher; the insurance, except for the limitations on which doctors a person can see, is quite good and doesn’t have any pesky co-pays.)
That does not include other local public expenses and the value of free and discounted services available.
What that means is that every homeless person in LA will have – at a minimum - $77,000 spent on them this year
And then there’s temporarily housing the homeless. Fleabag motels on the brink of failing health inspections that would have had a tough time getting $200 a week from a room are filled up at a $700 per week charge to the public, an added value to the person experiencing homeless…hell with it – vagrant - of up to $36,000 per year (no sharing rooms!)
And still it’s not good enough, say many of the homeless , who often demand a bit more than a leg up, as it were. But many also have a point about the problems with confusing, dehumanizing, unstable programs like Mayor Karen Bass’s “Inside Safe.”
“Please, God, do not say ‘Inside Safe’ to any of us ever again. Those words make us cringe” said one homeless person, while another added “Inside Safe, Outside Safer.”
Not only does the homelessness industry (not going to call it non-profit anymore) siphon off the lion’s share of the funds, it’s also riddled with incompetence and feather bedding that can lead to situations like the recent eviction of hundreds of homeless people because the “non-profit” in charge didn’t pay the rent.
All of this and still there’s more – the construction of free, supportive permanent housing. There are billions in bond/tax funds in that particular pot, but very little has been done with it and what has actually been done has been done at an eye-watering cost (and quite often involved actually evicting people from their homes so they can be demolished to make room to build housing for the homeless .)
The per-unit cost of “permanent supportive housing” has hit about $800,000, depending upon the project.
$800,000 for what typically amounts to something akin to an extended-stay hotel room: little kitchen, 500 or so square-feet total, etc.
First, to build the units it would cost about $56 billion dollars, just to cover Los Angeles. Second, the pace of construction would have to go to warp speed, practically quintupling the number of housing units currently being built each year,
Third, even in California $800,000 can still buy a nice, big suburban home.
And fourth – if you happen to know a builder or a developer, ask them what they could build for $800,000 and it would be a tad bit nicer than a near-efficiency flat. One told me that they were involved in the construction of a five star Las Vegas hotel recently and their per-suite (not the “whale” suites with the live-in butler, but still something with a separate bedroom or two, a kitchen area, and clocking in at about 800-square-feet with high-end fixtures and furnishings) cost was about one-third of that price.
To be blunt, the only homes that the billions of dollars being spent has built are the homes of the grifters in the homeless industry.
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