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Ruth King

U of Oregon Students Debated Removing MLK Quote From Wall Because It Wasn’t Inclusive Enough It says nothing about discrimination based on gender identity! By Katherine Timpf

Student leaders at the University of Oregon considered removing a famous Martin Luther King Jr. quote from a wall on its student center on the grounds that it was just not inclusive enough — because it talked only about racial discrimination and not discrimination based on stuff like gender identity.

The quote has been displayed at the Erb Memorial Union (which is currently being renovated) since 1985. It’s probably something that you’ve heard before — “I have a dream that my four little children that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream . . .” — without even thinking that it might be problematic.

But that’s because you’re just not as smart or culturally aware as these kids.

“Diversity is so much more than race,” sophomore Mia Ashley told the Daily Emerald, the school’s official student newspaper.

“Obviously race still plays a big role,” she continued. “But there are people who identify differently in gender and all sorts of things like that.”

According to the Emerald, the students ultimately decided not to change the quote, but “that decision was not made without some hard thought by the Student Union Board.”

Oh, and it gets worse: The entire reason that quote was put there in the first place was to replace another quote that students had found offensive — one that called the university “leader in the quest for the good life for all men” — which is obviously, you know, sexist as hell.

Hillary Can’t Pin Her E-mailgate on the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy By Deroy Murdock

As Hillary Clinton sinks ever deeper into E-mailgate, her excuses for grossly mishandling state secrets grow ever weaker. In defense of her gross negligence, Clinton and her comrades have dusted off a vintage 1990s cliché: “It’s the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy!”

Clinton has been hobbled by Inspector General of the Intelligence Community I. Charles McCullough III’s discovery that her private, unsecure computer server contained “several dozen” e-mails classified TOP SECRET/SAP. “Special Access Programs” is America’s highest clandestine designation. Such secrets must remain concealed because, under federal law, their “unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” As former Africom strategist Dan Maguire told Fox News, “There are people’s lives at stake.”

The response in Clintonia? Blame the Right and tar IGIC McCullough as a partisan GOP hack.

“I can’t control what Republicans and their allies do,” Clinton said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. Her outburst echoes Brian Fallon, her campaign flack.

As the SAP story broke on January 19, Fallon told Politico, “It is alarming that the intelligence community IG, working with Republicans in Congress, continues to selectively leak materials in order to resurface the same allegations and try to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.”

Fallon repeated this charge nearly verbatim when he told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota: “I think that Republicans are continuing to try to trump it up and resurface these allegations for the purposes of hurting her campaign.”

After Years of False Alarms, the ‘Conservative Crackup’ Has Arrived By Jonah Goldberg

I’ve been hearing about the impending “conservative crackup” for nearly 25 years. The term was coined by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., the founder of The American Spectator. He meant that conservatism had lost its philosophical coherence. But the phrase almost instantly became a catchall for any prediction of the Right’s imminent demise or dissolution.

These dire prophecies always reminded me of those “Free Beer Tomorrow” signs. As Annie sings, tomorrow is “always a day away.”

Well, thanks to Donald Trump, tomorrow may be here. There’s a fierce internecine battle over whether to oppose Trump’s run, passively accept his popularity, or zealously support his bid.

The level of distrust among many of the different factions of the conservative coalition has never been higher, at least not in my experience. Arguments don’t seem to matter, only motives do.

Here’s Rush Limbaugh on Friday: “Forget the name is Trump. If a candidate could [guarantee to] fix everything that’s wrong in this country the way the Republican party thinks it’s wrong, if it were a slam dunk, if it were guaranteed, that candidate will still be opposed by the Republican-party establishment. . . . If he’s not part of the clique, they don’t want him in there.”

In other words, the GOP establishment has become so corrupted, its members would knowingly reject a savior just to protect their comfortable way of life.

Limbaugh also says that the conservative “intelligentsia” — in the form of conservative magazines and think tanks — doesn’t want to solve problems, it just wants to score points in an “academic exercise” within a perpetual “debating society.” “In other words,” Limbaugh says, “some people constantly need something to run against as a reason to exist.”

Meanwhile, many in the so-called establishment and intelligentsia have similar complaints about Limbaugh and his imitators on radio and cable TV, although most don’t say it publicly for fear of reprisal. I’ve lost track of the number of congressmen, consultants, and so forth who’ve told me that talk-radio hosts spend their time criticizing fellow conservatives because that’s what brings in the highest ratings. (Beating up on liberals just doesn’t animate the base like it used to.)

Christians Who Demonize Israel: Kairos by Denis MacEoin

“Christian children are massacred, and everything is done in plain sight. Islamists proclaim on a daily basis that they will not stop until Christianity is wiped off the face of the earth. So are the world Christian bodies denouncing the Islamic forces for the ethnic cleansing, genocide and historic demographic-religious revolution their brethren are suffering? No. Christians these days are busy targeting the Israeli Jews.” — Giulio Meotti, Italian journalist.

The Kairos document seems to be so egregiously discriminatory that in 2010, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) declared it “supersessionist” and “anti-Semitic.”

We must ask why a presentation of the work of Kairos in an Anglican church made no reference whatever to the many associations with extremism and denial of a more rational Christian approach to the problems faced by Palestinian Christians.

Last September, during the World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel — an initiative of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF) of the World Council of Churches, St. Thomas’ Church in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, hosted an event titled “Wall Will Fall”.

For anyone unfamiliar with the history, legal issues, and distortions of the Israeli-Arab and Jewish-Muslim conflicts, the deeply one-sided presentations and literature of the event may seem reasonable in the lack of such a context, and this report will, therefore, attempt to rebalance the narrative.

There are, broadly speaking, two clashing narratives about historical and current events in the region. By presenting only one side of the conflict, Wall Will Fall served only to exacerbate the root cause for the failure of peace negotiations: Palestinian rejection of the two state solution. Although Israel was repeatedly condemned — often very harshly — for its treatment of Palestinians, not once in the presentations or in the literature available were the Arabs ever censured for their series of aggressive wars against Israel, or the Palestinians criticized for their decades of terrorist attacks on Israelis, their preaching of anti-Semitic hatred in school textbooks, mosque sermons, summer camps, government-controlled media, and elsewhere. During the event, guilt was placed on one party only: Israel. As we shall argue, Israel is the least likely candidate for censure at such a high level.

OTTAWA HIJAB DAY? — THE GLAZOV GANG

http://jamieglazov.com/2016/01/27/ottawa-hijab-day-the-glazov-gang/

A group called “City for All Women Initiative“ is planning an “Ottawa Hijab Day” on Feb. 25, 2016. The group states that it is aiming for “better awareness”, “greater understanding,” and a “peaceful world.” The Hijab Day will be a day, the group announces, “When non-Muslim women will wear a hijab for all or part of the day to be in solidarity with Muslim women. We walk with our sisters.”

In response to this group’s planned event, we are running Jamie Glazov’s Video: What a Woman in Hijab is Really Saying to You, in which he unveils the terrifying truth about what the hijab really signifies.

Perhaps the organizers of the event will share this video with all of their event’s participants in order to help achieve “better awareness” and “greater understanding”.

Don’t miss this special Jamie Glazov Video:

Turkey: Death to Free Speech by Burak Bekdil

A criminal indictment was filed against Sedat Ergin, editor-in-chief of the country’s most influential newspaper, Hurriyet. Prosecutors demanded up to five years in prison for Ergin, for allegedly insulting President Erdogan. The indictment claims that Hurriyet insulted the president by paraphrasing what the president had said.

“[T]his is a ‘democracy’ with a growingly diminishing freedom of speech. It is ‘democracy’ where the ‘voice of the nation,’ which practically is the voice of the political majority and its glorified leader, intimidates and silences dissenting voices.” — Mustafa Akyol, columnist, Hurriyet.

According to a report by the Turkish Journalists Association, 500 journalists were fired in Turkey in 2015, while 70 others were subjected to physical violence. Thirty journalists remain in prison, mostly on terrorism charges. Needless to say, the unfortunate journalists invariably are known to be critical of Erdogan.

Europe, cherishing its “transactional” relations with Turkey, prefers to look the other way and whistle. All the EU could say about the prosecution of academics was that it is “extremely worrying.” Brussels cannot see that Turkish affairs passed the threshold of “extremely worrying” a long time ago.

Defending his quest for an executive presidential system Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cited Hitler’s Germany as an effective form of government. Yes, he said, you can have the presidential system in a unitary state as in Hitler’s Germany. His office later claimed that the president’s “Hitler’s Germany” metaphor had been “distorted” by the media. Erdogan’s words on Hitler’s Germany may or may not have been distorted, but the way he rules Turkey reminds one powerfully of how Hitler ruled the Third Reich.

The Value of Tolerance Today is “Wear a Kippah Day” – Il Foglio Wants Your Selfie by Shoshana Bryen

The question is not whether a Jew wears a kippah [Jewish skullcap]. It is whether others — Jews and non-Jews — insist that Jews have a RIGHT to wear a kippah — and Christians a cross — and whether non-Jews join Jews in wearing a kippah as a test of tolerance.

“A Jew who hides in fear of being recognized as a Jew is the perfect symbol of a world that forces the West to hide for fear of provoking a reaction among those who want to stab the West.” — Il Foglio, Italian newspaper.

Please wear a kippah on Wednesday, January 27, 2016. Do it for freedom of religion — for all of us. And send Il Foglio — kippah@ilfoglio.it — your selfie!

The defining value of Western politics is tolerance — not that anyone is always tolerant, and not that other people are not also tolerant, but in order to have the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal justice under law and multiple political parties. The demand that we be tolerant of that which we do not observe and do not believe and even/especially with which we do not agree is paramount. “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” and “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” require tolerance. “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” The First Amendment’s protection of a free press and freedom from prior government censorship is the definition of tolerance.

Think Nazis in Skokie or “Piss Christ.”

Mostly the media gets it wrong, and increasingly, American institutions — particularly university campuses — get it even more wrong, elevating the protection of people’s “feelings” over the need be open at least to hearing ideas that might be deeply repellent to you.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow by Mark Steyn

Great news! Anglican bishops are moving toward the same position on facial hair as Mullah Omar:

Vicars should grow BEARDS to reach out to Muslims in their areas, says Bishop of London

Yes, the Taliban comes to the Angliban Communion:

One of the priests praised by the Bishop of London, the Rev. Atkinson told The Telegraph he found having a beard had helped provide a connection with many people in his parish, around 85 per cent of whom are Muslim…

The heart of the Cockney East End: 85 per cent Muslim. As they sing in Oliver!, “Consider yourself at ‘ome!” So one must adapt as one can:

He said he had forged new links with people after growing his facial hair.

He explained: ‘It is an icebreaker – St Paul said “I become all things to all men that by all possible means I might save some”…

Really? The C of E is back in the conversion game?

Israeli scientist seeks cure for aging New clinical trial testing whether medication can delay onset of aging-related illnesses, thus helping treat the root of several serious diseases. Liat Levy

Professor Nir Barzilai, director and founder of the Institute for Aging Research at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has more reason than most to believe that this is not far from the truth.

These days, Barzilai is working on an ambitious new project that is making waves globally. If it succeeds, it could start a total revolution in how we treat illness and aging.

Barzilai is overseeing a clinical trial titled “Targeting Aging with Metformin”, or TAME, which seeks to discover whether Metformin, a medication prescribed for diabetes, may also delay the onset of aging-related illnesses, such as cancer, heart disease, and cognitive impairment.

The trial is currently in the final stages of planning and is searching for further sources of funding. The planned trial is to involve administering Metformin to thousands of elderly people, some of whom suffer from the aforementioned illnesses, and some of whom have the potential to develop the illnesses. Another group of subjects, identical in makeup to the first, is to be given a placebo as a control.

Comparison between the groups (while taking into consideration variables like diet and smoking habits) could prove whether Metformin can slow the progress of diseases, prevent them, and even increase life expectancy.

13 Hours in Benghazi, and the Still-Missing White House Timeline By Claudia Rosett

It’s almost two weeks since the release of “13 Hours,” the movie about the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. In the modern news cycle, that’s time enough for the importance of this movie to be buried by news of the blizzard from which the East Coast is now digging out. But I found this movie so good that I went to see it twice.

Both times, I came away wondering the same thing. What, precisely, was President Obama doing during the hours — all those many hours — in which the Americans in Benghazi, abandoned by their leaders in Washington, fought for their lives?

What was Obama doing, amid the comforts and command centers of the White House, while State Department officer Sean Smith and Ambassador Chris Stevens were choking on the smoke of a diesel-fueled inferno at the poorly secured U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi? What was Obama doing during the hours in which the assault targeted the CIA annex near the compound? What was he doing when al Qaeda-linked terrorists fired mortars at the Americans defending the annex, killing former SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods?

Benghazi in that season was six hours ahead of Washington. The attacks began about 9:45 P.M. in Benghazi, and went on intermittently all night, with the deadly mortar assault coming at about 5:15 A.M. It took another five hours, and then some, before the last of the survivors, assembled at the airport, along with the bodies of the four dead Americans, were flown out of Benghazi — not by American forces, but aboard a Libyan C-130 military cargo plane. Thus the roughly 13 hours referred to in the title of the movie, from approximately 9:45 PM on the evening of Sept. 11, until about 10:30 A.M on the morning of Sept. 12.