All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Username taken]

Its sad that Thomas who benefited from Affirmataction was so willing to strike it down,

He's been anti-Affirmative Action for years. Former friends have claimed that it's due to misplaced anger when he didn't get high profile job offers when he graduated law school.

Clarence Thomas is a weird guy.

Ketanji Brown noted it today that Thomas criticized her in his opinion for an argument she didn't even make for race-conscious admissions.

[Tami]

What specifically?

There are a whole lot of Colleges and Universities throughout the US. Addressing Racism in admissions should be balanced with standardizing (or eliminating) admissions criteria. The rule should be that every high school student who wants to attend college gets the chance to attend college. High standards should be set for keeping up with the course work, working hard, and doing well. If a student can't keep up, there should be an evaluation process to determine if there is a addressable reason why they can't keep up.

In my vision of education, all public college and universities will either have to admit anyone who applies, or if there is a unavoidable limit to the number of openings for students (class size, number or instructors, financial reasons, and so on) the the colleges can use either a first come first serve system or a lottery. Of course there should be basic minimum requirements, like maintaining a B or hiher average in High School, graduating, and having completed a certain level of education.

For those who can't meet the minimum standards, there is always the Community College option where they get a second chance to pull their grades up and complete course work that they didn't do in High School.

This is one possible option. Blind, open Admissions with a standard, achievable minimum. And if anyone argues that certain minority students are disadvantaged, then that has to be addressed as well, at the Elementary and High School levels. Standardizing education to give everyone a fair chance.

Admission packets and testing should only be for getting into graduate schools and similar advanced education.


At least this is one possible idea.

[Kirby101]

Air quality at 150 in NY right now. Unhealthy for everyone.. Setting sun is a deep orange.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

As of 8 PM, the air quality index here in Philly was 172. Not good.

[Ragged Maw]

Yep. A lifetime of staying away from cigarettes only to get lung cancer later in life anyway because Canada itself wont stop chain smoking in my face. Great.

[Username taken]

Apologies from Canada regarding the smoke.

In BC, it was pretty horrifying here some weeks back. The sky was literally covered by smoke and the sun was practically blocked out.

Take heart, it'll pass.

[Tami]

Air quality at 150 in NY right now. Unhealthy for everyone.. Setting sun is a deep orange.

Head several miles west and the air quality is now 156.

[Tami]

Apologies from Canada regarding the smoke.

In BC, it was pretty horrifying here some weeks back. The sky was literally covered by smoke and the sun was practically blocked out.

Take heart, it'll pass.

Are they really, actively, trying to stop the spread of the fires or are they letting the fires burn themselves out? ?

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Canada is like....this is what you guys deserve for booing Bret Hart back in 1997.

[Username taken]

Are they really, actively, trying to stop the spread of the fires or are they letting the fires burn themselves out? ?

The authorities did everything they could.

They banned fire burning and all but Canadians are a lot more stubborn than they appear. Fire services worked overtime in some provinces to fight the fires. It was really tough.

However, some of the fires were from natural causes like lightning strikes. Those still happen and are difficult to deal with.

[Username taken]

Canada is like....this is what you guys deserve for booing Bret Hart back in 1997.

Yep, you guys brought the boos but we're bringing all the smoke.

[Mister Mets]

Its sad that Thomas who benefited from Affirmataction was so willing to strike it down,

He doesn't view it that way.

https://colemanhughes.substack.com/p...utm_medium=web

They are conveniently failing to mention that Thomas actually blamed Affirmative Action for his inability to get a job after law school. He put a “10-cent” label on his Yale Law degree, feeling that employers devalued it because they assumed he only got in because he was black. Don’t we all have those sorts of intrusive thoughts, rightly or wrongly, about legacy admits and student athletes? How many of us openly said that of President Bush? It would be strange if race-based affirmative action were the only anti-meritocratic policy about which people did not have such intrusive thoughts. And what good is the stronger brand signal if prospective employers are silently (and rationally) canceling it out in their heads?

(Ultimately, the notion that Thomas is a hypocrite wouldn’t make sense even if he did believe he had benefited from Affirmative Action. You can derive benefit from a system while also believing that that system is unjust. President Bush, for instance, believed that the legacy system was unjust even though he likely benefited from it personally. Was he a hypocrite? What should Thomas have done to avoid hypocrisy, opt out of law school entirely? You don’t get to choose whether you benefit from a given system of admissions. But you do get to choose your opinion of that system.)

[Iron Maiden]

Air quality at 150 in NY right now. Unhealthy for everyone.. Setting sun is a deep orange.

The sun in my area of the midwest near Lake Michigan looked that way yesterday. Today was much better because we had some heavy clouds and rain. That seemed to help clear things up a bit. I stayed mostly indoors yesterday and was temped to buy a box of those N-95 masks.

[Robotman]

Well, Mark Millar is a f*cking idiot, but most comic fans already knew that. Glad I stopped reading his comics years ago.

Mark Millar declares his sport for RFK Jr.

[JackDaw]

There are a whole lot of Colleges and Universities throughout the US. Addressing Racism in admissions should be balanced with standardizing (or eliminating) admissions criteria. The rule should be that every high school student who wants to attend college gets the chance to attend college. High standards should be set for keeping up with the course work, working hard, and doing well. If a student can't keep up, there should be an evaluation process to determine if there is a addressable reason why they can't keep up.

In my vision of education, all public college and universities will either have to admit anyone who applies, or if there is a unavoidable limit to the number of openings for students (class size, number or instructors, financial reasons, and so on) the the colleges can use either a first come first serve system or a lottery. Of course there should be basic minimum requirements, like maintaining a B or hiher average in High School, graduating, and having completed a certain level of education.

For those who can't meet the minimum standards, there is always the Community College option where they get a second chance to pull their grades up and complete course work that they didn't do in High School.

This is one possible option. Blind, open Admissions with a standard, achievable minimum. And if anyone argues that certain minority students are disadvantaged, then that has to be addressed as well, at the Elementary and High School levels. Standardizing education to give everyone a fair chance.

Admission packets and testing should only be for getting into graduate schools and similar advanced education.


At least this is one possible idea.

But once a load of students actually want to get to those advanced institutions there will be a very competitive entry process…certainly to likes of Yale, Harvard, MIT where successful graduates have a good chance to go on to help control the commanding heights of the economy, etc.

At that stage students that have had personal tuition, massive support at home, the best schools will be at a massive advantage compared to kids from a broken home. The people controlling the entry process ought…at very least…be encouraged to have a helpful attitude and realise a person from some backgrounds giving well reasoned and imaginative answer might well have more potential than some one giving a text book perfect tutored answer.

I do understand why people have reservations about affirmative action…but on balance in less than perfect world we live in I think it’s a good thing to do. And certainly it would be wrong ((I think) to make it illegal, before all the improvements you want to see have been implemented.