For home-schoolers and wannabe’s, a long read and maybe much appreciated.

In mid-March, Kansas became the first state to close its schools for the remainder of the academic year. The following week, my own state of Virginia became the second. Since then, 46 other states and Washington, D.C. have followed suit, and the rest, whatever their hopes, remain closed as of early May.

Even if the public health situation improves in the next few weeks, as some optimists hope, school is out. Graduation requirements are waived, final exams are cancelled and our state department of education has encouraged schools to drop grading altogether. Virtual instruction has commenced, but participation in it is largely voluntary and sporadic. [Emphases
added]

But taken as a whole, what does this situation say for the present system(s)? For the future, that is.

What will it do for the very idea of educational credentials? Diplomas go blah? Won’t mean a thing if ain’t got that swing . . .

This caught my eye in this story of at best clumsy regulation-(I won’t say law’) enforcing at this church with worshipers behind locked doors, in part to keep the ‘hood’s marauders barging in:

After the incident, Lewis [the pastor] wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney John Lausch to complain about what happened and ask for assistance, saying Lightfoot “is defiant of the U.S. Constitution and our freedom to worship” and “has a history of defying the law.”

“She is one of few former US Prosecutors in the US to be censured by the 7th Circuit Judge Rovner and the entire 7th Circuit Court of Appeals for defying their order,” he noted.

Say wha’? Our mayor defied an order? We should hear more about this aspect of her law-related history.

WSJ does nice, calm enough job reporting and dissecting this story, at the end with this key notation:

The mistake [in its own fact-check] raised questions about Twitter’s ability to serve as an independent service to fact check statements by Mr. Trump or other political figures . . . Late Tuesday, Twitter updated its language [changed its story] to remove reference to Nebraska [which mailed applications for
ballot, because of Covid, and not ballots] and instead stated that “five states already vote entirely by mail and all states offer some form of mail-in absentee voting.”

Yes. Its ability is one issue, it’s becoming a commentator is another. But free market of ideas (freedom of speech) is at the heart of even anti-social media, namely the assumption that everything said is target for rebuttal and God knows what else.

Like the fact-checks on Pelosi and Schumer.

Sure. Remember how Twitter checked out the Obama White House? Refresh me.

AP editorial has chapter and verse about Trump’s firing IG’s, but reports without pursuing White House defense that points up AP’s interest less in firings than in Trump:

“When the President loses confidence in an inspector general, he will exercise his constitutional right and duty to remove that officer — as did President Reagan when he removed inspectors general upon taking office and as did President Obama when he was in office,” [White House lawyer] Cipollone wrote.

Reagan and Obama did it? Why wouldn’t the AP editorial/opinion piece, thorough in spelling out the current situation, not be thorough in the White House defense of itself? Slippery fellows, and I mean the AP writers and editors.

I hope to follow this program, mainly to see if it brings up objections to draconian measures prescribed by the very committed.

That is, to see if there are attempts to weigh and balance the costs of resisting climate change, comparing them with costs of it.

Pretty gooey stuff here. What would St. Paul say? Not to mention the Savior Himself.

“With the gaze of Christ”

Diverse and United includes a never-before-published chapter entitled “With the gaze of Christ”. In it, Pope Francis reflects on the Gospel account of Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man who asked Jesus how to obtain eternal life. The Gospel of Mark recounts a significant detail of their meeting: “Jesus, looking upon him, loved him”.

This, writes Pope Francis, reveals something about Jesus’ style: the Lord is not focused primarily on what the man is saying, but upon the man himself. This reveals how necessary it is, for truly human communication, “to enter into contact with the world and with others, and to build relationships”.

Golly. Not for the first time, this Catholic wonders what the heck is he talking about?

Something about lockdown you don’t hear much about:

The lockdown in the West will have a devastating impact on the inhabitants of the world’s poorest countries.

Has this been part of the equation for decision-makers?