Category: Blithe Spirit

The good and the bad, emphasis on Trib and Sun-Times

Schools aren’t that risky, and teachers are essential workers. We must reopen.

65 to 35% among public school teachers, against opening. Fake body bags, etc. left outside school district’s offices.

Maybe they should have brought signs that read “I’m not essential” — because that is what they are telling us.

Panicky bunch. What happened to remembering the children as reason for giving them a raise in a union contract?

via The Washington Post

You like Fox News. So do I, mostly. But its polling? Beware . . .

. . . says Joseph Ford Cotto of Chronicles Magazine:

Hard as it may be for some Republicans to accept, Fox News is one of those groups that engages in flawed polling. It contracts with Daron Shaw, a Republican who opposed Trump in the ’16 primaries, and Anderson Robbins Research, a Democratic polling outfit.

Oh.

Consider that Fox News showed Biden with a double-digit lead (see its methodology here) weeks before NBC/WSJ and Quinnipiac released their surveys. Four years ago, Fox News featured a 10-point lead for Hillary Clinton (with same methodology that it uses today); this closed to two points by early November. Was the electorate so elastic that it underwent near-10-point change in a matter of weeks?

Fox News also showed Republicans losing not only the governorship, but the U.S. Senate race in Kansas during the 2014 midterms (on the basis of the same methodology that it continues to apply). The Republican gubernatorial nominee won by four points while the GOP’s senatorial candidate achieved an 11-point victory.

Above all, keep 2016 in mind. Polls inaccurate, T-man won.

via Don’t Believe the Polls | Intellectual Takeout

Media blame parks and beaches for coronavirus resurgence and ignore massive anti-police protests

Textbook case of bias:

Mass gatherings are bad, except for when they are not, according to corporate media’s news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. [emphasis mine: It’s a better term than mainstream]

Though this makes no sense whatsoever, this is the line that several major news outlets have adopted, closely mimicking the position of key Democratic officials who have allowed the Black Lives Matter protests to thrive even while imposing extreme restrictions on businesses and houses of worship. It is purely political nonsense and is likely a big reason why a growing number of people now question the official social distancing guidelines. No one likes being jerked around.

The New York Times published an article this weekend clearly suggesting that the virus’s recent resurgence is due to shoppers, beachgoers, and the like. Conspicuously absent from the article is any reference, whether in writing or in picture, to the continued anti-police demonstrations that fill the streets of major cities day and night. Not even a passing mention.  . . . .

Read the rest here.

“Caleb was a son, a brother, a community organizer, and a neighbor. His light and potential have been extinguished at the hands of gun violence, like so many others in Chicago,” Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) said.

Alderman mourns a killing. But does he realize that using “gun violence” here is to anthropomorphize an abstraction?

Thing is, it’s nobody, simply a generic reference to some thing. But a thing is not a human being.

The boy’s light and potential, his entire earthly existence, was extinguished not by a thing, but by some one.

Fauci Attacks Choirs, Implies Worship Is Less Important Than Protests

Fauci sure about church singing but fudges when asked about protests.

During a House hearing of the committee investigating the Trump administration???s pandemic response, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Fauci, ???Do protests increase the spread of the virus????

???Crowding together, particularly when you???re not wearing a mask, contributes to the spread of the virus,??? Fauci said. Jordan asked the question again. Fauci dodged, then claimed he didn???t think the protests question was relevant. ???I???m not in a position to determine what the government can do in a forceful way,??? he said.

Not in a position to determine what gummint does, adding carefully crafted qualification “in a forceful way.” He’s our chief political doctor.

Andrew Napolitano vs. government-imposed shutdowns because of virus threat

What good are constitutional rights if they are violated when Americans get sick?

One of my Fox colleagues recently sent me an email attachment of a painting of the framers signing the Constitution of the United States. Except in this version, George Washington ??? who presided at the Constitutional Convention ??? looks at James Madison ??? who was the scrivener at the Convention ??? and says, ???None of this counts if people get sick, right????

In these days of state governors issuing daily decrees purporting to criminalize the exercise of our personal freedoms, the words put into Washington???s mouth are only mildly amusing. Had Washington actually asked such a question, Madison, of all people, would likely have responded: ???No. This document protects our natural rights at all times and under all circumstances.???

Not funny in current circumstances.

Chicago Tribune’s John Kass will not take a knee to cancel culture

Towards the end of this this forthright and thorough column about Kass’ being accused and not giving up, is this accurate description of his accusers, fellow news people of the Chicago Tribune Guild:

Kass is right not to back down. He did nothing wrong. His colleagues are cowards and backstabbing weasels. They deserve nothing but disdain and mockery.

They and their ilk.