Can anyone define the parameters to be characterized as a journalist anymore? Am I a journalist? I have this blog, but is that enough? Are you? You “report” on Facebook or twitter, or even here, so why not? It might have been argued in the past that a reporter was someone who worked as a reporter for legitimate media, but even that doesn’t quite cut it, as a silly blog like SJ has many times more readers than the Podunk Gazette.

The First Amendment protects the press, whatever that may be, and with excellent reason. One of the worst aspects of the protests and riots, whether peaceful or destructive, has been the handling of journalists by law enforcement. Shooting reporters in the face, arresting them despite their “credentials,” official press passes prominently displayed, dispersing them along with the masses and the occasional beating, have happened with regularity. Continue reading →

Day 55 of the Games saw a crowd estimated at 2000. And then it was 2001, as Portlandia mayor Ted Wheeler made an appearance to show his solidarity with rioters, who he was hoping they would welcome him with open arms.

Mr. Wheeler, who scrambled to put on goggles while denouncing what he called the “urban warfare” tactic of the federal agents, said he was outraged by the use of tear gas and that it was only making protesters more angry.

“I’m not going to lie — it stings; it’s hard to breathe,” Mr. Wheeler said. “And I can tell you with 100 percent honesty, I saw nothing which provoked this response.”

While the crowd mocked him as “Tear Gas Teddy,” at least on supporter tried to help his discomfort by offering Wheeler some water from a small distance. Continue reading →

Human beings are amazingly adaptable, and the pandemic has given parents cause to come up with ways to address the conundrum of education, or lack thereof, for their kids. There is no doubt that keeping public schools closed will have a deleterious impact on the education. Kids are only twelve once, and they don’t get a pandemic Mulligan. Miss that year of education, of socialization, of living, and it’s a big deal. Then again, dying or killing grandpa isn’t good either.

And despite the rosy schemes of teaching kids riding on unicorns, there is no plan that doesn’t either defy Newton’s Third Law or require an acid-trip level belief in fairies. On top of it all, parents are constrained to stay home with their kids unless they’re of the “lock ’em in the closet under the stairs” view. So inventiveness is kicking in, for everyone’s sake. It may be a very pale effort compared to the real deal, but it’s better than nothing.

Meet the Pod Kids. Continue reading →

As twitted:

I've written 3 posts this morning and decided not to publish any of them. The subject matter has devolved to issues of such monumental stupidity that I've decided not to be drawn into it today.

You'll have to argue over your tribe's insanely stupid bullshit without me.

— Scott Greenfield (@ScottGreenfield) July 22, 2020

And the comments of late haven’t helped.

Granted, there are people in the streets for any number of purposes, whether it’s about Black Lives Matter, socialism, anarchy or boredom. After all, it’s Portland, and the young people of Portland were never sticklers for have reasons to protest. Or burn.

But I posed a question on the twitters, and received the usual responses from people who confused whatever floats through their heads with whatever the questionable reality might be.

Is there an actual goal to the Portland protest/riot that can be met or addressed?

If not, what is the point? How does it end?

— Scott Greenfield (@ScottGreenfield) July 20, 2020

The first question was mostly rhetorical, but there were some interesting ideas about the methodology of the protests/riots, foremost of which is to inflict sufficient destruction to make the bourgeoisie acquiesce to stop the expense they will ultimately bear. The tactic is extortionate, but nobody said extortion was ineffective. Continue reading →

At the front of the growing crowd stood the Moms, bellies extended, arms locked, singing a lullaby with new lyrics.

Moms sing lullaby “hands up please don’t shoot me” pic.twitter.com/GJhj8ymn12

— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) July 21, 2020

Yet, feds in camo came out of the federal courthouse and shot. Continue reading →

It wasn’t too long ago that the orchestral world recognized that it might have a race and gender problem, largely because symphonic orchestras were pretty much all white and all male. It’s not that they weren’t great, but they weren’t diverse. And there was a solution that would not only serve to eradicate bias in the audition process with almost no pain required, but would enhance the quality of music. Blind auditions were born.

Blind auditions, as they became known, proved transformative. The percentage of women in orchestras, which hovered under 6 percent in 1970, grew. Today, women make up a third of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and they are half the New York Philharmonic. Blind auditions changed the face of American orchestras.

Problem solved? So everyone thought at the time. But no more. Continue reading →

Over the years, I’ve watched fellow bloggers take their voice legit. My old pal Radley Balko went from being the Agitator to being a WaPo columnist and writing two books of exceptional importance to criminal law.

My friend and former colleague, Cristian Farias used to write on the intersection of criminal law and immigration at Fault Lines, before anybody outside of lawyers gave a hoot about such matters, and then wound up doing a stint on the New York Times’ editorial board, and writes for Vanity Fair and New York Magazine. I’m particularly proud of Cf, as he still thinks in Spanish, yet he writes brilliantly in English. I am amazed at his skills, and thrilled for him that his issues on immigration have finally captured the public’s attention. Continue reading →

Not that this wasn’t obvious years ago, when I admonished academics to take back their classrooms. Some wanted to, but they didn’t stand a chance. As a result, classrooms have become, in the words of history prof Steven Mintz at Inside Higher Education,* “contentious.” But Mintz has the solution!

Too often, students’ concerns like these are dismissed as the product of overindulged, hypersensitive, easily offended snowflakes who consider themselves paying customers who are always right. But I think that it is a terrible mistake to trivialize the student concerns.

Many undergraduates are convinced that important alternate perspectives and noncanonical texts and works of art are ignored or disparaged, and that too many faculty members are insensitive to how their assignments and classroom activities are perceived and experienced by students. Continue reading →

Ibrim X. Kendi is the patron saint of the “Anti-Racist” movement, which promotes the argument that if you are not anti-racist, meaning that you do not dedicate yourself, your “privilege,” your time, money, assets and, perhaps, even your physical existence, to the cause of affirmatively fighting racism, then you are a racist. In the long parade of horribles, there is none worse than being racist.

To be fair, he comes by it honestly, in the sense that he’s an academic who has argued this, written about this (See How To Be An Antiracist, inter alia) and been unabashedly clear about this long before it was fashionable. As someone who has done anti-racist things for most of his career, I might take some comfort in trying to claim the mantle. I can point to a few things, like decades of defending black people and Hispanics from the cops to prove my bona fides. Continue reading →