Stand With the Generals

Two of the greatest army generals the world has ever known had faults. They also had great strengths, or we wouldn't have a country — or a university that means so much to so many.

A university is about learning, and it's about teaching values. Changing the name of Washington & Lee University would create a new school, based on different values than those the two eponymous generals imparted long ago, e.g.:

• Courage
• Wisdom
• Steadfastness
• Generosity
• Loyalty
• Fidelity

What would be the new values?

A new school built on yielding in the face of adversity, giving in to the heat of battle, and selling out friends cannot stand long. Appeasing the mob now makes not a firm foundation for the future. Placing popularity over reality and prioritizing the immediate over the timeless are foundational values doomed to fail.

The mob is never satisfied; it cannot be appeased.

Offer up Robert E. Lee today and the mob will come for George Washington tomorrow. One day the mob may even come for you. What will be your defense if you yield this time?

Stand with the generals and save the school. Stand with the generals to learn an practice the values they imparted. Stand fast, hold that line. Only in this way will the core values the assure a brave future for the school we love hold.

Letting Boys Be Boys

What ever happened to letting "boys be boys"?

A seven-year-old boy was sent home for nibbling a Pop Tart into a gun. A teacher was so alarmed by a picture drawn by a student of a sword fight that the boy's parents were summoned to a conference. Boys in America's schools are routinely punished for being active, competitive, and restless.

Christina Hoff Sommers, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, explains how we can change this.

Go to PragerU for more videos like this.

Why She Should Have Been Fired Long Ago

The tampon earrings, completely acceptable

MSNBC should have severed ties with host Melissa Harris-Perry, "whose eponymous program entailed progressive personalities sharing their perspectives on the news."

Calling her employers racist in an email was the purported reason for letting her go, but this should have come as no surprise.

Ms. Harris-Perry, once cut a guest off for praising Paul Ryan's "hard work", implying the comment was racist. When the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said he "walks away from people on the street who appear menacing," she used that to "liken the NBA to slavery." She's lamented the "racist undertones" of the entire Star Wars series.

At the height of the Ebola crisis, she said the police were scarier than ISIS or the virus. "(A)rson and looting” were not violent acts during the Baltimore riots. The Muslim Oklahoman, who first tried to convert his office to Islam then beheaded his boss, was committing “workplace violence.”

But, nothing beats the imagery power of her wearing tampons as earrings when then-state-senator Wendy Davis filibustered proposed regulations on Texas abortion providers.

From an article by Tom S. Elliott, founder and editor of Grabien.

"Nonbelievers"

“It’s not a school about creationism or a biblical understanding of the world. This is a school where we hope there will be as many Muslim students and nonbelievers as Episcopalians. A community of spirituality doesn’t need a specific deity. We want same-sex parents, and we want Somali refugee parents. This is a school where we’ll light the menorah and take communion.”

Ketch Secor

"Wonderful, Beautiful Thing"

“The protest was a wonderful, beautiful thing. There’s a whole conservative world out there that’s not very nice.”

Inge-Lise Ameer

Vice Provost for Student Affairs

Dartmouth University

“Fuck you, you filthy white fucks!”

"Furthermore"

"Furthermore, we would like the mural of Wilson to be removed from Wilcox Dining Hall." 

Black Justice League

"Too Good to Check"

"The Rolling Stone story was simply too good to check. It perfectly advanced the narrative — featuring brutal, predatory rich kids (from a southern school, no less), indifferent administrators, and a devastated victim. And, like many of the “poster child” campus rape cases of the last two years, it was fundamentally false. If campus rape is such an epidemic, why are poster kids so hard to find?"

David French, National Review

"My Art Practice"

“I apologize if you were hurt, but I do not apologize for what I did. Once again, this is my art practice. My work directly involves black trauma and non-white suffering. I do not believe that there can be social healing without first coming to terms with and expressing our own pain, rage, and trauma.”

Ashley Powell

(black-female graduate student)

University of Buffalo

"Brown Bodies"

“The socio-legal production of migrant illegality works to systematically dehumanize and exploit these brown bodies for their labor.”

Professor Rebecca Fowler

Washington State University

The Results Are In

The results of spending about $17k per student each year—most in the country last year—the results from Vermont's public school system are in. Vermont students took the Smarter Balanced Assessment test in Spring 2015, and . .

• Grade 3 — 52 percent proficient and above in math; 52 percent proficient and above in English language arts
• Grade 4 — 45 percent proficient and above in math; 51 percent proficient and above in English language arts
• Grade 5 — 42 percent proficient and above in math; 57 percent proficient and above in English language arts
• Grade 6 — 37 percent proficient and above in math; 53 percent proficient and above in English language arts
• Grade 7 — 43 percent proficient and above in math; 55 percent proficient and above in English language arts
• Grade 8 — 40 percent proficient and above in math; 54 percent proficient and above in English language arts
• Grade 11 — 37 percent proficient and above in math; 58 percent proficient and above in English language arts

SEE: Burlington Free Press

"Not Serious"

"Rolling Stone Magazine admits its staff engaged in reckless behavior while covering this story, yet . . The reporter in question not only failed to apologize to members of Phi Kappa Psi, but doesn't even acknowledge the three witnesses she quoted in the article but never interviewed. This is a clear and sad indication that the magazine is not serious about its journalistic obligations."

Stephen Scipione, president

UVa Phi Kappa Psi chapter

"Never Sort of Allowed for the Fact"

“We didn’t think through all the implications of the decisions that we made while reporting the story, and we never sort of allowed for the fact that maybe the story we were being told was not true.”

Will Dana, Rolling Stone

"No Flag"

“[F]reedom of speech, in a space that aims to be as inclusive as possible[,] can be interpreted as hate speech . . Let it be resolved that ASUCI make every effort to make the Associated Students main lobby space as inclusive as possible . . Let it further be resolved that no flag, of any nation, may be hanged on the walls of the Associate Student main lobby space.”

Associated Students of University of California, Irvine

"Blowhards"

"I can’t stand the thought of having to spend the next two years watching Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Ted Cruz, Darrell Issa or any of the legions of other blowhards denying climate change, thwarting immigration reform or championing fetal 'personhood'.”

Susan Douglas, University of Michigan professor

"We Are Starving"

"Universally, it was, ‘We are starving. We are hungry. This isn’t enough food for us.’ But we couldn’t blame them, because I looked at that school lunch and said, ‘I wouldn’t eat it either.'"

Jeremy Smith, business manager

Sheridan County District One, Wyoming

"Affected by the Story"

"We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story."

Rolling Stone

Contact Sabrina by clicking her image

"Misplaced"

"In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced."

Will Dana, managing editor

Rolling Stone

"She Should Come for Free"

“When you see reckless spending, it just belittles the sacrifices students are consistently asked to make. I’m not an accountant or economist, so I can’t put a price tag on how much we should be paying her, but I think she should come for free.”

Elias Benjelloun

UNLV student body president

Revoked at Any Time

"Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time."

California's “affirmative consent standard” law (SB 967)

"I'm Pretty Confident"

“Since none of the students had symptoms, I’m pretty confident that none of the kids were exposed.”

Mike Miles

Dallas school district superintendent