90 Miles From Tyranny

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1973

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

Visage à trois #731

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #912

Biden State Dept Bars Use of Times New Roman Font, Citing 'Disability Inclusion'

Popular font can cause 'visual recognition issues for individuals with learning disabilities,' says Secretary of State Blinken

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday instructed employees to ditch Times New Roman in official communications, saying the popular font undermines the department's commitment to "disability inclusion."

In a department-wide memo titled "The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin," Blinken instructed employees to instead use Calibri font, which the secretary said is more legible to those with reading disabilities, the Washington Post reported. Serif fonts such as Times New Roman—which has decorative tails and feet—can cause "visual recognition issues for individuals with learning disabilities," according to Blinken.

The secretary's Office of Diversity and Inclusion recommended Calibri, the default font on Microsoft products, as an "accessibility best practice," according to the memo.

Blinken's font-change memo comes as the secretary of state prepares a February visit to China amid strained relations between Washington and Beijing. The families of American hostages detained in China have pressured Blinken to bring the prisoners home. Katherine Swidan, whose son is wrongfully imprisoned, said "enough is enough."

"My message for Blinken is: say their names," Swidan told Reuters. "They're American citizens. They've been wrongfully detained."

The department last changed fonts in January 2004 when it switched to...

Visage à trois #730

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #912

The War on Competence

Decades ago, the Left played the class-war game. These days it’s a war on competence and achievement, hiding beyond claims of racial and sexual equity.

In Virginia, we are to believe that on their own, high school administrators in seventeen schools decided not to inform those of their students who had scored high enough on their scholastic aptitude tests to be named National Merit semi-finalists. Of course, it was not coincidental. Two factors are involved: The spurious claim that schools can achieve the impossible -- equal outcomes for all -- a claim which must not be challenged by contrary facts; and prejudice against high-achieving students -- most likely, given historical records, majority Asian and white. Hugh Hewitt thinks this was a clear violation of the students' civil rights for which Fairfax County may end up paying heavy legal damages.

A Massachusetts congresswoman, Ayanna Pressley (who represents, inter alia, most of Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts), plainly revealed what is the basis for the war on intellectual achievement:

“IQ is a measure of whiteness.”

It isn’t, of course. It’s a combination of genetics (dare we say this?), home environment, including familial respect for achievement, personal interests and motivation, and to a certain extent, the caliber of the education received.

This is not just a K-12 excrescence. For some years now it has metastasized to higher education.

Richard Vedder noted four years ago trends in this direction which have only accelerated since then.

1. A decreasing portion of institutional resources is going to fund academics -- teachers and researchers. Spending on disseminating and creating knowledge is being crowded out by massive increases in administrative staff overseeing student affairs, new sustainability and diversity bureaucracies, intercollegiate athletics, etc.

2. Students on average are spending far less time on academics than they did a generation or two ago, and almost certainly are learning less from their schooling.

3. America’s clear global lead in research is rapidly ending as other nations, especially China, are vastly increasing research spending relative to that in the United States, where political leaders increasingly forfeit future investment and...