News Weakly - 3/17/2018

All About Freedom
Good news! Standford University has decided to allow college Republicans to have an American flag on their apparel. Because, as we all know, our modern leftward universities are all about freedom, right?

My kids are all grown up. Some of you have kids that are not. Do you think it's safe to send your kids to colleges these days when there is a swelling tide of anti-Christan, anti-freedom, anti-thinking forces at work there? Not that I have a dog in this race. Just wondering.

Cold-Hearted Compassion
Los Angeles prides itself on its compassion for the various groups that reside there, including a large homeless component. They have vowed to build thousands of units to house them ... and retain their ability to cut them off simply by withholding a letter of acknowledgment. It sounds like they care, but their actions say otherwise.

Woke
National Geographic used to be the "go to" magazine for the young man who wanted some "porn" but wasn't allowed to get it. You know, those titillating pictures of nearly naked African women and such. Well, that was then. Lots of more graphic, more soul-slaying stuff is available now. But National Geographic is repenting. They have admitted that they've been racists for a long time. "The coverage wasn't right before because it was told from an elite, white American point of view," editor in chief Susan Goldberg said. Apparently it comes from too many white guys taking pictures. Who knew? Guess they're woke now.

Riding the Bus
They're jumping on board, but who's driving? Filmakers are jumping on the bandwagon to include inclusion riders. The aim -- the sole purpose -- is to include females, individuals from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, the LGBTQ community, and people with disabilities. If your movie doesn't include them, you're not a good artist. If you're making a movie like Dunkirk, you'll have to modify history to include some transgenders and females and disabled people or something to tell the story because, after all, diversity by definition makes entertainment better.

Mind you, I'm not opposed to hiring all sorts of people. I just think making it a standard rule makes no sense. And, tell me, if a woman makes an all-girl film with lots of underrepresented and LGBTQ and disabled people but not one single male, do you suppose anyone will say, "Hey! What about inclusion?!" No, I'm pretty sure the prevailing winds don't blow that way. (How's that for a mixed metaphor?)

Saying "No" to Love
Our repressive society just won't stop saying "No" to love. Poor Oklahoma woman, Patricia Ann Spann, pleaded guilty to felony incest. What was her crime? She loved her children too much. In 2008 she married one of her two sons. In 2016 she married her biological daughter. Both marriages were annulled. She figured it wasn't illegal because her name wasn't on their birth certificates.

I don't understand. How can our society today, given its standard of "consent" and "I should be allowed to marry whom I love" say no to this poor woman just because of some archaic notion of "incest"? (Hint: They can't. Their rules are arbitrary.) Oh, the travesty of it all! (Do I have to explain that I'm speaking sarcastically here?)

The Ultimate Reality Bend
We've complained that the courts are modifying reality. We know, for instance, that an unborn child is a human being, but the courts have declared them "non-person humans" and you can kill them. We know that marriage is between a man and a woman, but the courts redefined it and two people of the same gender can "marry". We know that science tells us there is male and female, but the courts have agreed that there is also "other" (without any real definition or even verification), so we have to let guys into girls' bathrooms if he identifies as a woman. Well, the Romanian courts have topped it all. A 63-year-old man came back from an extended trip to Turkey to discover that his wife had obtained a death certificate for him. Despite the fact that he was standing in front of the judge asking to have him declared alive again, the judge told him he was too late and would have to remain deceased.

Stands to reason.

Almost Not News
California appointed Lizbeth Mateo to a statewide committee and they're proud of it. "The state Senate made history Wednesday by selecting the first undocumented resident for a statewide appointment," state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon said. Let's see if we can make that more clear. They made history by selecting a documented criminal for a statewide appointment. I guess it's what California is leading us to expect.

But, look, here's what I'm really wondering. The story says she "was born in Mexico and came to the US at age 14 with her parents." It says, "She was the first person in her family to go to college. She has a law degree, and her own firm in metro Los Angeles." Okay, good for her. All fine and dandy. But what I want to know is why hasn't she applied for legal immigration status? I'm not anti-immigrant. I'm not anti-opportunity. I'm not complaining that she has done well. But why can't she simply comply with immigration law and be a legal resident instead of an illegal one? Because to me I would not want a documented criminal who refuses to comply with the law serving in my government. But, then, I don't live in California.

Was That Supposed to be Funny?
The Babylon Bee is supposed to be a Christian satire news site. So they ran this one about Jimmy Kimmel telling the nation about sexual impropriety and respecting women. This is the same Jimmy Kimmel who got famous doing "The Man Show" which included a feature on guys coming to watch scantily-clad women jumping on trampolines. This is what happens when satire writes itself from fact.

I would give the standard "I saw it on the Internet" line, but the "Let's emphasize women as sexual objects" crowd lecturing us about not seeing women as sexual objects just isn't making sense in my head.