Random Musings

I hope you heard about the NC Museum of Art sponsoring a “drag queen show” for children as young as two years old. “Artful Story Time” was the way the program was advertised. It sounded innocuous so it flew under the radar. When it was exposed as to what it was, there was a tremendous outcry. The Museum canceled the event. We need to keep our eyes open; it will be back. No matter what you think about drag queen shows, most will agree it is not appropriate for young children and certainly should not be funded by taxpayers.

When I first heard rumors of ESG, Environmental, Social, Governance. I thought it was a right-wing conspiracy theory until I investigated and found that it’s real. The Trump administration barred retirement plan managers from considering factors that were not material to the financial performance and risk. Retirement plans have been required to act “solely in the interest” of participants and beneficiaries. The Biden administration finalized a rule over Thanksgiving week to empower account managers to consider ESG factors such as climate initiatives, workforce diversity and labor relations. You can bet this will include solar and wind and high profit fossil fuels will not be included. I’ll give you more details on this in a later column.

The far left has developed a cynical approach to free speech. Have you noticed that speech is now violence, according to some on the left? If we speak up against an issue with which we disagree, we are called hate mongers and are told that we are inciting violence against this or that. Nobody wants to be thought of as someone who supports violence or hates anyone, so we remain silent. We have become a society in which free speech is not tolerated unless it’s from the left. Facts don’t seem to matter if we’re not part of the politically correct crowd.

During the Covid pandemic, many families have taken the opportunity to find alternative education for their children. Traditional public schools have lost students while charter schools, private schools and home schools have grown exponentially. Thousands of families have started “learning pods” and “micro schools” to educate their children. Nonwhite families are twice as likely as white families to say that their child’s learning ability had improved greatly even over the pre pandemic traditional public school.

Thomas Jefferson High School in northern Virginia is routinely ranked as the best high school in the nation. It was founded in 1985 and has operated on a race blind entrance exam based solely on merit. In 2020, the Fairfax County school system abolished this system in the name of equity. Too many students were from the Asian American community and these seats needed to be reallocated to black and Latino students who didn’t do well on the exam. Now hard work and achievement is second to race, color, and quotas.

The Supreme Court recently heard arguments in another similar case against The University of North Carolina and Harvard. In the case against North Carolina, the suit claims that the school uses race to give significant preference to minority applicants. This has caused injustice against white and Asian students. The Supreme Court justices asked lots of questions and apparently tried to give the school an opportunity to make a case to continue. The defense attorney didn’t do very well in his answers. It’s hard to defend these practices. We hear a lot about systemic racism in this country. Yes, it’s still going on but apparently the colors have changed.

Justice Clarence Thomas made the comment a while back, “It never ceases to amaze me that the courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.” By allowing this race-based admissions program, the message to black students appears to be, “since you can’t compete with the white and Asian kids, we’ll let you in based on the color of your skin.” That is no way to encourage students to work hard and achieve their dreams.

I heard someone say that children, perhaps because they are recent arrivals from Heaven, instinctively know that time is more precious than money and stuff. Likewise, for the elderly since they will be returning to heaven soon. Perhaps this is why both of these groups tend to be more honest and dedicated to truth.