NO MORE LAW BY “DEAR COLLEAGUE LETTER”: The National Association commends (and in doing so explains) the Trump Administration’s recent executive orders curbing “rule by bureaucracy.”

WASHINGTON STATE’S REFERENDUM 88:  Peter Kirsanow explains how the Washington State legislature guts Washington State’s 1998 initiative prohibiting preferential treatment based on race or sex.  Very tricky these Washington State legislators. Vote No.

PAUL MIRENGOFF:  Vote “No” on Washington State’s Referendum 88.

JOHN FUND:  Radical Climate-Change Protests Coming Soon to a City Near You?

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights makes the claim that K-12 students of different races misbehave in school at the same rates. Under this view, there is no good reason for the fact that African American students get suspended at  higher rates (and that Asian American students get suspended at lower rates) than white students.  It has to be that teachers–one of the most liberal professions in the country–are a bunch racist pigs (or so the logic of the Commission’s argument runs).   The Commission is simply wrong about the underlying misbehavior rates … seriously and inexcusably wrong.  The Commission’s majority just isn’t good at understanding statistics.

This past week Stanford University came out with a study finding that the black-white achievement gap on standardized tests predicts the black-white discipline gap. This is not exactly a surprise, and it is not clear what causes what, but it is interesting.

I DON’T KNOW …  I THOUGHT SHE WAS NICE:  On this day in 1960, the fourth of the Kennedy-Nixon debates was televised.  This is the debate at which Nixon kept saying, “America can’t stand pat.”

The statement was met with chuckles throughout the land.  (For those of you who were born too late to get it, Nixon’s wife was named Pat.)

WASHINGTON STATE VOTERS GET TO DECIDE … AGAIN: Twenty-one years ago, voters in Washington State adopted Initiative 200. Modeled after California’s Proposition 209, its operative clause was as follows:

The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

The initiative thus outlawed both “affirmative action style” preferences as well as the more traditional kind of discrimination. The vote wasn’t close: 58.22 % of voters supported it.

Unlike Proposition 209, however, Initiative 200 merely created a statute. It did not amend the Washington State Constitution. Some folks has been trying to get the legislature to repeal it ever since. Recently, they got their way. The new legislation is called Initiative 1000.  Adopted on a party-line vote, it purports merely to amend Initiative 200, but in fact it completely guts it.

Fortunately, through the hard work of Washington Asians for Equality, the issue has been forced into a referendum, now titled Referendum 88.  It’s on the ballot for November.

To Washington State Voters: Please vote to reject Initiative 1000’s effort to gut the original Initiative 200 by voting “NO” on Referendum 88 (There are many reasons to vote no, but here some reasons that are less well known.)

To Everyone: The heroic little organization that forced this to a vote—Washington Asians for Equality—is being vastly outspent by the opposition. If you have some extra money, please consider sending it their way. I have dug pretty deep into my pockets. This is important. If we lose this referendum, the MSM will treat it as gospel that public opinion has shifted on this. It won’t matter how much polling evidence there is to the contrary (and there is plenty).

(BUMPED FROM FRIDAY:  Thanks to everyone who already contributed!)

JOHN ROSENBERG:  Why Harvard’s Affirmative Action Victory Should Be Overturned.

ROGER CLEGG:  Round One:  Harvard Beats Asian Americans.  But there will be a Round Two and maybe more.

UNITED AIRLINES DOESN’T LOVE ITS FREQUENT FLYERS ANYMORE: It loves big spenders instead. Understandably, I guess. But as a longtime 1K/Million Miler who often flies on government fare, I am stricken to my very soul. Or something. It looks like I’ll be flying Jet Blue, Alaska and Southwest a lot more.

ON THE HARVARD CASE: Last week a federal judge decided that it is just fine for Harvard University to demand much higher academic credentials from Asian American students seeking admission than from other students. Not unexpected … but not good.

Interestingly, in the court of public opinion, the race preference question consistently comes out the other way. Even when WGBH tried to load the question in favor of race preferences in admissions, its poll came out against them and in favor of race neutrality.

Should polls have any bearing on the law?  Hmm … maybe.  (For non-lawyers:  Under longstanding legal doctrine, a law or governmental policy that discriminates on the basis on race must be narrowly tailored to accomplish a compelling governmental purpose. In 1978, Title VI was held in the Bakke decision to apply this standard of “strict scrutiny” to private schools, like Harvard, that receive federal funds.)

Of course, if the public is in favor of race discrimination, that should carry no weight in court at all. (Obvious, right?  That’s the whole purpose of the strict scrutiny standard–to make it really difficult to uphold a law or policy that discriminates.  The thumb on the scale against race discrimination is heavy) But if it’s the other way around—the public firmly opposes a policy that discriminates on the basis of race and wants race neutrality instead—that should be a different matter. I don’t see how in the world the Supreme Court can conclude that the policy nevertheless serves a “compelling purpose” that the public doesn’t view it as compelling (or even minimally persuasive).

For this (and many other reasons), I believe there is hope the decision will be overturned on appeal.  We’ll see.

DID NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR JUST ARRIVE A LITTLE LATE?: Kursat Pekgoz and James Moore argue that the Ministry of Love is alive and well.

THE GILDED RAGE:  Why is America so angry?

DEROY MURDOCK: Media Often Ignore Trump’s Outreach to Racial Minorities. (Yes, they do.)

THIS DOESN’T LOOK GOOD FOR ELIZABETH WARREN: And neither does this critique of her bankruptcy study.

THE JAZZ SINGER PREMIERED ON THIS DAY IN 1927: It is usually regarded as the first feature-length “talkie” (though it contained only a bit of actual talking).

Starring Al Jolson, who performs several scenes in blackface, the film is the story of a Jewish boy, Jakie Rabinowitz, who longs to be a jazz singer. His father, on the other hand, wants him to follow the family tradition and become a synagogue cantor. Jakie eventually runs away to follow his dream of show business stardom.

Alas, just as he is about to make it big, he finds out that his father is on his deathbed. Young Jakie is thus needed to sing the Kol Nidre for Yom Kippur in his father’s stead. If he fails to show up for the premiere of his big show, his fledgling career will likely be ruined.   But who will sing at the Yom Kippur service?  (Yes, I know … it’s probably a bit too melodramatic for the 21^st century, but whatever ….)

With Justin Trudeau and all, blackface has been a big news item lately.  Here is an aspect of the issue that I did not realize until recently (though it doesn’t surprise me): Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer were both very popular with African Americans. When the film played in Harlem, Harlem’s newspaper, the Amsterdam News, called it “one of the greatest pictures ever produced.” About Jolson, it wrote: “Every colored performer is proud of him.”

I also did not realize that Jolson had been such a champion of African American performers. Here is what Wikipedia says:

While growing up, Jolson had many black friends, including Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, who became a prominent tap dancer. As early as 1911, at the age of 25, Jolson was noted for fighting discrimination on Broadway and later in his movies. He promoted a play by Garland Anderson, which became the first production with an all-black cast produced on Broadway. He brought a black dance team from San Francisco that he tried to put in a Broadway show. He demanded equal treatment for Cab Calloway, with whom he performed duets in the movie The Singing Kid.

Jolson read in the newspaper that songwriters Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, neither of whom he had ever heard of, were refused service at a Connecticut restaurant because of their race. He tracked them down and took them out to dinner, “insisting he’d punch anyone in the nose who tried to kick us out!” According to biographer Al Rose, Jolson and Blake became friends and went to boxing matches together.  …

Jeni LeGon, a black female tap dance star, recalls her life as a film dancer: “But of course, in those times it was a ‘black-and-white world.’ You didn’t associate too much socially with any of the stars. You saw them at the studio, you know, nice—but they didn’t invite. The only ones that ever invited us home for a visit was Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler.”  …

Jolson’s physical expressiveness also affected the music styles of some black performers. Music historian Bob Gulla writes that “the most critical influence in Jackie Wilson’s young life was Al Jolson.” He points out that Wilson’s ideas of what a stage performer could do to keep their act an “exciting” and “thrilling performance” was shaped by Jolson’s acts, “full of wild writhing and excessive theatrics”. Wilson felt that Jolson “should be considered the stylistic [forefather] of rock and roll.”

Interesting.

WHAT DID THE NEW YORK TIMES GET WRONG ABOUT SLAVERY IN ITS “1619 PROJECT”?:  A lot.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, LET THIS BE A PARODY:  “Woke Math in Seattle.”

HERE’S ANOTHER ONE:  “Girl Who Claimed Hair Was Cut in Racist Attack Admits She Made It Up.”

HOOVER DAM: On this day in 1935, Hoover Dam was officially dedicated.  At the time, it was the most expensive public works project in American history. Today it continues to supply power for over a million homes (and reliable water too). I am told my house in San Diego is usually one of them.

Just starting on this epic undertaking required building a railroad from Las Vegas to the site, constructing an entire town—Boulder City—to house the workers, and temporarily diverting the Colorado River through four diversion tunnels. All of this had to be done in a place where summer temperatures frequently top 110 degrees.

Among the many thousands of workers were the so-called “high scalers”—some of whom had been circus acrobats.  Their job was to climb down the canyon walls on ropes and remove all loose rock in preparation for building the actual dam. Jackhammers and dynamite were their tools.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation web site tells this story:

Perhaps the most famous feat any of the high scalers ever performed was a daring midair rescue. Burl R. Rutledge, a Bureau of Reclamation engineer, fell from the canyon rim. Twenty-five feet below, high scaler Oliver Cowan heard Rutledge slip. Without a moment’s hesitation, he swung himself out and seized Rutledge’s leg. A few seconds later, high scaler Arnold Parks swung over and pinned Rutledge’s body to the canyon wall. The scalers held Rutledge until a line was dropped and secured around him and the shaken engineer was pulled, unharmed, to safety.

I know I’ll forget by tomorrow, because it’s the 21^st century and it’s hard not to take electrical power for granted. But today at least I’m going to try to remember all those who worked on the dam—including the hundred or so who died—when I flip on a switch and a light comes on.  It’s a tribute to how lucky I am that I am likely to forget even before lunchtime.

HAPPY 118TH BIRTHDAY TO PHYSICIST ENRICO FERMI:  In 1942, he conducted the first human-made, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at Stagg Field on the campus of the University of Chicago.  It was the Manhattan Project’s first major step toward creating the atomic bomb.

You might want to ask why they did this in the middle of the country’s second largest city.  Why not a lonely desert somewhere?  The answer is that those in charge trusted Fermi’s calculations, which indicated that it would be safe.  I’m … uh … glad he was right.

BACK WHEN SAN FRANCISCO LOVED STRAWS: On this day in 1937, a patent was issued to Joseph Friedman for the “Bendy Straw.” Friedman watched his little daughter struggling to use a straight straw at a soda fountain in San Francisco, so he decided to help her out. He inserted a screw and then used dental floss to create corrugations into the straw. He then removed the screw and floss and voilà—a flexible straw. The straws were first marketed to hospitals for bedridden patients, but eventually became popular with children and … well … everyone.

Little did he realize that the plastic version of his cute little invention would eventually be blamed (along with other plastic straws) for destroying the planet.

BUT YOU CAN STILL DO IT OUT OF LOVE:  The New York Post reports that New York City bans calling someone an “illegal alien” out of hate.   Or reporting an illegal alien to the immigration authorities out of hate.

THE CASE FOR BREXIT with DANIEL HANNAN:  Dan Hannan, Member of the European Parliament and author of Why Vote Leave (among other things), is coming to the University of San Diego to discuss Brexit on Monday, October 7th at at 2:00 p.m.  If you are in Southern California, this should be a great opportunity.  Yours truly will be introducing our honored speaker.

HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOMS KEEP CLOSING: A large part of the reason is that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires hospitals with emergency rooms to treat uninsured patients regardless of ability to pay (until they are “stabilized”). Hospitals without emergency rooms don’t have to.

(Alas, EMTALA was a Reagan Era innovation. And the number of emergency rooms has been decreasing ever since.  The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.)