AREN’T THE CRITICS ASSUMING THE ROBOT’S GENDER IDENTITY?:  Calvin Klein apologizes after critics argue he should have used a lesbian model instead of a heterosexual one in advertisement featuring a woman kissing a female-looking robot.

JOHN FUND ON THE AUSTRALIAN UPSET:  Hell hath no fury like a disappointed leftie.

ATTACKS ON SCHOOLS AREN’T NEW: On this day in 1927, at approximately 8:45 a.m., in Bath, Michigan, Andrew Kehoe, a 55-year-old school board treasurer, remotely detonated the dynamite he had hidden in the basement of the Bath Consolidated School. The explosion killed 38, mostly elementary schoolchildren. Little bodies were torn apart.

Frantic parents converged on the school, searching through the rubble for their children. Many lost more than one child.

Kehoe was on a rampage. Earlier that day he had blown up his own house and farm. And at some time earlier that day or the day before he had murdered his wife Nellie.

The rampage ended about a half hour after the school explosion when Kehoe drove back to the school grounds. After beckoning to the school superintendent to come near, he detonated the dynamite in his truck. The resulting explosion killed Kehoe himself, the superintendent, two other adults and eight-year-old Cleo Clayton, who had survived the school explosion.

I have a hard time asking why Kehoe acted as he did. It seems like a senseless question. The best that the townspeople could say was that Kehoe had always been a difficult man and that lately he had been angered by his defeat in the election for township clerk. Oh … and he was upset by a recent tax increase.

He was a loon … just like the rash of more recent killers.

STABBING IN SCHOOL? WHAT STABBING?  Schools don’t like the public to know all the gory details about school violence.

Since the Trump Administration (unlike the Obama Administration) is allowing schools to set their own school discipline policies, maybe more problem schools will be able to get a handle of this sort of stuff.  That’s the plan anyway.  (For my discussion of the very misguided Obama Era policy, you can go here.)

REMEMBER THE WOMAN WHO THREW SARAH SANDERS OUT OF THE RED HEN RESTAURANT?:  She’s not sorry.  She’s bragging about it in the Washington Post.

THE LAST WITCH TRIAL IN SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS: When do you figure the last witch trial in Salem, Massachusetts was held? 1693? 1695? Maybe as late as 1701?

Try 1878. That’s closer to our time than it is to the time of the original Salem witch trials. Just in case you ever doubted it, that’s evidence that really bad ideas come back over and over again.  Like socialism.

On this day in 1878, Lucretia Brown was given her first day in court against Daniel Spofford. Brown claimed that as a result of her adherence to the practices of Christian Science she had been cured of the spinal injury she had suffered as a child. But, she alleged, owing to the malicious intent of “mesmerist” Daniel Spofford, she had suffered a relapse. In other words, Spofford had intentionally destroyed her health by thinking malicious thoughts about her.

Like Brown, Spofford had been an early adherent to Christian Science. But he’d had a falling out with Mary Baker Eddy earlier in 1878. Some believe that Eddy was behind Brown’s lawsuit; others disagree. At this point, no one knows for sure.

What’s clear is that Eddy herself was a believer in what she called “malicious animal magnetism” or “MAM,” which was the ability to harm others using only one’s thoughts as a weapon. That’s what witches do, you know.

The newspapers of the day loved the story, especially the part about its being filed in (or rather very near) Salem.

Mercifully, the court did not have the same financial stake as the newspapers in keeping the story going. Brown’s lawsuit failed.

DION J. PIERRE:  “I wouldn’t participate in a blacks-only commencement.  No grad should.”

The Department of Education really should look into neo-segregration on campuses.  There is a lot of it.

“HARVARD CAVES TO STUDENT MOB, FIRES RONALD SULLIVAN FOR BEING HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S LAWYER“:  This story is almost unbelievable.  Does Harvard really want student mobs to decide whether an unpopular client gets an attorney?

If the ABA and the Massachusetts Bar Association don’t vigorously protest this, then they ought to be ashamed to call themselves lawyers.

MAYBE I SHOULD MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE:  California may go dark this summer on windy days.

And, of course, California with its many wind mills doesn’t do well on windless days either.

PERSUADING PARENTS BY BRAINWASHING THEIR CHILDREN WORKS:  Somehow that doesn’t fill my soul with joy.

RECORD NUMBER OF TEACHERS ATTACKED:  According to a recently released report, a record number of teachers (220,300) were physically attacked in 2015-16 (the most recent year for which data exists).

Given what I’ve written before about the (since withdrawn) Obama Era school discipline policy, I can’t claim to be surprised.

TRIGGER WARNING: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (of which I am a beleaguered member) held an all-day briefing yesterday entitled “Federal Me Too: Examining Sexual Harassment in Government Workplaces.” Over a dozen witnesses testified.

Posted on the wall was the following notice: “MENTAL HEALTH SPECIALIST ON-SITE TODAY: Persons who need assistance may go to the reception area and see persons wearing a badge or ask a Commission staff person. In addition, you may reach a mental health specialist by email, phone call, or text message ….”

All during the briefing two licensed therapists sat in the room waiting for somebody to have an emotional breakdown. We’ve had dozens of briefings like this during my tenure on the Commission. This is the first time we’ve brought in therapists. Not one, but two.

No one seems to notice the Commission is suggesting that female employees are a bunch of fragile neurotics. Why would anybody want to hire such a person?

A GHASTLY STORY: An East St. Louis 8^th grade boy, who was recently featured in Sports Illustrated as a potential NFL star of the future, has been killed. According to his mother, he was hit by a stray bullet when a fight broke out at a party. May God give her strength.

I’m not the type to believe that the police can do no wrong. But the notion that the police are the most significant threat to the safety of minority youths is very wrong. Crime itself is a much greater threat.

WHY DO BLACKS AND LATINOS LEAVE STEM MAJORS AT SUCH HIGH RATES? The Washington Post considers several alternatives, but seems unwilling to face up to the possibility that mismatch is the root cause.

This is one of the few problems in the world that I can actually help fix.  Alas, people seem to prefer to wring their hands and moan about micro-aggressions.

CASTER SEMENYA IS INTERSEX, WITH XY CHROMOSOMES:  Why can’t the media state this clearly?

Some are making it sound like Semenya is an ordinary woman from a biological standpoint with a condition that just happens to cause high testosterone levels.  If that were the case, refusing to allow her to compete as a female athlete would seem unfair.  If she happens to be blessed with a characteristic that helps her win, then more power to her.  Michael Jordan and other NBA players are taller than most men I know. That’s not unfair.

But it’s more complicated than that.  It goes to whether she is male or female for the purpose of athletic competitions.  To me at least the issue is more sympathetic to her than in the typical transgender case.  But it’s still difficult.

Semenya is not transgender–at least not in the usual sense.  Her body outwardly appears female.  Nevertheless, according to Robert Johnson at letsrun.com,  she is believed to have internal testes and to lack a womb or ovaries).  She has been viewed as female from birth, identifies as a lesbian female now and probably didn’t have any idea about her XY status until rather late in her life.  But at the chromosomal level she has always been male.

I have no opinion about how to treat such a rare case.  It is interesting that Johnson reports that all three of the medalists in the 2016 women’s 800 are believed to be intersex.  If intersex athletes are extremely rare and yet would dominate women’s world championships, maybe it makes sense to allocate them to the male side of competition.  Or not.  I plan to stay out of this.

What bothers me is that many in the media can’t seem to report it accurately.

RILEY HOWELL WAS A HERO:  The UNC Charlotte ROTC student will be buried with full military honors.

NEARLY 200 UNIVERSITIES ENCOURAGE, FACILITATE THE RACIAL SEGREGATION OF THEIR STUDENTS:   Progressives are really regressive.

WHEN DEMOCRATS SPOUT OBVIOUS UNTRUTHS: It doesn’t fit the narrative, so it isn’t newsworthy.

WEIRD STORIES COME OUT OF RUSSIA: On this day in 1729, Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia, was born in what was then part of Prussia and is now part of Poland. If your mind leaps to a story about her you learned in the schoolyard in the 8^th grade … you know what story I’m talking about … the one about the horse … don’t play innocent with me … well it’s obviously an urban legend, and you and your 8^th grade pals would have immediately recognized it as such had you been a couple of years older. Remember: It’s Russia. Weird stories come out of Russia. That doesn’t make them true.

THIS MAKES ME JOYFUL:  My spell check is adamant that “intersectionality” is not a word.  Right you are, Mr. Spell Check.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  THE FALL OF SAIGON:  On the next day in history:  Re-education camps for anyone who seemed insufficiently enthusiastic about the new regime.

ELIZABETH WARREN ACCUSES JOE BIDEN OF SIDING WITH CREDIT COMPANIES OVER STRUGGLING AMERICANS:  But he can accuse her faking the results of her bankruptcy research.

NEW REPORT ON CAMPUS SEPARATISM:  Congratulations to the National Association of Scholars for taking on the issue of campus neo-segregation.  For too long, colleges and universities have been giving in to student demands for separate dormitories, separate graduation ceremonies, separate student relaxation areas, etc.  This is an important issue, so I hope to be saying more about it soon …

DACHAU LIBERATED:  On this day in 1945, the infamous concentration camp at Dachau was liberated by U.S. forces.

As an interesting footnote to history, it was a Japanese-American unit of the U.S. Army (the 522nd Filed Artillery Battalion) that liberated the camp at Hurlach, one of Dachau’s satellites.

MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY: It happened on this day in 1789. And if what you know about the mutiny is what you saw in the 1935 movie or the 1962 movie, then you may be surprised that the acerbic William Bligh was more the hero of the story than the villain. It was complicated.

The HMS Bounty had been sent on its long journey to Tahiti to collect breadfruit trees and transport them to the British West Indies. But when it arrived it turned out that, among other things, the trees needed to be dug up, potted, and allowed to take root before they could be taken away. As a result of all the delays, for a period of five months, the crew of 45 had to remain on Tahiti and be entertained by the … uh … extremely hospitable ladies of the island. The men—especially Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian—really hated to leave. He was in love.

Contrary to the early 20^th “history,” the 33-year-old Bligh was not physically cruel to his men—not by late 18^th century standards anyway. He used the lash rather less than most captains. That is not to say that he was Mr. Congeniality. He could give humiliating tongue-lashings with the best of them. But the mutiny, which occurred about three weeks after leaving Tahiti, was more about a rash group of fools who desperately wanted to go back to the lovely ladies of Tahiti than it was about unreasonably harsh treatment.

And they were vicious. As leader, Christian’s plan was to cast Bligh and the men who were loyal to him adrift in the Pacific, where the odds that they would survive were very slim. One problem was that it turned out half the crew were loyalists and there was not enough room in the launch for all of them.   Several therefore stayed with the ship, some of them begging Bligh to remember that they were not among the mutineers. “Never fear, lads,” he told them. “I’ll do you justice if ever I reach England.”

The launch, which held 19, was equipped with only five days of food and water, a sextant, a compass, a few tools and cutlasses, nautical tables and little else. It was only Bligh’s impressive seamanship skills through stormy seas that saved their lives. Or at least some of their lives. An early effort to get food and water on the island of Tongatapu resulted in one crewmember getting stoned to death by the natives. They dared not stop in the Fiji Islands given their reputation as a home to cannibals. Instead, they headed for the Dutch settlement at Kupang some 3500 (yes, that’s 3500) miles away, requiring them to navigate their way through treacherous parts of the Great Barrier Reef and through a maze of other hazards.

Miraculously, they made it.   On June 14^th they arrived Kupang, although several of the men were in such poor health they ultimately died before making it home.

Bligh arrived in London in March of 1790 where he was hailed as a hero. He was formally court martialed for the loss of the Bounty, but it was a foregone conclusion that he would be acquitted. (Of course, no mutineer was there to testify.)

Meanwhile, the mutineers had made it back to Tahiti (in a somewhat roundabout way). There, the group broke up. Fearful that British authorities would catch up with them and aware that many Tahitians had begun to view them with hostility, Christian and eight others essentially abducted 20 Tahitians (14 women and 6 men) and headed for faraway, uninhabited Pitcairn Island. If there was anyplace they could successfully hide, Pitcairn was it.

The rest of the crewmembers, including several loyalists, were allowed to remain on Tahiti, where ultimately they were arrested by British authorities. Some died in a shipwreck on the way back to London. After a trial (at which, fairly or unfairly, Bligh’s reputation was somewhat tarnished), four were acquitted, three were pardoned, and three were hanged.

The Pitcairn Island contingent was not discovered until 1808. By that time, things there had long since come undone. Five of the mutineers, including Christian, had been killed in 1793 by the Tahitian men, who themselves were killed later on. Violence and alcoholism had ravaged the island for more than a decade. In 1808, only one mutineer was alive—John Adams—along with several women and children.  It is a ghastly story, softened only by Adams’ efforts to ensure the children would learn to read and become good Christians.