Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopian fiction is not a ‘how to’ manual

‘Harrison Bergeron’ has a warning that educators should heed

“Equity” is the latest egalitarian buzzword, so of course it’s being deployed against math programs that challenge high school students to achieve.

“Improve equity in mathematics learning opportunities” is one of the stated goals of the Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative. The word is not just included as window dressing.

The Commonwealth is backpedalling furiously at the moment because of criticism from parents and elected officials. The Virginia Department of Education is insisting that it isn’t making significant advances against advanced math classes. However, what we know of the still marinating proposal says otherwise.

The Virginia Mercury reported that the Department of Education’s own “regional webinars” tell another story.

“One widely circulated graphic eliminated courses such as Algebra I and II in favor of ‘foundational’ and ‘essential’ math concepts, with more advanced classes — including calculus and geometry — not starting until the 11th grade,” the Mercury reported.

Moreover, they are considering this flattening of the state curriculum because “Black, Hispanic and low-income students have lower pass rates on state math assessments than White and Asian students,” the Mercury reported.

In other words, in the name of equality, the state is not trying to bring struggling students up so much as hold high achieving ones back a bit.

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Black student accused of setting fire in residential hall full of her sleeping peers in apparent ‘hate crime’ hoax

Say what you will about hate crime hoaxes, they aren’t usually dangerous.

A noose in the lavatory, some rebarbative slurs scrawled on the walls, a story about being jumped in the wee hours on a cold night in Chicago — they’re manipulative and unpleasant, they may be seized upon by cultural ambulance chasers, they may sow division, but they don’t threaten lives. Usually.

That can’t be said for what accused Viterbo University student Victoria C. Unanka is alleged to have done.

According to the La Crosse Tribune, Unanka was released on bail Monday after La Crosse, Wisconsin, police arrested her for starting a fire in a residential hall while most of her classmates were sleeping.

Unanka had been the target of two purported incidents of racism in the recent past and was apparently looking to frame the fire as a third one; a resident adviser told police Unanka had sent a friend a text in the wake of the blaze, saying that it was another potential hate crime because the fire was right next to her room.

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Marines Fire Anti-Ship Missile from Back of Unmanned Truck to Hit Target at Sea

Marines scored a direct hit in a first-ever live-fire test in which they launched a Navy missile from the back of an unmanned tactical vehicle to strike a surface target at sea.

The Marine Corps has combined two existing technologies to produce a deadly new way to hit targets offshore. Coined NMESIS, the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System can launch naval strike missiles from the back of a modified Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV, to destroy targets on land or at sea.

Raytheon Missiles and Defense, which makes the naval strike missile, announced Wednesday that the Marine Corps used NMESIS to hit a target in the water from Point Mugu Sea Range in California. The missile can take out targets from more than 100 nautical miles away.

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Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten says cancel culture, political correctness is about to ruin America

During a recent interview with Britain’s Times, the outspoken U.K.-born punk rocker said that cancel culture is a blight upon humanity.

He also said that college and university students were at least partially to blame for the ultra-woke, politically correct movement surrounding cancel culture.

“These people aren’t really genuinely disenfranchised at all,” the 65-year-old performer said. “They just view themselves as special. It’s selfishness and in that respect, it’s divisive and can only lead to trouble.”

Of the media, Lydon added, “I can’t believe that TV stations give some of these lunatics the space.”

“Where is this ‘moral majority’ nonsense coming from when they’re basically the ones doing all the wrong for being so bloody judgmental and vicious against anybody that doesn’t go with the current popular opinion?” he continued. “It’s just horribly, horribly tempestuous spoilt children coming out of colleges and universities with s**t for brains.”

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Biden Erased Decades of Historic Crimes in His Speech to Congress

Following 9/11, the Bush administration, in conjunction with Congress, expedited the passage of the Patriot Act, a wide-sweeping national security law that infringed on the civil liberties of every American in the name of fighting terror. The Fourth Amendment became a relic of the past as the government’s power to surveil and spy on its own citizens reached its peak. Individuals who shared names with persons of interest or suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens, landed on government no-fly lists, restricting their right to freely move about the country for dubious reasons and with no due process or recourse. And even worse, many had their right to due process eviscerated when they were detained by the newly-created Department of Homeland Security and found themselves at Guantanamo Bay without even being charged with a crime.

Yet this is not the first time that American citizens, or even permanent residents for that matter, had their rights infringed upon by the government.

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