University of Rhode Island removing WW2 veteran murals

The images are too white.

VP of student affairs, Kathy Collins,  says the decision was made because of “concerns over the murals’ impact on students of color.”

https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/09/uri-removing-murals-commemorating-wwii-veterans-for-lacking-diversity/

In 2017 when Dunkirk was released, a film critic got all bent out of shape because there were no soldiers of color shown in the British or French armies. The critic had nothing to say about the lack of diversity in the German army. The critic also got all hissy about the Normandy invasion four years later, somehow deciding a conspiracy in film-making, since, she said, both battles began with a D.

Rhode Island’s Collins said family members of the painter of the too-white murals will be invited to a dedication of the properly diverse murals “to thank them for their contributions to the university.”

Maybe the university will go all out and demand an apology from family members for their ancestor’s racism in not showing POCs in the original paintings.

A deprived childhood

Yesterday we learned our daughter-in-law:

Had never seen or heard of “A Christmas Story;

Had never heard the expression, “You’ll shoot your eye out”;

Had never seen or heard of “Flight of the Navigator”;

Had never seen or heard of “Better off Dead”;

Had never seen “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Of the latter she said, “That’s Jimmy Steward, right?”

Our daughter said, “You are un-American.”

I said. “When somebody says, ‘You’re not from around here,’ they don’t mean just the state.” I made a big circle with my arms. “They mean the planet, as in, ‘You are not from Earth, are you?’”

A younger neighbor, Sarah, had the best remark, though: “Did you even have a television growing up?”

Our youngest said he has a DVD of “A Christmas Story” and he will get DVDs of “Flight of the Navigator” and “Better off Dead” and bring them when he is back for Christmas leave.

An education is a fine thing.

Neighbors

Talking last night with a young woman who has lived in the neighborhood more than two years, and she recounted a short conversation with a woman who moved in about six months ago.

“She said that from her house she could see my bathroom window and that I had too many bottles in the window. She said the sight of all those bottles spoiled her and her husband’s dinner every night.

“I told her she should close her curtains if she doesn’t want to see my bathroom window.”

That’s the way, girl.

Bathroom windows in all the houses begin around five feet above the shower floor. Each window is at least four feet long. In most places, the window facing would be called a “shelf.”

People who were busy bodies in the places they moved from think they can just pick up the same habits here. West Central Florida is not New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts … Take your pick. 

People who move down here do so because of the weather and no income tax. They don’t need to bring their yankee ways of telling everybody else what to do.

 

Had enough of the NFL yet?

The league and the players association will sponsor an hour-long program on social justice on NBC the day before the 2020 season begins. Some teams already have offered stadiums as polling places and to recruit election judges.

https://disrn.com/news/nfl-announces-it-will-air-hour-long-social-justice-special-on-nbc

Link at Gates of Vienna.

PTS and justice

Former Marine Staff Sergeant Robert l. Thomas died last October in Wasilla, Alaska. Thomas was awarded the Silver Star Medal for capturing the Arch Tower in Hue, South Vietnam, during the 1968 Tet battle.

I did not know Thomas, but ran across his obituary while searching for someone else.

Of interest, in addition to his USMC service, was this statement from his widow, Cindy Caserta: “He never avoided a fight. He was a tough Marine, a warrior even after he had to retire from the Marine Corps, often with a heightened sense of justice to fight for what was right and to protect the defenseless from anyone who tried to take advantage of them.”

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/cajun-bob-thoms-marine-who-led-major-assault-during-vietnam-war-s-battle-of-hue-dies-at-75-1.602331

That last part – “a heightened sense of justice” -- is an indicator of post-traumatic stress. Military veterans with PTS have an intense sense of justice, I have read in several publications.

For some time before reading those publications, I wondered why, when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at meetings, I always put emphasis on the part “and justice for all.”

Ms. Caserta’s statement is the first recognition I have read from a person who is not a veteran. She is observant to have seen that sense in her husband’s makeup.

Keeping blood pressure down

 I got tired of reading the news. 

Keep talking, Joe. Keep talking.

In a campaign speech in Pittsburgh.

“Covid has taken this year, just since the outbreak, it’s taken more than 100 year. Look. Here’s, the lives, it’s just, I mean, think about it, more lives this year than any other year for the past hundred years.”

https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/09/biden-returns-to-the-campaign-trail-with-incoherent-babble-about-coronavirus/