Harvard’s racial and ethnic balancing is the poisonous fruit of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on race and affirmative action. And higher education isn’t the only place where racism rears its ugly head. Take the drawing of districts for congressional elections, especially the practice of gerrymandering, whereby legislatures create electoral maps to maximize their party’s advantages. The Supreme Court has injected itself into this most political of activities, one that the Constitution explicitly assigns to state legislatures and whose politically partisan use is as old as the Constitution itself (the word “gerrymander” itself comes from Elbridge Gerry’s drawing of a Massachusetts state-senate district that resembled a salamander; Gerry was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and a contributor to the first Judiciary Act and the Bill of Rights). Historically, Southern state legislatures used gerrymandering to reduce the voting strength of racial minorities, particularly African Americans. But now the Supreme Court has allowed the federal government and states to consider race in drawing voting districts designed to maximize the voting strengths of racial groups.
— Read on www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/supreme-court-racial-preferences-affirmative-action/
All posts by bradbirzer
Map: Visualizing Every Ship at Sea in Real-Time
The ocean is a big place, which makes it a pretty difficult thing to wrap our brains around.
It covers over 70% of the Earth’s surface, is home to millions of species of life, and it makes up 97% of all water on the planet. But, with this massive size and ubiquity also comes a significant challenge for humans interested in trade: it must be constantly traversed in order for us to move goods around.
As a result, millions of people hit the high seas each day to get cargo from one place to another. The vessels used range from tiny sailboats to massive oil tankers, some of which can get up to four football fields in length.
— Read on www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-every-ship-real-time/
When the Witch of November Comes Stealin’ | Front Porch Republic
When the Witch of November Comes Stealin’ | Front Porch Republic
— Read on www.frontporchrepublic.com/2018/11/when-the-witch-of-november-comes-stealin/
With apologies, I’m re-posting this several days too late. Beautifully written, however, and well worth reading.
Focus on Reining in the American Bar Association | The Literary Lawyer: A Forum for the Legal and Literary Communities
If I had one suggestion for the Department of Education going forward, it would be to strip the American Bar Association of its accreditation authority over law schools, leaving state supreme courts and state bar associations to determine whether graduates of any given law school may sit for the bar examination in their state. This move would require pressure from law schools, state legislators, and state supreme courts. It could unite conservatives and progressives in common cause.
— Read on allenmendenhallblog.com/2018/12/03/focus-on-reining-in-the-american-bar-association/
When Elites Were Elites | UB
That element is the “Republic of Letters,” which, Fumaroli explains, is today often a sort of jibe or ironic self-parody of the pompous and barely hidden commercial and professional competition of the literary world. The term, however, once meant something very different. It referred to a pan-European “society of literary and solitary savants,” with an overwhelming focus on the wisdom of antiquity. They studied the ancient world, engaged in a reading, rereading, and reinterpreting of its wisdom, and applied it to scholarly debates and European affairs. Their work did not render the original thinkers obsolete; this enterprise was viewed as a communion with the thinkers of old in a similar way that Christians honored and prayed to the saints. The Republic of Letters formed a “society within another society, a contemplative society within an active society, and a society united by letters, beyond death and distance in the same intellectual adventure.”
— Read on kirkcenter.org/reviews/when-elites-were-elites/
Inner and Outer Freedom ~ TIC
It is in this inner space that imagination and thinking have their place. Or perhaps better, it is in this place that we think things out in the imaginative presence of everything we care about. One might say that the possession of such an inner place is identical with being free: here, inaccessible to the world’s manipulations but not isolated from its gifts, we fulfill our most intimately proper function, which is to think… (essay by Eva Brann)
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/12/inner-outer-freedom-eva-brann-90.html
Daredevil canceled with S4 mapped out, even Marvel execs ‘stunned’ | SYFY WIRE
A whole season flushed away.
— Read on www.syfy.com/syfywire/daredevil-canceled-with-s4-mapped-out-even-marvel-execs-stunned-by-move
Sheesh, this makes me so sad. For what it’s worth, Daredevil season 3 is the best thing I’ve seen on large or small screen since Stranger Things season one. All great things seem fleeting in this world. DD was, by far, the most heroic and most Catholic thing I’ve EVER seen on the big and small screen.
Authors, It’s Time to Grow Up
In every corner of the art world, there are salacious tales of petty arguments, long-held feuds, squabbles and fiascos. Whether it’s actors who vow never to
— Read on goodereader.com/blog/indie-author-news/authors-its-time-to-grow-up
Mercy is a fine writer, and I very much appreciate the call for civility.
Free Library
Baen’s eBook marketplace. eBooks with no DRM in every major format–for the Kindle, iPad, Nook, and more.
— Read on www.baen.com/allbooks/category/index/id/2012
I had no idea that any publishers gave away free books. And, some of these look spectacular. Thank you, Baen!
Can America Become a Christian Society Again? ~ The Imaginative Conservative
Bishop Chaput, who oversees a large Catholic school system, notes that most Catholic school children attend public schools and “only 3 percent of Hispanic Catholic children attend Catholic schools,” with the consequence that ”the freedom and ability of Catholic families “to raise their children according to Christian beliefs is also, in everyday practice, becoming more difficult.” But Bishop Chaput does not approach the subject with the passions of Dr. Esolen, and he takes a somewhat distant approach, letting various sources he cites make the more stinging comments. He makes no plea for Catholics to attend Catholic schools, no argument that his own Catholic schools offer an alternative, and gives no details about what a Catholic or Christian education would look like.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/12/america-become-christian-society-thomas-ascik-timeless.html
Spirit of Cecilia 
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