I'm praying the Globe will no longer divide us on race.
Related: And Now I Lay Me Down to....
Going to do a little reading first:
"Amherst College trustees to decide Lord Jeff’s fate" by Peter Schworm Globe Staff January 21, 2016
Amherst does not have an official mascot, but the figure of Lord Jeff, the longtime mascot who wears a red coat and powdered wig and which has drawn ire as a symbol of colonial imperialism, has long stood as an unofficial symbol, and the school’s sports teams are often referred to as the Jeffs.
Hey, what's in a name?
Lord Jeffery Amherst, who commanded British forces in North America during the French and Indian War in the 18th century, endorsed giving blankets carrying the smallpox virus to Native Americans.
In November, a group of faculty voted to drop the symbol, and a group of students called on the college’s president to condemn the “inherent racist nature” of the mascot.
Okay, I have a reaction on several levels here.
My first initial instinct, and one that would have filled me with joy years ago when I began, was the acknowledgement of this wrong against the Native Americans and the Holocaust™ that was wrought against them by the colonizers of the English empire. And it's all good as far as it goes now. Bravo!
Then I began to wonder if it is going to take 300 years for us to get the truth regarding the current round of biological, chemical, and WMD use regarding the forces of the EUSraeli empire. Doesn't that seem like a more worthwhile effort, with a possible positive outcome for the future, rather than a debate about long ago dead people and whether a team is named after them?
Having said that, one sees these cultural debates about history that are being foisted on us by an agenda-pushing pre$$ as a diversion for purposes of division with no real effect on the $tatu$ quo.
Anyway, enough of my sermon.
In an alumni survey, opinion was evenly divided. One-third said Lord Jeff should remain as mascot, one-third said it should be removed, and one-third indicated that it didn’t matter much to them.
On its website, the college acknowledges that Jeffrey Amherst advocated biological warfare against Indians, but says “there is no evidence that any infected blankets were distributed at his command.”
So has and does this government we now live under, on foreigners as well as their own people. Or they have supplied allies with the stuff and they have used it.
In the summer of 1763, when attacks by Native Americans were threatening British control, Amherst wrote in a letter to a colonel, “Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians?”
In a later letter, Amherst writes: “You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.”
The protests come amid growing opposition to mascots some Native Americans find offensive, such as the Washington Redskins.
I have to admit seeing the symbol on television, and the sports guys saying the name under or over it, has gotten to me. You gotta change that symbol to something else if not the name.
Now about those casinos....
Amherst College is considered one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country.
Oh, it's offending their politically-correct sensibilities and piercing their deluded bubble is all.
Notable graduates include President Calvin Coolidge, former US Supreme Court chief justice Harlan Fiske Stone, and author David Foster Wallace....
All tarnished now, much like the Confederates.
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"Amherst College drops Lord Jeff mascot" by Peter Schworm and Laurie Loisel Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent January 26, 2016
AMHERST — Pack your bags, Lord Jeff.
The Amherst College trustees announced Tuesday that the school would relieve its unofficial mascot of his duties.
Lord Jeff has drawn criticism as an inappropriate symbol for the elite liberal arts school.
Is it?
Historians say his namesake, Lord Jeffery Amherst, the commander of British forces in North America during the French and Indian War, supported giving blankets laced with the smallpox virus to Indians to advance the goal of destroying their race.
Actually, it looks quite appropriate for that crowd. Who do you think is bringing -- and benefiting -- from all the wars and destruction?
“Amherst College finds itself in a position where a mascot — which, when you think about it, has only one real job, which is to unify — is driving people apart because of what it symbolizes to many in our community,” the trustees of the college said in a statement.
What if you don't really care what the name of the football team is?
The trustees said they considered the views of alumni, students, and faculty, most of whom expressed unfavorable views of the Lord Jeff symbol.
“It is fair to recognize that historical context may influence, or make us cautious about, judgments concerning Jeffery Amherst the man. It is equally fair to decide that 18th-century standards should not govern a 21st-century choice of symbol.”
I have tried.
Amherst, in the town of Amherst, in Western Massachusetts, is regularly at or near the top of lists of the nation’s best liberal arts colleges. The trustees’ decision followed a wide-ranging debate over whether the mascot was offensive and racially insensitive, or whether it is fair to judge a historical figure by modern sensibilities.
It's just done the road, and maybe they should change the name of the town.... which brings me to another sermon.
American officials and authorities have usurped Native American names for towns, cities, streets, regions, bays, and a whole host of other things. No qualms there, just what you call 'em.
My point is, why the big deal over the divisive Lord Je.... aaaaaah, the Lord!
Seeing as we are in a state of feudali$m these days.... this debate now makes sense. Don't want to draw undue attention to the evil machinations of our modern-day Lords.
Late last week, as the trustees were convening, the debate over the mascot was a hot topic on the picturesque campus. In brief interviews, several students expressed support for ditching Lord Jeff.
Cutting class on account Lord Jeff?
The college was named after the town, which in turn had been named after Lord Amherst, as were towns in New Hampshire and New York. On his antipathy toward Indians and support for using disease in the fight against them, the historical record is clear.
In the summer of 1763, Amherst wrote in a letter to a colonel, “Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians?”
In a later letter, Amherst writes: “You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.”
Elizabeth Fenn, a historian at the University of Colorado who has researched the episode, said correspondence from the time shows that the British military gave infected blankets to the Indians at Fort Pitt in 1763, shortly before Amherst suggested the plan himself.
Yeah, and the military-industrial complex continues to do that.
“That the attempt was made was very clear,” she said in an interview. “He generated the idea independently, not knowing it had already been implemented.”
In a journal article published in 2000, Fenn wrote of the possibility that the episode at Fort Pitt — located in modern-day Pittsburgh — may not have been isolated.
You mean it was like, actual policy?
“The fact that a single wartime outbreak could prompt two independent plans of contagion suggests that the Fort Pitt incident may not have been an anomaly,” she wrote.
The controversy at Amherst comes amid growing opposition to mascots that many Native Americans find offensive, such as the NFL’s Washington Redskins. Many schools have changed contentious nicknames, including The University of North Dakota, which dropped the Fighting Sioux nickname in 2012.
Until the early 1970s, teams at the University of Massachusetts Amherst were known as the Redmen, but the school changed the nickname when it came under criticism....
Some still like the name.
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Here is another verse:
Boston seniors make memories, memoirs at city writing workshop
I've got bad news; the Confederate flag is flying again.
"Harvard police close ‘hate crime’ case of defaced portraits" by Steve Annear Globe Staff January 25, 2016
Harvard University police earlier this month closed their investigation into the incident in which someone placed strips of black tape over photographs of black professors displayed in the law school’s Wasserstein Hall.
Officials from the department had first said they were treating the incident, which happened in November, as a hate crime.
But in a statement Monday, police spokesman Steven Catalano confirmed that the department has ended its nearly two-month pursuit of a suspect, unless any new or significant information presents itself.
“Over the past six weeks, HUPD investigators conducted a thorough investigation through interviews with many members of the campus community and forensic examination of physical evidence retrieved from the portraits,” Catalano said. “After pursuing these avenues, they were unable to identify the person or persons responsible for placing the tape on the portraits, or to determine the motivation for these acts.”
Images of the marred portraits were shared on Twitter in November by Jonathan Wall, a third-year law school student. The strips of black tape were meticulously placed over pictures of prominent black faculty members.
The incident prompted students from the law school to band together and write encouraging, positive notes about each professor, and place them on the portraits instead. In the meantime, officials will install security cameras.
Was that the point of the whole psyop that stinks of self-inflicted false flag for purposes mentioned above?
“As an academic community, we place great value on maintaining a largely open campus. But we must balance that openness with the equally important need for safety,” Francis X. McCrossan, dean of administration at Harvard Law School, said.
A.J. Clayborne, a Harvard law student and member of the group “Royall Must Fall,” which has been fighting for the removal of the school’s official seal because it includes elements drawn from a slave-holding family’s crest, said the administration's failure to address systemic racism leads to incidents like the tape incident.
“It is unfortunate that the investigation was unsuccessful, but this incident was merely a symptom of a larger racial malady at Harvard Law School. Until the law school addresses its problems systematically incidents such as these will undoubtedly continue to occur,” Clayborne said in an e-mail....
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No one to sue for the “deeply troubling incident.”
You might find this more troubling:
"New tech gives government ample means to track suspects, study finds" by David E. Sanger New York Times February 02, 2016
WASHINGTON — For more than two years the FBI and intelligence agencies have warned that encrypted communications are creating a “going dark” crisis that will keep them from tracking terrorists and kidnappers.
Good thing the terrorists aren't using encryption.
Now, a study in which current and former intelligence officials participated concludes that the warning is wildly overblown, and that a raft of new technologies — like television sets with microphones and Web-connected cars — are creating ample opportunities for the government to track suspects, many of them worrying.
They have heard every word I've typed.
“‘Going dark’ does not aptly describe the long-term landscape for government surveillance,” concludes the study, published Monday by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and funded by the Hewlett Foundation.
The study argues that the phrase ignores the flood of new technologies “being packed with sensors and wireless connectivity” that are expected to become the subject of court orders and subpoenas, and are already the target of the National Security Agency as it places “implants” into networks around the world to monitor communications abroad.
And now they are combining the offensive hacking capability with the defensive protection mi$$ion (as if the two didn't go hand-in-hand; at least you know who is really behind all the hacking).
The products, ranging from “toasters to bedsheets, light bulbs, cameras, toothbrushes, door locks, cars, watches and other wearables,” will give the government increasing opportunities to track suspects and in many cases reconstruct communications and meetings.
It's the "Internet of Things" idea the ma$$ media and propaganda pre$$ have been pu$hing!!!!
I'm going to have a hard time getting to sleep now!
The study, titled “Don’t Panic: Making Progress on the ‘Going Dark’ Debate,” is among the sharpest counterpoints yet to the contentions of James B. Comey, the FBI director, and other Justice Department officials, mostly by arguing that they have defined the issue too narrowly.
During the past year they have repeatedly told Congress that the move by Apple to automatically encrypt data on its iPhone, and similar steps by Google and Microsoft, are choking off critical abilities to track suspects, even with a court order.
The history of technology shows that what is invented for convenience can soon become a target of surveillance.
Oh, you mean like WHAT PEOPLE LIKE ME WERE SCREAMING IN WARNING a DECADE AGO?!! And here we are.
And the whole spy net was created for convenience? I thought it was created to catch the false-flagging terrorist patsies. That's what I was told 15 years ago as the country cowered in fear.
It was created as a convenience? For whose?
“Law enforcement or intelligence agencies may start to seek orders compelling Samsung, Google, Mattel, Nest or vendors of other networked devices to push an update or flip a digital switch to intercept the ambient communications of a target,” the report said.
That is where the print piece I read ended!
You know what I would like to flip them? (Think I just did)
President Obama, however, concluded last fall that any effort to legislate a government “back door” into encrypted communications would probably create a pathway for hackers — including those working for foreign governments like Russia, China and Iran — to gain access as well, and create a precedent for authoritarian governments demanding similar access.
It's not those prospective enemies for future wars I'm worried about; I'm sure they all just wish we would leave them the f*** alone.
Most Republican candidates for president have demanded that technology companies create a way for investigators to unlock encrypted communications, and on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has taken a tough line on Silicon Valley companies, urging them to join the fight against the Islamic State.
Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, has led the charge on the other side. He recently told a group of White House officials seeking technology companies’ voluntary help to counter the Islamic State that the government’s efforts to get the keys to encrypted communications would be a boon for hackers and put legitimate business transactions, financial data and personal communications at greater risk.
These communications, too, may one day be encrypted. But Google’s business model depends on picking out key words from emails to tailor advertisements for specific users of Gmail, the popular email service. Apple users routinely back up the contents of their phones to iCloud — a service that is not encrypted and now is almost a routine target for investigators or intelligence agencies. So are the tracking and mapping systems for cars that rely on transmitted global positioning data.
Who do you think set it up (through $elf-$erving $hell companies and $tart-ups, of cour$e).
“I think what this report shows is that the world today is like living in a big field that is more illuminated than ever before,” said Joseph Nye, a Harvard government professor and former head of the National Intelligence Council. “There will be dark spots — there always will be. But it’s easy to forget that there is far more data available to governments now than ever before.”
And yet somehow the terrorists are hiding in the bright glare and government can't find them.
Can find this blog though; it's up for all to see.
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I'm thankful the web Globe shedded some additional light.
Related: Many of the highest-paid workers in the state — 86 of the top 100 — were employed in the University of Massachusetts system, similar to the pattern in prior years
Is that why tuition and fees are rising?
Also see: US Colleges raise record amounts
Rich getting richer, but you should be worried about a long ago symbol of war crimes rather than stuff happening now.
Suffolk University Spat
It's kind of a he said, she said, they said situation. I'll get back to you when they start celebrating.
Nothing to do know but wait for the arrival of the devil.
And my prayers, once again, remain unanswered.
NDU: Suffolk president, board chair meet amid turmoil
