Outliving this Day and Coming Safe Home

“As to his ethnicity or national origin, a politician cannot usually deceive his public. If he is a Ruritanian he has to admit it and bray loudly that he is inordinately proud of it, thus securing the votes at least of nitwit Ruritanians.”   — Ferdinand Lundberg, The Rich and the Super Rich 

The U. S. Census Bureau has announced that after more than a century, it will no longer use of the word “Negro” to describe black Americans in surveys. See the Associated Press story here.

I’m OK with that.

The form will continue to give the option of one describing oneself as “black” or “African-American.”

More about the term “black” at the end of this essay. I have a beef with “African-American” as a racial or ethnic term. Africa is a huge continent, and people from Ghana are as different from Xhosa in South Africa as Scots are from Greeks. What about Egyptians, Algerians, and Berbers from along the Mediterranean, who in less anxious times would be classified as Caucasian? Even more to the point, what about Afrikaners? Many of those people have ancestors who lived in South Africa for 15 generations? I once had a student who came from Nigeria who objected to being called a Nigerian; she told me if I had to refer to her ethnicity, call her an Ibo, but preferred plain American because she went to a lot of trouble to become a citizen.

Mercifully, the Census does not use the appellation, “native-American” but defers to the technically incorrect but long accepted term “American Indian.” I find the native-American term especially loathsome. Not only is it also technically incorrect – “native” refers to where one was born – but it implies that those whose ancestors immigrated to this hemisphere pre-Columbus have a better right to be here than subsequent immigrants. If one really wants to technically, if not politically, correct in describing humans based on where their ancestors ultimately came, we are all African-Americans, as anthropologists have determined that our species originated in the Great Rift Valley of eastern Africa.

But why don’t we get rid of racial and ethnic classifications in the Census, as well as all other official forms and reports altogether? Forcing people into identity pigeonholes based on their ancestry, physical characteristics, and/or language that their parents or more distant ancestors spoke perpetuates division and neo-tribalism. I suppose that makes for political advantage for some, but it does the country no good whatsoever.

This history of why the Census includes racial classifications to begin with goes back to the three-fifths compromise in the Constitution as it was before later Amendments. The census was necessary to determine how many representatives a state would have in Congress. The states where slavery was prevalent wanted to count their slaves; those states where there were few slaves (at the time all states permitted or tolerated slavery to some degree, but only the south had a significant number) believed slaves should be not be counted. The compromise was that only three-fifths of the total slave population would be counted for apportionment purposes. Since slave status was synonymous with being black or “colored,” the Census differentiated them using race. Now, there were some free blacks who actually owned other blacks as slaves. I am not sure how those were dealt with; there were very few and almost all in Maryland. Perhaps they became honorary whites, I just don’t know. But that is a “so what” question today.

After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the classification was based on the principle of hypodescent – sometimes called the “one-drop rule” to enforce the Jim Crow laws. That principle itself is insulting, both to parents and children. It is based on the premise that a parent whose biological or social classification is of “lower” status contaminates the genome (less scientifically known as “blood”) of the other parent. Its continued use, especially officially, perpetuates the notion that some “races” superior or inferior, and that any discernible ancestry of an alleged inferior racial group in a person relegates him or her to a lower status. This results in the situation where one who had but one great-great-great-grandparent who immigrated to this hemisphere in pre-Columbian times or was of sub-Saharan African origin can claim certain benefits, other citizens cannot. I mention these two as situation not to emphasize them, but only as obvious, non-exhaustive examples. The Census form is so persnickety that it actually differentiates between type of Pacific Islanders, the purpose of which totally escapes me. There is a classification of “other” which I have used in the past three censuses where I’ve put down “human.” Never have been challenged on that. I was once tempted to enter “Vulcan” on behalf of my extremely logical thinking spouse, but resisted.

The Census used the “white” and “colored” classifications throughout the 19^th Century. “Negro” became in use in the early 20^th. Later, when politicians came to realize they could classify folks to form voting blocs based upon race or ethnicity to pander to grievances, the more numerous the groups became.

I will acknowledge that those who were subjected to legal disabilities or racial segregation had a beef. It doubtless was necessary in another time to take black Americans race into account in order to fashion remedies for the effects of legal segregation and legal invidious discrimination. It has been 45 years since the law anywhere in the United States required or encouraged segregation and racial discrimination. It is true that private racism still exists, but it always will among stupid and small-minded people. Human beings use their sense of sight as their primary means to obtain information. Visual aesthetics generally trump those of other senses. Why else would there be beauty contests? Individuals have a right to whom they decide associate with and on what basis they do so. So long as the government does not discriminate on the basis or race, color, or national origin, and individuals do not so under color of law or government authority, the right of association should not be infringed. One exception that I would concede, is that state and federal (in the case of interstate) governments have a legitimate interest in removing barriers that inhibit commerce. Public accommodations and employers of a certain size that practice racial exclusion or discrimination can have a deleterious effect on commerce, and may be proscribed from doing so, though some of the methods used to root out those practices focus on non-existent group “rights” rather than individuals. Social engineering on the part of government is wrong, not the least because it does not work and can be counterproductive.

As far as the term “black” is concerned, I find it anomalous that it is possible that there are those who have complexion lighter than many people who are considered “white” classify themselves thus. I do recognize that it has more to do with mere skin color. It reminds me of one of the earliest anti-racism pieces of fiction “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin, which should be required reading in school for everyone. If racial classifications are to be used, however, I have no particular beef with black. If our government insists on using bilingual Census forms, however, “negro” will have to remain. It is the Spanish word for black.

　

“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” — G.K. Chesterton

Every time I think that I’ve seen the most idiotic policy that ever could be foisted upon the American people by their own government, I’ve turned out to be wrong. The most recent outrage is the promulgation of guidelines by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that make criminal background checks on prospective employees to be violative of the civil rights laws. It appears that the EEOC believes that denying employment to someone because they have a criminal history has a “disparate impact” on certain minority groups. If that is true, then it would seem to a problem for that class, which is usually an artificial construct anyway.

This disparate impact test is undoubtedly one of the most egregious uses of EEOC’s power. Basically, what it means is that, if a hiring practice or criteria, regardless of its facial neutrality towards race, national origin, sex, etc., and regardless of the intent of the employer, has the effect of denying a certain proportion of a protected group employment, the burden of proof shifts to an employer to show that the practice is necessary, and has a valid, nondiscriminatory reason for its use. Valid, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, or the derriere of the 800 pound gorilla.

The disparate impact policy had its origin in the, perhaps laudable, purpose of piercing subterfuges that employers might have used in the past to deny employment to one simply on the basis of their race or color or sex, without regard to their qualifications. In practice, however, over the past 40 years the test has been little more than a vehicle for harassment of employers, who, quite rationally, seek the best employees they can find. Most employers would do handstands to get good, competent, and honest employees, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or sex.

Having been an employer for the past 30 years, though never having sufficient number of employees to be subject to the EEOC’s jurisdiction, I know how difficult it is to find good and honest employees, and keep them. A criminal record is always a negative for employment of anyone whose trustworthiness the business depends upon. This is especially true of small businesses where a employee may wear many hats. Now, I believe in redemption, and that people can change, but my experience in that regard is that rehabilitation, particularly of someone who has done something serious enough to spend time in prison (with the possible exception of those sentenced to federal prison for certain regulatory offenses, which would be better handled in the civil courts anyway) is a rarity. And it is a rarity that I, and most employers would be foolish to take a chance on.

The main effect of the new EEO guidelines will doubtless be to further put a quash on hiring initiatives by private industry. Why submit yourself to the Hobson’s choice of being at risk of being sued by the EEOC or alternatively risk criminal conduct by an employee which could have an adverse affect on potential customers or clients? If the job or function can be subcontracted, or sent offshore, that seems a much more rational solution. Economic patriotism, like patience, has its limits

I hasten to add that the guidelines promulgated by the EEOC are not the law. They are policy standards that some bureaucrat whose main interest is justifying his job dreams up to remain relevant. The EEOC actually brings relatively few lawsuits on the complaints it receives. Most of the time it engages in the practice of extortion by seeking a settlement from a business that wishes to avoid litigation, and its attendant costs. If they find what they believe is a violation, and it seems that they usually do, and they cannot resolve it, a “Right to Sue” letter is issued, and the complainant may seek out a private lawyer to prosecute the case. In many cases, the alleged violation is so weak or frivolous that it is impossible for the complaint to find a private lawyer who’s willing to take the case, as it nearly always must be on a contingency fee basis. Nevertheless, many, if not most employers regard it as a good business decision to negotiate a settlement rather than go to court. And, unfortunately, it usually is.

Anyway, this is yet another practice the result of which is to discourage hiring at all. Having said all that I have no doubt that criminal background checks has a disparate impact on an identifiable statistic – the unemployment rate, as well as an identifiable group – criminals. Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland has nothing over the Cloud Cuckoo Land we seem to be entering in the good old USA.

For the actual guidelines, see http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/arrest_conviction.cfm

For more commentary see this link

Maurice Taylor, CEO of Titan International Inc. (NYSE:TWI), a U.S. tire manufacturer, wrote this letter to French Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg stating that he had no interest in rescuing a tire plant that Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. had closed in  Amiens, France.

Dear Mr. Montebourg:
I have just returned to the United States from Australia where I have been for the past few weeks on business; therefore, my apologies for answering your letter dated 31 January 2013.
I appreciate your thinking that your Ministry is protecting industrial activities and jobs in France. I and Titan have a 40-year history of buying closed factories and companies, losing millions of dollars and turning them around to create a good business, paying good wages. Goodyear tried for over four years to save part of the Amiens jobs that are some of the highest paid, but the French unions and French government did nothing but talk.
I have visited the factory a couple of times. The French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours. They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three, and work for three. I told this to the French union workers to their faces. They told me that’s the French way!
The Chinese are shipping tires into France – really all over Europe – and yet you do nothing. In five years, Michelin won’t be able to produce tire in France. France will lose its industrial business because government is more government.
Sir, your letter states you want Titan to start a discussion. How stupid do you think we are? Titan is the one with money and talent to produce tires. What does the crazy union have? It has the French government. The French farmer wants cheap tires. He does not care if the tires are from China or India and governments are subsidizing them. Your government doesn’t care either. “We’re French!”
The US government is not much better than the French. Titan had to pay millions to Washington lawyers to sue the Chinese tire companies because of their subsidizing. Titan won. The government collects the duties. We don’t get the duties, the government does.
Titan is going to buy a Chinese tire company or an Indian one, pay less than one Euro per hour and ship all the tires France needs. You can keep the so-called workers. Titan has no interest in the Amiens North factory.
Best regards,
Maurice M. Taylor, Jr.
Chairman and CEO

The letter is rather impolitic, but is refreshingly plain-spoken, almost Trumanesque. Monsieur Montebourg has taken offense at Mr. Taylor’s attitude. 

I understand that the union in question is communist sponsored. I thought that the only communists left in the world outside of North Korea were on American college campuses.

For more: http://www.ibtimes.com/us-tire-maker-titan-international-ceo-maurice-taylor-derides-french-workers-lazy-putting-three-hours

Scarlett O’Hara: You do talk scandalous!

Rhett Butler: Scandalous and truly. Always providing you have enough courage– or money– you can do without a reputation.

Scarlett O’Hara: Money can’t buy everything.

Rhett Butler: Someone must have told you that. You’d never think of such a platitude all by yourself. What can’t it buy?

Scarlett O’Hara: Oh, well, I don’t know– not happiness of love, anyway.

Rhett Butler: Generally it can. And when it can’t, it can buy some of the most remarkable substitutes.

                            — Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.

                            — Barack Obama

From Reason magazine:

“In his seminal 1974 article, “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence,” the economist Richard Easterlin noted that while incomes in various countries had increased, reported well-being and life satisfaction on surveys had not. In other words, more money didn’t make people happier.

“In the four decades since, the Easterlin Paradox has more or less become established as the conventional wisdom. Later researchers argued that what really matters for a person’s overall life satisfaction is relative income. The implication is that if relative socioeconomic positions don’t change when everyone gets richer together, a country’s average happiness doesn’t increase. Getting ahead of the Joneses makes a person happier, but merely keeping up with them does not.”

For the entire article, see this link

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, with whom I usually disagree, occasionally comes up with some rather incisive observations concerning our popular culture.

“Performers on the stage shout they love us. Politicians love us. Acquaintances love us. The people who actually love us still love us, but how would we know? Never mind condemning recreational sex. How about recreational love? …

“Mister, missis, miss and all the rest are gone. We are pals with everyone and they are pals with us — never mind that they have called to say our electricity will be turned off for nonpayment of a bill we never got. I am Richard and they are Jim or some other made-up name. We lack all formality, all distance. This is a parody of democracy. …

“Languages other than English distinguish between the formal and the informal — the French vous and tu, for instance. To call a vous a tu can be an insult. But in America, we are all one big tu, a kumbaya-ish mass of insincere sincerity. Distinctions are not recognized. The relative stranger and the old friend are greeted the same. But they are not the same. One has earned my friendship, my trust, my love. The other I may never see again — and, too often, that’s all right with me.”

Me too.

Actually, English does have a formal/familiar distinction in the second person pronouns. The “thou” and “thee” used respectively as subject and object, today only seen in the King James Bible and period literature, were the familiar form, in common use up through the 18^th Century. I understand that religious sects like the Quakers, and some country folk in the north of England still use these forms. Cohen mentions the faux pas in France regarding the misuse of tu rather than vous. Even more socially inept would be using the du instead of Sie to anyone other than a family member or close, long time friend in Germany. Children may always be addressed as du, making a double insult when addressing a teenager. It seems that the thou fell into disuse partly because of its increasing use for condescension or insult, by implying that the addressee wasn’t entitled to the respect of being addressed as you.

Cohen has a point. Over-familiarity can be insulting, even in our brave new world. I eschew using first names in business letter salutations, unless I know the addressee well, and never in correspondence that I copy to a client. There are also many people I know well, and even like very much, that I would never hug. Faux intimacy degrades the real thing.

For Richard Cohen’s complete column, please see: Cohen column

My take on the President’s Sate of the Union address.

Positive
Immigration reform. It gives me hope that the President said, or at least strongly implied, he would support reasonable immigration reform that would secure the borders, and provide a path to citizenship to those already here on many of the important conditions Senator Rubio and others have put forth. He expressly included a condition that current illegal immigrants would should undergo background, or at least criminal history checks, and would not get in ahead of those already legally here.

Maybe positive
Tax reform. At the very least, the tax code should be simplified. Taxation should be should be for revenue only and not to encourage activities deemed worthy or discourage those deemed otherwise. That is probably a tall order, because of the various lobbies in Washington who really make that call. Some movement in that direction should be encouraged. I would favor a consumption tax like a national sales tax or VAT, but only if the income tax were scrapped.

Infrastructure enhancement. One of the obvious, and Constitutional, functions of the national government is to construct and maintain public highways, whether land, water, or air, for foreign and interstate commerce. The mythical “shovel-ready” projects touted four years ago did not materialize for the most part. Some of the roadblocks (pun intended) for infrastructure projects are interminable environmental studies and assessments, and other bureaucratic nonsense. If the President really wants to help move things along in this regard, executive orders to cut that red tape would doubtless help.

Negative
Almost everything else. The President would like to further pursue the big government agenda. That means more government spending and necessarily more taxing or borrowing. Raising the federal minimum wage was the worst proposal; if passed, it will result in even more unemployment, and drive offshore more entry level jobs where young workers can learn a skill and get experience.

Insofar as the global warming/climate change bugaboo is concerned, the President should take a page from the 11^th Century King Canute who supposedly set his throne by the shore and commanded the tide not to rush in. It did, thus demonstrating the limits of kingly power. I have little doubt that the earth is warming; I am just not convinced that human activity is a major cause. Even if it is, the only effective means to stanch it would be to reduce the population – of the entire earth – or make us all move into caves and subsist on raw nuts and berries, or perhaps Soylent Green. Neither will happen. Half the world’s population lives in Asia, and they are interested in economic growth, not contraction. The way to deal with the prospect of a warmer earth and its effects is to learn to adapt to it.

The cheerleading performance regarding gun control measures that deserve a vote was hokey. I am sure many of the Democrat red state senators up for re-election next year broke a bit of a sweat during that part. For a gun control measure that really works, at least for the everyday incidents of street crime if not for the occasional lunatic, see Holman Jenkins’ essay at Gun Control That Works

President Obama began his State of the Union speech with a reference to President Kennedy SOTU 51 years ago. I was around when JFK gave that speech; I heard it, as well of many of his others. President Obama is no Jack Kennedy (although Michelle is probably grateful for that in one respect).

Last evening while sitting around the dinner table with my mom, spouse, and a couple of my siblings, we discussed some of the scrapes my brothers and I had during our early school years, both in the classroom and after school. Most were, in retrospect, humorous. Some involved minor harm to others’ property; some involved minor cuts and bruises; none would qualify as felonious. Today, many decades later, there is no doubt similar transgressions some would result in suspension, or even expulsion from school, and maybe even arrest and detention. And yes, any number would have, in our present day brave new world, resulted in the same fate meted out to poor Alex in my previous post.

Apropos to my most recent essay is an article by Christina Hoff Sommers published today in the Dallas Morning News. Ms. Sommers is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a dissident feminist, and, of all things, a libertarian Democrat. Wasn’t sure there was such a thing.

Since we have a War on Terror, War on Drugs, War on Guns (however mind-boggling that may be), and War on Women, I suppose Ms. Sommers is permitted to postulate that there is a War Against Boys.

That indeed is the title of her book, first published in 2001 with a revised edition to be published later this year – now to be subtitled How Misguided Policies Are Harming Our Young Men. I have not read the earlier edition, but her current essay entitled “When Boys Lag at School” appears to be is somewhat of a precis of the revision. Ms. Sommers finds statistics that show, though boys score as well as or better than girls on most standardized tests in primary and secondary schools, they are far less likely to get as good grades. The reason for this appears to be that grades have a non-cognitive component, which might fall under the collective heading of deportment. Teachers tend to reward the attentive, cooperative, and even passive behavior of girls and penalize the inattentive, distracted, and somewhat obstreperous behavior of young male students. This results in factoring the students’ deportment into substantive course grades. (Back in my day we had a separate grade for deportment, or conduct, which was — I admit — often my lowest.)

Well, why not? After all, schools is a place for learning real life skills, such as cooperation and civility, as well as those which are strictly cognitive. “[T]he ability to regulative one’s impulses, delay gratification, sit still and pay close attention are the cornerstones of success in school and in the workforce” Ms. Sommers rhetorically posits. She answers that unproductive workers are adults, not five year old boys. Boys who are restless and unfocused should receive the same help that girls did when their lagging behind in math and science was recognized as a problem.

How much of boys seemingly inherent restlessness and similar characteristics is biological as opposed to cultural is subject to endless, and probably inconclusive debate. The fact remains that it exists. Grading down in substantive disciplines like reading, writing, and arithmetic for general attitude or behavioral deficiencies is not the answer. For one thing, admission or exclusion to enriched secondary or higher education programs is based primarily on grades. Performance on standardized tests is secondary. While most boys seem to grow out of the aforementioned undesirable behaviors, some do later than others, and for those chances for advancement could well be foreclosed.

But there are those who maintain that, anyway, men have had an advantage in post-secondary education for centuries. Isn’t it at time for the boys to get their comeuppance?

The short answer is no. As Mohandas Gandhi is often quoted or paraphrased, an eye for and eye ends up with the whole world blind. We have seen the problems caused by constant back and forth retribution. Even the supposedly benevolent affirmative action policies have been more successful in causing resentment in the disfavored group, not to mention eroding confidence in the actual ability of individuals perceived to be in the favored one. Ms. Sommers “can sympathize with those who roll their eyes at the relatively recent alarm over boys’ achievement” but “reverse chauvinism” is not the answer. “The rise of women, however long overdue, does not require the fall of men.”

For Ms. Sommers’ essay see:
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday-commentary/20130208-christina-hoff-sommers-the-boys-were-leaving-behind.ece?action=reregister

or can we call it actual stupidity. To wit:
 
From the Denver Post

LOVELAND — A 7-year-old Mary Blair Elementary School student says he’s confused about getting in trouble for trying to save the world from evil, though Thompson School District officials contend that the boy broke one of the school’s “absolutes.”

Parent Mandie Watkins said Mary Blair principal Valerie Lara-Black called her Friday afternoon to inform her that her second-grade son, Alex, had been suspended for throwing an imaginary grenade during recess on the playground.

Alex did not have anything in his hand at the time and made no threats toward other people, Watkins reportedly was told.

Watkins said Alex’s story matched up with the principal’s account: He threw the pretend grenade at an imaginary box that had something evil inside.

He was going to save the earth this way, and when he threw the grenade he pretended that the box exploded, in apparent success.

“He is very confused,” Watkins told the Reporter-Herald on Tuesday. “I’m confused as well, so it makes it hard for me to enforce these rules when I don’t even understand them.”

The rules are laid out by Mary Blair Elementary School in a list of “absolutes” that are posted on the school’s website and are aimed at making Mary Blair a safe environment.

Included in those absolutes are no physical abuse or fighting – real or play – and the no-weapons absolute also covers real or play weapons.

Absolutes = zero tolerance = zero common sense.

I don’t know how representative a sample all the boys I or my siblings grew up with was, but I know of of no one who who has turned out to be a serial killer, or violent criminal of any type.  I also recall that nearly everyone played cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians (how politically incorrect is that nowadays?!), and fantasy fights in, well, pick your war.  Most of us also had toy cap pistols, of varying quality and elaboration — that we often took to school, though seldom played with them there. Few ever wanted to play the bad guy.  Most, like Alex, had a fantasy of ridding the world of evil. My how things apparently have changed — except that they haven’t. 

Read the whole story of Alex’s plight here:
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22524862/second-grade-loveland-student-reportedly-suspended-imaginary-weapon

Hollywood producers and directors quite often choose their films’ heroes and villains according to their point of view and ideological and political proclivities. This is nothing new. Artists and writers have from time immemorial sought to propagandize through their works. Virgil’s Aeneid, for example, was a paean to the Roman Emperor Augustus’ provenance – the heroic Aeneas escaping from burning Troy to found Rome and a race of noble Romans.

So did William Shakespeare seek to ingratiate himself with the powers that be in his time. The history plays – the Henrys and the Richards – all recount the century-long internecine Cousins’ Wars, sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Wars of the Roses. These plays culminate with the Bard’s Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry Tudor, rescuing England from the villainous murderer Richard III in 1485. Or so the eponymous play relates.

Shakespeare’s Richard III depicts the king as a ruthless, ambitious monster who had his nephews, the sons of the late King Edward IV, declared bastards, then imprisoned in the Tower and murdered so he could assume the throne. The play describes Richard as a deformed hunchback with a withered arm, “and that so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at me as I halt by them” that “since I cannot prove a lover … I am determined to prove a villain.” Bad guys in art and literature are described and depicted as physically ugly and/or deformed, while the good guys are handsome and beautiful. Victor Hugo tried to dispel that stereotype in the Hunchback of Notre Dame with mixed success. But that is another story.

King Richard’s short reign of 26 months ended when Henry Tudor, then Earl of Richmond, revolts and defeats him at Bosworth Field, near Leicester. Richard ignominiously tries to escape crying for “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.” Thus, Shakespeare seals the king’s reputation as a cowardly villain.

For centuries, only King John, who was so incompetent that he lost all of England’s lands in France, got crossways with the Pope that resulted in the latter forbidding church services in England during part of John’s, and oppressed his people and even the barons so much that they revolted and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, had a worse reputation than Richard III. And even John was buried in a tomb in Worcester Cathedral with some dignity. Richard was not. He was slain in battle, his body stripped naked, mutilated, and unceremoniously buried in Greyfriars church at Leicester without even the minuscule dignity of a shroud or wooden coffin. The church was destroyed during the English Reformation, and Richard’s resting place was lost to history.

Until this past week, that is. Some intrepid archaeologists and historians managed to find King Richard’s remains beneath a parking lot at the Greyfriars site. Phillipa Langley, a member of the Richard III Society, founded n 1924 promote research into the life and times of the king, led the search which last September uncovered a skeleton that was believed likely to be Richard’s. Yesterday, it was announced that the circumstances coupled with DNA tests, have confirmed these are Richard’s remains. While his spine shows severe scoliosis – curvature of the spine – no evidence of hunchback or a withered arm were was present.

It appears that plans to re-bury Richard’s remains in Leicester Cathedral are in the works. The Ricardians, as the Richard III buffs are known, will continue his rehabilitation. Now Richard’s long winter of discontent may be made a glorious summer by this sun of York, to paraphrase the opening lines of Shakespeare’s play, which, along with his others, and in spite of historical inaccuracy, will doubtless remain a rattling good yarn.

For more reading on this story see http://www.richardiii.net/

Note: The present Queen Elizabeth II is a collateral descendant of Richard III. Richard’s niece, Elizabeth of York, the daughter of King Edward IV, married Henry Tudor thus ostensibly uniting the Lancaster and York lines. Their daughter Margaret Tudor married James IV of Scotland. Margaret and James’ great-grandson became James I of England when the last Tudor, Queen Elizabeth, died. James’ daughter Elizabeth Stuart married the German Elector of the Palatinate. Her grandson became George I when the Stuart dynasty ended with Queen Anne’s death in 1714. With exception of three reigns totaling 18 years, since 1714 the English/British monarch has been a woman or a man named George.

Silly season is upon us.

First of that Notre Dame football team linebacker whatsisname’s imaginary girlfriend hoax is all over the news for weeks. Don’t know any more about it. Don’t care, and wonder why anyone does. National Inquirer type hype. Pure idiocy.

Next, pop singer Beyonce lip-syncing her own recording singing the national anthem at the President’s inauguration seems to have highly offended some. It was her own voice. She did it so as not risk a flaw or other happening. Perfectly reasonable. Sounded OK to me. Again, who cares?? Obviously, many from the idiocracy.

Super Bowl ads. Exhibit 1: A supermodel smooching with a nerd has media in a tizzy. Only thing I can say is good grief! Exhibit 2: Coca-Cola ads featuring Arabs in desert drag is offensive? C’mon lets lighten up. Watch the video on YouTube of Ray Stevens’ singing Ahab the Arab.

Gun hysteria is overtaking both sides of the debate. Look, you so-called Progressives, a certain subset of the population is insane. It’s an infinitesimally small percentage, but among 300,000,000 people, there are quite a few in absolute numbers. Can’t ban all guns. Background check? Sounds good, but most of those up to no good will buy in a back alley deal or steal a gun.

Climate change causes gun-violence in Chicago, according to Christie Hefner, Hugh’s daughter. And the full moon causes werewolves to come out too. This is another non-fixable problem to the extent it exists.

More later.