Academic "Meritocracy"?

ND Law is pleased to welcome several new faculty members as we begin the 2021-22 academic year.

“Notre Dame Law School has added incredible strength, expertise, and diversity with our new faculty,” Dean G. Marcus Cole said.

Read more about them: https://t.co/8iIH00kY8l pic.twitter.com/KlaROSaLoJ

— Notre Dame Law School (@NDLaw) August 26, 2021

Recruiting in the American Empire

I was part of a rigorous college program specifically created to prime students to work in the intelligence community. But, by my last semester, I had become thoroughly disillusioned, and I still am to this day.https://t.co/Fel94ap28x

— Evie Magazine (@Evie_Magazine) August 27, 2021

But She Doesn't Actually Represent "Merit"

I bombed my GRE exam, yet got into grad school with my research experience in undergrad, graduated with a PhD in 5yrs and am a Full Professor now with 3 books under my belt. We didn’t have standardized exams in Canada. You can miss me with that GRE! Measures nothing meaningful✌🏽

— Tamara Mose (@TamaraMose) June 2, 2021

AA America

I haven't been following this... Mass. doctor Vivek Murthy OK’d as surgeon general - Views on guns, advocacy led to Senate delay

Surgeon General of the United States: Who Is Vivek Murthy?

I Thought of AA When I First Saw the Story

Post by Strings Magazine.

about Kwasi Enin. What "prestigious" [neo-]Yankee institution wouldn't want an intelligent African(-American) as one of their students for display? Everyone feels good as a result of the bargain, no?

Do Ivy League Schools Collude On Admissions? (iSteve)

Mr. Enin will appear on Letterman. CS Monitor. Heavy. Time.

Affirmative action or fair representation?

Should a police deparment be composed of officers who are representative of the demographics of its community? Is it likely that people are more likely to be abusive towards members of another ethnic group? Would having officers of the same ethnicity assist in the answering of a call help safeguard against abuse?

All things being equal, why shouldn't someone of a specific ethnic background be given "preference" over a white in order to better reflect the demographics of the city? If the deparment reflects the ethnic make-up of a city, is it less likely to be seen as being staffed by outsiders, thus inspiring greater confidence and preserving a better appearance of impartiality?

In megacities are the police more like mercenaries than fellow citizens, since they do not inhabit the areas they patrol? What if the deparment has to hire outsiders in order to meet an ethnic quota, because there isn't enough interest in that city? Doesn't the lack of real connection remain the same, unless there is some sort of natural affection between people of the same ethnic group? Natural affection may help LEOs of a certain ethnicity prevent abuse of his co-ethnics by other LEOs who do not share that ethnicity. But what positive motivation exists to prevent abuse and misconduct?

What if a certain ethnic community cannot police itself, nor produce qualified recruits for the department because it lacks the "moral resources" to do so? Can a police deparment of a big city ever get away from being a form of outsourced help?

Can one be motivated purely by economic/contractual justice to do a good job as a LEO? (I don't doubt that there are many who work as police officers in California merely for the big paycheck and because the job is "fun," despite the paperwork.) What is the foundation that undergirds commutative justice (and prevents abuse), if legal justice or civic friendship is lacking? (1. The officer lives elsewhere. 2. The city in which he works is too large or community does not actually exist there.) If there is no community, then neither virtue cannot exist.

Items of Interest, 27 July 2011

Mike Davis, The Coming Economic Disaster (via collapse.net)

Tomb of St. Philip the Apostle Discovered in Turkey

Rorate Caeli: Roberto de Mattei and "The Lefebvre affair"

Mere Comments: "The Church Impotent' Now On-Line, Plus Fireworks

The Great Tradition: Reading Ourselves Back to Cultural Sanity
by Robert M. Woods

John Robb, ON BECOMING A RESILIENT INDIVIDUAL

Franklin C. Spinney, Afghan Sitrep: We're Here Because We're Here Because We're Here...

Jeffrey St. Clair, The Politics of Make-Believe: Barack Obama, Changeling

Barnyard Irony
Gene Logsdon, The Contrary Farmer, Mulligan Books

‘Totnes: what the past can teach us about the future’: a new film by Rob Hopkins

Top Chef

(source: Yahoo TV)

The season 7 finale is currently available on Hulu.

With allegations in the past that the show is rigged, and with its home network being Bravo, should one be suspicious that  the contestants for Top Chef do not get where they are (including the initial pre-selection and qualifications) based only on merit? Looking at the current season's cast, I am struck by the low number of white males and the (overly-)diverse makeup of the contestants. Affirmative action? Liberals don't care about the sort of suspicions they may sow in a polity; it's all a power grab in the name of redressing injustice. Do they care that they may be undermining justice as a result of their policies?

Turning cooking into a competition may work in drawing male viewers, but if the competition is perceived to be unfair and driven by other ideological considerations, how many of them will continue to watch?

Christopher Burchfield has a featured post at The Thinking Housewife

Our Feminized Forests

Items of Interest, 14 July 2010

Rod Dreher, Coming: BP's methane volcano? and io9, Methane bubble "doomsday" story debunked
Rod Dreher, Monsanto's genetically-modified Eucharist
CHT, Obama the Liar on Free Trade

Mark Richardson on the link between liberalism and multiculturalism: Identity lite.

John Robb, JOURNAL: A Mechanism for Economic and Political Concentration

Steve Sailer, How to get into college

Energy Bulletin:
The 50-year farm bill (original)

Wes Jackson, Solutions

We need new strategies for agriculture that emphasize efficient nutrient use in order to lower production costs and minimize negative environmental effects. The trouble is, the best soils on the best landscapes are already being farmed. Much of the future expansion of agriculture will be onto marginal lands where the risk of irreversible degradation under annual grain production is high. As these areas become degraded, expensive chemical, energy, and equipment inputs will become less effective and much less affordable.

Fireflies In July (original)
Gene Logsdon, OrganicToBe.org

Most of us have only a little knowledge of the awesome events going on in nature right around us all the time. That’s why we must ceaselessly travel in search of distraction far and wide. There are wonders at work right under our noses but we don’t notice. It is even more lamentable now that we have abandoned the real world for the electronic world.

Counterpunch:
Ellen Brown, How Brokers Became Bookies
Mark Weisbrot, Exacerbating the Crisis in the Eurozone
Jonathan Cook, Remote-Controlled Killing
Dean Baker, Reckless Drilling: BP's Carnage
Deepak Tripathi, The Dwindling of Afghanistan's Coalition of the Willing