Disaffirmative Action

 

I have a little time today, and need a break.  So, what to blog about?

 

The guilty plea of William Rapfogel, former CEO of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, to stealing about $5 million from widows and orphans?  A religious Jewish boy misbehaving.  Notwithstanding my contentious issues many years ago with the Met Council, back during my college days, I'll pass on this one (for now at least), other than to thank Willie and his co-codefendants for giving me some belated vindication.

 

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer's latest Report on "The Growing Gap:  New York City’s Housing Affordability Challenge," which whines about how the cost of rental housing is rising faster than income?  Hey, Scotty, for many years, you and your liberal ilk before you took pains to make sure that New York City provided top dollar welfare payouts, and you continue to give all kinds of entitlements and lagniappes to illegal aliens, criminals, those who refuse to hold down jobs, and everyone else.  So the resulting population increase (notwithstanding the city's abortion rate) increases the demand for housing relative to the supply, thereby driving up the cost relative to income.  This is Econ 101, nothing to blog about.

 

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration's latest report that the IRS has given monetary rewards to employees who have disciplinary problems and tax filing issues?  Hey, when I was with the IRS I had neither disciplinary issues nor tax filing issues.  Howcum I didn't get anything in addition to my salary?  This story already has legs; I have nothing to add other than to state the obvious:  The policy of administering cookies for bad behavior and electric shocks for good behavior goes a long way towards explaining the IRS's dysfunctionality.

 

So what to blog about?  I'll blog about Kareem Potomont.  He's the gangster thug who fired a weapon at one of his rivals, but in the process, one of the fired bullets struck and seriously injured Gama Droiville, a 13-year-old innocent bystander.   I note the quote from Potomont's lawyer, Audrey Thomas, who said that Potomont "said was forced to leave high school in the eleventh grade due to gang pressure."

 

THAT is the problem.  Those social groups commonly associated with success in America have long pressured their youth to STAY in school.  Back during my adolescence years, I had certain behavioral issues in school.  One evening, my father came to me to express his displeasure at one particular incident, noting that he had heard about it from a neighbor.  I said something to the effect of "Why is it any of her business how I behave in school?"

 

An uncle of mine, who ended up doing much to prod me onward towards the straight path of success, chimed in, "When you disrupt the educational process, then it is everybody's business!"  I wouldn't say that my behavior immediately reformed over night, but Uncle's words did stick with me, have remained to this day, and did positively influence me.

 

Gangs pressuring people to drop out of high school?  That is the antithesis of affirmative action!  It is DISAFFIRMATIVE ACTION!

 

Odds & Ends:

1. Timoshenko Update: This continuing saga of the killing of NYPD Detective Russel Timoshenko was commented about in Blog postings of 16 November 2008, and two on 15 July 2007 (here and here). Dexter Bostic, the gunman who actually fired the bullets at Timoshenko, was sentenced to life without parole on the murder conviction and some consecutive sentences for the attempted murder and weapons violations. Bostic's accomplice, Robert Ellis, was convicted on the weapons charge, and got the 15 year maximum. Accomplice Lee Woods got a mistrial; his retrial has started.

Bostic is still whining about the injustice of the system. The only thing that is missing is Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton complaining about how the system is biased against b-l-a-c-k people. But I really didn't expect them to show up. After all, the judge who heard the case and imposed the sentence, Hon. Plummer Lott, is also an African-American.


2. Yesterday I went to a Continuing Legal Education seminar, in order to fulfill my CLE requirements for my license to practice law. As with any other CLE course, price and timing were my primary factors in the selection. It could have been any topic, but in this case the topic related to diversity in the workplace. I fully expected all of the usual leftist liberal crap about affirmative action, and I expected a full deck of race cards to be played out.

Surprise! Diversity in the workplace was touted by most of the panelists as being the economically optimal choice (as opposed to the good progressive liberal thing to do). This is the message I have been delivering to my students for many, many years. And one African-American attorney came out point blank and stated that new associates in a law firm will not succeed if they carry around an attitude of entitlement! Much welcome evidence that Fat Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the rest of them do not necessarily represent the views of the African-American community at large.


3. Speaking of Fat Al, he's now making a big stink about a cartoon that appeared in the New York Post. I personally don't see what is so racist about it. Comparing Barack Hussein Obama to a chimpanzee? Hey, they did it to George W. Bush! I don't have the time or the inclination, but someone ought to go through all of the cartoons that have appeared in the Amsterdam News, the NYC newspaper whose target audience is the b-l-a-c-k community. If the Amsterdam News is held to the same standard to which Sharpton and the NAACP now seek to hold the N.Y. Post, then I would have no objection!