affirmative action – Lee Duigon

When It Starts Raining Airplanes

leeduigon(patty)February 27, 2023

Israeli flight to Turkey delayed after plane crash photos sent to passengers' phones | The Times of Israel

“And they said I couldn’t hit the ocean!”

United Airlines has set itself a goal: 50% of its airline pilots have to be women or [trumpets, please] People Of Color. Whether they can actually fly the plane or not, who cares? It’s affirmative action!

A few days ago Tucker Carlson ruffled some feathers by alluding to a Boeing 767 cargo plane crash in 2019 (https://thenewamerican.com/equity-over-safety-did-an-affirmative-action-pilot-crash-a-plane/). The pilot, originally from Antigua, did poorly on his tests, displaying “a history of acting impulsively” and “an inability to remain calm during stressful situations,” a federal investigator said.

So half the time he jumped the gun and half the time he froze, they hired him anyway because it’s virtue signalling… and he crashed the plane.

Wait’ll in starts raining airplanes. But who cares? The jidrools who make the rules all fly on private jets anyhow–what’s an airliner full of plebs to them?

Live by insane public policies, die by insane public policies.

You Just Can’t Win

leeduigon(patty)February 1, 2023

9,510 Wwe Wrestling Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images

Maybe it really is a metaphor for life.

A friend of mine, back in the 1970s, got a grant from the university to publish a magazine called “Popular Culture.” The first thing we did was to hold an organizational meeting, open to all. Forty or fifty people showed up for it.

The next thing was to create an editorial staff. “We don’t know any of you,” we told our audience, “so what we’ll do is this: Anyone who wants to be an editor can be an editor.” Six or seven people took us up on that.

My friend was troubled. “We don’t have enough black people on our editorial board,” he said.

“But we offered editorial positions to anyone who wanted one,” I said. “We rejected no one! What could be fairer than that?”

But he was still unhappy with it. “If you’re going to turn this into some kind of affirmative action exercise, you can count me out,” I said. So we went with what we had and managed to generate two issues before my friend, now a publisher, lost interest and let the whole thing fold.

I thought it was a pretty cool magazine. We had articles on professional wrestling as a metaphor for life (my article), Carlos Castaneda (remember him?), Kojak, game shows, etc. The editors did their best, and it was pretty good.

Nowadays I suppose we’d be branded White Supremacists and the self-appointed people’s tribunal would come gunning for us.

Lesson: You just can’t please some people; and it’s a waste of time to try.

Court to California: No, You Can’t Do That (Plus a Personal Experience)

leeduigon(patty)May 18, 2022

“Case closed, take a hike!”

A Superior Court judge in Los Angeles has struck down California’s forced “diversity” law, which required corporate boards of directors to seat up to four women before the year is out (https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/california-law-requiring-women-company-boards-struck-down-2022-05-16/).

The judge found the measure blatantly unconstitutional, violating the requirement of equal treatment under the law. Judicial Watch called it one of many “unprecedented attacks on anti-discrimination law.”

This reminds me of an incident from way back in the 1970s. Some of us received a grant from Michigan State to start a magazine. To recruit editors and writers, we held a meeting, open to all, at which anyone who applied for a position would be given one–to show what he or she could do. Point is, we were turning no one away.

After the meeting, the guy who started the project said to me, “This is very bad! We have no black people on our editorial board. I don’t think we should publish, under the circumstances.”

Doh! “But Jove,” I protested. “There were black people here tonight. Any one of them could have had a position for the asking. Is it our fault none of them asked? What do you want to do–force them?” He grumbled a lot, but didn’t have an answer.

Doubtless this California court ruling will trudge its way to the Supreme Court, and then we can have more wackos demonstrating in from of judges’ homes. The fact is that “laws” like this are always tantamount to the same discrimination they’re supposed to put a stop to.

Haven’t we now got a vice president whose one and only qualification for the job was that she’s a Black Woman and that’s what they wanted? I mean, that was the only thing they wanted?

Well, for the time being a judge has told the state of California, “No, you can’t do that.”

Do We Need Affirmative Action Oscars?

leeduigon(patty)January 23, 2016

Every year the Motion Picture Academy gives out Oscars for the least awful movies. This year all the libs and the racial grievance industry are complaining because no major nominations went to Our Cherished Minorities–no Least Bad Picture, no Least Bad Actor, no Least Bad Screenplay, etc.

But the Academy also snubbed a perfectly lovely movie now showing at the Sundance Film Festival. Swiss Army Man ( http://variety.com/2016/film/news/daniel-radcliffe-farting-corpse-swiss-army-man-1201686756/ ) is all about a farting corpse. Plus discussions of topics that I really must not mention here.

Surely it would be a better film if some African-American actors were shoehorned into the cast to create Diversity.

Y’know what we need? Affirmative action Oscars, that’s what. Simply determine a formula for what proportion of nominees and award winners must belong to this particular Cherished Minority and dole out nominations and awards accordingly. And then other Cherished Minorities can get in on it, too–and we will know in advance, every year, which actors and which films, etc., will be nominated and win awards.

Awards like, for instance, Least Lousy Supporting Transgendered African-American Undocumented Immigrant and Visually Challenged Actor in a Wimmins Climate Change Social Justice Drama. It has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?

P.S.–Oh, wait, I know! What could be more simple. Just do what libs do in the public schools and recreation programs: everybody gets an Oscar! The same way everybody gets a trophy just for showing up. What could be better for their self-esteem?

End of problem!