Academia

ac·a·de·mi·a: The academic community; the milieu or interests of a university, college, or academy; academe. Posts in this category pertain to the socio-political impact of academia on society, particularly regarding the liberal and elitist attitudes, philosphy, and vision of modern academia.

2010Sat13Mar

Texas Board of Education: Liberal Media Bias on Full Display

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (8) | TrackbackFiled in Social IssuesTags: Academia, Conservatism, Education, Liberalism, Media Bias

The unabashed liberal bias of the mainstream media is on full display in their reporting of the recent Texas Board of Education curriculum-change vote.

This Associated Press article (h/t Lucianne) practically hyperventilates before it even gets to the byline, with the following headline:

Texas ed board vote reflects far-right influences

One immediately wonders what sort of radical beliefs the Texas Board of Education had just voted to include in the state curriculum. "Far right influences"? The headline virtually drips with alarm. On to the body of the article, then. First:

Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic," and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.

Then:

By late Thursday night, three other Democrats seemed to sense their futility and left, leaving Republicans to easily push through amendments heralding "American exceptionalism" and the U.S. free enterprise system, suggesting it thrives best absent excessive government intervention.

Then:

Board members argued about the classification of historic periods (still B.C. and A.D., rather than B.C.E. and C.E.); whether students should be required to explain the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its impact on global politics (they will); and whether former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir should be required learning (she will).

In addition to learning the Bill of Rights, the board specified a reference to the Second Amendment right to bear arms in a section about citizenship in a U.S. government class.

Conservatives beat back multiple attempts to include hip-hop as an example of a significant cultural movement.

Numerous attempts to add the names or references to important Hispanics throughout history also were denied, inducing one amendment that would specify that Tejanos died at the Alamo alongside Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Another amendment deleted a requirement that sociology students "explain how institutional racism is evident in American society."

Oh, but it gets even worse (at least as far as the liberal media are concerned). From this NY Times article:

They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”

Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported.

And then:

Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.

Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.

Mavis B. Knight, a Democrat from Dallas, introduced an amendment requiring that students study the reasons “the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.”

Then:

In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”

Then:

In the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill, won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.

And finally:

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

So, to summarize, the following points are considered "far right" by AP:

The Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers
Not highlighting the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state
Describing the US system of government as a "constitutional republic", rather than as "democratic"
Studying the decline of the US dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard
Heralding "American exceptionalism" and the free-enterprise system
Suggesting that the free-enterprise system thrives best absent excessive government intervention
Classification of historic periods as BC and AD, rather than as BCE and CE
Requiring students to explain the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its impact on global politics
Requiring students to learn about Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir
Learning the Bill of Rights
Emphasis on the Second Amendment in a citizenship section in US Government class
Rejection of hip-hop as an example of a significant cultural movement
Not specifying that Tejanos died alongside Davy Crockett and David Bowie at the Alamo
Removal of a requirement that sociology students "explain how institutional racism is evident in American society"
Teaching the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the NRA
Including the violence of the Black Panthers along with the nonviolence of Martin Luther King, Jr. in teaching about the Civil Rights movement
Including the Congressional votes on civil rights legislation, largely supported and passed by Republicans
Studying the unintended consequences of Great Society legislation, affirmative action, and Title IX
Teaching that Germans and Italians were interned during WWII, and not only Japanese, to counter the alleged racial motive of internment policy
Requiring the inclusion of the Verona papers, which confirmed Soviet infiltration into US government, in discussions of McCarthyism
Rejecting the requirement that students study the reasons "the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others"
Studying economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek along with Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Maynard Keynes
In Sociology, teaching “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders"
The removal of Thomas Jefferson from the list of figures whose writings influenced late-18th and 19th century revolutions, and instead including Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and William Blackstone

As NewsBusters expressed: "Oh, the humanity!"

That the AP article would list the above points is far more indicative of its own bias. Such points - and opposition to them with respect to high school curriculum - can only be described as "far right" from a worldview that is so removed from the mainstream as to be itself properly described as far-left.

Apparently, to the far-left liberal media, any mention of the free-enterprise system, the Christian influence on the founding of our country; any less-than-utopian mention of liberalism; or any positive mention of the Constitution, conservatism, or Israel constitutes "far right" influence.

That the mainstream media holds such radically biased views so far removed from the mainstream is not a surprise; however, that this bias would be so blatantly on display is somewhat surprising. The AP makes absolutely no attempt whatsoever to hide is radical bias.

2009Wed29Jul

Chronicling The Lies of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (0) | TrackbackFiled in Politics, Social IssuesTags: Academia, Racism

Previously, I wrote about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. At the time that I wrote that post, I was unaware of the absolute fabrications of and lies about the events surrounding his arrest, first by Gates' lawyer, and later by Gates himself.

This American Spectator article (h/t Lucianne) thoroughly discusses Gates' two most egregious lies: that Gates was not yelling and that Crowley racially profiled Gates due to the 911 call reporting a possible break-in by two black males. However, upon reading the source material, I discovered that Gates' fabrications went even further.

In the spirit of this "teachable moment", let us consider each of these fabrications, in turn.

First, Gates lies about the condition of the front door of his house:

We flew back on a direct flight from Beijing to Newark. We arrived on Wednesday, and on Thursday I flew back to Cambridge. I was using my regular driver and my regular car service. And went to my home arriving at about 12:30 in the afternoon. My driver and I carried several bags up to the porch, and we fiddled with the door and it was jammed. I thought, well, maybe the door’s latched. So I walked back to the kitchen porch, unlocked the door and came into the house. And I unlatched the door, but it was still jammed.

Two paragraphs later, Gates :

It looked like someone’s footprint was there. So it’s possible that the door had been jimmied, that someone had tried to get in while I was in China. But for whatever reason, the lock was damaged. My driver hit the door with his shoulder and the door popped open. But the lock was permanently disfigured. My home is owned by Harvard University, and so any kind of repair work that’s needed, Harvard will come and do it. I called this person, and she was, in fact, on the line while all of this was going on.

Gates feigns surprise at and ignorance of the condition of the door, but according to the police report (page 2 of the Smoking Gun post), Gates knew that the door was damaged in a previous break-in attempt:

I then asked Gates if he would like an officer to take posession of his house key and secure his front door, which he left wide open. Gates told me that the door was un securable [sic] due to a previous break-in attempt at the residence.

The only ostensible reason for this fabrication is to establish that Gates would be entirely unsuspecting of a police officer being at his door, much less investigating a reported break-in at his residence.

In between the above two paragraphs, Gates fabricates a racially motivated 911 call:

My driver is a large black man. But from afar you and I would not have seen he was black. He has black hair and was dressed in a two-piece black suit, and I was dressed in a navy blue blazer with gray trousers and, you know, my shoes. And I love that the 911 report said that two big black men were trying to break in with backpacks on. Now that is the worst racial profiling I’ve ever heard of in my life. (Laughs.) I’m not exactly a big black man. I thought that was hilarious when I found that out, which was yesterday.

As we now know, thanks to the release of the 911 recording, the caller, Lucia Whalen, never indicated in the 911 call that either of the two men she witnessed was black. Further, thanks to what little of the police radio communication recordings that have been released, we know that Crowley neither knew nor assumed the race of the two men reported by Whalen.

Even in these first few paragraphs, Gates' lies demonstrate an attempt to direct the narrative to one in which Gates was the innocent, unsuspecting victim who was racially profiled by Sgt. Crowley. Unfortunately, this narrative completely falls apart in light of the actual facts of the situation.

Gates then lies about his initial interaction with Sgt. Crowley:

I’m saying ‘You need to send someone to fix my lock.’ All of a sudden, there was a policeman on my porch. And I thought, ‘This is strange.’ So I went over to the front porch still holding the phone, and I said ‘Officer, can I help you?’ And he said, ‘Would you step outside onto the porch.’ And the way he said it, I knew he wasn’t canvassing for the police benevolent association. All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I realized that I was in danger. And I said to him no, out of instinct. I said, ‘No, I will not.’

My lawyers later told me that that was a good move and had I walked out onto the porch he could have arrested me for breaking and entering. He said ‘I’m here to investigate a 911 call for breaking and entering into this house.’ And I said ‘That’s ridiculous because this happens to be my house. And I’m a Harvard professor.’ He says ‘Can you prove that you’re a Harvard professor?’ I said yes, I turned and closed the front door to the kitchen where I’d left my wallet, and I got out my Harvard ID and my Massachusetts driver’s license which includes my address and I handed them to him. And he’s sitting there looking at them.

Once again thanks to the police report, we know that the initial exchange was significantly different in some very important ways:

As I turned and faced the front door, I could see an older black male standing in the foyer of 47 Ware Street. I made this observation through the glass paned front door. As I stood in plain view of this man, later identified as Gates, I asked if he would step out onto the porch and speak with me. He replied, "No, I will not." He then demanded to know who I was. I told him that I was "Sgt. Crowley from the Cambridge Police" and that I was "investigating the report of a break-in in progress" at the residence. While I was making this statement, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed, "Why? Because I'm a black man in America?"

First, note that Sgt. Crowley clearly and immediately identified himself. (Later, as you will see, Gates lies about Crowley never identifiying himself, despite Gates' repeated requests.) Second, note the disparity between what Gates claims he said, and what Crowley reports that Gates said:

"That’s ridiculous because this happens to be my house. And I’m a Harvard professor."

- vs -

"Why? Because I'm a black man in America?"

These two statements might appear to be a he-said, she-said scenario; however, unfortunately for Gates, the several witnesses of the event observed Gates repeating a variation on the theme, that "this is what happens to black men in America."

The most plausible reason for this fabrication is to obfuscate the fact that Gates was the one who was initially belligerent, that Gates was the one who initially assumed a racial motive, and that it was Gates who initially escalated the situation.

Note also, Gates' assertion that his lawyers advised Gates that it was a good move not to step out onto the porch initially, as Crowley "could have arrested [him] for breaking and entering." This statement, aside from having dubious credibility, serves no purpose other than to further the narrative that Gates found himself in a hostile situation.

As I stated in my previous post, Sgt. Crowley has stated – and police officers across the country have corroborated – that during a possible break-in in progress, it is standard operating procedure to ask the homeowner to come outside of the home, in order to ensure that the person is not being held against his will and can speak freely and openly. Further, Sgt. Crowley was the first – and lone – initial respondent to the reported break-in, for which the caller reported not one, but two persons involved. It was for Sgt. Crowley’s own safety that he requested the unidentified occupant to come outside onto the porch.

Thus, once again, Gates' narrative falls apart in light of the facts.

Gates then projects, out of whole cloth, a racial motivation upon Sgt. Crowley:

Now it’s clear that he had a narrative in his head: A black man was inside someone’s house, probably a white person’s house, and this black man had broken and entered, and this black man was me.

The irony in this statement is palpable. Thus far, the only person to interject race into the situation was Gates himself. Since, as has been demonstrated, Gates' narrative of the situation was entirely false, Gates' analysis could only have been clear to Gates if he himself racially profiled Sgt. Crowley.

Having established an utterly false narrative, Gates unveils further fabrications:

So he’s looking at my ID, he asked me another question, which I refused to answer. And I said I want your name and your badge number because I want to file a complaint because of the way he had treated me at the front door. He didn’t say, ‘Excuse me, sir, is there a disturbance here, is this your house?’—he demanded that I step out on the porch, and I don’t think he would have done that if I was a white person.

But at that point, I realized that I was in danger. And so I said to him that I want your name, and I want your badge number and I said it repeatedly.

That other question, which Gates refused to answer, was, according to the police report, whether there was anyone else in the residence:

I then asked Gates if there was anyone else in the residence. While yelling, he told me that it was none of my business and accused me of being a racist police officer. I assured Gates that I was responding to a citizen's call to the Cambridge Police and that the caller was outside as we spoke. Gates seemed to ignore me and picked up a cordless telephone and dialed an unknown telephone number. As he did so, I radioed on Channel 1 that I was off in the residence with someone who appeared to be a resident but very uncooperative.

Obviously, it was entirely Crowley's business, in the conduct of an investigation of a report of a possible break-in by two men, to know if Gates was the only known person in the residence. Gates didn't simply "refuse to answer" the question, but rather, further acted belligerent in in his refusal.

Note also - as corroborated by the now-released radio communications, that Crowley indicated his belief that Gates was a resident. This one point entirely refutes Gates' fantasyland narrative from above.

Further, according to the police report, Gates' revelation that he was a Harvard professor didn't take place when Crowley initially asked Gates to step out onto the porch, but after Crowley asked Gates for identification to prove that he resided at the location:

I then overheard Gates asking the person on the other end of his telephone call to "get the chief" and "what's the chief's name?" Gates was telling the person on the other end of the call that he was dealing with a racist police officer in his home. Gates then turned to me and told me that I had no idea who I was "messing" with and that I had not heard the last of it. While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence, I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me. I asked Gates to provide me with photo identification so that I could verify that he resided at 47 Ware Street and so that I could radio my findings to ECC. Gates initially refused, demanding that I show him identification but then did supply me with a Harvard University identification card. Upon learning that Gates was affiliated with Harvard, I radioed and requested the presence of the Harvard University Police.

Once again, Gates' synopsis of the events obfuscate his own indignation, belligerence, and lack of cooperation.

The interviewer then lofts a softball to Gates, who responds with yet more fabrication:

TR: How did this escalate? What are the laws in Cambridge that govern this kind of interaction? Did you ever think you were in the wrong?

HLG: The police report says I was engaged in loud and tumultuous behavior. That’s a joke. Because I have a severe bronchial infection which I contracted in China and for which I was treated and have a doctor’s report from the Peninsula hotel in Beijing. So I couldn’t have yelled. I can’t yell even today, I’m not fully cured.

Once again, unfortunately for Gates, both the radio communication recordings and the eyewitness accounts corroborate that Gates was yelling.

This fabrication is obviously intended to support Gates' assertion that the police report was "false" and "the police report was an act of pure fiction. One designed to protect him, Sgt. Crowley, from unethical behavior."

And yet again, the facts of the situation - corroborated by the police, the eye-witnesses, and the radio communication recordings - entirely refute that assertion.

Gates then continues his fabrications, in explaining how the situation escalated:

It escalated as follows: I kept saying to him, ‘What is your name, and what is your badge number?’ and he refused to respond. I asked him three times, and he refused to respond. And then I said, ‘You’re not responding because I’m a black man, and you’re a white officer.’ That’s what I said. He didn’t say anything. He turned his back to me and turned back to the porch. And I followed him. I kept saying, “I want your name, and I want your badge number.”

As stated above, the second thing Crowley said to Gates was that he was:

"Sgt. Crowley from the Cambridge Police" and that I was "investigating the report of a break-in in progress" at the residence.

Gates claims that Crowley "didn't say anything" and that he "turned his back to [him] and turned back to the porch." Unfortunately for Gates, the police report (as corroborated by Officer Figueroa) refutes that claim:

With the Harvard University identification in hand, I radioed my findings to ECC on channel two and prepared to leave. Gates again asked me for my name which I began to provide. Gates began to yell over my spoken words by accusing me of being a racist police officer and leveling threats that he wasn't someone to mess with. At some point during this exchange, I became aware that Off. Figueroa was standing behind me. When Gates asked a third time for my name, I explained that I had provided it at his request two separate times. Gates continued to yell at me. I told Gates that I was leaving the residence and that if he had any other questions regarding the matter, I would speak with him outside the residence.

As I began walking through the foyer toward the front door, I could hear Gates demanding my name. I again told Gates that I would speak with him outside. My reason for wanting to leave the residence was that Gates was yelling very loud and the acoustics of the kitchen and the foyer were making it difficult for me to transmit pertinent information to ECC and other responding units. His reply was, "ya [sic], I'll speak with your mama outside." When I left the residence, I noted that there were several Cambridge and Harvard University police officers assembled on the sidewalk in front of the residence. Additionally, the caller, Ms. Walen and at least seven unidentified passers-by were looking in the direction of Gates, who had followed me out of the residence.

Thus, Gates' narrative that Crowley was uncooperative and unresponsive falls apart. Gates insists that he requested Crowley's identification several times but was never answered. In reality, Crowley answered Gates' requests twice, and then indicated that he had provided the information twice already. Further, Gates continued to escalate the situation, with his childish references to Crowley's mother.

Also, far from turning and leaving without a word, Crowley indicated that he was leaving.

Note, very importantly: the entire situation could have ended at this exact moment - and it would have ended, had Gates not followed Crowley outside of the house. Gates was responsible for any escalation up to this point, and was responsible for the escalation that followed.

Gates then once again fabricates out of whole cloth the events surrounding his actual arrest:

It looked like an ocean of police had gathered on my front porch. There were probably half a dozen police officers at this point. The mistake I made was I stepped onto the front porch and asked one of his colleagues for his name and badge number. And when I did, the same officer said, ‘Thank you for accommodating our request. You are under arrest.’ And he handcuffed me right there. It was outrageous. My hands were behind my back I said, ‘I’m handicapped. I walk with a cane. I can’t walk to the squad car like this.’ There was a huddle among the officers; there was a black man among them. They removed the cuffs from the back and put them around the front.

A crowd had gathered, and as they were handcuffing me and walking me out to the car, I said, ‘Is this how you treat a black man in America?’

Unfortunately for Gates, that "ocean of police" were witnesses, and corroborated Crowley's version of the events, which are as follows:

As I descended the stairs to the sidewalk, Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him. Due to the tumultuous manner Gates had exhibited in his residence as well as his continued tumultuous behavior outside the residence, in view of the public, I warned Gates that he was becoming disorderly. Gates ignored my warning and continued to yell, which drew the attention of both the police officers and citizens, who appeared surprised and alarmed by Gates' outburst. For a second time I warned Gates to calm down while I withdrew my department issued handcuffs from their carrying case. Gates again ignored my warning and continued to yell at me. It was at this time that I informed Gates that he was under arrest. I then stepped up the stairs, onto the porch and attempted to place handcuffs on Gates. Gates initially resisted my attempt to handcuff him, yelling that he was "disabled" and would fall without his cane. After the handcuffs were properly applied, Gates complained that they were too tight. I ordered Off. Ivey, who was among the responding officers, to handcuff Gates with his arms in front of him for his comfort while I secured a can for Gates from within the residence.

As is now usual, Gates' comments are at odds with reality. Gates was not arrested simply for stepping onto the porch. He was not told, "Thank you for accommodating our request. You are under arrest." Rather, Gates was arrested for continuing to act in a disorderly manner, after repeated warnings that he would be arrested if he did not calm down.

After a question and answer regarding his experience in jail, the interview follows up with this question and answer, with more of Gates' specious assertions:

TR: How has this resonated within the academic community at Harvard? I know that Larry Bobo and Charles Ogletree, also black men, have expressed dismay. President Barack Obama has talked about how difficult it is to hail a cab, even as an elected official. Is there an irony to your notoriety and the incident?

HLG: There is such a level of outrage that’s been expressed to me. I’ve received thousands of e-mails and Facebook messages; the blogs are going crazy; my colleagues at Harvard are outraged. Allen Counter called me from the Nobel Institute in Stockholm to express his outrage. But really it’s not about me—it’s that anybody black can be treated this way, just arbitrarily arrested out of spite. And the man who arrested me did it out of spite, because he knew I was going to file a report because of his behavior.

He didn’t follow proper police procedure! You can’t just presume I’m guilty and arrest me. He’s supposed to ask me if I need help. He just presumed that I was guilty, and he presumed that I was guilty because I was black. There was no doubt about that.

Where to begin? I'll leave aside Gates' Obama-esque name-dropping and "it's not about me" song-and-dance. Gates' comments here about Sgt. Crowley border on libelous. Gates says:

He didn’t follow proper police procedure!

When in reality, Crowley followed proper police procedure, to the letter.

Gates says:

You can’t just presume I’m guilty and arrest me. He’s supposed to ask me if I need help. He just presumed that I was guilty, and he presumed that I was guilty because I was black. There was no doubt about that.

When in reality, Crowley assumed that Gates was innocent (of the potential break-in at the residence):

I radioed on Channel 1 that I was off in the residence with someone who appeared to be a resident but very uncooperative.

...

While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence, I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me.

So what are the options? Is Gates paranoid? Is Gates himself a racist, profiling Sgt. Crowley because he is a white police officer? Is Gates a race-baiter, taking advantage of the situation to create a racial incident where not existed?

I'll let his own words speak for him:

TR: Does this put to rest the idea that America is post-racial?

HLG: I thought the whole idea that America was post-racial and post-black was laughable from the beginning. There is no more important event in the history of black people in America than the election of Barack Obama. I cried when he was elected, and I cried at his inauguration, but that does not change the percentage of black men in prison, the percentage of black men harassed by racial profiling. It does not change the number of black children living near the poverty line. Which is almost a similar percentage as were under poverty when Martin Luther King was assassinated.

There haven’t been fundamental structural changes in America. There’s been a very important symbolic change and that is the election of Barack Obama. But the only black people who truly live in a post-racial world in America all live in a very nice house on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

And so, the truth comes out in the end. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is nothing more than a racist and a race-baiter, living in an America perverted by his own racial prejudices, insistence on living in the past, and failure to grasp that which makes America great: the ability of anyone regardless of race or circumstance, to make of his life whatever he is willing to dream big enough, and to work hard enough, to make of it.

That his prejudice and bigotry have so distorted his view of this situation would be pitiable, were he not in a position to influence ostensibly our best and brightest young people. Sadly, the only people for whom America isn't post-racial are race-baiters like Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (and Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, et al), and those who are brainwashed by the hatred, defeatism, and victim mentality they teach.

In the words (H/T: Lucianne comments thread) of Booker T. Washington (My Larger Education, Being Chapters From My Experience, 1911):

There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do do not want to lose their jobs.

2007Mon24Sep

Now Reading: Good Calories, Bad Calories

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (7) | TrackbackFiled in Reviews, ScienceTags: Academia, Books, Health/Nutrition, Low Carb, Media Bias, Weight Loss

I got a very pleasant surprise today when I came home for lunch and found out that my pre-order of Gary Taubes' new book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, had arrived!

Here is the publisher's description:

In this groundbreaking book, the result of seven years of research in every science connected with the impact of nutrition on health, award-winning science writer Gary Taubes shows us that almost everything we believe about the nature of a healthy diet is wrong.

For decades we have been taught that fat is bad for us, carbohydrates better, and that the key to a healthy weight is eating less and exercising more. Yet with more and more people acting on this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Taubes argues persuasively that the problem lies in refined carbohydrates (white flour, sugar, easily digested starches) and sugars–via their dramatic and longterm effects on insulin, the hormone that regulates fat accumulation–and that the key to good health is the kind of calories we take in, not the number. There are good calories, and bad ones.

Good Calories

These are from foods without easily digestible carbohydrates and sugars. These foods can be eaten without restraint.

Meat, fish, fowl, cheese, eggs, butter, and non-starchy vegetables.

Bad Calories

These are from foods that stimulate excessive insulin secretion and so make us fat and increase our risk of chronic disease—all refined and easily digestible carbohydrates and sugars. The key is not how much vitamins and minerals they contain, but how quickly they are digested. (So apple juice or even green vegetable juices are not necessarily any healthier than soda.)

Bread and other baked goods, potatoes, yams, rice, pasta, cereal grains, corn, sugar (sucrose and high fructose corn syrup), ice cream, candy, soft drinks, fruit juices, bananas and other tropical fruits, and beer.

Taubes traces how the common assumption that carbohydrates are fattening was abandoned in the 1960s when fat and cholesterol were blamed for heart disease and then –wrongly–were seen as the causes of a host of other maladies, including cancer. He shows us how these unproven hypotheses were emphatically embraced by authorities in nutrition, public health, and clinical medicine, in spite of how well-conceived clinical trials have consistently refuted them. He also documents the dietary trials of carbohydrate-restriction, which consistently show that the fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.

With precise references to the most significant existing clinical studies, he convinces us that there is no compelling scientific evidence demonstrating that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease, that salt causes high blood pressure, and that fiber is a necessary part of a healthy diet. Based on the evidence that does exist, he leads us to conclude that the only healthy way to lose weight and remain lean is to eat fewer carbohydrates or to change the type of the carbohydrates we do eat, and, for some of us, perhaps to eat virtually none at all.

The 11 Critical Conclusions of Good Calories, Bad Calories:

Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, does not cause heart disease.

Carbohydrates do, because of their effect on the hormone insulin. The more easily-digestible and refined the carbohydrates and the more fructose they contain, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.

Sugars—sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup specifically—are particularly harmful. The glucose in these sugars raises insulin levels; the fructose they contain overloads the liver.

Refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are also the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, and the other common chronic diseases of modern times.

Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior.

Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller.

Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry.

We get fat because of an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism. More fat is stored in the fat tissue than is mobilized and used for fuel. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this imbalance.

Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated, we stockpile calories as fat. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and burn it for fuel.

By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.

The fewer carbohydrates we eat, the leaner we will be.

Good Calories, Bad Calories is a tour de force of scientific investigation–certain to redefine the ongoing debate about the foods we eat and their effects on our health.

This book is destined for greatness, and will make waves in the world of nutrition. I will have a review, once I have finished reading.

2005Tue10May

Research, Advertisement, or Ethical Statement?

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Really interesting little tid-bit from the world of academia:

If you don't like getting your paper rejected before it even reaches peer review, ask David Egilman how to get around the process: In what may be an unprecedented move, when the Brown University researcher's paper was recently rejected from an occupational medicine journal, he simply bought two pages of ad space and printed the entire article in the same journal.

The article brings up some potentially thought-provoking questions concerning ties between researchers and their sponsors in industry, but doesn't really try to make a case either way. Of course, combined with other recent reports of researcher unpropriety, people might start asking questions...