Last Monday night, BBC2 aired of one of the weirdest and most horribly gripping documentariesI've ever watched.

ComedianDavid Baddiel presented Confronting Holocaust Denial and even before the programme went out, people were complaining that he was "giving a platform" to Holocaust deniers.

The controversy went back and forth in the English papers and everyone took a side.

That the Holocaust happened is, of course, not up for debate. But Holocaust denial is something that should be debated wherever it is confronted.

As I've repeatedly argued in this column, the best way to destroy a stupid argument is not to suppress it, as some believe, but to debate it in the open and expose its flaws for all the world to see.

Baddiel, the son of Jews who fled Nazi Germany, was determined to explore the motivations behind this most pernicious of lies, while others argued that giving these odious people a stage would simply encourage people to follow the deniers.

As he travelled through eastern Europe, it became clear that denial remains strong in some formerly occupied countries because they simply don't want to confront their own role in the single greatest crime in human history.

In a weird way, the motivations of some of those people made a degree of horrible sense - if you think your grandfather was a hero of the partisans and fought against the Nazis, would you really want to know that he was actually a collaborator who forced Jews on to cattle trucks?

That's not to excuse this position, but at least it comes from a place of very human frailty - the reluctance to condemn your grandparents.

But the other form of Holocaust denial, the ideological one, is far more dangerous.

Baddiel met Deborah Lipstadt, who beat the Holocaust denying historian David Irving in a famous libel trial. Her lawyer argued that giving any denier airtime was simply giving them publicity and urged the comedian to refrain from doing so.

Baddiel refused, so who was he going to meet? An unreconstructed neo-Nazi? Irving, or one of his supporters?

Um, no. In fact - and this is where the weird bit kicks in - he travelled to Ennis in Clare, of all places, to meet Dermot Mulqueen, the man arrested in 2015 for putting an axe through a TV to protest against Holocaust Memorial Day - as you do.

The decision to interview Mulqueen was an inspired one. Rather than giving oxygen to hatred, he gave Mulqueen enough rope to hang his ideas. And what batty ideas they were.

He claimed that Auschwitz was a holiday camp with swimming pools and bakeries. He asserted that it was impossible to burn that many bodies (it wasn't). He even repeated the old blood libel that Jews eat Christian babies. He also said one of the reasons why the Holocaust never happened was because Jewish people drive German cars.

Funny enough, Sarah Silverman - when she was still funny - used to have a song called 'Jewish People Driving German Cars.'

Not that our hero would know that. I doubt he spends much time listening to potty-mouthed Jewish comedians.

Rather than being confronted by some sinister but strangely convincing Revisionist, Baddiel met someone who came across as deeply sad and truly pathetic.

Rather than being intrigued by his ideas, anyone watching would have been forced into laughter.

Rather than taking on 'the Jew' and winning, Mulqueen was exposed as complete buffoon.

While there's nothing funny about his ideas, he came across as laughably weak and frightened, happy to spend his days immersed in conspiracy theories - the perfect way for an idiot to think he's an intellectual.

I've interviewed Holocaust survivors in Ireland, and I've dined with many of them in Israel. You just sit there in stunned silence and hope that you don't break down as they talk about what happened to them. Even listening to them is a difficult experience, and the scale of the horrors they endured is just too incomprehensible for the rest of us to process.

But here's the thing - did Mulqueen make me ashamed to be Irish? That was the response from many Irish people who had watched, jaws agape, as he spoke about the 'Holohoax'.

People were quick to express their 'shame' and 'embarrassment'. Numerous messages were sent to Baddiel from Irish people apologising and expressing their revulsion.

That's an undoubtedly sincere reaction but it's the wrong one.

Mulqueen represents nobody but himself. He doesn't speak for the rest of us because the rest of us look at him with scorn and contempt.

In fact, expressions of collective shame feed into the idea of collective responsibility - and we all know how that ends up.

But Baddiel proved his point - by dragging these people away from their chat rooms and exposing them to facts, they always make fools of themselves.

Remember - you should never make a martyr out of a moron.

Link:

Should we suppress Holocaust deniers - or expose them to scorn? - Independent.ie

HONEY, WE MOLESTED THE KIDS!

I wonder if any liberals are re-thinking their insistence that the Boy Scouts allow gay men to take 13-year-old boys on overnight camping trips.

HEADLINE: Boy Scouts Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the Face of Thousands of Child Abuse Allegations

The Boy Scouts of America have long been on the lefts hate list. Any organization that has the temerity to train young men in the virtues of integrity, patriotism and self-reliance is putting itself on the fighting side of liberals!

At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, a little group of Boy Scouts took the stage as part of the opening ceremony and were promptly booed by the delegates.

For decades, the BSA has fended off lawsuits demanding that they embrace the holy trinity of Gs: girls, gays and godless atheists. (If only it had occurred to the plaintiffs to start their own organizations! They could have given them names like The Girl Scouts.)

Why would any liberal want to join an organization that was, according to them, sexist, Bible-thumping and bigoted? They didnt. The lawsuits were kill shots.

For the left, whats not to hate about the Boy Scouts? Their oath is: On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

Nearly 200 NASA astronauts were Boy Scouts. The great outdoorsman, Teddy Roosevelt, was such a BSA booster than he was made the one and only Chief Scout Citizen, a scout for life.

A Louis Harris & Associates study in 1996 found that men who had been scouts placed a higher value on honesty than those who had not.

But now the lawsuits have killed them. Congratulations, Democrats, The New York Times and corporate America. (I hope all their future employees steal from them, after being raised on Grand Theft Auto instead of the Boy Scout oath.)

From the beginning, BSA has had to deal with child molesters eagerly signing up to go camping with 13-year-old boys in isolated areas away from all observation.

Within a decade of its 1910 founding, the BSA began keeping internal files on ineligible scouting volunteers, known as the perversion files.

Scout leaders were not to be alone with boys and, starting in 1988, all adult applicants were subjected to aggressive background screening. The organization promptly removed any scout leaders based on mere suspicion and alerted law enforcement in about a third of the cases.

Nonetheless, between 1970 and 1991, up to .04% of Boy Scouts may have been molested. Thats about 2,000 out of several million boys.

Given all of this, what sort of escaped mental patient would demand that the Boy Scouts admit openly gay scout leaders?

Yes, we know most gays arent child molesters. How could we not? Its part of our secular catechism, along with the one about most Muslims not being terrorists and most immigrants not being criminals.

But men who molest boys are a small slice infinitesimal really! within a larger category known as gay. Its not two totally different things, like an architect and a dentist. Some men like blondes. Some like brunettes. But theyre all within the category of heterosexual.

No parent is going to send their young sons camping alone in the woods with an openly gay man for the same reason they wouldnt send their adolescent daughters to be alone in the woods with an openly heterosexual man.

And now the BSA has been whiplashed into bankruptcy by liberals demanding, on one hand, that the scouts allow gays to be troop leaders and, on the other hand, filing lawsuits accusing the scouts of not taking strong enough measures to prevent gay troop leaders from molesting boys.

Couldnt liberals get together and decide for themselves whether the Boy Scouts should have been more aggressive in preventing child molestation or less?

For their defense witnesses, the Boy Scouts should call New York Times editors, Democratic politicians and corporate CEOs.

Back in 1980, when a gay guy lost his lawsuit against BSA for dropping him as a scout leader, Wells Fargo, the United Way of San Francisco, Levi Strauss and the Bank of America cut off funding to the organization. San Francisco and Oakland schools prohibited the scouts from using their facilities on weekdays.

After the Supreme Courts disturbingly narrow 5-4 decision in 2000 holding that the Boy Scouts could not be forced to admit gay scout leaders, the Times denounced the decision in an editorial, calling the courts ruling one of its lowest moments of the term.

The following month, the Times ethicist, Randy Cohen, advised a reader to pull her son out of the Cub Scouts, saying it was the ethical thing to do. The ethicist explained: Just as one is honor bound to quit an organization that excludes African-Americans, so you should withdraw from scouting as long as it rejects homosexuals.

Also in response to the Supreme Courts decision, Chase Manhattan Bank, Textron Inc. and dozens more United Way chapters withdrew millions of dollars in contributions. More cities dropped their support of the Boy Scouts.

In his pre-Super Bowl TV interview in 2013, President Barack Obama was still harping on the Boy Scouts refusal to allow gay scoutmasters: Gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does.

On CNN, host Carol Costello haughtily informed a guest opposed to gay scoutmasters, Well, Ill just say that the American Psychological Association has studied the issue that you just mentioned. Homosexuals arent any more likely to molest kids than straight men.

Throughout the lefts 30-year assault on the Boy Scouts for discriminating against gays, the Catholic Church was embroiled in its own molestation crisis. More than 80% of the molester priests were accused of victimizing teenage boys.

Instead of saying, Oh I see what the Boy Scouts are doing, liberals responded to the gay sex-abuse crisis in the priesthood by blaming ... celibacy!

Isnt it a thought crime to question whether sexual preference is determined at birth? But liberals not only believed gayness was the result of an adult lifestyle choice celibacy but they knew how to cure it: Allow priests to marry!

Since the one thing we know is that men molesting boys has nothing to do with being gay, I guess this time its camping that causes sodomy.

Ann Coulter is the writer of 12 best-selling books,

including In Trump We Trust.

More here:

ANN COULTER:The Boy Scouts have long been on the left's hate list - MDJOnline.com

I wonder if any liberals are re-thinking their insistence that the Boy Scouts allow gay men to take 13-year-old boys on overnight camping trips.

HEADLINE:Boy Scouts Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the Face of Thousands of Child Abuse Allegations

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have long been on the lefts hate list. Any organization that has the temerity to train young men in the virtues of integrity, patriotism, and self-reliance is putting itself on the fighting side of liberals!

At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, a little group of Boy Scouts took the stage as part of the opening ceremony and were promptly booed by the delegates.

For decades, the BSA has fended off lawsuits demanding that they embrace the holy trinity of Gs: girls, gays, and godless atheists. (If only it had occurred to the plaintiffs to start their own organizations! They could have given them names like The Girl Scouts.)

Why would any liberal want to join an organization that was, according to them, sexist, Bible-thumping, and bigoted? They didnt. The lawsuits were kill shots.

For the left, whats not to hate about the Boy Scouts? Their oath is: On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

Nearly 200 NASA astronauts were Boy Scouts. The great outdoorsman, Teddy Roosevelt, was such a BSA booster than he was made the one and only Chief Scout Citizen, a scout for life.

A Louis Harris & Associates study in 1996 found that men who had been scouts placed a higher value on honesty than those who had not.

But now the lawsuits have killed them. Congratulations, Democrats, the New York Times, and corporate America. (I hope all their future employees steal from them, after being raised on Grand Theft Auto instead of the Boy Scout oath.)

From the beginning, BSA has had to deal with child molesters eagerly signing up to go camping with 13-year-old boys in isolated areas away from all observation.

Within a decade of its 1910 founding, the BSA began keeping internal files on ineligible scouting volunteers, known as the perversion files.

Scout leaders were not to be alone with boys and, starting in 1988, all adult applicants were subjected to aggressive background screening. The organization promptly removed any scout leaders based on mere suspicion and alerted law enforcement in about a third of the cases.

Nonetheless, between 1970 and 1991, up to .04 percent of Boy Scouts may have been molested. Thats about 2,000 out of several million boys.

Given all of this, what sort of escaped mental patient would demand that the Boy Scouts admit openly gay scout leaders?

Yes, we know most gays arent child molesters. How could we not? Its part of our secular catechism, along with the one about most Muslims not being terrorists and most immigrants not being criminals.

But men who molest boys are a small slice infinitesimal really! within a larger category known as gay. Its not two totally different things, like an architect and a dentist. Some men like blondes. Some like brunettes. But theyre all within the category of heterosexual.

No parent is going to send their young sons camping alone in the woods with an openly gay man for the same reason they wouldnt send their adolescent daughters to be alone in the woods with an openly heterosexual man.

And now the BSA has been whiplashed into bankruptcy by liberals demanding, on one hand, that the scouts allow gays to be troop leaders and, on the other hand, filing lawsuits accusing the scouts of not taking strong enough measures to prevent gay troop leaders from molesting boys.

Couldnt liberals get together and decide for themselves whether the Boy Scouts should have been more aggressive in preventing child molestation or less?

For their defense witnesses, the Boy Scouts should call New York Times editors, Democratic politicians, and corporate CEOs.

Back in 1980, when a gay guy lost his lawsuit against BSA for dropping him as a scout leader, Wells Fargo, the United Way of San Francisco, Levi Strauss, and the Bank of America cut off funding to the organization. San Francisco and Oakland schools prohibited the scouts from using their facilities on weekdays.

After the Supreme Courts disturbingly narrow 5-4 decision in 2000 holding that the Boy Scouts could not be forced to admit gay scout leaders, the Times denounced the decision in an editorial, calling the courts ruling one of its lowest moments of the term.

The following month, the Times ethicist, Randy Cohen, advised a reader to pull her son out of the Cub Scouts, saying it was the ethical thing to do. The ethicist explained: Just as one is honor bound to quit an organization that excludes African-Americans, so you should withdraw from scouting as long as it rejects homosexuals.

Also in response to the Supreme Courts decision, Chase Manhattan Bank, Textron Inc., and dozens more United Way chapters withdrew millions of dollars in contributions. More cities dropped their support of the Boy Scouts.

In his pre-Super Bowl TV interview in 2013, President Barack Obama was still harping on the Boy Scouts refusal to allow gay scoutmasters: Gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does.

On CNN, host Carol Costello haughtily informed a guest opposed to gay scoutmasters, Well, Ill just say that the American Psychological Association has studied the issue that you just mentioned. Homosexuals arent any more likely to molest kids than straight men.

The defense rests.

Throughout the lefts 30-year assault on the Boy Scouts for discriminating against gays, the Catholic Church was embroiled in its own molestation crisis. More than 80 percent of the molester priests were accused of victimizing teenage boys.

Instead of saying, Oh I see what the Boy Scouts are doing, liberals responded to the gay sex-abuse crisis in the priesthood by blaming celibacy!

Isnt it a thought crime to question whether sexual preference is determined at birth? But liberals not only believed gayness was the result of an adult lifestyle choice celibacy but they knew how to cure it: Allow priests to marry!

Since the one thing we know is that men molesting boys has nothing to do with being gay, I guess this time its camping that causes sodomy.

.

View original post here:

Ann Coulter: Honey, We Molested the Kids! - Breitbart

Jewish UC Berkeley student senator Milton Zerman resigned Wednesday night in protest after a resolution he introduced to condemn a controversial Palestinian photo display was voted down.

In a letter, Zerman said the decision alienated a vast majority of Jewish students, drained the legitimacy and moral authority of the student government and revealed a culture of anti-Semitism at the university.

It was the right decision to resign, Zerman wrote in a text message to J. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get elected to UC Berkeleys student government as an openly Zionist Jewish student. But its come to a point where the ASUC is no longer an institution I can affiliate myself with in good conscience.

The resolution, struck down on Feb. 10 by the ASUC External and University Affairs Committee in a 4-1 vote, called for condemning a photo display that includes photos of two Palestinian women involved in deadly civilian bombings and hijackings of planes going to and from Israel.

The photos are displayed in the shared office space of Bears for Palestine, a campus group that promotes Palestinian history and culture.

In his resignation letter, which was shared with other members of the student senate, Zerman said he will now refocus his efforts on helping more Jews and moderates get elected to the Associated Students of the University of California.

Zerman, a member of the Berkeley College Republicans and Tikvah: Students for Israel, has himself been a source of controversy. At a Feb. 3 vote for his resolution, which was later tabled after the meeting devolved into chaos, Zerman described the Bears for Palestine as godless, according to the Daily Californian.

Though the resolution had the support of some pro-Israel students, a number of Jewish students distanced themselves from Zerman.

In an opinion piece published yesterday in the Daily Californian, Jewish student Josh Burg said Zermans resolution was ironic considering some of his past activities, including last November when Zerman urged students to attend a campus lecture by conservative media pundit Ann Coulter. Coulter has peddled in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, Burg wrote, calling Jews globalists and claiming they are encouraging Muslim immigration to the United States.

Burg described Zermans assertion that Jewish students feel alienated by the vote as ridiculous.

Zerman has been able to co-opt representation of the Jewish community, Burg said in an interview. From the very beginning, the Jewish community wasnt behind him.

Burg also pushed back on Zermans claim that UC Berkeley is anti-Semitic. Jewish life on this campus is thriving in many ways, he said.

Some Jews have been oddly comfortable cozying up to right-wing voices, he continued. What is actually dangerous to Jews? Are a few pictures on the third floor of a room dangerous? Or is cozying up to Ann Coulter? There needs to be a much larger conversation about our values.

On Tuesday night, Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ responded more fully to the turmoil, issuing two nearly identical letters written to both sides those who opposed the resolution and those who supported it.

Christ wrote that the display of Palestinian militants who killed unarmed Jewish civilians is an affront to our Principles of Community. In the next sentence, she denounced an inflammatory comment made by a pro-Israel student during one of ASUCs meetings.

See the article here:

UC Berkeley student senator resigns over resolution against Bears for Palestine - The Jewish News of Northern California

It is party time! Mardi Gras is here and this weekend you are invited no, expected to go to at least one carnival season shindig.

If you're feeling the need for beads, New Times has scoped out a few events sure to offer plenty of fantastical fun.

Of course, there are more and sometimes more fun things to do than party. February is Black History Month, with 29 days this year full of interesting events and activities.

Check out this weekend's top things-to-do picks.

If you've ever been to Mardi Gras, on Bourbon Street, you know what a crazy and pretty much adults-only good time it can be. This weekend, that side of New Orleans comes tothe Wharf Fort Lauderdalewith the events venue's first Mardi Gras Riverfront Festival. The three-day party, running Friday through Sunday, will have Mardi Gras-style entertainment and musical performances it wouldn't be Mardi Gras without brass bands along with specialty New Orleans-inspired cocktails, contests and prizes, and more beads than you need. RSVP online, and you will receive complimentary Mardi Gras swag at check-in. Noon to 3 a.m. on Friday, February 21, and Saturday, February 22; noon to midnight on Sunday, February 23, at the Wharf Fort Lauderdale, 20 W. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; whartftl.com. Admission is free.

Jimmie Walker and Michael Winslow bring their comedy stylings to Pompano Beach this weekend.

Courtesy of Pompano Beach Cultural Center

Pompano Stand-Up Liveon Friday night will feature comedians Jimmie JJ Walker and Michael Winslow. Walker, who gained fame on the 1970s hit show Good Times, and Winslow, who starred in the Police Academy franchise, team up to reprise their comedy special We Are Still Here."

Walker burst into America's living rooms playing JJ on Norman Lear's iconic black-focused sit-com that debuted in 1974, and is often remembered using his signature catchphrase "Dyn-o-mite!" Walker has been outspoken some would say out there in recent years, criticizing former President Barack Obama, dating right-wing blond bomb-thrower Ann Coulter, and for his vocal support of Donald Trump. Walker still tours nationwide. He became such a major celebrity in the 1970s that Time named him Comedian of the Decade. Winslow is an actor, beatboxer, and comedian known for his ability to make realistic sounds using only his voice. He is best known for his role as Larvell Jones in all seven Police Academy films. If you haven't attended a Pompano Stand-Up Live show before, just know there's a two-drink minimum. 8 p.m. Friday, February 21, at Pompano Beach Culture Center, 50 W. Atlantic Blvd.; pompanobeacharts.org. Tickets are $40 via tickets.ccpompano.org.

As the comedians' appearance coincides with Black History Month, Walker will also hold a "Live on the Set" session from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Pompano Beach Cultural Center. Tickets are $10 via eventbrite.com.

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. One thing Big Bad Voodoo Daddy has is plenty of swing. Formed in 1989 in Southern California as a two-man lounge act, the now 12 or so member band brings its swing and jazz revival show to Parker Playhouse on Friday. Their catchy, often bluesy tunes include "Save My Soul" and fast-paced swing hits like Why Me? Mr. Pinstripe Suit will get you on your feet even if you don't know a thing about swing. One of my favs is Daddy's cover of Cab Calloway's Minnie the Moocher. They have played venues ranging from the Hollywood Bowl to Lincoln Center and have appeared with symphony orchestras, in a Super Bowl Halftime Show, and Dancing with the Stars. If you dig that crazy music, then this is the show for you. Heck, don't take my word, just go daddy, go. 8 p.m. Friday, February 21, Parker Playhouse, 707 NE Eighth St., Fort Lauderdale; parkerplayhouse.com. Tickets cost $26 to $56 via ticketmaster.com.

"Hued Songs" is among the featured events that are part of the Norton's celebration of Black History Month.

Courtesy Norton Museum

"Celebrating Black Florida" at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach showcases the art and cultural histories of black Floridians through the Nortons growing collection of works by artists of African descent.

The West Palm Beach showcase museum will have a range of interesting performances, talks, and activities on Saturday's Community Day so many that some are scheduled as pop-ups and stop-bys. Special tours are part of the plan, along with workshops, artist talks, performances, a documentary film screening, and a teen art studio. Mr. Trombone Wayne Perry will serve as opening Master of Ceremonies.

Among the highlights of the day-long event is a retrospective of the Sunset Lounge, often called the Cotton Club of the South. The historic jazz venue in northwest West Palm Beach counted among itshabitussome of America's greatest performers, including Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, and Duke Ellington. The Norton will feature images and music from the era.

The fun and vibrant Sunshine Junkanoo Band will perform, and you can also join a conversation with R.L. Lewis, a Florida Highwayman and art teacher in Brevard County. He will create one of his signature paintings while discussing his art, life, and the story of the Florida Highwayman. There will be a "Hued Songs" performance that illuminates the works of black composers and works inspired by black history, culture, or text. This work highlights musical and theatrical work by African-American artists and explores black history through dance, song, and spoken word.The museum restaurant also gets in on the action by offering island favorites like jerk chicken over dirty rice, Caribbean slaw, Jamaican beef patties, and coconut jerk shrimp and grits. Noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, February 22, Norton Museum, 1450 S. Dixie Hwy., West Palm Beach; norton.org. Admission is free.

There is no place like home and nothing better than your own backyard. So come on over to America's Backyard where Damn Good Hospitality presents the fourth annual Fort Mardi Gras Festival on Saturday. There will be authentic New Orleans food, drinks, live music by Big Chief Band and the Rock N Jake Band. You can also look forward to seeing street performers, which include stilt walkers, jugglers and fire dancers. Then have your face painted, and check out the Indy crafts. Grown-ups, stick around and, at 10 p.m., join the Y100 After Party. 4 p.m. Saturday, February 22, America's Backyard, 100 SW Third Ave., Fort Lauderdale; fortmardigras.com. Admission is free.

See the rest here:

The Five Best Things to Do in South Florida This Weekend - New Times Broward-Palm Beach

During a speech this week, Donald Trumps acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted that the United States is desperate for more immigrants to enter this country, though he admits that they only want the legal kind of immigrants. The problem is that the U.S. has become so angry towards immigrants that they simply dont want to come here, and it is going to be devastating for our economy. Ring of Fires Farron Cousins discusses this.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Earlier this week at a private meeting in England, Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trumps acting chief of staff, told the people there at that meeting that the United States is actually desperate for more immigrants. Mick Mulvaney coming from one of the most anti-immigrant administrations in recent history telling a crowd in private, obviously, yeah, we actually need more immigrants coming into the United States. Now, he did preface it by saying, obviously Im talking about the legal kind of immigrants, you know, not the illegal immigrants, but either way, we really need these people coming into this country. And the reason Mick Mulvaney said is because, we are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that weve had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants. Those are his exact words, according to the people in attendance. And that just kind of hits on what we have been saying since the start of the Trump administration.

And that is you cannot have sustainable economic growth if we do not have these immigrants coming into our country. Believe it or not, folks, there actually are jobs that American citizens do not want to do and those are the jobs that typically get filled by these immigrants. Great case in point, many years ago, about seven or eight years ago, state of Georgia enacted a tough immigration policy that actually limited and in many instances outright restricted the use of temporary guest workers coming into the state of Georgia. What happened that year was that farmers didnt have anyone to go out there and harvest their crops. You had fruit rotting in trees, vegetables rotting in the fields, farmers losing tons of money because they couldnt find anybody else willing to do it. So when I say that, yeah, sorry, there are jobs some Americans just simply refuse to do or theyre physically not able to do.

I know what Im talking about because weve seen it happen within the past decade. We have seen reports over the last three years of small businesses across this country, typically in the landscaping industry, losing money, some of them having to shut down because Donald Trump has actually clamped down on legal immigration. Limited the number of those temporary guest worker visas that were distributing every single year. And because of that, our economy is suffering and at least Mick Mulvaney understands that, which is actually a more classical Republican approach to immigration. They understand that, yeah, we have to have these people coming over. They do jobs, they contribute to the economy, but if were ever pressed on the issue, of course were going to say that these people are evil, that we need to keep them out, that theyre taking your jobs, even though we know thats a lie. And thats essentially what Mick Mulvaney was admitting in that private room in England.

Thats what happened. The truth is that the United States economy is dependent upon immigrants, and as long as Donald Trump is serving as president of the United States, and hes got Stephen Miller whispering in his ear, were going to continue to suffer because this man knows that he cant give an inch on the issue of immigration. He has backed himself into a corner because of Stephen Miller. If he were to allow more guest workers to come over here to the United States, Miller would erupt. Ann Coulter would erupt as we have seen her do in the past. His base would go into a frenzy, claim that he conned them on the issue of being tough on immigration, and he simply wont risk that. So he would rather see the economy suffer because were not bringing in enough immigrants, as Mick Mulvaney says, than half to anger his base by letting a few more people come in.

Read more here:

Mick Mulvaney Says America Is Desperate For More Immigrants - The Ring of Fire Network - The Ring of Fire Network

"Students who aren't treated as an afterthought are more likely to succeed."

A colleague said that to me the other day. Seems obvious that this should be a truism, like "you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take" or "we need air to breathe." Yet somehow, in much of higher education, the fact that online students and online courses shouldn't be treated as an afterthought often counts as bold thinking.

Here's the rub: Online education is most successful when universities don't think of it as "online education." It works best when it's just "education" with a different distribution mechanism. Successful online education isn't supposed to "compete" with traditional education; it should merely evolve to be more efficient and, ultimately, make learning faster and more accessible.

Unfortunately, that's not always how it works -- which could explain why online education hasn't lived up to its promise. Nationally, 40 to 80 percent of students drop out of online courses. Dropping out of just one course is far from the worst outcome. Dropping out of a degree program entirely -- or, worse yet, dropping out, then restarting, then dropping out again -- can be an albatross around a student's neck for decades. The process can take years, leaving learners with significant student debt without the increased earning potential a degree provides.

We're long past the time when these results were acceptable. Online education has been around for more than two decades, so we don't need more time to experiment. Nor do students need to get more comfortable with online education. Students have been comfortable with online learning for years -- a generation of "digital natives" can learn through a screen. Increasingly, all students expect that online education will make up at least a portion of their coursework.

The problem is one of political will and prioritization. Many universities view online learners as distinct, walled off from the students attending the brick-and-mortar institution. Universities serve them with different instructors, different coursework, different supports and, worst of all, different standards.

They treat them as an afterthought.

Indiana University's online programs, by contrast, were designed differently. We use the same faculty for online courses that we do for classes on campus. We use the same tactics, the same syllabus, the same pedagogy and the same coursework. Faculty hold online students to the same standards.

Yet for all of our good work, our refusal to make online learners an afterthought is just as much about altruism as it is about ensuring the future health of the university. If universities want to stay relevant to modern learners, or even just keep their doors open, they must put online education on equal footing with on-campus education. The market demands it. Learners are increasingly likely to be older than the 17- and 18-year-old freshmen we think of, with careers and responsibilities that make it impossible to go to campus full time.

Further, today's "learners" -- some might even call them "consumers" -- expect a compelling, convenient online experience. The student accustomed to taking in the world through her smartphone -- be it through social media, Netflix, or even just her email -- won't accept a knock-off digital experience for the most expensive item in her life, namely her education.

If a university is offering a subpar online education, she'll go to the next university. And who can blame her? Let's face it, we -- college administrators, faculty and staff -- would do the same; we expect our digital experiences to be frictionless, too.

Indiana University understands, then, that online education isn't some convenient but nonessential appendage; online education is the heart and lungs. For many universities, it's the only part of the institution that's growing, with the potential to overtake on-campus education in the number of students it serves.

In many ways, higher education has been behind the curve for decades. In general, we were slow to adopt online education as an instructional format. When we did finally embrace it -- after unscrupulous actors had sullied its reputation -- we took even longer to make online education effective, even as the content volume and quality of streaming services like Amazon and iTunes were growing by leaps and bounds.

The results speak for themselves. As the number of people who drop out of college hit 2 million a year and student debt surpassed $1.6 trillion in the U.S., it is past time for major universities to accept responsibility for providing better outcomes by putting online learners on equal footing with traditional learners. In fact, there's increasingly little difference between the two because they are the same person.

These students are not only the future of higher education, they are the present, as well. Treating them as an afterthought is not only wrong, it is also self-defeating. If universities won't put online students on equal footing for the sake of the students they are supposed to serve, I hope they will at least do it for their own sake.

Chris J. Foley is associate vice president in the Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and director of the Office of Online Education.

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From the Desk: Online education is university's 'heart, lungs' - IU Newsroom

CHINA

Primary and secondary schools in many areas across China, originally scheduled to open at the end of January or the beginning of this month, also remain closed, with no specific dates for reopening. Schools have been ordered by the education ministry in Beijing to start online classes and did so from this week, despite many teachers saying they are not equipped to provide online classes.

However, with the closure of schools in 31 provinces, unprecedented because no one knows how long it will continue, fears are increasing over the preparation of this years cohort for the ferociously competitive National College Entrance Examination or gaokao as students are missing many classes.

China has not yet indicated whether the dates for the gaokao normally held in early June will be changed. The Ministry of Education will pay close attention to the development of the coronavirus epidemic situation, and promptly assess the conditions that might affect the gaokao together with the relevant departments, ministry officials said at a press conference on 13 February.

Over 10.31 million high school students sat the gaokao in 2019. This years gaokao cohort began online courses earlier than other school year groups, with some of them attending online classes from home several hours a day since early February. Entrance exams run by individual colleges and institutions scheduled for February have already been postponed. But education experts say it is likely that other special measures will be announced.

As the epicentre of the outbreak, the government recognises that central Chinas Hubei province is particularly in need of educational assistance, with the likelihood that schools and universities could be closed for longer than elsewhere.

The authorities in Hubei province have already announced that for the children of frontline medical staff in the province the relevant cities and prefectures can add 10 points to their total admission scores in the gaokao.

Fast response with online classes

According to a report by Chinese state television, the education sector reacted very fast to the shutdown announced in late January. By 2 February, some 22 online curriculum platforms opened 24,000 online courses for higher education institutions to choose from, including 1,291 national excellence courses and 401 virtual simulation experimental courses, covering 12 undergraduate programmes and 18 tertiary vocational programmes.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University launched 1,449 online courses, both live and recorded, for undergraduates and 657 for postgraduates, said Ding Kuiling, the universitys executive vice president.

Ding said the university launched 165 courses on platforms including the massive open online course (MOOC) system for Chinese universities so that students from all over the country can watch them for free.

Peking University said that beginning this week it was offering 563 undergraduate classes with 290 of them livestreamed and 101 video classes provided online via the university's website, as well as 96 discussion classes via online group chats.

Qiu Yong, president of Tsinghua University, Beijing, said some 4,254 courses have been planned for this semester, involving 2,681 faculty members and 25,091 students, with 3,923 courses being offered online. The epidemic situation poses a challenge to us, but it is also an opportunity to comprehensively promote the digitalisation and informatisation of teaching, Qiu said.

However, many other institutions do not have the same resources as these elite universities and are struggling to provide online alternatives. Our professors do not have the equipment at home, and sometimes they do not have the skills and expertise to record lessons, said a professor at a university in Guangzhou in southern Guangdong province. Because we do not know how long the [university] closure will last, it is difficult to plan how many lessons to put online.

Courses for schools

When Chinas Ministry of Education ordered primary and secondary schools to be closed in January, it said it was to suspend school, not learning.

The ministry is now launching its national internet cloud classroom backed by 7,000 servers to ensure that the system catering to 50 million primary and middle school students at the same time does not crash. A dozen subjects will be covered including epidemic education, with 169 classes available in the first week.

The programmes will be broadcast via satellite to remoter areas with weak internet connections, the ministry said.

According to state television, the materials will be supplemented by key teachers from Beijing and other cities as needed. But far from being a full curriculum, it is a stop-gap measure. The Beijing Municipal Education Commission said in a statement this week: It is not a holiday in the traditional sense, nor does it mean that the new school semester has started online.

Shanghai authorities this week announced that all universities, primary and secondary schools in the city would launch online education from 2 March, with a unified teaching schedule for primary and secondary schools.

The online courses, recorded by more than 1,000 teachers across the city, will be broadcast on TV. Students can watch live courses and re-broadcasts on TV as well as online, but Lu Jing, director of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, at a press conference on 18 February described it as relatively relaxed curricula, not intended to substitute for a normal school day.

The Shanghai authorities are also providing online resources for the most common courses for vocational school students, but specialised courses will have to be provided by the institutions themselves a tough call for many vocational institutions, which specialise in practical learning.

Universities are being asked to develop their own plans, with some resources and courses from the Ministry of Education, Lu said.

Lu acknowledged that online teaching was not a complete substitute for on-campus learning. After the reopening of schools and universities supplementary and enhanced courses will be arranged, he said.

China is making huge efforts to fight against what has become a huge education challenge. It is not easy at all to ensure over 200 million students continue their learning given the limited conditions under quarantine versus substantial economic costs, said Wang Yan, director of the Department for International Exchange, National Institute of Education Sciences.

Problems with online learning

Many teachers say they are concerned. Writing on social media, they say they do not have appropriate materials in place. Server crashes, unstable networks, endless registration on various apps and a plethora of WeChat groups have meant the online classroom is a heated topic of debate on Chinas social media platform Weibo.

Many education institutions, which have to use a third-party platform to broadcast lessons or lectures, face problems like bandwidth limitations, overcoming online surveillance and difficulty in choosing the proper equipment.

Some noted that online classes streamed live have been hit by censorship, particularly of words related to the coronavirus outbreak.

It is difficult to avoid the blocking of live lectures, said a university professor in Shanghai.

On Thursday anger was expressed on social media when Tsinghua University cancelled without notice a live-streamed open class on organisational sociology by Stanford Professor Xueguang Zhou, who had been scheduled to speak about what the coronavirus outbreak reveals about Chinas governance.

Online teaching or webcasting by major universities has been blocked from live broadcast, teachers report on social media. It is an awkward situation with the students watching and waiting, one teacher said on Weibo.

Particularly noticeable was the blocking of biology lessons, with many human organ nouns deemed internet-sensitive and blocked, including in some of the teaching content provided by the education ministry, teachers reported.

Without the large-scale online teaching during this epidemic, students and teachers would probably not have intuitively recognised that there is a problem with such words, said one social media post this week. Teaching webcasts have been banned repeatedly and our internet is sick.

A medical nursing teacher complained that she was giving a lecture on QQ, an instant messaging platform that includes microblogging and voice chat, and was blocked within a few seconds as pornographic because it included words related to human physiology.

Private courses

Many private educational companies have been offering free online resources. But parents say it is difficult to find the right course. Some are too simple, some are too difficult, and some lack interaction, said one Shanghai parent with a daughter studying for the gaokao. She said courses were not available on a single platform and she had to install several apps to access them. It is hard to manage the courses, she said and added that some websites crashed after a few seconds or minutes.

On the first day of a free live course streamed this month by Zuoyebang a platform where students can seek answers to homework problems, and which has over 400 million users its server crashed when five million users came online at the same time.

Yu Minhong, founder of New Oriental, an online education group, said in a WeChat social media post that Chinas online system is not ready for a sudden transformation to online learning, and added that many teachers lack online teaching experience while parents and students were also unprepared.

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Online classes try to fill education gap during epidemic - University World News

Labs test artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other innovations that could improve learning and lower costs for Generation Z and beyond.

This article is part of our latest Learning special report. Were focusing on Generation Z, which is facing challenges from changing curriculums and new technology to financial aid gaps and homelessness.

MANCHESTER, N.H. Cruising to class in her driverless car, a student crams from notes projected on the inside of the windshield while she gestures with her hands to shape a 3-D holographic model of her architecture project.

It looks like science fiction, an impression reinforced by the fact that it is being demonstrated in virtual reality in an ultramodern space with overstuffed pillows for seats. But this scenario is based on technology already in development.

The setting is the Sandbox ColLABorative, the innovation arm of Southern New Hampshire University, on the fifth floor of a downtown building with panoramic views of the sprawling red brick mills that date from this citys 19th-century industrial heyday.

It is one of a small but growing number of places where experts are testing new ideas that will shape the future of a college education, using everything from blockchain networks to computer simulations to artificial intelligence, or A.I.

Theirs is not a future of falling enrollment, financial challenges and closing campuses. Its a brighter world in which students subscribe to rather than enroll in college, learn languages in virtual reality foreign streetscapes with avatars for conversation partners, have their questions answered day or night by A.I. teaching assistants and control their own digital transcripts that record every life achievement.

The possibilities for advances such as these are vast. The structure of higher education as it is still largely practiced in America is as old as those Manchester mills, based on a calendar that dates from a time when students had to go home to help with the harvest, and divided into academic disciplines on physical campuses for 18- to 24-year-olds.

Universities may be at the cutting edge of research into almost every other field, said Gordon Jones, founding dean of the Boise State University College of Innovation and Design. But when it comes to reconsidering the structure of their own, he said, theyve been very risk-averse.

Now, however, squeezed by the demands of employers and students especially the up and coming Generation Z and the need to attract new customers, some schools, such as Boise State and Southern New Hampshire University, are starting labs to come up with improvements to help people learn more effectively, match their skills with jobs and lower their costs.

One of these would transform the way students pay for higher education. Instead of enrolling, for example, they might subscribe to college; for a monthly fee, they could take whatever courses they want, when they want, with long-term access to advising and career help.

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the places mulling a subscription model, said Richard DeMillo, director of its Center for 21st Century Universities. It would include access to a worldwide network of mentors and advisers and whatever someone needs to do to improve their professional situation or acquire a new skill or get feedback on how things are going.

Boise State is already piloting this concept. Its Passport to Education costs $425 a month for six credit hours or $525 for nine in either of two online bachelors degree programs. Thats 30 percent cheaper than the in-state, in-person tuition.

Paying by the month encourages students to move faster through their educations, and most are projected to graduate in 18 months, Mr. Jones said. The subscription model has attracted 47 students so far, he said, with another 94 in the application process.

However they pay for it, future students could find other drastic changes in the way their educations are delivered.

Georgia Tech has been experimenting with a virtual teaching assistant named Jill Watson, built on the Jeopardy-winning IBM Watson supercomputer platform. This A.I. answers questions in a discussion forum alongside human teaching assistants; students often cant distinguish among them, their professor says. More Jill Watsons could help students get over hurdles they encounter in large or online courses. The university is working next on developing virtual tutors, which it says could be viable in two to five years.

S.N.H.U., in a collaboration with the education company Pearson, is testing A.I. grading. Barnes & Noble Education already has an A.I. writing tool called bartleby write, named for the clerk in the Herman Melville short story, that corrects grammar, punctuation and spelling, searches for plagiarism and helps create citations.

At Arizona State University, A.I. is being used to watch for signs that A.S.U. Online students might be struggling, and to alert their academic advisers.

If we could catch early signals, we could go to them much earlier and say, Hey youre still in the window to pass, said Donna Kidwell, chief technology officer of the universitys digital teaching and learning lab, EdPlus.

Another harbinger of things to come sits on a hillside near the Hudson River in upstate New York, where an immersion lab with 15-foot walls and a 360-degree projection system transports Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute language students to China, virtually.

The students learn Mandarin Chinese by conversing with A.I. avatars that can recognize not only what they say but their gestures and expressions, all against a computer-generated backdrop of Chinese street markets, restaurants and other scenes.

Julian Wong, a mechanical engineering major in the first group of students to go through the program, thought it would be cheesy. In fact, he said, Its definitely more engaging, because youre actively involved with whats going on.

Students in the immersion lab mastered Mandarin about twice as fast as their counterparts in conventional classrooms, said Shirley Ann Jackson, the president of Rensselaer.

Dr. Jackson, a physicist, was not surprised. The students enrolling in college now grew up in a digital environment, she said. Why not use that to actually engage them?

Slightly less sophisticated simulations are being used in schools of education, where trainee teachers practice coping with simulated schoolchildren. Engineering students at the University of Michigan use an augmented-reality track to test autonomous vehicles in simulated traffic.

The way these kinds of learning get documented is also about to change. A race is underway to create a lifelong transcript.

Most academic transcripts omit work or military histories, internships, apprenticeships and other relevant experience. And course names such as Biology 301 or Business 102 reveal little about what students have actually learned.

The learner, the learning provider and the employer all are speaking different languages that dont interconnect, said Michelle Weise, chief innovation officer at the Strada Institute for the Future of Work.

A proposed solution: the interoperable learning record, or I.L.R. (proof that, even in the future, higher education will be rife with acronyms and jargon).

The I.L.R. would list the specific skills that people have learned customer service, say, or project management as opposed to which courses they passed and majors they declared. And it would include other life experiences they accumulated.

This digital trail would remain in the learners control to share with prospective employers and make it easier for a student to transfer academic credits earned at one institution to another.

American universities, colleges and work force training programs are now awarding at least 738,428 unique credentials, according to a September analysis by a nonprofit organization called Credential Engine, which has taken on the task of translating these into a standardized registry of skills.

Unlike transcripts, I.L.R.s could work in two directions. Not only could prospective employees use them to look for jobs requiring the skills they have; employers could comb through them to find prospective hires with the skills they need.

Were trying to live inside this whole preindustrial design and figure out how we interface with technology to take it further, said Ms. Kidwell of Arizona State. Everybody is wrangling with trying to figure out which of these experiments are really going to work.

This story was produced in collaboration with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

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How Technology Is Changing the Future of Higher Education - The New York Times

Much of China is currently in lockdown due to the COVID-19 coronavirus. In urban centers, streets are empty and many businesses remain closed. Subways and buses are shuttered or running on limited service. The most visibly functioning public places are supermarkets, but even those lack their usual hustle and bustle. Schools are also closed but that doesnt mean learning has stopped.

During this period, educators are doing what they do best: making use of the time and resources available. Public schools across China have been ordered by the Ministry of Education to suspend the spring semester, but, as they put it,tngk b tngxu stop classes but dont stop learning.

This has had an interesting consequence: The Chinese education system, which has been notoriously riddled with inequality, has seen a convergence of access to learning resources for all of the countrys students. For the past two decades, wealthier, urban students have enjoyed the lions share of resources in the form of better-funded public schools and access to a highly competitive industry of private prep centers. Today, fissures between urban and rural students, between rich and poor, have suddenly narrowed as Chinas 260 millionstudents take their studies online.

The 300-plus high school students I teach in Shaanxi Province, for instance, are taking full days (7:30 a.m. to 6:15 p.m.) of classes online. This includes indoor exercises for physical education and even the daily eye massage exercisesthat students do in the Chinese public school system. For me, in addition to college counseling, I also teach ACT Writing to about 100 students (now online). Teaching online has proved difficult for some, especially foreign teachers who were required to suddenly master multiple software platforms entirely in Chinese, but most have gotten the hang of it.

There are problems, of course. At the top of my list aretechnical issues, which can be, quite frankly, a pain in the ass. Slow internet and poor audio/visual equipment means questions need to be repeated before they can be answered. Other challenges include getting students to not leave their devices: I try to require all students to answer questions during the online session at least this way, I can distinguish which students are participating and which are not. With only basic conferencing software, it is nearly impossible to efficiently check understanding and force accountability on so many students typically 30 to 70 per class at the high school level. It is too easy for students to hide in the comparative anonymity.

As education has moved from schools into homes, parents have also been affected. Most obvious is that the responsibility for disciplining misbehavior has shifted from teachers onto parents. As a result, many parents are struggling because they never had to manage their childrens schoolwork beyond missed homework assignments. Now they must ensure punctuality and participation, making sure their children arent distracted by computer games, simultaneously completing homework for other classes, or streaming the Avengers film series.Many parents have struggled to adapt to their new role as full-time teachers assistant.

But at least all households across China are facing the same challenges. Online teaching has been a great equalizer for millions of students. With the rise of online learning in the wake of the coronavirus, the quality of education now depends less on teacher quality, teaching equipment, or other school resources. All learning is happening in students homes, and only their homes.

In Shaanxi, under the stop classes but dont stop learninginitiative, national curriculum classes are being recorded by expert teachers across all grade levels, which are broadcast on TV free for everyone. Technically, for the first time ever, all students rich and poor, urban and rural have equal access to classes with the most experienced and best-trained teachers.

Most of all, learning now depends almost exclusively on the students and their families. If a student works hard or is well-managed by their parents, that student can more or less maintain the same achievement as with offline teaching. However, if a student does not participate, they will quickly fall behind, more quickly now than ever before.

So are we actually closer to educational equality in China? On the one hand, the impact of socioeconomic and regional factors that once greatly influenced a students education have been temporarily lessened. But has COVID-19 truly democratized education in China? Of course not. Internet access, family demographics, student learning styles, and other factors are still affecting the quality of education.

Still, if schools remain closed even next month,education bureaus may be forced to think longer term about incorporating online learning into their curriculums. Theres a chance, then, that the benefits from a more democratized and equal education system might continue even after this coronavirus epidemic passes. In the meantime, a big step in online education has brought us a small step closer to educational equality.

Special thanks to Jin Zhou for assistance and research for this article.

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Educational equality in China: How online learning during coronavirus has changed the status quo - SupChina