Evergreen State College asks student vigilantes to put away their baseball bats and stop patrolling the campus

June 7, 2017 • 10:15 am

This is something you’ll see only on right-wing websites, so I’m seeking confirmation elsewhere to assure those who automatically reject reports appearing on places like The College Fix. (Granted, some of their reports have been mistaken or exaggerated, which is why I check.)  As I reported yesterday—and this has now been confirmed by police—over the past few days some Regressive students at The Evergreen State College (TESC) in Olympia, Washington, have been patrolling the campus with baseball bats, and there has also been some damage to property, including graffiti and rocks thrown through the windows of science buildings. As the Fix reported on Monday:

An official at Evergreen State College sent a memo to students Sunday asking an apparent group of campus vigilantes who have taken to patrolling the grounds armed with bats or batons to end the practice, according to an email forwarded to The College Fix. 

The email was from Vice President for Student Affairs Wendy Endress, who in her memo addressed to “colleagues” included the message sent to students Sunday by Sharon Goodman, director of Evergreen’s Residential and Dining Service, or RAD, asking the “community patrol” to lay down its weapons.

The Olympia, Wash.-based campus is closed today due to an unspecified “external threat”; it was also closed for nearly two days last week due to a “direct threat to campus safety.”

Now comes word that students apparently took their safety into their own hands. The June 4 memo from Goodman to students states in part:

Dear RAD Students,

We are aware of a small group of students coordinating a community patrol of housing and campus. We acknowledge and understand the fear and concerns that are motivating these actions. We also understand that these students are seeking to provide an alternative source of safety from external entities as well as those community members who they distrust.

Community patrols can be a useful tool for helping people to feel safe, however the use of bats or similar instruments is not productive. Some members of this group have been observed carrying batons and/or bats. Carrying bats is causing many to feel unsafe and intimidated. The bats must be put away immediately in order to protect all involved. Non-students participating in this activity are advised to leave campus.

Goodman’s note goes on to invite students to workshops Monday with “trained restorative justice facilitators” to help them finish out their final week of school.

Goodman and Endress did not respond to several requests by The College Fix seeking comment Monday to confirm their emails or comment further on the matter. An email and phone call to campus spokesman Zach Powers on Monday afternoon was also not immediately addressed.

As always, Evergreen keeps its mouth shut, especially Zach Powers, who is supposed to field questions but apparently has decided that silence is the better part of information.

Note the osculation of the students’ rumps by the college: “Community patrols can be a useful tool”, and “We acknowledge and understand the fear and concerns that are motivating these actions.” Seriously? What are the bat-wielding students below afraid of? Who are they trying to protect? Are there any right-wing students who are intimidating people? No. Are there students who are endangered for their beliefs? No, except by the kind of goons you see in the picture below. No, the vigilantes aren’t trying to protect people; they’re trying to intimidate them.

This is from the Twitter page of Professor Bret Weinstein, who ignited protests at TESC by refusing to leave campus when white people were “encouraged” to do so by students. He says that people were actually struck by the thugs, but haven’t reported it. I can understand why!

Here’s graffiti posted by Weinstein:

And further reprisals against Weinstein, in the form of a fake Facebook page, to damage him for his single email.

It is interesting that YouTube videos showing the bullying students attacking Weinstein and the invertebrate President Bridges—videos that were taken by the students—are being removed. This can only be because the students realize that they don’t look so heroic after all, but rather like a vigilante gang, which is what they are. Their narrative is undermined by evidence they produced themselves.

As I’ve noted before, both Bret Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying are biology professors at TESC, and both have superb teaching evaluations (see here and here).  A student I know took their courses as an undergraduate and sent me this evaluation:

They were my mentors in undergrad and are truly exceptional teachers — really, unparalleled; they taught me most of what I know about how to think. 

. . . they are phenomenal teachers — I doubt there are any like them in the world. 

I think it’s likely that Weinstein and Heying will part company with TESC, though I hope the University will create a way for them to stay in safety. And if that happens, it would be a terrible loss for Evergreen, but they’ll have only themselves to blame.

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

June 7, 2017 • 9:15 am

. . . actually, they’re mine or my dad’s, and I’ve put them in bold.

When I was young, my father used to pose me this task, “Jerry, imagine a face that you’ve never seen.” I couldn’t do it. Maybe some of you can, but when I try, it always resembles someone I know.

Second Deep Thought, which derives from the first. This morning I was drinking my coffee: I have only one cup per day, but it’s a latte I make on my Breville Cafe Roma espresso machine, a great deal on a pressure machine, and it’s lasted several years (the trick is using distilled deionized water, so it never needs cleaning).

This is what my morning java looks like; it’s in a cup I had made with a logo sent by a friend, featuring the LOLCat translation of Why Evolution is True:

But I digress. Here’s the second Deep Thought. Many of you, like me, are avid fans of good coffee. Even though my intake is limited, I love the taste and appreciate the wake-up buzz.  A world without coffee would be inconceivable to me, although that was what the ancient world is like, and what many places are like now. (How did the Spartans manage to fight without jave?)

Now think of this: what other things are even BETTER than coffee but don’t exist? Imagine the delicious beverages and foodstuffs that we’ll never know about because their ingredients don’t exist. Could you imagine a banana, or a roast goose, if neither that fruit nor fowl existed? No, you couldn’t. Sometimes stuff like this bothers me.

Nota bene: Just because one can imagine, say, a beverage that is greater than coffee is not proof that that beverage exists. I am not Anselm of Canterbury.

Lagniappe: My ducklings are growing, though the brood of five newborns is gone and I fear they are in the Great Pond in the Sky. But here’s the thriving brood of four, eating the Cheerios I gave them this morning (note: DO NOT give bread to ducks or ducklings: it has no nutritional value for them. Try instant oatmeal or Cheerios [not the sugary kind]).

Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ Matthew

June 7, 2017 • 8:15 am

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “rise2”, came with this note:

Time to make fun of the Bible, having picked on the Koran for the past few weeks. Here’s a 10-years-old strip about the funniest gospel, Matthew.

Here’s the relevant verse from the King James version:

Matthew 27:51-53

51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, 52 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 7, 2017 • 7:30 am

What would a day be without at least one picture from Stephen Barnard in Idaho, who’s been a bit niggardly with his photos. Here’s a new one that must have been quite difficult to take:

Mating damselflies in flight. (unknown species):

Reader Roger Sorensen contributes some photos from St. Cloud, Minnesota.  His notes are indented:

First, here’s a Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) foraging for blooms and nectar in the Hedge Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster lucidus) that borders my patio. Later in the season, they will be eating the deep purple berries and leaving purple messes everywhere.

Following that is Mr. Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis), who has been showing off and singing the song of his people nearly nonstop for days. The mating / nesting song is far, far more varied and melodious than the plaintive mewing they’re named for. They may be re-using the nest from last year in the large Euonymus next to my driveway.

I thought I might’ve had Mourning Doves (Zenaida macroura) nesting in the Cotoneaster too, but they moved on after spending a week perched in a plant pot on that patio.

And finally, my patch of Shastas (Leucanthemum × superbum) bloomed this past week and are now being tended to by dozens of Eastern Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa virginica) and several other species of bees and flies.

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

June 7, 2017 • 6:30 am

It’s Wednesday, June 7, 2017: National Chocolate Ice Cream Day, and here’s some information from that link: “The udder of a cow can hold between 25-50 lbs. of milk.” I weep for those cows! It’s also the first day of Vestalia (or was, in ancient Rome), but I doubt if the calendar is the same now.

On June 7, 1099 (again, possible calendar problems, the siege of Jerusalem begin during the First Crusade. On this day in 1654, Louis XIV was crowned as the King of France. On June 7, 1965, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, which declared the use of contraception by married couples legal. Connecticut’s state law had forbidden that, but the Court ruled that the law violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s right of privacy. It was not until 1972 that the Court effectively legalized the use of contraception by unmarried couples. Go figure. On June 7, 1977, 40 years ago today, the biggest day of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee took place. Finally, on this day in 1982, Priscilla Presley opened Graceland as a public tourist attraction; Wikipedia adds that “the bathroom where Elvis Presley died five years earlier is kept off-limits.” As one site quotes:

“No fan has ever breached the security of the
2nd floor of Graceland.” — Bob Carlson, Graceland Museums.

But it also purports to give a secret photo of Elvis’s bathroom, and so, for you fans, here it is:

On this day in Paul Gauguin was born in 1848, as was Gwendolyn Brooks in 1917, Liam Neeson in 1952, and Prince in 1958.  Those who died on this day include Jean Harlow (1937; she was only 26), Jean Arp (1966), Dorothy Parker (1967), E. M. Forster (1970), and Henry Miller (1980). Here are two Gauguins for your delectation:

Gaugin: A little cat (1888)
Gaugin: Mimi and her cat (1890)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is beginning to infect Cyrus with solipsism:

Hili: Do you think we will look good in this picture?
Cyrus: We should.
In Polish:
Hili: Myślisz, że dobrze wyjdziemy na tym zdjęciu?
Cyrus: Powinniśmy.

And out in Pasadena, Sean Carroll and Jennifer Oullette’s newly adopted kittens are having a grand old time. This tw**t documents an adorable pounce. I’m glad Sean has discovered the joy of posting kitten pictures and videos.

 

The Barbarian of Seville

June 6, 2017 • 2:30 pm

Nearly everyone on my Facebook feed is posting anti-Trump stuff, and in response I post kitten videos, which counteract the Bad Vibes of the Prez. But here’s one anti-Trump opera I find hilarious. It’s five minutes of political music.

The credits:

Believe it or not, in an aria with so many words, we actually still did not manage to fit in everything we wanted to say about “45”!
Singers: Rebecca Nelsen (1st and 3rd) and Eric Stoklossa
https://www.facebook.com/rebeccanelse…

https://www.facebook.com/ericstokloss…

Special thanks to SNL and Adam Sandler’s “Operaman” for the inspiration.

h/t: Don B.

Seattle Times warns of Evergreen State’s future–and more updates on the situation

June 6, 2017 • 1:30 pm

I hadn’t realized that The Evergreen State College (ESC)  is “the only state four-year higher education institution to see enrollment drop steeply since 2011 despite wide-open admission standards.” (They accept about 98% of applicants, I believe). The statement in quotes comes from yesterday’s editorial in the Seattle Times, “The Evergreen State College: No safety, no learning, no future.”  The Times now joins many venues, including the New York Times and The Washington Post (see below) in publicizing and decrying what happened when Regressive Leftist inmates start running the asylum at Evergreen.

If Evergreen State’s enrollment has dropped steeply in the last 6 years, well, that’s nothing compared with what is to come. Students throwing rocks through windows, threats phoned in to shoot a lot of people, student “vigilantes” roaming the campus with baseball bats—what parent would want to send their kid to such a school, even if they did accept the po-mo and often ridiculous classes the students have to take? (Evolutionary biology seems to be a welcome exception.)

The fracas at ESC may not be, as I predicted, a turning point in the Left’s coddling of its regressive element, or of authoritarian students dominating the discourse on campuses, but it surely presages hard times for ESC—and that’s deserved. The trustees and President should apologize to Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, his wife who also teaches biology (and was also called a “racist”), and they should discipline the students who disrupted classes and carried baseball bats, fire the invertebrate President George Bridges, and get rid of its fluffy po-mo courses. I suspect that none of this will happen, but, as the Seattle Times editorial notes, if something isn’t done, the College is doomed:

Evergreen President George Bridges and his administration need to assure future students and their parents that academics come first — and not acquiesce to the 200-or-so student protesters at the expense of the 4,000-student campus. Without safety, there’s no learning, and without learning, Evergreen will wither into irrelevance.

. . . The situation at Evergreen is an amplified version of a story playing out at campuses across the state, including recently at Western Washington University, Seattle University and the University of Washington — and across the nation.

Since the corrosive 2016 presidential election, Americans increasingly comprise a nation with citizens sealed in ideological bubbles; college campuses are often the most hermetically sealed of bubbles. When Weinstein, the professor, asked a yelling mob of students if they wanted to hear his answer, they shouted “No!”

For Evergreen, the chaos of the 2016-17 school year should become a case study in the First Amendment and the aching need for better civil discourse. The funky, nontraditional college has a unique role in the state higher-education system. But for it to survive, Evergreen must impose consequences when a student protest hijacks other students’ learning.

Nobody has taken me up on my $50 bet that not a single student at ESC will be disciplined over what has happened in the last two weeks.

*******

The Washington Post has finally confirmed the rumors I’d heard about ESC; that bands of people (and I’m pretty sure they were students) were walking around campus with baseball bats  over the weekend:

Thurston County Sheriff John Snaza said school officials were responding to the threat from last week as well as an incident Sunday night. “They have had people walking around with sticks and baseball bats late at night causing property damage,” including graffiti and broken windows, he said Monday. “They asked us to come out and assist.”

He said campus police told him there was about $10,000 worth of property damage.

The Evergreen State College Police Department referred questions to a college spokesman, Zach Powers, who did not immediately have answers to questions about the property damage. [JAC: I suspect Powers is the Sean Spicer of Evergreen.]

This photo, from Instagram—provided by someone associated by ESC—purports to show ESC students wielding bats; I have no idea whether they were actually the vigilante mob or not. See here for a tw**t that gives another photo of this group and makes the claim that these are ESC students. They might just be posing theatrically. 

And a bit more from WaPo:

Student protest leaders did not respond to requests for comment.

An opinion piece in the student newspaper, the Cooper Point Journal, included these points: “Police are commissioned to maintain order, the current order of the world, and thus always inherently work in favor of the status quo. Police are peace keepers, but the kind of peace they keep is not peace as an end to structural violence, but a peace based in non disruption of the status quo. If you are a member of a group that the status quo does not favor, if you are among other things not white, not wealthy, not straight, or not cisgender, then the cops do not and can not work in your favor.

” … If the status quo at the Evergreen State College is institutional racism, and the police are here [to] protect the institution that shelters that form of institutional violence, they are a white supremacist threat.”

Snaza said he was concerned about the situation on campus. When 200 to 300 protesters confronted the president and other administrators last month, he said the people who were targeted did not feel they could leave. “When you barricade doors and windows so the staff can’t leave,” he said, “that’s not usually a good sign.”