Campus protests gather steam in the TikTok era

On Friday, I received a dozen texts and notifications about the Auraria campus being closed to incoming traffic or to avoid the central area of campus... no problem for me, since I haven't been on campus for about eight years. 

There was video on the local news of the protests, with 100 or so people (some students and some not) protesting the Israeli actions ongoing in Gaza. There were some quick cutaways to a Jewish leader and one lonely student holding an Israeli flag, but most of the action was focused on anti-Israeli government opinions.

It wasn't a return to 1970 and Kent State, but there were police in riot gear carrying some protesters off site (and to jail, at least for a few hours). The best thing that happened might have been the start of what has been a solid day of rain and very wet snow. No one likes to protest when they are cold and wet.

It's tough to argue against people saying they want the killing of innocents, particularly children, to stop. I mean, no one on any side of the debate can honestly favor bombing children... unless you are a Russian supporting the indiscriminate shelling of random urban sites in Ukraine. 

There were no protesters out in force protesting the illegal and immoral attacks on Ukraine, BTW. Ditto for protests against ongoing conflicts in Myanmar, Yemen, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where over 4 million have died in an ongoing civil war that has gone of for two decades. 

So what does the Gaza situation feature that differs from all the other conflicts going on right now around the globe, all of them producing mass casualties among civilians, many of whom are children?

You guessed it: Jews are involved. 

The protesters want an immediate stoppage of the conflict and for peace to prevail Laudable sentiments, of course. Hamas could end the conflict tomorrow by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages who remain alive, now six months after being abducted on Oct. 7, 2023. They won't do that, so the fighting continues.

Israel could just declare an end and withdraw, I suppose, thus bringing "peace" to the desolated Gaza Strip. But would the hostages be released? And would Hamas simply regroup, restock their tunnels while bringing in more missiles and guns from their Iranian overlords... to eventually attack again?

There's something innately silly and disturbing about young American students, of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, chanting, "From the river to the sea," over and over. It's a fun slogan to chant, I'll grant you, but that slogan's original meaning was to wipe Israel and all its Jewish inhabitants off the planet. Unserious people will claim that the meaning is only symbolic and that no one wants to destroy anyone, but those chosen to rule Gaza -- Hamas -- are quite clear that their goal is to kill all Jews. 

God has so ordered.

The protesters apparently want the three universities that share the Auraria campus to divest from any investments in Israeli companies (only the University of Colorado Denver has any such) as well as to end exchange programs or overseas studies in Israel. None of the schools offer those. 

They want the Biden administration to do something, and to do it now. That along makes them a bit suspect, full of youthful idealism along with a dangerous ignorance of how the world works. 

Some own up to their anti-semitism and others claim to be merely anti-Zionist or anti-Israeli government. I stand with anyone who loudly maintains that killing innocent children is indecent and immoral, but I'm not a fan of picking and choosing which children we protect. 

Were I Jewish, I would wonder if my children would be mentioned in the prayers of these "woke" young people. 

Pass the hash - much ado about... not much

Brother Tim went with a "potpourri" approach to his irregular blog last week, though he did find clever ways to pull various scenes and memories together in the end. We were in Iowa City last Friday so I skipped a week of my own feeble musings, but I admired Tim's inclusion of several items.

In fact, it got me thinking of the sports columnist I grew up with: Al Grady of the Iowa City Press-Citizen. He covered everything from Iowa athletics to local high school sports to professional baseball, football, etc. Nice beat: pretty much the wide world of sports. He retired in 1987 and died in 2003, but I still remember fondly his wit and wisdom and evident love of athletics.

His daily column was cleverly titled "Al Grady's Column," but my rapidly declining memory maintains that it morphed into "Pass the Hash" or at least that become an occasional title. When he had a little to say about a lot of things, he would begin his column with, "It's all hash today." Each short section of the column would end with three asterisks... likely as sophisticated as newspaper design would get when I was young.

So, thanks, Al, for caring about all aspects of sports and for trying to give readers a little something to think about on a variety of topics. 

It's all hash today.

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Recent surveys show that young people are as confused but passionate about politics as earlier generations, with expectations of about 50 percent of eligible voters age 18-29 for the 2024 election. President Biden leads among young women by over 30 points, while only leading by 6 points among young males. 

Many 18-29 year-olds would love some other choice beyond Trump or Biden, at least right now, and a chunk of the non-Biden males are looking at Robert Kennedy, Jr., and his wacky independent candidacy. 

Yesterday, almost every ambulatory Kennedy relative stood behind Biden in Pennsylvania and not only endorsed Joe, but made it a point to explain that no one in their right mind should support their brother, cousin, uncle, whatever. 

He revealed last week that Trump had reached out to him re: a possible VP slot. Oy!

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The Rockies are off to an historically bad start, now sitting comfortably in last place in their division with a 4-15 record. When they pitch well, they don't hit. When they hit well, they don't pitch. Mostly, they find interesting and unusual ways to lose games, often in the last inning.

On the other hand, they have only scored first in two of their first 19 games, so you can't say they are blowing many leads. Mostly, they tend to rally late only to come up short. 

There is snow in the air today as the Rox prepare to begin a home stand against the Mariners. There is no joy in Mudville...

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Caitlin Clark is on the verge of signing a $10 million plus endorsement deal with Nike, augmenting her $75,000 rookie salary to play for the Indianapolis Fever. No athlete "deserves" big bucks, BTW, but the disparity between mediocre men's players in the NBA and the very best female athletes in the WNBA is embarrassing for all of us.

The good news may be that Ms. Clark's successes will raise all boats, so to speak, and the 144 WNBA players will eventually all see their compensation get higher. Trickle down economics rules!

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It's judging season for high school media and I have been frantically trying to turn around several assignments from various states over this past week. The news from our young journalists is, well, mixed. They are clearly passionate but just as clearly pressed for time and energy.

Lede writing continues to be a mystery to almost all of them, though they certainly like to provide endless context and personal insights for their readers before they finally get to their first direct quote. 

First drafts are clearly enough for many of our young writers and their advisers, just as they are for the vast majority of the college writing students I am working with -- hey, it's Week 13 of the semester, so this too shall pass. 

I continue to be surprised by how few students can be bothered to run spell check or grammar check (or just ignore those squiggly lines) and how few seem interested in another option: running a draft through Chat GPT. AI does a lot things poorly, but it's really good at grammar and spelling and simply organizing language.

That enticing TikTok personal feed cannot be resisted.

Wishing for a country that doesn't get so excited

I read an intriguing commentary this week that argued for more "indifference" in American politics, and I found it compelling. In case you wanted to read that post, it's here.

Instead of everything being overwhelmingly important, possibly cataclysmic, the point was that the more people paid attention to the daily political news, the more their self-confidence and polarization grows. The headline was "the darkside of active citizenship," and the post argues that the polarized fringes are driving most of the harsh rhetoric and active demonization of opposing views. After all, if you are convinced that your position is not only right but also the only possible choice, those not agreeing with you are "wrong" or "misinformed" or just plain "evil."

It seems that Donald Trump, for instance, has a clear strategy of pouring as much outrageous material into the national news that we may have reached the point where there is literally nothing he could do to diminish his cult's support for him. "I could shoot someone in broad daylight on 5th Avenue and my supporters wouldn't care" once seemed hyperbolic. Now it's a simple statement of truth.

When we have reached this level of "strong man worship," where the most unChristian actions and statements are twisted into positives by supposedly religious people... well, it may be time to consider whether millions of otherwise normal Americans are now and always were hypocrites, or whether the Cult of Trump has simply warped our society in ways that we never saw coming.

An entire political party has been overtaken by this cult, which mostly means lots of garden variety politicians have decided that their voters are in the cult and there are no options to remain viable. That is a logical position for them to take. It's tough to take on the mob... the same people who just a decade ago were strident in calling for more morality among politicians. 

But here's the good news, if there is any: most Americans really ARE indifferent to the daily political outrages and provocations. They simply aren't paying attention. This seems impossible to those who read the news each day, but it is clear in several surveys that most online political discussion is generated by the most left wing and most right wing Americans. They represent about 30 percent of our nation. 

That leaves 70 percent in the middle who only engage with the politics occasionally and who mostly just want to live their lives in peace. 

Is that 70 percent of America willfully ignorant? 

The good news, then, is that there is a good chance that the majority of voters will opt for candidates that they believe are most likely to bring peace. Only fanatics wish for chaos.

There are such fanatics, of course. 

As a grandparent and parent and quite well-to-do retiree, chaos is not on my wish list.