Roy Exum
As part of having fun in college, “the dining team” at Clemson put on a “Maximum Mexican” dinner not long ago that included all kinds of Mexican food. For several years the Mexican-themed dinner has been a student favorite. Some of the servers even wore sombreros this year and, once again, the overwhelming response was just as you might suspect.
But wait … there came one particular Tweet afterwards: “Really @ClemsonUniv?! @ClemsonPrez I thought your focus was #Diversity #CUFFiestaFiasco #CUlturallyInsensitive.” It was followed by a second complaint the meal was insensitive to Hispanic students. Get this: two complaints in total.
So in a further display that Ph.D. stands for “piled higher and deeper,” a terribly misguided soul identified as Doug Hallenbeck, who is – as hard as this is to believe -- the university’s Senior Associate Vice President of Student Affairs wrote this deeply-troubling letter:
“Dear Clemson Family,
“Yesterday afternoon, University Housing & Dining intended to celebrate Mexican cuisine with a themed dining event at our Harcombe and Schilletter locations. Unfortunately, the event displayed a flattened cultural view of Mexican culture.
“In the future, University Housing & Dining welcomes the opportunity to work with Hispanic and Latino campus groups as well as community members, staff and faculty to better celebrate the food and culture of this region and better educate the Clemson community. If you would like to engage in conversation about a future event, please contact University Housing & Dining at clemsonhome@clemson.edu.
“It is the mission of University Housing & Dining to create supportive and challenging environments that enrich and nourish lives. We failed to live out our mission yesterday, and we sincerely apologize. We will continue to work closely with our food service provider to create dining programs that align with Clemson University’s core values.
“Sincerely, Doug Hallenbeck, Ph.D.”
Clemson, one of my favorite schools in the country, doesn’t deserve this at all. Long a great bastion of Southern culture and common sense, the idiots at the top are actually allowing insanity to shred what virtually all of its 22,000 students enjoy? This just took “political correctness” to a new level and, in doing so, embarrassed the entire university, its fabulous reputation and its unbeaten football team – all over some tacos. Are you kidding me?
South Carolina Governor Nimrata Nikki Randhawa Haley (her whole name) is up to her pretty head in the worst flooding the state has ever experienced, but it should take no longer than 10 seconds to bounce Ph.D. Hallenbeck to Knoxville where he can work with like-minded bozos on UT’s unisex pronouns.
Austin Pendergist, a senior at Clemson, was as dumbfounded as the rest of us in the free world: “This is something Clemson Dining has done for years without any sort of backlash. People love cultural nights in the dining halls,” he told a reporter, “What’s next? Are they going to take away all potato-based food as to not offend students of Irish decent? Remove the stir-fry station so Asian-American students don’t feel as if they are being represented?” he said, “When does it end?”
I’m telling you, the Apocalypse is upon us. And if you dare own one of several Taco Bells in Clemson, your jig is almost up.
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With President Obama poised to issue an executive order of some type towards gun control, let’s check in with Jase Robertson, one of the stars of Duck Dynasty. “I don’t blame them for responding the way they do because, look, everybody believes (mass killings) are horrible. This is horrific. You respond emotionally because it’s unbelievable. How does this happen? What can you do?
“I don’t hold it against people who are trying things I disagree with, because we are all trying to stop violence. We want people to love each other and value human life,” he said.
“In my opinion, the more people who are armed with good intentions, the better of you are. It just seems to me it’s giving power to people with evil intentions if they go to a gun-free area and they are the only ones with a gun.”
That is what you call common sense.
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To offset common sense, there is the police department of Honolulu. That law enforcement group just switched from 9 mm. Smith & Wesson handguns to lighter and cheaper Glock Model 17s. So Mayor Kirk Caldwell was quick to make sure the 2,300 Smith & Wesson guns were destroyed instead of being traded for the new guns. According to Hawaii News Now, the old guns were worth over half-a-million dollars, $575,000 to be exact.
But the mayor and the police, certain the guns would show up on the streets of Honolulu, melted them down in the most bone-headed move many can remember. Never mind the guns would have been sold adhering to all laws in place, and never mind that when the Hawaii Department of Public Safety changed to Sig Sauer models recently that the HDPS was credited $150,000 in a trade exchange.
Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation called the decision “the height of anti-gun stupidity and will not keep one criminal from getting a gun.”
For the record, there have been 420,409 guns legally registered in Hawaii since the year 2000, this to go with over a million that were previously registered. The population of Hawaii – you guessed it – is 1.4 million. The state has one of the lowest death rates in the nation, which is attributed to the fact so many people legally own firearms and strict gun-control laws are in place.
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SIGN IN A POLICE PRECINCT: “You may not like guns. That is your right. You may not believe in God. That is your choice. But if someone breaks into your home, the first two things you are going to do are … No. 1. Call somebody with a gun, No. 2. Pray they get there in time.”
ANOTHER: “And maybe we will remind the few if ill of us they speak … that we are all that stand between the monsters and the weak.”
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You’ll remember Jeremiah Wright, the controversial preacher who once pastored a church that President Obama attended in Chicago. He raised some eyebrows over the weekend in a speech at a Nation of Islam event in Washington when he claimed “Jesus was a Palestinian.”
Wright, declaring Israel to be an apartheid state, compared the youth of Ferguson, Mo., with the youth of Palestine, saying, “the same issue is being fought today and has been fought since 1948, and historians are carried back to the 19th century … when the original people, the Palestinians – and please remember Jesus was a Palestinian – the Palestinian people had the Europeans come and take their country.”
According to the Bible, Jesus was born in Nazareth. According to Google Maps, Nazareth, a historic town in lower Galilee, is the largest city and the capital of the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is located in the north of the country at the most southerly points of the Lebanon mountain range, about 25 km west from the Sea of Galilee.
Believe it or not, it has been argued for centuries whether Jesus was Jewish but scholar Bernard Starr, who wrote “Jesus Uncensored,” claims, “The fact is, Jesus was born into a family of practicing Jews dedicated to Judaism. As prescribed in the Torah, he was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. Throughout his life he was thoroughly committed to Judaism, the Torah and Jewish practices. He prayed in synagogues and taught Torah to "multitudes" of fellow Jews. And John the Baptist only baptized Jews to purify them for the expected arrival of the Jewish Messiah.” So there.
In any event, Jeremiah appears to be clearly off his medication and should sit quietly somewhere.
royexum@aol.com