Cleese and Maher on Political Correctness

2014/12/02 Leave a comment

John Cleese and Bill Maher on political correctness (at the 2 min mark):

Money quote from Cleese:

Any kind of fundamentalism is terribly funny.

Of course it is. I particularly liked Cleese’s comment about the condescension involved in ruling certain groups as impermissible targets of humor. There’s this deeply patronizing idea that minorities are fragile, terribly vulnerable, unable to laugh at themselves, and incapable of the to-and-fro of democratic debate and conversation. One reason I find the latest upsurge in identity politics on the left so dispiriting (and boring) is the assumption that minorities of a few kinds are so vulnerable, so oppressed, so burdened by majoritarian prejudice that they have to go through life demanding safe zones from “micro-aggressions” and other terrible assaults on their delicate sensibilities. Members of a minority are reduced to quivering recipients of “hate”, rather than actual living, breathing, thinking people who can surely give as good as they get in public discourse. But it appears an entire generation has now been educated into this mindless, maudlin mush.

The Best Of The Dish This Weekend « The Dish.

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How an ethnic-sounding name may affect the job hunt

2014/12/01 2 Comments

More waves from the 2011 study by Oreopoulos (blind cv test showing how ethnic-sounding names screened out candidates):

It’s a dilemma with no easy solutions for job applicants, Dr. Oreopoulos said. “You could change your name, but your name is a significant part of your identity. I definitely wouldn’t recommend changing your name to get a higher chance of getting a job,” he said.

He suggested one tactic might be for a job seeker to put his or her name in a smaller type size or in a less visible location on the résumé, while playing up language skills and other necessary experience.

Another approach would be to take advantage of the trend toward video résumés, which can make it clear that you have the language and presentation skills to do the job, he added.

As for employers, he suggested that one way to reduce potential bias among hiring managers would be to specifically ask for résumés that mask the applicant’s name, similar to what is done for orchestra rehearsals in which the musicians play for the vetting committee behind a screen.

For example, in a job application the name and contact information could be on a separate sheet at the back of the résumé rather than on the cover page, he suggested.

Ultimately, “I think the onus is much more on employers to be aware of their potential bias and look beyond names, so they take advantage of the quality and experience of the best candidates,” Dr. Oreopoulos said.

“If our theory is correct, it’s in the employers interest. If it is subconscious, then employers are missing out on good candidates.”

And the comments from HR managers confirm the bias – only the last comment acknowledges the problem:

“Foreign sounding names may be overlooked due to a perception that their English language skills may be insufficient on the job.”

“When you’re calling someone with an English-sounding name, you know what you’re getting into. You know you can call Bob Smith and can talk to him as quickly as you want to …”

“I personally am guilty of gravitating toward Anglo names on résumés, and I believe that it’s a very human condition – [a result of]resistance to change.”

“… It’s difficult to imagine hiring someone with a long first name, as it might be impractical in terms of answering the phone and saying it. People with easy-to-use shorter names are easier to hire and work with.”

“I’m down to about seven seconds to vet a résumé … I do realize how unfair the whole process is.”

How an ethnic-sounding name may affect the job hunt – The Globe and Mail.

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Jonathan Kay: Jihad’s amateur hour

2014/12/01 Leave a comment

I think Jon Kay has it right:

In at least one case, the 9/11 masterminds apparently recruited, and then rejected, a jihadi because they lost confidence in his terrorist tradecraft: This was Zacarias Moussaoui, often referred to as “the 20th hijacker,” who reportedly met with KSM in Afghanistan in 2000. Examine Moussaoui’s methods, and you find that he was an infinitely more dangerous, methodical and sound-minded killer than Zehaf-Bibeau.

There’s the fact that lies at the heart of my optimism: Today’s most deadly domestic terrorists do not even rise to the level of yesterday’s al-Qaeda rejects. Just because we use the same broad term — terrorist — to cover both species of killer, doesn’t mean that the threat they pose is comparable within even several orders of magnitude.

AA Flight 11 hijacker-pilot Mohammed Atta stares out at the world from photos like a sort of robotic jihadi Terminator. He did not give fiery public speeches, or offer lurid manifestos, or seek social approval. All he wanted to do was kill and die. And it seems highly unlikely that the lone wolves who try to follow his example will — even taken collectively — ever inflict a significant fraction of the death and destruction meted out on September 11, 2001.

Jonathan Kay: Jihad’s amateur hour

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Ex-student of ultra-orthodox Jewish school system in Quebec wants compensation for poor education

2014/12/01 Leave a comment

Interesting, and not particularly surprising, when a fundamentalist philosophy prevails:

Yonanan Lowen can read and write in Aramaic, the 3,000-year-old language that likely served as the mother tongue of Jesus Christ.

But despite being raised and schooled for most of his life in the cloistered Hassidic Jewish community of Boisbriand, north of Montreal, the 37-year-old cannot read or write in French, stumbles through English texts and is confounded by the most basic tasks asked of grade-school students.

Lowen’s years of frustration have led him to denounce Quebec’s education ministry, a local school board, the province’s director of youth protection and his two former schools, with demands for $1.25 million in compensation by Dec. 15. Through their collective actions, or failures to act, he argues, he has been deprived of his right to an education under Quebec’s charter of rights and the province’s education law.

“I feel like a child of six years old, alone in the world, who doesn’t have parents, who doesn’t have somebody to take care of him. A child is helpless. He can do nothing by himself and this is how I feel,” Lowen said in an interview, adding he is prepared to launch legal action if necessary.

Despite all of Quebec’s existential debates about laïcité, Quebec provides funding to faith and community based private schools.

Ex-student of ultra-orthodox Jewish school system in Quebec wants compensation for poor education | Toronto Star.

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New rules for federal live-in caregivers program

2014/12/01 Leave a comment

Changes to the live-in caregivers program and reaction from some of the caregiver advocacy groups:

The changes are bad news for caregivers, says Pura Velasco, a spokesperson with the Caregivers Action Centre, a Toronto-based group with 1,000 plus members.

“The pathway to permanent residency has been revoked,” says Velasco, a former caregiver herself. “It’s gone.”

Under the terms of the old program caregivers had a “guaranteed pathway to permanent residency,” Velasco says. But not anymore, thanks to the annual cap.

The caregivers advocacy group says what’s needed is permanent residency upon arrival for all caregivers. It’s the only thing that would protect workers from abuse and allow them to speak up about abuses without risk of deportation.

According to the group’s website, the annual average of caregivers who have come to Canada over the past five years is over 8,000 — well above the cap Ottawa has set.

To qualify for permanent residency caregivers must now have one year-post secondary study in Canada or a foreign diploma or certificate that has been given equivalency here.

Caregivers must also pass stringent language requirements — a Level 5 language test in either English or French, or if the caregiver is a registered nurse or a psychiatric nurse he or she must pass a Level 7 language test.

Under the new program Ottawa has removed the requirement that caregivers must live in — a move that has pleased some.

Level 5 language test is not that stringent (Level 5 – Centre for Canadian Language Benchmark) but the removal of a pathway to permanent residency and the caps will likely have a larger impact.

New rules for federal live-in caregivers program | Toronto Star.

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Leaving anti-Semitism and unemployment behind, French Jews make Montreal home | Haaretz

2014/12/01 Leave a comment

Interesting:

Although up-to-date data on French Jewish immigration does not exist, Monique Lapointe, director of Agence Ometz, Montreal’s primary Jewish social services and resettlement organization, told JTA she has noticed a significant increase in newcomers, especially over the past year. Inquiries, Lapointe said, have poured in through Ometz’s email system and Facebook page — including from French Jews currently living in Israel.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a huge number of [immigrants],” Lapointe said. “But it’s a trend. We’ll be anticipating more.”

Lapointe described the average immigrant as single, between the ages of 25 and 35, “very well educated and looking for a new kind of life.”

The wider Montreal Jewish community, Lapointe said, is now in the early stages of crafting a coordinated approach to handle the inflow. Thus far, it has been difficult to track newcomers, she added, partly because French Jews keep looser ties to Jewish community organizations than do their North American counterparts.

“In France, people don’t talk about Jewishness,” Lapointe said. “They’re not used to community organizations. Some will never come to see us. They don’t have this reflex.”

…The data, however, suggests that Quebec anti-Semitism is on the wane. Last year the province saw its number of reported anti-Semitic incidents fall to 250, a nearly 26 percent drop from 2012, according to B’nai Brith Canada, which tracks anti-Semitic activity across the country.

Leaving anti-Semitism and unemployment behind, French Jews make Montreal home – Jewish World Features Israel News | Haaretz.

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Opinion: There’s no link between terrorism and multiculturalism – Jedwab

2014/11/29 Leave a comment

Jack Jedwab of ACS notes the many fallacies in Farid Rohani’s piece on multiculturalism and radicalization (Opinion: Multiculturalism should not be misused to justify divisions: Farid Rohani):

Yet Rohani makes a pernicious link between these heinous acts and Canadian multiculturalism. He establishes this false association by suggesting that the Canadian multicultural framework has seen “activists promote group traditions as having more importance than individual freedoms,” and suggests it creates an environment that enables terrorists to propagate their views. He further states that multiculturalism “is being used to create different groups that contest our tolerant democracy.”

It has been increasingly common for detractors of multiculturalism to make such claims without identifying the culprits. Rohani does precisely this and, regrettably, contributes to the spread of what he describes as “quiet intolerance,” the very thing about which he expresses concern. His observation will end up inviting unfair generalizations about minority religious groups that will fuel the divisions that he suggests he seeks to remedy.

Rohani implies that such things as forced and arranged marriages, honour killings and teaching of hate toward other religions or toward homosexuals or death warrants against apostates are also to be attributed to flawed communications about what pluralism and multiculturalism entail. In general, such things are far more prevalent in non-democratic societies that reject diversity and multiculturalism. The individuals who engage in such egregious acts for the most part wish to erode multiculturalism and replace it with a model of society that would limit individual freedoms and undermine intercultural harmony.

Rohani specifically singles out newcomers to Canada as being particularly exposed to distortion about our national identity and values. So what would he make of the fact that the killings in Ottawa and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu were carried out by individuals born and raised in Canada? Indeed, newcomers value the opportunity to live in our democracy and there is no evidence that they are more likely than non-immigrants to want to undermine it.

Opinion: There’s no link between terrorism and multiculturalism | Montreal Gazette.

Clear case of ‘multicultiphobia,’ to use Phil Ryan’s phrase.

Jedwab also cites the recent polling done for the Canadian Race Relations Foundation as supporting this view (report-on-canadian-values), as do most polls that I have seen.

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Fakih and Khan: Canada’s Muslims should expand charitable efforts beyond their own communities

2014/11/29 Leave a comment

Good message by two Canadian Muslim businessmen, Mohamad Fakih and Kashif Khan, one that applies to many communities, in terms of the balance between supporting their own as well as the broader community:

Many first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants have shared our success. They’re lawyers and doctors, entrepreneurs and business executives. But a gap has existed between the causes supported by Muslim-Canadian immigrants and those supported by the broader Canadian public. Now, we’re challenging our fellow Muslim business leaders and professionals to widen the scope of the charities our community supports and help narrow that gap.

This is why we’ve partnered with TPL. In its six years of existence, TPL has been an enormous source of support for Canadian soldiers, veterans and their families. Specifically, the Salaam-TPL fund will support the needs of military children, including children with special needs, tutoring for military children struggling at school, and such community programs as youth drop-in centres and camps.

Since we launched our fund-raising drive, we’ve heard from many successful members of the Muslim community — and they share our sentiments. The Salaam-TPL fund is acting as a catalyst to encourage our fellow Muslims to support broader Canadian causes.

The fund also provides the Muslim community with the opportunity to demonstrate their pride of, and support for, Canada’s military families and veterans. Such donations, from successful Muslim-Canadian business leaders to Canadian charities like this, signal to our fellow citizens that we are enthusiastic and vociferous supporters of the democratic and diverse ideals that Canada represents, and those who defend them at home and abroad. Fellow Muslims, please hear our challenge and give what you can.

Fakih and Khan: Canada’s Muslims should expand charitable efforts beyond their own communities

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Glavin: Canadians have no reason to be smug about race | Ottawa Citizen

2014/11/29 2 Comments

Interesting piece by Terry Glavin comparing the situation of African-Americans to Canadian Aboriginal people:

Things are going downhill, too. Over the past decade, the Aboriginal population in federal prisons has grown by more than 50 per cent. In Western Canada, two-thirds of the inmates in federal and provincial institutions are Aboriginal people.

About 28 per cent of African-Americans are stuck with something less than a high school education – half again higher than the rate among white people. In Canada, about 29 per cent of Aboriginal people have less than a high-school education, compared to 12 per cent of non-Aboriginal people.

While a third of African-American children entering high school will drop out – twice the rate of white kids – current drop-out rates indicate that more than half of Canada’s Aboriginal kids probably won’t finish high school. That’s a drop-out rate roughly six times higher than among non-Aboriginal kids.

On reserves, 74 per cent of schools are so dilapidated they lack such basic amenities as drinking water. More than half the schools function without a library, a gymnasium, a science laboratory, or a kitchen. Of Canada’s nearly 1.5 million Aboriginal people, about half are under 15 years of age.

“How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” Martin Luther King proclaimed all those years ago.

African-Americans might be forgiven for every once in a while losing patience with how long it’s taking that arc to fully bend towards them. For Canada’s young Aboriginal people, it’s not clear that the arc of the moral universe is even bending in their direction at all.

Glavin: Canadians have no reason to be smug about race | Ottawa Citizen.

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Benjamin Perrin: The Supreme Court of Canada won’t want this award

2014/11/29 Leave a comment

Again, as mentioned in my earlier post (Think tank names Supreme Court of Canada ‘policy-maker of the year’), would not Perrin be in a position to know?

What should the federal government do going forward? A post-mortem of these cases, as a whole, should be conducted within the federal government to determine the factors that may have contributed to these losses. Was the legal advice received by the government unreasonable or was reasonable advice not followed? Could the federal government have been more pro-active in participating earlier in important litigation, marshalling evidence, conducting outreach to potentially friendly interveners, and retaining eminent external counsel? While there are a range of factors that contribute to a record of the type that the federal government has recently endured, a detailed internal review could expose systematic weaknesses with the federal government’s litigation strategy that could be addressed for future cases if it wants to preserve its agenda.

Benjamin Perrin: The Supreme Court of Canada won’t want this award

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