I love the canard that someone threw out earlier: "Equal opportunity NOT equal outcomes." That's so off the mark that it isn't even wrong. If you want to play the victim, Affirmative Action is as good an excuse as any, I suppose. We don't yet have equal opportunity in this great land of ours. We're heading there, and it certainly is not the abjectly racist and sexist world I was born into 58 years ago. I'm a moderate individual who has yet to ever hear anyone espouse equal outcomes regardless of effort. And I hang with a decidedly liberal (more accurately progressive) crowd. The 'waves of pi$$ed off people' would still exist even if there had never been affirmative action. They would just find another excuse for their indignation.

I believe wholeheartedly in Affirmative Action, which is giving the nod to a certain number of disadvantaged applicants with roughly equivalent records of effort and achievement. It isn't quotas; it isn't denying well qualified applicants anything. Schools have a right, yea an obligation, to create, foster, and enhance diversity at their institutions. The assertion that Affirmative Action is bigotry is ludicrous. The complete and ultimate solution is, of course, to give everyone the opportunity for quality educations starting at pre-K. Then we can try that 'color-blind' thing.

The problem with foreign language education in the US is precisely that there is no immersion. Within the traditional curricula no fluency is maintained, and the coursework only nominally helps you understand the structure and nuances of English, which should be a natural, and desired, by-product. I understand some of the objections to bilingual education as it was originally proposed. Many times it was only a stopgap measure that did not help students gain proficiency in both languages. But having students gain fluency in two languages? Who would object to that?

#3 is definitely not anti-Israeli. It's just statements of fact. I've travelled in the region and can attest to it. It seemed about as neutral an account as I've read on similar subjects.

Along with others I noticed no hat or gloves. But more curiously, no water vapor condensing in front of her mouth as she's talking.