Light blogging day, but for a good reason

I attended an award ceremony today for Jewish teens who have made a difference.  My teens were not among this group, nor will they ever be.  They are good people, and I am happy about that, but their current talents and interests do not go in philanthropic directions.  So it goes.  Not all of us can be Albert Schweitzer, right?  However, I did find it very inspiring to be in the same room as some teens who have made a difference.

Of course, traveling into the city for the occasion meant that I didn’t get a chance to read much or blog at all today.  Nor will the next hour or two change that, because I have a legal brief to finish writing.  (I do like to keep my hand in the legal game occasionally.)

So, just two things for you right now.  First, speaking of teens, the Los Angeles Times tries to put a positive spin on a truly tragic story:  a good kid from a poor, all black school, who did well there and, instead of being a good fit at a mid-tier university, is failing like crazy at UC Berkeley.  In many ways, the saddest thing in the story is that Berkeley immediately sent him to an African American dorm, apparently to empower him.  A reader comment at the article sums that up perfectly:

John in GA at 12:23 PM August 26, 2013

What unbelievable irony: the UC system twists itself into knots trying to integrate black students, and then herds them into a segregated dormitory where they can foster kinship with their own kind.  Can you imagine if an employer set aside a floor of cubicles just for black employees?  Or if a real estate agency directed black home buyers to an “African-American Theme Neighborhood”?  Or if an American university built a special domitory only for white students?  The DOJ would have SWAT teams fast-roping out of helicopters.

Then these guys — who live in a segregated dorm, eat dinner together, and spend most of the day taking courses that appeal exclusively to blacks — wonder why they don’t get invited to study groups with non-black students.

Has there ever been a better example of the “subtle bigotry of low expectations” that what’s happening in the UC system?

And while I’m still on the subject of young people, Crossroads GPS (Karl Rove’s baby) has its own submission for the “help us market ObamaCare” contest: