;)
January 29, 2022
Timothy Bella, et al., of the Washington Post: "A major bridge collapsed in [Pittsburgh, Pa.,] just hours before President Biden arrived to tout his new infrastructure law, providing a vivid illustration of the country's crumbling transportation system -- but also highlighting that it will take years for many of the benefits to be felt." Video of President Biden's speech is here. ~~~
~~~ Shannon Pettypiece of NBC News: "President Joe Biden visited the site of a bridge collapse in Pittsburgh on Friday during a trip to the city to promote an infrastructure package that he said would help repair the nation's infrastructure and prevent similar incidents. As he surveyed the damage, Biden thanked first responders and spoke with local officials. 'We're going to fix them all. Not a joke, this is going to be a gigantic change,' he said, noting that the collapsed bridge in Frick Park had been rated in poor condition for 10 years." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ A New York Times report about the bridge collapse is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Pittsburgh is called the City of Bridges. The federal government, as you would expect, tracks the condition of those bridges." The bridge that collapsed is one the feds had determined was in "poor" condition. "... it sits at the end of one of ... Forbes Avenue..., a major thoroughfare into and out of downtown.... A review of the most recent report indicates that more than 7,500 bridges in the 50 states and D.C. are both in poor condition and rated lower or the same [as the Forbes Avenue bridge] on the four main measures of condition.... President Biden was already slated to be in Pittsburgh on Friday, to give a speech focused on infrastructure. This bridge collapse offers a useful if unwelcome demonstration of the need for the recently passed infrastructure bill to be implemented." (Also linked yesterday.)
Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "The White House on Friday confirmed that President Biden is considering a South Carolina federal judge and favorite of House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) as a potential candidate for the Supreme Court. The statement is the first time the White House has publicly confirmed a name under consideration to replace Justice Stephen G. Breyer.... At the same time, the White House indicated that Judge J. Michelle Childs is one of several people under consideration by the president, who has pledged to live up to his campaign promise of nominating the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court." ~~~
Mississippi state flag until 2020. ~~~ ** Let's Find Out What the Sexist Racists Are Saying. Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press: "The first Black woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court in history will be a 'beneficiary' of affirmative action, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker told a radio show this afternoon. The senior Republican senator from Mississippi made clear that he has no plans to vote for [President] Biden's yet-to-be-announced pick. 'The irony is that the Supreme Court is at the very time hearing cases about this sort of affirmative racial discrimination while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota,' Wicker told host Paul Gallo on SuperTalk Mississippi Radio today, referring to a pending U.S. Supreme Court case challenging affirmative action in college admissions.... 'We're going to go from a nice, stately liberal [-- Stephen Breyer --] to someone who's probably more in the style of Sonia Sotomayor,' Wicker said. '... I hope it's at least someone who will at least not misrepresent the facts. I think they will misinterpret the law.'... Wicker notably did not raise an objection when ... Donald Trump vowed to appoint a woman to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she died weeks before the 2020 election." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Wicker was speaking on a radio show, so he probably didn't bother to wear his pointy white hood. I'll bet he would not find Justice Breyer so "nice and stately" if it dawned on him that Breyer is Jewish. ~~~
... there's never been a president that has made race and gender the defining factor. -- Sean Hannity, January 26
The claim ignored that both Trump and Reagan made similar vows to nominate women to the Supreme Court, then followed through on those promises. Other presidents in history have also considered race and religion as they have made their picks. -- Politifact
There was never a president prior to Lyndon Johnson who did not make race and gender the defining factor. -- Marie Burns
~~~ Katie Rogers & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "President Biden had hoped that Justice Stephen G. Breyer would retire soon. But as he and his advisers waited for the most senior member of the Supreme Court's liberal wing to make up his mind, the president had made it clear: No one was to do anything to pressure him. Part of the reason, three advisers to Mr. Biden said, was because the president, who was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1994 when Justice Breyer was confirmed, had respect for the man. Part of it was because he had respect for the role. And part of it was that he knew liberal groups were already applying plenty of pressure -- any more could backfire.... His reticence meant that the two men spoke for the first time since Mr. Biden took office on Thursday, when Justice Breyer hand-delivered his resignation letter to the White House, according to ... advisers...."
Amy Cheng & Siobhán O'Grady of the Washington Post: "The United States does not believe Russian President Vladimir Putin has reached a decision on whether to again attack Ukraine, but Moscow 'clearly now has that capability' to seize important territories from Kyiv, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday." ~~~
~~~ New York Times Liveblog (Friday): "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has deployed the troops and military hardware needed to invade all of Ukraine, the Pentagon's top leaders said on Friday, as senior Defense Department officials warned that the tense standoff was leading the United States, its NATO allies and Russia into uncharted territory.... Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III described a bristling array of Russian combined arms formations, artillery and rockets assembled at the Ukrainian border, which he said 'far and away exceeds what we would typically see them do for exercises.' Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was more blunt: 'I think you'd have to go back quite a while to the Cold War days to see something of this magnitude.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ David Stern, et al., of the Washington Post: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday criticized Western nations, including the United States, for their handling of Russia's military buildup at his border, taking aim at his most important security partners as his own military braced for a potential attack. The 44-year-old leader faulted the West for waiting to impose more damaging sanctions on Moscow -- 'that's not the way to do it,' Zelensky said -- while assailing decisions by the United States, Britain and Australia to withdraw some embassy staff and families, and accusing Western leaders of inciting 'panic' with repeated suggestions that an invasion was imminent. 'I can't be like other politicians who are grateful to the United States just for being the United States,' Zelensky told reporters during a news conference [in Kyiv]."
Ronen Bergman of the New York Times Magazine & Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: In June of 2019, "the F.B.I. [began setting up] a version of Pegasus, NSO's premier spying tool. For nearly a decade, the Israeli firm had been selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one else -- not a private company, not even a state intelligence service -- could do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.... But by the time the company's engineers walked through the door of the New Jersey facility in 2019, the many abuses of Pegasus had also been well documented.... ... This version of Pegasus was 'zero click' -- unlike more common hacking software, it did not require users to click on a malicious attachment or link -- so the Americans monitoring the phones could see no evidence o an ongoing breach.... The details of the F.B.I.'s purchase and testing of Pegasus have never before been made public." ~~~
~~~ Michael Levenson of the New York Times has a summary report here.
** Luke Broadwater & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack issued 14 subpoenas on Friday to people who falsely claimed to be electors for ... Donald J. Trump in the 2020 election in states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., digging deeper into Mr. Trump's efforts to overturn the results. The subpoenas target individuals who met and submitted false Electoral College certificates in seven states won by President Biden: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 'The select committee is seeking information about attempts in multiple states to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including the planning and coordination of efforts to send false slates of electors to the National Archives,' Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, said in a statement." (Also linked yesterday.) The Guardian's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: What's so fascinating here is that journalists & the January 6 committee have woven this seemingly tangential thread into Trump's plot to overturn a democratically-held election. The trouble with a "vast right-wing conspiracy" is that the vaster it is, the more likely it is that someone will unravel it.
Gloria Borger & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "The House Select Committee investigating January 6 has issued a subpoena Friday for a former White House spokesman with firsthand knowledge of Donald Trump's behavior before and during the January 6 attack on the Capitol, according to a copy of a letter accompanying the subpoena obtained by CNN. The committee is seeking both documents and a deposition next month from former deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere, who helped with 'formulating White House's response to the January 6 attack as it occurred,' according to the panel's letter. In its letter to Deere, the committee specifically said it wanted to speak with him about the January 5 staff meeting in the Oval Office with the President. The committee said it had obtained information that Trump repeatedly asked in the meeting: 'What are your ideas for getting the RINOs to do the right thing tomorrow? How do we convince Congress?'"
The Big Lie Is A-Okay with Twitter. Daniel Dale of CNN: "Twitter quit taking action to try to limit the spread of lies about the 2020 election, the company said on Friday -- a day after another social media platform, YouTube, removed a Republican congressman's campaign ad because it included a 2020 lie. Twitter spokesperson Elizabeth Busby told CNN on Friday that 'since March 2021,' Twitter has not been enforcing its 'civic integrity policy' in relation to lies about the 2020 election.... That's because the policy is designed to be used 'during the duration' of an election or other civic event, and 'the 2020 U.S. election is not only certified, but President Biden has been in office for more than a year.' Lies about the 2020 election, however..., continue to play a major role in American politics.... Donald Trump continues to relentlessly repeat lies about the 2020 election. Intelligence analysts say members of far-right extremist groups continue to subscribe to these lies. Driven by the lies, Republican activists around the country continue to press for so-called election audits and they hunt, sometimes door to door, for supposed fraud. And numerous Republican candidates running in 2022 primaries are campaigning on lies about what happened in 2020."
Stuart Thompson of the New York Times: Scammers scam Trumpbots with a "Trump coin" which some marketers claimed was cryptocurrency (it's not) & others claim -- often on fake social media accounts of celebrities like actor Denzel Washington & John F. Kennedy, Jr. (deceased) -- will replace American money. MB: Most surprising part: there's no suggestion Trump himself is making a dime off the cheap Trump coins. HOWEVER, ~~~
~~~ Michael Scherer & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Years after shuttering businesses selling Trump steaks, Trump vodka and Trump mattresses, the Trumps have returned to unconventional direct-to-consumer appeals that trade on his continued popularity among a devoted base to the tune of millions of dollars in receipts. Even as some of his traditional businesses have struggled after a polarizing presidency, Trump and his family have been launching a whole set designed to target his die-hard followers.... [One product is a picture] book, based largely on photographs in the public domain..., [is] sold unsigned for $75 and over three times that with Trump's signature, [and] has been published by a new company founded by his son, Donald Trump Jr. It paid the former president a multimillion-dollar advance for signing copies, writing captions and helping curate photos...." Trump also is making money on the lecture circuit & continues to promote his properties: "He released a statement this month, using his taxpayer-funded post-presidential office, boasting of a recent investment in his Doral golf course in Miami and promising that thousands of homes would be built on the property."
Ben Weiser of the New York Times on Michael Avenatti's courtroom cross-examination of Stormy Daniels, who has accused him of defrauding her. "Rounding out the courtroom time capsule of a peculiar moment in American politics, Michael D. Cohen -- who, as Mr. Trump's former lawyer and fixer, paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 to buy her silence about her claim that she had an affair with [Donald] Trump -- watched from the spectator gallery.... Last July, [Mr. Avenatti] was sentenced to two and a half years behind bars after being convicted in February 2020 on charges of trying to extort more than $20 million from the apparel giant Nike. He is to surrender to the authorities on Feb. 28." ~~~
~~~ Tom Hays & Larry Newmeister of the AP: "Michael Avenatti sought Friday at his fraud trial to portray his former client Stormy Daniels as someone who might be delusional as he questioned the porn actor about her belief that her house was once haunted by ghosts. Avenatti, who is acting as his own lawyer, got to cross-examine Daniels for a second day about allegations that he stole $300,000 the performer was supposed to get from a publisher for writing a tell-all book about an alleged sexual tryst with ... Donald Trump.... Avenatti is defending himself against wire fraud and aggravated identify theft charges." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Assuming prosecutors have hard evidence that Avenatti diverted to himself funds designated for Daniels, I don't see what Daniel's mental competence has to do with the matter. I would guess that many victims of fraud are not competent at the time the fraud is perpetrated on them.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
Spotify on the Spot. Harriet Sherwood of the Guardian: "... Joni Mitchell has joined Neil Young in removing her music from Spotify in protest at it hosting a popular anti-vax podcast. Mitchell, whose 1971 album Blue is regarded as one of the greatest of all time, is the first high-profile musician to take a stand alongside Young against the streaming behemoth." ~~~
~~~ On her Website, Mitchell republishes an open letter to Spotify from "a coalition of scientists, medical professionals, professors, and science communicators spanning a wide range of fields" who say they "are calling on Spotify to take action against the mass-misinformation events which continue to occur on its platform. With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE is the world's largest podcast and has tremendous influence. Though Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, the company presently has no misinformation policy."
Virginia. Justin Jouvenal, et al., of the Washington Post: "Virginia's public colleges and universities don't have the authority to require students to get a coronavirus vaccine to enroll or attend in-person classes, the state's new attorney general found in his first opinion since taking office this month. The opinion by Jason Miyares, a Republican, is the most recent move by the state's new GOP leadership to challenge coronavirus mandates. It is unclear if the step will have any practical effect on students currently on campuses. More than 90 percent of students at most of the state's four-year public schools are already vaccinated and, in some cases, boosted."
Washington State. Kyle Morris of Fox "News": "A Washington State Patrol officer who defied a statewide vaccine mandate and signed off for the last time by telling Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee to 'kiss my a--' ... over forced vaccine mandates ... is dead from COVID-19. Former Trooper Robert LaMay, 51, who served 22 years with the State Patrol and retired last October, died on Friday." MB: I don't know the pension rules for Washington state troopers, and I don't know if LeMay was married, but it's nice to know that -- since he served 22 years -- his widow might get the pension benefits he won't need because he killed himself with Covid.
Beyond the Beltway
Minnesota. Holly Bailey of the Washington Post: "The three former Minneapolis police officers on trial for violating George Floyd's civil rights had been trained to verbally and physically intervene to stop a colleague from using unreasonable force and broke department policy when they didn't stop Derek Chauvin from kneeling on Floyd's neck,> a police supervisor testified Friday. Katie Blackwell, a Minneapolis Police Department inspector who commanded the agency's training division at the time of Floyd's May 2020 death, testified that former officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane and Tou Thao had undergone hours of training on the department's use of force guidelines, including the duty to intervene and the obligation to render medical aid when someone in their custody needs it."
Ohio Senate Race. Liz Skalka of the Huffington Post on a debate between Ohio U.S. Senate candidates Morgan Harper (D) & Josh Mandel (ARrrr). Good grief. P.D. Pepe discusses the debate in yesterday's Comments. (Also linked yesterday.)
Pennsylvania. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "A state court in Pennsylvania on Friday struck down the state's landmark election law as unconstitutional, dealing a temporary blow to voting access in one of the nation's most critical battleground states. In a 3-to-2 decision, the state court sided with 14 Republican lawmakers who sued last year, arguing that the law was unconstitutional. Pennsylvania filed an appeal to its Supreme Court on Friday afternoon, triggering an automatic stay that keeps the law in place during the appeal process. The law, known as Act 77, was passed by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, in 2019. It permitted no-excuse absentee voting, created a permanent mail-in voter list, reduced the voter registration deadline from 30 days to 15 and provided for $90 million in election infrastructure upgrades. It also eliminated straight ticket voting. The majority opinion, written by Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt, a Republican, said that voting 'requires the physical presence of the elector' and ruled that the legislature could not make changes to voting laws without amending the state Constitution.... In a statement, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic Pennsylvania attorney general who is also running for governor, criticized the state court's decision as 'faulty[.]'" A CBS News report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: In the modern day, a voting law that "requires the physical presence of the elector" sounds kinda unconstitutional to me. That would mean no absentee voting under any conditions: not for people in nursing homes, not for people with debilitating illnesses, not for military personnel serving away from home, etc.
Wisconsin. Brad Parks of CNN: "The gun that Kyle Rittenhouse used in the Kenosha, Wisconsin, shootings will be destroyed, Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger said Friday. 'The parties -- the defense, the state, and also Dominick Black, who purchased that firearm -- have all signed off on a stipulation whereby the Kenosha Police Department and Joint Services will destroy that firearm, as well as the magazine, and the scope,' Binger told Judge Bruce Schroeder at a hearing Friday.... [Rittenhouse's attorney Mark] Richards also confirmed the rest of Rittenhouse's property that was seized when he was arrested was returned earlier this week. Rittenhouse was not present for the hearing."
News Ledes
ESPN: "Tom Brady is retiring from football after 22 seasons in which he won a historic seven Super Bowl titles, sources told ESPN.... Brady [is] widely considered the greatest quarterback in NFL history...." ~~~
~~~ CNN: Or maybe not.
AP: ";A nor'easter with hurricane-force wind gusts battered much of the East Coast on Saturday, flinging heavy snow that made travel treacherous or impossible, flooding coastlines, and threatening to leave bitter cold in its wake. The storm thrashed parts of 10 states, with blizzard warnings that stretched from Virginia to Maine. Philadelphia and New York saw plenty of wind and snow, but Boston was in the crosshairs. The city could get more than 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow by the time it moves out early Sunday. Winds gusted as high as 83 mph (134 kph) on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Southwest of Boston, the town of Sharon, Massachusetts, had received more than 30 inches (76 centimeters) of snow by Saturday night, while Islip, New York, and Warren, Rhode Island, both saw more than 24 inches (61 centimeters)."
The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the winter storm that is pummeling the East Coast of the U.S. The Weather Channel has links to stories about on its front page.
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Reader Comments (13)
All of the white men on the SC are there because of the overwhelming affirmative action policies that favored white men since before the constitution was even written. Current Affirmative Action policies are a mere watering can compared to the firehose of privilege aimed at white men.
@NiskyGuy: I had to make up a Mississippi address & phone number to send Roger from Mississippi this message:
"I was surprised that in your recent comments about President Biden's potential nominee for the Supreme Court, you did not acknowledge that before President Lyndon Johnson chose Thurgood Marshall for the Court, EVERY SINGLE SUPREME COURT NOMINEE was an affirmative action pick: that is, preceding presidents chose their nominees because of their race & gender: white & male.
"Even more stunning, you don't seem to be self-aware enough to realize that you are an affirmative action senator, chosen because of your race & gender. Lord knows, your lack of knowledge of American history demonstrates you otherwise are not the most qualified person for the job you hold. You owe women, and especially women of color, a big apology for making such sexist, racist remarks."
Armed with the information I have conveyed to him, Roger certainly will become an enlightened senator who votes for all of President Biden's court nominees.
THE RIGHT TO AFFIRM:
I have always been in favor of affirmative action and I remember years ago having a conversation with a good friend who was an admission counselors at Yale who had grave doubts about the practice, which, at the time, I failed to understand.
This morning I read John McWhorter's ( someone who I have always paid attention to) essay in the NYT on this very subject and it has given me a whole new way of looking at this–- and I am grateful to him for presenting it as such. He brings it home––with his daughters as examples–-and we understand his and their place in the sun.
"When Affirmative Action was put into practice around a half century ago, with legalized segregation so recent, it was reasonable to thnk of being Black as a shorthand for being disadvantaged, whatever a Black person's socioeconomic status was. In 1960, around half of Black people were poor....seven years from Thurgood Marshall's appointment to the S.C.–––the idea of a Black president seemed like folly."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/opinion/affirmative-action.html
If any of you read this I would appreciate your take.
Avenatti suggests Stormy is delusional because she believes in ghosts.
Nope. It just means she's an average American.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/politics/harry-enten-podcast-margins-of-error-ghosts/index.html
And to piggy back on Patrick's ghost busters, here's something my d,c, buddy sent me this morning:
"A long ago comic strip, I think maybe in the National Lampoon, depicted the first woman President of the US.
In each of the first several panels, she accomplished another major milestone on the path to world peace and prosperity.
The final panel was captioned: "Then one day she got her period and felt icky -- so she pushed The Button and blew up the world."
At the time it was funny. Now it's wingnut doctrine. Life imitates art."
We widdle Womens all-ways so emotional, don''t you know, never can tell what we'll do next–––best keep us pregnant and near the stove for as long as possible.
@P.D. Pepe: The problem with the cartoon was that it was another way of reinforcing the stereotype -- by making a joke of it -- that women are not constitutionally (and that's with a small "c") & emotionally capable of handling the top jobs. Ha ha! The first little bout of PMS could make a woman blow up the world.
P.D.: McWhorter's suggestion has been around a long time, and has merit. For some time, the "Talented Tenth" have benefitted from affirmative action, and his observations are similar: why give someone an edge if they don't seem to need it? I suspect that the answer, for elite universities, is that it's easier to sort applicants by a few of the checked boxes (race, zip code, etc.) than to do a real analysis of each applicant.
Two observations:
-- I used to counsel people (as their supervisor) who thought they benefitted from AA to not fret over this question ("How do I know I'm good and not just a quota?"), that they just accept good outcomes that they are handed, in part because they'll also get lots of bad outcomes undeservedly. You know you're good by your performance, not by your admission ticket.
-- I have been on many selection panels for "elite" stuff (not for education) and over the decades never observed panel members seeking outcomes by race, either way. At least in my old line of work, people DID judge by performance and potential and not by exogenous factors. As far as I could tell.
And leave it to Crooks and Ladders to add to the above: Jesse Watters, that smarmy punk at Fox smells another whiff of "let's put down Kamala for having female-like problems" but says, just like Fatty always said, "It's not what I say, it's what others are saying." BUT this time Watter's world takes a dive–-his female anchors shut him up. So we can conclude over at Fox the females are fine with dishing the dirt with the rest of the guys except when it comes to THEIR gender's proclivities?
https://crooksandliars.com/2022/01/jesse-watters-cut-pane-after-attacking-vp
P.D.
McWhorter is a bit of a gadfly. Often interesting because by deliberately wandering into minority opinion territory his own notions stand out from the liberal party line he seems to like poking holes in (interesting, too, is his free for all approach to "proper" language, which couldn't be more "liberal" and which is in stark contrast). Sometimes I think he just likes the attention.
In this case, though, the minority opinion is wrong for a reason. Of course, as a Black man, McWhorter's thoughts about affirmative action have special cachet (not the first Black man to travel this road), but I don't think he's thought the issue through any more carefully than has Justice Roberts.
College admissions will always be complicated and no single formula will answer all the questions it raises.
Most colleges already have (and have had, long before the 1960's) some form of affirmative action for athletes. With all the money now associated with college sports, I'd guess that's even more true today.
Despite all the talk and the reams of op-eds written on the subject, we've never really had race-based admissions. If we had, admissions would follow our demographics more closely than they ever have. Under sixty percent of student bodies would be white, half female and about 12 percent Black. Don't have the Asian and Hispanic (often counted as White) numbers to hand, but the point is clear. Affirmative action based on race has in effect never been all that affirmative.
McWhorter's proposal to use economic status as the great equalizer would have its own interesting consequences. Since there are far more poor families than rich ones, the wealthy regardless of race or ethnicity would be nearly squeezed out. I kinda like the picture, but don't think it will ever happen....
No, McWhorter didn't think this one through. College admissions have never been "fair," and there's no one elixir to make it so.
Don't know if that's what you had in mind, P.D., but that's what you got.
Just a humorous thought: With temperatures in the swamp state set to plunge into the 30s from Maries old stomping grounds into Greater Miami I do hope all you FaceBook and Twitter uses are ready for a barrage of falling iguana videos!
@BL, I'd be more inclined to watch if the videos were about a perp-walked Fatty.
I thank Patrick and Ken for weighing in on the McWhorter piece. It's a sticky wicket and he presented a view I had not thought about. And Ken, you may be right about him being a kind of a gadfly–-which is what was interesting to me. Your "No, McWhorter didn't think this one through. College admissions have never been "fair," and there's no one elixir to make it so." is probably correct but in any case it was food for thought that I hadn't consumed in full.
Seems to me Ken's analysis is more convincing than McWhorter's. I grew up poor, too, but I always felt I had an advantage because my parents were both well-educated for their generation (both had undergraduate degrees & my father was something of an intellectual). The friend I thought was more deserving of special consideration was a young woman whose parents were neither well-off nor interested in education. Instead of footing the bill for her freshman year at college, they gave her a car. Yet as a teenager, she was excited about reading the classics and generally interested in learning. Another high school acquaintance of mine -- as I learned years later -- had been reared in the same crimped circumstances; he became the president of a university. I don't know who or what sparked their intellectual curiosity, but neither had the "advantage" I had.
So, as Ken writes, "... no single formula will answer all the questions it raises." Because it's possible to apply to numerous colleges, we just have to hope that one admissions officer at one of those schools will pick a deserving applicant.