SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

GREAT MOMENTS IN EDUCATION – FROM THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION:   Schools in the United Kingdom are beginning to remove analog clocks from the classroom — because students are complaining that they can’t read them, reports say.  Officials have begun replacing the traditional clocks with digital ones as children have been unable to tell the correct time on analog clocks, The Telegraph reports.  “The current generation aren’t as good at reading the traditional clock face as older generations,” Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders in England, told the publication. “Nearly everything they’ve got is digital so youngsters are just exposed to time being given digitally everywhere.”  Now, how long do you think it would take a teacher to teach a kid to read traditional clocks?  Fifteen minutes?  Guess it isn't worth it. Much easier to have all the traditional clocks replaced.  And let's get rid of those traditional watches also.  And who needs books?

STUMBLING – FROM FOX:  For NBC News, it was another in a series of embarrassments on Thursday as it had to correct a story saying federal investigators had placed a wiretap on the phone lines of President Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen.  As Fox News is reporting, the feds were monitoring only what calls were being made but weren’t listening in — contrary to NBC’s earlier reporting. The Peacock Network’s major turnabout was made more than four hours after the original story moved online Thursday, when it caused immediate chatter in the cable news universe.  NBC had attributed its original story to two anonymous sources with knowledge of the legal proceedings against Cohen. In an editor’s note preceding the rewritten story, NBC explains that three senior U.S. officials disputed the account, saying that the phones were monitored by a pen register, which records the phone numbers on both ends of the conversation, not the substance of the calls themselves.  We don't expect much accuracy from modern media, and we don't get much from some organizations.  NBC ain't what it was.

RIDICULOUS – FROM FOX:  In a move described as an effort to reflect the city’s predominantly black community, the Baltimore Museum of Art is selling works by white men, including Andy Warhol, to make room for paintings and other pieces by black and female artists.  The effort veers significantly from the more typical practice by museums of selling artwork to finance buying pieces that are more valuable, conceded the museum’s director, Christopher Bedford.  The chief goal by the museum is very clearly to diversify its collection, Bedford said in a statement released last month after the Board of Trustees approved the plan.
“The BMA, like any civic museum, must undergo a continuous process of reviewing its collection and identifying areas for growth and refinement with the goal of building a collection that is more relevant to the community it serves,” said Bedford. “The sale of these works, identified by our curators after a very thorough process, will allow us to do just that, and strengthen our collection of contemporary art.”  It would have been far better to try to raise money to acquire more space.  Selling art works on the basis of race is a dismal, authoritarian idea.

May 3, 2018