MISSING BACKPACKER SURVIVED by drinking contact-lens fluid. I would have thought it too salty.

I’VE FOUND MY NEW SPORT: Barstool Racing.

READER BOOK PLUG: From reader David K. Thomasson, The First Impression: A Novel.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Which small generator is the toughest?

THE DEATH OF CHIVALRY. Chivalry was a system that imposed expectations on women as well as men. If women are uninterested in meeting those expectations, men certainly shouldn’t feel bound.

A CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY: “The Second Amendment Foundation today won a significant victory for concealed carry when the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals let stand a December ruling by a three-judge panel of the court that forces Illinois to adopt a concealed carry law, thus affirming that the right to bear arms exists outside the home.”

THE RUBES ARE CATCHING ON? Youth abandoning Obama; just 43% approve. “The just-released Economist/YouGov poll reports that only older Americans age 65 and above have a worse view of the president, with 53 percent disapproving of his performance and 47 approving.”

PEGGY NOONAN: Government by Freakout: Obama’s scare tactics aren’t much of a long-term strategy. Who says he cares about the long term?

AMERICA’S NEW MANDARINS: The paths to power and success are narrowing. So is the worldview of the powerful.

All elites are good at rationalizing their elite-ness, whether it’s meritocracy or “the divine right of kings”. The problem is the mandarin elite has some good arguments. They really are very bright and hard-working. It’s just that they’re also prone to be conformist, risk averse, obedient, and good at echoing the opinions of authority, because that is what this sort of examination system selects for.

The even greater danger is that they become more and more removed from the people they are supposed to serve. Since I moved to Washington, I have had series of extraordinary conversations with Washington journalists and policy analysts, in which I remark upon some perfectly ordinary facet of working class, or even business class life, only to have this revelation met with amazement. I once had it suggested to me by a wonk of my acquaintance that I should write an article about how working class places I’ve worked usually had one or two verbally lightning-fast guys who I envied for their ability to generate an endless series of novel and hilarious one liners to pass the time. I said I’d take it under advisement, but what on earth would one title such an article? . . .

But many of the mandarins have never worked for a business at all, except for a think tank, the government, a media organization, or a school–places that more or less deliberately shield their content producers from the money side of things. There is nothing wrong with any of these places, but culturally and operationally they’re very different from pretty much any other sort of institution. I don’t myself claim to understand how most businesses work, but having switched from business to media, I’m aware of how different they can be.

In fact, I think that to some extent, the current political wars are a culture war not between social liberals and social conservatives, but between the values of the mandarin system, and the values of those who compete in the very different culture of ordinary businesses–ones outside glamor industries like tech or design. . . . Almost none of the kids I meet in Washington these days even had boring menial high school jobs working in a drugstore or waiting tables; they were doing “enriching” internships or academic programs. And thus the separation of the mandarin class grows ever more complete.

Read the whole thing. It’s particularly interesting when read next to this new piece by Angelo Codevilla.

MENENDEZ UPDATE: Voters Sour on New Jersey Senator: Menendez Sees Approval Ratings Slide as Ethics Panel and FBI Probe His Ties to Florida Eye Doctor.

Meanwhile, in Chicago: NBC: Mayor Emanuel’s Approval Rating In The Tank.

STEPHEN KRUISER: While We Argue Gun Statistics, OFA Is Tugging Heartstrings With A Video.

COLLEGE-PRESIDENT LIABILITY: Peter Schuck: Valdosta and the Future of the Authoritarian Campus.

AT AMAZON, up to 75% off on select clearance watches.

Also, today only: Save Up to 66% on “The Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection” and More Musicals.

CRONY NATION: Obama Ally Got $340 Million To Set Up Health Care Co-ops. But that’s just the beginning. And they forgot about the Wayback Machine:

A health insurance company headed by an old friend from President Obama’s days as a community organizer got a $340 million federal loan to establish Obamacare co-ops in New York, New Jersey and Oregon despite having a chronic record of consumer and regulatory complaints.

The New York-based Freelancers Insurance Company has been rated the “worst” insurer for two straight years by state regulators, and data compiled by a national insurance association show an extremely high rate of consumer complaints.

The firm was founded in 2008 by Sara Horowitz, who worked with Obama before his career in elective politics to launch Demos, a left-wing, New York think tank funded in part by George Soros.

Before May 13, 2011, the Demos website described Horowitz and Obama as members of the founding group in 1999 that became “the core of Demos’ staff and Board of Trustees.” Sometime between that date and Nov. 6, 2011, the Obama reference was deleted, according to cached versions of the site stored by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Read the whole thing.

REASON TV: Should You Go To Jail For Unlocking Your Phone?

K-12 IMPLOSION: Teacher Job Satisfaction Hits 25-Year Low.

JAMES TARANTO: Massive Resistance Redux: A Chicago official’s bizarre and wrongheaded constitutional theory.

In the 1950s, Democratic politicians in Virginia, led by Sen. Harry Byrd Sr., undertook an effort called “massive resistance.” Through various legislative and administrative means, they sought to circumvent the mandate for school integration that the Supreme Court had issued in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education.

Similar stirrings can be heard today in Illinois–specifically, from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, which prosecutes crimes in Chicago. At issue is not the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection before the law, but the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms.

Read the whole thing.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Gilded Class Warriors: Liberal grandees attack the rich while enjoying their lifestyle. And Democrats protect the corporate-jet loophole.

But they talk a different game.

SHUT UP OR I’LL KILL YOU: Silencing Free Speech In America.

CHARLIE SPIERING: Did Rush Limbaugh just launch a Tea Party revival effort?

THE HILL: Pro-Obama group pushes president’s gun control agenda.

ANDY KESSLER: When Interest Rates Rise, Watch Out. “The Fed’s inevitable Sword of Damocles could be brutal for bonds and stocks. Some of us recall the massacre of 1994.”

ROLL CALL: DSCC Raised Millions More Than NRSC in January. Well, what has the GOP done in the past month that would inspire people to donate?

DANIEL SOSA: The Left’s Racists Are Out To Get Ted Cruz.