ART: “How did the museum go from being a contemplative quiet car to the very center of a commercial frenzy?”

BLAST FROM THE PAST: 38 Amazing Black and White Photographs of New York’s Teenagers in the 1970s.

ED KRAYEWSKI ON TONI MORRISON’S LATEST DEATH FANTASY: From Being Judged by the Content of Your Character to Seeing a Cop Shoot an Unarmed White Teenager in the Back: A New Vision of a Post-Racial Society.

You could chalk it up to Morrison choosing her words poorly, but the idea that if more white people were victimized by the criminal justice system the way black people are that would signal racial progress is not a new one—a Bronx councilman admitted as much to me while trying to protest the killing of Ramarley Graham at the same time as he supported the drug war policies that contributed to his killing.

There are some statistics that might warm Toni Morrison’s blood-thirsty heart. Based on data reported to the FBI, in 2009 41.7 percent of people killed by cops were white. At 1,000 police killings a year—as fair an estimate as is possible to make with incomplete data—even assuming white deaths in police custody are over-reported to the FBI, that’s at least 200 white people killed by cops a year. For maximum racial retribution, Morrison can take comfort in the realization that, statistically speaking, at least one of those people was killed by a black cop.

The killing of white people by police generally doesn’t get the same attention in the media and the community as the killing of black people. A big part of that is that “white communities” aren’t sensitive to police violence in the first place, whether its directed at black people or at other white people. But from Seth Adams, shot by an undercover cop while checking on a suspicious car on his parents’ business property, to Chris Roupe, shot in the chest after opening his door holding a Wii controller, white people are shot by cops in controversial situations too. If she’s looking for a teenager shot an inordinate amount of time—18-year-old Joseph Jennings was shot by cops 16 times. He was suicidal and cops prevented his father from intervening. In Utah, a state that’s 88 percent white, you’re more likely to be shot by a cop than by a gang member or drug dealer. “White privilege isn’t bulletproof.” Even the teenage daughter of a judge can be killed by a cop. Would it be too much to wish Morrison and others judged victims of police violence by the content of their character* and not just the color of their skin?

Skin color has been the cornerstone of Morrison’s importance. Why would she abandon it now?

LAUGH ALL YOU WANT, but Art History can come in handy now and then.

KIRSTEN POWERS: Christians thrown overboard left to drown by Obama: Obama only mentions Christians to lecture them, rather than defend them from persecution. Well, that’s certainly true.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 712.

CATHY YOUNG EXPLAINS why Garry Trudeau is a putz.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: U of A Student Arrested for Lying About Sexual Assault.

After the interview, police reviewed video footage from the Harmon Parking Garage during the time that Sweetin said the incident happened. Detectives did not find any men in the video matching the description Sweetin provided them. Detectives also spoke to potential witnesses who were in the garage at that time, and they told officers they did not hear or see anything out of the ordinary.

On March 11, Detective Josh Bowen interviewed Sweetin again at UAPD. Detective Bowen asked Sweetin if she was telling the truth about the incident, and Sweetin said no. When asked why she would lie, Sweetin said she did see a man that matched the description she gave on Dickson Street and he scared her, but that the man never followed her into the Harmon deck.

Good grief.

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MY THOUGHTS IN USA TODAY: Wisconsin’s Dirty Prosecutors Pull A Putin.

NUMBER FOUR, WITH A BULLET: Michael Cottone’s article, Rethinking Presumed Knowledge Of the Law In The Regulatory Age, has entered the SSRN Top Download List at #4. And he’s closing in fast on the guy from Harvard just above him.

OF UNICORNS & INCOME INEQUALITY:   “Income inequality” is fast becoming the unicorn of the 2016 presidential campaign– a mythical creature that has captured the hearts and minds of the political left and a good number of independents.

Hillary Clinton has signaled it’s going to be the centerpiece of her presidential bid.  She recently complained about CEO pay being “300 times what the average worker makes.” But the more accurate figure is that the average CEO makes only about four times the wages of the average worker (not 300).  And let’s face it, folks:  The average business owner/CEO often invests personal funds, mortgages personal assets, and puts in hours far in excess of the “average” worker.

Liberals/progressives tout income inequality as “America’s biggest problem.”  Self-described socialist-democrat Rep. Bernie Sanders (who caucuses, unsurprisingly, with the Democrats) is pushing Hillary even further left, threatening to challenge her and asserting that his campaign would be built around an argument for “fundamental changes in the way we do business in the United States of America in terms of income inequality.”

The problem with all of this is that there is zero evidence that higher incomes for the top X percent of Americans causes a rise in poverty rates.  If the rich get richer, in other words, the poor don’t get poorer.  Indeed, the population of America’s poor has remained steady at 15% since the advent of the “Great Society” programs.  The “war on poverty” is an income-sucking hamster wheel, getting us nowhere.

The income inequality “problem,” is merely a Marxist cry for income redistribution— i.e., theft of the earnings of one segment of society (mostly middle income) to subsidize another segment of society that wants a slice of someone else’s pie.  But the top 20% of income earners in the U.S. already pay 84% of all income taxes.  The bottom fifth pays zero– and, in fact, gets a 2.2% income bonus, paid for by the rest of society.  So any arguments about the rich not paying their “fair share” for the costs of our swollen government are ludicrous.

What we need is re-invigoration of the belief in the American dream–that any child can, with hard work and intelligence, improve his lot and achieve greatness.  And the data supports that this is still true.  One would think that someone with President Obama’s biography would have ardently touted this optimistic truth.   Off all the current GOP presidential candidates, Marco Rubio seems, at the moment, to embrace this optimism the most.  I hope they all do, eventually.

THE HEAVY HAND OF THE STATE: Michigan Lawmakers Want Homeschooled Children Registered Like Dogs and Inspected by Social Workers. Based on the news stories we’ve been seeing, it seems as if we should instead be checking public-school students for signs of sexual abuse by teachers.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Why law schools are losing relevance — and how they’re trying to win it back. “Nine months after graduation, a little more than half of the class of 2013 had found full-time jobs as lawyers, down from 77 percent of 2007, according to the most recent data from the American Bar Association and the National Association for Law Placement. Those who did find jobs had starting salaries that were 8 percent below the 2009 peak.”

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): U.S. cracks down on female teachers who sexually abuse students. “Child abuse experts agree it appears female teachers are being prosecuted more vigorously than in the past.”

ASHE SCHOW: We disagree with you, [insert insult here]!

We’ve reached the point where simply disagreeing with someone is not enough. One must both disagree and name-call to really get the point across.

One of the best examples of this kind of reaction comes from those who really, really want to believe that American colleges are the worst places for women on earth, despite evidence that not only are rapes and sexual assaults not the norm on college campuses, but also that they are more likely to occur off-campus.

Some students at Oberlin College have taken to their school’s newspaper to write their opposition to American Enterprise Institute scholar Christina Hoff Sommers, who will be speaking at the college Monday night at the invitation of the school’s College Republicans. Because the students (and some local groups) disagree with Hoff Sommers’ viewpoint about the prevalence of campus sexual assault, they have called her a “rape denialist.”

The proper response to these pathetic losers is to paraphrase Professor Kingsfield: Here’s a dime. Go call your mother and tell her you’re too immature for college.

THE HILL: Flat tax makes 2016 comeback.

The more corrupt and politicized the IRS looks — which, these days, is pretty damn corrupt and politicized — the more attractive a flat tax becomes.

FREE SPEECH: ‘Nonmedia’ speakers don’t get full First Amendment protection, rules a Texas Court of Appeals panel.

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: Gallup: Half Of Americans Have Money Worries.

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: In New Millennium, No Jobs for Millennials.

This is the new normal. Men and women at the peak of their physical and mental development are increasingly frustrated in the job market precisely at the point when they are poised to launch careers and start families. Since the new century’s first recession in 2001, the unemployment rate for these young Americans has stayed higher than the rate of overall unemployment, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

What’s most striking is that the gap is wider now than it was in 2009, in the depths of the financial crisis. That’s an indication that the economic recovery hasn’t helped younger workers as much as it did after 20th-century slumps, Bloomberg data show.

That’s some “bad luck,” all right.

DIVERSITY PROBLEM: Just 7 percent of journalists are Republicans. That’s far fewer than even a decade ago.

Well, when you transform your profession into a collection of Democratic operatives with bylines, you’re not likely to find very many Republicans.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Pew: Gun rights top gun control in major public opinion shift. “Exactly two years after President Obama’s bid for gun control following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting died in Congress, a new poll has discovered a huge shift in public opinion to backing Second Amendment gun rights and away from controlling gun ownership. The reason: Americans now believe having a gun is the best way to protect against crime, 63 percent to 30 percent.” Well, the gun-control folks were hoping that Sandy Hook would change everything. And it did. . . .

BRITISH POLITICIAN: We may have the monarchy, but you have the hereditary ruling class. “Here’s a clue. On the day she announced her candidacy, I had a look at Hillary Clinton’s Twitter page. What, I wondered, might it tell me about her likely priorities in government? She followed nine other accounts: Clinton Global Initiative, Clinton Foundation, Clinton School, Clinton Library, Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Women in Public Service, Too Small to Fail and Beyond Differences. (To be fair, five more accounts have since been added: @HillaryforSC, @HillaryforNV, @HillaryforNH, @HillaryforIA and @HillaryforNY.) And why not? When you’ve been in and around government at the highest level for long enough, you’re bound to start taking it for granted. You forget that you are passing through institutions that are greater than you are. It becomes all about you. This was precisely the phenomenon that the United States was created to forestall.”

To be fair, it’s always been that way with Hillary.