FLASHBACK: Tom Shales and his NPR interviewer try to make sense of a new movie called Star Wars, this strange new “complete science fiction fantasy with absolutely no redeeming moral values or moralistic values either” that’s “taking the country by proverbial storm.”
Are the special effects any good?, Shales is asked at one point. “Gee, it’s kind of hard to describe the whole universe blowing up in your face.”
YEAH, BARACK, YOU BLEW IT — WAIT, WHAT? ‘I Started The Arab Spring. Now Death Is Everywhere, And Extremism Blooming.’
IT’S COME TO THIS: Kentucky School District Censors A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Actually, considering where CBS was headed at the time, I’m kind of surprised it got on the air in the first place. As Lee Habeeb wrote in his 2011 article, which NRO republished this month to celebrate the 50th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas:
As far back as 1965 — just a few years before Time magazine asked “Is God Dead?” — CBS executives thought a Bible reading might turn off a nation populated with Christians. And during a Christmas special, no less! Ah, the perils of living on an island in the northeast called Manhattan.
It took them half a century, but CBS finally managed to spread the “Progressive” word from Black Rock to Johnson County, Kentucky.
DON SURBER: Your Political Joke Of The Day.
PRIVATE COLLEGES: ‘WHERE FREE SPEECH IS LEAST FREE IN AMERICA’: I encourage everyone to check out this new article by George Leef about the growing threats to free speech on private college campuses. In addition to deftly summarizing what is expected of private campuses in regard to protecting free speech, Leef describes one of the most recent examples of blatant administrative censorship: Colorado College student Thaddeus Pryor’s suspension for making a six word joke on Yik Yak.
You can read Leef’s article over at Forbes.com, and read more about Colorado College’s war on Yik Yak comments over at FIRE’s news blog.
AT AMAZON, shop the Electronics Gift Guide.
Plus, today only at Amazon: Up to 40% Off Kids’ Games.
And, also today only: Up to 55% off on select recertified Bowers & Wilkins audio products.
WAS ANYONE SACKED? Harvard Apologizes For “Social Justice” Placemats. Because when lefties complain, somebody is usually sacked.
TEXAS ALUMNI ORGANIZATION apologizes for Scalia smear.
As I recounted in The American Spectator, and here, the University of Texas alumni organization (of which I am a Life Member) denounced Justice Scalia for a question he asked during the December 9 oral argument in Fisher v. UT, irresponsibly calling his remark “racist and offensive.” I promptly demanded a retraction and apology, which Texas Exes’s vice president of digital strategy, Tim Taliaferro, stridently refused. (The entire e-mail exchange is reproduced in the TAS piece.) I went public (as I had threatened to do if an apology was not forthcoming), and within days, the President of Texas Exes issued an apology. Tepid? Yes. Inadequate? Undoubtedly. (Taliaferro should have been fired.) But gratifying? Certainly. Even the most politically correct, Left-leaning alumni organizations can be confronted and forced to back down if only vocal members speak up. As I stated in my previous Bench Memos post, “silence is assent.” Texas Exes is eating crow. Make it happen at your alma mater.
As a famous leader said: Get in their faces. Punch back twice as hard.
TIME MAGAZINE: U.S. Race Relations at 20-Year Low, Survey Finds.
Well, that’s a form of change, I suppose. When does the hope arrive?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Professor: I Don’t Care Where My Children Go To College.
DOUBLE DOWN: Sam’s Club responds after black CEO’s anti-white male discrimination stirs calls for boycott. “The president and CEO of WalMart Stores Inc., who owns Sam’s Club, Doug McMillon said the company supports Ms. Brewer and added that they ask their suppliers ‘to prioritize the talent and diversity of their sales teams.'”
PROBABLY ALL PLACED IN KEY “SWING” PRECINCTS: As lawmakers clash over refugees, Syrian immigration quietly tops 100,000 since 2012.
I SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED BUYING MYSELF A DRONE FOR CHRISTMAS — THIS ONE — BUT THIS TOOK THE SHINE OFF OF IT SOMEHOW: Next Monday, Mandatory Drone Registration Begins.
My prediction, however, is that most people will just ignore the rule, which is how things should work.
BLOOMBERG: Why This Year’s Christmas Season Is So Angry:
Yup, it’s an angry Christmas, and it’s worth thinking about why. Something has changed to create such a shift in the public’s leanings, from taking a chance on Obama’s audacity of hope to delighting in Trump’s straight-up audacity. Fear of Islamic terrorism has something to do with it. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that achieved approximately nothing* and the stunning rise of China as a rival power have also left many Americans feeling confused and vulnerable. But the most potent fuel for Trumpism is undoubtedly the sick economy. A long stretch of underperformance** has seeded mistrust in the American Dream among millions of would-be breadwinners, especially people without college educations.
Related: ‘Go To Hell’: Chris Matthews Curses MRCTV for Asking If His Leg Is Still Thrilled for Obama.
* Nice use of passive voice there, champ.
** Unexpectedly.
DISPATCHES FROM THE RPG WORLD: The Long Shadow of D&D’s Alignment System.
From Moe Lane at the PJ Lifestyle section.
AT AMAZON, trade in your used video games for credit.
DIDN’T HE SAY THAT RIGHT BEFORE PARIS AND SAN BERNARDINO? Obama Reassures Americans No Credible Threat of Terror.
TO BE FAIR, IT SCREWS UP PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING: User Error Compromises Many Encrypted Communication Apps.
COULDN’T YOU SHOW THAT SIMPLY BY NOTING THAT IT ORIGINATED WITH ROSIE O’DONNELL? Metalworker Shows Why ‘Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams’ Is Such a Dumb Argument.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. The GOP Needs Conservative Insurgents. “If conservative policies are to become a reality, insiders must think not just about the short-term but also the long-term conflict with the Left, and outsiders must participate in the grueling day-to-day. This dynamic is inherently more challenging for those of us on the Right, who have good reason to believe that politicians’ incentives to placate various factional constituencies are so often at odds with the long-term effort to rein in the federal footprint. While political parties can exist as factions rather than ideological entities, conservatism cannot succeed as a factional constituency to a political party.”
Well, I have some recommended reading.
VA HASN’T RUN OUT OF SOMEONE ELSE’S MONEY JUST YET: Maybe that’s why the federal government has paid out $871 million in medical malpractice settlements in suits against the Department of Veterans Affairs since 2006. That’s an average of “only” $87 million a year, but something happened because things got much worse in 2014 and 2015, with $230 million in settlements, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Luke Rosiak.
ACTUALLY, OVERT RACISM IS THE CULPRIT: Sigal Alon writes in The Nation about “How Diversity Destroyed Affirmative Action.” Alon is reading the Supreme Court tea leaves after it heard oral arguments Dec. 9 in Fisher v. University of Texas-Austin (Fisher II):
The Bakke case is often looked upon as the landmark ruling for legitimizing race-conscious admissions policies in higher education. Justice Powell set the stage for what came to be known as the “diversity rationale” for race-conscious admissions policies—the argument that having a diverse student body in postsecondary institutions serves a compelling government interest because “the ‘nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure’ to the ideas and mores of students as diverse as this Nation of many peoples.” Race-conscious admissions, then, are permissible because, when narrowly tailored, they serve this substantial educational interest.
The Bakke ruling shifted the rationale for affirmative action from reparation for past discrimination to promoting diversity. This, in essence, made the discourse about affirmative action race-neutral, in that it now ignores one of the key reasons for why we need to give an edge to minorities. Today the University of Texas, Austin, when defending the consideration of race and ethnicity in admission decisions, cannot say that this practice is needed because of persistent racial inequality; because minority students do not have the same life chances as white students; because there is extensive racial discrimination in the labor and housing markets; because students who study in poor high schools have less chances for learning and lower achievements; or because growing up in poverty impedes your cognitive development. The only argument at the disposal of UT Austin in defense of its admission practices is that it needs a diverse student body to enrich the educational experience of privileged white students.
Today, the fate of affirmative action rests solely on the Court’s endorsing diversity as a compelling societal interest. The oral arguments in Fisher this week demonstrate the fragility of this situation. Chief Justice Roberts questioned the educational benefits of racial diversity, asking, “What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?… I’m just wondering what the benefits of diversity are in that situation?” . . .
The root causes for the practice of affirmative action in higher education—that is, the systemic effects of racism and segregation in America—were shoved under the rug. This likely causes a frustration among minority students, especially blacks. But what is more troubling it that it also may lead to race-neutral admissions.
The point Chief Justice Roberts was making (as Alon surely knows) is that no one benefits from the notion that a physics class is improved by having the “black perspective” in the room, not even the poor black kid who, under affirmative action, inevitably bears this heavy burden.
God forbid we should be a colorblind nation with a colorblind Constitution. It’s far better, in the warped liberal/progressive mind, to have all Americans in 2015–not just white, but Asian, Hispanic, native American, or purple polka-dotted–relinquish their dream of attending X, Y or Z college so that someone who is black (regardless of socio-economic status or other “privilege”) can achieve theirs.
In the liberal/progressive worldview, the U.S. history of slavery forever brands all blacks (even those whose ancestors were not slaves) as perpetually “behind” the rest of society, entitled to special “help” from other Americans (even those whose ancestors were not slave owners), as a sort of penance for the pain suffered and inflicted by those long dead. The very articulation of this “benign” justification for affirmative action reveals its ugly, rotten, racist core.
In 2015, if a black child performs poorly in school–rendering him/her academically non-competitive with a non-black child–how could it ever be “fair/just/equitable” and consonant with “equal protection of the laws” to to reward that black child (and thus necessarily punish the non-black child who performed better) with the functional equivalent of college admissions “extra credit”?
If the problem of poorly performing black students is going to be solved, it must be solved within the black community, starting with the parents, but extending also to the teachers, administrators, and the students themselves. But of course this commonsensical approach will never be embraced by the race-baiting “civil rights” leaders, who make their living by fueling the fire of perpetual black victimhood.
For the rest of America, however, colorblindness is the only way to ensure “equal protection” of the laws in an increasingly racially diverse society. As Chief Justice John Roberts said in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” It’s really not that complicated.
InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.