HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Brooklyn College Stifles Pro-Israel Voices.

FEAST ON THAT: Mark Wahlberg Asked God to Forgive Him for Boogie Nights.

EMILY ZANOTTI: Sorry, Cosmopolitan. Dressing As Moana For Halloween Isn’t Offensive.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS…WELL, EXACTLY WHAT YOU’D EXPECT, TO BE HONEST:

Harry Belafonte appeared dazed, struggling to stand with a cane as an aide guided him slowly to his place on stage. Having caught his breath, the 90-year-old singer and civil rights activist warned the crowd at Carnegie Music Hall on Friday night that this was probably his last public appearance.

It lasted nearly two hours. Despite appearing disoriented – a stroke a few years ago took away his inner-ear balance – and taking long breaks to gathers his thoughts, Belafonte brought the crowd to rising cheers and chants.

He also made a startling statement. In electing Donald Trump, he said, “the country made a mistake and I think the next mistake might very well be the gas chamber and what happened to Jews [under] Hitler is not too far from our door.”

— “Harry Belafonte tells crowd at likely last public appearance: ‘We shall overcome,’” the London Guardian, Saturday.

How “startling” can it be, given Belafonte’s many past incendiary political statements, including this cringe-inducing moment:

Entertainer/activist Harry Belafonte has retracted some of the controversial comments he made at a civil rights march in Atlanta regarding Jews working for Hitler, but his retraction may have created even more controversy for the singer.

During an interview with Cybercast News Service at the Aug. 7 march, Belafonte asserted that Adolf Hitler’s regime in Germany included Jews and that African Americans working in the Bush administration should be compared to Jews working for Hitler.

“Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich,” Belafonte said on Saturday. He went on to label African Americans working in the Bush administration as “tyrants.”

On Wednesday, Belafonte told the Jerusalem Post: “I do regret the sentence was not structured more accurately.” He added: “I, too, agree that Jews weren’t ‘high up.'”

— “Belafonte’s Retraction of Remarks on Jews Causes New Flap,” CNS News, July 7th, 2008.

MORE ON JEFF FLAKE from Stephen Kruiser:

It’s not the party that has changed so much (although it has changed some), it’s Flake.

Flake was a strong conservative when he was in the House. When he got to the Senate, he decided to be John McCain’s “Mini-Me” and has borne little, if any, resemblance to his former self. My many conservative and/or Republican friends back in my native state are completely mystified as to what happened to Flake during his first (and probably only) Senate term.

None of them are voting for him in the primary.

Read the whole thing — which Kruiser wrote last night, before Flake announced he was flaking out of the Senate.

DREAM ON: Republicans quietly craft Dreamers deal.

The quiet movement toward a DACA deal comes amid a significant public rift between the parties — particularly between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats — over the fate of nearly 700,000 current DACA beneficiaries.

Trump appeared to strike a tentative agreement in September with Democratic leaders that would pair modest border security measures (and no border wall) with permanent status for young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors. But his administration has since taken a sharp turn on its DACA demands — unveiling an extensive list of hard-line immigration provisions that are nonstarters with Democrats and even many Republicans.

“Most of [the Dreamers] went through our system. Many of them don’t speak the language of their country because they’ve never been to their country. We are going to try and solve that,” Trump said in a Fox News interview this month. “In order to solve that, we want a wall and we want great border security.”

Behind the scenes, Senate Republicans involved in the talks essentially ignore some of Trump’s top demands — the workplace verification system, for example — yet are finding other ways to accommodate the White House’s immigration wish list to appease conservatives but not alienate Democrats.

Melissa Mackenzie tweets, “The only legislation the GOP will pass will spit in the eyes of their voters and they’ll blame Steve Bannon for being primaried.”

FOR WHEN THE FORD RAPTOR ISN’T ENOUGH: 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. You might not understand this 707-hp Jeep, but one jab at the throttle will tell you all you need to know. Loudly.

AT AMAZON, save on Oral Care.

Plus, deals on Office Supplies.

WOW: Arizona’s Jeff Flake announces he will not seek re-election to U.S. Senate.

MANSPLAINING WHAT IT FEELS LIKE FOR A GIRL: Singer Sam Smith Identifies Gender Non-Binary: ‘I Feel Just as Much Woman as I Am Man.’

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): This is gender appropriation! Stop appropriating my gender!

B-1B OVER SEOUL: A USAF B-1B strategic bomber flies in formation with two South Korean F-15K strike fighters. The photo was snapped October 21. Is it threat theater? It’s part of an information operation backed by credible military power.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

● Old and Busted: “We Are All Socialists Now.”

—Newsweek cover story, February 9, 2009 issue.

● The New Hotness: “Thousands of Americans Will Scream Helplessly at the Sky on Trump’s Election Anniversary.”

—Newsweek headline, yesterday.  

There is one consistent element, however. Then and now, no matter who the current publisher is, Newsweek continues to write headlines that are indistinguishable with the North Korean Twitter parody, DPRK News.

UPDATE: A pre-production concept video of what the upcoming event will likely resemble:

BRIAN GOFF: NFL Losing Viewers At Alarming Rate But Faces Limits On Its Response.

GOOD: FDA approves better vaccine against painful shingles virus.

RENT-SEEKERS GOTTA SEEK RENTS: 300 Hours Training Required to Shampoo Hair In Tennessee.

The Beacon Center of Tennessee is trying to change this. The libertarian-leaning think tank is suing the state cosmetology board over its onerous occupational-licensing requirements for people who want to wash hair. At present, obtaining a government permission to shampoo hair requires taking two exams, at a cost of $140, plus a $50 annual fee. On top of that, someone must take 300 hours of training “on the theory and practice of shampooing,” at a cost of upwards of $3,000 for the tuition.

“Tennessee is one of only five states that require a license to wash hair, and this is just one of the many senseless licensing laws that the Volunteer State currently has on the books,” Beacon Center states on its website.

But—surprise!—nowhere in the state even offers “shampoo tech” classes at present. So even someone prepared to put in the time and money to become a pro hair-washer right now can’t. Their only options would be a) to go through the more rigorous and expensive process (1,500 hours and tens of thousands of dollars in tuition) of obtaining a cosmetology license, or b) to wash hair illegally.

Insane.

THE LONG WAR ON POLIO, as recalled by its generals.

THE DAM HAS BURST: Former Harvey Weinstein employee breaks NDA to detail sexual harassment of her and assault of another woman.

GUERRILLA BREXIT: English Vigilantes Use Ladders, Sticky Letters to Exterminate the Metric System.

Tony Bennett took Brexit preparations into his own hands at dusk one Friday this month, defying authority to reinstate a venerable element of British culture.

All it took was glue and stick-on numerals.

The retired lawyer crept through a park, he said, and up to a footpath sign. It read “1.5km.”

Unacceptable!

He took a numeral and pasted it on to make the sign read, simply, “1.” That’s one mile, one glorious British imperial mile, rounding up a bit. No need to add an “m,” Mr. Bennett said, because Britons would know what it meant.

“We have our own very excellent system of weights and measures,” said Mr. Bennett, 70 years old and not the American crooner. “We don’t need big institutions in Europe telling us what to do.”

Mr. Bennett is a member of Active Resistance to Metrication, a tiny group that has for years been pushing England to go back to its old weights and measures. Britain’s planned exit from the European Union has breathed new hope into his campaign.

Godspeed.

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: Prozac is polluting waterways, potentially impacting marine life. “The findings — published last week in the journal Ecology and Evolution — suggest the drug lowers the crabs’ inhibitions, causing them to taker greater risks. The drugged crabs also engaged in more aggressive behavior, getting in fights with both friend and foe. Crabs exposed to the antidepressant were more likely to get killed or injured in duels with their peers.”

I’LL BE IN MY BUNK: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life ‘In An Underslept State.’

CHANGE: Superaccurate GPS Coming to Smartphones in 2018.

VIDEO: Dem Senator Acknowledges Hillary Clinton’s Kiss of Death. West Virginia’s Joe Manchin says, “It wouldn’t be wise for Hillary to come [here]. It wouldn’t be a good thing for her or for me.”

ANN ALTHOUSE ON #METOO OVERLOAD AND ELIE WIESEL: “The man is deceased. It was 3 decades ago. The allegation is only that in a photo shoot, he put his hand on her ass. This kind of #MeTooism is diluting the category that we have been taking very seriously in the light of the Harvey Weinstein revelations. I’m not approving of ass-grabbing. I have a problem with making an allegation this late against a dead man. And I have a problem with lumping things together the wrong way.”

Lumping things together the wrong way is the whole point.