ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, the State of Tennessee became the last necessary state to ratify the 19th Amendment, thus guaranteeing women the vote. Here is an essay I wrote a while ago with Nancy Gertner on the subject. It tells a few interesting stories about the road to women’s suffrage that you may not know.
Archive for 2019
August 18, 2019
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Bill Maher Calls BDS: Bullsh*t Purity Test–Rep. Talib Calls For Boycott Of Maher.
THEY’RE NOT THE ONLY ONES: Epstein’s Attorneys: We’re Not Fully Buying The Suicide Ruling.
“Gross negligence” is the absolute kindest possible take on what happened.
I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: A Doomed Comet Just Fell Into the Sun. Here’s the Video.
AT AMAZON, deals on Major Appliances.
Plus, save on Software.
RICHARD EPSTEIN: “Forced Migration to Wind and Solar Could Hamper Nevada Economy.”
SPACE: Senators Defend Pork. The spin in this story is that Bridenstine hasn’t kowtowed to them enough; I think he’s been too kind.
OH, THE INTERSECTIONALITY OF IT ALL!: The are many ways in which the Grand Progressive Coalition is jerrybuilt. This is just one of them. I don’t see how it can last.
AND WE’RE LESS WELL-PREPARED: A Major Cyber Attack Could Be Just as Deadly as Nuclear Weapons, Says Scientist.
WHY WE’RE STILL TALKING ABOUT CHARLES MANSON: Get Lost, Charlie. “Neil Armstrong’s footprints may be on the moon, but Manson’s footprints (or fingerprints, more aptly) seem more pervasive than do those of the Apollo heroes,” writes Paul Beston in a terrific essay on Manson’s cultural impact and the new film. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a Tarantino opus that contains all his hallmarks, good and bad, along with what seems a new sense of humanity and justice.” Read the whole thing.
SO TRUMP’S NOT BLASTING THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT ON TWITTER, BUT HE IS DOING THIS: White House appoints Uygur-American Elnigar Iltebir to top China policy advisory job: Appointment is a ‘poke in the eye’ to Beijing and could signal a stronger focus on human rights in Washington, analysts say.
IT HASN’T BEEN MARKETED TO THEM, FOR ONE THING: Older People Need Rides. Why Aren’t They Using Uber and Lyft? I agree that this can be a game-changer in terms of independence.
WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Pot poisonings among kids, teens double after medical marijuana law passed.
SECONDS: Kathy Shaidle looks back at the brilliant and terrifying 1966 John Frankenheimer film starring Rock Hudson.
Much has been written about the multiple subtexts of Seconds — the Hollywood “blacklist,” as well as Hudson’s then-secret (more or less) gay identity; the crazy “Brian Wilson connection”; the extraordinary lengths to which Wong Howe and Frankenheimer went to realize their vision: For one thing, to thin out a section of Grand Central Station to capture their opening shots, they hired a woman in a bikini to create a crowd-forming spectacle at the other side of the terminal.
And all these factors do indeed add invisible yet palpable depth to a film that is in and of itself a stunning feat of storytelling, acting and technical prowess.
Liberal fans of Seconds praise it as — you guessed it — a chilling condemnation of shallow materialistic American consumerism and conformity. Yet few of them mention that when Hamilton gets his twice in a lifetime opportunity to savor the idealized progressive lifestyle instead, he’s miserable then too. Actually more so.
In fact, coming out as it did in that pivotal year between the early Sixties New Frontier/Mad Men era, and the late Sixties of Woodstock and Manson, Seconds could just as easily be read as a critique of the then-nascent youth “drop out” counterculture.
Read the whole thing, though as James Lileks once wrote, “The hero wakes up to find himself looking like Rock Hudson. He does not adapt well. The viewer thinks: you moron. Cheer up! You look like Rock Hudson! Get to work! Enjoy!”
HOTS ON FOR NOWHERE: Bill Maher: Yes, a recession would be worth it to get rid of Trump.
As Fox News host Martha MacCallum said to Victor Davis Hanson on Thursday, “I was listening to a lot of different news networks this morning, as I often do…getting a read on what everybody’s saying about what’s going on and, you know, I couldn’t help but feel that there was a bit of sort of enthusiasm for the possibility that maybe the economy might tank.”
Virginia Postrel dubbed it “Depression lust” in late 2008.
DUNKING ON THE 49th STATE TO OWN THE CONS: CNN’s Chris Cillizza Calls Buying Alaska a Mistake Just to Disagree With President Trump.
More here: CNN corrects article criticizing purchase of Alaska in Greenland debate.
IN THE MAIL: From George Will, The Conservative Sensibility.
WHAT IF THE “GLOBAL TEMPERATURE” DOESN’T EVEN EXIST? Issues & Insights (I&I) has the answer. The I&I guys are on Al Gore’s amazing Internet (HT: Chris Plante), but he’s not going to like what they say on this one.
PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: College settles anti-male bias lawsuit rather than face a jury.
The actions of Grinnell officials were called into question by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger in the July ruling.
One of them is former chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court, Marsha Ternus, now a lawyer in private practice who specializes in student conduct adjudications.
She apparently refused to consider evidence that one of Doe’s female accusers consented to sexual activity with him. Ternus also may have relied on gender stereotypes about women and birth control to determine that Doe lacked consent, and appeared to go easier on a female student found responsible for sexual misconduct in a different case.
Ebinger scrutinized the actions of other officials. Andrea Conner, assistant vice president for student affairs, invited Ternus to possibly violate a policy she oversaw, while Title IX Coordinator Angela Voos invented a policy requirement in her deposition.
The judge even called out Grinnell’s legal team for falsely characterizing its adjudication policy in her court.
I hope they’ll be sanctioned.
PHILANTHROPIC TYRANNY IS WHAT SPLC IS ABOUT: Capital Research Center’s Hayden Ludwig zeroes in on what this advance guard of the People’s Republic of America seeks in its campaign against Donor Advised Funds (DAF) on the Right, but not on the Left.
“THE 1619 PROJECT:” The New York Times Rewrites American History.
Earlier: Is The New York Times a Newspaper, Or the Oberlin Faculty Senate?