DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Take Two Aspirin and Call Me by My Pronouns — At ‘woke’ medical schools, curricula are increasingly focused on social justice rather than treating illness.
Archive for 2019
September 15, 2019
I HAD NEVER BEFORE HEARD CLAIMS THAT James Forrestal was assassinated.
UPDATE: Yes, of course this is crazy. That’s the point. But I guess in an age where the Babylon Bee is the paper of record, it’s easy to be confused.
PALADIN NIGHT FIRE EXERCISE IN JORDANIAN DESERT: Artillery at night. A remarkable photo.
LIBERAL GETS MUGGED BY REALITY: Getting an education in the Big Apple: George Packer’s honesty, a parent’s dilemma.
PROGRESSIVISM WITHOUT GUARD RAILS: California’s Legislature embraces far-ranging measures that will disrupt the gig economy, depress housing markets, and destroy school discipline.
(Via Maggie’s Farm.)
September 14, 2019
OPEN THREAD: Make it a good one.
AT AMAZON, Fall Savings on Wheels and Tires.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Guys Are Reporting Women on Tinder for the Crime of Not Being Into Them.
DEPRESSION LUST: Larry Elder: Media Bad-Mouths the Economy Like It Did in 1992.
(Classical reference in headline.)
THE MILLION GENDER MARCH: Back in September of 2017, when I wrote a review of Mark Lilla’s The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, over at Ed Driscoll.com, I noted:
As Lilla writes, the old left, including FDR and LBJ, believed in an inclusive worldview; LBJ had his “Great Society” after all. But starting in the 1960s, the New Left preached the notion of an atomized society – a hyphenated society: African-Americans, gay-Americans, transgendered-Americans, and on and on to the point of absurdity. As one wag quipped a couple of years ago about Facebook offering 70+ gender options for its members to click on, why so few choices?
Flash-forward to Tyler O’Neil at the PJ Mothership today: BBC Tells Kids ‘People Can Go to Prison’ For Disrespecting ‘More Than 100’ Gender Identities.
How many more choices will there be in another couple of years?
ANOTHER CRAZY GOSNELL-TYPE? Thousands of fetal remains found at home of former South Bend abortion doctor.
THE APPALLING VANITY OF WESTERN FEMINISTS WHO THINK MARGARET ATWOOD WRITES ABOUT THEM:
Atwood has been hailed for prophesying the terrifying totalitarian age of Trump. Actress Elisabeth Moss, who plays Offred, said that she couldn’t help but recognize the similarities between Trump’s America and the brutal regime in the story. Wait, has Donald really frozen women’s bank accounts and enacted laws so they could be compulsorily raped and forced to give up their babies to the ruling class? Well, maybe not exactly, but, you know, ‘chilling parallels’, ‘frighteningly relevant’, blah blah. With no greater self-awareness than Kylie Jenner, feminists in the US co-opted the handmaid’s penitential costume of scarlet robe and white head-dress as a symbol of the #MeToo movement and of protest against the threat to reproductive rights. ‘I wish Handmaid’s Tale was insane Game of Thrones shit and pure fantasy,’ lamented Moss. ‘I wish that were true. But it’s not.’
She’s right, of course — just not in the way she thinks. For females in Saudi Arabia, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and Islamic communities much closer to home, Gilead is not a reading at the National Theatre that makes you feel pleasantly indignant before you pick up an avocado and herb salad wrap at Pret a Manger. It’s the hateful, oppressive place where they live.
Also, interesting choice casting an actress who is a Scientologist to star in an anti-cult TV series.
WHO/WHAT? Singer Sam Smith Chooses His Pronouns.
UNEXPECTEDLY: Democrats hated John Bolton until Trump fired him.
LOTS OF ONGOING HONG KONG COVERAGE FROM MICHAEL YON. Plus, he offers this observation from a friend, about the pork-tariff item noted here yesterday:
”There is a tiny, tiny notice in the news today that China has backed off on its tariffs on US soy and pork.
Ya don’t say…
First of all, soy and pork are protein, which is a chronic problem in all national food chains, but more so in China. Between their traditional plant based diet and the cultural prestige of eating pork (the middle class literally measures its affluence by how many nights a week they eat pork and the lower classes and villages use pork as a celebratory meal), China’s protein consumption is very narrowly restricted to soy and pork (fish is common, but not nearly as available as soy and pork).
Second, by lifting the tariffs, China has just admitted it cannot produce enough protein for national consumption, both as a staple or as a preferred meat. Imagine a US shortage of wheat and chicken, with no real access to corn or beef, and a couple dozen urban areas of 20 millions or more with just a third arable land as now. That’s China.
So, what’s the problem with China’s agricultural industry? Basically, they simply do not have enough land to grow the volume of soy they need; and, their pork production is highly diffused and is ravaged by a massive and seemingly uncontrollable swine flu epidemic. In fact, it is estimated that up to 60% of China’s pigs are infected with the flu.
To compound a bad situation to worse, Chinese officials are both incapable of enforcing a quarantine and too corrupt to stop the spread of the flu.
While this seems to have little to do with defense or military matters, I would suggest it is a huge red shift event offering insights into both the underlying economic and organizational civilian support system of the Red Army and suggestive of a wider indigenous structural and organizational condition of the military and government writ large.
I believe we can draw significant conclusions from closely studying China’s responses to this food supply crisis and extrapolating our observations to the military to understand what they do under stressful conditions, what resources they deploy, and how they organize their response. Not to mention, how the civilian population responds to the military’s demands.
“Stipulated: The food supply chain is in fact a national security issue and it is a function of the military’s most basic needs. A lot can be learned by studying this issue.”
Indeed. Plus, from the comments to the earlier InstaPundit post: “Buy crazy amounts of pork and bacon, and drive the prices up for China anyway. Lets see how the Chinese can fight against that sort of 4GW action.”
Wait, so I can kill communism by buying more bacon? This is the most awesome timeline of all!
UPDATE: From the comments:
Michael Yon also observed, and it’s pretty clear if you monitor the Chinese and Hong Kong media, that in the past day or so, that Beijing has ramped up the violence in Hong Kong. Pro-Beijing agitators are attacking random passers-by and fomenting brawls and riots in the shopping malls where pro-democracy demonstrators gather to sing. The Hong Kong police are cooperating with the pro-Beijing agitators, arresting pro-democracy demonstrators, but leaving the pro-Beijing agitators alone. Probably some of the pro-Beijing agitators are triad gang members, and it’s possible that some are mainland China People’s Armed Police agents embedded in the Hong Kong police force. This isn’t random; someone in the Hong Kong government, likely controlled from Beijing is orchestrating this. It leaves me wondering if the Hong Kong police force is being directly controlled from Beijing now and is no longer effectively the “Hong Kong” police. The police appear not to be concerned with following HK law at all and are more and more violent – beating and arresting people anyone they think might be associated with the pro-democracy movement.
Yes, we had a report from a longtime InstaPundit reader who’s also a longtime Hong Kong resident on just that.