Archive for 2019

HARD TO IMAGINE THAT THIS COULD BE DANGEROUS: Gay ‘chemsex’ is fuelling urban HIV epidemics, AIDS experts warn. “A surge in ‘chemsex’ parties, where people spend days getting high on drugs and having sex with scores of partners, is re-fuelling epidemics of HIV among gay men in European towns and cities, doctors say.”

IS THE HEAVY HAND OF THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT EDITING THE SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST? On this piece, the headline went from Hong Kong Protesters Are Scarred, Shaken, But Pressing On to the current one: Hong Kong protests: three months on and the anti-government activists want their enemies to burn with them. Is there any end in sight?

Seems like there’s an agenda here.

CHANGE: At Colleges, What’s Old Is New: Retirees Living on Campus. Since all Hollywood makes these days are remakes and sequels, here’s an idea: The cast of Porky’s, or Back to School, moves into one of these facilities and the current woke-prude students are scandalized by their antics, with hilarity ensuing.

Of course, jokes aside this is basically about schools facing declining enrollments looking for another income stream.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: The Progressive Dystopia Of NYC Schools.

You have to read this long Atlantic piece by George Packer, in which he describes the disillusioning of him and his wife — good urban liberals — by the militant wokeness that overtook the New York City public schools that their children attended (and that their son still attends)…It gets crazier and crazier, as identity politics comes to control not only that school, but the entire NYC public school system. The authoritarianism and radicalism of progressive ideology has destroyed what schools are supposed to be, and, in the liberal writer’s anxious view, are kicking the supports out from underneath liberal democracy.

Is there anything that the new woke progressivism touches that it doesn’t destroy? If it weren’t for the fact that one of the parents at that school is a nationally known journalist with a prominent platform, would any of us know what a disaster the militant left has made of the nation’s largest school system, all because of identity politics?

As Iowahawk memorably put it:

Which also neatly describes what happened to the Atlantic itself, come to think of it.

JON CALDERA: Denver’s Airbnb rules intolerant to property rights, freedom of association.

When I see one, I have two contradictory thoughts: What an eyesore, and why can’t I live there?

Living next to loud neighbors isn’t much fun. So, it is easy to understand the frustration some have living next to an Airbnb rental.

Most short-term rental guests are just fine until they rent a house or condo for a weekend bachelor party or a marathon session of “cannabis tourism.”

But the City of Denver’s little jihad against fledgling entrepreneurs, like those who do short-term rentals of their property, isn’t about noisy guests. It’s about control, limiting choice and stopping free association.

There’s a word for a political system under which people are allowed a veneer of property rights, but in which unaccountable government actually calls the shots.

THE FREE MARKET, CONSERVATIVES, AND WOKE CAPITALISM: A couple of weeks back I had an article (paywall, sorry) in the Wall Street Journal noting that free marketers have taken conservatives for granted, and that we should do something about that.

Erick Erickson has written a typically thoughtful response, noting the areas that need the most work. One of those areas is dealing with the issue of “woke capitalism.”

On that point, Liberty Fund philosopher Douglas Den Uyl has an excellent essay at Law & Liberty on “stakeholder capitalism.” As he notes, this movement, most recently embraced by the Business Roundtable of all things, socializes businesses – and “can only result in the obliteration of the private portion and thus of the essence of capitalism.” Woke Capitalism is in many ways just another, insidious form of socialism. Which means we have work to do.