Archive for 2023

NEWS FROM THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS:

GROWTH OF THE #YOUTHRESISTANCE: Community outrage after Burlington, MA Middle School students counter-program Pride celebration.

Young people always mock their sanctimonious elders. Plus: “It’s not clear exactly what prompted this but the principal said some students noted that the school skipped over any mention of Memorial Day this year. . . . Now the students have been condemned by the principal, the school superintendent and something called the Burlington Equity Coalition which is now demanding more DEI training.”

Yes, promote your orthodoxy to the young with a heavy hand. That will work!

UPDATE: From the comments: “It’s reverse Footloose. Cool kids taking on the pinch-faced scolds.” Always.

THE DAILY CHART: Black Shootings. “So relentless has been the propaganda from Black Lives Matter and their ‘allies’ about police shootings that opinion polls routinely find Americans think over a thousand—if not many thousands—of unarmed blacks are shot and killed by police each year, when in fact the actual number is usually the low double digits. Meanwhile, it is forbidden to bring up black-on-black crime because doing so is racist or something.”

OPEN THREAD: Tuesday’s groovy.

HILL GOP GIRDS TO FIGHT BIDEN’S PICK TO RUN CDC: Looks like President Joe Biden is moving to appoint former North Carolina Secretary of Public Health Mandy Cohen to succeed Rochelle Walensky as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Cohen is a huge Fauci fan and advocate of masking/lockdowns/vaccine mandates. Republicans on both sides of the Hill are marshaling their forces but the CDC Director is not subject to Senate confirmation.

WOODROW THE TERRIBLE, WARREN THE GOOD:

There are many reasons to disparage what passes for expertise and judgment among presidential historians, but there is none better than their longstanding tendency to rate Woodrow Wilson as a near-great president and Warren Harding as among the worst. By any sensible estimation, Wilson was the ultimate bottom-feeder of American presidents, while Harding swam peaceably, albeit somewhat confusedly, around the middle depths of the pond. But, historians tend to favor leaders with expansive agendas during dramatic times over those with modest goals in calmer times.

In recent years, Wilson’s off-the-charts racism has begun to take him down a notch or two in public estimation, and there have been occasional suggestions that Harding be upgraded a bit. But there’s a long way to go to right the record on these two. Here are some comparisons, informed by my own biases.

Reminder: “Wilson was a human pile of flaming trash. He was a bad man who made the country and the world worse. His name should be an obscenity, his image an effigy. Hating him is a wholesome obligation of citizenship.”

SHOCKER: That ‘Christian Terrorist’ in France Has Been Recognized. You’ll Never Believe What He Really Is. Spoiler: Yes you will.

The French-language news site Resistance Républicaine reported Monday that “Syrians living in France and Germany” have recognized the attacker as a “madman of Allah,” and that the identification has been confirmed by others as well. The attacker, according to those who have recognized him, is actually a Muslim named Selwan Majd, “a refugee from Al-Hasakah in northern Syria.” . . .

If the people who say they have recognized Selwan Majd are correct, it would certainly explain the anomalies of this peculiar case, which from the beginning seemed less like an actual case of Christian terrorism than a Muslim’s idea of what a Christian terrorist might be like. The attacker’s shout of “In the name of Jesus Christ” was all too obviously meant to be a parallel to the jihadis’ ubiquitous scream of “Allahu akbar.” But when has any Christian anywhere committed acts of violence while screaming this phrase? It was just too neat, suggesting not so much a Christian terrorist as someone who wanted very much to be thought of as a Christian terrorist.

The narrative must be serviced, regardless of the facts.