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ELIOT COHEN: Microaggression, Meet Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The ungainly title of Senior Tutor—since abolished by Harvard administrators—reflected the institution’s belief that deans had an educational function and should, in fact, be academics. Real academics, the kind that aspire to a lifetime of teaching and research, with administration as an occasional, if vital, duty.
From that experience I learned some things applicable to the age of microaggressions, safe spaces, and trigger warnings. One was that there is a certain kind of immature young person who, having discovered that he or she can upset the adults with outlandish statements or behavior and get away with it, will become increasingly absurd or demanding. Another was that although some professors will leap bravely into the waters off Australia to study the mating habits of sharks, or endure the perils of the fever swamps to understand the propagation of tropical disease, a great many are cowards when it comes to confronting received opinion, including that of undergraduates.
The problem has gotten worse since 1982, as American universities, with honorable exceptions (my current university among them) have become mono-cultural colonies of political and social belief. It is exacerbated by the proliferation of assistant deans, a category of administrator famously characterized as “mice studying to become rats,” whose portfolio is tending to the fragile egos of the students who, supposedly, will one day captain industry, media, and government. The administrators’ more insidious job is monitoring faculty behavior—which at Harvard in 2013 disgracefully included surreptitiously sniffing through Senior Tutors’ emails.
Harvard and Yale are the products of Old New England, which has something to teach in this regard. In 1692 a witch craze swept Salem, Massachusetts, triggered in part by hysterical children, fed by stern divines who sincerely believed in witchcraft, and permitted by a community too terrorized to stand up for due process, let alone prevent hangings and, in one case, the crushing of an innocent man to death by heavy stones because he refused to confess to an absurd, imaginary crime. There is something not entirely different going on today.
Read the whole thing.
FLASHBACK: Why Guns Are Better Than Butter.
WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless. “We have insurance, but can’t afford to use it.” It’s as if this was more of a wealth-transfer to insurance companies than an actual program to provide health care.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why I Stopped Taking The Pill.
AT AMAZON, Sales on Camping Equipment.
PETER BEINART AFTER THE DEBATE: “I say this as a liberal, I would be concerned as a Democrat about the entire terrorism part of this debate.”
HOW BAD WAS HILLARY’S ANSWER ON HER WALL STREET DONATIONS? So bad even the New York Times editorial board is raking her over the coals. “Her effort to tug on Americans’ heartstrings instead of explaining her Wall Street ties — on a day that the scars of 9/11 were exposed anew — was at best botched rhetoric. At worst it was the type of cynical move that Mrs. Clinton would have condemned in Republicans.” Yeah, pretty sure it’s #2 there.
MICHAEL GOODWIN: It’s time for Obama to make a choice: Lead us or resign. Flaw in that plan: Joe Biden.
DAVID BROOKS GONNA DAVID BROOKS. “[T]hey were socially and intellectually unpretentious. They treated the crew as friends and equals and not as staff. Nobody was trying to prove they were better informed or more sophisticated than anybody else. There were times, in fact, when I almost wished there had been a little more pretense and a little more intellectual and spiritual ambition.”
Of course you did. And better pants-leg creases. Because those are the real signifiers.
PLANNING TO CARRY MORE OFTEN? Amazon has holsters.
SOME GOOD NEWS: Senate approves bill to legalize space mining.
The Act is intended to facilitate a pro-growth environment for the developing commercial space industry by encouraging private sector investment and creating more stable and predictable regulatory conditions, and for other purposes. The Act provides that [text], “Any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations.”The language that defines property rights is designed to get around the provision of the Outer Space Treaty [text], which prohibits countries from establishing sovereign claims on celestial bodies. The Act does not permit private companies to “own” the asteroids they mine, but allows them the right to claim the material they mine from it. The House of Representatives must give final approval to the bill, which will then be sent to President Barack Obama for signature.
The passage of this Act is a boon for companies that have already invested millions of dollars into the concept of deep space mining. These companies are particularly focused on asteroids that consist of metals that are rare on Earth or asteroids that contain large amounts of water, which, with the right technology, can be converted to rocket fuel and oxygen.
This is excellent.
NOT EVERYONE IS A WUSS: Vanderbilt Professor Facing Protests Tells Students to ‘Grow Up.’
FALLOUT: Michigan Gov. Snyder Suspends Efforts To Settle Syrian Refugees. “Given the terrible situation in Paris, I’ve directed that we put on hold our efforts to accept new refugees until the U.S. Department of Homeland Security completes a full review of security clearances and procedures.”
THE 21ST CENTURY MALADY: Cybersickness.
OBAMA ON SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS: “SOCIETY HAS NOT PASSED THIS EXAM WITH GOOD GRADES,” the semi-retired president observed after he “walked in late Sunday on a moment of silence being held by world leaders in Turkey to honor the victims of Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris,” the Washington Times reports.
Why do we keep letting this great man down time and time and time again?
As the late Kenneth Minogue wrote in the New Criterion in the summer of 2010:
My concern with democracy is highly specific. It begins in observing the remarkable fact that, while democracy means a government accountable to the electorate, our rulers now make us accountable to them. Most Western governments hate me smoking, or eating the wrong kind of food, or hunting foxes, or drinking too much, and these are merely the surface disapprovals, the ones that provoke legislation or public campaigns. We also borrow too much money for our personal pleasures, and many of us are very bad parents. Ministers of state have been known to instruct us in elementary matters, such as the importance of reading stories to our children. Again, many of us have unsound views about people of other races, cultures, or religions, and the distribution of our friends does not always correspond, as governments think that it ought, to the cultural diversity of our society. We must face up to the grim fact that the rulers we elect are losing patience with us.
I’d insert the Brecht quote about the government simply dissolving the people and electing another here, but of course, Obama is in the process doing just that. Fortunately for Michigan residents at least, in the wake of the terrorist attack on Paris, their GOP governor is putting “refugee acceptance efforts on hold,” AP reports.
PETER INGEMI MADE SOME PREDICTIONS RIGHT AFTER THE PARIS ATTACKS.
Some of them have already come true.
WELL, THAT’S JUST TACKY: At G20, Obama Arrives Late For Moment Of Silence For Paris Attacks.
SHORTER HILLARY: “I’M SORRY YOU’RE SO STUPID.” Debate remark backpedal by Hillary Clinton (D-Goldman Sachs) not going over well.
Star Trek/Big Bang Theory actor Wil Wheaton promises to hold his nose extra tight when voting for her next year:
IT SHOULD BE EASIER THAN SELF-DRIVING CARS: FAA Will Test Drones’ Ability to Steer Themselves Out of Trouble.
TED CRUZ ON OBAMA: “He doesn’t wish to defend this country.”
MINNESOTA DEMOCRAT ABRUPTLY QUITS STATE HOUSE RACE AFTER SAYING ‘ISIS ISN’T NECESSARILY EVIL:’
A Burnsville DFLer’s campaign for the state House abruptly ended Sunday morning within hours of him posting on social media that ISIS “isn’t necessarily evil” and is “made up of people doing what they think is best for their community.”
The Twitter posting Saturday by Dan Kimmel, coming as the world’s emotions remain raw from Friday’s terror attacks on Paris, brought swift rebuke from others on Twitter. House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, called for Kimmel to give up his campaign.
“I’m folding up the campaign tent,” Kimmel told the Star Tribune. He later issued a written apology and called his tweet “stupid,” adding that it’s probably best for him to “shut up” for the time being.
Perhaps fellow Democrats such as Patty Murray or David Bonior and Jim McDermott could come to his rescue.
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