She Is Thoughtful She Is Kind

Words of support from alumni and faculty for Claudine Gay. 

“She is thoughtful. She is kind. She is resolutely dedicated to the growth and wellbeing of our very diverse community."

You would think she was a kindergarten teacher rather than the President of the most former most prestigious university on the planet. 

 

Jersey Man

Sentenced to 8 years prison for shouting racial slurs at neighbors. I bet he regrets turning down that Harvard scholarship where he would've been protected by free speech.

Wow - Claudine Gay

She should be fired not just for her disastrous performance, but for being a total fraud. In nearly any profession she'd be long gone. 

Resignations Are Just the Beginning

Not only should the 3 Presidents resign, the entire DEI bureaucracy needs to be dismantled. Title IX should be overturned or rewritten. This is de-Nazificiation shit. Once the money for this stuff is gone, it'll be all over. Everyone will be happier. All the minorities in America will. be fine. Or at least no worse off. Literally no one will be harmed except for the people who making a living in DEI and dedicated their lives to it. And they deserve to lose those fake jobs. In fact, in the long run, even they will be better off because they'll be forced to do something of actual use to the world like teach kids to read or make coffee.

Treason

Thinking about all these pro-Hamas people in the West...college students, DSA groups, CAIR, etc. What are they actually guilty of? Well, they are entitled to their speech, differing opinions, etc. We continually cherry pick instances of maybe where their speech crosses over into incitement. But is this really the point? I don't think so. What I think the lies beneath all this is a more fundamental thing: many of these folks are treasonous. They don't care about the Palestinians or Hamas or any of that. They actually just hate their own countrymen. They want to overthrow the government. They don't come out and say it, but if pressed, I bet they would admit it. They don't have any clue about what would replace it - they'd just pick up a bad Communist playbook if they got the opportunity. But treason is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Well? Is Hamas not our enemy? Is supporting Hamas not an act of treason? Can someone explain why not?

What I like about this formulation is that I actually think there are quite a lot of people who make valid points about the poor decisions of our foreign policy and the poor decisions of Israel. But those type of valid arguments get completely drowned out by the vast number of people who simply want the US and Israel and the whole Western system to fail. Treason is a serious crime. Why don't we charge people with it more? It might make our political discourse a whole lot more fruitful. We need to get rid of the fringes because they glom on and take over. So yes, many people will think I'm crazy for suggesting locking up my political enemies. But that's exactly what I'm saying: these are the political enemies of civilization and a few thrown in jail will make the rest go back into hiding and working customer service jobs like they should be. 

DEI

Institutions captured by DEI won't reform for the same reason that when a club or restaurant becomes lame, it stays lame. Because the lame people will stay and the cool people leave. DEI solves a real issue: what do mediocre losers do? They know they can't leave the DEI gig because there is nothing else they can do that would be remotely as rewarding. It's Harvard President or barista.

The Thing Is Not The Thing

One of the best points re: Western leftists I've come across lately. 

What actually matters is the behavior of Western leftists, who care about the Palestinian cause precisely because it is so hateful and dysfunctional, just as how they romanticize the most anti-social elements of the criminal underclass at home.

 

More on Grass

I know people say grass uses a lot of water. So what? Am I missing something? Isn't there something called the water cycle? Doesn't the water just cycle through the earth and still exist?

All This Fake Grass

My kids and I play sport on this fake grass. Beyond my suspicions this causes extra injuries, the plastic shit gets all over your shoes and socks. What happens to all this shit? Where does it go all this little plastic crap? Wherever it ends up, it can't be great. However this shit is made - it isn't natural. I never wondered any of this with real grass. 

More on the University Presidents...

Even Elizabeth Warren is shitting on the University Presidents! Senator Pocohontos for all her loony ideas, is at least intelligent and capable. She can tell these three don't meet the basic qualifications for leadership. Why? We all know why. Affirmative action. This is what you get. 

What Do We Need?

We just need to cut the shit. That's it. Just cut the bullshit. 

End DEI. End affirmative action. End it all. Teach kids to read. Do math. Write. We need to build. Build literally everything. Housing, weapons, bridges roads, cities, cars. Cut all the uselessness. It can be done.

Winning

Israel closing in on Hamas leader in Gaza.

If this constitutes Hamas "winning," someone please explain to me what Hamas losing would look like.

Free Speech and Genocide

I consider myself a pretty free speech absolutist, but it's obvious you can't cry "fire in a crowded a theater." In a similar logic, Charles Manson was found guilty of murder for inciting his followers. It is illegal to tell someone suicidal to go kill themselves, is it not? Seems to me campus radicals calling for genocide of the Jews is a layup in terms of speech that crosses the line into incitement. The 3 women Presidents say, it depends on the context. Well, the context is this: you have thousands of willing mass murderers on standby with guns right next to a whole lot of Jewish people in Israel. I'd say that qualifies as incitement, wouldn't you?

How hard would it be to say the following:

1) Calling for genocide against Jews or anyone else is a violation of our student code. This does not constitute free speech, but rather an incitement to violence.

2) That said, no one on our campus has called for the genocide of Jews. Merely supporting a Palestinian state or the Palestinian dreams of statehood cannot be construed as "calling for genocide."

3) That said, there has been a worrying amount of support Hamas on our campus. We as an institution completely and entirely denounce Hamas as an illegitimate and illegal terrorist organization. And we need to do a lot of soul searching to figure out exactly why members of our community are defending and supporting mass murderers. We believe these members are entirely wrong and we need to dissect exactly what is going on here. We will investigate and should we find violations of the student or faculty code we will swiftly act. At our school there is ample room for political dissent. But there is not going to be any tolerance for incitement to violence, celebration of wanton murder and destruction, or antisemitism or racism. In addition, gross propaganda the types of which are spread by Hamas and its supporters will be met with a powerful chorus of truth and accuracy. 

Or something along those lines. It's not hard. 

And let me make the gender point again. A man who had any sort of father or male friends or even just played pick up basketball with other dudes  would not conduct themselves this way in front of Congress. Far left women from the circles these ladies are from have no such social code to adhere to and thus...we are where we are.

If A Game Sucks, Change the Rules

Something is rotten in academia as evidenced by how pathetic the Presidents performed in front of Congress. It comes into such clear focus, doesn't it? Somehow elite Universities can't find the language to describe why calling for genocide is wrong and against their values. Should we let in students who want to become serial killers? How about misogynists who would like to march in favor of murdering women? How about good old fashioned neo-nazis? If the current construction of elite Universities can't figure out why terrorism and genocidal ideations are inappropriate - maybe we need a new construction. Here are a few thoughts:

1) Get rid of tenure. Seems to me tenure hasn't protected Universities from group-think. So...if it's not serving its function, maybe it's past the expiration date. 

2) Fire all the crazy professors. Not so hard, was it?

3) Kick out all the crazy students. Was that so hard?

4) Fire all the crazy administrators. 

5) Cut tuition by 25%.

Colleges overnight could be great again.

3 Women Presidents

I know people like to say misogyny is the reason we've never had a female president. Perhaps there is an alternative explanation, evidenced by the answers the three women presidents of MIT, Harvard, and UPenn provided to Congress today about whether calling for the genocide of Jews constitutes harassment. 

I know that's not the fashionable thing to say, but come on, we're all on some level thinking and knowing that a lot of this DEI crapola is due to women not being able to deal with shit. And yes, of course, not all women...just the median and plus some...

Logging

Film: Guy Ritchie's The Covenant

Gyllenhaal on the down low becoming one of my favorite actors - he's following the model of Denzel or perhaps even Tom Cruise - bringing a level of intensity and craft to tried and true genre pictures for men. This movie is much better than most in the genre. And the first 30 minutes are pretty incredible. At some point, I'd like to watch it right next to the Hurt Locker. But the story suffers a bit from essentially being split into two separate movies. Not quite epic enough to pull it off. And the two pieces don't quite fit naturally - in fact, they may be too similar?

TV: The Bookie Pilot 

I really like this comic, Sebastian Maniscalco but boy this pilot is lame. I guess Chuck Lorre saw Curb and thought to himself: I can do that. He can't. Referencing Two and Half Men throughout this was quite painful to see. 

As a side note, Ray Romano has a little bit in here as a sad sack gambler. Romano and Seinfeld are an interesting contrast in how they handled their post sitcom-world triumph. Seinfeld became the flaneur, the man about town always glad-handing with the elite - the man above the fray. Romano seems to have gone in the opposite direction - playing the "loser" in tiny bit parts, content to be a struggling working man. Let's not forget Romano is worth upwards of 200 million dollars.

Hamas

For all the talk of Hamas "winning" they sure seemed eager for both the ceasefire and the ceasefire to continue.

Logging

Film: The Holdovers

Doubt I'll love a film as much this year. Such an anachronism in 2023. It's incredibly patient, maybe even slow. But builds so well to quiet revelation after revelation about its characters. Did not cheat any moment - nothing felt ham-fisted, gratuitous, or fake.

And yes, I'm going to buy Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. Shouldn't you?

Win

I agree with the basic premise in Richard Hanania's substack: the Palestinians must lose hope. Otherwise they won't change. The plan for the Israel and US should be this: win. Here's a theory about how:

1) Palestinians lose half of Gaza now. It becomes a buffer state. They lose all their Israeli privileges, ie work visas, etc. Maybe Israel operates the water and power from the buffer region or something if the Palestinians for some reason cannot provide basic services to themselves.

2) If Hamas pulls any more shit, they lose another half of what they've got. And so forth.

3) For every Hamas member the Palestinians arrest themselves or hand over to the Israelis, they get an apartment. For every mid level, a house. For every commander/leader: acreage in the buffer zone. 

4) Expel a random 50% of all students who broke student codes during the Israel-Palestine protests. Going forward any student who breaks the student codes gets no warning. They're gone. And yes, this means foreign students will lose their visas. Adios. 

The war would be over in a couple weeks. 

A Fake Country

An interesting challenge would be to describe the difference between a real and fake country.