April 24, 2024
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Twilight of the Wonks.
Impostor syndrome isn’t always a voice of unwarranted self-doubt that you should stifle. Sometimes, it is the voice of God telling you to stand down. If, for example, you are an academic with a track record of citation lapses, you might not be the right person to lead a famous university through a critical time. If you are a moral jellyfish whose life is founded on the “go along to get along” principle and who recognizes only the power of the almighty donor, you might not be the right person to serve on the board of an embattled college when the future of civilization is on the line. And if you are someone who believes that “misgenderment” is a serious offense that demands heavy punishment while calls for the murder of Jews fall into a gray zone, you will likely lead a happier and more useful life if you avoid the public sphere.
The spectacle of the presidents of three important American universities reduced to helpless gibbering in a 2023 congressional hearing may have passed from the news cycle, but it will resonate in American politics and culture for a long time. Admittedly, examination by a grandstanding member of Congress seeking to score political points at your expense is not the most favorable forum for self-expression. Even so, discussing the core mission of their institutions before a national audience is an event that ought to have brought out whatever mental clarity, moral earnestness, and rhetorical skills that three leaders of major American institutions had. My fear is it did exactly that.
The mix of ideas and perceptions swirling through the contemporary American academy is not, intellectually, an impressive product.
Nope.
I DON’T KNOW WHY IT’S UP TO COLUMBIA: Columbia has ‘made clear’ it ‘does not want NYPD’ on campus as pro-Hamas occupation takes over school.
Related: Columbia Jewish students told to flee campus as situation unravels.
STEPHEN KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Let the Protesters Stay Until Academia Burns to the Ground. “In yesterday’s Briefing, I was mostly referring to the student mobs who have been making all of the anti-Israel noise and trouble on campuses all over America. We can’t forget the adults in academia who are paid handsomely to indoctrinate the kids and saddle them with such crippling ignorance, however. What we’re seeing is the product of decades of pumping impressionable minds full of, to borrow a leftist word, misinformation. . . . We’re not seeing something that came from the deep recesses of the collective college student consciousness. This has been simmering just below the surface for a very long time. Academic leftists are the cancer, the anti-Israel protests are the symptom. What we’ve seen on American campuses since last October has proven what those of us who write about the rot in academia have been saying for years. That rot is pervasive and really does make it seem as if there is nothing redeemable in higher education.”
WELL, THEY HAVE TO SATISFY THE RADICAL MUSLIM VOTING BLOCS IN MICHIGAN AND MINNESOTA, WHILE NOT BEING TOO OBVIOUSLY ANTI-SEMITIC: White House bobs and weaves through questions on Gaza campus protests.
SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK: SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites, aces 300th rocket landing (photos, video).
Also: Rocket Lab launches new NASA solar sail tech to orbit.
ED MORRISSEY: Once Again, With Feeling: Decolonize Academia Now! “I wish to offer this essay again to remind us that we could force these schools to recognize the damage they are doing by restoring proper market signals to the education industry. And until we do, American Academia will continue to operate as a toxic and destructive element in our society, imposing indoctrination rather than education and producing generations of moral failures and petty totalitarians. And as the past six months have demonstrated, other approaches simply aren’t working.”
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I’M NOT EVEN SURE THIS IS SATIRE:
Columbia Admins Promise To Carefully Investigate Whether 'Let’s Kill Every Jew We See On Campus' Chant Violates School’s Conduct Policy https://t.co/zqkQGy2Nki pic.twitter.com/dl5EPzvFrH
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) April 23, 2024
I mean, this is straight news: 54 Columbia Law Faculty Condemn Administration For Disciplinary Action Against Anti-Israel Student Protesters.
I mean, most of these people were probably all in for the “punch a Nazi” fad, but now they’re all in for a “kill the Jews” protest. If these were right-leaning students, the faculty would be applauding.
THE GOLDEN STATE’S SLOW SUICIDE CONTINUES: Wall Street Journal: “Slavery Reparations in California?” Various committees of the California Legislature have now approved various recommendations of the Task Force on Reparations. They. Just. Can’t. Stop.
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Biden, 81, suffers ANOTHER embarrassing gaffe as his attempt to brand Trump untrustworthy spectacularly backfires at Florida rally.
President Joe Biden suffered another gaffe during a speaking event as he tried to paint his opponent, former President Donald Trump, as untrustworthy.
Biden, at 81 years old, the oldest president in American history, appeared before supporters at a community college in Tampa, one week before Florida bans abortions past six weeks.
He called out Trump, his 2024 general election opponent, as the sole person responsible for the ‘cruelty and chaos’ that’s occurred after the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
However, when he did so, he accidentally asked: ‘How many times does he have to prove we can’t be trusted?’
ABC News tried to cover for the president, replacing the word ‘we’ with ‘he’ in describing the speech, though he was clearly heard saying ‘we.’
The House of Stephanopoulos airbrushing fellow Democrats? I’m shocked, shocked!
Evergreen:
VETERAN JOURNALIST AND JOURNALISM PROFESSOR W. JOSEPH CAMPBELL: NPR’s Uri Berliner Was Right. “Uri Berliner’s provocative recent essay lamenting ‘the absence of viewpoint diversity’ at NPR brought to mind the critiques of Liz Spayd, the little-remembered final public editor at the New York Times.”
LIBERTARIAN FUTURIST SOCIETY ANNOUNCES PROMETHEUS AWARD FINALISTS FOR BEST NOVEL: Congratulations, everyone!
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