Identity Politics
May 23, 2022 — John Hinderaker
That was the way Western University in Ontario commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. (Somehow, the day went by without my being aware of it.) Western posted this image on Instagram: So, what was wrong with that picture? Several things, some might say, but if you guessed two women in hijabs kissing, you are correct. A university in Ontario, Canada deleted from a social media page an
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May 21, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Bill Maher must have overdosed on red pills this week, because his closing rant last night took on the holiest of left-wing holies—the transgender movement. One thing to note if you watch all the way through is the severe disapproving look on the face of Democratic Party factotum Donna Brazile. She is clearly not happy that Maher is “going there.” This is one issue about which the left will tolerate
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May 5, 2022 — Steven Hayward
There are few issues about which public opinion is both remarkably steady and completely unsteady at the same time than abortion. Think of it as the Schrodinger’s Cat of opinion problems—it exists in a quantum state. This reflects partly the unease most people have thinking and talking about the issue, the seriousness of the vital moral questions involved, and the perennial problem of issue-polling where the form and order of
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May 5, 2022 — Steven Hayward
I had a long conversation once with one of the most important behind-the-scenes leaders of the long drive to legalize gay marriage—one of the most shrewd and sophisticated (and therefore realistic) leftists I’ve ever met. He was candid and direct in dismissing the efforts of the Human Rights Campaign Fund—actually he held HRCF in contempt—and other high-profile and self-congratulatory activist groups. He said the two most important things that made
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May 3, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Last week in our Geek in Pictures, I included a stylized chart that Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist of liberal inclination, created (though I wasn’t sure at the time that he was the creator): Naturally the left, deeply insecure about their positions (which helps explain their censorious and authoritarian disposition), reacted badly to this chart, as Wright explained in a terrific article in the Wall Street Journal today after the
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April 24, 2022 — Steven Hayward
A lot of leftists are claiming that the move of Florida Republicans to strip Disney’s favorable tax treatment and local governance prerogatives is a hypocritical attack on free speech, but it is nothing of the sort. There is no attempt to curtail the speech or political activism of Disney or any other corporation, though the irony is that the left wants corporate political speech banned or regulated by the government,
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April 16, 2022 — Steven Hayward
I never tire of noting how the same ideology that goes on about the “rights of nature” goes on in the very next breath to deny human nature, or even to argue that invoking human nature is hate speech. You know, like suggesting that it is possible to know what a woman is without a degree in biology. And then there are stories like this, from Politico, that send me
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April 3, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Back in February we reported here on the federal district court ruling that the new “diversity” admissions process for the elite Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Virginia, had illegally discriminated against Asians. (Who do they think they are—Harvard?) The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has unfortunately granted a stay against the district court’s ruling pending further appeal, which means TJ can continue discriminating against Asians for next fall’s admissions:
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March 26, 2022 — Steven Hayward
When Monty Python’s Life of Brian came out in 1979, the film was controversial among many religious conservatives who thought the film blasphemous for its implied attack on Jesus and Christianity, and although there is a certain mockery of religion in the movie, it is subordinate to the stronger satire of a certain kind of familiar extremism and utopianism (“What have the Romans ever done for us?” “Brought peace?”) I
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March 20, 2022 — Steven Hayward
I’ve been meaning to note that Rachel Levine (pictured below) has been picked by USA Today as the lede hero for its roster of “Woman of the Year,” but one suspects that like the rest of the field providing the supporting cast and backdrop for champion women’s swimmer Lia Thomas, the rest of the women who compose the honorable mention list of USA Today‘s “Woman of the Year” are just
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March 17, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Some stories are just so stupid and absurd that only someone with an advanced degree could possible believe them. From The Telegraph: ‘Cancelled’, the 1804 train with supposed links to slavery Trains could face a new kind of “cancellation”, as National Museum Wales reviews steam-powered technology over claims it was linked to the slave trade. Richard Trevithick unveiled the first steam-powered locomotive in Wales in 1804, but National Museum Wales
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March 14, 2022 — Steven Hayward
A reader sends along this article, supposedly by a real estate professional, about the sales terms that you should no longer use to promote a house on the market. I can’t tell if this story is deadpan satire, an earnest attempt to adapt to our wokerati, or a prophecy about the future. You decide: Some of my clients’ multiple listing services flag questionable words and phrases, while others do not.
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March 11, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Good to see that the New York Times is keeping up with the need to bring an intersectional perspective to every possible topic. Like the ancient ruins of Pompeii: Pompeii Moves With the Times The new leader of this 2,000-year-old archaeological treasure is examining gender, race and class while using technology to try and save the site from the ravages of climate change. . . “Many of the questions we
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February 23, 2022 — Steven Hayward
We reported here early last month about University of Washington Prof. Stuart Reges upending UW’s virtue-signaling “land acknowledgement” that is all the rage in academia right now. Today Inside Higher Ed picks up the story, with an interesting wrinkle. As argued here, if “land acknowledgements” are meant literally, they are the height of liberal hypocrisy, since “stolen land” by definition should either be returned to its rightful owner, or compensation
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February 10, 2022 — Steven Hayward
That race has become the central obsession of the left is hardly news, but reaching new levels of racial absurdity is always good copy. Today’s racial ridiculousness come to us courtesy of National Public Radio (figures). Start with this tweet, which is authentic and not a Babylon Bee parody: “Some academics argue.” Always a promising start. And here’s some of the actual article, in case you don’t believe it: A
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February 7, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Someone has managed through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to dislodge a consultant’s 254-page report to Andy Marshall’s legendary Office of Net Assessment in the Department of Defense from way back in 2013. Marshall, who died in 2019, and his ONA are legendary in defense and intelligence circles (his nickname was Yoda) for its outside-the-box thinking and projections, many of which proved themselves out over time. The 2013 report
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January 5, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Lenin famously said that capitalists would sell the rope that Communists would use to hang capitalists. But it turns out his imagination failed him: who knew that capitalists would pay for the rope with which the revolutionary left will kill capitalism. Liberal political analyst Thomas Byrne Edsall, who along with David Shor, Ruy Teixeira, and a handful of other liberals of relative sobriety, notes today in the New York Times
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