wokeness
January 25, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Dr. John Calhoon, the outgoing president of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, posted the slide immediately below as part of his farewell remarks. See if you can spot anything wrong with it: Of course you know what happened next: Dr. Calhoon was called out for his “hurtful” remarks by the STS’s new president and board of directors. You’d almost think the STS board had confused Dr. John Calhoon with John
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January 24, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Matthew M. Wielicki, professor of geosciences at the University of Alabama, has announced in a Twitter thread that he has decided to leave the university, and some of his reasons are becoming depressingly frequent in the sciences: Why I am leaving the University of Alabama: Some internet sleuths have discovered that I will be leaving my faculty position in the Department of Geological Sciences after this semester so I thought
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January 22, 2023 — Steven Hayward

One of Stan Evans‘s many great quips was that it was fortunate Republican politicians were pro-life, since they spend so much time in the fetal position. The lack of fight in congressional Republicans was a source of endless frustration for Stan, and despite some indications the new House GOP majority may pick some worthy fights, in some areas they are already proving to be a colossal failure. The Washington Free
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January 18, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Konstantin Kisin, an immigrant to the UK and author of An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West, has burst on the scene with a terrific performance at the Oxford Union last week, debating the motion “The House Believes Woke Culture Has Gone Too Far.” Savor his nine minutes of bravura performance here: I’m unable to find how the vote on the resolution turned out.
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December 8, 2022 — Steven Hayward

Douglas Murray has a new venture entitled “Uncancelled History” that some readers may be interested in following. Its opening act is a ten-episode series of interviews with leading contrarian thinkers who take on the woke ideology of historical distortions that everyone knows today. I hope this is the first of several “seasons” of this great concept. The third episode in the series features Power Line favorite Jean Yarbrough of Bowdoin
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October 14, 2022 — Scott Johnson

The Dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School has just circulated an advisory to faculty (partial screenshot below). We covered the school’s new white-coat ceremony in “Beyond the Hippocratic oath.” Reporting on the absurd oath foisted on incoming students at the ceremony has apparently raised public interest. If you are among those who help defray expenses at the University of Minnesota and would like to express your views, you
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October 11, 2022 — Scott Johnson

Tulsi Gabbard’s announced exit from the Democratic Party via Twitter this morning was only a small slice of the larger video below she has posted on YouTube as episode 1 of The Tulsi Gabbard Show. The whole thing makes for a thoroughgoing denunciation of Democrats and the Democrat Party line. At the same time she sketches out her agreement with key Republican and conservative positions. She is a highly persuasive
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October 10, 2022 — Scott Johnson

Over at the University of Minnesota Medical School, one probably shouldn’t be seen with books such as Arthur Koestler’s novel Darkness at Noon or Fan Shen’s memoir Gang of One: Memoirs of a Red Guard. It might reflect an inclination to think for yourself and other such bourgeois indulgences. I’m thinking that they missed a few strokes at this year’s white-coat ceremony for new students. The video below is a
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October 3, 2022 — Scott Johnson

Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho gave the keynote address at the Federalist Society’s Sixth Annual Kentucky Chapters Conference last week. Judge Ho gave his talk the title “Agreeing to Disagree—Restoring America by Resisting Cancel Culture.” Nate Hochman obtained a copy of the text and broke its most newsworthy aspect in “Federal Judge Vows to Stop Hiring Law Clerks from Yale Law School.” We followed Hochman’s account in “Bravo, Judge Ho.”
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September 28, 2022 — Scott Johnson

At the American Conservative Peter Tonguette recently reflected on seeing Garrison Keillor perform in Newark, Ohio. Tonguette’s column was published as “An evening with Garrison Keillor in exile.” Prudence Johnson performed with Garrison. Last month I included Prudence in my series on the Minnesota music scene in “Wash my eyes” (singing a song by Greg Brown). Tonguette covers some of the same ground I did this past December in my
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September 25, 2022 — Scott Johnson

The Center of the American Experiment hosted Wilfred McClay this past Friday over lunch in Bloomington to speak on the abomination of Minnesota’s social studies standards in process. It was not only a great event, thanks to John Hinderaker letting me join him at the head table, the lunch gave me a chance to catch up briefly with Professor McClay. Professor McClay holds the Victor Davis Hanson Chair in Classical
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August 7, 2022 — Steven Hayward

The news that “Batgirl” has been canceled by senior executives may be a significant sign that the rebellion against suffocating wokery is gaining steam, or maybe it is just a case of entertainment management finally figuring out sunk-cost fallacy. In any case, I asked Emina Melonic to bring her astute powers of cinematic perception to bear on the news: Variety reports that Warner Bros./Discovery CEO David Zaslav has decided to
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June 26, 2022 — Steven Hayward

Buzz Lightyear (voiced by the great Tim Allen, one of the few right-leaning stars in Hollywood) became an iconic character in the Toy Story series of films, but the new standalone Buzz Lightyear movie, with Buzz voiced by Chris Evans instead of Allen, has bombed at the box office, perhaps because it decided to go fully woke by prominently featuring a lesbian relationship. As Kyle Smith puts it, “today Hollywood’s
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June 18, 2022 — Steven Hayward

Bill Maher nails it again this weekend, with this complete humiliation of the Washington Post and the wokerati that have brought it low: Memo to Maher: Look, dude, we appreciate that beating up on wokism has become one of your most prominent themes these days, but if you really want it to end, you know what you have to do: vote Republican. It’s the only way the left will learn
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June 18, 2022 — Scott Johnson

Reading Edmund Burke’s writings on the French Revolution as a college freshman helped open my mind and turn me into a conservative. Steve’s American Mind column on Burke is brilliant, but you have to have read Burke. The French Revolution was of course Burke’s great subject, yet just about everything he wrote is worth reading, if only to learn from his high style. Burke’s great subject also comes to mind
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June 17, 2022 — John Hinderaker

This liberal video podcast is sponsored by The Hill. I’ve never seen it before, but a friend sent me the link to this episode. It is titled “Elephant In The Zoom: Meltdowns Inside Progressive Organizations Are CRIPPLING The Left.” It addresses the question: why are liberal nonprofits crumbling and ceasing to function? Because they are under attack by young wokester employees who essentially have ground things to a halt. There
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June 15, 2022 — Scott Johnson

I’ve been studying Xenophon’s Memorabilia with friends over the past few months. Xenophon was a student and friend of Socrates. His memoirs are devoted to an account and defense of Socrates following the trial that resulted in his death. It’s an interesting and classic work. We have used Amy Bonnette’s translation in Cornell’s Agora series as our text. It comes with an excellent introduction by Christopher Bruell and annotations by
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