ICYMI: Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest

At Amazon, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest.

Denise Austin Bikini Body

She's in great shape!

At London's Daily Mail, "Denise Austin on how she's kept her bikini body at 61... but 90s fitness video pro admits even she's battling the dreaded middle-aged spread."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."

And from A.F. Branco, "An Angry Master."

Jessica Lee Buchanan Hot Photo Shoot

At Drunken Stepfather, "JESSICA LEE BUCHANAN IN A HOT PHOTOSHOOT OF THE DAY."

Nina Agdal on Instagram

At Taxi Driver, "Nina Agdal Butt Naked on Instagram."

BONUS: At Drunken Stepfather, "THE UNCENSORED NINA AGDAL NUDES OF THE DAY."

Michelle Wolf and the White House Correspondents' Dinner

These people are not too smart. You can't keep denigrating and vilifying the very people who elected the current president. And you especially can't come off as mean and cold-hearted --- "caustic," in the words of some.

I didn't watch the dinner, which was apparently available on C-SPAN. I was reading and scrolling Twitter, and oh boy, that was some backlash against "comedienne" Michelle Wolf.

I did read the transcript, and I gotta say, she's not very funny. Maybe one or two lines might have gotten a laugh out of me, especially with a good delivery. But she was mean-spirited and foul-mouthed. It's just not very funny.

See WaPo, "AAnalysis: Michelle Wolf's caustic comedy routine at the White House correspondents' dinner, annotated."

Also, from Margaret Sullivan, "For the sake of journalism, stop the White House correspondents’ dinner."

And at Politico, "Journalists distance themselves from Correspondents’ Dinner after Wolf routine":

Comedian Michelle Wolf's biting routine at Saturday‘s 2018 White House Correspondents' Association dinner has triggered one of Washington's most recurring conversations: Is one night of pomp and politics worth the headaches that usually follow?

Almost immediately after Wolf, best known as a correspondent on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,“ left the stage at the Washington Hilton, those who pack into the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on a daily basis began to distance themselves from her performance. A number of journalists deemed her act too caustic.

"The spirit of the event had always been jokes that singe but don’t burn. Reporters who work with her daily appreciate that @presssec was there," NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell wrote on Twitter.

At its core, the dinner is supposed to be a celebration of the First Amendment, an opportunity to laud the young journalists who have won the association's scholarships, and a place to applaud the current journalists whose work illuminates the public's understanding of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“My goal in putting together last night's dinner was to unify the room and the country around journalism and the First Amendment and I shared what I believe about those subjects in my own remarks,” Margaret Talev, a Bloomberg correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, told POLITICO.

“The association by tradition does not preview or censor the entertainer's remarks,” Talev continued. “Some of them made me uncomfortable and did not embody the spirit of the night. And that is protected by the First Amendment. I appreciated Sarah Sanders for joining us at the head table and her grace through the program.”

A persistent criticism of the glitzy dinner is that it fuels perceptions of excessive chumminess between the press and the government officials they’re expected to hold accountable, a rationale that’s prompted the New York Times to back out more than a decade ago. But some journalists feared Saturday’s dinner could lead to a different perception, of being seen as the opposition to the president.

“If the #WHCD dinner did anything tonight, it made the chasm between journalists and those who don't trust us, even wider,” tweeted Meg Kinnard, a South Carolina-based reporter for The Associated Press. “And those of us based in the red states who work hard every day to prove our objectivity will have to deal with it.”

New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker concluded on Twitter after the event, “Unfortunately, I don't think we advanced the cause of journalism tonight.” And Baker suggested in a reply to comedian Kathy Griffin that he’d “vote to leave the comedy acts to comedy shows and stick to journalism at journalism dinners.”

"First Amendment would probably be OK without the dinner," CNBC's John Harwood added.

Still more, at Twitchy, "DAMN! AP’s Meg Kinnard dropped the MOTHER of all truth-bombs on the WHCD and Lefties can’t DEAL."

Erika Albonetti

At Drunken Stepfather, "Erika Albonetti’s Titties are Short Sighted of the Day."

Leftists Don't Care About Normal Americans

This is good, from Tom Trinko, at American Thinker, "What Leftists Stand For":

Historically, both sides of the political spectrum in America have supported the rule of law and the Constitution.  Additionally, other than the Democrats' longstanding racist oppression of black people, the positions held by both sides were generally differences that people of goodwill could hold.  For example, good people can disagree on just what the tax rates should be.

Since Roe v. Wade, that has changed, and the change has accelerated rapidly in the last eight years.  The left in America has openly embraced evil, rejected the rule of law, and denied that Americans they disagree with have constitutional rights.

That's why 2016 was a Flight 93 election: the political fight in America is no longer among people of good will, but between evil fascists and the American people.  Most of the people who vote for the Democrats have no idea what the left actually stands for due to the actions of the media, who hide the truth.

Here are some of the evils perpetrated or supported by large numbers of leftists so you can convince those Democrat voters to switch sides:

1. They support the right of the British government to use force to prevent parents from taking their child to see doctors who might be able to save their child's life if the British courts decide that it's in the best interest of the child to die.
2. They support killing the unborn who can feel pain by literally cutting them to pieces, but they demand prison time for someone who mistreats animals.
3. They want to kill unborn babies with Down syndrome.
4. They want to kill the elderly, who are no longer a benefit to society in the minds of leftists.
5. They deny the settled science that human life begins at conception.
6. They spend their money on themselves by having fewer children and condemn those who have more kids even when they pay for them.
7. They don't care that black women are three times as likely to abort as white women.
8. They don't care that cheap illegal labor hurts black people by denying them jobs.
9. They don't care that their fake climate crisis will drive up energy costs and hurt the poor, who are disproportionately people of color.
10. They declare that giving inner-city black parents the choice of sending their kids to a school where they will get a good education is "racist."
11. They don't care that thousands of blacks are shot each year in Democratic-run cities.
12. They deny witness reports by black crime victims that show that blacks are more likely to commit crimes, though most blacks are law-abiding, and demand that blacks be incarcerated at the same rate as all other groups, ensuring that blacks continue to suffer from black-on-black crime.
13. They want to take money from people who never owned slaves and give it to people who never were slaves.
14. They refuse to accept any election result that doesn't favor them.
15. They approve of Hillary colluding with Russia to get fake news on Trump and use that fake news during the election campaign.
16. They believe that illegals should be counted along with Americans when apportioning House seats.
17. They can't win elections, so they import immigrants and illegal aliens who will vote for them.
18. They want to give convicted child-molesters, murderers, rapists, and major drug-dealers the right to vote.
19. They work hard to keep the folks in the military from voting.
20. They support policies that increase people's dependence on government in order to get more votes, even though that subjects 21. people to miserable lives.
21. They believe they should be able to use the full power of the government to spy on their political opponents.
22. They believe that the judiciary can make up laws, and they reject the idea of separation of powers by endorsing "resistance" by the judiciary.
23. They believe that our rights flow from the government and that the government can change our rights as it sees fit.
24. They support discriminating against Asian-Americans based on their race.
25. They support discriminating against whites based on their race so long as leftist kids aren't discriminated against.
26. They reject equality of opportunity and embrace equality of result.
27. They think it's fine for politicians to decide not to enforce laws they don't like so long as leftists don't like those laws, but they would throw a fit if Texas ignored the Supreme Court ruling, not a law, that makes abortion legal.
28. They believe that the if the president is a leftist, he can ignore the Constitution, but if he's conservative, he can be prevented from doing anything leftist judges don't personally like.
29. They believe that the Constitution is whatever they want it to be, and they directly reject the idea that it should be interpreted in light of the intent of those who wrote and ratified it.
30. They believe that the press should be a propaganda machine that ignores stories that are bad for leftists and makes up fake news to endorse leftist views.

There's still lots more, at the link.

President Trump Should Defend the Executive Branch (VIDEO)

Kim Strassel had a great column in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, "How Trump Takes on Obstruction."

She's a brilliant political analyst, and uncompromising against the left. I love her!

At Fox News, with Martha MacCallum:

Evelyn Taft's Weekend Weather Forecast

It's sure been nice. The sun's been making it out from behind the clouds and it's been comfortably warm.

Here's the lovely Ms. Evelyn, for KCAL News Channel 9:

Scarlett Johansson Busts Out Cleavage for Avengers Flashback Friday

She's still got it, dang!

At Popoholic:

Scarlett Johansson Bust Out Her Ginormous Cleavage For Avengers Flashback Friday, Woohoo! https://t.co/PpvaW2NZ4v #AvengersInfinityWar #BlackWidow #FBF pic.twitter.com/mPhjlquZ48

— Popoholic (@Popoholic) April 27, 2018

Trump Administration Set to Collide with California Over Automobile Fuel Emissions Standards

Hey, I love it.

California's ridiculously out of line with its global warming agenda. The pushback is long in coming and much needed.

At LAT, "Trump and California are set to collide head-on over fuel standards":

BREAKING: Trump admin plan would revoke California's authority to set fuel economy rules, and freeze 2020 mileage targets in place nationwide for six years. https://t.co/Qc2l9dvaXE

— Evan Halper (@evanhalper) April 27, 2018

The Trump administration is speeding toward all-out war with California over fuel economy rules for cars and SUVs, proposing to revoke the state's long-standing authority to enforce its own, tough rules on tailpipe emissions.

The move forms a key part of a proposal by Trump's environmental and transportation agencies to roll back the nation's fuel economy standards. The agencies plan to submit the proposal to the White House for review within days.

The plan would freeze fuel economy targets at the levels required for vehicles sold in 2020, and leave those in place through 2026, according to federal officials who have reviewed it. That would mark a dramatic retreat from existing law, which aimed to get the nation's fleet of cars and light trucks to an average fuel economy of 55 miles per gallon by 2025. Instead of average vehicle fuel economy ratcheting up to that level, it would stall out at 42 miles per gallon.

That would constitute the single biggest step the administration has taken to undermine efforts to combat climate change.

Cars and trucks recently surpassed electricity plants as America's biggest sources of the greenhouse gases that drive global warming. And unlike the electricity industry, in which market forces have pushed utilities toward cleaner energy, including natural gas and renewable sources, relatively low gasoline prices in recent years have led consumers to pay less attention to fuel economy when they buy new cars.

As a result, the steady increase in fuel mileage standards championed by the Obama administration in partnership with California represented the most powerful action the U.S. has taken to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The biggest gains have been projected to happen in the years that the Trump administration's plan would target.

The plan from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration remains a draft, and White House officials could decide to back away from a direct fight with California and like-minded states.

Within the administration, officials have disagreed about how far and how quickly to push changes in fuel economy rules, according to officials familiar with the discussions. Some officials attuned to the concerns of the auto industry have warned against a proposal that over-reaches and could lead to years of litigation and uncertainty. Others, aligned with EPA chief Scott Pruitt, have argued for a more aggressive push.

EPA spokesperson Liz Bowman declined to comment on the details of the draft plan.

"The Agency is continuing to work with NHTSA to develop a joint proposed rule and is looking forward to the interagency process," she wrote in an email.

Environmental groups and California officials already have vowed to fight the administration in court. But if the EPA plan prevails, it would be a crippling blow to efforts in California and other states to meet aggressive goals for climate action as well as for cleaning their air.

"I find this to be an outrageous intrusion," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in an email.

Salena Zito and Brad Todd, The Great Revolt

*BUMPED.*

This one's out May 8th. I can't wait to read it.

At Amazon, Salena Zito and Brad Todd, The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.

Alfie Evan's Miraculous Life

From Sohrab Ahmari, at Commentary, "A Miracle in Liverpool":

Alfie Evans's miraculous life bears witness against Europe's barbarous culture of death. My take. https://t.co/Ze5y4KyJ6O

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) April 24, 2018

Alfie Evans was supposed to die. On Monday evening, doctors at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, England, removed the 23-month-old toddler’s respirator following an effective death sentence handed down by Britain’s High Court of Justice. The court ruled that “continued ventilatory support is no longer in Alfie’s best interest” and prohibited his parents from flying their baby to Rome’s Bambino Gesù hospital for additional treatment at the Italian government’s expense. An international outcry led by Pope Francis failed to move British authorities.

In his decision, Justice Anthony Hayden of the High Court predicted that, owing to a little-understood and rapidly progressing brain condition, “Alfie can not sustain his life on his own. It is the ventilator that has been keeping him alive for many months, he is unable to sustain his own respiratory effort.” Some 30 police officers were posted outside the hospital to prevent Alfie’s supporters from attempting to rescue him overnight, and his parents were barred from supplying their own oxygen.

The most mother and father could offer their son was skin-to-skin contact—and love. He was, as I say, supposed to die. But he didn’t. Alfie continued to breathe independently for five, ten, fifteen hours. As I write, he has been going strong for more than 21 hours. Under moral pressure, the hospital finally relented and offered some oxygen and fluids on Tuesday morning. Yet the fluids were subsequently withdrawn, a source familiar with the situation tells me.

The Italian government granted Alfie citizenship on Monday, and the following day Italian diplomats sought to evacuate him by military air ambulance from his death chamber at Alder Hey. That final legal hope was dashed Tuesday evening, after the court dismissed the Italian appeal. It is unlikely that Alfie will survive for much longer. Even so, what has transpired in Alfie’s room—between Alfie and his parents, Tom and Kate—is nothing short of a miracle of love. It is also a rebuke to the callous judges and experts who would substitute their own judgement for that of parents in matters of life and death.

The medical complexities of the case, played up by the court and its defenders, serve to obscure this basic moral principle. No one is asking the U.K. National Health Service to expend extraordinary resources to keep Alfie alive. All Alfie’s parents ask is to be allowed to seek treatment elsewhere—again, at Italian expense—even if such treatment proves to be futile in the end. The same principle was at stake in last year’s Charlie Gard case. Once more, British courts have distorted the relevant legal standard—“the best interests of the child”—to usurp parents’ natural rights.

Laws that were enacted to give children a voice when parents were divided, or to protect children against neglectful or abusive parents, are now being used against parents who are united and determined to keep their children alive. As London-based canon lawyer Ed Condon wrote recently in the Catholic Herald, U.K. courts have broadened the relevant statutes “to include disagreements between unified parents and other authorities, be they educational, medical, or governmental.”

Nor is it possible to rule out the baleful influence of the European culture of death in Alfie’s case. It is true that the hospital is not proactively terminating Alfie’s life. Even so, Justice Hayden’s decision is full of references to dying with “dignity,” a favorite euphemism of the euthanasia movement...

The Nation's Broken Probation System

This is a good piece. I'm not 100 percent convinced the probation system is "broken," but she's got a lot of excellent examples to show its flaws.

From Nila Bala, at USA Today, "Meek Mill is exhibit A of nation's broken probation system."

Meek Mill’s story demonstrates the often excessive nature of probation in America, @nilabala3 writes via @usatodayopinion: https://t.co/54bxmeJsFB

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) April 25, 2018

Maggie Haberman Responds to President Trump's Twitter Attack (VIDEO)

I actually like Maggie Haberman. Sure, she's a leftist but I find her well grounded in facts most of the time, and I don't think she has an agenda compared to a lot of other media folks.

In any case, FWIW, at CNN:

Tomi Lahren Calls Out John Legend for Fomenting the War on Cops (VIDEO)

Ms. Tomi's a hot chick, and a firebrand of an analyst. Sure, she's pretty much a bitch, but easy to look at, in any case.

At Fox News. The John Legend comments come toward the last part of the clip:

Robin Holzken Life of the Party (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Danielle Gersh's Wednesday Weather Forecast

She's such a sweetie.

It's been mild, basically overcast weather the past few days. Not too bad, actually.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Jessica Simpson in New York City (PHOTOS)

She's still one of my all time faves.

At Egotastic!, "Jessica Simpson Busty in NYC."

And on Twitter:

Day To Night #GUCCI pic.twitter.com/rRuKeBdvfT

— Jessica Simpson (@JessicaSimpson) April 24, 2018

Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations.

Democrats' Long March Into Irrelevance (VIDEO)

It's Laura Ingraham:

Syracuse Fraternity Suspended for Racist Video

I gotta say, these guys are not only racist, they're stupid.

Who'd think this was funny? And who'd think that this wouldn't go viral in an outrageous frenzy of SJW vituperation?

Syracuse University's Theta Tau fraternity suspended over ‘extremely racist’ and 'homophobic' video. https://t.co/hD5URz2zb6 pic.twitter.com/l38Njcp6tj

— ABC News (@ABC) April 19, 2018

Syracuse University suspended its chapter of Theta Tau after a video of an initiation ceremony showed members spewing hate speech. pic.twitter.com/rIpMtNdVsq

— HuffPost (@HuffPost) April 20, 2018

Shania Twain Apologizes After Saying She'd Have Voted for President Trump

She thought he was an honest guy, and that was more important that his politically incorrect comments, etc.

But oops!

The fanatical SJWs weren't having any of it!

At Twitchy, "‘Another scalp’: Shania Twain APOLOGIZES after lefty outrage mob attack."

Click through at the link. She posted a four-tweet apology.

'Another scalp': Shania Twain APOLOGIZES after lefty outrage mob attack https://t.co/oEQtACRH7k

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) April 23, 2018

Despite Raids and Tariffs, California Farmers Still Back Trump

Well, it's the Central Valley. You'd think they'd still back Trump, over the diabolical Democrats. Sheesh.

At LAT, "Raids and tariffs? We'll take our lumps, say California farmers":

“You know what? The Cold War affected us, too, It’s not going to be free to win this war, but it may be worth it."--CA farmer https://t.co/i4HB6qgfuu

— Virginia Dare (@vdare) April 22, 2018

You might assume walnut grower Mike Poindexter would be regretting his vote for Donald Trump.

Since the inauguration, immigration officials have raided his Selma, Calif., office and China has slapped tariffs on his walnuts to retaliate against President Trump’s protection of steel, aluminum and manufacturing.

But you’d be dead wrong. Like many other farmers in the rural and conservative San Joaquin Valley, Poindexter, 46, is holding as steadfast as his trees.

“It’s not about sticking through thick and thin,” he said. “What is our other option? In California, they’re not willing to back [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein because she’s not liberal enough. They don’t have anyone who’s palatable to us.”

So, if Trump thinks a trade war will improve the market for U.S. goods, so be it, Poindexter figures. “You know what? The Cold War affected us, too,” he said. “It’s not going to be free to win this war, but it may be worth it. I don’t think you’ll have farmers go out and vote for Democrats over tariffs.”

Poindexter’s stoicism echoes across the farms of the San Joaquin Valley, where rural and suburban voters strongly supported Trump and where they regularly send Republicans to the House of Representatives. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield is in his sixth term, and fellow Republican Devin Nunes, farther north in Tulare, is in his seventh.

“If I’ve gotta take a few bullets getting caught up in the cross-fire, but after four years or eight years — however long he spends in office — we’re on a better trajectory as a country, then it’s all parred up,” said Matt Fisher, a fourth-generation citrus grower in Arvin, near Bakersfield. “I did my part, so to speak.”

Jeff Bortolussi grows half a dozen fruit crops at the eastern edge of Kingsburg, where he contributed to his precinct’s 70% tally for Trump.

He lives in the house where he grew up, and eagerly invites a visitor on a driving tour around a mile-square box of country roads to show off the spring crop: peaches and nectarines the size of a baby’s fist, almond and walnuts still too small to see, reedy blueberry bushes, leafy grape vines and trees pregnant with apples, pomegranates, clementines, persimmons and figs.

It’s that kind of diversity — California grows more than 200 crops — that could soften the impact of tariffs on the state. And it’s what differentiates California’s $45-billion agriculture industry from frustrated farmers in the Midwest, who heavily depend on a soy crop that faces tariffs of 25%. (A tariff raises the price for Chinese importers, making the U.S. crop less competitive.)

Bortolussi is as patient about politics as he is with his crops.

“A lot of this stuff needs to play out,” he said. “I think a lot of it is posturing, and his way of communicating, his ‘art of the deal.’ We really don’t know what’s going on.”

Even almonds, California’s second-largest agricultural export to China, may not suffer from tariffs as much as first thought, Bortolussi says. “The almond crop this year is going to be a little off, because it got a little freeze,” he said. “So, if the tariffs are going to affect almonds, this may be the year when it will have less effect.”

Last year, California sold $1.1 billion worth of nuts — almonds, walnuts and pistachios — to China, its third-largest foreign customer, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture. China also bought more than $240 million in fresh citrus and table grapes from California in 2016, according to the department's data...

More.

Don't Feel Guilty About Plastic in the Oceans

This was the best op-ed I've read in a long time.

From David Mastio, at USA Today, "On Earth Day, you shouldn't feel guilty about your plastic trash."

My latest — On Earth Day, you shouldn't feel guilty about your plastic trash https://t.co/EmVTAkSCYW via @usatodayopinion

— David Mastio (@DavidMastio) April 20, 2018

Bryan Caplan, The Case Against Education

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Bryan Caplan, The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money.

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible: Exodus.

Alexis Ren Wears Nothing But Flowers (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Paige Jimenez

At Drunken Stepfather, "PAIGE JIMENEZ NAKED OF THE DAY."

BONUS: "BELLA THORNE AND DEMI LOVATO DYKE IT DOWN AT THE STRIP CLUB OF THE DAY."

'Did You Hear What That Old Guy Said'?

At Drunken Stepfather, "Annoying Twitch Streamer Gets Owned on Her Own Stream."

David Horowitz, The Black Book of the American Left — Volume 9

At Amazon, David Horowitz, The Black Book of the American Left — Volume 9: Ruling Ideas.

When I began the project of describing this movement in the 1980s, the emergence of the left as a mainstream force in Amer­ica’s political life was fairly recent and inadequately understood. Conservatives in particular often failed to appreciate the anti-American animus of the left and its apocalyptic goals. At the same time, conservatives imprudently accepted the left’s deceptive claims to be “liberal” and “progressive,” ascribing to it idealistic intentions that masked its malignant designs. The contents of these volumes were conceived as a corrective to these false and disarming impressions. This is the ninth and final volume of my writings about progressivism, a movement whose goals are the destruc­tion of America’s social contract at home and the defeat of American power abroad.

The primary source of this confusion is the fact that left-wing politics are based on expectations of an imaginary future rather than assessments of a usable past. The left’s primary focus is not on practical improvements based on an analysis of previous prac­tices, or a conception of the limits imposed by human nature, but on changes designed to satisfy the moral prejudices that make up the leftist faith.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the left’s quest for “equality,” which is the organizing principle of its “transformative” propos­als. Equality before the law is a foundational principle of American democracy and its pluralistic community. But this is not the equality proposed by the left, which demands instead an unrealiz­able and destructive equality of outcomes. In the real world human inequalities of talent, intelligence, physical attributes and application are immutable facts of life, which result in inequalities of wealth and power. The seeds of social inequality are planted in the human genome and are nourished by disparate cultures, which include circumstances of birth and upbringing that governments cannot control. Attempts to establish such control have invariably resulted in the most repressive regimes in human history, and in the end have failed to produce either equality or wealth.

The ideal of an egalitarian future is doomed to failure because it is unanchored in any human reality. It is sustained as an ideal because it allows advocates to regard themselves as revolutionary pioneers of a “better world.” It further prompts believers to devalue the present and dismiss the past, which allows them to distance themselves from the destructive results of their social experiments. Thus progressives habitually dismiss the disasters they have engineered, however epic in scope, by attributing the monstrous results to inadvertent “mistakes,” when they were in fact the logical consequences of their Utopian ideas.

When the Soviet socialist system collapsed, progressives cre­ated an artificial distinction between the ideal, which they called “real socialism,” and the disaster, which they called “actually existing socialism.” This allowed them to avoid any recognition of their role in the human catastrophe they had supported and served for generations. Consequently, the experience had no lessons for progressives because in their self-absolving view it wasn’t “real socialism.” This delusion has now been passed to the next genera­tions as a result of the left’s infiltration of America’s educational system and its transformation into a training and recruitment cen­ter for collectivist causes and ideas.

The current term leftists use to describe their Utopian vision of the future is “social justice” rather than communism or socialism.

The new name is part of a familiar process by which the left attempts to shed the disasters of its past. One would be hard-put to distinguish the goals encapsulated by “social justice” from the communist attitudes of previous generations. Like communism, “social justice” is a promise of harmony and redemption. Like communism it describes a future in which inequality, poverty, big­otry and the timeless corruptions of the human spirit are miracu­lously rectified by political parties and the state. Like communism, “social justice” requires for its realization a remake of humanity. Like communism, therefore, it can only be achieved through the destruction of individual freedom, and the thwarting of normal human desires and interests in order to achieve an allegedly greater social good.

The bloody history of progressive experiments during the 20th century should have buried the illusion that human beings can be transformed into creatures radically different from what they have been for the five thousand years in which their actions have been recorded. Human societies are reflections of the human beings who create them, not the other way around. Inequality, bigotry, hypocrisy and greed are elements of a genome that thousands of years of evolution have failed to alter or repair. As a result, progres­sive states dedicated to “social justice” have flooded the earth with the corpses of innocents who stood in their way, and created poverty and misery on an unprecedented scale. Yet the religious fantasy of a liberated future persists to this day among an alarming array of constituencies, and the left’s assault on individual free­dom proceeds as though these historical tragedies had never taken place.

The tenacity of the progressive illusion and its imperviousness to experience are natural effects of its religious nature. The solace provided to believers through hope in a redeemed future is as existentially crucial as a belief in God or in life after death. It makes relinquishing the illusion as devastating as a loss of religious faith. How else explain the persistence of a fantasy that has proven so destructive?

Since the industrial revolution, the progressive illusion has been encouraged by advances in technology that might seem to augur human possibility without limit. Yet to date these advances, however impressive, have not led to dramatic improvements in human behavior — specifically its moral dimensions — let alone the degree of improvement that Utopian visions require. Meanwhile, the same advances have produced new technologies of totalitarian control along with vastly amplified means of destruction that serve to magnify human barbarism and put into question the very survival of civilization.

Half a century ago Friedrich Hayek described “social justice” as a mirage. Hayek observed that there is no entity called “society” to redistribute wealth, or to re-calibrate the social order. There are only individuals belonging to political factions that vie for power and then wield it through their power in the state. “Social jus­tice,” therefore, is necessarily the work of individuals driven by the same greed, prejudice, and habits of deceit that created the injustices progressives propose to repair. In its real-world practice “social justice” is, and can only be, the self-justifying rationale of a new despotism—worse than the old because its first agenda is a war against freedom, in particular the freedom of individuals to resist the social redeemers and their plans.

This was the conclusion I reached forty years ago under the influence of Hayek and the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, and why I resolved to devote the second half of my life—and eventually the nine volumes of this work—to analyzing and opposing this destructive cause.

I'm looking forward to reading this volume.

Literary Theory's Stifling Uniformity

From Neema Parvini, at Quillette, "The Stifling Uniformity of Literary Theory":

In 1976, the Nobel-prize winning economist, F.A. Hayek, published The Mirage of Social Justice, the second volume of his magnum opus Law, Legislation and Liberty.1 Despite being widely regarded as the definitive critique of social justice, today one would be lucky to find advocates of social justice in the academy who are familiar with the name ‘Hayek’, let alone those who have read him. Among classical liberals, libertarians, and conservatives alike, Hayek is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century whose The Road to Serfdom represents one of the most powerful arguments against socialism ever written.2 But those in the academy who have perpetuated socialist ideas since the 1980s have practically ignored it. In this article, I will argue that this unwillingness to engage with the ‘other side’ is not only endemic in the radical intellectual schools that have overtaken literary studies, but also that it is symptomatic of their entire way of thinking which, being hermetically sealed and basically circular in its argumentation, has no language to deal with critics beyond reactive moral condemnation.

Many universities and colleges currently advertise literary theory courses which purport to introduce students to a range of different approaches to literary texts. On paper, it looks like as many as ten or fifteen different approaches. The labels proliferate: new historicism, cultural materialism, materialist feminism, ecofeminism, postcolonialism, deconstruction, structuralism, poststructuralism, race theory, gender theory, queer theory, postmodernism … the list might go on. This extensive list of labels seems to signal genuine range and diversity; however, in terms of their ideas, these approaches are somewhat narrower in scope and focus than one might expect. Virtually every approach listed here lays claim to be ‘radical’, which is to say politically of the left or even hard left – with roots in Marxist theory – hostile to capitalism, the Enlightenment, classical liberalism, liberal humanism, and even to the West itself. Virtually all are also committed to ‘social justice’. It must be noted that, since about 1980, these labels accurately register the genesis of literary studies as a discipline, but what they do not register is that, as they were rising, dissenting voices were systemically hounded out of the academy.

For example, in 1985, Sir Roger Scruton – now famous as a philosopher and public intellectual – wrote a book called Thinkers of the New Left in which he was strongly critical of continental theorists such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Louis Althusser, Jacques Lacan, and others.3 In stark contrast to the sometimes-wilful obscurantism of those he critiqued, Scruton wrote in plain prose and expressed ideas with clarity. Perhaps precisely because it laid the ideas bare, the book was greeted with howls of derision, and viciously attacked by scholars who had become disciples of Foucault et al. The publisher, Longman, was threatened with boycotts and risked being sent to the academic equivalent of the gulag if they did not stop selling the book, going as far as withdrawing copies from bookshops. As far as I can see, one thing that the episode did not produce is an intelligent response to any of the criticisms Scruton raised or, indeed, a single moment of critical self-reflection from any of those who had reacted so angrily. In effect, he was shut down and chased from academia.

In another infamous case, in 1988, Richard Levin, who was a Professor of English at the State University of New York, published an article in the PMLA – one of the premier journals in literary studies – outlining some of his problems with recent feminist studies of Shakespeare. The gist of Levin’s critique was that feminist readings of Shakespeare all seemed to reach similar conclusions. In his own words, ‘the themes employed in [feminist] interpretations are basically the same. Although the terminology may vary, these criticisms all find that [Shakespeare’s] plays are about the role of gender in the individual and society’.4 Now, one might expect a firm rebuttal to this charge from the scholars he was critiquing, and rightly so, but this is not what Levin received. Instead, the following year, a letter was published in the PMLA signed by twenty-four literary critics lambasting the journal for having the temerity to publish such an essay.5 It was not so much an academic response, but the public denunciation of a heretic – made more chilling because so many of the signatories worked on the Reformation, an era in which such burnings at the stake were de rigueur. Professor Levin, they argued, should not even be teaching literature. I remember when I first read of this episode while conducting research for my doctorate;6 I was not only appalled at Levin’s treatment, but also confounded by the utter refusal of these twenty-four scholars to engage in substantive argument. I remember it as a moment of profound disillusionment with the profession I was about to pursue, and it marked a turning point in how I would view the work of some of those who had signed it. Years later, during a podcast interview, I asked one prominent Shakespearean, who is strongly associated with the radical new approaches of the 1980s (but not a signatory of the letter), if he remembered Levin.7 The answer I got back was, ‘no one paid any attention to him; Levin was nowhere’. Again, I was struck by reasoning that seemed based entirely on what Aristotle would have called ‘ethos’, that is, the judgement of the person’s character as opposed to their arguments.8

If one understands the underlying theories, then it is not difficult to see why this happens. Despite significant differences, all the approaches I listed above assume that:

1. There is no universal human nature.
2. Human beings are primarily a product of their time and place.
3. Therefore, power, culture, ideologies, and the social institutions that promulgate them have an extraordinary capacity to shape and condition individuals.
4. In Western societies, since these institutions have been dominated by people who were predominantly rich, straight, white, and male it has tended towards pushing the particular interests of rich straight white men to the detriment of all other groups.
5. Furthermore, these rich straight white men have done this by acting as if their sectional interests were universal and natural – a flagrant lie.
6. Importantly, however, few if any of these rich white straight men were consciously aware of doing this, because they were themselves caught in the matrices of power, culture, ideologies and so on.
7. Where subordinated groups have gone along with these power structures, they have been exploited and the victims of ‘false consciousness’.
8 Now is the time to redress this balance by exposing the ways in which old texts have promoted the sectional interests of the rich straight white men and by promoting the voices of the historically marginalised groups.

Once this basic structure is understood, one can quickly see that the extensive list which seems like it represents a diverse range of approaches, in fact only promotes different flavours of a single approach. All that changes from one to the next are the specific groups of oppressors and oppressed as well as the structuring principle to which all individuals are invisibly in thrall. One might begin to represent it as follows...

"Either you are with the oppressed & therefore on the side of the angels, or you are implicitly supporting the side of the oppressors, & a damnable & unrepentant sinner. It is a straightforward binary moral choice & its missionaries will take no prisoners" https://t.co/RguleLqPbd pic.twitter.com/oLD9WIFdGD

— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) April 16, 2018

Keep reading.

Satire from Alexandra Petri

Apparently she's good at this: Last year, one of her pieces of satire made the official press briefing list in the Trump White House.

At WaPo, "It is too bad I have been silenced":

It Is Too Bad I Have Been Silenced https://t.co/Fyl26sxuhq

— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) April 21, 2018

Alexandra Petri is a genius. A column like that is so much more than a joke one-off— she nailed at least 3 current issues while simultaneously parodying his pretentious tone AND the nonsense use of lynching metaphors. Blows me away.

— Emily Nussbaum (@emilynussbaum) April 21, 2018

Every day I have to exist in this so-called free country of America, I fear that I may pay the ultimate price: not having column space in EVERY publication. Think carefully, America. Is it not a fearful thing to ask that people refrain from expressing every provocative thought that occurs to them? Is it not a hideous imposition that you are free to say anything you wish, but sometimes people will respond by saying they would not care to read what you have written, and do not think you ought to be given a large platform from which to express your haphazard thoughts, and they would rather not work with you if you have repeatedly suggested they are sub-human? We have been cast into the pit of Tartarus by many tiny hands! I cannot (metaphorically) breathe!

When I walk out each day onto the street (of ideas), I quake with fear that the (thought) police (who determine who gets to appear on panels with corporate sponsorships) may take me aside and silence me for good. Every morning, I wonder whether I will be able to go home to my family (as a columnist in a magazine or newspaper with a wide circulation). I live with this fear every day, and I can imagine nothing more chilling...

More.

Bullet Train Work Blows Past Cost Estimates

This is the biggest scam ever.

It's astounding that the Democrats can pull off these boondoggles, but the "sheeple" continue to vote them back in. Maybe a reckoning's coming? We're seeing some trouble brewing in cities around the state over the sanctuary law. Perhaps change will ripple into other policy areas as well.

At LAT, "High-speed rail project vastly underestimated cost of relocating utility lines beneath Fresno":

High-speed rail project vastly underestimated cost of relocating utility lines beneath Fresno https://t.co/PM2oJxoNVb pic.twitter.com/3GC2qkRVbk

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) April 18, 2018

Another day, another embarrassing headline for the Capitol Democrats' High Speed Fail. It's time to defund #CAHSR and invest in projects that actually provide benefits to ordinary Californians. #CADeservesBetter https://t.co/1SXaNnOCEZ

— CA Assembly GOP (@AssemblyGOP) April 18, 2018

#CAHSR is a national disgrace. With no federal money and no current private sector investment, this project is now California taxpayers’ worst nightmare as they are left holding the bag. https://t.co/a5uHYQDB3C

— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) April 18, 2018

Buried beneath Fresno were some costly surprises for the California bullet train authority, which disclosed Tuesday that the price of utility relocations along a 29-mile section of railway has surged from a 2013 estimate of $69 million to $396 million.

Although it was known that moving gas lines, sewer pipes, water mains and communications wire to make way for the route would be more expensive than originally expected, the magnitude of the increase — nearly a six-fold jump — puts into better focus why the project's costs are rising so sharply.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority board on Friday took up the problem, hearing from its staff that the original estimate contained a number of miscalculations.

The number of linear feet of utilities that have to be moved was underestimated, as was the cost per foot for the job, according to a staff memo. Then, there were utilities that nobody even knew were in the ground. The authority changed its mind about some of the work, as well, the report said.

The original cost estimate was based on work performed by the rail authority's regional consultant, the staff memo said. It did not identify the company, but rail authority records indicate the regional consultant from before 2013 through at least 2015 was Los Angeles-based Aecom. By 2017, the company was no longer on the job. The company did not have an immediate response when contacted.

The history of the utility relocations suggests some turmoil in management decisions — which the rail authority staff said it would not repeat in the future.The original plan was to have AT&T and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. move their own equipment, rather than allow the main construction contractor, Tutor Perini, to do the work.

After getting started, however, the two utilities came back and told the rail authority that they were having trouble meeting the schedule. So, the rail authority handed the job to Tutor Perini in February 2017 and increased the budget to $159 million.

By September 2017, the rail authority arrived at a new cost estimate of $396 million, which was not made public until Tuesday. The price hike is part of the $2.8 billion in cost increases for the Central Valley work that were disclosed in January and were incorporated into the draft 2018 business plan released last month.

The higher costs would deplete the budget for the utility relocations by April, according to the staff memo. So the board approved moving $40 million from a future contract reserved for installing track in the Central Valley to cover the utility work in Fresno. That $40 million will fund the utility work until July, the memo said...

Total waste. This is actually sad. Just a minuscule fraction of that funding could finance 10s of thousands of underserved students at community college, and that'd be just a start.

Disgraceful is right. Sheesh.

ICYMI: Vox Day, SJWs Always Lie

*BUMPED.*

You gotta read this book, dang!

At Amazon, Vox Day, SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police.

John Putnam Demos, Entertaining Satan

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, John Putnam Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England.

Nancy Houston, Love and Sex

At Amazon, Nancy Houston, Love & Sex: A Christian Guide to Healthy Intimacy.

'They Were Never Going to Let Me Be President'

Heh, this is hilarious.

At the Daily Beast, "Hillary Clinton on Election Night: ‘They Were Never Going to Let Me Be President’":

Hillary Clinton: "They were never going to let me be president." From @GideonResnick: https://t.co/Nv0LnTUu5A

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) April 20, 2018

“No one in modern politics, male or female, has had to withstand more indignities, setbacks and cynicism. She developed protective armor that made the real Hillary Clinton an enigma. But if she was guarded about her feelings and opinions, she believed it was in careful pursuit of a dream for generations of Americans: the election of the country’s first woman president.”

That would have been the nut graf of The New York Times story about Hillary Clinton’s historic victory that would have run under the headline “Madam President” spread across six front-page columns, according to reporter Amy Chozick’s new book, Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling.

Chozick writes that the Clinton campaign, which she covered from the beginning, had reacted furiously to the prospect of a Joe Biden run, as floated first in an August 2015 Maureen Dowd Times column and then in a reported story by Chozick. In the book, she writes that “Biden had confided (off the record) to the White House press corps that he wanted to run, but he added something like ‘You guys don’t understand these people. The Clintons will try to destroy me.’”

Throughout the book, Chozick refers to her fellow journalists in the small pool that flew on the campaign plane as “Travelers,” while referring to many Clinton staffers collectively as “The Guys.”

Asked to comment on the book, a former campaign staffer who’s referred to in it as one of “The Guys” told The Daily Beast: “The challenge on the campaign was that you had a reporter holding the Clintons to a higher standard through a lower standard of reporting. Amy was not always an honest broker, and this book seems to be more of the same. It ridicules people with a smile, contributing little to the public discourse.”

From early on, the Clinton camp saw Trump as an enemy to encourage, Chozick writes. During the campaign, as had been previously reported, there was an effort to elevate Trump into a so-called Pied Piper in order to tie him to the mainstream of the Republican Party.

“An agenda for an upcoming campaign meeting sent by [Campaign Manager] Robby Mook’s office asked, ‘How do we maximize Trump?’” Chozick writes, describing a time when the GOP primary was still crowded...

Sweden's Collapse (VIDEO)

I can't think of a more attractive person --- and I mean "attractive" as literally attracting people to her ideas with so much persuasive, logical, and common sense power --- than Katie Hopkins.

Here's she's interviewed by Mark Steyn at Fox News:

The Authoritarian Right

This is interesting.

From old Pat Buchanan, "Why the Authoritarian Right is Rising":

Why the Authoritarian Right Is Rising - https://t.co/PCKumU3K3N Patrick J. Buchanan - Official WebsiteBy Patrick J. Buchanan

A fortnight ago, Viktor Orban and his Fidesz Party won enough seats in the Hungarian parliament to rewrite his country's constitution.

To progress... pic.twitter.com/SlKrG4pzzI

— Patrick J. Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) April 20, 2018

A fortnight ago, Viktor Orban and his Fidesz Party won enough seats in the Hungarian parliament to rewrite his country’s constitution.

To progressives across the West, this was disturbing news.

For the bete noire of Orban’s campaign was uber-globalist George Soros. And Orban’s commitments were to halt any further surrenders of Hungarian sovereignty and independence to the European Union, and to fight any immigrant invasion of Hungary from Africa or the Islamic world.

Why are autocrats like Orban rising and liberal democrats failing in Europe? The autocrats are addressing the primary and existential fear of peoples across the West — the death of the separate and unique tribes into which they were born and to which they belong.

Modern liberals and progressives see nations as transitory — here today, gone tomorrow. The autocrats, however, have plugged into the most powerful currents running in this new century: tribalism and nationalism.

The democracy worshippers of the West cannot compete with the authoritarians in meeting the crisis of our time because they do not see what is happening to the West as a crisis.

They see us as on a steady march into a brave new world, where democracy, diversity and equality will be everywhere celebrated.

To understand the rise of Orban, we need to start seeing Europe and ourselves as so many of these people see us...

More.

Leftist Media Obsessed with Sean Hannity (VIDEO)

Background at the Los Angeles Times, "Judge orders Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to reveal a secret client: Sean Hannity," and "Fox News supports Sean Hannity after just learning he's a client of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen."

And from last night's opening monologue, on Hannity:

Aly Raisman's Empowering Photo Shoot (VIDEO)

She's got a body that won't quit, dang!

At Sports Illustrated:

Soros' Antifa 'Protesters'

Bleedin' anarchist criminals.

At the Other McCain, "Tax-Exempt Terrorism: Cash From Soros Sponsors Communist ‘Antifa’ Group."

Tax-Exempt Terrorism: Cash From Soros Sponsors Communist ‘Antifa’ Group https://t.co/zM5i7F4BTz

cc @vadum @KirbyMcCain @AmPowerBlog @benshapiro pic.twitter.com/ZdPOg9t2Sc

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) April 18, 2018

Hey, Normal Americans, Donˊt Worry About Us Locking Up Your Guns

At Director Blue:

GUN CONTROL FASCISTS: Hey, Normal Americans, Donˊt Worry About Us Locking Up Your Guns https://t.co/EJXni1cQsB pic.twitter.com/e7ov5Zv9t6

— Doug Ross 🔵 (@directorblue) April 18, 2018

Social Justice Standards for Seven-Year-Olds

*Eye-roll.*

Seen on Twitter just now:

Parents of 7-year-old children: How would you feel about your child's teacher using "SOCIAL JUSTICE STANDARDS" to teach your kid that Cinderella is a victim of female stereotyping instead of say MATH. SCIENCE OR READING?

This is what @WCPSS has just imported into our district. pic.twitter.com/jdvIVaHlDY

— A.P. Dillon (@APDillon_) April 18, 2018

ADDED:

Teaching Tolerance is the social justice indoctrination 'education' arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
It exists to peddle Leftists narratives on political issues in classrooms nationwide. The entire point is to create little social justice warriors.https://t.co/HiiEGRlxJL

— A.P. Dillon (@APDillon_) April 18, 2018

Mama Gorilla Gives Baby Moke Tender Kisses (VIDEO)

This really is tender. It's almost like the mama gorilla is human. Imagine that.

Moms give the best kisses. The @NationalZoo announced the birth of a baby #gorilla named Moke. https://t.co/0bejzHG8lm pic.twitter.com/fimCXQJPDR

— ABC6 (@wsyx6) April 16, 2018

Megan Parry Wonderful Weather Forecast

It's going to be about 70 today in the O.C. Very pleasant and relaxing.

At ABC News 10 San Diego:

Leftist Sociology Professor at Brookdale Community College Drops F-Bomb on Conservative Student

At Instapundit, "HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE":

Sociology prof swears at conservative student during class. “The student said he had contended that sexual abuse was not a problem exclusively dealt with by women, and that men can be affected too, causing the professor to shout ‘f— your life’ at him.”

There's really no respect in society any longer. I'm not surprised by leftist hatred and disrespect. I'm surprised when I meet and teach nice, well-mannered young people. I'm almost shocked to find out they're usually people of Christian faith.

'The tone of the article is that it's just very funny, but bashing an animal with a shovel isn't a joke...'

Oh my, this is awful.

And Bill de Blasio's the guy that dropped a groundhog.

At Althouse, "'De Blasio’s rat-killing demonstration is a complete disaster'..."

Woman 'Sucked Out' and Killed on Southwest Airlines Flight (VIDEO)

What a freakin' nightmare.

At CBS This Morning, "Southwest victim was partially sucked out of shattered window."

Playboy Playmate Jayde Nicole Flashes

At Drunken Stepfather, "JAYDE NICOLE FLASHING HER TITS OF THE DAY."

BONUS: "JAYDE NICOLE BIKINI OF THE DAY."

Randa Jarrar, English Professor at Fresno State, Cheers Death of Former First Lady Barbara Bush

This is really some hateful spew.

At the Fresno Bee, "Fresno State professor stirs outrage, calls Barbara Bush an 'amazing racist'."

And at Gateway Pundit, "Muslim Professor Cheers Death of Former First Lady Barbara Bush “Happy the Witch is Dead”."

Statement by @Fresno_State President @JosephICastro regarding tweets made today by a faculty member: pic.twitter.com/h3ZbQyMmxd

— Fresno State (@Fresno_State) April 18, 2018

Oh no no no no. This isn't quietly going away with one tweet.

One of their professors wished for the death of Americans. We are demanding to know why Fresno State thinks it's acceptable that one of their professors hates white people and wants Americans dead. https://t.co/2314TY6s9m

— Cristina Laila (@cristinalaila1) April 18, 2018

Iceland's First Black Citizen

I love this story.

Hans Jonathan, a Danish slave from colonial St. Croix, was denied his freedom in Denmark and subsequently escaped to Iceland where he lived out the remainder of his life.

Iceland's really proud of this history. Denmark wants to bury it, the freakin' hypocritical "tolerant" Scandinavian progs.

At NYT, "Iceland’s 1st Black Citizen? An Ex-Slave and War Hero Denmark Now Disregards":

Iceland’s 1st Black Citizen? An Ex-Slave and War Hero Denmark Now Disregards https://t.co/69fWcPWmKF

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 15, 2018

COPENHAGEN — Long after his death, Hans Jonathan has, at last, gotten some attention. He is the subject of a well-received biography and a groundbreaking genetic study, and is something of a celebrity in Iceland, where he is thought to have been the first black person.

But in Denmark, where Hans Jonathan (he had no surname) was a slave, fought in a war, lost a noted case on slavery, and escaped bondage by fleeing to Iceland, his extraordinary story has not drawn much interest.

An American descendant got a polite rejection when she asked the Danish government to declare him, posthumously, a free man. When people stroll past a five-story mansion that sits less than 100 yards from the royal Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen, there is no historical marker to tell of the Schimmelmann family who owned it, or the slaves they kept there, including Hans Jonathan.

“People who speak or write about slave trade and Danish colonialism speak to deaf ears,” said Gisli Palsson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Iceland, and author of “The Man Who Stole Himself: The Slave Odyssey of Hans Jonathan.”

The colonial past has largely disappeared from Danish collective memory. The country has communities of people with historic ties to Greenland and the Faroe Islands, but relatively few residents whose ancestry traces to its former colonies in the Caribbean, Africa and India.

Danes’ long-ago status as slave owners and colonial masters rarely appears as a theme in mainstream culture. Today, Danish views of ethnic minorities are heavily influenced by recent tensions over waves of migration to Europe from the Middle East and Africa.

Other western European countries have had trouble squarely facing such history; many Belgians were unaware of the atrocities in Congo under Belgian rule until the past generation. But Denmark, with less of a colonial record to confront than some countries, has had more trouble confronting it, according to Mr. Palsson.

“Somehow it annoys them more than others knowing about this background,” he said.

Hans Jonathan was born in 1784 in St. Croix, then a Danish possession and now part of the United States Virgin Islands. His mother was a black house slave owned by the Schimmelmanns, a Danish-German family, and his father was a white man.

When he was about 7, the Schimmelmanns took him to Copenhagen. In 1801, he volunteered to fight with the Danish navy, and emerged unharmed from a fierce battle with British ships.

“It was crazy warfare,” said Mr. Palsson, whose biography of Hans Jonathan was published in Icelandic in 2014, and in English in 2016. “The ship was bombarded heavily.”

Hans Jonathan earned the support of his superior officers, who spoke on his behalf to the royal household. Denmark’s crown prince and de facto ruler, the future King Frederik VI, wrote in a letter that Hans Jonathan “is considered free and enjoys rights.”

The French revolution had unleashed new ideas about equality and liberty. Like several other colonial powers, Denmark still allowed slavery in the Caribbean, but abolition movements at home were gaining ground, and the status of slaves brought to Europe from the colonies was murky.

Henrietta Schimmelmann tried to reclaim Hans Jonathan and take him back to St. Croix, and he went to court to assert his freedom, in a case that was famous in its time. But he could not produce the letter from Prince Frederik, for reasons unknown, and in 1802, the court dismissed his claim and ordered him to return to the Schimmelmanns, who wanted to sell him in St. Croix...

More.

Shop Deals

Thanks for your support!

I greatly appreciate it --- it keeps me blogging!

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Olivia Jordan in 2018 Debut (VIDEO)

Nice:

Sarah Kendzior, The View from Flyover Country

At Amazon, Sarah Kendzior, The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America.

Hannah Arendt, Thinking Without a Banister

At Amazon, Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953-1975.

And a review at NYT:

"Almost every essay in this book contains 'pearls' of Arendt’s tonically subversive thinking." https://t.co/QZzaofaVTR

— New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) April 14, 2018

Britney Spears at the GLAAD Media Awards

At IDLYITW, "Britney Spears Won a Glaad Award."

What an incredibly moving evening celebrating love and acceptance at the #GLAADawards! I'm so proud to be an ally of the LGBTQ community and it was an absolute honor to receive the @GLAAD Vanguard Award last night!! pic.twitter.com/8ELKkOtDc1

— Britney Spears (@britneyspears) April 13, 2018

And on Twitter.

She's happy.

BONUS:

Found my white booty shorts 😉😉😉😉 pic.twitter.com/CLcSChcVsm

— Britney Spears (@britneyspears) March 24, 2018

Since Apartheid Ended, A.N.C. Leaders Have Siphoned Off Tens of Billions of Dollars

Corruption. And pogroms against white Afrikaners.

That's the reality in South Africa today.

At NYT:

In the generation since apartheid ended, tens of billions of dollars in public funds have been siphoned off by leaders of the African National Congress. Will South Africa's new government confront such epic graft? https://t.co/5vUnhRuXCa

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 16, 2018

Danielle Gersh's Fine Weather Forecast

Well, I don't see the lovely beauty Ms. Jennifer posted at ABC News 10 San Diego this morning, so here's the fabulous Ms. Danielle, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Jennifer Delacruz Back from Vacation

Looking to post her Sunday night weather report but it's not up at the ABC 10 News YouTube page yet.

I'll post it later.

Meanwhile, here's your lovely lady on Twitter:

I’m back from vacation and hanging out in the weather center! I’m tracking a Wind Advisory live right now on @10News #SanDiegoWx pic.twitter.com/ocE97rcTh9

— Jennifer Delacruz (@10NewsJen) April 16, 2018

Glenn Reynolds, The K-12 Implosion

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, The K-12 Implosion.

Today's Deals

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At Amazon, Today's Deals New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.

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BONUS: Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.