ICYMI: W. August Mayer, Islamic Jihad, Cultural Marxism, and the Transformation of the West

At Amazon, W. August Mayer, Islamic Jihad, Cultural Marxism, and the Transformation of the West.

William J. Murray, Utopian Road to Hell

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, William J. Murray, Utopian Road to Hell: Enslaving America and the World With Central Planning.

Erick Erickson on the Cultural Revolution

At RCP, "The American Cultural Revolution":

Kevin Williamson has been fired by The Atlantic. Williamson is one of the great conservative intellectuals of our times. He has a keen wit and frequently engages in heterodox opinions that make his writing and thinking intriguing. For a decade he wrote at William F. Buckley's National Review until hired away last week by Jeffrey Goldberg, the Editor of The Atlantic.

The Atlantic fancies itself a place of intellectual diversity where the best writers across ideologies can share their views. But Williamson's hire drew burning rage from the left. Williamson's birth came from an unplanned pregnancy. Instead of aborting him, his birth mother gave him up for adoption. As you might imagine, Williamson has strongly held views on the matter of abortion. A week after hiring him, Jeffrey Goldberg bowed to the leftwing mob and fired Williamson for, in part, how he might make the pro-abortion women in the office feel.

Never mind Williamson's feelings on abortion and that he could have been aborted himself, the editor took the brave stand of worrying about the hypothetical feelings of pro-abortion women in the office. The left told us that the purges happening on college campuses were contained to the campus. Yet here we are today with one of the best voices of conservatism fired from a job for his conservative views.

It will only get worse...

Keep reading.

And on Twitter:

More from Goldberg’s memo: pic.twitter.com/gnTi9qpDZG

— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) April 5, 2018

I've publicly argued with Kevin Williamson (who's a friend) over harsh things he's written, but he is one of the bravest and most talented writers I know. The Atlantic's cutting him loose under left-wing fire is deplorable. But clarifying. Definitely clarifying.

— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) April 5, 2018

If they didn’t know Kevin Williamson could be callous in pursuing his arguments, they didn’t do the most basic due diligence. And I doubt that. They were mau-maued into firing an intellectually honest writer for too much honesty.

— Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) April 5, 2018

The left & @TheAtlantic are cowards.

They don’t believe in their liberal philosophy enough to think it can withstand opposing views.

Instead, they publicly execute Kevin Williamson as an example of what happens if you DARE challenge progressive ideology.

First Kevin. Then, you

— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) April 5, 2018

The Left is a disaster. SHAME. https://t.co/HVtue8houo

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) April 5, 2018

Newt Gingrich on the Cultural Civil War (VIDEO)

At Fox News:

Amy Chua, Political Tribes

*BUMPED.*

I've been reading fiction almost exclusively, but there's some excellent non-fiction works coming out. I'll have to shift gears a little.

This looks awesome!

At Amazon, Amy Chua, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations.

YouTube Shooter Nasim Aghdam Was Mentally Ill

That's my main conclusion after seeing so many tweets about this woman last night. She was a no-talent Internet wannabe who became enraged when her videos were demonetized by YouTube. Folks were mocking the hell out of her, but this woman needed help and bad.

At the San Francisco Chronicle, the Other McCain, and other tweets:

.@PatriarchTree The YouTube HQ shooting is a sad, dark twist in a long-running saga about 'demonetization': 😢 https://t.co/jZ8YUQcthR #NasimAghdam #YouTubeShooting #YouTube #SanBruno

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) April 4, 2018

After all that YouTube has done to suppress conservative videos, how ironic is it that an Iranian-American animal-rights activist resorted to terroristic violence against the company?  https://t.co/EH0mP0eWH7... https://t.co/di9t7Xt3ko

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) April 4, 2018

The YouTube shooter described herself on her now-banned YouTube page as a "vegan bodybuilder and animal rights activist,"

And yet - someone, somewhere, is almost certainly trying to figure out how to portray her as a right-winger. pic.twitter.com/Ws1UIv4U3u

— Allum Bokhari (@LibertarianBlue) April 4, 2018

YouTube shooting suspect Nasim Aghdam, who describes herself as a vegan artist, bodybuilder, and animal rights activist, often lashed out at the video platform for censoring and demonetizing her content pic.twitter.com/AsQiCz3SHB

— Brianna Sacks (@bri_sacks) April 4, 2018

Long term, without delicately balanced nutrition and extreme care, Vegans lose their mental health as their bodies use up stores of certain nutrients that are mostly only found in meat protein.

In over twenty years of practice, I saw one healthy vegan and even she supplemented.

— Melissa Mackenzie 🌐 (@MelissaTweets) April 4, 2018

I am not being flippant here, either. YouTube's demonetization policies are capricious and devastate individuals and brands who make their money there. This woman wasn't a great content producer, but others were/are and have seen their businesses ruined by them.

— Melissa Mackenzie 🌐 (@MelissaTweets) April 4, 2018

Facebook and Google have unbelievable power to destroy businesses and can do it with a stroke of an algorithm.

The only other organizations who have that kind of power and wield it equally capriciously is the government.

— Melissa Mackenzie 🌐 (@MelissaTweets) April 4, 2018

The only bigger reality the Left refuses to face than facts about guns is facts about mental health.

There is never an answer about these unstable individuals. In so many cases, family warn law enforcement and are helpless to protecting the community.

— Melissa Mackenzie 🌐 (@MelissaTweets) April 4, 2018

Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound

At Amazon, Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross

At Amazon, the best book on MLK, David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Michael Walsh, The Fiery Angel

Available May 29th, at Amazon, Michael Walsh, The Fiery Angel: Art, Culture, Sex, Politics, and the Struggle for the Soul of the West.

Anti-Semitism and the Threat of Identity Politics

From Gideon Rachman, at FT:

Gideon Rachman: For the past 50 years, anti-Semitism has not been a political issue in the west. But that appears to be changing.https://t.co/E0ECLVO6xy

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) April 2, 2018

For the past 50 years, I have had the pleasure of living in a period when anti-Semitism was not a political issue in the west. But that appears to be changing.

Last week thousands of people marched in Paris to demonstrate against anti-Semitism after the murder of Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who, according to President Emmanuel Macron, was “murdered because she was Jewish”. That same week a smaller demonstration took place in London, to protest against anti-Semitism in the Labour party. This Sunday is likely to see the re-election of Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, who uses barely coded anti-Semitic rhetoric. Even the US is not immune. Last August saw the far-right marching in Charlottesville, amid chants of “Jews will not replace us”.

So are we reliving the 1930s? Not really. Contemporary anti-Semitism contains some loud echoes of the past — for example, the resurgence of the idea of Jews as a shadowy international network. But the new element is the way that anti-Semitism is now mixed in with bigger fights about Islam and Israel.

For the far-left, a key enemy is often Israel, which is seen as an embodiment of western racism. For the far-right, the main enemy is Islam, which it identifies with terrorism and mass immigration. Both far-left and far-right often claim to be immune from anti-Semitism — either because they are anti-racists (the left) or because they are pro-Israel (the right).

These complexities are embodied by Mr Orban. At a recent rally, the Hungarian prime minister used language laden with anti-Semitic imagery: “We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty . . . not national, but international, [and who] does not believe in working but speculating with money.”

The bogeyman of the Orban campaign is George Soros, a Hungarian-Jewish financier. But the main accusation hurled at Mr Soros by Mr Orban is that he is planning to flood Hungary with Muslim refugees. The Hungarian prime minister’s decision to build a wall to block the flow of migrants has made him a hero of the far-right in the US and Europe.

Mr Orban’s hostility to Mr Soros and suspicion of the “Islamisation” of Europe is also shared by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who paid a cordial visit to Hungary last July. There are many on the far-right who are fans of both Mr Orban and of Israel. Their common enemy, “radical Islam”, is, they argue, the real threat to Jews in modern Europe.

Many of Europe’s Jews are, however, appropriately wary of “support” from the far-right. When Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front, tried to join the march in memory of Mireille Knoll, she was kept at arm’s length by the main French Jewish organisation.

A similar ambiguity surrounds Donald Trump. Some Americans point to his links to the alt-right and reluctance to condemn the Charlottesville march. On the other hand, Mr Trump’s beloved daughter, Ivanka, has converted to Orthodox Judaism, which is not a decision normally associated with anti-Semitism. And there is no doubt that the government of Israel is much more comfortable with President Trump than with his predecessor, Barack Obama.

The far-left in Europe could use the Trump-Israel link to argue that their rage is aimed at nationalism, not Jews. But there is an obsessive quality to their hatred of Israel that is telling. Killings in Gaza are met with outrage, while deaths in Syria or Yemen barely register. Some of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that circulate in the Middle East have also leaked into leftwing politics. One of the people whom Jeremy Corbyn, the UK Labour leader, was happy to entertain at the House of Commons was Raed Salah, an Islamist leader who peddles the idea that Jews were warned to leave the Twin Towers in New York before 9/11...

More.

This is a little too equivalent a take. I don't see Orban or European nationalists particularly anti-Semitic. In fact, the nationalist right seems to be the only faction aggressively defending Israel and the Jews. It's not the 1930s, at all. As we've seen time and again, attacks and murder of Jews is nearly a complete leftist phenomenon. Jews are leaving France because of Islamic jihad, not the National Front.

Elizabeth Hurley Posts Bikini Selfie

At Drunken Stepfather, "ELIZABETH HURLEY BIKINI OF THE DAY."

Bikini selfie #ElizabethHurleyBeach Sale now on: 20% off everything all weekend 😘😘😘😘#VictoireBikini pic.twitter.com/CqTL2puLT9

— Elizabeth Hurley (@ElizabethHurley) March 31, 2018

Claudia Romani in the Surf in Miami

At Taxi Driver, "Claudia Romani Nipple Slip in the Surf."

Also, at Oh My Celeb, "Claudia Romani and Melissa Lori without bikini tops at a beach in Miami."

Orange County Faces Legal Threat Over Anti-Camping Laws

I've been blogging on homelessness quite a bit, mainly because I'm moved by the plight of the homeless and I'm flummoxed by the pathetic public policy response. In the O.C., as I noted at the time of a bogus meme going around arguing that the Anaheim Stadium encampment was populated by illegal immigrants, most of the O.C. homeless are white working-class people who've been wiped out by economic change, especially coming out of the Great Recession. So folks might see why I have quite a different take on the issue than other conservatives, such as the otherwise outstanding Daniel Greenfield, at FrontPage Magazine: "ASIAN-AMERICANS ACCUSED OF INTOLERANCE FOR OPPOSING HOMELESS."

Asian-Americans, pfft.

Where was where the mass Asian-American protests against the Chinese birth tourism hotels here in Irvine? There weren't any. The Feds had to come in and shut them down. See, "'Maternity tourism' raids target California operations catering to Chinese." According to the report:

More than 400 women associated with the Irvine location have given birth at one Orange County hospital since 2013, agents wrote in the affidavit. One of the women paid $4,080 out of $28,845 in hospital bills when her bank account showed charges at Wynn Las Vegas and purchases at Rolex and Louis Vuitton stores, the affidavit said.

Nope, no massive protests against Chinese birth tourists committing immigration fraud and cheating local hospitals out of maternity costs. And the Asian-American community has demonstrated extremely slow assimilation into American political culture. It's half Asian-American in Irvine, and the population's large presence continues to drive Anglo-American retail institutions out of the area. The 99 Ranch Market across from my neighborhood is the anchor store for a nearly entirely Asian-American shopping center. Only the McDonald's and KFC remain from a least a half a dozen American restaurants, including Baskin Robbins, Marie Calendar's, and Subway.

In any case, here's today's front-page report on the new judicial ruling barring cities from enforcing anti-camping laws against the county's homeless --- with the photograph of Diane Rutan, gathering her things from the downtown Santa Ana homeless camp. See, "Judge threatens to bar O.C. from enforcing anti-camping laws if it can't shelter homeless":

The political crisis over homelessness in Orange County approached a crucial moment Tuesday as a federal judge raised the prospect of barring local governments from enforcing anti-camping ordinances if officials cannot create temporary shelters for hundreds being swept out of tent cities.

The county for weeks has been struggling to find locations to place the homeless after removing them from an encampment along the Santa Ana River. A plan to place temporary shelters in Irvine, Laguna Niguel and Huntington Beach died amid loud protests from residents last week, and the problem is expected to get worse as officials move to clear out another tent city at the Santa Ana Civic Center.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter expressed frustration at the political stalemate during a hearing Tuesday. He said he could not decide where the shelters should go, but said he could prohibit cities from enforcing laws that ban people from camping in public spaces such as parks and river ways. Carter said that without those laws, Orange County communities could become magnets for homeless people.

In essence, the judge said Orange County can't have it both ways.

"We can't criminalize homeless by citing them in one location, and citing them in another location simply for being homeless," Carter said.

Carter is overseeing a case brought by homeless advocates trying to stop the removal of the homeless encampments. He stressed that the shelters don't have to be fancy, only that they be able to serve those who have nowhere else to live.

"This doesn't have to be a nice thing," Carter said. "It just has to be humane and dignified. That will probably get us through this crisis."

The county's two armories, which provide temporary shelter for up to 400 homeless individuals during the winter, are scheduled to close this month — adding a new layer of urgency as space is limited in other shelters throughout the county. Fullerton officials requested to keep the armory in their city open, but it's not clear if that will happen.

Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Andrew Do said he is pessimistic about the county and city officials finding a solution unless Carter steps in.

"At this point, I see us — the county — and the cities being at a standstill," Do said. "With each passing day we betray our responsibility to care for all of our residents as required by law."

Residents in Irvine and other cities have said they don't want homeless shelters in their communities, which is the same argument made by neighborhoods along the Santa Ana River that prompted officials to clear out the camps in the first place.

But Carter said the situation has forced certain cities to take on a disproportionate burden. He singled out Santa Ana, home to the county's only major emergency shelter

"Santa Ana is being forced to absorb all of the homeless because they're brought to this area for assessments and services," Carter said. "It's disproportionate."

Data presented by Santa Ana during the hearing back up that claim...

Keep reading.

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Here, Samsung UN65MU6300FXZA 65" 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2017 Model) Plus Terk Cut-the-Cord HD Digital TV Tuner and Recorder 16GB Hook-Up Bundle.

BONUS: Melanie Phillips, Londonistan.

Jennifer Delacruz's Cloudy and Mild Forecast

Here's the lovely Ms. Jennifer. I've been neglecting to post her lately. My bad.

Chase Carter Takes It Off

For Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

How a Generation Lost its Common Culture

Oh boy I can relate to this. My students are completely empty vessels --- and ready to suck up the far-left popular culture.

At Minding the Campus (via Instapundit):

.@instapundit:
HINT: IT DIDN’T JUST HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT. How A Generation Lost Its Common Culture. https://t.co/L8lRJfHwzB #GramscianMarch pic.twitter.com/9m8MeUHDlr

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) April 2, 2018

My students are know-nothings. They are exceedingly nice, pleasant, trustworthy, mostly honest, well-intentioned, and utterly decent. But their brains are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge that might be the fruits of an education in an inheritance and a gift of a previous generation. They are the culmination of western civilization, a civilization that has forgotten nearly everything about itself, and as a result, has achieved near-perfect indifference to its own culture.

It’s difficult to gain admissions to the schools where I’ve taught – Princeton, Georgetown, and now Notre Dame. Students at these institutions have done what has been demanded of them:  they are superb test-takers, they know exactly what is needed to get an A in every class (meaning that they rarely allow themselves to become passionate and invested in any one subject); they build superb resumes. They are respectful and cordial to their elders, though easy-going if crude with their peers. They respect diversity (without having the slightest clue what diversity is) and they are experts in the arts of non-judgmentalism (at least publically). They are the cream of their generation, the masters of the universe, a generation-in-waiting to run America and the world.

But ask them some basic questions about the civilization they will be inheriting, and be prepared for averted eyes and somewhat panicked looks. Who fought in the Peloponnesian War? Who taught Plato, and whom did Plato teach? How did Socrates die? Raise your hand if you have read both the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Canterbury Tales? Paradise Lost? The Inferno?

Who was Saul of Tarsus? What were the 95 theses, who wrote them, and what was their effect? Why does the Magna Carta matter? How and where did Thomas Becket die? Who was Guy Fawkes, and why is there a day named after him? What did Lincoln say in his Second Inaugural? His first Inaugural? How about his third Inaugural?  What are the Federalist Papers?

Some students, due most often to serendipitous class choices or a quirky old-fashioned teacher, might know a few of these answers. But most students have not been educated to know them. At best, they possess accidental knowledge, but otherwise are masters of systematic ignorance. It is not their “fault” for pervasive ignorance of western and American history, civilization, politics, art and literature. They have learned exactly what we have asked of them – to be like mayflies, alive by happenstance in a fleeting present.

Our students’ ignorance is not a failing of the educational system – it is its crowning achievement. Efforts by several generations of philosophers and reformers and public policy experts — whom our students (and most of us) know nothing about — have combined to produce a generation of know-nothings. The pervasive ignorance of our students is not a mere accident or unfortunate but correctible outcome, if only we hire better teachers or tweak the reading lists in high school. It is the consequence of a civilizational commitment to civilizational suicide. The end of history for our students signals the End of History for the West.

During my lifetime, lamentation over student ignorance has been sounded by the likes of E.D. Hirsch, Allan Bloom, Mark Bauerlein and Jay Leno, among many others. But these lamentations have been leavened with the hope that appeal to our and their better angels might reverse the trend (that’s an allusion to Lincoln’s first inaugural address, by the way). E.D. Hirsch even worked up a self-help curriculum, a do-it yourself guide on how to become culturally literate, imbued with the can-do American spirit that cultural defenestration could be reversed by a good reading list in the appendix. Broadly missing is sufficient appreciation that this ignorance is the intended consequence of our educational system, a sign of its robust health and success.

We have fallen into the bad and unquestioned habit of thinking that our educational system is broken, but it is working on all cylinders. What our educational system aims to produce is cultural amnesia, a wholesale lack of curiosity, history-less free agents, and educational goals composed of content-free processes and unexamined buzz-words like “critical thinking,” “diversity,” “ways of knowing,” “social justice,” and “cultural competence” ...

Keep reading.

Blanca Blanco in White T-Shirt

At Taxi Driver, "Blanca Blanco Braless Pokies in White T-Shirt."

BONUS: "Eiza Gonzalez Braless Nipple Pokies."

Irvine's Asian-American NIMBYism

Everybody's a NIMBY. I imagine I'm a NIMBY on some issues too. But I also think that the county's got a real crisis on its hands and the community needs to come together for solutions. Nobody --- not residents in Irvine, Huntington Beach, nor Laguna Niguel, among others --- wants to house the homeless within their city. But the homeless need help.

At LAT, "In fighting homeless camp, Irvine's Asians win, but at a cost":

In fighting homeless camp, Irvine's Asians win, but at a cost https://t.co/1yuRFguKhc pic.twitter.com/e7al7CDi8y

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) April 1, 2018

One by one, the buses pulled up to the Orange County Hall of Administration last week carrying posters with messages such as "No Tent City" and "No Homeless in Irvine."

Many of the hundreds on board were immigrants, and this would be their first experience joining a political protest.

A week earlier, county officials announced that they were considering placing emergency homeless shelters in Irvine as well as in Laguna Niguel and in Huntington Beach. All three cities immediately fought the plan, but the opposition was most fierce in Irvine.

Many of the loudest voices in the movement to block the shelter plan were Chinese Americans who came together through social media apps and various community groups. They were joined by immigrants from South Korea, India, Mexico and the Middle East, along with some whites.

They rallied to protect their community from what they see as the ills of homeless camps, which many argued don't belong in their famously clean, safe, family-oriented planned community. Their protests helped persuade the Orange County Board of Supervisors to overturn the shelter proposal, leaving the county without a homeless plan at a time when the population is growing and officials are shutting down tent cities along the Santa Ana River.

It was a big political victory for the diverse opposition from Irvine. But it also came at a price, with some accusing the residents of intolerance and simply wanting to keep the homeless out of their own cities without offering an alternative solution....

A regional problem, local politics

Officials in Santa Ana, where homeless camps have overwhelmed the Civic Center area, have argued that other communities need to help share the burden. Irvine is now the third-largest city in Orange County, behind Anaheim and Santa Ana. The sweeps of homeless camps along the Santa Ana River began after complaints of filth and crime by residents in the nearby cities of Santa Ana, Anaheim and Fountain Valley.

Lili Graham, a homeless advocate and litigation director for the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, described the Irvine effort as "amazing" but misguided. The proposed shelter site in the city had already been zoned "and determined to be appropriate for emergency shelters," she said.

"It was a loud group, but in a county of 3 million, it's one group. There was a lot of leadership there — and there needs to be a lot of leadership on the county level to solve this issue," she said.

But some Irvine residents said the solution should not include their city.

"They need to put them somewhere, maybe somewhere else in California," resident Angela Liu, who owns a legal services company, told the Board of Supervisors. "I really don't know where they can go. But Irvine is beautiful, and we don't want it to get destroyed."

Her view was far from isolated. Officials and residents in Huntington Beach and Laguna Niguel expressed similar sentiments. U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) said he joined "the outrage that we are assuming responsibility for homeless people, taking care of their basic needs and elongating their agony."

Irvine's working with the county to develop some kind of transitional housing, other than that, I don't see much effort or support for policies that will help these people. We're not talking about endless welfare. It's about helping people get cleaned up and healthy. Getting them some place to stay, a safe and dignified place, while helping them transition to long-term residential security. 

Still more.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

This book is great.

Solzhenitsyn is an often hilarious novelist, all the more interesting given the gravity of the subject matter.

At Amazon, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle. (Linked is the translation by Harry Willets.)