Bare Season

Interesting, to say the least.

At the New York Times, "Suddenly It’s Bare Season":

“People, in other words, are running around half naked.” Can confirm. https://t.co/2niLTT2sSh

— Matt Welch (@MattWelch) July 22, 2021

Bras in the parks, skivvies on Fifth Avenue: Is this the logical endpoint of increasingly blurred distinctions between public and private?

          ***** 

Who hasn’t had the nightmare? It’s the one about being caught in public dressed in your undies. Therapists and dream bibles tend to cast these dreams as symbolic expressions of shame or repression.

Yet what if the so-called experts are wrong and these dreams are instead a subconscious bid for liberation? Shed the embarrassment along with those constricting outer garments. Go forth proudly in your turtle-print boxers or your Cosabella bra.

That is assuredly what a lot of people are doing lately, as many venture forth after 16 months of hibernation with a startling degree of license about what passes for street wear.

As recently as a decade ago, it was a rarity to spot people on Fifth Avenue, in Washington Square Park, riding the subway or milling about at airports in various states of advanced dishabille. Anyone who’s taken a stroll in New York lately can tell you that’s not true anymore.

People, in other words, are running around half-naked.

Last week Claudia Summers, a writer, was out doing errands in Midtown Manhattan when she passed a young woman nonchalantly ambling along 33rd Street near Moynihan Train Hall dressed in low-slung jeans and a bra. “Was it a sports bra?” a follower inquired after Ms. Summers posted a snapshot of the woman to her Instagram account.

“Most definitely not!” replied Ms. Summers, who quickly added that she admired the woman’s moxie and, anyway, the day was hot.

Of course it wasn’t a bra top. Bralettes, itty-bitty bandeaus and crocheted bikinis are everywhere. So, too, are Daisy Dukes cut high enough to expose buttocks curvature. And these items are by no means relegated to people who identify with the pronouns “she” and “her.”

“I’m an exhibitionist, and I get pleasure from showing off my body,” said Kae Cook, 32, a messenger, of his wardrobe choice one recent evening as he made his way across Eighth Street in the East Village.

Stumbling, Bumbling Joe Biden 'Town Hall' on CNN

The small studio auditorium was less than have full. 

Lots of folks were hammering the president last night, but S.E. Cupp pushed back with some considerably compassionate comments: 

“Whether or not we should be in a position where you are why can’t the experts say we know that this virus is in fact it’s going to be or excuse we know why all the drugs approved or not temporarily but permanently approved, that’s underway too” —Joe Bidenpic.twitter.com/ebkp9TJaZT

— Alana Mastrangelo (@ARmastrangelo) July 22, 2021

Speaking from experience: Don’t shame or question someone’s mental health struggles.

Not JUST because you don’t know what they’re going through; not JUST because many others may be going through similar things and need to see supportive responses; but bc it’s needlessly cruel.

— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) July 22, 2021

The Los Angeles Corona Virus Surge

Following-up, "New Covid Cases Surging in California."

At LAT, "L.A. County’s alarming new coronavirus surge: How bad will it get?"

In America's Big Cities, District Attorneys Create More Crime (VIDEO)

It's Rafael Mangual, of the Manhattan Institute, for Prager University:

Defining Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

USA Today's got a freakin' glossary on CRT and DEI. 

Here, "Schools keep talking about critical race theory and DEI. What do those terms really mean?"

Bob Dole's 98-Years-Old!

Shoot, the guy was wounded in WWII and he's still up and about at the age of 98!

Cool dude. It's amazing because that generation is really dying off. Of all the soldier's portrayed in HBO's "Band of Brothers," not a single one's still living today. 

At USA Today, "At 98 and facing cancer, Bob Dole reckons with legacy of Trump and ponders future of GOP."

Liz Cheney: A Clinton Republican (VIDEO)

At the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "New attack ad brands Cheney as 'Clinton Republican'."

Megan Parry's Thursday Forecast

It's still very mild at the coastal beach areas (but very hot inland).

At 10 News San Diego:

Larry Elder Placed on California Gubernatorial Recall Ballot After Winning Lawsuit

I had no idea, but Elder's a serious threat. 

See, "Larry Elder leads race to replace Newsom in recall election, new poll reveals."

At RCP, "Elder Wins Recall Legal Victory, Shakes Up CA Race."

Elder explains his issues getting his name on the recall ballot | https://t.co/bXbFAWOHvghttps://t.co/7Id61F7XE3#RecallGavinNewsom

— Larry Elder (@larryelder) July 22, 2021

Howard Kurts Slams NPR's Attack on Ben Shapiro's Success

At Fox News, "HOWARD KURTZ: NPR slams Ben Shapiro for drawing huge traffic by…being conservative: The target is Ben Shapiro, a highly successful entrepreneur of the right."

NPR says @BenShapiro rules Facebook--but "experts worry" he's fueling polarization (because he's conservative). He's cast as practicing "outrage politics" with little grasp that liberal sites do the same thing https://t.co/AksLfamKhr

— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) July 22, 2021

Gold Box and Lightning Deals

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.

Also, Mountain House Classic Bucket.

More, MusclePharm Combat Protein Powder, Essential Whey Protein Powder, Isolate Whey Protein, Casein and Egg Protein with BCAAs and Glutamine for Recovery, Chocolate Milk, 4-Pound, 52 Servings.

And, Buck Knives 0110BRS 110 Famous Folding Hunter Knife with Genuine Leather Sheath.

Still more, Ray-Ban RB3025 Aviator Polarized Sunglasses.

Here, Samsung QN65Q70RAFXZA Flat 65-Inch QLED 4K Q70 Series Ultra HD Smart TV with HDR and Alexa Compatibility (2019 Model).

BONUS: Ben Shapiro, The Authoritarian Moment: How the Left Weaponized America's Institutions Against Dissent.

Biden Administration Walks Back Ties to Extremists Pushing Critical Race Theory in Schools

At Fox News, "Biden admin walks back ties to group pushing critical race theory in schools:'It was an error' to promote the critical race theory handbook said Biden's Department of Education."

An "error." Right. *Eye-roll.*

These ghouls totally back C.R.T., but for their rank political cowardice. 

'Why Do My Kids Hate America'

Interesting piece, at Your Tango.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Blocks Jim Jordan's Membership on Congressional January 6th Investigation Panel (VIDEO)

Also Representatives Jim Banks of Indiana. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled three more for a total five, and apparently he was furious.

At the New York Times, "Pelosi bars two Trump allies from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot."

And Congressman Jordan, on Fox News:

Andrew Hacker, Two Nations

Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal.

'Take the Long Way Home'

It's Roger Hodgen (of Supertramp):

Michelle Malkin, Open Borders Inc.

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Michelle Malkin, Open Borders Inc.: Who's Funding America's Destruction?

The New Era of Space Travel

Following-up, "Jeff Bezos Blasts Into Space Aboard Blue Origin (VIDEO)."

At the Los Angeles Times, "Jeff Bezos launches new era of space travel with Blue Origin ride":

VAN HORN, Texas — The New Shepard rocket rumbled to life early Tuesday, catapulting Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and three others to the edge of space and allowing the world’s richest person to achieve a childhood dream.

Back on Earth, spaceflight enthusiasts saw the brief voyage as the realization of decades of promise — the beginning of a new era for space tourism.

“Space tourism is finally here,” said Alan Ladwig, author of the book “See You in Orbit? Our Dream of Spaceflight.” “It’s still going to be expensive, it’s still not going to be something everybody can do right away, but it’s a first step.”

Bezos’ suborbital flight — his company Blue Origin’s first crewed launch — came a little over a week after British billionaire Richard Branson along with five others boarded a space plane built by his Virgin Galactic firm and flew to the edge of space and back, making it there ahead of Bezos, who had announced his plans earlier. Virgin Galactic plans to complete two more test flights before it begins flying paying customers to space next year.

Although Blue Origin flew its first paying customer on Tuesday’s flight — 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, the son of a Dutch private equity executive and now the youngest person to go to space — it has yet to announce seat prices or additional details about its commercial operations. During a livestream of Tuesday’s launch, Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin’s director of astronaut sales, repeatedly encouraged interested customers to email the company.

Already the company is approaching $100 million in private sales, Bezos told an assembled audience of guests, employees and reporters after the launch.

An auction for a seat on Tuesday’s flight ended with a winning bid of $28 million, but the ticket holder, whose identity has not been disclosed, postponed the trip, citing scheduling conflicts, according to Blue Origin. They will fly on a future mission. (Proceeds from the auction for a spot on Tuesday’s launch went to the Club for the Future foundation, which was founded by Blue Origin and is aimed at promoting science, technology, engineering and math careers. From those proceeds, 19 nonprofit organizations were selected to receive $1-million grants.)

But suborbital flights aren’t the company’s only goal; Blue Origin plans to build a family of larger rockets that could hoist cargo, satellites and people to orbit and beyond, eventually creating an ecosystem to allow millions of people to live and work in space. Bezos has previously suggested building cylindrical habitats with artificial gravity known as O’Neill colonies, after the physicist Gerard K. O’Neill, who pioneered the idea.

“Big things start small,” Bezos said Tuesday. “We’re going to build a road to space so that our kids and their kids can build the future.”

The seeming arrival of the era of suborbital space tourism after years of hype has fueled public debate around the increasing commercialization of space and the role that billionaires play in the industry.

After his flight, Bezos thanked Amazon employees and customers, saying, “You guys paid for all this.” He has previously said he has sold about $1 billion of Amazon stock a year to fund Blue Origin...

Well, you can't say the man ain't got the money. *Shrug.*

Still more.

 

'Way Down in the Hole'

It's Tom Waits, taking us way back to 1987.

Kate Upton Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2013

Don't see much of this woman anymore, but hot damn she's got some of the finest honkers around.

Wednesday Cartoon

Via Theo Spark:

Jen Psaki's White House Disinformation

At 90 Miles From Tyranny, "Democrats’ Definition of ‘Misinformation’ Is Whatever Hurts Them Politically Today."

Dua Lipa and Then Some

Ms. Dua is here.

Plus, Busty Blonde Hottie.

A patriotic babe:

Satellite Images of Western Wildfires (VIDEO)

The "Bootleg fire" in Oregon's at the video, but hundreds of fires are blazing across the American west. 

At the New York Times, "How Bad Is the Bootleg Fire? It’s Generating Its Own Weather":

A towering cloud of hot air, smoke and moisture that reached airliner heights and spawned lightning. Wind-driven fronts of flame that have stampeded across the landscape, often leapfrogging firebreaks. Even, possibly, a rare fire tornado.

The Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon, spurred by months of drought and last month’s blistering heat wave, is the largest wildfire so far this year in the United States, having already burned more than 340,000 acres, or 530 square miles, of forest and grasslands.

And at a time when climate change is causing wildfires to be larger and more intense, it’s also one of the most extreme, so big and hot that it’s affecting winds and otherwise disrupting the atmosphere.

The Bootleg Fire has been burning for two weeks, and for most of that time it’s exhibited one or more forms of extreme fire behavior, leading to rapid changes in winds and other conditions that have caused flames to spread rapidly in the forest canopy, ignited whole stands of trees at once, and blown embers long distances, rapidly igniting spot fires elsewhere.

“It’s kind of an extreme, dangerous situation,” said Chuck Redman, a forecaster with the National Weather Service who has been at the fire command headquarters providing forecasts.

Fires so extreme that they generate their own weather confound firefighting efforts. The intensity and extreme heat can force wind to go around them, create clouds and sometimes even generate so-called fire tornadoes — swirling vortexes of heat, smoke and high wind.

The catastrophic Carr Fire near Redding, Calif., in July 2018 was one of those fires, burning through 230,000 acres, destroying more than 1,600 structures and leading to the deaths of at least eight people, some of which were attributed to a fire tornado with winds as high as 140 miles per hour that was captured on video...

Also, cool map here: "Tracking Western Wildfires."

Armed Citizen Defends Himself in Los Angeles Robbery Attempt

Regular folks are packing heat --- and this is in far-left Los Angeles, dang.

At Fox News, "Would-be robbers shot by armed shoppers in Los Angeles: Victim in Los Angeles was standing in a parking lot when the would-be robbers rolled in."

New Covid Cases Surging in California

And cases in Los Angeles shot up 240% month over month.

I was up in Burbank shopping on Sunday, and I forgot L.A. County reimposed the mask mandate. I stepped into the Barnes and Noble up there and the woman at the counter wouldn't help me without a mask. I'm darn lucky I had a couple in the car, but damn I had to huff it back out the the parking garage to retrieve one. The O.C., so far, ain't going with a new mandate, and thank the Lord for that, sheesh.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California coronavirus hospitalizations hit highest point in months as Delta spreads":

A spate of new coronavirus infections is striking California’s healthcare system, pushing COVID-19 hospitalizations to levels not seen since early spring — lending new urgency to efforts to tamp down transmission as a growing number of counties urge residents to wear masks indoors.

Statewide, the number of coronavirus patients in the hospital more than doubled in the last month, and the numbers have accelerated further in the last two weeks.

Even with the recent increase, though, the state’s healthcare system is nowhere near as swamped as it was during the fall-and-winter surge. And many health experts are confident that California will never see numbers on that scale again, given how many residents are vaccinated.

But with the continued spread of the highly infectious Delta variant, which officials fear could mushroom in communities with lower inoculation rates, the next few weeks are key in determining how potent the pandemic’s latest punch may be.

The recent increases confirm that nearly everyone falling seriously ill from COVID-19 at this point is unvaccinated.

“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And so, if you care about getting back to normalcy once and for all, please get vaccinated,” Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters Tuesday.

Still, L.A. County Health Services Director Dr. Christina Ghaly said Tuesday that “the individual consequences of a choice not to get vaccinated can be dire for that person and his or her family and friends.”

Ghaly said seeing a continued stream of COVID-19 patients, the vast majority of whom are unvaccinated, triggers a range of emotions in healthcare workers who have long been on the front lines of the pandemic: frustration, sadness and “some level of disbelief that, after all of the pain and suffering that we’ve all seen … there’s still people who either don’t believe it or don’t believe that it can affect them.”

The highest-risk Californians — notably the elderly — have been vaccinated at high rates. But the numbers drop off for younger segments of the population, and children under the age of 12 still aren’t eligible to be vaccinated.

“I think sometimes the mentality is that people think, ‘Well, I’m not going to get that sick. I’m going to be OK. I’m not going to die from COVID; I’m young; I’m healthy,’ ” Ghaly said. “And I can tell you, hopefully that’s the case, but that’s not necessarily the case.”

From June 22 to July 6, the daily number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in California increased from 978 to 1,228, a nearly 26% bump, state data show...

Still more. 

Haiti's New Day?

A new prime minister was sworn in today.

At the New York Times, "A New Day in Haiti? Many Haitians Have Their Doubts":

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Gerard Lovius falls asleep at night on the floor of an empty classroom to the sound of gunfire. He and his shellshocked neighbors started living there a month ago, after gang members invaded his home, sending his terrified wife and three children running to the streets and leaving him with nothing: no money, no possessions, not even a cellphone.

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Lovius was back at his job as a street cleaner, tidying up before the day’s stately memorial for Haiti’s assassinated leader in the Champs de Mars, the capital’s main square. President Jovenel Moïse would soon be laid to rest, and the sparring members of his government had just reached a truce, vowing to lead the country anew.

But there was little peace in Mr. Lovius’s life. “We have hope only in God,” he said, hauling a wheelbarrow of trash up the street. Haiti’s leaders have called the political truce a new chapter, a historic turning of the page that, in the words of the interim prime minister, shows “that we can actually work together, even if we are different, even if we have different world outlooks.”

But for many in country, it does not seem like a change. The list of cabinet ministers published in the government’s official gazette featured several familiar names from Mr. Moïse’s governing party, including the new prime minister and the new foreign minister, both of whom had been angling to take over since the president was killed.

“This is a provocation,” Pierre Espérance, the executive director of the Haitian National Human Rights Defense Network, said of the party’s control of the new government. “It means the crisis will continue, insecurity will continue, and the gangs will continue.”

He argued that Mr. Moïse was a victim of his own rule, a leader who “died because of the insecurity his party created.” Two years ago, violence and furious demonstrators condemning corruption and demanding the president’s ouster locked the country in place — keeping the sick from hospitals, children from school, workers from rare jobs and people in the dark in areas where electricity stopped flowing.

Gangs have become more brazen since then, controlling large parts of the capital, attacking at will, kidnapping children on their way to school and pastors in the middle of delivering their services.

“The country is going to remain in the same condition, unless they get their heads together,” Rosemane Jean Louis, said shortly before the memorial began and the new government took office. “We have no security. We are hungry. We are in misery.”

Ms. Jean Louis recounted how she had casually said goodbye to her son, 24, one day last year, not knowing it would be the last time. With a smile, he had grabbed a piece of candy from the pile of treats she sold outside their home, then continued on his way to meet a friend. He made it a block, she said, before being shot dead by gang members in front of a church.

“I didn’t even find his body,” said Ms. Jean Louis, 61, tears falling. “They took it with them.”

Crime, kidnappings, gangs, security: the words streamed from Haitians across the capital as dignitaries paid their respects to the assassinated president on Tuesday and his successors took the helm. Even as rival politicians made claims and counterclaims to replace Mr. Moïse, residents were still in the streets protesting — often because they felt certain that their new leaders, whoever might prevail, would not care about them.

The place is in bad shape.

Keep reading.

 

Tomi Lahren on Outnumbered

She makes a good point on Cuba, and how folks are "finally waking up" to Marxism. 

She's up first. 

Watch (she speaks from the beginning):

Buzzfeed: FBI Informants Initiated the 'Plot to Kidnap Gretchen Whitmer'

At AoSHQ, "Buzzfeed: FBI Informants Initiated the "Plot to Kidnap Gretchen Whitmer." They Were So Central to the Plot It Raises the Question: Was This Always Just the FBI's Plot?"

Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half

At Amazon, Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half: A Novel.

Kaia Gerber on the Cover of Vogue

This isn't the first time, apparently.

And dang! I'm gobsmacked, sheesh. 

She's only 19! They say she's the most successful model in the world. Pfft. Of course, she's Cindy Crawford's daughter. How's that for white privilege!

See, "Girl Interrupted: The Education of Kaia Gerber":

“For a long time, I thought my face and my body had more to say than I did, because that’s what people thought of me,” Kaia Gerber says. At only 19, Gerber is one of the most successful models in the world and so, to many, a highly controlled, highly burnished product sold to millions on Instagram and beyond. On the gorgeous early-spring day when she and I meet at the reservoir at the foot of the Hollywood Hills, which we are set to loop around, accompanied by Gerber’s enthusiastic rescue mix Milo, her manner is preternaturally poised, that of a remarkably tall and beautiful child who has learned early in life how to talk to adults. Who is Kaia Gerber, really? With a smile or a glance, a well-placed word or a keen observation, she will signal that she is thinking hard about that very question—and beginning to come up with some answers. “I always wanted to be good and easy, not to make trouble,” she says, “but when you do that, you sometimes end up losing your voice.”

Gerber is aware that she has been lucky during a merciless year. She’s had her parents’ house in Malibu, for one thing. “We have a sort of compound with a garden, and a big lawn, and the beach that we could go to every day,” she says. “I’m not blind to the fact that we’ve been incredibly blessed.” Gerber and her brother, Presley, who is two years her senior, have grown up in the seemingly picture-perfect circumstances of Southern California royalty. Their parents are the entrepreneur Rande Gerber, who counts among his endeavors the Casamigos tequila brand, founded with good family friend George Clooney, and Cindy Crawford, one of the most iconic American supermodels of the past half century, whose likeness to her daughter has been a popular subject for clickbait listicles ever since Gerber began modeling. Still, emotionally speaking, Gerber’s last months have been ones of change and transition. “I was always so concentrated on work, and suddenly that was gone. And so for the first time, I could no longer focus on everything outside,” she says. “I was forced to go internal. Work was always a really easy excuse not to do that.”

She was only 13 when she began modeling—shooting for Italian Vogue with Steven Meisel and posing alongside Presley for a CR Fashion Book portfolio by Bruce Weber. As her career kicked into high gear a couple of years later, Gerber transitioned to an online course load at Malibu High, the local public school she and her brother both attended, walking distance from Zuma Beach, where kids would tote surfboards to class, as if in a real-life version wof a Beach Boys song. She became an instant runway sensation. “When Kaia started to model, she jumped right into it, loved it, and immediately wanted to do everything,” Crawford tells me by phone from Malibu. “I was very protective at first, and I traveled with her to fashion month. But Kaia has her head on straight.”...

Keep reading. 

No doubt it's pretty easy to "keep your head on straight when your parents are SoCal "royalty." Damn. *Eye-roll.*

Today's Shopping

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.

And especially, Practical Power: Luminoodle LED Light Rope - USB Powered Outdoor LED String + Camping Lantern - Waterproof Lights for Tents, Hiking, Safety, Emergencies.

Also, LEGACY HEATING Rectangular Fire Pit Table, Mocha powder coated finish.

And, Millennium Assorted Energy Bars (6 Count) - Long Shelf Life Fruit flavored Bar Bundle - Survival Pack for Calamity, Disaster, Hiking and Meal replacement - with Emergency Guide.

More, Mountain House Just In Case...Breakfast Bucket.

Plus, Koffee Kult - Medium Roast Coffee Beans (2 lb Whole Bean) Highest Quality Delicious Coffee - Fresh Gourmet Aromatic Artisan Blend - Packaging May Vary.

BONUS: Tim Bouverie, Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Rails Against Opponents of Critical Race Theory

At Fox News, "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rails against CRT opposition: Teachers should be 'fluent in how to dismantle racism': 'Why don’t you want our schools to teach anti-racism?'"

Charles W. Mills, From Class to Race

 At Amazon, Charles W. Mills, From Class to Race.

'Critical Race Weary'

From Buck Sexton:

Much of the recent attention on Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) has been a result of the increase in Zoom teaching during the COVID-19 school shutdowns. Parents became aware of the kind of identity-politics indoctrination forced on their kids. Students who hadn’t even reached high-school age were being told that they were part of systematic oppression based on their skin color.

It has been known for a long time that academia is riddled with CRT nonsense, and college campuses have been demanding that students worship at the altar of “Diversity and Inclusion.” But corporate America has also been infiltrated with similar politically correct brainwashing.

The Marxist rot of CRT has spread into the executive suites of the biggest and most powerful companies in the world. Case in point: Raytheon Technologies. It’s the second-largest defense contractor in the world, with around 181,000 employees and revenue over $56 billion in 2020.

It’s not the kind of place one might expect to be nagging employees about “checking their privilege” or “confronting historical oppression.” This is a place that makes missiles that blow people up, among other things.

Yet thanks to an industrious think-tank scholar at the Manhattan Institute named Christopher Rufo, we know that when Raytheon isn’t coming up with new ways to drop bombs on the Third World, its employees sit through some of the most absurd and offensive racial sensitivity training imaginable.

Rufo got his hands on the actual training materials from Raytheon’s version of CRT training. He writes in City Journal about some of the most insane PC training modules, such as when:

“Raytheon asks white employees to deconstruct their identities and identify [their] privilege. The company argues that white, straight, Christian, able-bodied, English-speaking men are at the top of the intersectional hierarchy – and must work on recognizing [their] privilege” and step aside in favor of other identity groups. According to outside diversity consultant Michelle Saahene, whites “have the privilege of individuality,” while minorities “don’t have that privilege.”

Divisive Diversity

Deconstruct their identities? Intersectional hierarchy? These are Leftist absurdities, but they have to be taken seriously in so far as they’re part of a vast and growing “diversity and inclusion” complex. There are frauds who travel around from company to company to preach this nonsense, and they’re shockingly well-compensated and culturally influential.

In fact, there’s real power now behind CRT. As anyone who has been called into human resources at a Fortune 500 company for a “sensitivity” issue will be able to tell you, the HR policies of major companies now reflect the philosophy of CRT. Employees are expected to abide by the ever-changing dictates of these Diversity Czars or face the consequences.

These expectations even extend to the way colleagues are allowed to speak to each other...

Still more.

Yet again, contra Sexton, C.R.T. is not Marxist. See Kimberley Crenshaw, Critical Race Theory.

'Far-Right' Koreatown Protests

Previously, "Koreatown Protests: Cops Fire Rubber Bullets at Violent Demonstrators (VIDEO)."

Now at the Los Angles Times, "How far-right rage over transgender rights at an L.A. spa led to chaos in the streets":

The activists arrived outside the Wi Spa in Westlake Saturday morning, some prepared for the worst.

Several wore bike helmets and vests with extra padding. N.W.A.’s “F— Tha Police” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” filled the air.

They were met by far-right extremists who over the last few weeks had turned a debate over transgender access at a Korean spa into a rallying cry.

It didn’t take long for the dueling protests to dissolve into disarray.

By the end, the LAPD had used projectiles and batons and arrested 40 people — mostly for failure to disperse. Several said they sustained injuries at the hands of police.

“I knew it was going to be violent. I didn’t know it was going to end up like that,” said Jessica Rogers, a 31-year-old who had come to document the event and support transgender rights and was among those arrested.

In the aftermath, the police are facing questions about whether officers used excessive force. But the incident has also exposed the power of a viral video given widespread attention in the right-wing press and social media.

The spa has become the latest hot spot for clashes between far-right groups and the left in L.A., kicked off by the video taken by an irate customer in late June.

The video showed a woman arguing with Wi Spa employees after she said she had seen a customer with male genitalia in an area that is reserved for women. The Wilshire Boulevard facility has some gender-separated areas with changing rooms and Jacuzzis.

The footage was quickly amplified by an international network of right-wing activists, pundits and media outlets, including Breitbart, the Gateway Pundit, RealClearPolitics and TheBlaze, a publication founded by Glenn Beck. Message boards where anti-trans activists gather, including Mumsnet, saw thousands of comments.

The spa told The Times Monday that they are required to follow California law that prohibits businesses from discriminating against customers based on race, gender, sexual identity or expression.

“Like many other metropolitan areas, Los Angeles contains a transgender population, some of whom enjoy visiting a spa,” it said in a statement, adding that the spa “strives to meet the needs and safety of all of its customers.”

Brian Levin, director of the nonpartisan Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, said the protests are indicative of a “democratization of hate” that has allowed far-right groups with a variety of ideologies to come together around flash-point events after they are amplified online and in conservative media...

Still more.

And notice how leftist media outlets like L.A.T. always label mainstream conservatives as "far-Right." *Eye-roll.* 

Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge

At Amazon, Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado, Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi Tests Positive for Covid

Man, and she's been vaccinated too.

At Fox News,"Vaccinated Pelosi and Biden aides test positive for COVID: The Pelosi aide had contact with the delegation of fleeing Texas Democrats that contracted COVID-19."

BREAKING NEWS: Vaccinated Pelosi aide tests positive for COVID after contact with Texas Demshttps://t.co/YGocobVEf1

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 20, 2021

Jeff Bezos Blasts Into Space Aboard Blue Origin (VIDEO)

Absolutely spectacular:

Also, "SPACED OUT Mystery lottery winner who paid $28million to travel on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space flight is too BUSY to make trip."

PREVIOUSLY: "Richard Branson and Crew Go Weightless on Historic Virgin Galactic Space Flight (VIDEO)."

What Arizona's 2010 Ban on Ethnic Studies Could Mean for the Fight Over Critical Race Theory

At Politico, "As states across the country impose new rules on the teaching of history and race in schools, a messy, drawn-out battle over a Mexican American studies program in Tucson could offer a preview of what’s to come."

As states across the country impose new rules on the teaching of history and race in schools, a messy, drawn-out battle over a Mexican American studies program in Tucson could offer a preview of what’s to come.https://t.co/5QBI9CjGit

— Coalition for Academic Justice at UArizona (@CAJUArizona) July 17, 2021

'Wild Night'

Van Morrison, live from Montreux (1980):

Emma Watson Plus Some

 Ms. Emma is here. 

And more, the beautiful Rhian Sugden.

And via Twitter:

Carol Roth, The War on Small Business

Carol Roth, The War on Small Business: How the Government Used the Pandemic to Crush the Backbone of America.

Follow "Big Hair" Carol on Twitter.

'Isn't She Lovely?"

Carol Roth asked yesterday what was the best Stevie Wonder song of all time? 

I'm not the biggest fan, but I'd say his best song is "Isn't She Lovely?," or at least that's the one I most enjoy hearing. 

Man, the dude can jam on the harmonica!

Watch and listen:

Megan Parry's Tuesday Forecast

At ABC 10 News San Diego:

John Egerton, Speak Now Against the Day

At Amazon, John Egerton, Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South.

Alice Goffman's TED Talk (VIDEO)

Last night I was rummaging through my stacks and stacks of books --- the overflow of books I own, of which I have no shelf space --- looking for Herbert Gutman's, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925. I actually did find the book, which somehow had found a spot on my bookcases downstairs (the stacks of books upstairs in my bedroom are piled high in the corners next to the bookshelves I have up there). 

While this was happening, I confused Herbert Gutman for Irving Goffman, the father of Alice Goffman, who is the author of the bombshell book, On the Run:On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. The book's controversial, actually. The New York Times had a huge write-up on her in the Sunday magazine: "The Trials of Alice Goffman: Her first book, ‘On the Run' — about the lives of young black men in West Philadelphia — has fueled a fight within sociology over who gets to speak for whom."

Anyway, that's how I ran across Ms. Alice's TED Talk, which is mentioned at her Wikipedia page. The video of her talk posted at the TED website has been viewed over 2 million times, and the YouTube video below almost 280,000 times. 

She's gets very emotional, with her voice cracking and her nearly coming to tears as she gets further and further along in her talk --- it's quite compelling. 

In any case, now you know the story of how I came across this video.

Watch:

She was denied tenure at the University of Wisconsin (obviously mostly as a result of the book controversy), and she's now a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pomona College, where "unnamed activists calling for her offer to be rescinded due to unsupported and unsubstantiated claims of racism in her work and research methods."

Naturally. *Sigh.*

In any case, enjoy the show!

Roger Moorhouse, Poland 1939

 At Amazon, Roger Moorhouse, Poland 1939.

'Jumpin' Jack Flash'

 The Rolling Stones, featuring Ronnie Wood, in 2015:

And the Stones, with the original lineup, featuring the late Brian Jones on rhythm guitar, in 1968:

When asked if he felt guilty about Jones's death, Mick Jagger told Rolling Stone in 1995: "No, I don't really. I do feel that I behaved in a very childish way, but we were very young, and in some ways we picked on him. But, unfortunately, he made himself a target for it; he was very, very jealous, very difficult, very manipulative, and if you do that in this kind of a group of people you get back as good as you give, to be honest. I wasn't understanding enough about his drug addiction. No one seemed to know much about drug addiction. Things like LSD were all new. No one knew the harm. People thought cocaine was good for you."

Long-time Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman said of Jones, "He formed the band. He chose the members. He named the band. He chose the music we played. He got us gigs. ... he was very influential, very important, and then slowly lost it – highly intelligent – and just kind of wasted it and blew it all away."

 

Koreatown Protests: Cops Fire Rubber Bullets at Violent Demonstrators (VIDEO)

At the Los Angeles Times, "LAPD makes arrests after protesters clash over transgender rights at Koreatown spa":

Dueling protests outside a Koreatown spa over transgender rights Saturday prompted a large police response and resulted in more than a dozen arrests.

LGBTQ activists gathered outside the Wi Spa on Saturday morning to counter a protest against transgender access to the spa’s facilities. The Los Angeles Police Department declared an unlawful assembly in front of the spa near Wilshire and Rampart boulevards around noon when the two groups of protesters began to clash, according to police and videos posted on Twitter.

LAPD Det. Meghan Aguilar said authorities declared the unlawful assembly after protesters began throwing projectiles, including at officers. Videos posted to social media show police in riot gear shooting bean bag rounds and 40-millimeter hard-foam projectiles at protesters.

It was not immediately clear how many protesters were in the area. Protesters demonstrating against the spa’s policy waved signs saying “Save our children” and “Stop defending pedos.”

“Most people did leave the area, but currently there are a number of arrests made for failure to disperse,” Aguilar said.

No injuries have been reported. A reporter from the Guardian US who was covering the protest wrote on Twitter that she was chased and “thrown to the ground by right-wing anti-pedophile protesters.”

The demonstrations, similar to those that occurred at the spa earlier this month, were apparently spurred by a viral video taken by an irate customer at the spa in late June.

The woman in the video, which was posted to Instagram, complains to staff at Wi Spa that a man had allegedly walked into the women’s section and showed his genitals to young girls. The customer the woman complained about reportedly identified as a woman. “He is a man,” the woman can be heard saying. “He is not a female. There are girls down there, other women who are highly offended by what they just saw and you did nothing. You sided with him.”

Wi Spa defended its policy in a statement to Los Angeles Magazine.

“Like many other metropolitan areas, Los Angeles contains a transgender population, some of whom enjoy visiting a spa,” the statement said. “Wi Spa strives to meet the needs of all its customers.”...

Keep reading.

And watch, at ABC News 7 Los Angeles, "Video shows LAPD officer shoot protester with rubber bullet at close range," and "Dozens arrested after LAPD sends alert warning of unlawful assembly during Koreatown spa protests."

Thousands Upon Thousands Protect Strict New Coronavirus Restrictions in France (VIDEO)

This should be happening here! Covid protests, hehe. 

It's da bomb, lol.

At the New York Times, "In France, angry protests, rising infections and record vaccinations":

More than 100,000 people took to the streets across France over the weekend to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s tough new vaccination strategy, which will restrict access to restaurants, cafes, movie theaters, long-distance trains and more for the unvaccinated.

Demonstrators in Paris and elsewhere vented against what some called Mr. Macron’s “dictatorship” after he announced that a “health pass” — official proof of vaccination, a recent negative test, or recent Covid-19 recovery — would be required for many to attend or enter most public events and venues.

At the same time, however, his policy seemed to have the desired effect: Record numbers of people flocked to vaccination centers in advance of the new rules coming into effect next month.

It made for a striking split-screen image as millions lined up for vaccines — so desperately sought in much of the world suffering outbreaks but with little access to doses — as an increasingly strident group from both the far left and far right decried Mr. Macron’s policies as government overreach...

Keep reading.

Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory

This is the key introductory text. It's pitched, really, at the undergraduate level. 

At Amazon, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction.

(For the advanced graduate-level, nearly impenetrable text, see Kimbery Crenshaw, Critical Race Theory.)

Ben Carson Slams Critical Race Theory

This is excellent, except for Carson's claim that critical race theory is "Marxist." 

There's plenty of Marxism in the schools, especially in the humanities and social sciences, but this ain't it. 

It's not so, according one of the leading founders of critical race theory, Kimberly Crenshaw, in her foundational anthology, Critical Race Theory.

And Carson's at Fox News, "Dr. Ben Carson: Fighting critical race theory – this is how we stop this blatantly racist ideology: We cannot allow CRT to rob American children of that same hope that was instilled in me."

'Stay With Me'

Following-up, "The Faces, Featuring Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, Reportedly Recording New Music."

"Stay With Me."

In the morning

Don't say you love me

'Cause I'll only kick you out of the door

I know your name is Rita

'Cause your perfume smelling sweeter

Since when I saw you down on the floor, guitar

You won't need to much persuading

I don't mean to sound degrading

But with a face like that

You got nothing to laugh about

Red lips hair and fingernails

I hear your a mean old Jezebel

Let's go up stairs and read my tarot cards, c'mon

Stay with me

Stay with me

For tonight you better stay with me, oh yeah

Stay with me

Stay with me

For tonight you better stay with me, oh rock on

So in the morning

Please don't say you love me

'Cause you know I'll only kick you out the door

Yea I'll pay your cab fare home

You can even use my best cologne

Just don't be here in the morning when I wake up, c'mon honey

Stay with me

Stay with me

'Cause tonight you gonna stay with me

Sit down, get up, get down

Stay with me

Stay with me

'Cause tonight your going stay with me

Hey, what's your name again

Oh no, get down, whoo, hey, oh no, woo, get yourself home, slow down bab

The Faces, Featuring Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, Reportedly Recording New Music

Following-up from the other day, "'Reason to Believe'."

At New Musical Express, "Faces are recording their first new music in four decades."

Ronnie Wood says he, Rod Stewart and Kenney Jones have returned to the studiohttps://t.co/eiykbKEjGo

— NME (@NME) July 19, 2021

James Holland, Normandy '44

At Amazon, James Holland, Normandy '44: D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France.

What is Critical Race Theory?

Professor William Jacobson's interview with Chris Berg, host of Point of View with Chris Berg on KX4 and West Dakota Fox (North Dakota), "'The likelihood that you’re going to have a book in kindergarten or third grade called ‘Critical Race Theory’ is extremely remote. That is not what happens'."

Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage Now Out in Paper

At Amazon, Abigail Shrier, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (Paperback).

BONUS: Ms. Abigail's got an essay up at Bari Weiss's Substack, "The Books Are Already Burning."

Chicago Weekend Violence

At the Other McCain, "Mindless Carnage Continues in Chicago."

How the Media Ignore Jew-Haters

From Christine Rosen, at Commentary:

If you Google the term “anti-Semitism,” the search engine returns a straightforward definition: “Hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people.” By this definition, it is beyond doubt that the statement “Jews have an insatiable appetite for war and killing” is anti-Semitic; replace “Jews” with any other race or ethnic group and there would be no argument about it.

But while Google offers a clear definition online of anti-Semitism, it is much more confused about the matter among its employees. How else to explain, as Alana Goodman of the Free Beacon first reported, that Kamau Bobb, Google’s head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, continues to be employed at the company after saying in a 2007 blog post that Jews have an “insatiable appetite for war” and an “insensitivity to the suffering [of] others.”...

RTWT.

 

America Gone Mad

It's Victor David Hanson, at the American Mind, "The American Descent into Madness: America went from the freest country in the world in December 2019 to a repressive and frightening place by July 2021. How did that happen?":

Nations have often gone mad in a matter of months. The French abandoned their supposedly idealistic revolutionary project and turned it into a monstrous hell for a year between July 1793 and 1794. After the election of November 1860, in a matter of weeks, Americans went from thinking secession was taboo to visions of killing the greatest number of their fellow citizens on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. Mao’s China went from a failed communist state to the ninth circle of Dante’s Inferno, when he unleashed the Cultural Revolution in 1966.

In the last six months, we have seen absurdities never quite witnessed in modern America. Madness, not politics, defines it. There are three characteristics of all these upheavals. One, the events are unsustainable. They will either cease or they will destroy the nation, at least as we know it. Two, the law has largely been rendered meaningless. Three, left-wing political agendas justify any means necessary to achieve them.

Citizenship as Mere Residency

Two million people are anticipated to cross the southern border, en masse and illegally, over a 12-month period. If that absurdity were to continue, we would be adding the equivalent of a major U.S. city every year. The new arrivals have three things in common: Their first act was to break U.S. law by entering the country. Their second was to break the law by residing here illegally. And their third will be to find false identification or other illegal means to continue breaking the law. One does not arrive as a guest in a foreign country and immediately violate the laws of his host—unless one holds those laws in contempt.

Arrivals now cross a border that had been virtually closed to illegal immigration by January 2021. In the cynical and immoral logic of illegal immigration (that cares little for the concerns either of would-be legal immigrants or U.S. citizens), arrivals will be dependent upon the state and thus become constituents of progressives who engineered their arrival.

Yet the issue is not illegal immigration per se. If protests were to continue in Cuba, and 1 million Cubans boated to Miami, the Biden Administration would stop the influx, in terror that so many anti-Communists might tip Florida red forever.

How strange that the U.S. government is considering going door-to-door to bully the unvaccinated, even as it ignores the daily influx of thousands from Mexico and Latin America, without worrying whether they are carrying or vaccinated for COVID-19. Meanwhile, the progressive media shrilly warns that the new Delta Variant of the virus is exploding south of the border. Note how the administration applies standards to its own citizens that it does not apply to foreign nationals illegally entering the country.

Crime as Construct

Crime is another current absurdity. There exists a mini-industry of internet videos depicting young people, disproportionately African American males, stealing luxury goods from Nieman-Marcus in San Francisco, clearing a shelf from a Walgreens with impunity, or assaulting Asian Americans. These iconic moments may be unrepresentative of reality, but given the mass transfers and retirements of police, and the frightening statistics of large increases in violent crime in certain cities, the popular conception is now entrenched that it is dangerous to walk in our major metropolises, either by day or at night. Chicago has turned into Tombstone or Dodge City in the popular imagination.

Scarier still is the realization that if one is robbed, assaulted, or finds one’s car vandalized, it is near certain the miscreant will never be held to account. Either the police have pulled back and find arrests of criminals a lose-lose situation, or radical big-city district attorneys see the law as a critical legal theory construct, and thus will not enforce it. Or the criminal will be arrested and released within hours.

So a subculture has developed among Americans, of passing information about where in the country it is safe, where it is not, and where one can go, where one cannot. This is clearly not America, but something bizarre out of Sao Paulo, Durban, or Caracas.

The Campus Con 

The universities over the past 40 years were intolerant, hard Left, and increasingly anti-constitutional. But they also fostered a golden-goose confidence scheme that administrators dared not injure, given the precious eggs of federally guaranteed student loans that ensured zero academic accountability and sent tuition costs into the stratosphere. There was an unquestioned supposition that a degree of any sort, of any major, was the ticket to American success. In cynical fashion, we shrugged that most prestigious institutions were little more than cattle branders that stamped graduates with imprints that gave them unearned privilege for life.

Yet universities now have both hands around their golden goose’s neck and are determined to strangle it. The public is becoming repulsed at the woke McCarthyite culture on campus, and will be more turned off when campuses open in the fall in 2019-style. At the Ivy League or major state university campuses, admissions are no longer based on proportional representation in the context of affirmative action, but are defined increasingly by a reparatory character.

Grades, test scores, and “activities” of the white and Asian male college applicants are growing less relevant. Only “privileged” white males with sports skills, connections, or families who give lots of money are exempt from the new racial reparation quotas. The new woke admission policy ironically is targeting the liberal suburban professional family, the Left’s constituency, whose lives are so fixated on whether children graduate from Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, or like campuses.

Given the radical change in incoming student profiles, the faculty increasingly will have to choose between accusations of racism, or grading regardless of actual performance, given thousands of new enrollees do not meet the entrance standards of just two or three years ago. Remember that since wokeism was always a top-down elite industry, minority progressives still will fight it out with white leftists in intramural scraps over titles, salaries, and managerial posts.

The public has had enough. For the first time, people will ask why are we subsidizing student loans, why are multibillion-dollar endowments not taxed, and why do we think a B.A. in sociology or psychology or gender studies is an “investment” that prepares anyone for anything? ...

A great piece. 

Keep reading.

 

Patriotic Kendra

Here's her holiday bikini from earlier this month (below).

And she's beach flashing here. 

Plus, new Kendall Jenner bikini shots.

Alex Marlow, Breaking the News

At Amazon, Alex Marlow, Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media's Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption.

Two More Texas Democrats Come Down with Covid

Here's a video report of the whole scam from local station WFAA out of Dallas. 

And at Fox News, "Two more Texas Democrats test positive for COVID after fleeing election vote: Five Texas Democrats have now tested positive on their Washington visit."

Really foolhardy and stupid. 

More at Politico, "Postponed Weddings, Stockpiled Insulin and Covid: The Bizarre Life of Texas Democrats in Exile: What the Democratic state legislators from Texas are really doing in Washington—and how they got here."

Paige Spirinac and More

She's so lovely on Twitter.

Plus, Rachel Weisz.

And, at Drunken Stepfather, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY."

Floods in Germany (VIDEO)

At the Guardian U.K., "‘Like a bomb went off’: survivors of Germany’s worst floods in 200 years relive their agony":

It looks like a bomb went off. Everything’s destroyed. There’s nothing left of the city centre,” said Michaela Wolff, a winemaker from one of the German towns worst hit by last week’s catastrophic flooding.

Her family vineyard and guesthouse, the Weingut Sonnenberg, would normally be filled with tourists descending the red wine trail. This weekend it was filled with desperate refugees from homes destroyed when the Ahr burst its banks on Wednesday after days of heavy rain.

“We have water and we have electricity. The gas has been shut off, but we have more than most,” she said. “It’s chaotic, absolutely chaotic.”

Floods across western Germany and Belgium have killed at least 160 people, and the worst-hit area is the Ahrweiler district, which includes Wolf’s town of Bad Neuenahr.

Ninety-eight deaths have so far been confirmed there, among them 12 in a home for disabled people. Many more people are missing and the toll is expected to rise.

Thousands have also been made homeless, and the economic fallout from lost homes and businesses and the cost of repairing infrastructure is likely to run to billions.

Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler is a historic spa town surrounded by picturesque vineyards and populated by many small-scale vintners. Days of unrelenting rain earlier this week sent a wave of water several feet high down the Ahr, which divides the town in two.

The roads were left buried in water and mud, cars were tossed on to their sides in the square, and parts of buildings were swept away. One house was left gaping open to the street as if a bomb had blown away its front wall.

Wolff’s wine cellar was the only one in town to survive the wall of water, and it was a narrow escape: “The water stopped just centimetres from our doorstep. We had incredible luck.” Since the flood began receding, she has been working around the clock with her family to help with local clean-up and rescue efforts.

Beyond the terrible human toll, the damage to infrastructure, including roads, bridges and railways, is likely to take months to repair. The fallout is already prompting a political reckoning about the costs of climate change, with the Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte on Friday directly blaming changing weather patterns for the intensity of flooding...

It's always global warming, right? 

Still more.

And ICYMI: "What They Haven't Told You about Climate Change."

U.S. Diplomats in Afghanistan Try to Cope with Little Military Backup

Like an episode straight outta "Homeland."

At WaPo, "U.S. diplomats in Afghanistan face daunting, dangerous mission with little military backup":

The conclusion of the Pentagon’s two-decade effort in Afghanistan lays bare the challenges facing U.S. diplomats and aid workers who remain behind, as a modest civilian force attempts to propel warring Afghans toward peace and protect advances for women without the support and reach provided by the military mission.

Current and former officials described an array of obstacles that a shrinking cadre of civilians in the bunkered U.S. Embassy in Kabul must navigate, with the coronavirus pandemic and the specter of a possible diplomatic evacuation compounding the significant difficulties inherent to working in Afghanistan.

“In the absence of a military complement in Kabul, the task of the U.S. Embassy is made infinitely more complex, dangerous and difficult,” said Hugo Llorens, who served as the top U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan under presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

The diplomatic challenges have come into focus after President Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces by the end of August, a move that has emboldened the Taliban, which has intensified its campaign to retake lost ground, and deepened fears that the Kabul government could collapse.

Already a growing list of countries, including France and China, have evacuated their citizens from Afghanistan. Peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government show few signs of progress.

Biden this month defended his decision, saying Afghans must now defend their nation. He also vowed that the United States would not abandon Afghanistan, making the diplomatic and aid mission — in particular, U.S. support for local security forces and the plight of women and girls — a central test of the president’s strategy.

“The complexity of the operations in Afghanistan are orders of magnitude greater than virtually anywhere else,” said a former senior official with knowledge of the mission in Afghanistan, where insecurity, the country’s landlocked position in central Asia, its geography, intense poverty, and tribal and ethnic division all contribute to the cost and difficulty of the newly solitary civilian mission. Like others interviewed for this report, this person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing policymaking.

In the 20 years since the United States launched its first airstrikes in Afghanistan, the work of the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other civilian agencies has been largely overshadowed by the military mission, massively larger in scale, manpower and funding.

At the height of the “civilian surge” that accompanied Obama’s troop increase in 2010, aid workers and diplomats were arrayed at consulates and outposts across the country in an effort to lay the conditions for lasting security gains.

Even after that high-water mark, diplomats in Kabul benefited from the network of military bases and the presence of military aircraft, both enabling more frequent visits to far-flung outposts to review conditions on the ground and providing an additional channel of information from troops in the field.

The U.S. nation-building effort, which once included ambitious plans to modernize infrastructure and transform the country’s economy, is littered with examples of failure...

Keep reading.

 

Saul Friedlander, The Years of Extermination

At Amazon, Saul Friedlander, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945.

Saturday Cartoon

This is nasty, anti-Semitic.

At the Jerusalem Post, "Republicans want to brand Mark Zuckerberg as ‘Zuckerbucks.’ ADL says stop. This month, the term made it into Congress: Rep. Claudia Tenney, a New York Republican, proposed the End Zuckerbucks Act, which would ban nonprofits classified as tax exempt and nonpartisan."

South Africa Violence (VIDEO)

At least 100 dead and 25,000 troops deployed.

Needless to say, it's not going too well down there.

At the Guardian U.K., "South Africa’s leaders fear fresh wave of violence by Zuma loyalists: Attacks by supporters of jailed former president ‘are bid for pardon or to unseat government’":