Interesting things in the blogosphere
I don’t have the mental energy to be original this morning, but I would like to list some of the things that caught my eye.
As you know, I have a huge problem with identity politics, an insidious liberal habit that classifies people by the color of their skin, or their economics situation, or their sex or their sexual identity, rather than by what these same people believe or do. Now the Captain reports that Obama is being ignored by many African-Americans because he’s considered the wrong type of black.
The Washington Times details some more about Jimmy Carter’s financial dealings with the Arabs, including the fact that the infamous BCCI helped him out substantially in connection with a bad farm loan (but the article is careful to point out that no money went directly in Carter’s own pockets).
With the Flying Imams stunt being used as the vanguard in the attack against profiling airline passengers, both Walter Williams and Marc Sheppard explain why it would be lunacy for America to stop directing heightened attention to Muslims behaving peculiarly before and during flights. (Incidentally, I think random checks, and any other checks that can reasonably be carried out, should continue. It would be too easy to use visible Muslims as red herrings, only to have some invisible radical grandma carry explosives onto a plane.)
Joseph Morrison Skelly has a wonderful tribute to the Battle of the Bulge (fought 62 years ago this Christmas Holiday). It was an astounding scene of bravery and sacrifice by American troops, and it definitively turned the tide of war in the Allies’ favor. I’ve been to Bastogne, and I can tell you that even then, about 40 years after the battle, it was a grim, haunted place. I kept checking my shoes thinking that I’d find traces of old and hallowed blood on their soles. A few years ago, I was at the World War II Memorial in D.C., strictly tourist stuff, only to discover that my visit coincided with a reunion of many veterans of that very same battle. These once fearsome warriors were all old men now, many on walkers or in wheel chairs, many with oxygen tubes trailing behind them. I was so proud of them. Think of them and thank them this holiday season.
California growth is slowing down. That’s no surprise. Although the article claims the problem is the high cost of living, I’d also blame that fact that this is a State that makes it hell to run a business. When money leaves, jobs leave.
Jason Mattera reports on the Mickey Mouse courses that parents pay for today when they mortgage their homes and their futures to send their kids to college. I say “Mickey Mouse” because you’ll see if you check their catalogues that most colleges and universities still do offer core courses that actually teach stuff (or, not having attended the classes to verify this, claim they teach stuff). It’s the Mickey Mouse courses that have changed so dramatically. Mickey Mouse courses in my day were innocent enough: Shakespeare in Film, the Art of Children’s Books, Math for Dummies, that kind of stuff. When you read Mattera, you’ll discover a whole new world, most of which you won’t want your children to discover too.
