The Bookworm Beat 6/21/16 — the “end of spring” edition and open thread

Woman-writing-300x265I spent the day helping my “going to college” Little Bookworm select her classes. Let me just say that the college does not offer any American History classes, but it does offer gay history, Latino history, and black feminist history. The online catalog was a miracle of polemics, incoherence, political correctness, victim culture, cant, and appalling grammar. The real gem, though, came when we looked up one of the teachers on

The real gem, though, came when we looked up one of the teachers on Rate My Professors. I think the following review is the saddest thing I’ve ever read (and please note that the student was offering genuine praise, not sarcasm):

She was very good a facilitating the class so the active members of the Womyn’s Center were respectful and open to the point of veiw [sic] of the few boys who took the class.

And while we’re talking about the end of the world, here are some links you might like.

Terrorists target gunfree zones. John Lott explains why gun free zones are catnip to terrorists:

Just a couple of months ago, a young ISIS sympathizer planned a shooting at one of the largest churches in Detroit. An FBI wire recorded him explaining why he had picked the church as a target: “It’s easy, and a lot of people go there. Plus people are not allowed to carry guns in church. Plus it would make the news.”

Police are probably the single most important factor in stopping crime, but stopping a mass public shooting is an extremely dangerous proposition for officers and security guards alike. Attackers will generally first shoot any uniformed guards or officers who are present. During the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris last year, the first person killed was the guard who was protecting the magazine’s offices.

Being able to choose the time and place of the attack gives terrorists a major strategic advantage. Last year, France learned that the hard way. In a city of 2.3 million people, there are simply too many possible targets for the police and military to protect. Parisians could take cellphone videos of terrorists just 12 yards away, but could do nothing but watch the slaughter. In the United States, we have about 628,000 police to protect 320 million Americans.

When a gun is the only defense you have. A local Army base, in Dublin, California, was put on lockdown because of reports that there was an armed intruder. Thankfully, as of now, no shooter has been found. While the search was ongoing, though, a friend sent me a short and interesting email:

A friend whose husband is gone is spending the lockdown sitting at the top of the stairs with a handgun while the kids wait in the upstairs bathroom. Not sure how taking her gun away would make the situation better.

My friend offered two other pertinent points. First, the experience of the woman on the Army base stands “as a classic example of why we have a Second Amendment in the first place.” Second, when the police searched the gal’s home for the intruder, they told that, if anyone other than a police officer showed up at her door, she should call 911, cause my friend to say, “I suppose step two is pray they get there before the dirtbag forces his way in.” Or of course, she could follow through on her original plan, which was to drill several new orifices into the dirtbag.

It’s the end of science as we know it. The reason the Left can claim to have science on its side is because science isn’t science anymore:

Science on the Verge is a 200-page indictment of what to the lay reader appears to be a monumental deterioration across all fields, from climate science to health research to economics. The mere idea that “most published research results are false” should be cause for alarm.

Read the article to find out just how alarmed you should be.

For once, ISIS looks fabulous. This one has been hanging around for about a week, but if you haven’t yet seen the way in which Anonymous hacked ISIS’s twitter account, you must. It’s the modern version of Der Fuhrer’s Face. Ridicule is not substitute for bombing these Stone Age savages to the Hell they deserve, but it’s definitely a reasonable weapon in all-out war against an existential enemy.

SJWs attack The Mikado. As a passionate Gilbert & Sullivan fan, I wondered how long it would be before the SJWs turned their attention to my favorite of their operettas, The Mikado:

Gilbert & Sullivan’s Mikado ran for 670 performances following its 1885 London debut, and has been performed continuously ever since in theaters around the globe. This summer, San Francisco’s Lamplighters will present a very different version of the gem. Instead of Japan, the setting will be Renaissance Italy. The switch follows pressure from local activists who asserted two contradictory criticisms.

First, they complained that the musical’s depiction of Japan was racist. Second, they complained that the cast did not have enough Asian actors.thmikado-hsthm848500_592

The activists seemed unaware of the schizophrenic nature of their indictment — demanding more Asian actors to perform roles deemed degrading to Asians. Their inconsistency is reminiscent of the Puritanical criticism of modern cinema: “Movies today are pornographic … and ticket prices are so high!”

I’m not at all averse to putting classics in different settings to give them a fresh twist. One of my favorite versions of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is the Joseph Papp production set in small town America at the turn of the last century. It’s a wonderfully fresh and funny take on a timeless story. Moreover, one of my all-time favorite productions of The Mikado is set in an English seaside resort in the 1920s. (You can watch the whole thing here and here.) The post to which I’ve linked identifies several other mix-it-up versions of The Mikado.

In all of the above examples, though, as well as any other past decisions to transplant an original work to a different venue, the decision was made for creative reasons, not because maddened SJWs are attempting to impose their fascist world view on every facet of American life. Orders from the thought crime police are an entirely different and terrible thing.

Don’t even try to photocopy money. There are two reasons you shouldn’t try: First, it cannot be done, because modern copiers and printers are manufactured so that they refuse to do so. Second, given that it’s horribly illegal, the mere fact that you try might be enough to get you in trouble.

Another good Niemoller riff. A few days ago, I offered my version of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous “First They Came” poem. That inspired a friend of mine to come up with her own excellent, powerful version. My friend, who doesn’t blog too often (which is a shame, because she’s always interesting), also did a post about queers and self-defense. It’s short and well worth reading.

More later.  Family calls again.