The Bookworm Beat 3-7-15 — “random thoughts on a Saturday morning” edition and open thread

Woman writingThis is so short I’ll eschew headings. It’s an effort to be a Thomas Sowell-esque grab bag of pertinent observations, although I’m handicapped by the fact that I lack both his wit and his erudition.

For the past many months, my Progressive friends on Facebook have been completely silent about ISIS’s depredations. The women haven’t spoken up about the sex slavery, the gays haven’t spoken up about the gay executions, and none have spoken up about the over all slaughter. Suddenly, though, two stories have gotten them up in arms. You won’t be surprised to know that it’s this story and this story. Daniel Greenfield was more right than he knew when he said that Progressivism is fundamentally a materialist doctrine. I have a rare passion for history, but even I know that human lives matter more.

Obama on Selma: “The notion that some kid that was brought here when he was two or three years old might somehow be deported at the age of 20 or 25, even though they’ve grown up as American, that’s not who we are. That’s not true to the spirit of what the march on Selma was about.” Are we to understand then, that the true spirit of Selma is black unemployment? Because in the fight for jobs between blacks and illegals, blacks are losing big time.

Those of us who thought Obama was incompetent looked to his record — the bad economy, collapse of race relations, porous borders, and international insecurity — and said all of those are proof of his incompetence. We were wrong, though. They are proof of his competence. He’s achieved everything he wanted. He wanted to humiliate Netanyahu (this time, it’s personal), sideline Israel (who cares if random Jews die), have detente with Iran (“I love you, Valerie Jarrett”), elevate Islam, and fundamentally change America, whether we’re talking her racial make-up, her economy, her social structure, her suburbs and cities, her power grid, etc.. He’s been remarkably successful at each of these goals. Don’t believe me? Just look at what he’s managed, quite intentionally, to do to America’s national security.

I agree with Matthew Continetti: I never liked Spock either. Unlike Data, who had no arrogance and desperately wanted to be human, Spock was always so insufferably smug.

Let’s take the DOJ’s malice towards white police officers to its ultimate conclusion — only black police officers for black communities. It would be an interesting experiment, if nothing else.

The conservative college organization resisted “sensitivity training” on religious grounds. I would resist it on “Freedom of Association” grounds. I would also recommend it on the principle that I’m not ready to embrace the brutal re-education so prevalent in 1960s China.

From the Marin IJ: “A tiny regional agency that combats mosquitoes wants Marin property owners to pay 59 percent more to finance its operations, including paying down $13.1 million in retiree liability.”

Do I need to add a comment to that?

I just learned that one of the nicest men at my Mom’s retirement home died a couple of days ago. He was almost 94 so he had a good, long life. And when I say “good,” I mean it. I’ve seldom met a more kind, happy person. When he walked into the room, even as a very old and frail man, he lit up the room and people were drawn into his orbit because of his radiant good cheer. He was also, of course, one of the Greatest Generation, a naval officer who earned a citation for his participation in the capture of Okinawa. My thoughts are with his family and friends. They will miss him.

I’m not the only one who is disgusted by Conan O’Brien’s decision to make nice with the Castros.

And a very funny little post about that part of the anatomy that once used to be exclusively male, but can now be claimed by whoever wants one, whether they have one or not. (See, I too can abandon gender normative expectations!)