The Bookworm Beat 4/8/16 — the “discomfort” edition and open thread

Woman-writing-300x265Am I the only one who finds this sentence incredibly disturbing? The sentence comes from an article about Gloria Vanderbilt’s life and, more specifically, her sex life, which is the subject of a new documentary. The person behind the documentary is Anderson Cooper, Vanderbilt’s son, and noted gay TV personality who used the grotesque phrase “tea baggers,” which refers to a gay oral sex practice, to describe those Americans who came together against big government in the Tea Party.

Oh! You want to know what the sentence is, don’t you? This is the sentence: “Anderson loved hearing about his mother’s sex life but felt embarrassed that it was more interesting than his own.” We live in a deeply sick society.

As Trump’s momentum slows, Cruz’s organization starts to pay off.  It’s instructive to look at Trump’s fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants campaign, versus Cruz’s, which is simultaneously methodical and agile.  When it comes to White House management, I prefer the latter to the former.

The real Bernie Sanders.  Bernie Sanders sat down with The New York Daily News and was utterly appalling.  Whether he was out-Hamasing Hamas when it came to slandering Israel, or revealing that he had idea how to effectuate his campaign promises (free everything; destroy banks!), Bernie was an idiot, and a mean one at that.  The interview was especially illuminating, because it revealed who Bernie really is:  Your horrible stoner college roommate.

Politicized AGs try to stifle dissent.  Both David French and the Independent Sentinel look at the Left’s latest, and very dangerous, constitutional assault:  persecuting speech through the medium of defending “climate change.”

Obama doubles down on destroying America’s black communities.  Daniel Greenfield takes a good, long look at the way in which the Obama administration uses American blacks to score political points, even while consistently and repeatedly carrying out policies that will further destroy safety, education, integrity, and morality among American blacks.

The Obama administration’s war on Christians.  We already know that the Obama administration is supporting a war against Christians here at home, both through Obamacare and by providing moral support for same-sex marriage advocates who hunt down Christian business people and try to destroy them.  Caroline Glick reminds us, though, that the Obama administration’s true attack on Christians is shown by its abandonment of the ancient Christian communities in the Middle East.  Not only is the administration standing aside as they’re slaughtered, it’s inviting members of the sects responsible for those murders into the US while systematically denying Christian Arabs admission.

It’s not you, it’s me — the Muslim version.  The problem in Europe isn’t what Europeans are or are not doing for their Muslim communities.  It’s that the Muslim communities truly hate the Europeans among whom they live.  If this were Casablanca, the Europeans would be Peter Lorre’s character, although most of Europe’s Muslims lack Rick’s decency:

Europe continues to be in denial about the toxin in its borders.  It turns out that, yes, the German government did try to cover-up the hundreds of sexual assaults in Cologne over New Years.  There’s an old saying that “It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.”  In Cologne, though, there were two crimes:  the sexual assaults and the cover-up.  Europe couldn’t commit suicide faster if its leaders had sat down for a weekend meeting and methodically plotted out how to destroy the continent.

Mark Steyn exposes the Left’s shallow hypocrisy about Islam.  Moral of the story — don’t get Mark Steyn angry if you’re a Leftist, because he has morals and, if you’re a Leftist, you don’t.

Camille Paglia on abortion.  Paglia’s pro-abortion (her preferred term), but she’s honest:  it is about valuing one life over another, and it’s not men or Republicans who are “out to get” women, it’s the nature of Nature itself.  No wonder she thinks little of both Hillary and Trump when they opine on the subject.

Illegal immigrants who kill.  Bad things happen in life.  Stupid or evil people shoot guns or drive cars.  But there’s something particularly horrible when the person doing the bad thing is an illegal immigrant who wouldn’t have been in the country to act badly had the Obama administration done its job of securing America’s borders and taking seriously the felonious immigrants law enforcement periodically catches apprehends.

Beautiful and funny things.  An extraordinary artist whose medium is paper, an unexpected artist whose medium was ink, and a look back through time made possible by a Russian animator who found inspiration in old postcards: