- Where to find food for the mind.
- Bill Clinton on U.S. relative advantage.
- Minority students are not public utilities.
- Poetry from a living legend.
- Je m’accuse.
* Temporarily renamed in honor of the Nativity Fast, about which Mystagogy has some more information.
“Page one, above the fold,” at Saturday’s NYT digital, was this:
Sandusky, Center of Penn State Scandal, Tells His Story
By JO BECKER 2:29 AM ET
In an extensive interview, Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant football coach, insisted that he had never sexually abused any child.
I’m not that keenly interested in whether Sandusky’s guilty. That’s for a court to determine.
And I’m not unsympathetic to the way we collectively struggle, in media, social media, and lunchtime chatter, to make sense of shocking news, taking stab-after-stab at it until each of us settles on a sufficiently satisfying wrap-up. There is the old maxim, after all, that those who won’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. So we paw over recent events until we learn from them and consign them to the “history” category.
But I didn’t read the interview. I’m skeptical that an interview with Sandusky – before trial, when he’s still got every incentive to equivocate if not outright lie – contributes anything to our understanding. The questions in the interview must either be, it seems to me, shockingly blunt or wimpily oblique.
Either way, I’ve got an imagination to guard from garbage. As I try to reach my personal satisfactory wrap-up, I’m going to avoid the journalistic equivalent of garbage pails, which is what I fear this interview might be, where there may be an edible scrap or two, but only if one’s willing to dig through a lot of fetid stuff to get there.
An interview with Bill Clinton on the PBS News Hour Friday night reminds me that as bad as our U.S. governance, economics and demographics may be, they’re better than some of the countries in the world that we worry about. For instance, China’s infamous “one child” policy means it’s greying far faster than we are, and presumably is headed for its own version of a social security crisis as it tries to find ways to care for the elderly.
It also reminds me that Bill Clinton, despicable sexual sociopath though he was, was also a very bright guy when it came to seeing how public policy stuff works. And he was better disciplined, at least in policy matters, than Newt, for whom he had some kind words.
As for Newt, he may be beloved because he’s a sinner who’s been redeemed, but he still seems to have ADD/HD, and I don’t want him in the Oval Office other than for visits with someone more disciplined.
It behooves us from time to time to remember that liberals can cheerfully and with clear conscience – nay, with an air of moral superiority accompanied by high dudgeon toward dissenters – screw up real people’s lives in order to make symbolic grand gestures so they can feel good about themselves.
That’s my summary of Ilya Somin’s extended quote of George Will on the actual effect of “diversity” based affirmative action in education. Excerpts of Will:
Liberals would never stoop to stereotyping, but they say minorities necessarily make distinctive — stereotypical? — contributions to viewpoint diversity, conferring benefits on campus culture forever….
But what if many of the minorities used in this process are injured by it? Abundant research says they are….
There are fewer minorities entering high-prestige careers than there would be if preferences were not placing many talented minority students in inappropriate, and discouraging, academic situations: “Many would be honor students elsewhere. But they are subtly being made to feel as if they are less talented than they really are.” This is particularly so regarding science and engineering….
In six devastating words, the Heriot-Kirsanow-Gaziano brief distills the case against the “diversity” rationale for racial preferences: “Minority students are not public utilities.”
Writer’s Almanac doesn’t often publish a Wendell Berry poem, but they did today.
They have terms for it. “Jumping to conclusions.” “Confirmation bias.” “Prejudging.”
Lawyers in particular should know better than to think, ever, that a story couldn’t possibly have another side. But I saw the UC/Davis police officer with the pepper spray as a reincarnation of Bull Connor. How could it be otherwise?
(HT Rod Dreher, who made the same mistake)
Like Dreher, I’m not ready to say that this is the last word on the subject, but I hereby vacate my prior hasty judgment.
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Bon appetit!
Having become tedious even to myself, I’m Tweeting more, blogging less. View this in a browser instead of an RSS feeder to see Tweets at upper right.
I also have some succinct standing advice on recurring themes. Maybe if I link to it, I’ll blog less obsessively about it.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 