Laying Down the Law

We had a President, a lawyer, who once said that an answer to a question depends what the meaning of the word "is" is.  

We had a would-be-President, also a lawyer, who became a non-President by admitting to "putting myself in circumstances that could be misconstrued" when caught with a woman not his wife while insisting he "absolutely did not" do anything immoral.

And now we have a college president - Liz Magill, a law professor and the future former president of the University of Pennsylvania - who when asked by New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, if  calling for the genocide of Jews on campus was a violation of Penn's code of conduct, Magill said that "if the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment."

Stefanik followed up by saying, "I am asking, specifically, calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment? 

Magill replied by saying that it was a "context-dependent decision."

Now that Magill is quitting her job as university president, I think the lesson here is obvious.

If you want a professor to lead your university, don't get a law professor.  Get an anthropology professor or a history professor or someone like that.

"If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment?"  I guess it's a matter of what the definition of "it" is.

Magill did the impossible.  She has me feeling sympathy for Elise Stefanik. 

Musk Rat, Part Two

 Elon Musk is a turd.

And I'm glad I quit X.

Musk decided to involve himself in a tête-à-tête between a Jewish X user and an X account owner operating under the name "The Artist Formerly Known as Eric," whom I'll call Eric from now on, in which the Jewish user demanded that Eric tell him to stop saying Hitler was right to his face just what he thinks of Jews.  Eric came right out and said to his face (well, as far as you can tell something to anyone's face on social media) that Jews are responsible for bringing in racial and ethnic populations from the Third World to de-Europeanize America.  (The joke's on Eric; thanks to are pathetic public transportation, our decrepit public schools, our lax gun laws, and our commercialization of the arts, we're already de-Europeanized!) Eric also thought it was comical that the brown people allegedly brought in to replace whites would turn on the Jews after arriving here, although there's no evidence that recent immigrants harbor any anti-Semitism.  Musk then butted in, telling Eric, "You are absolutely correct, sir."     

Musk is possibly the richest man in the world, and he's distinguished himself for getting behind Tesla, which has subsequently produced some of the most innovative cars in the United States; he made Tesla the first successful American automaker to challenge the Big Three since the heyday of American Motors.  His SpaceX company has pushed space exploration even farther into the heavens.  But thanks to Musk's descent into the hell of anti-Semitism, none of that matters anymore.  He's endorsed the ridiculous "Jewish replacement theory" and encouraged more bigotry and hatred against the Jewish people at a time when American Jews are being held directly and unfairly responsible for the atrocities being committed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza. 

(Full disclosure: While I do not condone the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and support Israel's right to exist, I support calls for a cease-fire.  And I must reiterate that I also support the Free Palestine movement, because, as an American of Irish origin and as a Roman Catholic, I believe that I and my people should support Palestinian statehood because of Ulster.  Ask someone other than an Irishman what the Occupied Territories are, and that person will say "The West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights."  Ask an Irishman what the Occupied Territories are, and that person will say, "Counties Antrim, Down, Armagh, Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh.")

Now Musk's tolerance for neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic propaganda has gone so far beyond the pale that the progressive media-watchdog group Media Matters has taken a more probing look at the issue, analyzing the content on on X and coming to some damning conclusions.  Musk has responded by suing Media Matters in federal court in Texas, where his company is based, for what he calls gross distortions of the content on his social media platform and for suggesting that such content is "what typical X users experience on the platform," which it increasingly is.  As if to pile on, unconvicted criminal Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced an investigation of Media Matters, calling it a "radical left-wing organization" that "would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square."

If Musk gets his way and allows more hate speech on his platform at the expense of speech he personally doesn't like, that could have that very effect.

But Musk has to do deal with something else - advertisers fleeing X in droves to get as far from his platform's anti-Semitic tropes as possible.

I'm so glad I'm not on the platform formerly known as Twitter anymore.  I'd like to thank Tia Mitchell of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and all of the other X users for driving me off the platform after I publicly told Mitchell that she looked better without cornrowed hair.

Though, as her appearance on MSNBC yesterday afternoon indicates, she realized that I was right and changed her look when she decided that I was doing her a favor.

You're welcome, Tia. 😛

West of Crazytown

How how, how, how can you convince people that the most popular and most influential recording "artist" of our time is a total fraud?  For years, people who dared to dismiss Kanye West as an idiot, a poser, and a proprietor of computerized noise - mostly white male musicians who play real instruments -  were dismissed themselves as being racist and elitist, and it became apparent that, given that rap had replaced every other form of music on the record charts, bitching about Kanye was a waste of breath.  The only person who was going to do Kanye in was Kanye himself, and it would be not for exposing himself a a fraud but for exposing himself as something else that no one can tolerate, like getting Al Capone on tax evasion instead of murder.   

And so it was that Kanye did himself in by declaring his intent to go "Death Con 3" on the Jews on his Twitter feed, which was then closed down.

He also turns out to be an admirer of Adolf Hitler and he thought Hitler did great things for the German people. That's as may be, Volkswagen isn't likely to make him a spokesperson.

Quite the opposite, in fact.  Every company and brand West has been professionally associated with - Adidas (a German company), Balenciaga, and Vogue - has severed ties with him. And so has Def Jam Recordings, his record label. 

You will note that the other companies, however, are all connected to fashion, which is very telling - not of Kanye's prejudices but of rap's trendiness.  West has greatly involved himself with fashion interests to license his own merchandise and to design his own clothing, paying so much attention to his fashion work that it's a wonder he finds the time to make records (until you realize that what he mostly does is turn on a synthesizer or an autotuner and wigs out).  This use of popular music as a meaningless vehicle to promote style and titillation that started with MTV, continued with Madonna (who has appeared on the covers of fashion magazines as much as if not more than on the cover of music magazines), and exploded with hip-hop and with rap stars' clothing lines shows how popular music isn't about the music itself and hasn't been for a long time.  It's all about fashion.

For proof, consider Def Jam Recordings.

As for his anti-Semitism, West is the typical Gentile conspiracy theorist who thinks the Jews are out to exploit black people for their own personal gains and that they control the workings of government with their stupendous wealth.  "You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda," West told American Jews in 2013.  At the time, folks didn't seem to notice, maybe because they were getting more steamed over his similarly provocative statement that rap was the new rock and roll, which came out at the same time.

Sadly, West's comments about Jews won't have a detrimental effect on rap per se, nor will it have a detrimental effect on his artistic reputation any more than Van Morrison's fight against COVID restrictions will have a detrimental effect on his.  (Graham Nash on Van Morrison: "I love his music and I love his records, but I don't like him as a person very much.")  Pop critics too afraid to admit that rap sucks who would rather bash bands like Nickelback have seen to that.  But his career going forward is pretty much toast.  And his social media presence has been severely curtailed, and he won't be able to say anything on Facebook or Instagram.

He will be able to tweet again, though.  Now that Elon Musk, a friend of West's, has completed his purchase of Twitter (a topic I'll get to later), he's restored West's Twitter account.   

Elders and Zion

The Islamic gerontocracy that still rules Iran after 43 years (and may continue to do so for another 43 years, despite the latest wave of protests) are selling Russia sophisticated suicide drones that are full of explosives and attack predetermined targets kamikaze-style.

Not only are Russians using Iranian drones to attack Ukraine, the Iranians are on the ground giving assistance to Russian troops that are using them.

Now why would the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, help the Russians fight a country Iran has no quarrel with?  Foreign-affairs experts believe that Iran, a junior partner in the post-Cold War, post-Soviet Russian bloc, wants to increase its profile on the world stage and be taken seriously by the Russians as an equal partner.

I think there's a second reason, and I'll come out and say it: Iran wants to help Russia fight Ukraine because Ukraine has a Jewish president. 

The mullahs in Iran hate all non-Muslims, but in the case of Jews that goes double.

The Iranians deny helping the Russians, of course.  They would.

The Land Ain't Got No Culture

Oh, Christ, are the culture wars starting up again?

The Obama administration has issued a directive stating that Catholic schools and hospitals have to provide coverage for contraceptives and birth control pills without co-pays in an effort to broaden health access for women. Republicans have jumped on this issue like vultures on a carcass signifying their opposition to force Catholic institutions to pay for medical practices they're philosophically opposed to, calling it an affront to religious freedom and an attack on the Catholic Church. Noted Republican Catholic lawmakers such as House Speaker John Boehner and U.S. Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Marco Rubio of Florida vow to support legislation to overturn Obama's directive. Meanwhile, noted Democratic lawmakers such U.S. Senators Charles Schumer of New York Barbara Boxer of California and Illinois congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, along with Judith Waxman and Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center, praised the administration's efforts for expanding coverage for women.

By the way, while there are many Gentiles who back the President as well, I narrowed my examples of individuals supporting this new policy to Jews for a reason. I have long suspected that contraception opponents are as anti-Semitic as they are misogynistic, because many women's health advocates tend to be Jewish.  And, whenever Catholics and evangelicals complain about assaults on their religious liberties and their anti-contraception, pro-life beliefs by the liberal elites, it's a slippery slope to blaming the "New York" or "Hollywood" elites, which are both code phrases to refer to Jews. Catholics and evangelicals say they're defending themselves against what they call the "secular Jewish assault" on their faith, without stopping to think how a people who spend a day in early autumn atoning for their sins are a secular people.

Whether or not conservative Christians see any stand in favor of reproductive rights as being redolent of Jewishness, their stand on denying women their right to control their own bias reeks of being elitist itself - a mostly male elite telling women of different religious and economic backgrounds how to run their lives, including the non-Catholic female employees of Catholic universities and hospitals who need this coverage. Republicans think they may have found the issue to swing enough votes - Catholic votes - their way to unseat Obama in November. It's all good and fine to say that many Catholics use birth control and don't automatically subscribe to church dogma, but there are many more Catholics disgusted enough by how the GOP has framed this issue - and by the way, 335,000 houses of worship have been exempted from this directive - to desert Obama and Democratic congressional candidates at the polls. Obama can count on the support of every critical thinker in America who recognizes the value of his decision. But as Adlai Stevenson II would have said, he needs a majority to get re-elected.

And even though a poll found that a majority of Catholics support contraception coverage, many of them may be uncomfortable with the government ordering Catholic institutions to provide it. More on that later.

Activists for women's health rights, though, are on a roll. They successfully forced the Susan G. Komen Race For the Cure foundation, a leading breast cancer awareness group, to reverse its decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood due to a congressional investigation into Planned Parenthood's alleged use of taxpayer funding for abortions, and Karen Handel, a senior Komen vice president and a failed Republican candidate for governor of Georgia, was forced to resign. Although Planned Parenthood has been assured continued funding to help poor women get breast examinations they can't get anywhere else, many women's health advocates are going to have a hard time trusting the Komen foundation again. But Komen's 180 is still a victory.

And, as all this was going on, the Washington state legislature just passed a bill legalizing gay marriage, which Governor Christine Gregoire supports, even as California's anti-gay marriage law has been struck down by federal appeals court - a decision that will soon be reviewed ultimately by the Supreme Court. The trend in favor of gay marriage has pleased at least one conservative - Rick Santorum, who now has a lot of momentum from anti-gay activists to propel his presidential campaign.

With Obama trying to defuse a politically charged health issue, and a new battle over gay rights having been joined, the culture wars are on again, and Americans are fighting over how this nation's culture should be defined. The joke's on them; we Americans have no culture to fight over. The closest we come to showing any culture is that annual ritual that takes place every February, where overpaid contestants battle it out in a public arena for supremacy and glory, where the winners are lauded and the losers are ridiculed, and with a hideous musical number midway through the show - for all the world to see on television. I am, of course, talking about the Oscars. :-D