TAIL TRACK.

Barring signal troubles, links to any posts of substance ought to work.

LOSING THE GOOD OF THE INTELLECT.

"Confidence in College Has Collapsed."  People who have the best workarounds are using them.  It has nothing to do with all wokeness, all the time.  That's for the spawn of the nomenklatura.

The ideological battles being fought on many campuses are almost exclusively waged among elites. Debates over DEI initiatives, Gaza, antisemitism, and transgender rights dominate public attention rather than conversations about what can be done to make colleges work for the working class. The students who need the most. When public support for higher education wanes, the biggest losers are those who need them to work—not as bastions of progressive thought, but as drivers of economic opportunity, civic responsibility, and social solidarity. It’s no coincidence that some of the fiercest critics of higher education are found among those who have amassed considerable wealth and influence.

The people most willing to denigrate societal institutions are typically those who need them the least. Wealthy people can probably afford to choose an alternative pathway for their children—although most do not. For many working-class families, college is the only way for their kids to get ahead. It turns out that, whatever their politics, college-educated parents generally stress the importance of attending college to their children. In our survey of American teenagers, girls were more likely than boys to say they were going to college—but the education gap was equally as large. Teens raised by college-educated parents were far more likely to say they were planning on going to college than those with noncollege parents, regardless of their parents’ politics. More than six in ten teens with college-educated parents who supported Kamala Harris are planning to attend a 4-year college after graduation. The number for teens of college-educated Trump voters is identical—61 percent say they are college-bound.

Put simply, gender and class background, not politics, predict college attendance. The people who have lost faith in higher education are working-class men. It’s why, in our own study, boys from working-class backgrounds are the least likely to expect to get a college education.

I never explicitly called higher education out for denigrating people who look like me as responsible for all the evils of the world, without acknowledging that maybe we got a few things right.  Incoming matriculants might have read between the lines in my posts, or, more likely, heard the message coming from the higher education establishment, loud and clear.

For many Americans, higher education is one of the primary pathways to financial stability, to creating enduring social connection, and instilling a sense of civic responsibility. When colleges become overly focused on advancing the discrete interests of certain groups, it undermines the entire effort. It’s not only a matter of ideological openness. The waning interest in college among boys might have less to do with notions of masculinity. If you’re a boy from a working-class background, how welcome will you feel on some of these college campuses? How curious will your classmates be about your background, life experiences, and perspective?

The chances for such individuals might be better at the regional comprehensives or in the mid-majors, if they don't get lured into game day beer-'n-circus.  Their chances of excelling in class might be better as well.

TRUST, ONCE LOST, IS HARD TO REGAIN.

That recovery is particularly difficult when it is people entrusted with making decisions on the basis of their wisdom or their probity betray it in an egregious way.  In The (Not Detroit) Free Press, Erick Erickson notes, "The same government that used pandemic powers to shutter churches and businesses now wants surveillance cameras on street corners and data centers in backyards. You can’t blame people for saying no."

It's not that the warning signs haven't been with us for some time.  Cold Spring Shops posts have used variations on "governance by wise experts" since the fall of 2009, generally in a skeptical way.

That People in Authority dismissed the observations of — wait for it — medical doctors noticing masked people's glasses fogging up in grocery stories and suggesting the mask mandates and six foot circles and the rest were theater, not policy, probably resurrected the notion of a credibility gap.  Yes, dear reader, my life from adolescence onward has been structured by credibility gaps: thus another one emerging during the Jarrett regency's corona tyranny didn't come as a shock.

THOSE SUMMER DOLDRUMS.

Official Washington goes on vacation, and most of Europe takes things even easier than they normally do, but those news holes still have to be filled.

As people around the world mourn the death of music icon Dolly Parton, the National Hurricane Center is monitoring a tropical wave that could become the fourth-named storm of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. The pre-season determined name? Dolly.

The wave, far out in the Atlantic, could be named by Aug. 27, but the name "Dolly" was chosen 30 years ago and is not related to Dolly Parton's death on Aug. 25. The wave has a 70% chance of becoming a tropical storm or depression, according to the hurricane center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

There are no plans to skip over the name "Dolly" if the expected tropical storm forms, the hurricane center told USA TODAY. The center does not control the naming of tropical storms or when the names are used, its website states. "Instead a strict procedure has been established by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization."

It's an "astounding coincidence" at a time when people from all walks of life are remembering her music and charitable legacies, wrote Roger Edwards, a long-time Dolly Parton fan and meteorologist who retired from NOAA in 2025, in a tribute posted on a social media account.

Anything to make hurricane season relevant when it's the end of August with four possible named storms by the 27th.

There are likely other famous people passing a day or so before a tropical depression gains that person's name.  Around our family, Dolly Parton's name frequently came up in cribbage games when there weren't many points in the crib.  Outside the Beltway's James Joyner notes, "She was truly one of a kind," and Margaret "University Diaries" concludes, "Her voice had the sun of America in it."  R.I.P.

THE RENT GRADIENT COMES FOR YOUR BOWLING LANES.

Fortune contributor Catherina Gioino lodges a lament.  "Bars, bowling alleys, and movie theaters cost too much to run and visit. Americans have run out of places to hang out and we’re paying with our health."

Well, yes.

That's the down-side of the emergence of the Creative Class.  [Long] ago, I noted, "One, the premium to locating in the most creative communities bids up rents. That produces an arbitrage opportunity, even in recession."  Apparently, though, gentrification leads to a more valuable bundle of urban services, something that has value to Creative Class types.

Cater to the Grabowskis or salt-of-the-earth types of whatever ethnic origin when the yuppies show up, and suddenly your favorite hangout goes away.

Using Census data, researchers tracked 12 categories of what sociologists call "third places"—among them coffee shops, libraries, museums, recreation centers, and restaurants—and found widespread closures across every single category from 2019 to 2021, with the losses hitting hardest in rural areas and communities with larger Black, Hispanic, and less-educated populations.

Not only are these places disappearing, the ones still standing cost more to walk into than they used to. Jessica Finlay, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder and one of the study's researchers, immediately agreed when asked how much of this is an affordability story. "Absolutely. I mean, everything costs more," she said. "Cost of living is so much more, and gentrification is absolutely happening." It's a dynamic she's watched shrink the pool of people who can still afford to be regulars anywhere.

The article focuses on urban clustering during and after the corona shutdowns.  The dynamics would have worked out the same irrespective of whether Dr. Faustus Fauci got his way or was properly told to sod off.  "Sooner or later, urban agglomeration economies come for neighborhoods an easy journey to the central business district."

Finlay sees gentrification cutting the same way as rising costs elsewhere: It can bring in new services, but not necessarily to the people who were already there. Drawing on interviews conducted across the Twin Cities, where she has based part of her research, Finlay described participants who said a revitalized neighborhood no longer felt built for them, with people saying they were followed in stores, or were told her they had to dress differently just to shop nearby.

New arrivals don't have to pass judgement on yobbish neighbors if the bid-rent curve prices the yobs out.

DENY THERE'S A PROBLEM, CHANGE THE SUBJECT, AND QUESTION THE CRITIC'S MOTIVES.

That's the standard politician playbook for avoiding doing the necessary work, and two contributors to the house organ for all wokeness, all the time in higher education adopt the formula in their "Enough With the Performative Apologia."

FEMINISM HAS DAMAGED GENERATIONS OF WOMEN.

Your Superintendent is not running an advice column, although from time to time Cold Spring Shops holds forth on the disaster that contemporary dating and mating, or is it swiping and hooking up, has become.

Might it be that after thirty years, the guys have figured out the code?  "Cold Spring Shops is not an advice column, but gentlemen, if you ever hear 'I'm not ready for a commitment,' treat your situation as friends-with-benefits, no matter how desirable the benefits are."  The ladies who were truthfully saying so are now in a position of having to freeze their eggs.  It's not so much "leftover" as having pushed away potential keepers over the years.  As far as those who were not truthfully saying so ... gold diggers come with warning signals, and perhaps the "not ready for commitment [until some rich real estate hustler comes along]" are OK with being traded in for a newer number in a few years.  Good business for prenup-drafting lawyers and pshrinks, not so much for the spawn.

It's since gotten worse for the spawn.  "White, liberal female Lindsay Clancy supporters are proving why men are right to want to remain single."

It's too depressing to quote from at length, and it's unlikely to inspire the creation of Minimal Publishable Units, even though the social science hypotheses are all over this excerpt.

The fact that there are any women at all supporting Clancy, let alone having the gall to demonstrate outside a courthouse or film narcissistic, self-absorbed videos expressing sympathy for what Clancy is accused of doing, reveals the toxic strain that exists in some women in American society. It is well-documented that raising children is extremely difficult, stressful, and taxing. It is well-known that bearing children and postpartum depression are serious conditions for women that shouldn’t be dismissed. However, it’s also wrong to link the stress of motherhood with a mother allegedly murdering her own toddlers.

And it is my opinion that this is a direct result of third- and fourth-wave feminism. It is a corrosive ideology that took the valiant idea of equal representation of women in society and corrupted it with nihilistic and hedonistic pursuits and a revision of acceptable moral norms and standards. Gone were the days of embracing motherhood and marriage, replaced with embracing societal ills such as abortion, and now, apparently, the acceptance and compassion for allegedly murdering one’s own children.

That second paragraph is over the top, and yet there ought to be ways of identifying, or perhaps of refuting the existence thereof, of the chain of causation from do-your-own-thing to denying coherent beliefs to "I intend to off myself and I want to spare the children the loss."

STRAITS STATUS QUO?

A service called Barchart for Business keeps track of financial information, such as options expiring 27 September on crude oil.  As I type, the spot price is in the neighborhood of US $ 82.20 per barrel and the chart tracks puts and calls with strike prices ranging from $77.50 to $86.00.  There might be other contracts and other opportunities to lose money on them.  Currently the $77.50 to $82.00 calls are in the money, and they've all declined in price today. The out of the money calls are also declining in price, with the calls at the highest price trading at around $2.  That doesn't look like a lot of speculative interest in spot price at the end of September headed to $100 or higher the way the doomsday observers carry on about.

The out of the money puts are increasing slightly in price today.  There's no point holding the right to sell oil at $77.50 a barrel when you can sell it for $82.25.  But if the spot price drops below $77.50 (good news for motorists and farmers) that right is valuable at expiry.  There are conditions under which exercise before expiry is profitable but I forget the technical details.  The in the money puts are also increasing in price.  Again, I forget the technical details, apparently holding the right to sell at $87 looks more attractive today than it did yesterday.

There is more put open interest (unexercised options) than there is call open interest.  Make use of that information as you will.  Tomorrow is another day and it will bring its own events.

GET TO WORK ON THE FIRST DAY.

Inside Higher Ed's Courtney Hook offers "5 Ways to Spice Up Syllabus Day."  I'm slightly heartened to discover less talk about "syllabus week."  Why?  "[Students who welcome a first class with no pressure] are often the same students who cry, 'Yay, snow day! when classes are canceled for any reason. Don’t let slackers rule your classroom."  Years ago, we endorsed doing something subject-relevant first, even before getting into the administrative stuff.

Doctor Hook's medicine show might play well at Pepperdine.  Her specific suggestions don't really get to the core of the matter, which is day one of a college course is day one of a college course.

YOU AND WHOSE NAVY?

"Iran threatens 45 tankers with fines, confiscation in Hormuz escalation."  Regime dead-enders think they've identified the ships participating in the shuttle operation transloading Gulf Arabian product to ships sheltering well away from the mullahs' putative blockade.

HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE.

The "progressive" vision of a better world, summarized in one sentence.  "At the time, I hated riding on the subway. But more than 50 years later, I’m grateful for that commute—for the way it forced a visceral reminder of our shared humanity."

THE STUDENTS ARE BACK ON CAMPUS.

Well, most of them.  "NIU student charged with attempted murder ousted from fraternity, not living at chapter house."  There's always at least one zoo fraternity, this year's first candidate is Tau Kappa Epsilon.

“The Delta Eta Chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon is aware of a serious incident involving a former member of our organization this past weekend,” the post reads. “Effective immediately, the individual has been removed from the chapter and is prohibited from participating in chapter activities or returning to the chapter house.”

The fraternity’s statement doesn’t mention a stabbing specifically, but said the incident, which was not fraternity-related, “occurred independently” of the chapter, based on available information.

“The Delta Eta Chapter does not condone violence or serious misconduct,” the statement reads. “The alleged actions of this individual do not reflect the values, expectations, or standards of conduct expected of our chapter and its members.”

Nearly four and twenty years of Cold Spring Shops with no prior mention of the Tekes in our posts.

The usual sorts of start-of-semester follies are under way, at Northern Illinois University and elsewhere, and we'll have more coverage of them next week.

THE GAS PUMP PAIN ARISES MAINLY IN UKRAINE?

The Establishment's Narrative^(TM) on higher summer gasoline prices is "It's All Trump's Fault."  These are the same fear-mongers who were sounding off about crude oil prices north of $175 per barrel in the aftermath of rogue Iranian elements attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz.

UTTERLY PATHETIC.

More folly from the self-styled progressives.  "‘Utterly Unsustainable’: Employer-Sponsored Healthcare Costs Set to Keep Surging."  Search the essay in vain for any acknowledgement that such "healthcare costs" have nothing to do with trade-tested betterments.  You get the usual talking points.  "While Democratic leadership continues to oppose a Medicare for All system overwhelmingly favored by their party’s voters, progressives point to studies showing that such a program will save lives and money."

YOUR SCOLDING IS NO LONGER EFFECTIVE.

I'd really rather the culture warriors types leave Sophie Cunningham be, to sink those trilighters and protect her teammates. But the po-faced common scolds, such as supposed sports pundit Jason Page, have to contextualize her celebrating a milestone birthday at a country bar in downtown Indianapolis and energetically delivering that boot, courtesy of the Red White and Blue.

And again… tell me exactly what you are about without telling me exactly what you are about.

Just own who you are and stop talking about “loving everybody”. https://t.co/bSAUDTD3Mk

— Jason Page (@TheBackPage) August 15, 2026

He ran out of ripostes faster than Iran ran out of missiles, and well down the thread somebody posted, "They're bodying you in the comments and you deserve it."  Maybe the ratio came in a boot.

Any day we discover the Anointed losing their power to scold is a good day.

LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

Stephen "Vodka Pundit" Green is not yet urging "Faster, please."  Historian Scott Powell suggests the time to finish the mullahs is now.

Iran is already a militarily defeated nation. To allow this evil, suicidal regime to rebuild and reconstitute itself would be a tragic missed opportunity to liberate the vast majority of Iranian people who want to live as free people under some form of democracy. And fundamentally, it would be a dereliction of duty to the greater Middle East. Defeating this regime also puts the nail in the coffin for Hamas, Hezb’allah and the Houthis, all of which dramatically improves the prospects for peace in the region.

A lot can change in a few days.  Last week came the usual sort of posturing.  "Tehran has vowed not to reopen the critical shipping lane “until America corrects its behavior,” despite a looming agreement with Oman reported to have been close for days."  As well as the usual scavenger hunt in the arsenal.

Iran's regime fired two ballistic missiles toward shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates has had enough. Abu Dhabi responded by severing every trade, commercial, and financial transaction with the terror state, effective immediately.

Roughly $28 billion in annual commerce is now gone. The UAE was Iran's single largest source of imports, a lifeline the mullahs just torched with their own missiles.

UAE Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Afra Al Hameli made it official Wednesday. No end date. No conditions. Just a hard stop tied to Iran's escalating aggression.

“All trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice.”

It helps if you have ordnance that works if you seek concessions.  Dud missiles scratchbuilt with whatever the mullahs scraped together might even have changed minds at CNN.  "Iran has lost significant control of the Strait of Hormuz."

JESSICA CORBETT HAS NO STANDARDS AT ALL.

Her Monday column, "‘Deeply Alarming’: Ex-Congresswoman Fuels Fears of Trump Using Nuclear Weapons on Iran," neglects to mention in the headline that the ex-representative is none other than Marjorie Taylor "Madge" Green, who has long been a figure of fun among establishmentarian conservatives.  Common Dreams types get a bit of that fun deep in the column.

“Trump promised no more foreign wars, but may actually be the one who delivers a nuclear holocaust that would likely drag the entire world into major conflict, economic depression, and mass human suffering we’ve never seen in our lifetimes and maybe throughout history,” added Greene, who promoted various conspiracy theories while in office. “People need to speak out and boldly stop this insanity. America is not untouchable. If and when that happens, everyone, and I do mean everyone, will hold ALL of those in leadership right now fully responsible for the rest of human history. Do not use nuclear weapons and stop this war NOW.

Self-styled progressives having no standards at all?  Business as usual.

[S]elf-styled progressives are almost as eager to embrace people who offer concurrence with them than they are to excommunicate people who violate a purity test.  Years ago, there was Ariana Huffington, whose pronouncements as some sort of conservative were on occasion cringe-worthy, and who instantly became a hero to many of the people who eagerly slagged on her as an "idiot" once she switched allegiance and put her money into what became the Huffington Post.

The Militant Normals?  Crazy is as crazy does.  "Marjorie Taylor Greene is back at it, spinning another unhinged conspiracy yarn about the Trump administration secretly plotting nuclear Armageddon against Iran in some shadowy strategy meetings."  The things some people do for relevance.

The best argument for not expanding the size of the House of Representatives according to a cube-root rule or any other formula?  The behavior of the current members.

More districts might make election of a legislative body that more closely approximates the multicultural makeup of the population, even with more sensibly drawn simplest closed regions for the districts. On the other hand, the likes of Ilhan Omar or Marjorie Taylor Greene might become more common in more politically homogeneous districts. That's a case for limiting the scope of government, something that might happen organically as those True Believers gridlock themselves.

Put the right bunch of attention hogs on the same committee, and you're watching C-Span and Jerry Springer comes on.  It figures, doesn't it, that if the House Oversight Committee includes Lauren Boebert, Sandy Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, and Marjorie Taylor-Greene, sooner or later you'd get all the decorum of the Mean Girls' Table at Johnson Middle School."

TELL THAT DEANLET TO SOD OFF.

The house organ for all wokeness, all the time, republishes an August 2024 lament, "The Summer Break That Isn’t."  The author, one Susannah M. Givens, is not dealing with the proliferation of journals to keep current with or the gift of an uninterrupted morning of reading and writing time.  In her community college environment, the distractions keep coming all the same.

Don’t get me wrong. My summers are not miserable. They are the opposite, usually involving time with family and friends, traveling, reading and gardening. But in the midst of all of that, resentment festers within as I realize all over again the unstated expectation that I also work through summer for no pay.

What I really want someone to ask when I return for fall is “Did your summer leave you feeling rested and ready for the new academic year?” Maybe then I would reply more honestly. I envision myself boldly responding, “No. In fact, I feel underappreciated. My work is not valued. Summer made me realize how my time has been disrespected for many years. My tank is half-full because I have been volunteering my time to keep up with emails, policy changes, advising, meetings and grant work all summer. At this point, I hope I make it to winter break.”

This isn’t just my individual experience. My reality is widespread. I don’t claim to speak for all faculty members, but I know that from colleagues at other institutions, from the many books I’ve read, from the private online groups where I have lurked and from the many podcast episodes I have heard.

Her discontent is not about the inconsistent deliveries of the Journal of Trivial Results whether in print or on the server.  It's the deanlets.

The emails don’t stop. Students need advising. Faculty are encouraged to attend meetings in person and virtually. Administrators need replies to various requests. And if I don’t keep up, I could miss something—a policy change or new initiative—that might have a negative impact on my students or me. I worry about not attending a meeting where an announcement could be quietly dropped while faculty are not paying full attention. What might I be missing? This question looms over the summer.

And the deanlets have to justify their existence.  "Faculty cannot set boundaries if administrators keep overstepping them, and it is time for administrators to take the lead in changing the culture."

The faculty have to set boundaries, whether by letting the electronic mail fester or by asking if that midsummer meeting is necessary.  "Summer shut-down has been a fact of life for what, 100 years? And in that time nobody has figured out how to deal with most of the routine business by May 15?"

It's likely too much to ask of Inside Higher Ed contributors that they call attention to all the intrusive diversity and special education stuff that make teaching more of a pain than it has to be.

Set those boundaries.  Tell those deanlets to sod off.

NEITHER BEER NOR BRATWURST.

Imagine, dear reader, a human interest story from ninety years ago documenting the human side of the Volksbund.  Maybe it could incorporate the rhetoric of empathy and inclusion.

World War I traumatized Germans on both sides of the Atlantic – though in different ways. In Wisconsin and across the United States, war with Germany led to a wave of anti-German hysteria. Self-proclaimed “superpatriots” attacked ethnic Germans (whom they assumed disloyal unless proven otherwise) and denigrated their culture. Sauerkraut became “liberty cabbage” and hamburgers “liberty sandwiches.” Some Germans were forced to kiss the American flag to prove their loyalty, and a few were even physically accosted. In neighboring Illinois, a German immigrant was wrapped in a flag, forced to sing the “Star Spangled Banner,” then hanged. In such a hostile atmosphere, many German-Americans abandoned their ethnic ties. Milwaukee’s Deutscher Klub renamed itself the Wisconsin Club, and hundreds of ethnic Germans Americanized their names. The German Athens had become a shadow of its former self, and those who remained a part of the German cultural scene were left battered, bruised, and defensive.

A human interest story describing a quiet evening dealing a few hands of Schafkopf and enjoying some real beer, or perhaps a livelier story involving group singing or dancing to oom-pah music might put a human face on people who are, after all, neighbors, possibly co-workers, sometimes voters.

No, strike that.  Let's deploy the full culture-studies methodology in the fall of 1938 to "contextualize" North Americans who aren't troubled by the looting of businesses and the sacking of temples; who might perceive their overseas cousins as beset by internal disorder and external punishment.

THAT SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT.

"Karoline Leavitt Prepared For Motherhood After Spending Last Two Years Answering Millions Of Stupid Questions."

It's Babylon Bee stuff, and yet, it's spot on.  "At publishing time, Leavitt experienced déjà vu after listening both of her kids screaming whilst throwing simultaneous tantrums."

TRAINWRECK!

Sometimes, those online train-watching cameras catch an unusual occurrence.

I'm taking the rest of the day off.