SPEAKING OF POLAR VORTICES.

That beautiful transition Our Progressive Betters keep crowing about isn't so beautiful.  Perhaps neither sleet nor snow nor gloom of night shall stay those couriers, but electronics thieves can.  "Watchdog reveals failure by agency to prevent charging station equipment theft."

Stolen electric vehicle charging station equipment and office thefts at the U.S. Postal Service are troubling signs for agency watchdogs as the Postal Service begins moving toward electrifying its delivery fleet.

Concern about the thefts and the ability of the Postal Service to protect its assets appears in a new audit report published by the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).

“We found that management controls over the storage of charging stations … were not effective,” according to the OIG. “Specifically, facility management did not employ necessary physical safety measures designed to protect and deter the theft of Postal Service assets.”

Lax safeguards at a facility in Topeka, Kansas, led to two thefts valued at approximately $59,700 for stolen information technology assets such as computer monitors, printers and docking stations, along with $7,700 worth of stolen charging station equipment.

The thefts occurred in 2023 during the initial phase of the agency’s fleet replacement strategy, which includes acquiring 106,000 vehicles with deliveries expected through 2028.

I understand Kansas can also be subject to severe winters, and improved safeguards will not change the laws of physics.  Now that the weather is suitable for hibernating bears, Chicagoans are finding out.

The winter freeze is impacting residents across Chicagoland, but some EV drivers are facing an additional handful of problems as they deal with long lines at charging stations and reduced battery life.

A station with 20 Tesla Superchargers, off West Touhy Avenue in Skokie, was full almost all day on Monday, with drivers waiting nearby for spots to open up.

Some drivers dealing with the long lines said they were concerned about becoming stranded if their batteries ran out while they waited.

If you're supplementing your income offering sustainable rides, you're not in a good place.

Darryl Johnson, an Uber driver, said he waited hours just to get to a charger, only to wait even longer while it charged. But the frustrations continued even after he left after he found his battery draining faster than normal.

“It’s horrible it takes two hours the wait an hour it takes two hours to charge, then the charge leaves really quickly, so now you’re back at the charger twice a day,” Johnson said.

According to the Associated Press, a 2019 study of five EVs by AAA found that cold temperatures can temporarily reduce EV range by more than 40% when drivers use interior heaters.

The AAA study found that in 20-degree weather, the average driving range fell by 12% when the car’s heater was not used and the range fell by 41% when it was used.

It gets no better if you have a recharger at home, as Our Intellectual Betters recommend that electric cars be recharged out-of-doors, in order that if something goes wrong, the fire stays outside.  Where the battery, once charged, starts cooling off.

The article didn't mention, dear reader, but I will, that hourly electricity rates are quite high, particularly by day, in the middle of this cold snap.

MANAGING YOUR MONEY.

During my working years, I helped the local common schools introduce economics into their curricula.  You might remember this, and these.  Some kids might be able to manage credit, despite the "vocational" aspersion some school leaders have cast at personal finance.  "Investors of the future are going to be better able to spot the traps in the more complicated financial instruments, including adjustable rate mortgages and credit card cash advances, if they understand checking and passbook accounts first."

AMERICA'S PAPER OF RECORD RECOGNIZES AMERICA'S TEAM.

Increased Precipitation Across Nation Revealed To Be Cowboys Fans' Tears.

The source of an unexpected overnight surge in precipitation across the United States has now been discovered, as a team of meteorologists revealed it to be caused by the tears of Dallas Cowboys fans.

The team, which held the No. 2 seed in the NFC playoff bracket, was soundly pummeled at home by the Green Bay Packers last night, causing millions of Cowboys fans throughout the country to weep uncontrollably, combining with the ongoing polar vortex to unleash yet another wave of heavy precipitation.

"‘America's Team' is responsible for America's winter storms," said meteorologist Pete Benson. "We've noticed a startling trend over the last few decades. Every January, immediately following the Cowboys' season unceremoniously ending, there is a sudden wave of precipitation across the country. The tears of Cowboys fans would be the most logical explanation. Scientifically speaking, that team really eats it."

That polar vortex originated halfway to the North Pole, at the corner of Oneida Street and Lombardi Avenue, where the outdoor clock is fifteen minutes fast and the real America's Team plays.

WIN AND KEEP PLAYING.

I did not see this coming.  "Jordan Love leads Packers upset, sends Cowboys into a long, miserable offseason."

The Packers are the first No. 7 seed to win an NFL playoff game. That means the Cowboys are the first team to lose to a No. 7 seed in the playoffs.

The Packers took that opening kickoff and drove 75 yards for a touchdown. After that, the Cowboys pressed the entire game and never made it competitive. That led to a blowout win that we'll be talking about for months, maybe years.

The Packers currently have the longest unbeaten streak at AT&T Stadium, and that includes regular-season and playoff games with the Cowboys and a Super Bowl.  I'll let the sports pundits chew over those Deeper Implications.  The Packers led 27-0 after a pick-six, 34-10 after the Cowboys did the two-for-one at the half, and 48-16 and the special teams and defense did their job down the stretch.  The reserves got meaningful playoff minutes in the fourth quarter, when the Cowboys had to use a lot of clock to score those touchdowns, and the special teams, by recovering the onside kicks, made sure the Cowboys had to go the length of the field while using up the clock even if the reserves couldn't tally any first downs on offense.  There was also this.

No Cowboys players in the pic 💀 pic.twitter.com/RS7FusqN7N

— NFL Stats (@NFL_Stats) January 15, 2024

The Packers will play in Santa Clara on Saturday evening.

PLAYING RAIL BARON IN THE GREAT PLAINS.

Fred W. Frailey, retired railroad journalist with experience at U. S. News, recently published Seldom Willing; A Novel of Railroading.  There's a lot of heavy reading in the reviewing backlog to be worked off, all the more reason to feature railway fiction as Book Review N^o. 1.

"Seldom Willing" refers to the South West Kansas Railway, one of the components of a fictitious Central Pacific Railroad with Chicago - Omaha - Denver and Chicago - St. Louis - Kansas City main lines; the South West Kansas and the Omaha & El Paso provided Omaha - Kansas City - Denver service.  Mr Frailey is coy about how Central Pacific came to be, the railway mania of the Gilded Age not turning in reality into all manner of superfluous lines west of the Missouri River the way it was east of there; and in this fictional world, Union Pacific and Burlington have their Omaha - Denver service, whilst the Santa Fe thwarted promoters of the South West Kansas at every turn, with Seldom Willing's promoters giving up any hopes of reaching Santa Fe and turning toward Denver instead.

Those tracks are still in operation in the 1970s as the promoter of the South West Kansas was more successful than the promoters of the New York and Ontario Midland were in getting potential online communities to subscribe to their stock sales; whilst the Omaha & El Paso made it as far as McPherson, Kansas before investors thought better of it.

So much for the transportation history lesson.  Seldom Willing might be the first novel since Fiddle Hill to use the railroad as the setting for the business and political machinations and human interactions that distinguish a novel from a picture book.  And any story that begins with a train wreck in the Marais des Cygnes River has the requisite drama.  Would you, dear reader, film a vodka commercial in the Swamp of Swans?

THE FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS REMAIN.

Years ago, I participated in a conversation among economists involving immigration policy and immigration amnesties.  Much of that conversation is still relevant, and the ongoing tussle over sanctuary cities is going to provide material for future theoretical and empirical research.  Very little, though, has changed in eighteen years.

United States policy is consistent with the behavior of a rich country facing a somewhat elastic supply of potential providers of cheap labor subsidies to its underground economy. The relatively ineffective border enforcement and the periodic debates about "guest workers" are consistent with a policy of probabilistic amnesty that's sufficiently tempting to keep the cheap labor coming without turning illegal immigration into a net sink of public benefits.

A tougher question that I haven't tackled yet is the role of emigration in fixing the economic conditions in the source countries. Perhaps remittances are a source of funds for such countries, but the onus is on their governments to provide the transparent institutions that might turn the remittances into a source of local income.

Yes, the current vice president is allegedly working with those Central American governments to tackle those root causes, current Republican aspirants to high elective office float proposals to tax those remittances, and the virtue signalling over the years about sanctuary cities, counties, and states has turned illegal immigration, in some jurisdictions into a net sink of public benefits, with some of the current recipients of those public benefits expressing their discontent.

A SAFE SPACE TO PLAY WITH UNSAFE IDEAS?

An Associated Press background story on the latest manifestations of liberating tolerance opens,

Generations of Americans have held firm to a version of free speech that makes room for even the vilest of views. It’s girded by a belief that the good ideas rise above the bad, that no one should be punished for voicing an idea — except in rare cases where the idea could lead directly to illegal action.

Today, that idea faces competition more forceful and vehement than it has seen for a century.

On college campuses, a newer version of free speech is emerging as young generations redraw the line where expression crosses into harm. There’s a wave of students who have no tolerance for speech that marginalizes. They draw lines around language that leads to damage, either psychological or physical. Their judgments weigh the Constitution but also incorporate histories of privilege and oppression.

“We believe in a diverse set of thoughts," says Kaleb Autman, a Black student at the University of Wisconsin whose group is demanding a zero-tolerance policy on hate speech. “But when your thought is predicated on the subjugation of me or my people, or to a generalized people, then we have problems."

That's "harm" in the current nonsensical meaning, understood as "unpleasant thoughts" rather than fisticuffs, or a panel blowing off an airplane.

THIS WEEK IN DEMENTIA JOE.

If we didn't recognize the doddering old man as the president of the United States, wouldn't we look askance at whoever was letting him out in public.  "Biden often appears confused and disoriented in front of the entire nation. He repeatedly gets lost on stage, trips upstairs, and mumbles his way through speeches."

Town Hall's Matt Vespa notes the entertainment value of a Trump campaign.  "This version of Donald Trump is what we want to see daily. Love him or hate him, he’s exposing that Joe Biden is not well and about 1,000 years too old to serve as president of the United States."

Trump just posted this on Truth Social.

😄 pic.twitter.com/psLldkfiGr

— AwakenedOutlaw⚒️ (@AwakenedOutlaw) January 12, 2024

The doddering ficus has become such a laughingstock that there's a regular feature, Joe Biden's Senior Moments.

The first votes will soon be tallied in Iowa, and we'll see whether the populist wing of the Republicans get their way, the communist wing of the Democrats get their way, and whether or not the Permanent Bipartisan Swamp will mount a presidential run as well.

BEYOND PARODY.

Excessively Earnest People being Excessively Earnest.

I really have no idea how The Babylon Bee can complete with this pic.twitter.com/5OSzp9IREs

— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) January 9, 2024

Lyrics by inter alia Bozo and Fat Albert.

Andrea Widburg provides program notes.  "The composition itself comes from Melissa Dunphy, an Australian-American classical music composer based in Philadelphia."  No surprise, where and when the performance was recorded, that everyone is wearing a Biden muzzle. "In the video ... the choir from the All Souls Church Unitarian, a 'progressive religious community' in DC, sings the 'Identity Politics' section from Dunphy’s larger work, entitled 'Amendment: Righting Our Wrongs.'"  I don't see this 21 minute cantata having the staying power of Bach's.

The comments are priceless.  Here's one.  "I’ve never heard absurdity communicated in such beautiful harmonies."  But as one wag notes, "We ... laugh, and move on ... these people spent hours and hours and hours on this."  Exactly.  They're miserable, and everybody else must also be miserable.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

It's our republic, if we can keep it.  "Overturning decades of precedent, the conservative supermajority has issued ruling after ruling that undermines the ability of executive branch agencies to regulate industry, to fight climate change, and to protect consumer health and safety."  What do I keep telling you about the illegitimate administrative state?  "Since 2020 too many government officials at both the state and federal levels decided they no longer had to obey the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the supreme laws of the land that supersede any other laws or mandates these power-hungry goons might try to impose."  Turf them out.  "America’s elite has failed and must be removed and replaced."

Nor will jailing opposition politicians and deplorable-shaming voters work.  "The challenge to 'our democracy' [Dementia Joe] posits will not go away for two reasons. First, the crisis facing the status quo does not arise from one man, Donald Trump, but from the failure of the establishment to deliver across a wide range of issues. Second, the discontent of which Trump is a figurehead now includes significant parts of the electorate and has political strongholds in a number of states."  Buckle in.  "If Trump is going to win again, the sheer force of his political will and the electorate's fear of what the Democrats will do if he loses will be what he needs. "

Higher education's reality checks continue.  Objective scholarship?  Nope.  "People (including me) look at papers and statements like this and conclude that a lot of what’s happening at universities isn’t really research — it’s social activism dressed up as research, which need not be of good quality so long as it has the right ideological goals."  Defining plagiarism down?  "Evidence of scholarly misconduct was just the parsley decorating an anti-wokeness blue-plate special."  The worst get on top?  "People without talent are rewarded and promoted. Those who would fare better in a meritocracy are left seething with resentment."  Where's Dean Wormer?  "Smug and arrogant is no way to go through life."

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

IT CAME TO THIS LONG AGO.

United States Steel recently agreed to be purchased by Nippon Steel, to the immediate dismay of populist senators J. D. Vance and John Fetterman, both with roots in traditional steel towns.

It is yet another illustration of how the populist right is merely recycling the flawed economic policy ideas of the far left.

For example, here's how progressive Sen. John Fetterman (D–Penn.) reacted to the news: "It's absolutely outrageous that [U.S. Steel] have sold themselves to a foreign nation," Fetterman said in a video recorded, somewhat bizarrely, on the roof of his house. "I am committed to doing anything I can do, from using my platform or my position, in order to block this."

If those statements were swapped, would you be able to tell the difference? Fetterman and Vance engage in the exact same set of fallacies, using almost exactly the same words to engage in some light xenophobia and some promises of heavy-handed government action.

Unsurprisingly, prominent figures of the so-called "New Right" jumped to praise Fetterman. "I'm starting to like this guy a lot," Compact magazine founder Sohrab Ahmari posted on X (formerly Twitter), referencing Fetterman's video statement.

This is all quite silly. America's interests are not served by having two supposedly rival political movements committed to seeing foreign investment as a threat to the country's sovereignty or American workers.

It's not as if we didn't see something like this coming, long ago.  In February 2022, policy wonks Rosemary Bezy and Patricia DeMarco expressed dismay when U. S. Steel built new capacity in ... Arkansas.

It has been more than two months since U.S. Steel announced that it was investing $3 billion in Osceola, Ark., to build an advanced steelmaking facility, and not one regional leader has said a word about this situation.

Our political leaders seem to want to avoid questions about how we ended up here: the abandonment of Mon Valley communities and their highly skilled, unionized manufacturing workforce. U.S. Steel will shift its investments to a right-to-work state where it will employ 600 nonunion workers to replace the same steelmaking capacity of the Mon Valley, where 3,500 workers face an uncertain future — all while U.S. Steel also starts selling off its pension obligations.

The silence insults the generations of workers who sacrificed their health and their lives to build the infrastructure of our country and the historic prosperity of our region.

We can't bring back those workers or their health, but we can note that U. S. Steel is still slow to adapt.  It's probably still heretical in the union halls of the Mon Valley or to the northwest along the Mahoning to say Nucor-Yamato.  Never mind that Nucor and Yamato established a joint venture to recycle scrap into heavy structurals a quarter century ago in Blytheville, Arkansas.

LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE.

The new semester is under way, which means the diversity deanlets have to justify their continued employment.

John Hopkins just sent out this hit list of people automatically guilty of "privilege" whether they know it or not:

-Males
-Whites
-Christians
-Mid-aged people
-Able-bodied people
-Middle & owning class
-English-speaking people

This message was emailed directly to employees… pic.twitter.com/xor1wjo17B

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 10, 2024

A pile-on of epic proportions followed.

Proving again that inane leftist ideology still doesn't go over well in the real world, Johns Hopkins Medicine is scrambling to explain the thinking behind the decision for its "Chief Diversity Officer" Sherita Hill Golden to include a "privilege list" in January's issue of the "Diversity Digest" from the "Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity."

She couldn't take the mockery, and she withdrew her memorandum for revisions.

UPDATE: The Johns Hopkins DEI Office has retracted their "privilege list" after our post went viral and drew massive outrage https://t.co/DWirlJBpKg pic.twitter.com/j26FUKSp2w

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 11, 2024

It's time for a logic lesson.  That Town Hall tipsheet offers extracts from that memorandum.

Explaining that privilege "is characteristically invisible to people who have it," the "Diversity Digest" says that those in the "dominant groups" listed "often believe they have earned the privileges they enjoy or that everyone could have access to these privileges if only they worked to earn them."

"In fact, privileges are unearned and are granted to people in the dominant groups whether they want those privileges or not, regardless of their stated intent," the message claims.

So, being middle-aged and simply alive makes a person an oppressor now in the eyes of Johns Hopkins.

Privilege is civilization, which means that there are things we can do, such as refute silly arguments, amass evidence, and be respectful, without having to think about them. But we earn those privileges every day, by, for example, calling on diversity deanlets to respect bourgeois norms rather than actively undermining them.  Maybe she'll learn.

How exactly did smearing people who speak English or are middle-aged, white, male, Christian, cisgender, heterosexual, or able-bodied create an "inclusive community" in her mind?

Rather than taking full responsibility, however, Golden's scrambling to do damage control saw her blame the "overly simplistic and poorly worded" definition she included in her message to the community. She noted that her alleged effort to create an inclusive environment "had the opposite effect of being exclusionary and hurtful to members of our community." You think?

Civilizing diversity deanlets is part of the ongoing work of maintaining bourgeois norms.

The work of earning civilization never ends.  College Insurrection contributor Mike LaChance,  who has a longer collection of mocking reactions to the post, notes, "This ideology is toxic. It doesn’t improve anything for anyone and should have no place in education, medicine, or any other industry."

IST'S NICHT EIN HAUFEN MIST?

Sorry, dear reader, first we raise a serious question.  Is there a general strike going on in Germany?

A three-day nationwide strike called by train drivers from Wednesday to Friday evening has added to travel disruption in Europe’s biggest economy, which was already reeling from ongoing farmer protests.

“It really looks increasingly like a general strike. We haven’t had a general strike in Germany since 1906,” Carsten Nickel, deputy director of research at at advisory firm Teneo, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.

“The economy minister narrowly escaped, let’s say, physical altercations with a really angry mob of protesters last weekend. Those are scenes that we haven’t seen in Germany before,” Nickel said.

The term "general strike" is generally catnip to the usual socialist suspects, but there's no mention in any of the sites I go to for that sort of commentary.

The railwaymen appear to be participating in the usual sort of class struggle.  The farmers, however, would like their subsidies to continue, which might fall under the rubric of rent seeking.

It is the third and largest strike by the drivers since their union took up negotiations with DB and other carriers in November last year. Germany’s GDL union is demanding a reduction in working hours from 38 to 35 hours per week for shift workers, in addition to a pay increase of $606.62 (555 Euros) per month and a one-off inflation compensation bonus of 3,000 euros.

Rail operator DB has offered flexibility on working hours, however refused to reduce working hours without a pay cut.

The nationwide rail strikes come as German farmers vowed to ramp up their nationwide protests against the government’s planned cuts to fuel subsidies.

Since the start of the week, farmers have been blocking numerous roads and highway entrances across the country with their tractors and have also held rallies in towns and cities, causing considerable disruption to traffic.

The protests saw several hundred agricultural vehicles descend upon the German government district at Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate on Monday.

Predictably, whenever people call attention to the failure of the Professional Managerial Class, whether in the United States or Germany, somebody will raise the spectre of rightist reaction. It's the failure of the Establishment all the same. "As the tractors pull up in central Berlin, it is an inauspicious start to the year for Chancellor Scholz's government and comes alongside predictions of lacklustre economic growth for a country often described as the EU's 'powerhouse'."

SOME OF THEM, I SUPPOSE, ARE GOOD PEOPLE.

The discontent the big city mayors have caused among their traditional constituents with their posturing about being sanctuary cities, which flared nearly a year ago in the Woodlawn and South Shore neighborhoods of Chicago, has only become more pronounced, Festive Season and a reprise of the polar vortex notwithstanding.

The current fireworks started in a meeting of ... an Illinois chapter of a civil rights organization.

NAACP Illinois State Conference President Teresa Haley was recorded in a virtual meeting calling migrants “savages” and claiming they are raping people in the Chicago-community.

In an interview with The Daily Beast Wednesday, former NAACP DuPage County President Patrick Watson said top NAACP leaders throughout Illinois met for a meeting on Oct. 26. Haley, who also leads the Springfield chapter, presided over the meeting.

“The comments came up when some of the Chicago-based presidents started to talk about the migrant crisis, the funding that was going into neighborhoods, and they had differing opinions from my own. It's OK to have differing opinions,” Watson said. “They had different opinions about some of the resources that were going to the community, that resources weren't going towards individuals within the community, even though those resources are coming from different sources. …That's okay to have a different opinion. But President Haley engaged in what I would call absolute hate speech.”

Ms Haley did not have a gilded escalator as prop for her speech.

“What’s happening in Chicago is a shame,” Haley says, “and it’s a crime,”

She and others explain how the Black community of Chicago is lacking resources; meanwhile, they claim migrants receive more attention and care from state and federal authorities.

“The busloads are coming, and we’re seeing families on the street,” Haley says.

She pointed out that homeless Black people have not received the same help as migrants because of stereotypes of Black people on the streets as “drug addicts” and people battling mental health issues.

Oddly enough, then Haley dishes her own set of negative generalizations about migrants.

“But these immigrants we got coming over here, they been raping people, they been breaking into homes. They’re like savages as well,” Haley says. “They don’t speak the language, and they look at [Black people] like we’re crazy because we were the only people in America who were brought over here against our wills and were slaves, sold into slavery.

There's nothing like a little Oppression Olympics to go with your pumpkin pie, is there?

It's interesting, though, how quickly the political dynamics changed when the border-state governors started providing transportation to those northern destinations, isn't it?  When the secret flights were being organized by the Jarrett regency, and Raggedy Ann was deflecting and spinning, those big-city mayors kept their own counsel.

DO THEY OPEN THE CONCERT WITH A WAR-DANCE?

There's a new ritual, presumably after the conductor takes the stage, but before the lights go down.

Before every play, concert or official university meeting at NIU starts, students and staff hear a statement read aloud.

In less than 30 seconds but in distinct succession, a speaker acknowledges that “we,” the university or the individuals occupying it, are on the traditional lands of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Piankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sac, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Ojibwe and Chickasaw Nations.

While the statement hopes to pay homage to the original occupants of the university’s land, many who listen to the statement aren’t aware of its history nor of any of the actual tribes mentioned.

Authors of the statement Natalie Joy, associate professor in the history department, and Melissa Adams-Campbell, director of the undergraduate program and assistant professor in the English department, hoped the statement would be a conversation point into their larger goal of spreading awareness for NIU’s indigenous population.

“We really hoped that this would be a starting point, you know, something that wouldn’t, you know, wouldn’t just be read, and I’m glad to hear it is being used, but that it’s also a beginning of a longer process of decolonizing the university to really grapple with what that means,” Joy said.

Presumably, nobody is going to get into whether the Kaskaskias colonized the Ojibwe or the Northern Aztecs colonized the Ho-Chunk, or lead a chant of "from the river to the sea."  It's performative, and the decolonization is symbolic only.

Perhaps another recent campus fad provides a clue: the “land acknowledgment.”

It is commonplace to hear student leaders and senior college administrators begin public events declaring the campus is located on (or “occupies”) land that belonged historically to indigenous people.

These declarations are often ambiguous, though some insinuate the land was “stolen” or acquired unjustly.

Some schools, such as the University of Washington, even sought to require all faculty to include a land acknowledgment in every course syllabus.

But if the land on which the university rests was acquired unjustly, then why not give it back — or least pay back rent to the descendants of the indigenous tribes?

Look, I promise to behave myself.  I will not bring a small Wisconsin flag to break out during the reading to note the redrawing of state boundaries.

Cold Spring Shops headquarters is on land that was in Wisconsin Territory before Illinois became a state. We recognize the labor applied by those settlers marking the trails that contemporary Illinoisans use to visit Lake Geneva, the Dells, and Door County, and to watch their teams get owned in Green Bay.

DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A SNOW MAN?

The first serious and long-lasting snow has fallen in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, and, at least, on the good side of the Cheddar Curtain, the youngsters can celebrate their snow day with another sporting tradition.  Open the embedded post for the video.

Wisconsin fans use snow to cheer on playoff-bound Packers https://t.co/XLlKJQCsf6

— Stephen Karlson (@StephenKarlson) January 10, 2024

Here, the first round of snow has been cleared away, and the tools are in good shape to deal with the next wave coming in Thursday.  There's talk of a polar vortex come the weekend.

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SWAMP.

Yesterday I wondered if the secretary of defense going AWOL was simply the latest attempt by the Jarrett regency to rub our faces in their power.

Their senile sock puppet can't mumble his way through even a simple speech without revealing how far gone he is, and he can't follow simple stage directions once he's done scolding us.  All the vice president ever does is giggle on the late night shows.  Buckwheat gets a thick binder of deflections and obfuscations, and all she has to do is roll her eyes and look exasperated.

It transpires that Mr Austin was hors de combat thanks to prostate cancer treatment and complications therefrom.  Let me take this opportunity to wish him a full recovery and a long and healthy retirement.  Slate's Fred Kaplan recommends that course of action.  "Austin has a distinguished military record, but he has broken national-security protocol, violated the public trust, and fallen far short of any president’s expectations of a Cabinet secretary’s behavior. He should go."

INTERSECTIONAL ISOTOPES.

The problem with contemporary hierarchies of oppression is they enable people to create ever more granular partitions of identity, with ever increasing probabilities of identifying a divergence between that sub-population's share of good jobs and that sub-population's share of the population, which, under the innumerate reckonings of the diversity weenies constitutes prima facie evidence of discriminatory underrepresentation.

FREE SPEECH FOR YOUR CO-STARS, BUT NOT FOR YOUR CONSERVATIVE STUDENTS.

Just before LaCrosse State chancellor Joe Gow was removed from his post for conduct unbecoming, the university he headed got into trouble for attempting to thought-police the Young America's Foundation.

Young America’s Foundation sent a demand letter to the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse Thursday afternoon asserting that the university has violated the First Amendment rights of the Young Americans for Freedom chapter on campus.

YAF is represented by Mountain States Legal Foundation and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.

The letter, addressed to the program coordinator for student organizations, highlights the unconstitutional conduct of the university in requiring YAF to adopt a so-called “inclusivity statement,” which includes clauses stating that YAF affirms the Left’s transgender agenda and stands with those who illegally migrate to the United States, among other compelled assertions.

That "inclusivity statement" is a secular version of the Apostle's Creed, which might say "apostolic and catholic," meaning "intellectual tradition and inclusive of all believers," but, in the same way that a heretic might be asked to recant or be excommunicated by the Pope, a heretic might be asked to recant or be excluded from participation.

The “inclusivity statement” in question includes a value-laden recitation of political and social policy positions dictated by the university that run contrary to conservative beliefs and biological reality.

The letter also points out that the Supreme Court has held that a public university may have requirements for recognition, such as a rule that prospective groups affirm their intention to comply with reasonable campus regulations. However, the university’s “inclusivity statement” goes beyond this reasonable requirement and instead seeks to force YAF to affirmatively express a set of beliefs and positions.

The letter concludes by requesting that UW-La Crosse immediately remove the “inclusivity statement” condition on YAF’s recognition. Failure to do so will result in a lawsuit filed in federal court.

As the situation unfolds, it remains to be seen how UW-La Crosse will respond to these demands. The outcome of this case may very well have significant implications for the rights of student organizations on college campuses across the country.

The good news: the lawfare worked.  "'[The] referenced statement is not a condition for YAF’s recognition as a student organization, effective immediately,' the University of Wisconsin’s general counsel, Quinn Williams, wrote in a Friday morning email to the chapter’s legal representation."  The inclusivity statement is the work of the student government, which, in common with student governments everywhere, is a safe space for the leftist hive mind, and wherever the hive mind gathers, the censorious impulse manifests itself, and should the student government have some money to allocate, conforming to the purity test might be a precondition for getting the financial support.

The simplest way to defeat the purity tests is to call them out for the limitations on inquiry they are, rather than to make the case that "conservative" is a "marginalized identity" on campus, even the campus of a converted teacher's college that caters to the social set at Wisconsin high schools.

STAY UNGOVERNABLE.

American Thinker contributor Mary Sholl offers an explanation for the continuing appeal of one Donald Trump, shambolic style and ongoing grievance tour notwithstanding.

Donald Trump taps into that ungovernable-ness in us, and for those who do not fear it, we love him for it.  And hopefully, those who seek to destroy our country will learn this lesson all over again.

For those who do not understand the phenomenon of Donald Trump, what follows is a small essay explaining the chord he has struck in the American body politic, even among those who are not so sure about him.  He is ungovernable, and he reminds us that we are, too.

It's polemical. Depending on your temperament, dear reader, it might be polemical or it might be cathartic. It's worth understanding.

Trump and his support have made elements of our government uncomfortable. The full-throated support of the First and Second Amendments certainly hasn’t done anything to allay that discomfort. But the truth is that Americans are not uncomfortable with the First Amendment. We celebrate it. We are not uncomfortable with the 2nd Amendment, even those of us who do not own guns; we recognize its necessity. And we are quite comfortable that the First and Second give power to the our constitutional republican system. They are how we can be ungovernable.

Unfortunately, some in America are very uncomfortable with our ungovernable nature and our insistence on saying and doing what we want. Those folks want Americans to be compliant, governable, modeled after European submission and passivity.

Yes, and the corona tyranny, which is still not behind us, has encouraged those among us who would like all of us to be regimented and regulated.  But while the schisms continue among factions of the Professional-Managerial Classes and between the corporatist and communist wings of the Democrats' coalition, the ungovernable have their champion.

Trump came along and reminded many Americans that we are the living human embodiments of our constitutional system, which allows us to be ungovernable but live within the bounds of the law. Our entire system is one of limitation of the power of government so that our citizens are governed only in keeping with our desire to be un-governed. The entire Trump campaign is an exhortation to remember ourselves, our freedom, and our independence, and what we have sacrificed to secure our liberty and to be buoyed by America’s past achievements and to look to its promising future.

When Trump says Make America Great Again, he reminds us of who we were, who we are, and what we can yet become. He reminds us that we are different, and that because of that difference, we will not succumb to decay and despair. He reminds us of America’s reality and promise at the same time. We have it in us to roll up our sleeves and create ourselves and this nation, every day, all over again. He reminds us that we can do — we can fix it. We have done great things, and we can do great things again.

Let us continue to remain the ungovernable, somewhat scary creatures we are.

Where, though, is the populist conservative voice to take up the cause of the ungovernable optimists in a way to add to that coalition?  Right now the election strategies of both the Trumpians and whoever is writing Dementia Joe's speeches look like discouraging people from voting.

IST'S NICHT SIEBEN SCHWIMMENSCHWANEN?

During the Festive Season, assorted social media posts call attention to the Deeper Religious Symbolism buried in The Twelve Days of Christmas.  Here's one example. "As a form of secret protest, Catholics created the seemingly nonsensical lyrics that hide teachings found in the Bible. In this way older, practicing Catholics were able to pass along their religious traditions and teaching to their children without risking punishment."  There are other versions, each of which makes use of things quantified in the Bible: two testaments, God in three persons, four Gospels, the Pentateuch, then things get convoluted.

THOSE WERE THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

Seven years ago, Northern Illinois president Doug Baker first lost the confidence of the faculty, followed by the student newspaper, ultimately the city newspaper concurred, then the state's inspector general started looking inside those little tin boxes, and then he resigned.  In proper Nixonian fashion, he did so to spare the university any "distraction" and blamed his predecessors for creating a culture of corruption.

More recently, the big higher education story has been the resignation of Harvard's box-checking Claudine Gay, who also took the Nixonian way out, although in so doing she's brought a lot of attention to careless scholarly writing and perhaps to faction fighting among Harvard's Curia, er, governing boards.

Perhaps the most amusing resignation of a high university official as the fall semester wound down, though, involves LaCrosse State, oh, sorry, Wisconsin at LaCrosse chancellor Joe Gow, who supplemented his income the same way a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates raised campaign cash.

LET THE FUN BEGIN.

Government is not the solution to our problems, government often brings the problems.  There might be another continuing resolution to fund the government for a few more months, but that depends on the willingness of bond traders to buy treasuries, and an agreement is as far away now as it was last summer.  "There is a communist wing and a corporatist wing of the Democratic Party, and a corporatist wing and a populist wing of the Republican Party, and herding cats is nothing compared to getting some sort of agreement on raising the debt ceiling and outlining the next Federal budget."

MODEL RAILWAY PRESERVATION.

With the Walker's Point neighborhood of Milwaukee changing from a manufacturing district to a bedroom neighborhood for urban hipsters, the Model Railroad Club of Milwaukee, which has been home to model railroading pioneers and to vintage trains for years, has become a subject for human interest and local culture features.

The neighborhood has even gained a new identification, the "Harborview district," presumably to keep it distinct from Bay View further to the south.

The video is instructive as a history of control systems for model railroads, as the camera team recorded club members at the control stands, which are on what remains of the stairs that once led to track level, and that tape includes views of the controllers, old-school rheostats with geared handles, and the block selector switches.  Each freight or passenger car on the layout includes a resistor between otherwise insulated wheels, the better to shunt the track detection circuit that lets operators know where on the layout the train they're controlling is.  Trains are completely out of view of the operators when they're in the former baggage room now holding the main yard and engine terminal.

I wonder if a future generation of model railroaders will simply install onboard power on locomotives.  Heck, I wonder if replacement parts for those rotary switches, rheostats, and detection circuits still exist.

THEIR INCOMPETENCE IS THEIR DIVERSITY.

I can't help but wonder whether the Jarrett regency is rubbing our faces in it.  Their senile sock puppet can't mumble his way through even a simple speech without revealing how far gone he is, and he can't follow simple stage directions once he's done scolding us.  All the vice president ever does is giggle on the late night shows.  Buckwheat gets a thick binder of deflections and obfuscations, and all she has to do is roll her eyes and look exasperated.

Now, the Secretary of Defense goes AWOL and nobody noticed for nearly a week.

The Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, had not been capable of fulfilling his duties for five days and the Pentagon said nothing about that. WTH? There was no mention of when Austin is expected to be discharged from the hospital. And the Pentagon did not offer an explanation about the secrecy of his hospitalization.

Lloyd Austin is a big deal in the Biden administration. Biden nominated him as the first black defense secretary in 2021. We know how important it is that boxes are ticked when someone is nominated to serve in this administration. Why are they hiding his medical challenge now? We don’t need to know all the details of his personal medical records but shouldn’t someone clarify what the elective surgery was and what the complications are that he is experiencing now?

The world is on fire and Biden has involved us in the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war. Iran is poking Biden in the eye. Our troops are being attacked daily on military facilities in the Middle East. There are attacks on ships in the region. There is a lot going on that the secretary has to monitor. Is the Biden administration so tone-deaf that it didn’t consider how a delay in disclosing Austin’s condition would land with the public? Apparently so.

I'm not sure what's more troubling, that the current administration is implicitly admitting that its senior positions are filled by tokens whose presence is symbolic diversity, or that if somebody else is actually making the decisions, that the policies the underlings are implementing are as bad as they are.

WIN AND KEEP PLAYING.

When the professional football season kicked off I was willing to let the young players on the Green Bay Packers develop, and treat the season as a learning experience.

It's almost time for professional football, and we'll see if the Packers' quarterback drama is over for now.  "Best case scenario, the new quarterback continues to develop, the young receivers gain experience, and the transition to another quality quarterback occurs."  Milwaukee radio producer Brandon Sneide, doing his sports thing before probably being drafted in to cover the candidates' debate, suggests that the transition is promising.

There is no doubt – Jordan Love has won over the Packers fan base. #10 jerseys filled Lambeau under the bright lights over the past weekend, and his performance in his first home game as the starter shined even brighter.

Love & Co. began the game shaky – a botched snap led to a Patriots early score, but unlike years past, when the hits came, this time, the Packers responded.

It’s an early sign of the times ahead. Love isn’t backing down, nor has he ever. He is poised under scrutiny. He is in command of the huddle and a leader both on and off the field.

Without question, he looks to be built for this moment – a moment he has been waiting three years in the making for.

I'm reserving judgement until I see a few snaps played for real stakes.  "Is the current high draft pick in Green Bay another Aaron Rodgers, or Don Horn?"

Recall also how last season ended.  "The Green Bay Packers had a chance of making the playoffs, but two loss-of-composure penalties on defensive players in scoring situations helped the Lions put up points, and two ill-timed turnovers, the final an interception airmailed by Aaron Rodgers at the end of the game, put an end to those hopes."  That was the way the season went, much of the year, with the defense failing to stop anybody.

The sickness is now in Chicago. "Packers beat Bears 17-9 to clinch a playoff berth."

A MISSED OPPORTUNITY TO REMOVE THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ASTERISK.

A new Atlantic essay, "The Real Harvard Scandal," by Bates College environmentalist T. A. Harper, opens with what could be a Friday short take, but for the opening of the latest Friday short takes looking more like a Chicago Great Western freight train.  "Academics debase their profession when they redefine plagiarism to suit their politics."

FRIDAY short TAKES.

I take two weeks away from compiling pithy elaborations, and the introduction turns into a mini-dissertation.  There will be a few short takes after today's sermonette.

How's that battle for the soul of the United States going?  "The US is now starting to look more like a backward banana republic than a modern constitutional democracy."  Donald Trump might have sounded off about jailing his opponents.  Joe Biden's lackeys are doing so.  Militant Normals are noticing.  "Democracy, as Biden uses the term, really just means 'rule by Democrats.' Trump is a threat to that, whether you like him or not, and that is the real reason he can’t be allowed to be on ballots. If people can pick the candidate they prefer, they might choose the wrong guy."  Grumpy economists are noticing.  "It is noteworthy that the party bleating most loudly about "threats to democracy" is so distrustful of democracy that it is waging legal battles to keep Mr. Trump from being democratically elected. If it's so self-evident that Trump violated the Constitution and his oath of office, the correct remedy is to simply let voters not vote for him on that basis. The party supposedly of the little person does not trust that little person to make the most basic decisions."  That's not what democracy looks like.  "Saving democracy doesn’t mean upholding the rules no matter what and letting the voters decide the election and the next president."

Law professors are noticing.  "Democrats out to save democracy long for a solution to Donald Trump that is anything other than defeating him democratically. The judiciary is supposed to swoop in and rescue Democrats from the task of winning the votes of the people. But the Supreme Court isn't stacked with judges who lean in the political direction that disfavors the candidate they loathe. So their hope for a nondemocratic alternative to the next election is pre-crushed."  Self-styled progressives have discovered that legislating from the bench isn't a good idea.  "The only effective way to halt Donald Trump and the neo-fascist movement he leads is to vote him down next November and build a lasting counter-movement of the left. That is a tall order for supporters of democracy — and time is running out."  What do I keep telling you about deconstructing norms?  "The protective shield that all democracies and social orders rely on – legitimacy of the governing body, some level of elite responsibility, the willingness of citizens to view their neighbors in a civic way – is in an advanced stage of decline or collapse."  We're well into the punishment stage of the grim strategy outcome, aren't we?  "The U.S. stands as the most successful and stable democratic system in history. In the blind quest to block Trump 'at any cost,' these officials have introduced a destabilizing element to our system that could be replicated in tit-for-tat politics for years to come."

It's not that those Responsible Adults have shown any responsibility, have they?  "Joe Biden intentionally created the border crisis; he intentionally caused the Afghanistan debacle; he intentionally caused the gas crisis — and he intentionally implemented the disastrous policies [he spins as] Bidenomics."

The failures by the Professional Managerial Classes extend beyond Official Washington.  When the leading universities embraced the denial of coherent beliefs, could anything good follow?  "Research universities, and the wider modern project of improving human life through research and scholarship, depend on academic honesty. Consider how modern universities differed from their medieval predecessors. Medieval university teaching was built around collections of authorities in philosophy, medicine, law and theology."  Intersectionality: the return of the medieval.  "Harvard followed the mob and when the mob turned and the season changed it had left itself no defense."  Nor did it hurt that recondite theorrhea facilitated the Minimal Publishable Unit at the expense of, oh, scholarship that other scholars, postulants, and curious lay readers could engage.  " A garbled rant in an obscure journal counted equally with a brief note of profound intellectual consequences."  Let us call b.s. on the b.s.  "Tossing around some Freudian—and rather more Marxist—terminology does not make a series of assertions analysis."  Let the regeneracy begin with Harvard.  "No decent institution, really, can declare a standard and then let its leader flout it without consequence."  Some bells you can't unring.  "Getting rid of Gay does next to nothing to address the real problem here: the hostile takeover of higher education by DEI, it’s attendant postmodern horseshit, and it’s assault on merit."

Let the reckonings with failed government and incompetent higher education intensify.  "For weeks, the American people have been relatively silent as they digested these ongoing catastrophes. But at some point, their patience will run out."  I'll keep documenting it as long as I am able.

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes returns for 2024.  Buckle in.

WINTER BREAK THROUGHOUT THE YEARS.

The "Looking Back" from the December 20 MidWeek included several vignettes.  In 1923, the gossip columnists were attempting to marry off the Prince of Wales, the once and future King Edward VIII.  "London hints the Prince of Wales’ taste in girls is not so good. Girls should use flavored lipstick."  Scandal, abdication, and a niece on the throne for seventy years were yet to come.

LIFT THE INTERNAL LIMITATIONS THAT TRAMMEL INQUIRY.

Those smug, smirking Ivy League presidents surely poked a bear, didn't they?  Well into the semester break, the pile-on continued.  In Minding the Campus, Richard Vedder got straight to the cause of the anger.  "The Cost of Ignoring First Principles."

I think the fundamental problem is that these presidents—all women, of course, given the intense anti-male hostility prevalent in the academy—largely ignored two First Principles, embodied in The Ten Commandments and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

More precisely, the presidents seemed to equivocate and waffle on the importance of moral imperatives such as the biblical “thou shalt not kill” when they failed to unconditionally condemn the genocide generated by Hamas when it started its current war with Israel. They did so because they did not want to inflame a large pro-Palestinian campus constituency. Kowtowing to campus wokeness trumped adherence to the Ten Commandments. American higher education began largely as an exercise in promoting Christian morality, and on the eve of the American Revolution, roughly one out of four students at America’s nine colonial colleges were studying to be ministers, and promoting virtue was considered a major if not the dominant reason for colleges.

Oh, the promotion of virtue is still there, only it is now the virtue of transgressivity and the creed of intersectionality.  Perhaps that works to train future government bureaucrats, but even government bureaucrats are subject to reality checks.

NOTHING IS OK.

Reason's Liz Wolfe airs her grievances.  Inflation, workers, the cities, the presidential administration, the opposition, the campaign, the supposedly educated kids, the university, the state of public discourse.

She concludes, though, suggesting a regeneracy might be under way.

In a lot of realms, people are getting back to business at long last.

THAT INCLUDES ME. I came back from maternity leave in January and wrote a piece on how having my son has changed me and why more women ought to get pregnant young (stereotypical girl move, I know). I launched a show called Just Asking Questions with Zach Weissmueller (PLEASE watch us and suggest any guests you'd like to see come on). I made a video essay for Reason that tore RFK Jr. apart—and got a lot of hate—then went on comedian Dave Smith's show to discuss it…which promptly got taken down by the fine censors at YouTube (rude of them). I escaped Brooklyn and moved to Queens. And I inherited this newsletter, with this community of wonderful readers.

If you've waded through all the dismal news up until this point, I hereby commend you. Thank you for reading Reason Roundup, from the bottom of my heart. Statists may continue to try to screw things up for us all, but I have hope for 2024 and all the wonderful things happening far outside central planners' grasps.

For her growing family's sake, and for the sake of free minds and free markets, I hope so, and yet I advise all readers to remain buckled in.

NONE DARE CALL IT INSURRECTION.

We previously granted, for the sake of argument, the possibility that what Donald Trump's supporters did to disrupt the electoral vote count was an "insurrection" in the sense of Section 3 of the XIV Amendment.  I have my doubts, but then I'm old enough to remember the shelling of the Russian parliament building in Moscow by military units loyal to Boris Yeltsin.

REDISCOVERING THE GOOD OF THE INTELLECT.

Vermont English professor Huck Gutman, court intellectual to Bernie Sanders, offers what appears to be populist froth.  "The assault on the humanities is part of the larger effort to make America more and more hospitable to corporations and their allies."

A sea-change is taking place in colleges and universities today, one that will reshape the roles that they and their students can play in the larger society. What if the colleges of today are factories for producing adults who will not criticize autocracy and even fascism if it should arise?

There is much concern among ‘intellectuals’ that the decline in the support of the humanities in institutions of higher learning is evidence that we are becoming a more technocratic society. That concern is well-founded but it does not go far enough.

In very simple terms, the assault on the humanities is part of the larger effort to make America more and more hospitable to corporations and their allies.

In a world without Socrates and Shakespeare, without Rembrandt and Bach, without history and analyses of social institutions, there is little to guide citizens-of-the-future toward considering the ethical implications of societal imperatives. It is the arts and the humanities that create, in us, the possibilities that the initiatives of corporate America, and an authoritarian state, might be profoundly destructive of our humane-ness.

Clearly, he and I are in accord that a university is neither a jumped-up trade school, with transversality conditions in place of tool and die, let alone that conditioning station for docile adults, but let me direct your attention to, dare I say, the presence of the absence in what follows.

We have before us, always, the horrible examples of concentration camp commandants who loved listening to Mozart. These examples seem to indicate that studying the arts—indeed, loving the arts—does not automatically make us better human beings. And this is, alas, true.

But the converse is not true. Forgoing the arts and humanities does not automatically create good human beings. For humans always depend on a repository of narratives and deep-seated values to balance off against the needs of the state or massive corporations. Whether Shakespeare or folk tales, whether Bach or the songs sung by grandmothers, people have a repository of encoded values that argue against those centralized controls that ignore humane values. Understanding history and human diversity means concluding that no single solution is likely to be final.

Not a reference to Derrida or Foucault to be seen.  No “Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless,” let alone the more recondite theory-speak that passes for professional writing in literary journals.  The best that has been written and thought; nay, a sense of respect for what has been learned; defended in readable prose.

THE PARTICIPATION TROPHIES HAVE NOW BEEN AWARDED.

Apart from the national championship game, featuring original Ten Michigan and soon to be in the Expanded Big Ten Washington, the college bowl schedule has been fulfilled.  In some ways that's unfortunate, that Mobile, Alabama event that kicked off their Mardi Gras on or near January 6 looked like a fun undercard bout for the title game.

Recall, dear reader, that not enough Division I teams racked up the six wins to qualify for the expanded field, and only Minnesota made grades.  Thus some teams with candidate membership in Division I also got bowl bids.  Let's take stock, first of the candidates.

Jacksonville State will be among the Opening Saturday, December 16, games, facing Louisiana in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl. Some participation trophy, your opponent effectively has a home match. James Madison will face the Air Force on December 23 in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl. Again, some participation trophy, a university named after a guy who had his Executive Mansion burned faces a service academy in a bowl sponsored by an aircraft builder.

Jacksonville State got the win, while Air Force brought the incendiaries a week later.  Neither Army nor Navy got a bowl bid this year.  The weekend the pairings were released, Army sang second.  Dementia Joe was not there to hear it.

Sometimes, snark for the sake of spite backfires.

Minnesota get to continue their tradition of losing to Mid-American teams, facing Bowling Green on the Feast of Stephen, December 26, in the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit. Do I see a pattern? The Mid-American title game takes place at that field, and Bowling Green is not that far south of the Ohio state line.

Minnesota got the win.  But then, if you hire Jerry Kill followed by P. J. Fleck, your team ought to be capable of beating Mid-American opponents.  The Axe has mostly remained in Madison.

DISESTABLISHING THE CLERISY.

If you take two weeks away from the internet, your enemies bodies might float past you.  We can open today's history lesson with the news that Harvard's Claudine Gay has resigned her presidency* at Harvard.  "Well, bye," quips Glenn "Insta Pundit" Reynolds, still hoping for the third fury to step out of line and disappear.  Let's not spike any footballs just yet, notes Power Line's Steven Hayward.  "Of course the problem is that Gay’s resignation will change little at Harvard, or any other elite university."

Her resignation statement, which lacks self-awareness, makes Richard Nixon's look gentlemanly.

“It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president,” Gay said in a statement Tuesday.

“This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries,” she said.

“But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual,” Gay said.

Now to the serious work of reclaiming higher education.  In "Dissolve the Universities," Law and Liberty contributor Helen Dale offers a perspective from afar on the self-beclownment of the Three Furies.  The abstract reads, "The superstitio in our universities may lead those institutions to the same fate as the monasteries under Henry VIII."  The essay is worth reading in its entirety.  If you are easily provoked, I recommend swallowing your coffee, beer, or what have you before reading.

THOSE WHO DENY FREEDOM TO OTHERS DESERVE NOT RE-ELECTION.

Wall Street Journal contributor Daniel Henninger offers a provocative claim.  "The Pandemic Killed Biden’s Presidency."  That's an intriguing claim, considering that the whole basement strategy boiled down to "we're taking this seriously, and not exposing a feeble old man to the bug" whilst the first year of the Biden presidency Jarret regency was all about ongoing mask and vaccination mandates.  Meanwhile Donald Trump was busily being his own worst enemy and exposing himself to the bug.

In retrospect, the basement strategy might have been the best move, given the correlation of forces.

The president in Covid’s first year was Mr. Trump, who in his current campaign appearances talks a lot about completing the border wall and Crooked Joe Biden but almost not at all about his nearly nightly appearances at the White House with Covid-response architect Anthony Fauci. When Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia reopened in April 2020, Mr. Trump said he told Mr. Kemp, “I strongly disagree with his decision to open certain facilities,” and that the governor had moved “too soon.” Other than the Covid-vaccine development, Mr. Trump’s confused handling of the pandemic contributed to the erosion of his voter support.

But then Dementia Joe became the figurehead for whoever is in charge of Hope, Change, and Malaise these days, and the fun began.

The Biden policy set has consisted of the conventional liberal response of big spending and a more radical commitment of nearly a half-trillion dollars to an array of green subsidies.

To be sure, Mr. Trump started the pandemic spending blowout with the more than $2 trillion Cares Act in March 2020, which sent people a one-time federal check. Fraudsters took advantage of the free-flowing aid and also looted the Paycheck Protection Act. But these measures at least had some direct connection to the pandemic itself. Mr. Biden’s trillions, beyond expanding unemployment benefits and existing transfer payments, went primarily to infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing and renewable energy projects. That’s like dropping dollars from 50,000 feet. Talk about trickle-down economics.

Yes, eventually some of that money spent on consultants and studies makes its way to the caterers of those Georgetown cocktail parties.

LET THINGS BE DONE DECENTLY AND IN ORDER.

The Federal Constitution exists to put limitations on how arbitrary and capricious the national government can be.  I submit, dear reader, that attempts to circumvent Constitutional provisions in the expediency of the moment will have unpredictable effects, when some future expediency favoring a different set of potential beneficiaries arises.

FIRST, THE RENT-SEEKERS GET TO WET THEIR BEAKS.

Our Political Masters have been sounding off recently about the allocations of printed money to study the expansion of Amtrak's national network.  We'll focus first on Wisconsin.  In Illinois, there might be an extension of train service to Rockford, but those trains will be operated by Chicago's Metra, the tax-funded Regional Rail operator.  At the moment, it's all wishful thinking.  "The routes the study secured new grants for were identified by Amtrak as part of a visioning process for what future service could look like."  Government, always good for visioning processes.

MERCHANT, BASKETBALL MAGNATE, SENATOR.

Twitchy contributor Ranty Amy Curtis, a Wisconsin resident, remembers her former senator Herb Kohl.  "He was born in Milwaukee in 1935, the son of Jewish immigrants. He got involved in real estate and business, spawning Kohl's grocery and retail store, which made the Kohl one of the richest U.S. senators in history."  Since then, creative destruction has come for retail, with former Kohl's grocery stores with their distinctive arch roof becoming beer depots or Sentry food stores, and the department store side becoming Amazon parcels terminals, that is, when they're not repurposing Boston Stores.

None of which might be as important as her recollection.  "Back in 2007, this writer and her infant son ran into Kohl at Ma Fischer's -- a local diner Kohl frequented. He was tremendously kind, humble, down-to-earth, and very doting to a random baby in his favorite diner."

I continue to have doubts about his tenure as Bucks owner, mostly thanks to Don Nelson being run off as coach.  Fans are right, though, that his money, and his quest for new owners who wouldn't move the franchise to San Diego Los Angeles Sacramento Las Vegas Alturas (odd how some of those Californian relocations have worked out, isn't it?) did keep professional basketball in Milwaukee for another, long delayed, championship.  (That first one arrived as the last Green Bay trains tied up.)

Kohl money also made possible a bigger arena for Wisconsin basketball, still looking for the first national title in over eighty years, and hockey, continuing to stack titles, particularly by the young ladies.

It's because of Herb Kohl that the University of Wisconsin Men's Hockey Team can play at Fiserv Forum for the annual Kwik Trip Holiday Face-Off.

They also call the Kohl Center home ice because of his generous contribution back in the 90's.

"A man who kept the Milwaukee Bucks here and also built the Kohl Center. I mean just a wonderful person” Jim Becker a Wisconsin Hockey fan explained.

Becker and his buddy Bill Flood are longtime Badger sports fans. They went to school at Wisconsin too.

"Putting the Kohl Center up there just became kinda a little monument out there, a great court, a great atmosphere, the ticket sales went up, the alumni ot engaged." Flood, a proud alumni and fan explained.

UW Athletics said in a statement that the department is "forever in his debt for the arena on campus that bears his name…”

No Bucks, no Fiserv Forum.  The men posted two shutout wins in that holiday tournament.  Will they follow up with a national title for Wisconsin's Herb?  R.I.P.