FIRST BARBENHEIMER, THEN TOP GUN.

Last year, Miss America was Wisconsin nuclear engineering student Grace Stanke.  The pageant, which used to take place the weekend after Labor Day in Atlantic City, now takes place in the shadow of the college and professional football tournaments.

NO FARMS, NO FOOD.

The farmers' protests in Germany, which might be understood as the usual sort of pique subsidy recipients show when their subsidies are reduced, has purchase.

Thousands of demonstrators descended on the German capital Monday as a week-long protest over subsidy cuts in the agriculture sector reached a climax at the city’s famed Brandenburg Gate. Behind the crowd, tractors, which last week blocked highways across the country, lined the avenue cutting through Berlin’s Tiergarten park.

Following protests in December, the government reversed a decision on axing a tax discount for agricultural vehicles, and announced that a diesel subsidy would be phased out over three years rather than being cut immediately. But the German Farmers’ Association said the concessions didn’t go far enough.

“Without stability in the countryside, without agriculture, our country has no future,” German Farmers’ Association President Joachim Rukwied said from the stage. “That’s why we are prepared to take to the streets.”

The deprivation that green policies bring is a central theme in Germany and everywhere else they're tried.  The protests, though, call attention to failures of the Professional Managerial Class, whether in these United States or elsewhere in the developed world.

Monday’s demonstration was also an outlet for general dissatisfaction with the government, adding to the mounting pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz after scrambling to fix a billion-euro budget blunder, which led to the subsidy cuts.

Germany’s constitutional court ruled in November that the government’s decision to reallocate $65.21 billion of unused emergency funds from the coronavirus pandemic for its climate and transformation fund (CTF) was unconstitutional, forcing the government to revise spending plans and tighten the purse strings.

Misappropriation of corona moneys for other boondoggles, how very Bidenesque of the German government.  Perhaps when the constitutional court there rules, afterwards matters are in Ordnung.

I WENT TO TARGET FOR SOME HOUSEWARES AND A HOCKEY GAME BROKE OUT.

Who knew woke wine women were so good at battling for the Stanley Cup?

On New Year’s Eve, Meagan Howard waited outside a Target in Louisiana to buy this season’s most coveted accessory: a shiny pink travel tumbler called the Starbucks x Stanley Quencher. When the doors opened, Howard took off like a race horse leaving the starting gate, running as fast as her Uggs could carry her. Then the 33-year-old felt herself slipping, ultimately face-planting on the cold tile floor.

“My mom saw me fall down, and she said it took a while for me to get back up,” Howard, who is a first-grade teacher, said. “But it’s worth it, I think. I got the cup.”

The cup she got was a limited-edition version of a 40oz stainless steel, vacuum-insulated jug with a straw made by Stanley, the 110-year-old brand usually associated with outdoor enthusiasts or dads with boats. Though they’re sold out now, Starbucks x Stanley Quencher mania lives on in TikTok videos shot on New Year’s Eve, showing grown adults stampeding towards displays in Targets across the country.

I heard something about Target no longer carrying pink Stanley Cups as the shopping frenzy brought to mind Black Friday at Wal-Mart.

CANCEL THERAPEUTIC CULTURE.

Nation contributor Adam Johnson has an insight.  "We Live in a Golden Age of Crybullyism."  He starts with what sounds like more Oppression Studies.  "Those in power, promoting austerity and war, no longer want us to fear them. They demand something much more sinister: that we feel sorry for them."

REPEAT AS NEEDED.

Glenn "Insta Pundit" Reynolds notes that for the past fifty years, the time horizon for practical fusion energy has been "sometime in the next fifteen years."  Apparently a little more patience is possible where the expected payoffs are large.  The figure of merit for an extension of Metra service to DeKalb, for the past forty years, has been ten years.

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.