Datz right. The headline writer meant FLOUT, not flaunt.

[Derek Bok] said the issue of tackling legacies had become more urgent than when he ran Harvard, because the competition for places had intensified and the evidence for reform had strengthened. He said he was unconvinced that abolition would weaken fundraising efforts, but in any case “there comes a moment when it becomes more important to do the right thing”.

And now that Harvard has a fifty billion dollar endowment, I think it’s time we dipped a toe in the water! Fuck it man! Let’s do the right thing!

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Update: You’ve got 50 bill and hoard it. This poor little widow had only one bill and she made medical school free in perpetuity for all students at Albert Einstein! You could easily do that for some of your schools, but you’re about rich, not poor, people.

Almost three-quarters of Iranians want a secular government instead of a theocratic dictatorship, an anonymous state-run poll has revealed.

The survey also revealed that less than one in 10 people think women should be forced to wear a hijab.

[The last survey] was in 2015.

[This one] shows a sharp uptick in demands for secular rule, up from 31 per cent to 73 per cent, indicating the push for secularism will probably grow in coming years.

… Only 7.9 per cent of respondents said they agree women must be made to wear hijab, down from 18.6 percent.

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The survey was apparently leaked.

Police responding to an adult overdosing in a car had to negotiate with a 10-year-old boy who was holding a loaded AK-47 that had the safety off, investigators said.

Crowley [Louisiana] police said they were called as Jeremy Leblanc was overdosing in the driver seat of a car in a Dairy Queen parking lot, KLFY reported.

Oberlin’s wife, who was seated in the passenger seat, gave police permission to enter the vehicle and told them that there was cocaine and fentanyl in a cup holder.

Officers found two 9mm handguns near four small children and an AK-47 rifle in a 10-year-old boy’s lap. The gun was loaded and the safety was off, investigators said. After a brief negotiation, officers were able to safely get the weapon from the boy’s hands.

“The child, of course, didn’t want to give it up, to probably either protect his family or didn’t know exactly what was going on. I mean it’s a very scary situation for a child, and officers spoke with him calmly and tried to gain his trust and everything. Of course, it wasn’t a huge struggle, but he was still not letting it go freely,” police chief Jimmy Broussard told KLFY. “It was loaded. It was not on safety, so if … the child [had] panicked and decided to pull that trigger, it would have been much worse of a scene than what we had.”

Leblanc was revived with Narcan. He was taken to a hospital and is in stable condition. He was later arrested on various charges, police said.

Child services were called to take custody of the children.

Jeremy Leblanc, of Oberlin, was arrested on two counts of drug possession, three counts of possession of a firearm in the presence of drugs; and four counts of drug use in the presence of a juvenile.

Crowley Police Chief Jimmy Broussard told Lafayette station KATC that a 10-year-old boy was holding the AK47 rifle with the safety off. The boy initially didn’t want to give the gun to officers, not wanting to give up something he believed was his.

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I mean, really: Overdose, AK47, Dairy Queen, drugs in a cupholder, two handguns, Narcan, not one two or three but FOUR kids, one of them refusing to give the loaded AK47 to the police? Right. Pour it on.

The man faces charges including first-degree child abuse, a felony violation of Michigan’s gun storage law, being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition and lying to a police officer in a violent crime investigation.

Flint police learned of the shooting after the man took the girl to a hospital. They found two guns in the bedroom of the man’s home: the revolver and a semiautomatic pistol. Both were unsecured and loaded. 

… on guns. For that series, she visited the palatial NRA headquarters in Virginia, a few miles from her house.

C’est fou comme le temps passe vite! The palace is on the market, from every pore the NRA is bleeding out, and that ol’ sweetie Wayne LaPierre has larceny issues.

Update. Details.

A herd of deer in my forest.

There will always be scuzzy cities (hello, Myrtle Beach!) where spring breakers can continue to crash cars, rape, and shoot during those two special weeks in March. (This behavior is also all over Myrtle Beach when it isn’t spring break.) But when even SB locales as notorious as Panama City Beach introduce restrictions, you know the event’s really getting out of hand.

I mean, look at Miami Beach! Just look!

And you know it won’t change a thing. Kansas City had close to a thousand police at the Super Bowl shootout; the next Super Bowl celebration will have one National Guard member for each partygoer. But it’s just too easy to whip out your AK47. No one’s going to stop you. Same deal here.

… UD invites you to revisit my posts about a woman who indeed does seem to me too dangerous to return to a country she tried to destroy.

Her lawyers, I guess, will go to the Supreme Court, but they won’t get what they want there either.

Begum could have tried for Bangladeshi citizenship, but didn’t apparently bother to; her best move now is to gather a bunch of money from her supporters and try to buy citizenship somewhere.

UD’s old friend Peter argues that Begum should be repatriated to the UK here.

“We think it’s – haha – well thawed out,” joked State Sen. Tim Melson, R-Florence.

ALABAMA SUPREME COURT RULES THAT

FROZEN BURRITOS ARE CHILDREN

MONTGOMERY, AL—In a case aimed at preserving what plaintiffs described as the sanctity of reheatable Tex-Mex fare, Alabama’s Supreme Court issued a ruling Tuesday in which it asserted that frozen burritos are children. “With this decision, the court finds that frozen burritos—be they beef, bean and cheese, chicken, or any combination thereof—are legally recognized as children,” Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in the court’s majority opinion, claiming that at the moment the frozen burrito is placed in its plastic sleeve, it becomes human life made in the image of God. 

We’re getting there. The daily aural reality of a country with four hundred million plus guns in private hands, and well over a million held by local, state, and federal police forces, means that over time incessant artillery will be normalized here to the point of – in the words of a Rhode Islander who lives down the street from a police department shooting range – “almost soothing.”

Normalized? Romanticized:

Again the guns disturbed the hour,

Roaring their readiness to avenge,

As far inland as Stourton Tower,

And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

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Only here it will be

As far coastal as Freedom Tower,

And cold Minot, and starlit Carhenge.

… universities this blog has chronicled. Go here for its perfect storm of corrupt athletics, inept leadership, give-a-shit board of trustees, demoralized faculty, homicidal frats, etc., etc. Go here for a sample post, from 2021.

Now – finally – 207 of its professors demand radical change. The school’s national ranking has tanked; its athletic debt is beyond belief; research faculty shrinks by the minute.

They want the clown president out, for starters.

Buffalo NY not only has a massive James Joyce mural

and, at the University of Buffalo, the world’s largest Joyce collection. Now the university has received $10 million from the state for a James Joyce Museum, which is very cool. They are still looking for donations.