Praise the Lord. I’ve been looking at that endowment and really worrying. Where’s the next fifty billion coming from?

The Winchester Va. voting public really knows how to pick ’em.

UD wondered if David Brooks’ moral endorsement of limits on the display of wealth extended to, well, David Brooks.

At first, finding he not long ago sold a house for $4.5 million, she was ready to pounce.

But when she realized that the UD houselet, bought in 1996 for a virtuous pittance (by ‘thesdan standards) and owned outright, is valued at $1,041,300 — not all that much less than what Brooks paid for his current non-showy house on Capitol Hill — she was inclined to shut up about it.

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As to other stuff in this defense of liberalism: Brooks, fundamentally a religious cultural conservative, is always going to have trouble truly defending liberalism, which tends toward secularity and restless change. He puts the search for meaning, transcendence, and community at the forefront of everyone’s basic life demands, but if you’re really itching for these, liberalism ain’t your best bet. Let me cite a passage from an earlier blog entry.

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In a recent interview, Adam Gopnik, who wrote a book defending liberalism from left and right attacks on it, observes that

[O]ur hunger for [collective] identity, our need for connection, is overwhelming and … liberalism [some argue] impedes it. Liberalism acts as a stopper on it. [This is Charles] Taylor’s point: We [have a] need to ask, “Where am I?” and liberalism [which is much better at giving us time and space to ask “Who am I?’] doesn’t seem to give a good answer to that.

But, Gopnik continues:

What liberals, I think, would say in response, what my liberalism would say in response, is first of all, liberalism has actually been very good at the project of making community. It’s why we live in New York. You know, I never get over the miracle of New York… A tolerant community is another kind of community. A pluralistic community is another kind of community. I delight exactly in the variety of kinds that I can find every time in New York. That’s not an absence of community. It’s a particular kind of community that we relish.

Is it, though, a community without roots, without stable collective identity, without inherited meanings, symbols, rituals?

Damn right it is.

“Is a lack of meaning really worse than a lack of freedom? … What liberalism’s critics appear unable, or unwilling, to address is whether a lack of meaning is a worse problem to have than a lack of freedom.”

Maybe liberalism – “the political order that privileges non-negotiable rights, personal freedoms, and individual autonomy” – issues in some degree of conceptual confusion, and maybe even in a difficulty or refusal to commit oneself to clear philosophical/theological convictions and collectivities – but is this really so unbearable a position to be in?

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UD thanks Tammy for the link.

‘I am now hoping the country will become a more secular country, respecting human rights, women’s rights and childrens rights.’ Yesim Albayrak, Nurse [photo, bbc]

Score one — a big one — for our side.

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UPDATE: Given Mr Erdoğan’s grip on institutional networks of patronage and influence, consolidated over the course of more than two decades in power, it would be premature to see these results as marking a definitive turning point. But they offer considerable grounds for optimism among secular, liberal voters… [I]n a period in which a similarly authoritarian brand of politics is making inroads in countries around the world, a dramatic night at the polls is a cause for wider celebration.

Five AM this morning.

Socialist? Did you say Socialist? Isn’t the adjective “rightwing” required by law to be inserted into every reference to rules against wearing the hijab/burqa in certain public settings? Isn’t one always instructed that support of some restrictions is “reactionary”?

Believe UD, who has read hundreds of news articles and essays about this, that the ironclad rule remains: If you want to approach laïcité in France and elsewhere, you must do it ranged about with words like “arch-conservative,” even though the preservation of secularism is typically as important to the left as it is to the right, to the point where a recent rally, in support of a high school principal forced to resign out of fear for his personal safety after he tried to enforce France’s ban on hijabs in public high schools, was organized by the Socialist Party.

Tis the very essence of an inconvenient fact, this. It would be nice if people and organizations outraged by secularism legislation acknowledged it.

… to anyone in Garrett Park who wants some. UD put it on the neighborhood listserv, and it’s almost gone.

They can agree to have seemingly unbiased articles about – I dunno – the safety of OxyContin go out under their name, even though Sackler-funded ghostwriters would have written the articles.

For doing nothing but agreeing to Purdue’s use of their name, these professors could earn (before the whole Oxy thing collapsed) tens of thousands of dollars, and thereby make their own small contribution to millions of addictions and deaths.

There are plenty of examples like this. An economist earns big bucks by letting a corporation use her name on an article touting … let’s see … the superiority of coal over other forms of energy. The safety of dangerous anti-depressants. This or that hormone.

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There are other ways for professors to trade their reputations for money, and a prof at GW may have availed himself of one of these. Nothing’s been proven, but two affiliated scholars at the Program on Extremism he runs have already resigned in protest against Lorenzo Vidino having reportedly received thousands of dollars for designating certain people terrorists, or terrorist-connected. The money came from rich oil states engaged in convoluted reputational battles with other such states.

Vidino, a dual citizen of Italy and the U.S., argues that even the most moderate Islamist organizations in the West can tilt Muslims toward separatism and violence. [M]any Muslims [think] that he simply dresse[s] up bigotry in academic language. Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative, which studies Islamophobia, has described Vidino as someone who “promotes conspiracy theories about the Muslim Brotherhood” and “is connected to numerous anti-Muslim think tanks.” In 2020, the Austrian Interior Ministry cited a report by Vidino as a basis for carrying out raids on dozens of citizens or organizations suspected of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood. No one targeted in the raids has been arrested, much less convicted of any wrongdoing. An Austrian appellate court ruled the raids unlawful.

UD would love to know if he’s declaring this money on his end of year GW Academic Review form.

Idaho is mainly in the news lately for the collapse of its statewide ob/gyn facilities; but the Western Theocratic Territory commands attention for many other reasons. Heerespfarrer Yenor, for instance, inspires that state’s Christian nationalists from his academic appointment at Boise State, an actual university (though largely a jockshop), and this startles the Guardian newspaper.

I mean, the Guardian‘s startled that a respectable academic institition lends its reputation to a man whose howls about liberty, women, free thought, and other abominations I will not share here because obscenity laws forbid it.

Nobody’s startled by the bad boys hiding out in the brush outside of Boise, but, well, a professor.

… to keep ’em dumb!

… ‘bama.

While [a snowboarder] was filming his run, [Keith Robert] Stebbings [of Brighton] is seen [in a video] standing in his path while holding a shotgun. As [the snowboarder] gets closer, the homeowner can be heard saying, “Private property, you (expletive).”

During the confrontation, Stebbings, 67, can be seen pushing [the snowboarder] numerous times, while also pointing the shotgun at the snowboarder and saying “if you do it again there will be holes in you.”

… [A] later investigation found that there was no private property signage at the residence.

Georgia GOP Vice Chairman

Voted 9 Times while Serving

Felony [Check Forgery] Sentence

UD has chronicled for years on this blog the scandalous refusal of ultraorthodox men and women to defend Israel. Even under current combat conditions, they refuse to lift their asses off of their prayer seats.

But now Israel’s high court has frozen yeshiva funding! No money if you don’t fight!

Which means Israel will soon have a two-front war, since the Haredim will respond to this call to civic duty by setting the country’s cities aflame. Operation Black Hats will divert many of Israel’s soldiers to the streets of Jerusalem, where ultra-orthodox mobs will riot mercilessly in defense of their right to do nothing and care nothing for Israel.

See the lunatic with body armor and the AR-15, honey? I want you to smile real big at him while we walk by him out of the store. Now don’t walk too fast or look scared! Just be natural and walk normally and he’ll leave us alone. Okay?