Plenty of lefties find a $53.2 billion nonprofit intellectual community (Harvard) a little hard to grasp qua concept; read Robert Reich and many others. Indeed the graphic and grotesque injustice of superfatcat money-hoarder Harvard amid hundreds of struggling meritorious schools is a far leftier… visual... than right. The right is where no-ceiling-on-personal-and-institutional-wealth people like Greg Mankiw, Eric Cantor, and Lawrence Kudlow hang out; it’s predominantly the left that cares about wealth inequality.

Gregory Conti acknowledges that “skepticism” (I’d call it revulsion) in regard to small singular institutions hoarding billions and billions of dollars is not “an intrinsically right-wing proposition.” Nor should it be. But he correctly notes that, in the last few years, most democratic politicians, to their shame, have left the Ivies alone to play with their money, and that it’s the right which has pushed for endowment taxes. Indeed there’s a weird inversion here – the lawmaker lefties who should militate against the degenerate and destructive greed of some of our universities don’t give a shit, while the lawmaker righties who have no problem with greed and don’t like taxes do give a shit. Hm.

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Conti will go on to argue that left-dominated elite universities have no one to blame but themselves for their impending tax doom; if they’d been high-quality, neutral seekers after wisdom rather than woke noisemakers they wouldn’t have raised the hackles of conservative, vindictive legislators.

 Go to any of, say, the 20 private colleges with the largest endowments and just look at the signage posted throughout campus for events, programs, services: You will find that at every one they convey a near-identical blend of culturally progressive presuppositions, identitarian appeals, and therapeutic argot.

Okay so I spent years teaching at GW (I know; not rich and elite enough; but hear me out) and years tromping around Harvard (father-in-law was a Harvard prof), and I’ve been visiting/writing about universities for decades. Here’s what you’re likeliest to see posted around most elite schools: Information about campus worship services. Dates/locations of standardized tests. Rentals near campus. Political signage from all sides – pro-Israel, anti-Israel, etc. Cultural event/lecture notices. Lowkey appeals to use campus health services if you are feeling down. Student suicide is a serious problem, and I’m not sure what “therapeutic argot” is bothering Conti, but the phrases I can recall are things like you’re not alone and talk to someone.

Nothing is more exactingly identitarian than fraternities and secret societies and houses, but these cliques are, by definition, not going to plaster statues of Elihu Yale with come-ons.

And as to the quality argument: Ivies have long handed down gentlemen’s C’s and welcomed Jared Kushners; they’re famous for it. Legacy admits are quite a thing, and they’ve watered down quality bigtime forever.

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No, for ol’ UD the only real argument in favor of taxing endowments in the many billions has nothing to do with right or left. It’s socially destructive for outrageous wealth to lie in the exclusive hands of small entities, personal or institutional. Are you okay with Elon Musk romping through the federal government, firing everyone and shutting everything down? Should have thought of that before you let him accumulate 420 billion dollars. Do you think it’s weird that one of Harvard’s recent presidents fucked its endowment to the tune of one billion dollars because no one was able to stop him from using it for high-risk credit default swaps? And that he freelanced for a hedge fund while president? Way woke, babe.

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UD thanks Rita for the link.

Judy Lee was smoking in [her Florida] living room and [her son] Michael Lee, who has asthma, began spraying Febreze.

Judy Lee pulled out a handgun and started firing at her son. Michael Lee ran into his bedroom, grabbed his own gun, and returned fire.

Judging by the shenanigans at the recent DNC meeting, my fellow Dems will simply never get it.

We had fed the Fed on fantasies
The Fed's grown fecal from the fare,
Stagnation in amenities
Breeds microbes everywhere.  Oh, GS-bees
Come build in the empty house of the State.

… won.

Even if you don’t subscribe to the Atlantic, all you need are the first three paragraphs that they provide.

This guy seems upset that one of this nation’s standard-issue retarded nazis is a way-proud Arkansan who drapes a Razorback flag behind him whenever he films himself talking.

Apparently, this featherweight champ and all round flat earther – I mean all flat flat earther- “defile[s] the very name of ‘Arkansas'” when he shares his knowledge that the mass killings of children in this country are carried out by the deep state to make us think guns are dangerous, that Hitler was sent by God to kill dirty Jews who were going to make everyone gay, that Jesus is King, and that our greatest state by far is Arkansas.

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Well. We’ve followed the benighted state of Arkansas on this blog for years – a standard-issue brainless drunk sports obsessed southern wasteland – and it’s been on a self-defilement tear for decades. It really needs no help from some fascist clodpole, and he won’t have any effect on the state’s ranking cuz it’s already third from the bottom and it’s hard to get lower than that.

Who knew wee Reagan Airport was one of the most dangerous places to land/take off in America? If you grew up here, like ol’ UD, you think of Reagan as the dinky downhome alternative to sleek vast Saarinen-designed Dulles (with BWI — we’re really spoiled; lots of terminals near ‘thesda — a kind of afterthought for a quick hop to Bermuda). Now it turns out that self-important assholes have been jamming the place and creating a hellscape people in charge of the airport have been screaming about forever. Reagan Airport “is probably the most dangerous airport in the United States,” one pilot wrote in 2015. “The controllers are pushing, pushing, pushing in an attempt to handle the traffic they have.”

And ain’t it sweet that little Wichita’s Rep. pushed and pushed and got a daily flight out there THAT THE AIRPORT CAN BARELY HANDLE AND ITS ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN BEGGING FOR ALL THE ADDITIONAL FLIGHTS TO STOP.

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That copter thing. Reminds me of the Rennert/Bloomberg thing of just landing your immense thundering personal helicopter whenever and wherever you feel like it — illegality, and torment of homeowners, be damned.

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“Every senator in particular wants a nonstop flight to and from wherever they live,” said [Peter] DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat. He noted that a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration passed last year added even more flights to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. “The airport said, ‘Don’t do it.’ And they did it. So they added to what DCA said is already an overly congested and over-capacity airport.” (Congress has added more than 60 new flights to Reagan since 2000, over the objections of airport officials.)

… The airport authority said, “We are over capacity. We cannot accommodate more flights, and we think this is going to be disruptive.” Unfortunately, … Congress mandated adding more flights into National Airport, so that more senators can have direct flights. I was chairman of the committee, and I always had to connect somewhere. I didn’t ask for a direct flight. So, that’s a problem. That is a problem, the political influence over the airport, as most recently exhibited in the last FAA bill. So, I think we might need to revisit the amount of traffic.

How third world, my dears. Bigass military egos, bigass senatorial egos, and here we are. Disgusting.

Parents who produce gun-bearing eleven year olds; school principals who lie about armed attacks on elementary school children: The USA has quite the perfect storm, yes? The principal’s original version was all about what a big strong man he is, the hero of his own myth… ie, he found the gun on one of his regular security sweeps. But no – A babe brought it from home and shot at a classmate, but the gun failed to go off. The almost-killed student told her teacher, who took the gun to the big strong man. The teacher was supposed to report the gun to the police, but look at that. Although one of her students was practically killed, she didn’t.

Neither did the principal, who handed down NO discipline against the shooter (I guess in order to protect his big strong man story) but did eventually show up at police headquarters with the gun and with his lie.

He doesn’t work at the school anymore, and the shooter (who bragged he’ll bring another gun and do it again) has been expelled. UD does wonder what other public school now has charge of this person; she also wonders why she’s not reading about his gunny parents and their liability.

Think it’s a one-off? Silly you.

And because countries are slashing children at younger and younger ages (an ironic result of the success of anti-FGM campaigns in reaching older girls), it’s not unusual to see mutilated infants in Europe and America.

The incidence of the practice is astonishing:

Somalia (99 percent), Guinea (95 percent), Mali (85 percent), Sudan (87 percent), Egypt (87 percent), Sierra Leone (83 percent), and Eritrea (83 percent). 

Note Egypt. There goes the argument that it’s confined to chaotic third world locations.

These are countries where people think God commands them to bloody and disfigure infants. I know you’re too disgusted or morally relative or in denial or indifferent to think it happens here, but I’d ask you to recall Hopkins-educated Dr Jumana Nagarwala, who along with other slashers continues to bring the benefits of FGM to all parts of this great nation.

Dunno. Hope so.

If you don’t get off on fascism, poor you! It’s the coming thing, here and plenty of elsewhere in the world, its hour come round at last yada yada don’t be last in line c’mon in the water’s fine.

Not asking you to have the courage of Rector Father Calvin Robinson at that right to life thing, where the crowd went wild at his nazi salute… Not asking you to out yourself to that extent —

I gave a salute

That started the whole room clapping —

I mean, there are consequences… Robinson’s Grand Rapids church – and hey the whole Anglican Catholic confession – has dropped him like a hot McMosley, setting off the twentieth or so iteration of the Father’s Faith Journey … Dude’s been all over the map and I’m wondering what’s next and I’m thinking Romanian Orthodox (“A scandal erupted in 2011 when nuns at the Petru Vodă Monastery in Piatra Neamţ were filmed singing a fascist hymn to celebrate their abbot’s birthday.” OOOH les girls!)…

And yes there’s a gaping hole next to the word “Rector” at the bottom of the St Paul welcome page and Father R is out in the cold again. But don’t worry about him! Don’t you worry about little Calvin Robinson! In a world bristling with black shirts, he’ll be fine.

A Christogram buffeted by booze.

The hotel used to be a monastery.

Midair collision of an army helicopter and a commercial flight.

Rescue operations ongoing in the Potomac River.

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Just stood on my back deck, eight miles from the airport.

The sky is pretty clear; visibility isn’t bad. But it’s seriously cold out there.

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Apparently no survivors. Kennedy Center cameras captured the crash, and you can see a fireball and then broken fragments falling into the water.

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Images like this make it very real.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

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“Some of those onboard were figure skaters flying from Wichita, Kan., which had hosted the U.S. Figure Skating Championships earlier this month.”

From a Nebraska professor’s obit. Since he died at 85, this would make his parents at least 110, so UD‘s not sure the writer for Roper & Sons Funeral Home in Lincoln needed to include this.

“He was best known for his work in restructured pork, which led to the development of the McRib.”

… they live.