Category Archives: Social Commentary

The New Anti-Semitism

It’s becoming increasingly fashionable in Europe:

What this describes is a slow pogrom — but one that can pass unnoticed and be ignored because of its very gradualness. Governments are doing some good things about it, but the battle for decency will have to be fought in the universities, the media, political parties, and other places where the virus is spreading. It will have to deal honestly but intelligently with Muslim anti-Semitism, which European officialdom shrinks from confronting.

What was old is new again.

Paramilitarization Insanity

A tragic story. In fact, a criminal one.

I wonder what Mr. Wrana’s final thoughts were of the country he fought for 70 years ago. Too much law enforcement in America has lost all sense of proportion: If you need six armed officers to police a nonagenarian in an old folks’ home, seven armed officers to police a 20-year-old female you suspect might have a beer in her shopping bag, thirteen armed officers to terminate Giggles the baby doe, you’re doing it wrong — and you’re the real threat to public order.

These cops should be charged with manslaughter. It was a huge mistake to give the police departments all of that Pentagon surplus.

Search And Rescue In Tenaya Canyon

There are some lessons to be learned here. We were just up there ourselves a couple weeks ago. People don’t realize how rugged it can get coming down from the high country into Yosemite Valley, even though most of the routes are pretty well known after many decades of hiking/climbing. Without modern tech (cell phones and helicopters), they might have died from exposure up there, even in the summer.