Up, Down and All Around

 If you are feeling disoriented and topsy-turvy right now, take heart.  You are not alone. We are experiencing the most wrenching changes since WWII, and while the global discord has not gotten very violent yet, it is just as disconcerting.  The media is telling you that men can get pregnant, vaccinations are so effective, they have to force you to get one, and all white people are irredeemably racist.  The rebellious old rockers now are all behind censorship, compliance and Big Pharma.

The consequence of all this is that old alliances and friendships are breaking apart, and new ones are forming.  Individuals are in the midst of a great rearranging, as Jodi Shaw noted in a tweet (responding to a friend that had whittled her friendships from 85 to 2:

You are  not alone.  This is a major transition and like all major transitions can be painful.  I would rather be part of an authentic, connected community than a fake and fearful one.

Things are being shaken up.  As an old Reagan Republican and Cold Warror, I find it fascinating and humorous that the thought leaders that I now follow most closely are old fashioned Jewish liberals- Bret Weinstein, Abigail Shrier, and Bari Weiss.  I’m sure none of these folks voted for Reagan and I’m sure that I would have several points of disagreement with them on a variety of issues.  But each of them is passionately devoted to free speech and work hard to support their positions with facts and data.  They are all intellectually honest and open minded. 

In addition, I never miss the conversations between John McWhorter and Glenn Loury (Self described as the “Black Guys”).  They sometimes disagree with each other and are uniquely qualified to address criminal justice, racial preferences, and voter “rights.” Glenn Loury teaches at Brown and originally hails from the South Side of Chicago. 

So, I’m listening intently to Jewish liberals on some issues and on criminal justice and other issues related to race, to a Black Guy from the South Side.

Go figure.  It’s 2022.  All the pieces are getting rearranged.

Here’s who’s up and who’s down.

Who’s Up.

Truckers. 
Particularly Canadian ones. What is going on in Canada is magnificent.  For most of my adult life, I held college professors and MD’s in higher esteem than truck drivers.  I have seen the error of my ways.  College professors led us down the racist path of CRT and into the unholy, immoral relationship with the CCP.  Truck drivers are now leading the convoy of liberty in Canada and have driven Woke WEF disciple Justine Trudeau into exile.  The protest of the truck drivers is the Boston Tea Party of the north. The truck drivers in Canada have made me wholly repentant of my heretofore intellectual snobbery.

Megyn Kelly
Megyn Kelly succumbed a bit to Icarus and Daedalus Syndrome.  She flew too close to the sun and attempted to capitalized on her “rock star” status by signing a huge contract with NBC.  All it took was one innocuous comment about doing “blackface” when she was a kid, and she was cut loose.

 Now, we naturally like to see people that seem to get a bit too full of themselves to get their commupance.   But Kelly is smart, ambitious, and talented.  Her podcast, The Megyn Kelly Show, is a great reinvention.  Because podcasts are longer and more nuanced, they allow for more interesting discussions and Kelly is actually a better podcaster than a broadcaster.  You see more of her best self.

Who’s down

Claire Lehmann
The editor in chief of Quilette, which promotes itself as “Where Free Thought Lives” and a center of “Heterodox Ideas,” Lehmann has picked unnecessary fights with Bret Weinstein and has failed to see the dangers of the tyrannical Australian lockdowns.  Her tweet last week belies a naivete, or at least a lack of knowledge of Venn diagrams, as the people that are true believers in these three are one and the same:  "It is possible to decouple your opinions on social justice activism, vaccination & climate change.  Just because you agree with someone (or some group) on one of these, doesn't mean you have to agree with them on all."

Lehmann has a penchant for showing off her legs and midriff online and, would probably be the first to decry the objectification of women.  Her act has worn thin.

NPR
I was a faithful listener to NPR throughout the 80’s and into the 90’s.  I got my news from Carl Castle, Scott Simon and Susan Stamberg and got my arts and culture fix from Terry Gross.  Always tilting left, NPR has joined the unethical MSM.  Most recently, based on unnamed sources, NPR tried to put forward a story about a dust-up between Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch over masking.  The Supreme Court issues a statement refuting the story.  In August, after the Rittenhouse verdict that acquitted him, the first commentator used the term “far right” 8 times during her response.  Even Fresh Air has gotten boring, Woke and largely unlistenable.

The University of Chicago
Sadly, one of the last bastions of free thought and free speech is being overrun by the forces of Woke.  It began when Geoffrey Stone, co-author of the Chicago Principles and law school professor made a small concession and agreed that he would not offend students by using the “N” word as an example in his 1^st amendment class.  Fast forward to today, when the once venerable University of Chicago is contemplating establishing a Race, Diaspora and Indigeneity Department (the first clue was using a word that almost no one in common society uses (how many time have you used the word “Indigeniety”).  This is not scholarship.  It is activism.  If established, this department will attempt to assert itself as a supra-department and attempt to police every other department for “indicia of racism” and, without a doubt will seek to revise the Chicago Principles on Free Speech.  Kudos to Dorian Abbot, Harald Uhlig and the students at the Chicago Thinker for opposing this nonsense.  But the harsh reality is that I have yet to see a school or organization so embedded with the forces of Woke be able to reverse course. 

Black Lives Matter
Well, it turns out that BLM funneled $6.3 million to buy a mansion in Canada.  This is after founder Patrice Collor bought four high end homes for $3.2 million and then quit.  Now, the “charity” is missing $60 million and no one is apparently in charge.  And we can’t name a single project that it undertook to improve actual black lives—not a health center, a program, a donation to a HBCU—nothing.