Trigger Warning: This post gets into the weeds of interpretation. If you’re prone to headaches, do not read it. It will produce pain.

The City Journal is the organ of conservative think tank, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. So when it publishes about the case for originalism, you know where it’s coming from.

The Constitution, we’re told by the progressive-minded, is a “living, breathing” document that allows for such updating in the modern age. On the other side, originalists and textualists argue that the Constitution’s meaning is stable, that its words retain the meaning they possessed when they were written. The dispute has spanned more than a generation, and, with the recent death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia and nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Court, has taken on tremendous political weight. 

Indeed, the dispute is back on the front burner with warring arguments over the meaning of “advice and consent,” and whether this is a Senate duty or a suggestion, if they feel like it. Continue reading →

In his New York Times column, David Brooks revisits a great Civil War story juxtaposing perceptions of masculinity that, no doubt uncoincidentally, involved a group that called itself the Independent Order of Trumps. You can’t make this stuff up.

In the middle of the Civil War a colonel named Robert McAllister from the 11th Regiment of New Jersey tried to improve the moral fiber of his men. A Presbyterian railroad contractor in private life, he lobbied and preached against profanity, drinking, prostitution and gambling. Some of the line officers in the regiment, from less genteel backgrounds, rebelled.

They formed an organization called the Independent Order of Trumps. In sort of a mischievous, laddie way, the Trumps championed boozing and whoring, cursing and card-playing.

It is, of course, a loaded story, since the Trumps were vulgar ruffians, while McAllister was a gentleman. Continue reading →

He works at Williams College, one of those tiny northeastern elitist liberal arts schools that suffers from the low self-esteem of having students who didn’t get into Harvard or Yale, despite their parents’ best efforts.  But Ferentz Lafargue committed his crime at the Washington Post.

In the work that I do as a diversity advocate in higher education, I hear often a concern that some of our efforts in pursuit of equity may be doing students a disservice — that we’re not preparing them for the “real world.”

The implied logic is that if students feel empowered to voice their discontent with microaggressions experienced on campus, then they’re not developing the thick skin necessary to deal with the slights they’ll see in the workplace, out in the “real world.”

Students should “toughen up,” and we should stop “coddling” them, we’re told.

Why he contends that the logic is implied is unclear. It would seem to be remarkably express, flagrant even.  But then, that’s because he used the word “microaggressions,” which foreshadows his next salvo. Continue reading →

The beauty of a documentary is that it conveys the message that it’s serious, it’s real, it’s legitimate.  That it also is crafted to convince its viewers that it reveals a secret truth that powerful forces are trying to conceal isn’t considered a flaw, but a feature.  After all, if these forces were being honest, then there would be no need for some independent film maker to speak truth to power.

Unless, of course, the “truth” was born of paranoia or an agenda, and the documentary was nothing more than propaganda.  Robert De Niro fell victim to this problem.  In selecting films to be viewed at the Tribeca Film Festival, De Niro’s pet project, he decided to include “Andrew Wakefield’s antivaccine propaganda- and conspiracy-laden quackfest of a documentary entitled Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe.”

What made De Niro decide to include this controversial film?

Grace and I have a child with autism and we believe it is critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined. In the 15 years since the Tribeca Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the programming. However this is very personal to me and my family and I want there to be a discussion, which is why we will be screening VAXXED. I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue.

Continue reading →

The call to the police was from Larry Faulkenberry’s teen-aged son. When did kids decide that the best response to a parent being a parent was the cops?  Likely after they figured out that there will always be adults who don’t share other parents’ choices. And children, realizing that they have a card to play, play it. That’s what Faulkenberry’s son did.

He conceded that the whole ordeal could have been avoided had his teen-aged son not called the police.

“He got in trouble at school. I explained to him he was grounded. He got upset. He told me he was going to call the police and tell them I was waving a gun at him and drunk. I sat down to cool off and 20 minutes later, I see flashlights coming up the driveway,” he said.

Of course, calling the police doesn’t mean that a child’s poor decision should be compounded by the cops.  Unfortunately,  Sgt. Dustin Yost, Deputy Michael Taylor and another officer identified only as Deputy Houseston, of the Caldwell County, Texas, Sheriff’s Department, decided to make Faulkenberry’s son’s childish foolishness look absolutely brilliant in comparison to their choices. Continue reading →

Heidi Czerwiec has shit for brains.  Sure, she’s an associate professor of English at the University of North Dakota, which pretty much means that she chose her undergraduate major poorly and, failing to find a societally useful job, became an academic.  Maybe that’s unfair, as it’s not like she does nothing beyond teaching.

My new collection, Self-Portrait as Bettie Page (Barefoot Muse, 2013), is a sonnet sequence that negotiates the relationship between formal poetics, bondage/discipline, and female identity through the figure of elusive 1950s pinup Bettie Page, whose own identity was a series of costumes.

But she’s a bit skittish, so when she saw people with guns outside her office window, she did what any blithering idiot concerned woman does: she called 911.

A professor at the University of North Dakota is pledging to repeatedly call the police on campus military cadets in protest against the school’s decision to let them hold drills on campus while carrying guns.

Continue reading →

It was, sadly, a remarkably unremarkable description of the perp.

At 3:21 a.m. on August 28, 2015, campus police were called to Porter Hall where a young woman had been groped in her sleep. The attacker fled and dropped cigarettes and a lighter.

“She was sleeping, and it was very difficult for her to make an identification,” attorney Paul Michalek said.

She said it was a short, black man in black shorts.

You can’t blame the young woman for being unable to provide a more detailed description. Awake, most people can’t describe another person well. Asleep, it was likely impossible. And assuming, as we should, that she was, indeed, groped (though it would be helpful if a less conclusory word was used), she certainly had good reason to call campus police.  This was a crime, and the perpetrator of the crime should be caught. Continue reading →

“It’s time,” she said.

“But, are you sure? Are you sure you want a new one?”

“It’s time.” SWMBO turned and walked away.  I dutifully headed down to the local appliance store, as I prefer to buy from small local businesses.  After being informed by the six people standing around the counter that I had to wait for Sam, who was on the phone, because he was the guy who knew stuff, I stood there for about ten minutes, until I realized that I wasn’t the first person in line for Sam. There was another guy also waiting for him, so I would be after the guy.

Much as I like buying locally, I’m not big on waiting. I’m especially not big on waiting when there are six people standing there not helping me. So I walked out, crossed the street and went down the block to the local hardware store.  One local merchant was as good as another. Continue reading →

The jealousy between various government entities is the stuff of legend, like excuses as to why nobody figured out that terrorists were here learning to fly planes into very tall buildings. But usually, that plays out between law enforcement agencies. At least they all have guns. The mailman, on the other hand, is easy game.

Late in the afternoon on St. Patrick’s Day, Glen Grays, a 27-year-old African-American mail carrier, was making his rounds in Crown Heights, in Brooklyn, about to leave a package at 999 President Street.

Just in case you are unaware, Crown Heights is not one of those neighborhoods in Brooklyn where hipsters live.

On this afternoon, Mr. Grays was descending the steps of his mail truck backward, as postal workers often do to minimize wear and tear on the knees, when out of the corner of his eye he noticed a car making a sharp right turn onto President from Franklin Avenue. Mr. Grays shouted at the driver, climbing back up the steps to avoid getting sideswiped. The black car, in Mr. Grays’s telling, came tearing back his way in reverse. The driver said to him, Mr. Grays recounted, “I have the right of way because I’m law enforcement.” The unmarked car held four plainclothes police officers, according to the Brooklyn borough president’s office, which has taken an interest in the case.

Continue reading →

The applause from the cheap seats couldn’t be missed.  There is a report, from no less an august body than the American Association of University Professors.  And for the first time in recent memory, the report didn’t gush about the need to do everything possible to end the plague of campus rape and hate speech.

That’s why there was applause. Woo hoo!

As a result of committed student and faculty activism, the topic of sexual harassment and assault within universities1 has entered the national spotlight. Renewed attention to these problems has been met by a federal push to establish universities’ compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.  Yet Title IX’s track record has proven to be uneven. Success stories about compelling universities to address problems of sexual assault, such as those recounted by student campus groups,3 are matched by reported cases in which university administrators fail to punish gross and repeated sexual harassment, or where Title IX administrators from the Department of Education and within the university overreach and seek to punish protected academic speech. These cases have compromised the realization of meaningful educational goals that enable the creation of sexually safe campuses; they also have upended due process rights and shared governance in unprecedented ways. [Emphasis added.]

Ignore all those other words, and just focus on the ultimate clause.  And in fairness, the fact that the AAUP even raises questions about due process and shared governance is remarkable.  Continue reading →