Krauthammer And "[N]ever Again"

Krauthammer has a piece about the return of anti-Semitism and the cheap grace of Auschwitz memorials if we're not going to do anything about a nuclear Iran.

On the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz, mourning dead Jews is easy. And, forgive me, cheap. Want to truly honor the dead? Show solidarity with the living — Israel and its 6 million Jews. Make “never again” more than an empty phrase. It took Nazi Germany seven years to kill 6 million Jews. It would take a nuclear Iran one day.

Emotionally I agree with him, but what is his proposed solution? For years Conservative critics have been dunning the President's approach (I can't tell whether it's a strategy or just the random actions of a person who has no idea what to do) as appeasement, but what is the alternative? Is there anyone who doesn't think a nuclear Iran is inevitable short of a show of force? I don't see evidence that either talking or not-talking makes the slightest bit of difference to the mullahs.

"Germaine Greer Does Not Represent Feminism."

Progressives continue to eat their own. Now Germaine Greer is boycotted.

The only thing this and the suppression of the Vagina Monologues teaches me is that once we unhinge ourselves from Nature, everything really does fall into chaos.

In this instance, however, who the hell cares? It's only womyn.

At Least The French Like Cheese

It's been a while since either ninme or I chanted "Die, Boomers, Die," but if the Sec. of State sending a mix tape to France to make amends for not showing up for the anti-terror rally in Paris doesn't convince you, you probably ARE a Boomer.

Kevin Williamson with more on that. 

A word of advice: Next time, send Slayer.
Seriously: If you’re going to send a past-its-prime musical act to an ally in distress — instead of showing up to join the rest of the heads of state in a show of solidarity — then send in the wild boys from Huntington Park, Calif., who are, like the last effective foreign policy maintained by this country, born of the 1980s. James Taylor tells France, “You’ve got a friend.” Slayer tells the world, “You’ve got a problem.” And there’s something in the Slayer catalog for everybody: “Jihad” for the most literal-minded; “Evil Has No Boundaries,” a sentiment that social conservatives could surely endorse; “War Ensemble” for the neocons; and President John Bolton’s agenda for his first 100 days in office: “Raining Blood.” (“Endless war?” President Bolton scoffs. “Try three weeks.”) If you find yourself in a fight, you want to know that you’ve got a friend. But do you really want that friend to be James Taylor?

Hoist By Their Own Petard

It's only January but we may have the feel-good headline of the year:

Vagina Monologues cancelled because it Excludes Women Without Vaginas.

It seems trans-gender persons feel excluded, so no more of this talk will be tolerated.

In a school-wide email from Mount Holyoke's student-theater board, relayed by Campus Reform, student Erin Murphy explained that "at its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman ... Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive." 

Elizabeth Scalia says all that need be said on the topic, quite humorously, if you can bear to read the word "vagina" that many times.

And you know what? For once I am the one who just doesn't give a damn.

It's only womyn.

In Which I Best the Inimitable ninme

The best Oscar post ever written was this one.

Topping her record, if not the humor of her actual post, I not only haven't seen a one of this year's Best Picture nominees, but until Michael Keaton's Golden Globe acceptance speech went viral, I hadn't even heard of any of them.

Threepublic

Since Mr. W. & I each studied political philosophy, our library has a load of duplicate volumes because each of us stubbornly refuses to part with the version with his own notes and marginalia. (And Mr. W. highlights. The horror! And possible grounds for annulment.)

Don't tell Pope Francis, who certainly would not approve and is equally certainly right, but Eldest Weed is taking an independent study on the Republic this semester -- and so the Weed household now has its 3rd volume of The Republic, Bloom translation.

I gamely offered to let Eldest Weed use my copy, but he wants to take his own notes.  I'm ashamed of our excess. But proud of our son.

Update: Eldest Weed: "In the movie version of our lives, the solution to the mystery requires possession of all three copies of Bloom's Republic."

Meanwhile, in Egypt & Turkey

Turkey allows a new Christian church to be built.

And the President of Egypt has a Regensburg moment with the Mullahs.

"I am referring here to the religious clerics. … It's inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma (Islamic world) to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!

"That thinking — I am not saying 'religion' but 'thinking' — that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It's antagonizing the entire world! ... All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.

"I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move … because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands."

  And goes to Coptic Mass.