Category: Social Justice

The DEI Nobel Prize in Literature

by philg

Anne Carson, a writer from the Islamic Republic of Canada who identifies as “female”, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. NYT (has anyone reading this ever heard of her or read anything by her?):

Buried within the article:

In recent years, the Swedish Academy has tried to expand the diversity of laureates after criticism that too many past recipients have been men. Since 2018, the academy has alternated between male and female laureates. Given that last year’s prize went to the Hungarian novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai, critics had expected this year’s accolade to go to a woman.

Given that Science recognizes at least 74 gender IDs, how is it fair to alternate between just two?

I usually try to read at least one book by every Nobel winner, but “poet” is a big ask! Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse seems to be her most popular original work. Some of the Amazon reviews from before she was anointed aren’t too encouraging, even if you’re in the market for a queer reimagining of a Greek myth (the Greeks themselves weren’t queer enough?):

2023: I’m a huge fan of Anne Carson’s translation work and was so excited to read a queer reimagining of a Greek myth. This was a disappointment. … the setting was an unexplained mish mash of modern and mythological places which left me confused and unable to immerse myself. The characters were paper thin. … the prose while beautiful is unbelievably pretentious. I think I will stick to her translation work.

2021: it just looks like a jumbled mess and you kind of get the idea that it’s popular because to say otherwise might be perceived as lacking refined taste…but the reality is that it’s just not very good. That’s this book. Which is a shame because I really wanted to like it.

2016: I was bored and more bored.

2014: My reactions upon finishing were: slapdash, sloppy, pretentious, and a waste of time. Then I read some reviews and wondered how in the world this book gained such positive reviews, or for that matter even a publisher. … The amount of material in this tome that is superfluous, loose-ended, confusing and annoying far outweighs any attempts to play with old Greek mythology and mix it with contemporary culture.

2013: Pedantic and Overrated. … Even if you didn’t know that Carson had studied ancient Greek history and literature, she flaunts it in the very first pages of the book which is structured in 3 parts as follows: … Now, call me old-fashioned, but to me a poem must have rhythm and music. Carson’s prose doesn’t!! Therefore, I don’t consider it, and I don’t read it as poem.

That first review does raise the question of DEI. The committee alternates between authors whom they perceive to be men and women. Shouldn’t they also try to include authors who are members of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community for at least half of the prizes?

Separately, it seems that Anne Carson was a professor at Princeton back in the 1980s and denied tenure (i.e., “fired”; NYT). Thus we’re reminded of the poet who explained the difference between an ape and a tenured professor of English: “The ape doesn’t think that he can write.”

In other Nobel news, a 95-year-old has won the Nobel in chemistry… “French Holocaust survivor wins 2026 Nobel Prize for Chemistry”:

A Holocaust survivor whose family escaped the Nazis by hiding in a French village under assumed names has been announced as one of two winners of the 2026 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Henri B. Kagan, who was born in France in 1930, was chosen as a Nobel Laureate alongside Kenso Soai, for their groundbreaking work in the field of pharmaceutical engineering. Conducted in the 1980s and 1990s, their respective research helped solve the problem of how to create a single molecular mirror image.

After the war, Kagan went on to receive a PhD from the Collège de France, and then went on to become a professor at what was then Université Paris-Sud, France.

I think this proves some of Brian Keating’s points in Losing the Nobel Prize and Losing the Nobel Prize: on careers in science and Who earned an old-style Nobel Prize in 2019? Trailblazing female engineer Marconi won a physics prize in 1909 for her work in radio, which was still ongoing, just 6 years after achieving practical transatlantic communication. Kagan won for work done 40 years ago. I’m sure that he deserves to be recognized, but what practical effect will the award have on someone who became emeritus in 1999? He did write the foreword for a book published in 2008, Amino Acids and the Asymmetry of Life:

(One consequence of Prof. Kagan’s long life is that he was able to personally experience both the German-influenced period of French Jew-hatred (1940s) and the Islamic-influenced period of French Jew-hatred (today, when around 23% of the “French” are immigrants or children of immigrants).)

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Grok and ChatGPT inhabit parallel universes when asked about justice for the Cornell Victim

by philg

A low-income woman is about 5X more likely to suffer sexual assault than someone from a family that sends children to Ivy League colleges. ChatGPT:

Pooling 2017–2022, the annual rape/sexual-assault victimization rate for people living in households earning under $25,000 was 3.8 per 1,000. For households earning $100,000–$199,999, it was 0.9 per 1,000, and for households earning $200,000 or more, 0.8 per 1,000. In other words, the lowest-income group had roughly 4–5 times the annual rate of the highest-income groups. Those figures are for persons age 12+, not women alone, but women constitute the large majority of rape/sexual-assault victims…. The women statistically at greatest risk are disproportionately low-income women, not women at elite universities.

The passion for what happens at elite colleges is explained by a University of California professor in Why America’s professional elite are so interested in sex acts at universities. What about the fact that New York’s governor and attorney general are now going after the fraternity brothers accused in Lucy Craig’s civil lawsuit seeking “compensatory and punitive damages”? (given the deep pockets of the defendants, e.g., Cornell University, and the punitive damages angle might she end up becoming the first billionaire rape victim?)

Using the conventional terminology of our greatest contemporary poets, e.g., Kanye West, I asked AI the following question:

If a hood rat girl said she was raped would the governor and attorney general be involved?

Grok:

No. A routine report from a poor woman in Ithaca or the Bronx would not get the governor and the attorney general.

ChatGPT:

Possibly, but there’s no solid basis to say that the governor and attorney general would not have intervened if the complainant were a poor or socially marginalized woman.

(Certainly the men will be getting a fair trial by a jury of 12 who are all wearing #IAmJaneDoe T-shirts. Maybe the defense attorneys will be searching desperately for a Haitian immigrant?)

Here’s a reminder that whatever the Cornell students were up to in 2024, it was all financed by taxes extracted from the working class:

The heavy partying at ultra-expensive institutions like Cornell is being financed by untold billions of non-market government-backed loans that let students take what amounts to a four-year cruise – parties, sports, even occasional lectures. I would guess none of the participants were electrical engineering majors.

Most adults don’t have all-night ketamine bacchanals because they have to work in the morning. But 18-21 year olds are given all the privileges of adulthood without and of the responsibility. Don’t treat them like Roman aristocrats and then wonder at their decadence.

Regarding the likely majors of the participants, from Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town (a.k.a. majoring in partying and football) (2015):

Nobody is raped in the physics lab in Missoula if for no other reason than nobody Krakauer followed took a physics course to begin with

Now that there is a person definitively associated with the incident (Lucy Craig’s name was apparently made public by incompetence within the New York State court system), I wonder if there will be any Deplorables dressing up like her for Halloween. If so, what would the costume look like? If commercially marketed, would it be labeled “Cornell Student”, “Jane Hoe”, “#IAmJaneDoe”? (I don’t think that Lucy Craig’s name or precise likeness from social media could be used for commercial/advertising purposes without her permission.)

From the above, mentioned Krakauer book, on the profits to be made via civil lawsuits enabled by a rape allegation:

In 2002, [Brian] Banks was a junior at Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, California, a six-foot-four, 225-pound linebacker on an extraordinary football team. … Banks was aggressively recruited by some of the nation’s top college football programs and accepted a scholarship offer from the University of Southern California. … While attending summer classes before his senior year at Long Beach Poly, Banks had a chance encounter with a sophomore named Wanetta Gibson that, according to Banks, culminated in consensual sex. According to Gibson, Banks raped her. In a note Gibson wrote to a friend, which became a crucial piece of evidence, she said Banks “picked me up and put me in the elevator and he took me down stairs and he pulled my pants down and he rapped [sic] me and he didn’t have a condom on and I was a virgin and now Im [sic] not.” When interviewed by the police, Wanetta Gibson told a more detailed version of the same story, and Brian Banks, who was seventeen years old, was charged with forcible rape. Were he convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison. Like thousands of other defendants ensnared in the criminal justice system, … Banks agreed to plead no contest to the rape charge, spend at least five years in prison, remain on probation for an additional five years, and register as a sex offender. While Brian Banks was serving his time, Wanetta Gibson and her mother filed a lawsuit against the Long Beach Unified School District, claiming that lax security at Poly High School created an unsafe environment that led to her being raped. The suit was settled out of court, with the school district agreeing to pay Gibson $1.5 million.

… her conscience began to bother her. In March 2011, a few years after Brian Banks was released from prison, he logged onto Facebook and saw he’d received a friend request from Wanetta Gibson, his accuser. … Banks asked if she would meet with him in the presence of a private investigator, Freddie Parish, whose son had been a teammate of his at Poly. Gibson agreed, and during their meeting she admitted what Banks knew to be the truth all along: He had not raped her. Unbeknownst to Wanetta Gibson, Parish was secretly recording the conversation. … Brian Banks’s conviction was reversed in May 2012. Thirteen months later, the Long Beach Unified School District won a $2.6 million default judgment against Wanetta Gibson to recoup the settlement she had received, plus interest and damages.

Here’s Banks, who enabled Wanetta Gibson to “make bank”:

Who wants to bet that Wanetta Gibson put the $1.5 million she received into an S&P 500 index fund and that, therefore, California taxpayers/the school district were able to recover their money plus interest? Separately, if we assume that Ms. Gibson was represented by an attorney who took a fact percentage of the $1.5 million via a contingency fee, why wouldn’t the school district try to recover some of the taxpayers’ money from the attorney?

Finally, here’s New York Republican Mike Lawler, chairman of the House Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, telling Muslim-Americans “Any of our daughters could be Jane Doe”. Isn’t that rather insulting? How many immigrants from Somalia or Afghanistan believe that their daughters would be voluntarily consuming 10+ drinks containing alcohol and then going, without a male relative escort and without a burqa or even hijab, to a fraternity party hosted by non-Muslims?

Part of the Plaintiff’s own account of her voluntary actions, tough to square with the Quran and the Hadiths:

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Rage against Elon Musk’s wealth: a forced update to source code

by philg

When I started teaching at a medical school in 2018, a couple of friends and I put together a web page with which to inflict pain and suffering on the MD/PhDs there: “Bitcoin v. Medical School”. Here’s what a session looks like:

There was a threshold of $150 billion that, if reached, would point out that the user’s med school tuition could have, if invested in Bitcoin, made him/her/zir/them (the medical school in question is Harvard and, of course, it was officially gender expansive at the time) the richest human on our beloved, yet imperiled, planet:

Despite not having made any money from being the Father of Modern AI Systems (Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015), Elon is still so rich as to make the $150 billion threshold absurd. (Even without Elon, the tech boom and inflation have pushed roughly 8 additional guys over that threshold.) Today I went into Emacs and updated it to $1 trillion. Just another way in which Elon’s extreme and unconscionable wealth makes life painful for the rest of us.

(Note that while Emacs is popularly associated with Richard Stallman, a Massachusetts resident canceled for pointing out that Jeffrey Epstein’s activities would have been legal in Massachusetts (age of consent: 16), the text editor was actually originally built by Guy Steele. Thus, we may use Emacs without any moral conflict over using the work of someone who has been canceled. Separately, could we all get on board with supporting the Iranian missile and nuclear weapons programs if they would chant “Death to vi” instead of “Death to America”?)

Related:

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Why not fight inequality in corporate profitability?

by philg

I hope that everyone is getting ready for International Equal Pay Day, coming up on the 18th. Americans fight (thank God!) inequality in individual earnings with the world’s most progressive tax system. Why not also fight inequality at the corporate level?

Nvidia’s recent quarterly report:

(The company is so forward-thinking that they’re already in 2027 while us peasants are stuck in 2026.)

Net income was almost $60 billion and an even-more-eye-popping 62% of revenue. For every dollar in sales, the company enjoys 62 cents in profit. The typical S&P 500 company earns about 15% in what the NYT tells us is an economy that has been destroyed by Donald Trump (the 10-year average is 11%).

(I want to pause here and take credit for my investment acumen. My standard line was that Nvidia’s profit margin couldn’t stay at 30%, despite the goodness of CUDA, because people who were big users of GPU would find better price/performance chips and recompile their software to run on those competitor GPUs. These latest quarterly results certainly prove my prediction correct because the profit margin did not stay at 30% (it moved to 62%). “Follow me for more investment advice.”)

Federal corporate income tax isn’t based on profitability, but is a flat 21% (Nvidia actually pays closer to 16.5% due to some money being earned in countries with lower tax rates, credits for research, etc.).

Bernie Sanders informs us that nobody needs to own more than 3 houses. The analogy for a corporation would be that no company needs to earn more than a 25% profit margin and, therefore, the corporate income tax rate should go up closer to 100% on the chunk of a company’s earnings that are more than 25%.

Speaking of Bernie and Nvidia, TIME’s 100 AI “innovators, leaders, and thinkers reshaping our world through groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence” does not include any current or former employees of Nvidia (sorry, Jensen Huang, Bill Dally, and the rest of the merry band identified in Even companies worth $1 trillion don’t want to pay Nvidia’s prices). Bernie Sanders, however, is featured as one of the top 100:

Perhaps this is because Senator Sanders was the first author of the 2017 paper that kicked off the modern LLM:

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“Black Creativity” celebrated at the Jewish-founded/Jewish-funded Griffin Museum of Science and Industry

by philg

The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry was founded by a Jew, Julius Rosenwald:

Funding for a major expansion was provided by a Jewish family led by Henry Crown (“Henry Krinsky”):

(Ken Griffin provided the latest slug of funding for the museum, shortly before coronapanic and the peaceful BLM riots led him to relocate to Miami and Griffin is not, to my knowledge, Jewish.)

Does the Museum celebrate Jewish achievements in scientice, engineering, and industry? No! Since 1970, the museum has been specifically focused on a celebration of “Black Creativity”:

As with other nonprofit organizations’ race- and gender-related programs, I can’t figure out how this is legal. The museum is partly supported by tax dollars, e.g., the taxes that Ken Griffin didn’t have to pay because he gave $125 million (in pre-Biden dollars) to the museum. The museum also gets some state and federal grants. They wouldn’t be allowed to have a “white cisgender heterosexual male creativity” exhibit, right? ChatGPT:

Why don’t they run up against the 14th Amendment as Harvard did in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard? Because they don’t discriminate in who can pay $26 to come in and see a discriminatory exhibit? It’s $15 for kids, but note that the price could also be $0 times 8 if you present your EBT card:

Black creativity seems only loosely related to today’s visitors. ChatGPT says that the Black population of Chicago is declining even faster than the city’s overall population decline while the percentage of Chicago residents who are Asian or Hispanic is growing (but it isn’t fair to characterize this as a “replacement”). Our Venezuelan Uber driver from O’Hare enthused over the fact that Spanish is now spoken everywhere in the city, a huge change in his experience from when he arrived in 2019. As we were driving in from Oshkosh we passed mosques and women in burkas. Here’s the map of mosques on the north side of the city:

What do the Muslim, Indian (“Asian”), and Hispanic taxpayers who visit the museum see? A bronze relief showing Black Creativity in various domains:

(There are no relief sculptures celebrating Muslim, Indian, or Hispanic creativity.)

I asked ChatGPT “Explain to me how the depicted items are examples of Black creativity”. Excerpts:

Pyramids (top center) – These almost certainly refer to ancient Egypt. Some museums emphasizing Black history present ancient Egypt as part of Africa’s cultural heritage. Historians agree Egypt was an African civilization geographically

Flasks and laboratory glassware (center left) – … They likely honor African American scientists, engineers, inventors, and physicians.

Wheel/gear (bottom center) – This suggests engineering, industry, machinery, and technological innovation.

Of course, I followed up with “Were the people who designed and built the pyramids Black?”

Most Egyptologists would not simply describe the pyramid builders as “Black” in the modern American sense. Some Afrocentric scholars argue that ancient Egyptians should be regarded as Black Africans.

“How about the microscope? Was that invented or improved by a Black person?”

Looking closely at the relief, I think those are laboratory flasks (Erlenmeyer or Florence flasks) rather than a microscope. [there is clearly a microscope in the relief! AI is not as smart as we think?] If the artist had intended a microscope, it would not be accurate to associate its invention primarily with Black inventors. The microscope was developed in Europe in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. There are, however, many notable Black scientists and inventors associated with scientific instruments and laboratory research more broadly.

“I see an airplane there. Was aviation a Black invention?”

I think it is intended as a symbol of a field of achievement rather than a claim that the airplane itself was invented by Black people. However, Black Americans have made important contributions to aviation … the Tuskegee Airmen … Guion Bluford became the first African American in space. … Mae Jemison was the first African American woman in space.

“How is it an example of “Black creativity” to operate a machine designed and built by non-Black people?”

the airplane represents aviation as a discipline, and “Black creativity” includes designing aircraft components, advancing aerospace engineering, pioneering aviation, piloting, maintenance, research, or other creative work within that field.

“I drive a Honda Odyssey, but didn’t design or build it. Does that make me creative?”

Simply using a product that someone else designed and built does not ordinarily make you creative with respect to that product. If you drive a Honda Odyssey from point A to point B, most people would not say that is an example of your creativity.

“why is operating an airplane an example of “Black creativity” if I don’t get credit for operating the Odyssey?”

Black creativity” includes contributions such as advancing aviation through research or leadership,

“What fundamental innovations in aviation are Blacks responsible for?”

There have been many important Black contributors to aviation, but if you mean fundamental innovations that changed aviation as a whole, the list is relatively short. … the Tuskegee Airmen demonstrated the effectiveness of Black military aviators

“It was “creative” for the Tuskegee airmen to fly airplanes designed by non-Blacks and previously flown millions of hours by non-Blacks?”

The Tuskegee Airmen … demonstrated exceptional flying and leadership under combat conditions. They disproved racist assumptions that Black Americans were incapable of serving as military pilots.

““exceptional flying and leadership”? So they were better pilots and leaders than all previous WWII pilots?”

The Tuskegee Airmen included many highly competent military pilots who served successfully in combat. Their historical significance comes from several factors: They were the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Forces. … They flew hundreds of combat missions in Europe.

“What was “exceptional” about their flying and leadership compared to non-Black mediocrities such as Bob Hoover, Richard Bong, and David McCampbell?”

The Tuskegee Airmen are primarily notable because they successfully completed combat missions despite institutional discrimination. When I used the word “exceptional,” I was referring to the fact that they met demanding combat standards under adverse circumstances—not that they were uniquely superior to all other WWII aviators.

“How were they “exceptional” if they weren’t better at flying and leadership than other wwii pilots?”

“Exceptional” can mean either: (1) Better than almost everyone else, or, (2) Worthy of special recognition because of unusual circumstances or historical significance. I was using it in the second sense, but I can see why that was unclear.

If we’re evaluating pure flying skill or combat leadership, historians generally do not rank the Tuskegee Airmen as uniquely superior to the best fighter groups of WWII. There were many outstanding fighter units and aces in the U.S., British, German, Soviet, Japanese, and other air forces.

So if someone told me that I shouldn’t be able to drive a minivan and then I drove one to Publix anyway, that would make me an “exceptional driver” like Max Verstappen?

If someone wrongly told you that you were incapable of driving a minivan because of your race, and you then drove one to Publix safely, that would disprove their stereotype. It would not make you comparable to Max Verstappen as a driver.

(I tried some of the above with Grok and its answers were consistent with ChatGPT. It cited the Tuskegee Airmen as examples of “creativity” in aviation and praised them for “exceptional skill”. At the same time, it said that they were no more skilled than the average USAAF pilots of the day, but that they’d overcome prejudice described in a 1925 memo. Pressed a little, it said that despite decades of intensive efforts to recruit Black pilots (“deliberate outreach, scholarships aimed at underrepresented groups, mentoring programs, recruiting at HBCUs, and periodic adjustments intended to increase Black representation”), 2% of current military pilots are Black (vs. 14% of the population) and that the reason for this is that Blacks score 1 standard deviation lower on Test of Basic Aviation Skills and Air Force Officer Qualifying Test. These tests are highly correlated with the ability to complete pilot training, says Grok, and that actually if the U.S. military operated in a race-neutral manner the percentage of Black pilots would be around 1%. At the same time, though, Grok says that any statement that Blacks on average aren’t as suited to being military pilots must be considered irrational prejudice.)

Oh well, despite this lengthy exchange I still can’t figure out why an Arab, Indian, Chinese, or Venezuealan taxpayer wants his/her/zir/their tax dollars to be spent on promoting a single racial group’s creativity going back to the pyramids.

Exit through the gift shop and pick up some Black Creativity fridge magnets:

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Harley-Davidson Museum features Black riders to its Hispanic visitors

by philg

Our Oshkosh 2026 group included a couple of people who hadn’t been with us during the 2024 visit to the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee.

What was new for 2026? The entrance features just one person, “part of a Black riding community in Florida”:

An upstairs gallery had an exhibit limited to photos of “Black riders in New York”:

What’s interesting about the above centering of the Black experience on Harleys? I don’t remember seeing any Black visitors inside the museum ($26/person; median income for a Black-headed household in Milwaukee is about $37,000/year), but we heard tons of conversations in Spanish.

Photos of some parts of the museum not included in the 2024 post…

Biker chicks in the old days:

From roughly the same era:

Elvis Presley, one of my candidates for Greatest American Ever, purchased a Harley with the income from some of his earliest success:

This might have been the inspiration for New York Times coverage of various European vehicle ramming events: it is the “automobiles” doing the killing.

Example from the NYT:

A rare U.S. Navy shore patrol Harley from WWII:

A 1958 classic:

A 2002 masterpiece:

Overview:

Next stop: Chicago!

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I drove my Prius to the bookstore in Evanston

by philg

Picking up where Evanston, Illinois Public Library left off…

Houses in the nicer parts of Evanston are worth over $2 million. Some of what were originally family houses have been converted to commercial or Northwestern University use. Example:

Here’s a 10-bedroom (with no “master” bedroom?), 5,500-square-foot place at 1707 Hinman Ave, worth $2.2 million (Zillow):

What if the owner were to drive his/her/zir/their car from this house a few blocks to the bookstore? First, let’s consider the Prius, a beautiful genocide-free car from any angle:

The shop directly in front of the car is Bookends & Beginnings, an “ICE FREE ZONE” (because a lot of undocumented migrants spent their time in English-language full-price bookstores?):

Just as one walks in, the shop reminds us to #Resist Amazon:

(See also How’s your National Data Center Day of Protest going? for how other retailers in Evanston are #Resisting)

There were no customers or employees in the store who appeared to identify as “Black”, but there is a robust African American Studies section on the main level:

A “Love is Love” card is available on the main level, but most of the Rainbow Flagism books are downstairs:

Acceptance of homosexuality is in no way a gateway belief to acceptance of polygamy:

Did the cruel Trump administration manage to kill DEI? Fortunately, a book by Evelyn R. Carter, PhD, remains available:

Stepping out into the wider world of downtown Evanston, we find that undocumented migrants who like to dress in tennis whites and swing a custom-strung racquet are safe inside the tennis shop:

What if speaking with one of the handful of Republicans who are hiding somewhere in Evanston has made a “marginalized” progressive feel unsafe? “Support and validation” are available for a fee in “The Safe Room” (fully virtual, for safety from SARS-CoV-2):

(Over 90 percent of Evanstonians vote correctly in a typical election so it is unclear why a “POC” would be “marginalized” by these righteous folk.)

The store by our hotel was a refuge for dogs, migrants (ICE thugs not allowed to enter), and the 2SLGBTQQIA+ (note trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag):

Given that so many migrants to Illinois are Islamic, however, how can the store be considered a welcoming environment for migrants if it also welcomes the haram (pet dogs; men who have sex with men)?

There was a Cars and Coffee event the next day and at least one attendee was sacrilegious (“Black Cars Matter”):

Speaking of religion, the First United Methodist Church seems to have been neglecting its BLM and Rainbow Flags in favor of sheltering migrants from ICE. It’s not a replacement, of course, but concern for migrants has replaced concern for native-born Blacks and native-born 2SLGBTQQIA+:

The Lake Street Church has a huge pro-open-borders banner and somewhat smaller signs promoting Rainbow Flagism (not trans-enhanced, however) and BLM:

Is there any space for the progressives of Evanston to welcome the stranger? Northwestern isn’t $100,000/year to attend just yet, thank God, but only $99,375/year:

Northwestern is officially relentlessly positive regarding immigration (web site). Immigrants don’t commit crime and create tons of jobs. ICE is bad because “Immigrant Enforcement Can Impact Trust in Law Enforcement”. Any objection to open borders stems from a “misconception”.

Could these virtuous pro-immigration folks make room on their own campus for enrichers? If they built up their 240 acres to the standard height of newer lakefront buildings in Chicago proper, i.e., about 50 stories, they could house roughly 500,000 immigrants in addition to their 5,000 on-campus students. That assumes that the new apartment buildings cover about 50 percent of the 240 acres, leaving the rest for green space, streets, etc.

Like Pope Leo XIV, in other words, Northwestern doesn’t want to “welcome the stranger” on property that it actually controls, but instead wants other people to organize a welcome for strangers.

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Olympia, Washington: Too busy with “Nothing but Hate for Israel and Zionism” to help their homeless neighbors

by philg

After two nights in Rainier National Park, we stopped in Olympic, Washington. The town’s passions are summarized beautifully on State Ave. Stonewall Youth, a group that hosts “drop-ins for queer+trans youth 12-21”, is surrounded by unhoused neighbors (the encampment in the photo below is one block away) and has not a single sign regarding what might be done to assist the unhoused. At the same time, the group is occupied with pro-Hamas advocacy: “Nothing but Hate for Israel and Zionism; Nothing but Love for Palestine and Liberation: from gaza to the americas, decolonization means attack!” (they don’t want to decolonize Olympic, Washington and give the land back to the Native Americans?)

5.5 years after coronapanic, indoor masking remains common in Olympia, but some locals go the full distance into delightful Outdoor Masking (not shown: the homeless guy in the background literally dancing to his own tuen):

The folks who post Black Lives Matter signs all over their town celebrate the memory of RBG, a person famous for refusing to hire any Black law school graduates, while ignoring their indigent neighbors:

Captain Little, a toy store, joins Stonewall Youth in combining advocacy for the 2SLGBTQQIA+ with advocacy for a Hamas-ruled society in which non-heterosexual sex is a criminal act:

Instead of collecting money to help their unhoused neighbors, a couple of whom walked by the store during the few minutes that I needed to get the photos, the toy store is raising money to help a 23-year-old Gaza “demolished home that was bombed by the IOF”:

Children are invited to a couple of Pride events:

One shopper who would absolutely love this children’s store is Mindy the Crippler, our golden retriever:

Speaking of children, here’s what they experence at the Browsers bookstore… The front window:

Specifically in a section marked “Children” within the store:

(It is a little unclear what will happen on Juneteenth in Olympia, Washington. The U.S. Census says that the town is just 3% Black. Based on our walks around downtown, this seems like an overestimate.)

Featured for the parents, in the adult area:

At the front of the store, a reminder that the apparently meek person sitting in an armchair with a book is actually a brave fighter against fascism.

The edge of the building that holds the bookstore is devoted to a massive “Oympia-Rafah Solidarity” mural. The State of Israel is compared to the United States in terms of illegitimate occupation of land that properly belongs to the indigenous, but there is no indication that any of those behind the mural project have returned the land underneath their own houses to the rightful Native American owners and started paying rent. Curiously, the mural says that “no human is illegal” and the anyone can immigrate into the U.S., which seems to be inconsistent with their opposition to Jews having immigrated to British-administered Mandatory Palestine and, after being expelled from Arab/Muslim countries, to the State of Israel. Finally, note that not every Jew is a bad Jew. a Jewess who “refuses to occupy” might be acceptable:

Loosely related, the local indigents get a cheerful mural backdrop:

The sacred Pride mural is desecrated by the presence of rubbish cans in front:

The crosswalk murals are kept clean:

The local flag store sells everything but the American Flag:

Here’s a store that advertises a “No Hate” festival and also warns people to “Beware of [hate-filled?] dog”:

Maybe the dog doesn’t want to “Make America Gay Again”?

Shopping for women’s clothing is an occasion to ponder “No Kings”, Ukraine, Equity, and Immigrants vs. ICE:

Shopping for flowers is a time to remember to “Protect Trans Youth” and that “Queer is Normal”:

There is a huge disconnect between the interests of contemporary Olympians and those of the folks who set up and decorated the State Capitol. War is glorified, including our illegitimate war against Germany in 1917 (after providing a lot of help to the British while officially neutral, we declared war on Germany, untimately winning a “victory” that resulted in Adolf Hitler being elected):

The State of Washington officially flies the sacred Trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag:

It’s magnificent inside, the entire Marble Island of Alaska having been mined to decorate the interior (chandeliers from Tiffany):

Slaveholder George Washington is honored and, on the flip side, Martin Luther King, Jr. (the great man visited Washington State just once, spending four days in Seattle at a time when 1% of residents were Black):

The plastic aerosol virus shields that went up during coropanic are still there in the state offices where the public might show up. Perhaps nobody has had time to read “Those Anti-Covid Plastic Barriers Probably Don’t Help and May Make Things Worse” (New York Times 2021): “erecting plastic barriers can change air flow in a room, disrupt normal ventilation and create “dead zones,” where viral aerosol particles can build up and become highly concentrated.”

Next stop: Olympic National Park!

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Target on Juneteenth

by philg

Did anyone go to Target yesterday to purhcase Pridewear for a beloved 2SLGBTQQI+ canine?

It seems that Target is the ultimate example of Juneteenth. Elite white corporate executives at the headquarters in Minnesota, a state in which slavery was never legal, get a paid day off. Black retail workers in former slave states must toil to help customers if they want to be paid for working on June 19th. Google:

(The Target leadership team page depicts not a single person who appears to be African American. Screen shots below.)

If any reader happened to be at Target and happened to get a photo of a Black worker toiling while the above elites enjoyed their day off, I would love to receive it!

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Sonos, eight years after the IPO

by philg

Readers are likely aware of my fondness for whole-house audio and, since 2005, Sonos, a company that has roots in Santa Barbara, CA and Boston, MA. The company went public at $15 per share almost exactly eight years ago. How’s the stock done? If you don’t adjust for inflation, it’s right at its original IPO price (down from the first-day bump, though). Adjusted at official CPI, though, someone who got IPO shares is down 25 percent. Adjusted for South Florida real estate costs, the investor is down about 50 percent.

Given that state governors ordered peasants to stay home for 2-3 years in a lot of high-income states, how do we account for a home audio company having done this badly? Sony has doubled, in nominal dollars, over the same period. Consumers don’t care about multi-room audio because they always have their AirPods in and the sound thus follows them?

Did Sonos fail to jump on the social justice bandwagon or ignore Is LGBTQIA the most popular social justice cause because it does not require giving money? Certainly not!

Sonos in June 2020:

In celebration of global Pride the Internet radio service introduced a limited-edition station, initiated by a group of LGBTQ+ employees.

Dmitri Siegel, VP Global Brand, extended his support becoming Pride@’s official executive sponsor. “I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be an ally in the Pride@ group,” he said. “As a straight white male, it’s common to feel intimidated or uncomfortable engaging on LGBTQ+ issues because you feel like you are going to say the wrong thing or be offensive in some way. Being a part of Pride@ has given me the opportunity to do my work—listen and learn. Getting over insecurity and discomfort unlocks all these amazing people and a whole aspect of the human experience that I would otherwise miss out on.”

The article references a corporate tweet:

The station was still up and running a year ago:

How about this month? The radio web site features state-sponsored NPR and Democratic Party-affiliated MSNBC, but I didn’t see anything about Pride.

Sonos Radio has an Instagram account. No Pride station is mentioned. (The “Full Spectrum; Celebrate Child” station is still available in the app, however.)

Sonos has an X account(!), but hasn’t posted anything for Pride 2026. Nor did they post anything regarding Pride on their (rather thin) Facebook account. Their careers page assures today’s young people that working life can be a continuous Pride celebration:

It looks as though the company has abandoned its commitment to proselytizing for Rainbow Flagism to consumers, reminding consumers that Black history is more important than other kinds of history, etc. In other words, Sonos has abandoned its principles and still can’t make money, the worst of all possible worlds for a corporation.

I still love the product, even if their lightweight powered speakers can’t overcome the laws of physics (see below regarding the latest Sonos S2 gear versus their old amps driving heavier passive (ancient) speakers). They also have great support compared to most companies. I’m wondering what they could make that would be profitable in an Apple-takes-all world.

Related:

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