Divorce: A Firsthand Account

Kate Mulgrew speaks frankly about her divorce, and what it did to her children:

We were driving across the Mojave Desert toward Mammoth Mountain. Ian was in the front seat, next to me, and Alec was in the back. It was late afternoon. I could feel the sun withdrawing; so I accelerated, hoping to make it to the mountain before dark.

The energy in the car was high, lit by a strange blue flame.

“Why isn’t Dad with us?” Ian demanded. “When is he coming up?”

NPR in One Sentence

“But sociology graduate student Nicole Bedera says she found that ad to be insufficiently feminist.”

That about sums it up…

Muslims Mock Daesh

Speaking of helping delegitimize the terrorists, did you know that our Muslim allies and non-allies alike, as well as Israelis, are making fun of Daesh (ISIS) through sketch comedy and songs?  Check out these, from Kurds on TV in Iraq, Palestinians, and Israelis (warning, some rude content):

Call the Islamic State ‘Daesh’, Help Delegitimate the Terrorists

“The state of donkeys in Iraq and Syria”

Did you know that the term for ISIS or the Islamic State preferred by many of its Arabic-speaking victims is “Daesh” (pronounced “die-EESH”)? The reasons for this are complex, as explored at length by Alice Guthrie at Free Word, but the short version is that thanks to various connotations and cultural context in the Arabic-speaking world, calling the terrorist group “Daesh” delegitimates them by making them sound “little, silly, and powerless,” but also “implies they are monsters, and that they are made-up.”

Priorities

What Progressivism Looks Like: Terrorists’ Murders Are Your Fault for ‘Insulting’ Them

Truly bizarre.

In light of the Charlie Hebdo shootings last winter and the terrorist attacks this week in Paris and elsewhere, I posted on Facebook, without comment, a link to where people can buy a T-shirt with the drawing of Mohammed from the contest in Texas earlier this year.  It drew several responses from a person who is intelligent and well educated, who works in one of the cultural centers of our country, and who is also a relative, my own flesh and blood.  Nevertheless, because he is also of the left, he said that I shouldn’t be “insulting” Muslims by spreading others’ drawings of Mohammed, and seemed to blame the artists and people like me for the murderers’ actions.  I pushed back—surely he didn’t really mean that?—but he reiterated that it’s our own fault—“those who generalize and insult religious groups serve to fan long-burning flames”.

Hillary Clinton Criticizes Unpaid Internships, Doesn’t Pay Her Interns

Hillary Clinton wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour.  At a speech last year, she said,

In Death, Time Has No Meaning?

“Also this hour, fans of The Walking Dead have to wait another week.”

‘Obamacare has fallen apart without Republicans’ dismantling it’

NRO’s Kevin Williamson has a good short review of the history of Obamacare to date: “Obamacare Is Dead”.

This was entirely predictable; in fact, it was predicted . . . .

When At-a-glance Candidate Rankings Are More than Glance-deep

Via Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt (e-mail version), an organization called the Leadership Project for America has an interesting idea:  Instead of an arguably near-meaningless in-the-moment popularity contest or an in-depth but one-sided grade card, they rank the presidential candidates based on a thoughtful analysis of each candidate’s conservative policy positions, honesty, accomplishments, and communication ability that is both broad and deep (see the multi-level outline of their grading rubric here).

Why Red States Are Better Places to Live, in One Sentence

NRO’s Kevin Williamson remarks,

Driving along Interstate 10 in Houston last week, I saw a wonderful inversion of the familiar urban scene of a sad homeless fellow standing in an underpass with a “Will Work for Food” sign: Houston’s version is guy standing in an underpass holding a placard reading: “General Labor Wanted,” handing out fliers to passers-by looking for work.

You can read the rest of the piece here:

“With Its Bathroom Ordinance, Houston Takes Leave of Its Municipal Senses”

It’s actually a great piece, but it’s not really a piece about that.