A university official tells Fox News that security concerns in the wake of recent anti-Israel protests on campus was one of the main reasons in deciding to cancel the larger event.
“Our Deans and other colleagues who work directly with our students have been discussing plans with student leaders, and, most importantly, listening. Based on their feedback, we have decided to make the centerpiece of our Commencement activities our Class Days and school-level ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, rather than the University-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15,” Columbia said in a statement.
Providing security must be a tremendous expense at this point.
I saw an interview somewhere with a graduating student – not even sure it was at Columbia, but it was at some school that was either considering a graduation cancellation or had already announced one – in which she pointed out that the class of 2024 was the same cohort that had lost out on high school graduations four years ago because of COVID.
Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day, which has taken on extra resonance this year. Netanyahu gave an address at Vad Yashem, the memorial site to Holocaust victims and to honor their rescuers.
Here are some excerpts:
…]T]he horrific terrorist attack of October 7th was not a Holocaust. Not because they lacked the intent of genocide, but because they lack the ability to carry it out. The intention is the same; the Nazis acted in order to completely destroy the Jewish people. The Hamas murderers are instructed to do the exact same thing. …
But unlike in the Holocaust, when we were helpless against our enemies, today we have our own defensive might.
After the October 7th massacre, we initiated a war against our assailants. A war that, by the help of God, will end in our absolute victory. …
We are fighting on two fronts: The first, the fanatical regime in Iran and its terror proxies, who act with the clear intention to destroy us; the second, the antisemitic volcano eruption that spits burning lava of lies against us, all around the world.
I say this simply: The suppressed antisemitism in the West, that bubbled under the surface ever since the Holocaust, is now rearing its ugly head.
Previous generations spread lies of how Jews poisoned wells, used the blood of children to make matza, and spread disease. Today, they spread new lies, that we are committing genocide and causing famine in Gaza. This could not be further from the truth. …
The lie has become truth, truth turned into lies. As the prophet Isaiah said: ‘Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that change darkness into light, and light into darkness.’
This madness has reached the most prestigious campuses in the West. …
This is reminiscent of things that happened in German universities in the 1930s. …
The attempt to tie our hands originates from various parties in the international community.
From here, from Jerusalem, on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, I send a message, loud and clear: ‘You will not tie our hands.’
If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone. But we know we are not alone because countless decent people around the world support our just cause. And I say to you, we will defeat our genocidal enemies.
Never again is now!
It was a stirring speech. Unfortunately, Israel is somewhat dependent on American ammunition, and one of the groups trying to tie Israel’s hands is reportedly the Biden administration.
One thing Netanyahu didn’t mention is that great deal of the propaganda – and lies – from Hamas and its supporters consists of what might be called Holocaust envy and Holocaust appropriation; genocide envy and genocide appropriation. The Palestinians say they are the Holocaust victims at the hands of Nazi Israelis and they are the genocide victims at the hands of genocidal Israelis. It’s a particularly vicious and sadistically twisted accusation, given Jewish history – what I would call an Orwellian reversal of the truth.
And much of the world is buying it, not always for the same reasons. Europe gets off the hook for its own participation in the Holocaust by believing this. Third world nations and the Left fit it into their simplistic framework of oppressor/oppressed in which a successful capitalist nation such as Israeli is always the villain. For perennial anti-Semites it’s a no-brainer. For internationalists it’s a reflex to blame a nationalist country such as Israel – and although there’s a contradiction in their championing Palestinian nationalism, they’ll happily make an exception.
Meanwhile, the Iranian mullahs must be very amused.
NOTE: As a Rafah invasion looms, Hamas says oh wait, we agreed to a ceasefire; Israel says Hamas didn’t meet its demands at all.
The male ballet dancer’s name in this video is Vasiliev, but I don’t think he’s any relation to the other Vasiliev: Vladimir, whom I highlighted last month. This Vasiliev is Ivan, a much more recent dancer. I believe this performance is from about 15 or 20 years ago, however. He is dancing with Natalia Osipova, who was his fiancee but they never married and at some point broke up.
The reason I’m showing this video is that it is taken from an unusual angle, I believe the wings. You can see into the opposite wings from where the cameraperson is standing, and notice all the people standing there and watching the action onstage. Plus you can see the soloists as they prepare to go on and as they come off.
The video also is especially fine because it features some extreme closeups and unusual angles which highlight the tremendous power and sheer muscular strength of both dancers. You don’t usually perceive that when viewing a ballet from the audience, but you can’t help but perceive it here. When Vasiliev lifts Osipova you know he’s lifting something large and heavy, despite her extreme thinness and grace. She is all muscle, too.
Both dancers have extraordinarily high jumps, and the angle of the camera really emphasizes that. Vasiliev jumps higher than Osipova, of course, because men can jump higher in ballet due to their musculature and structure. But both dancers seem to explode in their jumps during their solos. You can hardly notice their preparations and yet the dancers seem shot from cannons, although the cannons are their own strength. I think that at 7:02 Vasiliev jumps as high as he is tall.
Every now and then the video goes to slo-mo for a few seconds, an interesting effect that highlights certain movements.
Enjoy. The pyrotechnics start at around minute 4:00:
See this for a fairly succinct summary of why that’s true. An excerpt:
But here’s the thing. What was the “intent to commit another crime or aid and conceal the commission thereof” that prosecutors used to raise falsification of business records from a misdemeanor to a felony? In nearly every case of alleged falsification of records that has been charged as a felony in New York, the defendant was charged with another crime — that is, prosecutors made it clear what the other crime was. In Trump’s case, the indictment did not specify any other crime. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the law did not require him to specify the other crime.
So Trump faced felony charges without knowing what he was accused of doing. And the really amazing thing is that the trial is now underway and Bragg has still not specified what the other crime is. It is a key element of the case. Without it, the charges against Trump could never have been brought because they were misdemeanors long past the statute of limitations. It is the other crime that makes this whole prosecution possible. But the prosecutor has not specified what it is.
There are so many things wrong with this trial that it would be a joke if it weren’t so dangerous. And yet so many Trump-haters are able to justify it to themselves. I keep writing about this in some astonishment because, no matter how cynical I get about the ability of people to deceive themselves and others, I just don’t get cynical enough.
No, I’m not talking about those ubiquitous Amazon delivery trucks dominating the city roads. I’m talking about this discovery:
Researchers have detected a cluster of lost 2,500-year-old cities at the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon rainforest.
This amazing discovery, the oldest and largest of its kind in the region, includes a vast system of farmland and roads, revealing that Ecuador’s Upano Valley was densely populated from about 500 BCE to between 300 and 600 CE.
Led by French National Center for Scientific Research archaeologist Stéphen Rostain, a multi-national team analyzed data from more than two decades of interdisciplinary research in the region, recently expanded by light detection and ranging (LIDAR) mapping.
Covering an area of 300-square-kilometers (115-square-miles), LIDAR mapped platforms, plazas, and streets arranged in a geometric pattern, interwoven with agricultural drainage, terraces, and incredibly long, straight roads that connected a number of urban sites. …
The organization of the cities reveals the sophistication and engineering capabilities of these ancient cultures, according to the researchers, who concluded that the ‘garden urbanism’ of the Upano Valley provides further proof that Amazonia is not the pristine forest once depicted.
There is a lot more information at the link, including diagrams. These sorts of new techniques for discovery are not limited to the Amazon – they are revolutionizing archaeology in many areas, as well as physical anthropology.
One of the particularly horrible things about the aftermath of October 7 and the Israeli reaction to it is that the Hamas/Palestinian sympathizers are both ignorant of history and don’t even attempt to make logical arguments. Or perhaps they’re not so ignorant and they are lying. But again, they don’t even try logic; just slogans and Orwellian reversals.
Of course that isn’t just the hallmark of the talk around this particular issue. We see it over and over from the left, and although it’s not limited to the left it’s extremely prevalent there; it’s the left’s meat and potatoes, as it were. It shouldn’t persuade anyone but it certainly does, because it is vehement and “passionate,” and appeals to emotion which is a strong element in the way most human beings make their decisions and decide on their allegiances. And it thrives on historical ignorance and lazy thinking, which are usually in abundant supply.
I was talking to a friend recently about the Israel/Palestine question, mentioning some facts she hadn’t previously realized, and she said to me: “If what you say is true, then Israel is really really bad at PR.” Good point. I answered that, although PR is not their strong suit, when they do mount good arguments and inform people of history – which they have done over and over again – people deflect it with lies and hatred, and pretty much shout them down with slogans. And when the entire MSM and much of the world is arrayed against you, it’s very hard to make yourself heard in a way that counts.
Which brings me to this statement from Naftali Bennett, with which I happen to agree:
What is it about the Gaza war that’s causing all these riots around the world?
During the past 50 years the world has seen HUNDREDS of terrible wars. None of them caused the massive anti-Israel riots we’re seeing now in the universities.
So what’s unique about this particular…
— Naftali Bennett ????? ??? (@naftalibennett) May 2, 2024
If for some reason you can’t read the whole tweet, here’s the gist of the rest of it:
Are there more civilian losses in Gaza (10,000-14,000) than in other wars? Not at all. The war in Congo killed MILLIONS. The Syrian civil war almost a million. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan killed hundreds of thousands each.
Was it that Israel initiated this war? Nope. This war started ONLY because of the savage October 7th massacre that Hamas executed against innocent babies, women and men.
So why? What’s is it about this war that gets these intellectuals and students out there burning and breaking into buildings?
Why is the ICC singling out Israel?
You know the answer: Because it’s Israel, the only Jewish State on earth. It’s the Jews.
It’s the same reason Jews were singled out for the past 2000 years. Jews were accused of being lazy or too ambitious;
of behaving differently or trying to assimilate; of being weaklings or being too strong; of being an economic burden on society or succeeding too much in business. The true reason was none of these. It was because they were Jews. This wave of Israel-hate is simply a new incarnation of good old antisemitism.
The double standard is the tell: Jews are treated differently than every other people on earth.
On “X,” in response to Bennett’s tweet, you can see a torrent of bile that ignores what he is actually saying and employs the usual Orwellian slogans. It’s as though, if words are repeated often enough, they become true. And in fact that’s the way it works in many people’s minds and perceptions.
For example, the very first response I see there is this: “The GENOCIDE… Are you ret*rded?” Not an argument at all, nor does it answer any of Bennett’s arguments. It’s merely the ploy of repeating the world “genocide” – this time in all-caps – as though Israel’s commission of genocide (which is easy to refute in factual and logical terms) is so screamingly self-evident that to deny it is to be a “retard.”
The next response is a recitation of how the Palestinians are the poor suffering victims of Israel. Palestinians are certainly victims – of Hamas (whom they elected, so the victimhood is of their own volition), and earlier on of other Arab nations. But the only reason Israel ever wars on them is because the Palestinians have been perpetrators of violence against Israel from the very start. And the reason the Palestinians’ Arab neighbors have become somewhat cool towards giving them refuge is that they’ve wreaked havoc and chaos on every Arab nation they’ve entered as well, trying to overthrow governments and foment civil war.
The next tweet: “The murderer is asking why me and not all the other murderers.” It’s not murder to kill in a defensive war, which is what Israel is reluctantly doing. If the Palestinians stopped attacking Israelis there would be no war. But that distinction is utterly lost. Let’s say for the sake of argument, however, that Israel really is murdering a certain number of Palestinians, in which case it would certainly be valid to compare degrees of murder in terms of numbers lost in wars.
In the next tweet we hear from a holdout on the Israeli left: “Your arrogance, hatred and racism. That’s what. And I’m speaking as an Israeli-born Jew.” I don’t see anything Bennett has said there that exhibits hatred or racism. But name-calling is the way it goes, when you can’t out-argue someone, and “racist” is always good for the purpose.
The next two tweets are of the “GENOCIDE!” variety. And then some of the pro-Israel tweets begin. But it’s the nature of the anti-Israel ones that proves Bennett’s point, although their authors certainly don’t think so.
I’ll end by quoting one of the pro-Israel tweets. Here’s an excerpt:
What’s happening around the world has nothing to do with Gaza or how Israel is. It has everything to do with pure Jew hatred by the Arabs towards the Jews. And the young people protesting against Israel are so uneducated, brainwashed and stupid that they believe the lies. They’re like idiotic flies flying into a Venus flytrap and believing the Venus flytrap when it tells the fly that it is the victim and is there for peace. Then boom!!!
The Jews have been trying to tell these idiots what’s coming. We’ve had 1400 years of being the flies and we know now what the Venus flytrap is and will do. Yet these imbeciles see their enemy as their friends just before they too get eaten alive.
Why are they so stupid?
Because it’s pure Jew hatred. They fight for the rights of the minority, yet march hand in hand with 24% of the human population against 0.1%. They’re fighting against the very cause they claim to be protesting for.
Why? Because they’re indoctrinated like simpletons by pure Jew haters.
Speaking of indoctrination, last night I listened to a good interview with Coleman Hughes. In it, he describes (among other things) the extent of the pro-Palestinian propaganda he saw back when he was a Columbia student in 2015-2020. I’ve cued it up for that section, which lasts about four minutes (by the way, the interviewer seems to be Bret Stephens, who is generally awful on anything related to Trump but has been pretty good on Israel):
And here’s the entire interview; well worth watching:
UNC wasn’t the only school where the frat community rose to [Israel’s] defense—at Arizona State, frat boys helped the police dismantle a pro-Hamas encampment, ushering in calls to “bring back the frats” and online celebrations of Greek life as “one of the few remaining bulwarks of sanity on campus.”
But there’s a certain irony in the outpouring of appreciation for the bros. Especially at elite schools where the encampments have been most persistent, fraternities have faced university-driven witch hunts aimed at eliminating their presence on campuses. The anti-frat crusade, which features a questionable judicial process led by antagonistic university bureaucrats hired to promote DEI initiatives, is troubling enough before you consider its glaring hypocrisy in the face of the ongoing protests. Universities that now treat the smallest fraternity infractions as grounds for immediate and sometimes harsh limitation—including accidentally setting off smoke alarms with a candle to turning in party permit applications an hour late—are now, very publicly, allowing disruptive and even aggressive encampments to persist despite their deliberate violations of policy, making the school’s double standards for the application of rules and the distribution of consequences abundantly clear.
Other things come to mind, as well: the fake Rolling Stonerape story, the fake Duke rape story before that, and the words of CEO Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid about Bud Light’s advertising no longer appealing to a “frat boy” image.
The Tablet article describes how Cornell polices fraternities, compared to – well, you’ll see [my emphasis]:
At Cornell, the school uses an anonymous reporting system in which anyone can submit a complaint against a frat, even people who don’t attend the university—which can then become near-immediate grounds for a formal investigation during which the fraternity may very likely be suspended. This happened as recently as February, when Cornell’s Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards (OSCCS) received “an anonymous incident report” making unspecified allegations against at least 10 fraternities. By 9 p.m. the same day, OSCCS emailed every new member of those fraternities encouraging them to come forward with their own reports; three days later the school began suspending the accused chapters. The frats were prohibited from all social activity during the investigation, which included banning new members from eating at the house, even though they were paying for the fraternity meal plan, and limiting events at campus apartments occupied by graduating seniors, some of whom even had to cancel their birthday parties. I talked to one senior who wrote to the university, explaining that their guidelines were making it impossible to hold even small gatherings among friends and asking for additional clarity so seniors could find approved ways to enjoy their final days as students—especially since the anti-Israel protests were making campus life notably unenjoyable.
“It was frustrating because most people in our frat are Jewish, and the frat really was essential for us while there were swastikas being drawn on school sidewalks and people were yelling ‘From the river to the sea’ every day,” he said. “I said in my email to the school that campus is divided, isolating, and even threatening for Jews sometimes, so having the fraternity social network is actually a critical part of our lives. They didn’t even respond to my message.” The school lifted his frat’s suspension nearly a month later after the university found insufficient evidence for the allegations.
This incident—and the myriad other times the school leaped to penalize even unsubstantiated infractions—is still fresh in the minds of Cornell fraternity brothers as they watch the university’s noisy Gaza encampment enter its second week, despite multiple statements from the school pointing out its many rule violations. “It’s pretty clear the school views a certain type of rule break as honorable and just, and other rule breaks as violations by entitled jerks, so this was not surprising to me,” the senior said.
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others,” wrote Orwell, a keen observer of the left.
Much more at the link.
Perhaps it would help if fraternities renamed themselves “fraternités” in honor of the slogan of the leftist French revolution.
You may find his voice grating. To me, he’s no Barry Gibb, but I’ve always very much liked The Four Seasons and they provided a major part of the soundtrack to my youth. I find it difficult to pick a favorite Four Seasons song, but this one comes to mind, although the choice is somewhat arbitrary:
There are a bunch of quite recent videos of Valli singing, but looking at a few I suspect they might be lip-synced. Oh, well, the guy is 90, so I’ll forgive him. Happy Birthday, Frankie!
And speaking of Barry Gibb, I can’t resist mentioning the song that is the intersection between the two men, because Gibb wrote it for Valli:
Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey had written a different title track for Grease for its original Chicago production, but the song was discarded when the show was picked up on Broadway. Barry Gibb was commissioned to compose a new title song for Robert Stigwood’s film of the stage musical.
… Gibb invited … Peter Frampton to play guitar on the Grease session, while also providing backing vocals himself. … Frankie Valli was approached to provide the vocals, due to his vocal range being similar to that of Barry Gibb, his being under the management of Allan Carr at the time, and his status as a popular singer from the pre-British Invasion era that Grease represented. Gibb had a long-standing respect for Valli as “one of the hallmark voices of our generation”. … When Valli recorded “Grease”, he did not have a recording contract, having been contracted to Private Stock Records which had folded earlier in 1978. After the single was released on the RSO label, which also issued the soundtrack, Valli quickly landed a deal with Warner Bros., which had Valli’s group The Four Seasons under contract at the time. …
“Grease” became a number-one single in the United States in 1978 and also reached number forty on the R&B charts in the same year. Later in 1978, Valli released a follow-up album, the title of which, Frankie Valli… Is the Word, echoes the “grease is the word” lyric contained in the chorus of “Grease”. “Grease” was Valli’s final Top 40 hit.
“Grease” never was a big favorite of mine, but Barry Gibb was a hit machine, and he certainly did right by Valli.
NOTE: I see from that Wiki entry that backing vocals on “Grease” were also provided by The Sweet Inspirations, a group I liked at the time and many of whose members were related to Dionne Warwick (an early member) and Whitney Houston. Another family loaded with musical talent.
I have to say, Trump knows how to make lemonade out of those lemons he’s been handed. The latest:
Donald Trump dropped by a New York Fire Department station in midtown Manhattan Thursday to deliver pizzas after spending another day in court for DA Alvin Bragg’s case against the former president for falsifying business records.
The firefighters appeared to be pleased to see him, and in the video you can hear one or more say, “Save us, please save us.”
Trump was born and raised in New York and is really a New Yorker at heart. Although certain people in the city have turned on him, using the court system, and although the city’s voters are overwhelmingly blue, he’s not giving up on his hometown:
At the fire station, Trump reiterated his “love” for New York City.
“We’re going to come in. Number one, you have to stop crime, and we’re going to let the police do their job. They have to be given back their authority. They have to be able to do their job,” Trump said. “And we’re going to come into New York. We’re making a big play for New York, other cities too. But this city, I love this city.”
I don’t think Trump has a chance to take New York City. But I like his spirit. More importantly, can he take the swing states? Polls indicate the answer might be “yes,” but that would depend on voter turnout and the amount of “rigging” that goes on.
Hanson is always worth listening to, and this is no exception. I’m often struck by how well he sums up a situation and adds his own unique observations. This is long, but Hanson isn’t long-winded. He has a great deal to say that’s of substance. I would love to have taken a course from him in college.
If you’re pressed for time, though, watch however much you can. It also helps to click on “settings” and speed it up; I usually listen to talking-head videos that way:
