Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Here Mo puts on a burqa and asserts that he’s a woman because he feels like one. Of course this panel is triggering for “progressives,” and, though the strip is six years old and recycled, the artist says this:
A Friday Flashback from almost exactly six years ago. Lost a couple of patrons that day. Let’s see if it happens again.
I suspect it will!
The other day I wrote about a course in “Liberatory Violence” given by U of C professor Alireza Doostdar, a course that seemed to me to be (while probably not violating academic freedom) designed to propagandize students—largely against Israel. (Doostdar has a long history of anti-Israeli activism, and is director of our Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of Religion.) While I can’t say that the course should be deep-sixed, I can say that it’s likely to promote hatred of Jews and Israel, which Doostdar sees as guilty of “Zionist settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid.” Ah, three big lies in one sentence!
But it’s one thing to teach a permissible but dubious course, and another to fund an initiative designed to indict Israel for “scholasticide”: the destruction of Palestinian academia by design. Yes, the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, a unit that “brings unlikely partners together to work on complex problems”, has announced funding for ten new group projects in 2026-2027. Here’s one of them, and, lo and behold, Dr. Doostdar is one of the stars:
Scholasticide in and Beyond Palestine
Jodi Byrd (Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity), Alireza Doostdar (Divinity School), Eve Ewing (Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity), Darryl Li (Anthropology)Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of scholars, this project will use a mixed-methods approach in undertaking empirical research and comparative analysis to investigate “scholasticide” as a critical category for political and historical analysis. In addition to the resident research team, the project will involve a sequence of virtual visiting fellows.
This is another way to use College money to do down Israel, and this I object to. Believe me, if there were a similar project designed to investigate “genocide by Palestinian terror groups,” it would not only not get funded, but would raise an ruckus. This one has elicited nary a peep. I’m wondering whether the University of Chicago even thinks about the optics of giving money for a project like this.
With this article by Dennis Prager, the Free Press officially raises its flag as “We are totes pro-religion!” In article after article, the site has touted the benefits of religion as a palliative for an ailing world, but you’ll never read a defense of atheism or nonbelief. Here Dennis Prager, conservative podcaster and founder of an online “university,” touts religion as the only “objective” source of morality. I suspect the “we love religion” mantra of the FP ultimately comes from founder Bari Weiss, who is an observant Jew.
But Prager is wrong on two counts. First, religion is not the only source of morality—or even a good one. Second, there is no “objective” morality. All morality depends on subjective preferences. Granted, many of them are shared by most people, but in the end there is no “objective” morality that one can say is empirically “true”. Is abortion immoral? How about eating animals? What is wrong with killing one person and using their organs to save the lives of several dying people? Can you push a man onto a trolley to save the lives of five others on an adjacent track? If these questions have objective answers, what are they?
First, the FP’s introduction:
If you were to name the defining figures of the 21st-century conservative movement, Dennis Prager would surely rank near the top of the list. A longtime radio host and founder of digital educational platform PragerU, he is one of the world’s best-known public intellectuals, publishing more than a dozen books on religion, morality, and the foundations of Western civilization.
His latest book, “If There Is No God: The Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil,” hits shelves next week. Drawn from a weekend-long lecture Prager delivered to 74 teenagers in 1992, it is a full-throated defense of objective, biblical morality at a time, he says, when more people dispute its existence than ever before. Though rooted in an earlier moment, the book holds new weight: In 2024, Prager suffered a catastrophic fall that paralyzed him from the waist down.
“A certain percentage of this book,” he reveals in the introduction, “was written by dictation and editing from my hospital bed. Were it not for Joel Alperson, who also organized and recorded the entire weekend, the book would not have been finished. We completed the book together. It is a testament to how important we both consider this work.”
Next week, our Abigail Shrier will interview Prager from his hospital room, so stay tuned for their full conversation. And below, we bring you an exclusive excerpt from his book, answering a question that many of us ask every day: In a world where profoundly evil things happen, how do we raise good people? —The Editors
I’m hoping that Abigail Shrier does not throw softballs at Prager, and asks him about “objective” morality and his evidence for God. But I’m betting she won’t: one doesn’t harass a man recently paralyzed from the waist down, and Shrier is employed by the Free Press.
Click, read, and weep.
At the beginning, Prager raises one of these moral questions, and argues that yes, there’s an objective answer—one that comes from the Bible (bolding is mine):
One of my biggest worries in life is that people these days are animated more by feelings than by values.
Let me explain what I mean. Imagine you are walking along a body of water—a river, lake, or ocean—with your dog, when suddenly you notice your dog has fallen into the water and appears to be drowning. About 100 feet away, you notice a stranger, a person you don’t know, is also drowning. Assuming your dog can’t swim, and also assuming that you would like to save both your dog and the stranger, the question is: Who would you try to save first?
If your inclination is to save your dog, that means you were animated by feelings. Your feelings are understandable, and as I own two dogs, I fully relate. You love your dog more than the stranger, and I do, too.
But the whole point of values is to hold that something is more important than your feelings. There is no ambivalence in the Bible about this. “Thou shalt not murder” is not for one group alone. “Thou shalt not steal” is not for one group alone. It is for every human being. Human beings are created in God’s image. Therefore, human life is sacred and animal life is not. You should save the stranger.
Unfortunately, those universal values are not what we’re teaching people today.. . . .
What? You can’t murder a dog? What if the drowning person is Hitler? And aren’t five human lives on the trolley track worth more than one? What would Jesus do?
And what other Biblical values should we take literally? Should we levy capital punishment for homosexuality? Is it okay to have slaves so long as you don’t beat them too hard? Was it “moral” for the Israelites to kill all the tribes living on their land? Is it okay for God to allow children to die of cancer? (Of course, sophisticated theologians have made up answers to these questions so that, in the end, they find nothing immoral in Scripture.)
When Prager says that our big problem is that feelings have replaced values, I wonder where those “values” come from. Apparently they come from God. But that raises an ancient question: is something good because God dictates it, or did God dictate it because it was good? (This is Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma.) And if the latter is true, then there is a standard of morality that is independent of God’s dictates.
This is not rocket science. But Prager sticks to the first interpretation, adhering to the “Divine Command Theory“:
In fact, the Bible repeatedly warns people not to rely on their hearts. If you want to know why so many people reject Bible-based religions, there it is: Most people want to be governed by their feelings and not have anyone—be it God or a book—tell them otherwise.
The battle in America and the rest of the Western world today is between the Bible and the heart.
And Prager sticks to his guns, arguing that atheists and agnostics have no guidelines for morality:
Millions of people today are atheist or agnostic. If you are one of them, my goal is not to convince you that God exists. But I am asking you to live as if you believe God exists, and by extension, as if you believe objective good and evil exist.
Why? Because for a good society to maintain itself, we need objective morality. What would happen to math if it were reduced to feeling? There would be no math. Likewise, if we reduce morality to feeling, there would be no morality. In other words, if values and feelings are identical, there would be no such thing as a value.
Imagine a child in kindergarten who sees a box of cookies meant for the whole class and takes them all for himself. Most people would acknowledge that the child has to be taught that this is wrong. But if values were derived from feelings, this child would keep all the cookies on the basis of his personal value that whoever gets to the cookies first gets to keep them. It’s not as though this philosophy is without precedent. It has been the way many of the world’s societies have looked at life: “Might makes right.”
Again, this palaver appears in the Free Press, which apparently thought it worth publishing.
What Prager doesn’t seem to realize is that an atheist can give reasons for adhering to a certain morality, even if in the end those reasons are directed towards confecting a society that (subjectively) seems harmonious. For example, John Rawls used the “veil of ignorance” as a way to structure a moral society. Others, like Sam Harris, are utilitarians or consequentialists, arguing that the moral act is one that most increases the “well being” of the world. But even these more rational moralities have issues, some of which I raised in my questions above. The systems adhere largely to what most people see as “moral”, but they are not really “objective”. They are subjective.
But adhering to the word of the Bible, and twisting it when it doesn’t fit your Procrustean bed of morality, is palpably inferior to reason-based morality. Indeed, the fact that theologians must twist parts of the Bible so that, while seeming to be immoral they turn out to be really moral, shows that there’s no objective morality in scripture.
Does Prager even know his Bible? Have a gander at what he writes here:
That’s precisely why the Ten Commandments outlaw stealing. Because stealing is normal. The whole purpose of moral and legal codes is to forbid people from acting on their natural feelings.
Consider another example, this one far more serious. In virtually every past society, a vast number of women and girls have been raped. In wartime, when victorious armies could essentially do what they wanted, rape was the norm, with few exceptions, such as the American, British, and Israeli armies. Only men whose behavior is guided by values rather than feelings do not rape in such circumstances.
Both of these vastly different examples prove the same thing: To lead good lives, people must first learn Bible-based values, mandated when they are children.
Has he read Numbers 31? Here’s a bit in which, under God’s orders, Moses and his acolytes not only butcher a people, but save the virgin women for sexual slavery (my bolding, text from King James version):
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people.
3 And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the Lord of Midian.
4 Of every tribe a thousand, throughout all the tribes of Israel, shall ye send to the war.
5 So there were delivered out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand of every tribe, twelve thousand armed for war.
6 And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand of every tribe, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow in his hand.
7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.
8 And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.
9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
10 And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.
11 And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.
12 And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho.
13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
I suppose that Prager thinks that not only atheists and agnostics lack moral standards, but that’s also true of all the non-Christians of the world, as morality not based on the Bible is evanescent at best:
Again, you don’t need to believe in God. But deciding between right and wrong is essentially impossible without a value system revealed by God. If there isn’t a God who says pushing little kids down—or raping women—is wrong, then all we have to go by are feelings, and then doing whatever you feel like doing isn’t wrong at all.
We’re not talking about theory. We’re living in a country where every few minutes a woman is raped, every minute a car is stolen, and every few hours a human being is murdered. The people committing these crimes don’t act on the basis of biblical values; they act on the basis of feelings.
This is not a wholesale indictment of feelings. Feelings are what most distinguish humans from robots. Feelings make us feel alive. Without feelings, life wouldn’t be worth living. But feelings alone are morally unreliable. Guided by feelings, every type of behavior is justifiable: If you feel like shoplifting and act on your feelings, you’ll shoplift. If a man is sexually aroused by a woman, he will rape her. And, of course, if you have deeper feelings for your pet than for a stranger, you’ll save your dog and let the stranger drown.
If we rely solely on feelings, everything is justifiable. And a society that justifies everything stands for nothing.
So much for Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims, who march along with us atheists thinking that nothing is immoral.
This is not only stupid, but it’s not new, either. It was Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky’s novel who said, “Without God, everything is permitted.” Prager (and by extension, the Free Press) is making a Swiss cheese of an argument here, one that’s full of holes. If Abigail Shrier doesn’t dismantle it in her interview, I’ll be very disappointed, for I’m a big admirer of her work. And she’s way too smart to buy into Prager’s nonsense.
Here’s Prager’s new book:
Among those who sent in photos in response to my self-abasing plea was UC Davis math professor Abby Thompson, who specializes in tide-pool invertebrates. We have some of those today; Abby’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Family Littorinidae (periwinkle) (tentative ID) This snail is decorated with bryozoans – here he’s upside down, and here. . . .
. . . he’s right side up, so you can see the bryozoans:
Tectura paleacea (surfgrass limpet), Surfgrass is about 1/8” wide. This tiny skinny limpet fits perfectly on it:
Doris montereyensis (nudibranch):
Rostanga pulchra (nudibranch). I have several photos from this set of tides with disturbing clear threads in them, which I think must be plastic:”
Family Ammotheidae (sea spider):
Genus Doryteuthis (squid) eggs- in a bunch on the beach:
Squid eggs close up, so you can see the eggs inside one sack:
An unusually colored Epiactis prolifera (brooding anemone). Its babies are nestled into its shoulders:
Strongylocentrotus purpuratus (Pacific purple sea urchin). As juveniles these are green, and I’d only seen juveniles here before. This was big enough to be turning its adult purple, though it still has lots of green spines:
Welcome to Friday, February 20, 2026, and National Muffin Day. Muffins are getting very large and calorific these days. Here’s the future from ChatGPT:
It’s also National Cherry Pie Day (along with pecan, it’s America’s best pie), Friday Fish Fry Day (especially in the Midwest), Love Your Pet Day, National Tartar Sauce Day, and World Day of Social Justice. If you’re the first person to see this and send me a picture of your cat (with a few words), I’ll put it below.
There’s a Google Doodle today about ice hockey. Click the link to see where it goes.
The U.S. took two gold medals yesterday. One went to Alysa Liu for women’s figure skating, the first gold for an American woman since 2002 and the first medal of any type since 2006. And the U.S. women’s hockey team also nabbed gold, winning over Canada in overtime 2-1.
Here’s the big U.S. win in women’s hockey; click on “watch on YouTube: to see it.
. . . and Alysa Liu’s gold-medal performance in the woman’s long program:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 20 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*The British police have arrested Prince Andrew for possible misconduct in office, including sharing confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein.
The British police on Thursday arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, intensifying a long-running crisis for the monarchy over his ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The authorities arrested the former prince on suspicions of misconduct in public office after accusations that he shared confidential information with Mr. Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy.
The arrest underscored a striking contrast in the official responses to the Epstein files. The British authorities have moved aggressively to investigate the possibility of crimes emerging from the three million pages of correspondence with Mr. Epstein, while the police in the United States have not.
Buckingham Palace has been clouded by scandal for years over separate allegations that the former prince sexually abused a young woman. In an effort to stem the fallout for the monarchy, King Charles III last year stripped his brother of his royal titles and evicted him from the Royal Lodge, his sprawling residence in Windsor.
In a remarkable written statement, King Charles confirmed his brother’s arrest. A spokesman said that Buckingham Palace had not been informed of the arrest before it took place Thursday morning.
The police were seen on Thursday morning at the Sandringham Estate, the privately owned 20,000-acre country retreat of King Charles III and Queen Camilla in Norfolk, England, where Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor is living.
Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied wrongdoing. His representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
. . . The British police have not released details on the specifics of the investigation, but a number of documents released by the U.S. Justice Department last month suggest they may be investigating whether he improperly shared confidential government documents with Jeffrey Epstein. In one email, he appears to forward to Mr. Epstein official reports about visits he made as envoy to South Asia in 2010 that were sent to him by his assistant. The New York Times could not independently confirm that the email and others in the files were sent by Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor himself.
Remember that the late Virginia Giuffre said she was ordered to have sex with Andrew, and they settled that accusation out of court. This is a first for me: I haven’t heard of anybody in the Royal Family being arrested for anything in the modern era. (I asked Matthew, who replied, “Last time someone so close to the throne (once he was second in line) has been arrested was in 1647 when Charles I was seized in the Civil War. It did not end well for him.”) It’s also embarrassing to the U.S., which has a de facto king, is dragging its heels at criminally investigating anyone. I still wonder if anybody will be charged based on material contained in the Epstein files. As for Andrew Formerly Known as Prince, I doubt that he’ll go to jail even if he’s convicted.
*The U.S. military is now in position to strike Iran, and has the forces to do so:
The rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East has progressed to the point that President Trump has the option to take military action against Iran as soon as this weekend, administration and Pentagon officials said, leaving the White House with high-stakes choices about pursuing diplomacy or war.
Mr. Trump has given no indication that he has made a decision about how to proceed. But the drive to assemble a military force capable of striking Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles and accompanying launch sites has continued this week despite indirect talks between the two nations on Tuesday, with Iran seeking two weeks to come back with fleshed out proposals for a diplomatic resolution.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly demanded that Iran give up its nuclear program, including agreeing not to enrich any more uranium. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose country would potentially take part in an attack, has been pushing for action to weaken Iran’s ability to launch missiles at Israel.
Israeli forces, which have been on heightened alert for weeks, have been making more preparations for a possible war, and a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet was moved to Sunday from Thursday, according to two Israeli defense officials.
Many administration officials have expressed skepticism about the prospects of reaching a diplomatic deal with Tehran. The indirect talks on Tuesday in Geneva ended with what Iran’s foreign minister said was agreement on a “set of guiding principles.” U.S. officials said the two sides made progress but added that big gaps remain.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened that Iran must meet his terms or face severe consequences. But another attack, eight months after a 12-day war in which Israel and the United States assaulted military and nuclear sites across Iran, would potentially carry substantial risks, including that Iran would respond with a ferocious barrage of missile strikes on Israel and on U.S. forces in the region.
There is no “deal” to be made so long as Trump demands that Iran give up its nuclear program, for, as I emphasize often, only a fool would say that. That’s like making a lion promise to eat grass and roots! The only question for Trump is whether to let Iran off the hook completely and not attack without a halt to their nuclear program, or to attack regardless of their promises, which have always been worthless. I go back and forth on this, but when I think of Iran using its proxies to attack Israel and other countries, I don’t see this as completely interfering in another country’s internal affairs. Like Maduro’s drug doings, Iran’s nuclear affairs are not internal at all. And of course Iran keeps killing its own people. I’m betting that we’ll attack the country.
*Trump’s poorly designed “Board of Peace,” designed to run Gaza, met yesterday. There is no report about what happened:
“We’re going to have all world leaders,” Trump told reporters Monday.
But it remains unclear which leaders, or how many, will show up for the meeting to be held at the recently renamed Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace.
Of the 60 or so invitations he sent to heads of state to serve on the board, about two dozen countries have agreed to join. They include some who are far removed from events in the Middle East but in Trump’s good graces, such as Argentina’s Javier Milei and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Belarus’s dictator, Alexandr Lukashenko, accepted the invitation but said he would send his foreign minister. More than half the countries that have joined, including Belarus, are on the administration’s recently released list of 75 nations barred from U.S. visas pending a State Department review.
Pakistan’s prime minister is coming, but many in the Middle East are sending lower-ranking officials; some, particularly in Europe, have said they will attend only as “observers.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to attend and will be represented by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
Under the board charter, which Trump signed last month onstage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, temporary membership is free for three years, while the price of a permanent seat is a $1 billion “in cash funds … within the first year.” It is not clear which attendees have paid.
. . .According to the U.N. Security Council resolution that blessed Trump’s 20-point plan, troop contributions from board member states will make up the ISF. Its mission, mandated by the U.N. until the end of 2027, is to help secure border areas and ensure Gaza is demilitarized, “including the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of the military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups,” and to “protect civilians … train and provide support to the vetted Palestinian police forces … [and] secure humanitarian corridors.”
So far, only Indonesia has publicly agreed to send forces to the ISF, saying it will initially contribute about 2,000, arriving no sooner than April.
I wouldn’t call that wholehearted support of the plan, even though it was endorsed by the U.S. The problem is twofold: countries don’t seem to care much about reconstructing Gaza, and where is the money coming from? I feel sorry for the displaced Gazans, who are looking at a very uncertain future. Reconstruction will take forever.
*The Wall Street Journal reports on the skyrocketing fees for top lawyers: some of them exceed $3000 per hour!
When Christopher Clark, a litigator at a boutique law firm, raised his hourly rate to the once-unthinkable level of $3,000, he said he didn’t receive pushback from clients. But he did get one notable comment.
“Congratulations,” the client said. “That is the highest rate we’ve seen.”
Just over a year ago, the going rate for a top lawyer was in the $2,500 an hour range. Now that looks downright quaint, as premium partners are raking in as much as Clark—and far more in some cases.
Legal fees have risen much faster than inflation for years now and corporations are trying to rein in spending by pressuring law firms to use artificial intelligence for routine tasks and keep associate fees in check. The same isn’t true at the top end, where star trial lawyers, rainmaking corporate dealmakers, and veterans of Supreme Court oral arguments are driving more aggressively on pay than ever and meeting little resistance.
“The question is always, are they worth it? You know, some of these guys are worth it,” said Kerry McLean, Intuit’s general counsel, who in her role hires law firms to do the company’s outside legal work. “They understand the industry, they’re connected, and have a lot of experience.”
Clark has pushed his own fees by about 30% since he left his position at a large firm four years ago. As the lawyer for clients including Hunter Biden, Mark Cuban and Elon Musk, he still views his rate as a bargain. “There is a small world of lawyers who can hop on the phone and solve a crisis,” he said.
Some senior partners now charge as much as $3,400 an hour at the country’s largest law firms, according to data from Persuit, a software company that in-house lawyers use to analyze their legal bills. Among the top 50 largest firms, rates for partners increased by 16% on average last year.
In bankruptcy court filings, Latham & Watkins and Kirkland & Ellis—two of the largest firms in the world—report some partners’ hourly rates will rise to more than $3,000 an hour this year.
Well, it’s capitalism, Jake, and I suppose the clients who use these lawyers can afford the fees. But I’m betting that private criminal defense attorneys can also cost nearly that much (AI says they can), and when you compare that fee to what public defenders make (again, AI says $70,000-$200,000 per year), combined with their huge caseload, you realize why all aren’t really equal under the law. The more dosh you have, the better lawyer you get—and the better chance you have of of being found “not guilty”. That’s one sad thing I learned in my time of serving as an expert witness for the defense.
*According to UCLA’s student newspaper The Daily Bruin, a scheduled talk by Bari Weiss at the school has been canceled after there was considerable pushback.
Bari Weiss will no longer come to campus Feb. 27 to deliver the annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture, the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations announced Wednesday.
Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, was scheduled to speak at Schoenberg Hall on Feb. 27. While the campus lecture is off, Weiss is still hoping to conduct the lecture over Zoom, said Margaret Peters, the associate director of the Burkle Center, in a texted statement.
A final decision has not yet been made on whether Weiss – who was slated to speak about the future of journalism – will conduct the lecture virtually, Peters added in the statement.
The annual lecture, organized by the Burkle Center, has previously hosted journalists and international relations scholars including Jake Tapper, Bob Woodward, Condoleezza Rice and Anderson Cooper.
As we know, Weiss is now editor-in-chief of CBS News which, along with the Free Press, is owned by Paramount. She’s been criticized for holding up broadcast of a “60 Minutes” segment because there was no video response from the government about sending detained immigrants to Venezuelan prisons, but that’s no reason to cancel somebody. Any invited speaker who agrees to speak should be allowed to speak, and UCLA should behave accordingly. Margaret Peters, however, is defending this censorship:
A petition demanding that the Burkle Center cancel the event received nearly 11,000 signatures. The petition cited Weiss’ alleged alignment with the Trump administration – including through her choice to pull the 60 Minutes segment – as reasoning for why she should not give the speech and accused her of making xenophobic comments.
Peters, who is also the Department of Political Science’s vice chair for graduate studies, said she plans to resign as associate director of the Burkle Center if it follows through with the event in any capacity. She added that she believes Weiss has used the guise of free speech to attack people on the left whose opinions she does not agree with – and having her speak at a signatory lecture would legitimize these actions.
“To invite somebody who is working against that mission in highly powerful places just seems like anathema in the university mission,” Peters said.
Let’s be clear here. Despite what many people say, hosting a speaker is NOT an endorsement of their views. Promulgating free speech and discussion IS the “university’s mission,” Peters doesn’t seem to realize that, and I say “let her resign” if she doesn’t come to her senses. But it’s too late now: Weiss (of whom I’m not a big fan) should be allowed to speak at UCLA, and not virtually, either.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is becoming a hardass:
Hili: We finally need to show some firmness.
Andrzej: And what?
Hili: And knock something down to the floor with a paw.
Hili: Musimy wreszcie okazać stanowczość.
Ja: I co?
Hili: I strącić łapką coś na ziemię.
*******************
From reader Doug; more AI stuff, but with a twist. As he said, “I thought this just another cute AI-generated video, but then Darwin appeared. Enjoy!”
Historical Figures as Regular People pic.twitter.com/5tzra30UKM
— Sasquatch Unfiltered (@sasquatchvlogtv) February 17, 2026
From Cats That Have Had Enough of Your Shit:
From Things With Faces:
From Masih, a lively 16-year-old was killed by the Iranian cops, and there’s more ridiculous news from the UN:
Nastaran Panahi was just 16 years old when she was shot in Nasimshahr, Tehran. The same Islamic Republic that killed her is now appointed by the United Nations to a human-rights advisory position on the UN Human Rights Council. Yes, you heard me correct.
This is not “… https://t.co/CmVn3dpce6 pic.twitter.com/hEvl3uLtAZ— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 19, 2026
From Colin Wright via Luana: “biological sex” is certainly a scientific term (“biological has been added to show that), and, save Anne Fausto-Sterling (who has propagated a lot of misinformation), I’ve never heard of any of the 38 “experts” who signed the letter.
🚨NEWS: 38 biologists, doctors, and other experts have penned a letter titled “Biology is not binary” to Bridget Phillipson, the UK’s Minister for Women and Equalities, urging her to “take action to restore the rights of trans & non-binary individuals to access public spaces.”… pic.twitter.com/KvObL4sNDL
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) February 18, 2026
From Science girl via Malcolm; big cats:
big cats showing their soft and funny side
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) January 3, 2026
Emma also has phrases she doesn’t like:
Let’s be clear:
The verb “to pop” has two conditions:
1. A sudden emission of air
2. That causes a momentary sound.Corn can pop. Bubbles can pop. Farts can be pops.
People don’t pop anywhere.
— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) February 19, 2026
One from my feed—skillful rebinding of a book. What a process!
Les mains d’or
pic.twitter.com/NhqxYlYvn4— Nathalie Chalard bis (@BisChalard57545) February 19, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Czech Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was six years old, and would be ninety today had he lived. https://t.co/VmFwajTtqp
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) February 20, 2026
Two from Dr. Cobb. First, the saddest tweet I’ve seen in months:
2026 basically
— Richard Kadrey (@richardkadrey.bsky.social) 2026-02-18T16:23:55.418Z
. . and a great curling shot:
youtube.com/shorts/IhJ5D…
I haven’t been very assiduous in collecting annoying phrases lately, so I have only two. Readers are invited to add their selections:
“Medaled”. This is everywhere in the Olympic reporting, and of course it means “get a medal”. But which medal? If you’re reporting on how many medals a country has gotten in total, you can say “America now has 24 medals”. You don’t say “America has medaled 24 times.” The past-tense verb is used instead to apply to individuals or teams within a sport (figure skaters or gymnasts, for example). For example, you can say that “Mikaela Shiffrin has medaled three times”, but that leaves out the fact that these are gold medals. Curiously, you don’t say that someone “gold medaled,” though that is more informative.
If you’re going to say “medaled”, then you should say that Watson and Crick “Nobeled” in 1962 and Percival Everett “Pulitzered” for fiction last year. The verb “medaled” is not only annoying, but uniformative.
“Do better”. This is a favorite of social-justice warriors when impugning or correcting someone who made an ideological misstep.
An AI definition:
To “do better” in social justice, focus on sustained action over performative gestures: educate yourself with credible, diverse sources, actively support minority-owned businesses, and donate time or money to grassroots organizations. Amplify marginalized voices, advocate for systemic policy changes (like voting rights), and practice empathy and deep listening in difficult conversations.
So the phrase in itself can refer to doing real good, but all too often it’s performative. As an example, one could say, in light of the preceding article: PEN America, “Do better and focus on Israel’s genocide.” I find the phrase patronizing and usually uttered by the entitled. It’s also rude.
Here’s one example from HuffPo, of course (the rag still exists!): “Men: We have to do better.” Sorry, but I’m doing the best I can, and resent the implication that all men are harassers or abusers of women (read the thing).
Your turn.
Every day, it seems, another group gets ideologically captured, valorizing Palestine (or Hamas) and demonizing Israel. This is dispiriting for Jews, but the latest such capture—of the free-expression literary group PEN America—is especially depressing.
The decline of PEN American was first evidenced to me when, in 2015, it decided to give a “freedom of expression” award to the magazine Charlie Hebdo, many of whose writers (and a few others) were killed in an attack by al-Qaeda, presumably for making fun of Islam and Muhammad. The award was formally called the “PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award”, and was to be conferred with other awards at a literary gala banquet.
But six PEN members refused to be “table hosts” at the banquet, and then 139 other members (now 242) signed a letter taking issue with the award. Why? Because although Charlie Hebdo is well known to be an “equal opportunity offender,” whose metier is mocking everyone, including politicians and religions, those PEN members said that it was a no-no to mock Islam because its adherents were “already marginalized, embattled, and victimized.” From the letter:
In the aftermath of the attacks, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons were characterized as satire and “equal opportunity offense,” and the magazine seems to be entirely sincere in its anarchic expressions of principled disdain toward organized religion. But in an unequal society, equal opportunity offence does not have an equal effect.
Power and prestige are elements that must be recognized in considering almost any form of discourse, including satire. The inequities between the person holding the pen and the subject fixed on paper by that pen cannot, and must not, be ignored.
To the section of the French population that is already marginalized, embattled, and victimized, a population that is shaped by the legacy of France’s various colonial enterprises, and that contains a large percentage of devout Muslims, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet must be seen as being intended to cause further humiliation and suffering.
Our concern is that, by bestowing the Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award on Charlie Hebdo, PEN is not simply conveying support for freedom of expression, but also valorizing selectively offensive material: material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the Western world.
It’s embarrassing to read the letter and see the list of signers who apparently surrendered their backbones in the face of Islamist outrage. This is a shameful episode.
But wait! There’s more! Two years ago PEN America canceled its literary gala because of controversy about the organization’s stand—or rather, lack thereof—on the war in Gaza. As Jennifer Schuessler reported in the NYT (she’s followed PEN for a while). (Bolding is mine.)
The free expression group PEN America has canceled its 2024 literary awards ceremony following months of escalating protests over the organization’s response to the war in Gaza, which has been criticized as overly sympathetic to Israel and led nearly half of the prize nominees to withdraw.
The event was set to take place on April 29 at Town Hall in Manhattan. But in a news release on Monday, the group announced that although the prizes would still be conferred, the ceremony would not take place.
“We greatly respect that writers have followed their consciences, whether they chose to remain as nominees in their respective categories or not,” the group’s chief officer for literary programming, Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, said in the release.
“We regret that this unprecedented situation has taken away the spotlight from the extraordinary work selected by esteemed, insightful and hard-working judges across all categories. As an organization dedicated to freedom of expression and writers, our commitment to recognizing and honoring outstanding authors and the literary community is steadfast.”
In recent months, PEN America has faced intensifying public criticism of its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which killed roughly 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and Israel’s military response in Gaza, which has left about 34,000 people dead, according to health officials there.
In a series of open letters, writers have demanded that PEN America support an immediate cease-fire, as its global parent organization, PEN International, and other national chapters have done.
. . .In recent months, PEN America has faced intensifying public criticism of its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which killed roughly 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and Israel’s military response in Gaza, which has left about 34,000 people dead, according to health officials there.
In a series of open letters, writers have demanded that PEN America support an immediate cease-fire, as its global parent organization, PEN International, and other national chapters have done.
In March, a group of prominent writers, including Naomi Klein, Lorrie Moore, Michelle Alexander and Hisham Matar, announced that they were pulling out of next month’s World Voices Festival, one of PEN America’s signature events. And over the past several weeks, growing numbers of nominees for the literary awards, including Camonghne Felix, Christina Sharpe and Esther Allen, announced that they were withdrawing their books from consideration.
In a letter that PEN America leadership received last week, 30 of the 87 nominated writers and translators (including nine of the 10 nominees for one prize) criticized the group’s “disgraceful inaction” on the situation in Gaza, accusing it of “clinging to a disingenuous facade of neutrality while parroting” what the letter characterized as Israeli government propaganda. The letter also called for the resignation of the group’s longtime chief executive, Suzanne Nossel, and its president, the novelist Jennifer Finney Boylan, along with that of the group’s executive committee.
“PEN America states that ‘the core’ of its mission is to ‘support the right to disagree,’” the nominees stated. “But among writers of conscience, there is no disagreement. There is fact and fiction. The fact is that Israel is leading a genocide of the Palestinian people.”
That letter drew a brief but forceful response last week in which the organization described the war in Gaza as “horrific” but challenged what it said was the letter’s “alarming language and characterizations.”
“The perspective that ‘there is no disagreement’ and that there are among us final arbiters of ‘fact and fiction’ reads to us as a demand to foreclose dialogue in the name of intellectual conformity, and one at odds with the PEN Charter and what we stand for as an organization,” the organization said in a statement.
In other words, PEN America was criticized for organizational neutrality: the writers wanted it to take a stand against the “genocide” of Israel. They even claim “there is no disagreement” about this! That is a crock, and again the PEN America membership shamed itself. But the turmoil continued, and, as you see below, its chief executive, Suzanne Nossel, eventually was forced out (characterized by the NYT as “leaving the organization”).
A new article in Tablet magazine summarizes the recent anti-Israel and anti-Jewish stands of PEN America and PEN International. It’s not a pleasant read. I’ve reproduced a few excerpts (indented) below:
Here’s yet another action that appears to be antisemitic:
PEN America has quietly retracted its public statement condemning the cancellation of comedian Guy Hochman’s recent speaking engagements. In its original statement, PEN rightly “condemned placing a litmus test on someone to appear on stage,” calling such tests a “profound” violation of free expression and affirming that “shutting down cultural events is not the solution.”
That principled stance did not last.
This reversal is particularly striking given PEN America’s longstanding history of condemning the cancellation of controversial figures across the political spectrum, including music artist Kehlani (on two separate occasions) and political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. PEN has even defended the right to gather for Moms for Liberty, an organization that actively fuels the book-banning campaigns PEN America claims to oppose.
In these cases, and many others, PEN defended a clear and consistent principle: Free expression must be upheld even when the speech is unpopular, provocative, or deeply offensive to some.
Yet, following internal and external pressure driven by anti-Israel—and, in many cases, overtly antisemitic—activism, PEN reversed itself. In doing so, it abandoned its own stated standards and effectively endorsed the very discrimination it had previously acknowledged as wrong.
The message this sends is unmistakable: PEN America supports free expression, except when Jews are involved. When it comes to Jewish artists and Israeli voices, PEN now appears willing to endorse ideological litmus tests, condemnation, cancellation, and boycotts.
Hochman has been accused of “inciting genocide in Gaza”. I’m not sure what he said, but I doubt it was “kill all the Gazans, civilians or not.” And regardless, PEN America is supposed to foster free expression, not foster it and then withdraw. Note their hisory of supporting other controversial artists, including, for crying out loud, Milo Yiannopoulos. There’s more (bolding is mine):
This incident does not stand alone. It follows PEN America’s recent deeply flawed report alleging that Israel intentionally sought to destroy Palestinian culture and education in Gaza, a report reliant largely on information supplied by Hamas, riddled with glaring omissions, and marred by demonstrably false and inflammatory claims.
By downplaying the atrocities and the horrors of Oct. 7 and largely dismissing Hamas’ own actions that led to the current situation in Gaza, PEN America further silenced Israeli and Jewish voices in literature and culture.
That bias is not confined to PEN America alone. It echoes the inherent bias, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism embedded in the recently passed “Resolution on Freedom of Expression in Palestine and Israel” at the 90th PEN International Annual Congress. Notably, Palestine was granted membership in PEN International, while Israel was rejected, a decision that speaks volumes about whose voices are deemed worthy of protection and whose are excluded.
Compounding this pattern, PEN America forced out its longtime CEO, Suzanne Nossel, after she was labeled a “Zionist” and refused to have the organization publicly declare that Israel was committing genocide. This episode sent a chilling message to Jewish professionals: Adherence to certain political dogmas is now a prerequisite for leadership within the organization.
Yes, the organization cannot afford to have a “Zionist” (they mean “a Jew”) as CEO, especially a “Zionist” who won’t sign on to the ridiculous “genocide” canard. One moore bit of information:
Over the past two years, many leaders in the literary and cultural world have attempted to engage PEN’s leadership in good faith. The pattern has been consistent: They listen, offer no meaningful response, and then double down on a hostile anti-Zionist and anti-Israel posture.
In doing so, PEN America has helped legitimize antisemitic discrimination at a moment when antisemitism in the United States is at historic levels. This is not an isolated failure of judgment, but a structural rot in the organization, one that reflects leadership choices, institutional culture, and a governing board that has failed to intervene.
This past week, the organization formalized the leadership of interim co-executives Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, a move that signals continuity rather than course correction and suggests the organization is unlikely to return to viewpoint-neutral principles anytime soon.
Especially because of its supposed mission to foster free speech and open discourse, it’s important for PEN America (and PEN International) to remain viewpoint neutral, like the University of Chicago—except on issues that threaten the organization’s mission. Those issues would involve censorship. But PEN America is now okay with censorship so long as it’s Jews and Israel who are being censored. The organization’s ridiculous “genocide” stand serves only to chill the speech of members (notably Jewish ones) who dissent. The supposed “genocide” in Gaza (actually the declared mission of Hamas, not Israel), is contentious and not something that PEN should weigh in on. But as we all know, among left-wing intellectuals in America the going ideology is to praise Palestine, ignore the horrors and war crimes of Hamas, and to damn Israel, full speed ahead. PEN America has been captured by this ideology.
Jennifer Schuessler wrote about Nossel’s resignation firing in the Oct. 31, 2024 NYT. By all accounts Nossel did a good job with the organization. Her only flaw was to be a “Zionist” and to refuse to sign on to the “genocide” canard:
Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of the free expression group PEN America, is leaving the organization, six months after escalating criticism of the organization’s response to the war in Gaza led to the cancellation of its literary awards and annual literary festival.
Nossel will become the president and chief executive of Freedom House, a nonprofit organization based in Washington that promotes democracy and human rights around the world. PEN America announced that it has elevated two current senior members of its leadership team, Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, to serve as interim co-chief executives, effective immediately, with a national search for a permanent leader to follow.
Nossel, a Harvard-trained lawyer, took the helm at PEN America in 2013, after previously working at the U.S. State Department, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA. During her tenure, its membership increased to more than 4,500, while its annual revenue grew to about $25.8 million, up from $4.3 million.
The group, by far the largest of the national PEN International chapters worldwide, also expanded beyond its traditional focus on the literary world, starting initiatives relating to free speech on campus, online harassment, book bans and the spread of state laws restricting teaching on race, gender and other “divisive concepts.”
I’m glad that Nossel has found a home where, I hope, she can promote free expression and human rights and not be required to condemn Israel and its “genocide”, but PEN America seems to be a lost cause now, but just one more organization that has abandoned its principles in favor of ideology (viz., the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center).
Tablet author Ari Ingel, director of the Creative Community for Peace, ends his article this way:
If PEN America is serious about its mission, its board must urgently reevaluate who is running the organization, issue a clear and public apology to the Jewish community, and recommit itself to defending free expression without exception or favoritism.
That ain’t gonna happen. It’ll be a freezing day in July (in the Northern Hemisphere) when PEN apologizes to the Jews.
Here’s Nossel, and I wish her well:
Here’s a 4-minute video in which Nossel explains and defends PEN America’s principles (she has a book on free speech):