Saturday: Hili dialogue

July 13, 2024 • 6:45 am

Greetings on CaturSaturday, July 13, 2024, and National Beans ‘n’ Franks Day, an easy last-minute dish (sometimes called Beanie Weenies) that isn’t too bad.  Wikipedia even has an article on the dish, complete with this photo, which seems to show a dearth of weenies:

Thomson200, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also Barbershop Music Appreciation Day and National French Fry Day (didn’t we just have that?). 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 13 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Brief nooz: Biden still won’t withdraw from the race:

President Biden fought back on Friday against escalating pressure from Democrats questioning his viability as a candidate, publicly and privately defending his decision to continue running as rank-and-file lawmakers continued to call on him to end his re-election bid.

. . . But at the rally in a high school gymnasium in Detroit, Mr. Biden was dug in, telling a raucous throng of supporters, “I’m not going anywhere.” What he saw there was unlikely to change his mind. An adoring crowd chanted “Don’t you quit!” as Mr. Biden delivered a fiery message, at times poking fun at former President Donald J. Trump as he drew a sharp contrast with his predecessor.

Perhaps Dr. Jill should have a quiet word with him. The problem is that she is all in, too.

*This is another telltale sign that Biden’s chances of remaining the Democratic candidate are waning. Donors are keeping their wallets in their pockets.

Some major Democratic donors have told the largest pro-Biden super PAC, Future Forward, that roughly $90 million in pledged donations is now on hold if President Biden remains atop the ticket, according to two people who have been briefed on the conversations.

The frozen contributions come as he had hoped to turn the page on a weekslong crisis within his party following a nearly hourlong news conference on Thursday evening. That appearance — in which he delivered a few gaffes but also demonstrated a command of foreign policy — did not immediately seem to worsen Democrats’ fears about his viability, but it also did not silence the calls for him to drop out. After he was done speaking, three more House members joined the ranks of elected Democrats calling for Mr. Biden to end his campaign.

. . . and a bit more news:

  • Democrats divided: Reactions to Mr. Biden’s high-profile news conference were mixed. The president delivered a competent presentation, and his performance in the unscripted setting heartened some of his supporters. One of his key allies, Representative James E. Clyburn, said on Friday that the party should stop talking about whether the president is fit to run and respect his decision to stay in the race. If he stepped aside, Mr. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, said he would “absolutely” endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee.

  • Kamala Harris: Even as Mr. Biden dismissed the notion of making way for an alternative candidate, he defended Ms. Harris’s qualifications to one day be president. The Biden campaign has been quietly testing Ms. Harris’s chances against Mr. Trump this week.

*Andrew Sullivan weighs in with the kind of Democratic candidate he wants to see (for sure he’s not voting for Trump): the title is “Wanted: An American Starmer“. He’s of course referring to Britain’s new Prime Minister, the Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer. He begins by referring to the genteel and uncontested transfer of power from Tory to Labour:

No one claimed fraud. No one derided the lopsided unfairness of the parliamentary results, where Labour got 34 percent of the vote and a whopping 63 percent of the seats, and where the new rightist Reform Party won 14 percent of the vote and got only 5 seats. Those were the rules ahead of the game, and they were the rules everyone had agreed to.

There is one reason and one reason only why this kind of conciliatory exchange cannot happen any time soon in America, and that is Donald J. Trump. With a mind warped by pathological and malignant narcissism, incapable of generosity or grace or fairness, Trump has dominated this country’s politics for almost a decade now. He has systematically corroded every democratic norm and institution: the rule of law, the process of elections, the integrity of the Supreme Court, the independence of the Justice Department, the peaceful nature of the transfer of power, and the reliability of our alliances around the world. And none of this damage has been done to advance any broad policy or meaningful agenda, but merely and solely to advance the narcissism and corruption of the president himself.

No, Trump is not going to become a dictator. It’s far too much work. The system held for four years; it can hold for another four (even with presidential immunity powers). And it’s worth noting in this respect that even when the president of the United States has the entire Congress in his camp, and the Supreme Court on his side, he still doesn’t have the equivalent power of a British prime minister with a super-majority in parliament that my old classmate Keir Starmer now has. That’s an elected dictatorship.

But we do know for a fact that Trump is criminally inclined, driven by vengeance and rage, and has now been granted vague and unprecedented immunity powers by SCOTUS whose limits he will doubtless exploit. We know he will delegitimize any institution that gets in his way; and we know that electing a convicted felon who has already once tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power will be a watershed for a purported republic.

And we also know that, right now, Trump is almost certain to win an Electoral College landslide in November, for the simple reason that he doesn’t have a credible or capable opponent.. . .

. . .And the way to win against Trump is, it seems to me, similar: get a generic centrist Dem from a critical swing state, make sure he or she is competent and can make a good case and seems normal, and make them 20 years younger than Trump. Bingo. There’s a reason, I suspect, why many on the Democratic left have oddly rallied behind Biden: they know their interest groups control the addled dotard’s entire social and cultural agenda; and they know that a re-elected Trump would give their extremism more legitimacy. A more moderate Democratic governor or senator would not be so pliable, and might even help to de-polarize the country. God knows and the polls all show that the American public want someone — anyone — who isn’t Trump or Biden. Why not listen to them for a change?

Beshear. Fetterman — partly because he has been so vocal in supporting Biden thus far, partly because he has seemed to master a populist style, and partly because he could carry Pennsylvania, which is looking increasingly essential. Whitmer. Shapiro. Brown. Klobuchar. Manchin. Polis. Buttigieg. I could go on. The talent has been building up as the entitled dinosaurs of Hillary and Joe kept the next generation from power for decades. Of course, Harris should compete too — and be given a shot to prove her mettle, unburdened, as it were, by her cringe-inducing past. (She’s a worse politician than Hillary, though. If selected, I have no doubt she’d lose in a landslide.)

Fetterman: no chance. Whitmer and Klobuchar are my favorites here, and I don’t think the Dems will go for Manchin. I used to favor Buttigieg, but he hasn’t done a lot as Secretary of Transportation.  And I don’t want Harris to compete, precisely because of her “cringe-inducing past.” She shouldn’t automatically be in the running just because she was VP.  Whitmer or Klobuchar could klobber her. Sullivan wants an “old-style convention,” and that’s fine for me, too. The problem is that it’s getting late, and you have to introduce the new Democratic candidate to America. From Labor Day to Election Day is about nine weeks.

*The Washington Post gives you the chance to take a short cognitive abilities test, similar to the ones given by real doctors. There are six questions, and I got five of them, but the one I missed is, I think, a trick question (you’ll know which one I’m talking about), and the explanation for the “right” answer is dubious.  So I consider myself compos mentis, and you don’t have to worry about Professor Ceiling Cat.

*As usual, I include three items from the Free Press‘s weekly news summary, this week written not by Nellie ( 🙁 ), but by Suzy Weiss, Bari’s sister. It’s called “TGIF: President Putin and Vice President Trump edition.”  Disregarding nepotism, it’s still not the same without Nellie:

→ It’s been a busy week for AOC: She introduced articles of impeachment against two Supreme Court justices, accusing Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito of high crimes and misdemeanors for, among other things, failing to disclose gifts they had received. She said there was a “corruption crisis” on the court that had “spiraled into a constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large.” (Who among us hasn’t accepted a few fishing trips and hitched a ride home on a jet?) Also this week: the Democratic Socialists of America announced that they are dropping their endorsement of AOC. Why? Because she hosted a panel about combating antisemitism in which she dared to affirm Israel’s right to exist. The DSA statement complained that the panel she was on conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism, which is sort of like conflating Honeycrisps and apples. Unforgivable.

For those who had missed the DSA’s drift into anti-Israel insanity, this is a useful marker. AOC thinks Israel is committing genocide, boycotts Israeli leaders when they come to Washington, and opposes U.S. financial support for Israel’s Iron Dome defense, the main means by which Israeli civilians are protected from rocket attacks. And the DSA says: Zio scumbag.

Here’s the statement of the DSA withdrawing support for AOC.  But her ambition to be a Senator is stronger than her desire to court the DSA, so she won’t care.

→ Just don’t do it again, promise? Remember those kids who got suspended from Harvard after setting up encampments on the lawn and then harassing other students? Well, the Harvard College Administrative Board has reversed the decision, a win for the “student intifada,” which I thought was slanderous but is actually just what they call themselves. And then over at Columbia, the administrators who texted each other vomit emojis during a panel discussing a rabbi’s op-ed about his fears for Jews on campus—they were fired, right? Well, actually they were just put on leave and will be assigned to different jobs later. And remember the Columbia students who were arrested after they occupied a campus building? Most of their charges were dropped. There’s something way creepier about punishing people in the moment only to reverse it as soon as the zeitgeist moves on to the next thing versus not punishing them at all.

→ If you’ve gotten this far: It’s safe to assume that you’re not feeling great about our choices come November. Thankfully, there is another option. He’s ripped. He’s a birding enthusiast. He loves nature. He comes from a great big family. He wants to break up the two-party duopoly. RFK all the way! Oh, wait. He has a “take” on 9/11.

WHAAAAT? Won’t take a side on 9/11?  Oy gewalt! But I miss Nellie terribly; there is no substitute for her.

*The NYT touts the release of a new “adult” movie, Fly Me to the Moon, which is neither a sequel nor a superhero movie—the usual fare of summer and, in fact, all year around. The theme of the article is whether a movie directed as adults can even survive in today’s film climate. The plot:

The story is a period piece and completely original: In 1968, a government operative (Woody Harrelson) hires a marketing virtuoso (Scarlett Johansson) to convince the public — and Congress — that a troubled NASA can pull off its scheduled Apollo 11 moon landing. Stylish and devious, she clashes with the rigid launch director (Channing Tatum) and secretly — as a backup, to be used only in an emergency — arranges for a fake landing to be filmed on a soundstage. What’s the harm?

. . .Hollywood marketers will tell you that ticket buyers eschew movies that mash together genres. And “Fly Me to the Moon” is part drama, part comedic caper, part romance, part fiction and part true story. Particularly in the summer, studios prefer to serve up mindless popcorn movies aimed at teenagers. “Fly Me to the Moon” is entertainment for thinking adults, the kind that Mike Nichols (“Working Girl”) and James L. Brooks (“Broadcast News”) made in the 1980s.

So the question must be asked: How on earth did “Fly Me to the Moon” manage to score a wide release in theaters at the height of blockbuster season? The film rolls into 3,300 theaters in the United States and Canada on Friday.

Shouldn’t it be going straight to streaming?

In many ways, the film’s unexpected journey to multiplexes reflects the degree to which Hollywood runs on the vagaries of chance. “Fly Me to the Moon,” written by the newcomer Rose Gilroy, started out as a streaming movie — full stop. Apple TV+ paid an estimated $100 million for the project in March 2022, and the contract called for no theatrical release of any kind.

But then Greg Berlanti got involved. [Johannson is the producer.]

. . .Mr. Berlanti delivered “Fly Me to the Moon” to executives at Apple in the spring of last year. Next came a test screening in Colorado. “It scored very well with male and female, young and old, which came as a bit of a surprise,” Mr. Berlanti said. (Apple declined to comment for this article.)

Maybe the response was a fluke? Another audience test was conducted in California. “Same response, in fact even better,” Mr. Berlanti said. Still another was ordered up in Texas. “Everywhere we went, people responded by saying it was the kind of movie they missed in theaters — original with big movie stars,” he said.

The film’s producers, led by Ms. Johansson, pushed Apple to give “Fly Me to the Moon” a chance in theaters. Apple agreed. “It was both exciting and terrifying,” Mr. Berlanti said, break

Unfortunately, as of this writing the movie gets just a 65% rating from top critics and 38% from all critics on Rotten Tomatoes. But I’m gonna see it anyway.

*Finally, from the AP “oddities” section, we learn that American universities with branches in Abu Dhabi don’t coddle pro-Palestinian protestors:

At the graduation ceremony of New York University Abu Dhabi this May, a student wearing the traditional Palestinian black-and-white keffiyeh scarf shouted “Free Palestine!” as he crossed the stage to receive his diploma, witnesses say. Days later, he reportedly was deported from the United Arab Emirates.

The incident at the graduation comes as the UAE tries to balance its diplomatic recognition of Israel with the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that’s devastated the Gaza Strip. While offering aid to the Palestinians, there have been none of the mass demonstrations that swept the Arab world here in the UAE, a federation of seven emirates that tightly controls speech and where political parties are illegal.

That’s stretched into academic life at NYU Abu Dhabi, where students say activities over the war have been barred, and into cultural events in the country’s capital as well where those wearing the keffiyeh have been stopped from entering.

. . .Responding to questions from The Associated Press, NYU Abu Dhabi said it has been “guaranteed academic authority” on campus but that “in none of our locations … are members of the NYU community immune from local law.”

“NYU has no authority over any nation’s immigration or law enforcement actions or decisions,” the school said. It added it advised students “clearly and repeatedly about expectations, obligations, and boundaries, including the protocols for the NYU Abu Dhabi graduation.”

Well, I can’t say I didn’t get a frisson of pleasure from reading this, but my better angels took over and I knew that suchy demonstrations constituted freedom of speech and should not be banned.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, there was a terrible hailstorm a few days ago that ruined nearly all the cherry crop. It was a disaster! And the storms continue: as Malgorzata wrote this morning, “Both cats came home wet in the evening. We toweled them dry and both demanded to go out again. It was still raining (but less hard). Both slept on the verandah and came in this morning. Now both are sleeping at home.”

Andrzej and Hili engage in deep conversation:

Hili: How often are we mistaken?
A: Every day, but luckily about different things and to a different degree.

In Polish:
Hili: Jak często jesteśmy w błędzie?
Ja: Codziennie, na szczęście w różnych sprawach i w różnym stopniu.

And a photo of Baby Kulka:

*******************

From Malcolm:

From Cat Memes (tricked up, of course):

From Jesus of the Day:

Masih argues with her co-panelist at the Aspen Ideas festival about how nefarious the Iranian regime is. I wouldn’t want to go up against her!

Duck-derived patterns from reader Jon Alexandr:

Dawkins took a poll, and you can vote. I was surprised at the results:

From Malgorzata.  This guy puts the lie to the already-ridiculous “Gays for Palestine” movement. He’s not only gay, but an Israeli Arab who says he’s never experienced any “apartheid”:

What I wouldn’t give to do this!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I re-Xed:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. The “lunar terminator” is the border between night and day on the Moon:

Well. . . . .

38 thoughts on “Saturday: Hili dialogue”

  1. The case against Baldwin was “dismissed with prejudice”

    Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer : x.com/lawcrimenetwork/status/1811887545162055816?s=46

  2. I thought Suzy did OK, although I too miss Nellie. We have to give her a few days maternity leave!

  3. The kerfuffle at the NYU Abu Dhabi graduation was no surprise.

    The Emirati government has been down on all things Islamic Brotherhood – which is most of the Pal movement – for a long time.
    This is in part b/c the wide ranging, shape shifting Brotherhood would behead them given half a chance.
    Few people understand the dynamics and the sheer breadth of the I.B. from its formation in Egypt about a century ago to its many forms today.

    Many Arab gvts jabber on about “Palestine” as a sop to their masses and their antisemitism. Pal has been the ONLY unity of the Islamosphere so it must be respected. But Arab elites, particularly the rulers, DESPISE the Pals deeply.

    Note how at best they pay them off (eg. Qatar, Saudi Arabic), none give them refugee asylum or residency.
    Kuwait DID, once. And when Saddam invaded the 300k Pal’s sided with IRAQ!
    You couldn’t make such treachery up.
    I report on this herein: (reposted)
    https://democracychronicles.org/worst-houseguests-ever-the-palestinians/

    So endeth my rant. For now. 😉
    D.A.
    NYC

    1. Thanks David. The expression, “worst houseguests ever, the palestinians” has continued to resonate with me since the first moment I read it.

      1. So naturally we’re bringing thousands of houseguests to Canada. Most have family in Montreal and will settle there among the members of our most famous Jewish community (think Mordecai Richler). What could go wrong?

        1. Gad Saad has been reporting on the Islamification of Montreal. It is really something. Amazing.

          I like Dr. Saad though he has his moments of irrationality.

          Speaking of friendly, smart Lebanese, has anybody noticed how Nassim Taleb has gone quite off the chain in recent months about Pal.? I am/was a big fan of fellow trader NTT.
          It is strange – from him – since the Pals utterly wrecked his country and a Muslim militia shot his father in the back in the 1970s. And he has a lot of orthodox Jewish friends.

          Mega Ultra Zionist as I am I have a soft spot for Lebanon having spent time there in a challenging period of its history nearly 20 years ago.
          I wrote about it recently but can’t remember if I put it here
          https://democracychronicles.org/the-coming-war-in-lebanon/
          D.A.
          NYC

          1. I just noticed I’m being a loudmouth today (The Rulz). Apologies.
            I’ll bequieten myself.
            Have a good day.
            D.A.
            NYC

  4. I was wondering why the squad was supporting Biden, as he is sure to lose to Trump. Should have remembered the far left always wants to support the extreme right in order to attract followers to themselves. Like Andrew said a centrist Democrat would bring the country together, which would be bad news for the extremes.

  5. That camel question (dromedary?) reminded me of this nice joke:
    Two dromedaries are walking down the street when they see a camel. Says one to the other: Look, an animal with a hump.

  6. On the Beethoven…..

    Where is the rest on the first beat? Without it, we have the onerous and simpy triplet, which causes Ludwig to roll over in his rage.

  7. Saw a story saying that Jill Biden is dead set against Joe’s leaving the race, especially if that means that Harris gets the nod. Reportedly, Jill has hated Kamala since the later called Joe a racist during the 2020 campaign.

    1. Yes she did, Dr. B.
      It is what one would expect from her.

      I wonder why (it seems) the black community is so stuck on Biden.
      Could it be they have sense and sanity and can’t stand Kamala?
      For this Democrat it is ANYBODY* but Kamala.

      D.A.
      NYC
      *except Trump obviously.

      1. I saw a long Twitter thread of blacks standing with Biden. A reason frequently cited was that, in so many words, Biden was willing to be subservient to a black man. Seems he has a lot of loyalty from being VP for Obama.

  8. Re the Rotten Tomatoes score on Fly Me to the Moon, the audience score is 89%. We have gotten into the habit now of looking for films that have low critic scores and high audience scores as a guarantee of watchability. Interestingly, The Free Press’s new culture writer has a piece today where she comments on the disconnect between Rotten Tomatoes critic’s scores vs “normie” audience scores: https://www.thefp.com/p/kat-rosenfield-how-culture-got-stupid

  9. Those students in Abu Dhabi have potentially learned several important lessons, the most important of which is, When you leave the United States, you leave your rights behind. Far too many young people who haven’t traveled seem to think the rest of the world is populated by noble savages.

  11. I’m willing to bet that RFK is not as crazy as the Biden people are telling us he is. He comes across to me as a democrat from the 1980s.

  12. That test at WaPo: I got one wrong too. However it was a subjective question IMHO. Their reasoning on the correct answer is not convincing.

    1. Indeed. I too got the bicycle / train question “wrong”, through over-thinking it. Presumably over-thinking is more a symptom of pedantry rather than cognitive decline.

    2. I agree, my reasoning was that since the efficiency of the wheel is crucial to the functioning of both, including especially low rolling resistance, that they roll is a good common property.
      So, I overthought it too.

    3. I couldn’t get the test to activate. I’m not a subscriber. The bicycle/train question appears to be a test of ability to think abstractly, which is always subjective. “They are both more efficient of energy than cars,” would be the answer I would give unprompted. Someone else might say, “They should both be buried underground so they don’t interfere with cars!” I could have fun arguing with the poor OT trying to give the test for the eighth time that morning. “But bicycles are not at all like trains. Trains uniquely use steel wheels running on privately owned steel rails, while bicycles, like cars, use pneumatic tires on unguided public roadways and must be steered. This is the fundamental split in transportation philosophy.” Then my wife would shush me. “He’s always like that.” I would agree that both having wheels would indicate some impoverishment of thinking.

      The test is intended to be given orally and there are more items in real life. None is multiple choice. MoCA is actually copyrighted. The subject is expected to remember the words without any prompting or picking them from a list. “Serial sevens” is carried out by the subject in his head and is a harder test of concentration than it looks because we don’t habitually count by sevens. When I was learning this test, I wrote down the answers ahead of time because some patients who’d worked with numbers all their lives, say in retail where they had to make change to the penny in their heads, could synapse it faster than I could verify it by calculating along with them.

      The clock is the least realistic here. The subject is instructed to draw a clock freehand and set the hands to ten minutes after ten. That time specifically to test for perseveration. Subjects with dementia will often fixate on “10” and indicate 9:50. In the 11:05 (“five minutes after eleven”) example given a typical error would be to indicate 11:25. More severely impaired subjects will draw clocks that look progressively more like the fourth clock. A severely impaired person would not, of course, identify the fourth clock as 11:05 but that might be the best he could do on being asked to draw one. Some patients who’ve had strokes but are otherwise mentally sharp will crowd all the numbers into one side of the clock. The drivers licensing authorities use this one for elderly drivers. Clock drawing, maze running, and pattern copying are good tests but not specific for dementia.

      The MoCA test is useful to detect cognitive impairment only if the subject does not have dysphasia, dyslexia, right-brain stroke syndromes or other handicaps that impair perception and execution of the test items. These other deficits may by themselves be enough to exclude someone from driving, flying, and high office but could produce misdiagnosis if cognitive impairment specifically was being sought to, say, find incapacity for financial affairs or nuclear retaliatory judgement, or consent to medical treatment. Beware.

  13. I got all the questions right at WaPo, but one of them was indeed ambiguous. I’m a stable genius!

    Let’s have some town halls and mini-debates and hash it out at the convention. The party that is constantly carping about saving democracy should start by allowing the potential Democratic nominees fight it out. Blocking the entrances while escorting an impaired Biden to the finish line is not democracy. The Democrats have an excellent bench. Let’s start seeing those players compete!

  15. I don’t understand the Beethoven urinal tweet. What am I missing?

    (About the lion pride video, yes, it would be amazing to hear that crowing and feel those head butts. I have two Devon Rexes. They are my little lions. We have a pride. I want more. Two more at least. A life of head butts and purrs. And my babies talk to me. One has learned that if he meow-howls in the mirror, I will come. It’s adorable.)

    Also, I’m also a fan of Noa Tishby. She’s doing a good job.

    2. Pee, pee, pee, peeee!
      Oops! missed didn’t hold the last peeee long enough… 😁
      wash hands, fast exit.

  16. Malgorzata — I’m so sorry to hear about the cherry crop! I hope some can be salvaged, but hail and ripening fruit do not get along. What a shame.

  17. Setting aside my personal likes and dislikes, I’m going to stick with Prof. Allan Lichtman’s predictions that Biden or Harris as nominee can win.

    I heard recently that the young voters dig Harris and her quirkiness and goofy phrases. It’s coming from her mixed cultural upbringing. Dr. Phil uses homey vernacular too, such as “Do I look like I just fell off the back of a turnip wagon?”
    She’s being underestimated.

    My advice for Democrats is not to repeat the mistake of cutting off their nominee at the knees, like they did with Hillary Clinton. She was good enough to be POTUS.

    Oh, I wouldn’t put it past Trump to pick Ivanka as his running mate: Dynasty in the making!

  18. What a happy Sunday to wake up and hear of the probable death of “the guest” Mohammed Deif, late of Gaza.
    To wit: https://x.com/persianjewess/status/1812147794016370694

    His demise has been on the installment plan for awhile: some airstrikes, a wheelchair, amputation, dead wife and daughter, various ailments over the decades. He lived a life as tormented as the horror he inflicted on innocent people. So there’s that to celebrate also.

    Good riddance to Hamas’ main brain and strategic “genius” of many operations including 10.7. I’ve read about him for a long time.
    Offed in a large Raytheon built hole in the ground with dozens of his now dirt mates. Pity there’s no consciousness after death so he’ll never know all the religions are lies and his is a particularly cruel one. Never mind. Humanity is better off.
    And *we* know.

    Onwards Israeli heroes!

    D.A.
    NYC
    https://democracychronicles.org/author/david-anderson/

  19. If you clicked the link and took the short cognitive test, can you remember the five questions now?!

  20. I find the universities charging students for misbehavior, but then forgiving them for the same behavior to make little sense. What message does this transmit to the students, but to give them permission to continue to act badly. It certainly devalues Jewish students and faculty, and tarnishes the school’s reputation in the eyes of others. I have already seen statements in Jewish publications advising students to seek out other universities for their post-secondary training; that it was obvious that some big-name schools did not want them, and that the cachet of graduating from these schools was not worth the treatment that Jewish students would face from the university and from other students.

    1. In most cases these prestigious universities are located in cities with heavily overloaded criminal justice systems that already decline to prosecute gun offences and property crimes where actual people suffer real damage. Trespassers at fancy universities just don’t make the cut of what the DA’s Office can take to court. So they drop the charges and the kids get away with it just like so many “townie” criminals do. They can’t just lock them up to satisfy the university’s desire for punishment. The university doesn’t have a direct say in whether a charge will be dropped or proceeded with. That’s up to the city prosecutors. The best you can hope for is that Mum and Dad are pissed that they had to pay a lawyer to spring young Buckminster or Alicia from Riker’s Island.

      Now the universities could do a better job meting out academic penalties to their own miscreant students. Reneging on those penalties is perverse. But a lot of the schools don’t actually want to do anything that might alienate their customers, especially the lucrative foreign students or their own professors who often noisily side with the protestors. And if the students are wearing masks, the university may not have the investigative resources to identify them conclusively to expel the right ones.

      Avoiding these schools sounds like good advice for everyone who doesn’t just want to get a degree in disruptive protesting. (Which is actually what Columbia tries to attract.)

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