A few news items have come to my attention:

*I have finally got a tenuous handle on the Jeffrey Epstein case. Tell me if I’m wrong, but there is no evidence that the government has a list of Epstein’s clients, nor any evidence that he died other than by suicide.  If this is the case, why is the public, especially Republicans, going nuts? My theory, which is not mine, is that MAGA-ites want there to be a conspiracy as they are addicted to such theories (remember QAnon?), and are going nuts since there’s no evidence of a conspiracy with Epstein. (Side note: t the QAnon January 6 shaman is not going to get his spear and helmet returned.) Trump has even ordered attorney general Bondi to show what the government has got:

Duke University School of Medicine (SOM) plans to implement new faculty productivity guidelines that would tie tenured professors’ salaries to external research funding, according to documents reviewed by The Chronicle.

Set to go in effect in 2026, the proposed policy would apply to the school’s basic science units, which include departments ranging from biochemistry to neurobiology and various centers and institutes such as the Duke Cancer Institute and the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. These units rely heavily on grants from the National Institutes of Health, which have been increasingly difficult to come by due to slowdowns in grant review processes, an uptick in terminations and a lack of new funding opportunities since President Donald Trump assumed office.

Under the guidelines, each department must establish a minimum expectation for external grant funding. Tenured faculty members who do not meet the threshold — measured as a three-year average — would be given the option to either enter a 12-month “Safe Harbor” period, after which further inability to meet productivity standards will result in salary reductions, or consider career transition alternatives.

SOM administration initially proposed the guidelines in late May, drawing backlash that they had sidestepped shared governance processes. The May proposal stated that faculty members who failed to secure the minimum externally funded effort would be subject to a 10% salary “decrement” every six months to a minimum base of $50,000 a year — an amount lower than the salary of most postdoctoral researchers.

Note that while the standards are called “productivity” standards, they say nothing about what researcher’s have produced, but only whether they have garnered federal money. Granted, one’s scientific productivity is usually correlated with ability to support research, but for some areas, like theoretical work, the connection is more tenuous. In the end, though universities should do what mine does: explicitly judge a faculty member on production of scientific research, explicitly ruling out any discussion of grant funding.

*Remember Uri Berliner, the NPR editor who, in a widely-publicized Free Press piece last year, called attention to National Public Radio’s move towards progressivism, a slant on the news that he (and I) see as unconscionable given the public funding (not large) of NPR.  He got in trouble and then quit NPR.

Now Congress has cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which partly funds NPR and PBS, and it’s because of this slant (if an organization purports to give objective news to a public that partly pays its way, it’s obligated to be as objective as possible.

Anyway, Berliner has followed up his original piece by celebrating NPR’s “independence day” (independence on public funding, which was, again, so meager that its absence won’t much hurt NPR. Click below to read it or find the piece archived here for free:

From Berliner’s piece.

The vote is a victory for Republicans who have long had National Public Radio (NPR) in their sights. But it is also a victory for those of any political stripe who believe the government has no business funding the media.

I didn’t use to count myself among them. But over the past year, under the leadership of a divisive new CEO, instead of taking criticisms of its coverage to heart, NPR instead doubled down on agenda-driven journalism. So, as someone who had spent most of his career at the network, I didn’t support defunding. I instead suggested that NPR could build back credibility by voluntarily giving up federal support. Obviously that didn’t happen.

. . .Embracing the mantras of the Great Awokening, NPR became a caricature of itself with headlines like these:

Microfeminism: The Next Big Thing in Fighting the Patriarchy

Which Skin Color Emoji Should You Use? The Answer Can Be More Complex than You Think

Black Women’s Groups Find Health and Healing on Hikes, But Sometimes Racism, Too

Bringing Diversity to Maine’s Nearly All-White Lobster Fleet

Diet Culture Can Hurt Kids. This Author Advises Parents to Reclaim the Word ‘Fat’

These Drag Artists Know How to Turn Climate Activism into a Joyful Blowout

Inside NPR, rules on the use of language reflected the direction and mindset of the organization. We were told to avoid the term biological sex, warned not to say illegal immigrant (a hurtful label). A racial punctuation hierarchy was imposed; black would be uppercase, white lowercase. NPR adopted the phrase “gender affirming care” to describe childhood medical interventions that can mean sterilization and the surgical removal of genitals. These were not merely style choices. They were tribal signals, ideological markers.

NPR could have addressed these failings. I wrote my essay because I hoped the network might rediscover the values on which its success had been built. NPR could have regained some equilibrium, reclaimed a smidgen of independence, by copping to this reality even a little. It could have taken some visible steps back to the journalism gold standard of neutral impartiality. And it could have done all this prior to Trump’s reelection, so it wouldn’t look like NPR was caving to pressure from his administration.

No saying “biological sex”!  Oy! I listen to NPR when I’m driving, and its descent into wokeness is palpable, and unpalatable even to left-centrists like me.  Taxpayers should not be funding the organization, but cut it loose to be as woke as it wants.

*I guess when I was in the Arctic the government decided to start supporting Ukraine again, perhaps because Putin had become recalcitrant. European and American sanctions on Russia are in the offing, and that’s good. But what’s even better is that the U.S. is again helping deliver weapons to the beleaguered Ukraine:

The Trump administration has moved Germany ahead of Switzerland for the next Patriot air-defense systems off the production line, paving the way for Berlin to send two Patriots it already has to Ukraine, according to three U.S. officials.

The U.S. promise to quickly replace Germany’s Patriots is the first instance of the Pentagon facilitating weapons deliveries for Ukraine since President Trump announced earlier this month that he favored sending more arms.

But the move also underscored the difficulty in providing Patriots and other weapons to Kyiv, as defense production lines in the West struggle to keep up with Ukraine’s appeals for help defending its cities and front line forces against increasing Russian missile and drone attacks.

The effort to speed Patriots to Ukraine by backfilling Germany with systems from the American production line is consistent with Trump’s vow to have NATO allies pay the U.S. as part of providing additional weapons for Ukraine.

The initial deal is similar to a move made in 2024 by the Biden administration, which moved Ukraine to the front of the line to receive air defense interceptors directly from the U.S.

Ukraine may lose this war, and lose it big time, giving up much or even all of its territory to Russia. But if America stands for anything, even in these Trumpian days, we should stand for the defense of freedom against the incursions of despots like Putin.  We should re-arm Ukraine to the best of our ability.

*Finally, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark column, called this week “TGIF: The Client List.” (This of course refers to the brouhaha about Jeffrey Epstein that has erupted since I flew to Finland, and I still don’t understand what all the hubub is about

→ How to score a Beamer in London: This story is from March, but it’s new to me, so bear with me. In the UK, the government will give disabled people cars. It’s a really lovely idea. The trouble: You can claim any disability, including depression. It kind of relies on people acting in good faith, in a high-trust society where people don’t lie about such things. Did I mention that the government will help you get a brand-new BMW? And give you a new one every three years? You’ll be shocked to hear the program is now so popular that roughly one out of every five new cars sold in Britain is provided via this government program for the disabled. And what sort of disabilities are people reporting when they come for their Beamer? A huge number of people claiming disability in the UK report mental health issues, depression and anxiety and such (I assume it’s depression over not having a BMW). As in, “I’m too anxious to take the Tube; I need a Beamer.” Some of the car recipients actually report that their disability is acne (good, hide in the car, I don’t want to see that mountainous chin looming at me on the Tube). A handful of claimants even suffer from “factitious disorder,” in which your disease is thinking you are diseased. They get Beamers too, and a new speaker system thrown in so that they can really relax on those long drives to the NHS to check out another benign mole. This all comes from a Telegraph report on the program and is 100 percent real. I repeat: Beamers for Acne. Beamers for Fakers. Time for me to make a little trip to ye bonny England.

→ Doing reporting I don’t like is literal murder: Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, is freaking out at The Washington Free Beacon, which has been getting huge scoops on things like universities investigated for illegal DEI hiring methods and apparently race-conscious submissions practices at the Harvard Law Review. Or, in Jill’s telling: The site has been “a potentially lethal weapon aimed at elite universities.” Which is a weird way to describe reporting, if you’re ostensibly a member of and fan of the press? But that wasn’t the end of her reporter-as-murderer assessment: “It’s not just that the Beacon is conservative; it’s that it seems to be on a jihad, publishing scoops that have left blood on the floor at Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Duke, and other prestigious corners of academia.” Lethal weapon, jihad, blood on the floor.

She goes through all of the greatest hits of Beacon reporter Aaron Sibarium—who I guess is a hitman or a jihadi? “Besides helping to bring down Claudine Gay, the Free Beacon bedeviled the Harvard Law Review in May by publishing insider documents leaked by a whistleblower on its staff.” Aaron Sibarium is stabbing administrators in the chest and dragging their bodies through marble halls (which is how it feels emotionally when he reports on their meetings).

I love that she’s articulating her philosophy so clearly. I’m personally forever indebted to legacy media’s belief that ignoring the most interesting stories will make them go away. And I can only hope they continue. Jill, run every newspaper! Now if I could get Aaron—that absolute killer, that stone-cold stunner, that literal jihadist murderer, like guys, he has a knife—to join The Free Press.

. . . and I can’t wait for this one! Mexican coke (available at a premium in some American towns) at American prices!

→ Trump trying to distract everyone with soda: While his party was undergoing its first civil war, Trump was trying to shore up his MAHAs over on Truth Social: “I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so. I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them—You’ll see. It’s just better!” Soft drink soft power at work, folks. Catch me at the soda fountain next Tuesday, with a big old scoop of vanilla ice cream and an old-fashioned Coke. I don’t know if this makes America great again, but I am all for it.

And one extra:

→ Americans are getting very comfortable with political violence: Following a wave of antisemitic violence, the ADL conducted a survey “to assess the national mood toward antisemitism” and found that 24 percent of people felt recent violent attacks on Jews were understandable, with 13 percent saying they were justified. So that’s been keeping me up at night. No jokes here, just a knot in my stomach and a bigger hunch in my back.

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Today’s Caturday feature. First, a sign I saw yesterday in downtown Reykjavik:

Andhere’s moggie from Reykjavik sent in reader Ken Phelps. Titled “Reyk Cat”, Ken added this caption:

Here’s one tough cat in Reykjavik. Graciously accepted a a bit of head scratching, then gave me a good swat and moved away about a foot before sitting back down and dismissing me.

If Vikings were cats, they’d look like this one!