Stephanie Guttman is enjoying a good gloat as one student revolutionary’s chickens come home to cancel her winner-of-the-DEI-lottery-ticket lucrative right-out-of-law-school job offer.
NYU student bar association president Ryna Workman was set to become a very rich young lady. Ooops, I mean they (this person is non-binary and insists on they/them) was about to become a very rich young person after graduation when she ascended to Winston & Strawn, an international law monolith, where, as a brand new associate, she could rake in at least $200K and perhaps up to $300K a year.
Then on October 10th she/they/them seemed to have become oddly compelled to send out an email telling fellow law students (as if anyone had asked her) she would not condemn what she called Palestinian “resistance” on October 7th since it was all— baby decapitating and so on—a perfectly valid response to Israel’s “regime of state-sanctioned violence” which had “created the conditions that made resistance necessary.”
The emailed letter was leaked and went viral.
Oooops. Sure, a student bar association president who is a three-fer (black, female, and aggressively queer) is one hot prospect for any law firm, especially one that announces its dedication to diversity, equity and inclusion on its website landing page.
But even a woke international behemoth like W&S must have felt a little queasy as the partners considered how a now-famous behead-‘em-while-you-rape-‘em defender could affect client relations in Brussels, São Paolo, London, Paris, and Shanghai.
The behemoth swiftly withdrew its job offer. …
Old commie Amy Goodman, now a podcaster for Democracy Now, for one, found a new opportunity for righteous indignation. She had Workman on her show and introduced her by saying she was an example of students across the country “facing racist attacks and retaliation that threaten their safety and livelihoods” for just speaking their minds a lil’ bit.
Yup. Losing a $300K job because a law firm decides you may not be good for the brand is definitely livelihood-threatening racist retaliation.
I’m pretty sure a woman like Workman will always find a way to pay the rent—including in Brooklyn where she now appears to live. Even given the recent corporate trend to pull away from DEI mandates, I’m betting there are still thousands of businesses and law firms who would salivate over a physically attractive, apparently confident, glibbly articulate three-fer.
I had kind of hoped we would have the satisfaction of seeing Workman graciously accepting an offer to run a store-front NGO at a salary of $40K year. No such luck. Her internet presence has been pretty well scrubbed. The full text of the infamous October 10 message is gone, there’s no LinkedIn, no Twitter.
Update: We just found Ryna Workman. She’s running a GoFundMe …for herself. As of today it reads:
Any donated money will be used to financially support me in the wake of this targeted harassment campaign. I will use the money to seek out quality therapy and counselling services and purchase meals and groceries. Your help will provide me with a safety net as I look for other employment opportunities. I also plan on using some of the funds to support other students who have suffered financially after expressing solidarity with Palestine. Any amount you’re willing to contribute will be greatly appreciated. If you cannot donate, please share this with friends or family – that would mean the world to me.
Hans von Aachen, St. George Slaying the Dragon, c. 1600, Private Collection, London
From Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, 1869:
Butler, the historian of the Romish calendar, repudiates George of Cappadocia, and will have it that the famous saint was born of noble Christian parents, that he entered the army, and rose to a high grade in its ranks, until the persecution of his co-religionists by Diocletian compelled him to throw up his commission, and upbraid the emperor for his cruelty, by which bold conduct he lost his head and won his saintship. Whatever the real character of St. George might have been, he was held in great honour in England from a very early period. While in the calendars of the Greek and Latin churches he shared the twenty-third of April with other saints, a Saxon Martyrology declares the day dedicated to him alone; and after the Conquest his festival was celebrated after the approved fashion of Englishmen.
In 1344, this feast was made memorable by the creation of the noble Order of St. George, or the Blue Garter, the institution being inaugurated by a grand joust, in which forty of England’s best and bravest knights held the lists against the foreign chivalry attracted by the proclamation of the challenge through France, Burgundy, Hainault, Brabant, Flanders, and Germany. In the first year of the reign of Henry V, a council held at London decreed, at the instance of the king himself, that henceforth the feast of St. George should be observed by a double service; and for many years the festival was kept with great splendour at Windsor and other towns. Shakspeare, in Henry VI, makes the Regent Bedford say, on receiving the news of disasters in France:
Bonfires in France I am forthwith to make
To keep our great St. George’s feast withal!’
Edward VI promulgated certain statutes severing the connection between the ‘noble order’ and the saint; but on his death, Mary at once abrogated them as ‘impertinent, and tending to novelty.’ The festival continued to be observed until 1567, when, the ceremonies being thought incompatible with the reformed religion, Elizabeth ordered its discontinuance. James I, however, kept the 23rd of April to some extent, and the revival of the feast in all its glories was only prevented by the Civil War. So late as 1614, it was the custom for fashionable gentlemen to wear blue coats on St. George’s day, probably in imitation of the blue mantle worn by the Knights of the Garter.
In olden times, the standard of St. George was borne before our English kings in battle, and his name was the rallying cry of English warriors. According to Shakspeare, Henry V led the attack on Harfleur to the battle-cry of ‘God for Harry! England! and St. George!’ and ‘God and St. George’ was Talbot’s slogan on the fatal field of Patay. Edward of Wales exhorts his peace-loving parents to
‘Cheer these noble lords,
And hearten those that fight in your defence;
Unsheath your sword, good father, cry St. George!’
The fiery Richard invokes the same saint, and his rival can think of no better name to excite the ardour of his adherents:
‘Advance our standards, set upon our foes,
Our ancient word of courage, fair St. George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons.’
England was not the only nation that fought under the banner of St. George, nor was the Order of the Garter the only chivalric institution in his honour. Sicily, Arragon, Valencia, Genoa, Malta, Barcelona, looked up to him as their guardian saint; and as to knightly orders bearing his name, a Venetian Order of St. George was created in 1200, a Spanish in 1317, an Austrian in 1470, a Genoese in 1472, and a Roman in 1492, to say nothing of the more modern ones of Bavaria (1729), Russia (1767), and Hanover (1839).
Legendarily the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George was founded by the Emperor Constantine (312-337 A.D.). On the factual level, the Constantinian Order is known to have functioned militarily in the Balkans in the 15th century against the Turk under the authority of descendants of the twelfth-century Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelus Comnenus.
We Lithuanians liked St. George as well. When I was a boy I attended St. George Lithuanian Parish Elementary School, and served mass at St. George Lithuanian Roman Catholic Church in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania.
St. George Church, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, Christmas, 1979. This church, built by immigrant coal miners in 1891, was torn down by the Diocese of Allentown in 2010.
This is the first memorial statue to the late Queen. It was unveiled the day before yesterday at Oakham, Rutland on what would have been her 98th birthday.
Way back, almost a year ago, Federal News announced that military funerals carrying the casket on the traditional horse-drawn artillery caisson were being suspended temporarily, for just a month and a half, 45 days.
Why?
The cause was absolutely appalling.
The Army will make changes to the long care of its Old Guard horses, including expanding their pastures, allowing them rest and rehabilitation, and purchasing new horses. It also plans to improve the equipment and possibly use lighter caissons to ease the load for the horses. An Army report last year found poor management practices and unsatisfactory sanitation in caring for the caisson horses.
Horses were being overworked, underfed, neglected, used with ill-fitting tack, and actually dying.
That 45-day suspension continued right up to the present day, just about a year later, and the Army has announced that it expects it will be roughly one more year before replacement horses can be purchased and proper equipment and care put into place.
“more than half of the 48-member herd had muscle, joint or hoof issues.”
The original suspension followed a string of military working horse deaths, reports of unsanitary and potentially life-threatening living conditions, as well as congressional scrutiny directed at the Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment, also known as “The Old Guard” — the service’s premier ceremonial unit, which is in charge of conducting the horse-drawn services. …
Officials could not give an estimate of when that suspension would lift, though Bredenkamp said that the decision to resume operations would be “conditions-based” and did not expect the extension to last multiple years. Those conditions include factors like how many new horses the unit can procure to replace those who have retired, aged out or were adopted.
It also centers around fine-tuning training and rest cycles, which officials said were overburdened before experts and lawmakers leveled scrutiny at the unit. Before April 2023, the caisson horses were doing 6-8 funerals per day, every two hours, according to officials.
“What we’ve learned is that the more appropriate work-rest cycle is no more than five hours under saddle and tack in a day,” Bredenkamp said. “So, that reduces the amount of funerals we can support with those squads.”
In 2022, CNN reported that two horses died within just days of each other and that the herd was living in small, unsanitary conditions, consuming low-quality feed and suffering from parasites. Within nine months of those deaths, two other horses died, totalling four in less than a year.
Following those deaths, the unit started rotating horses to a larger plot of land in Virginia in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management. One of the challenges that officials and soldiers who care for the horses have grappled with is the lack of organic space at Fort Myer and Fort Belvoir, where the horses live and train. In 2022, the Army said the then-60-member herd was living in less than 20% of the space equine experts recommend.
“It just became very cost-prohibitive to be able to expand the relatively small facility we had at Fort Belvoir to accommodate a larger herd,” Bredenkamp said. “And we’re not going to get any more in Fort Myer.”
Over the last year, the number of horses began to dwindle as some were adopted out of the unit, which meant those remaining had more space as the unit looked for alternatives to the tiny six-acre pasture complex at Belvoir. Two years ago, the herd numbered around 60, which crowded the limited space they occupied at the two bases. Now, the herd totals at 42, which includes 18 new horses since June 2023.
The people in charge of those horses were members of he U.S. Army’s ultra-elite “Old Guard” Third U.S. Infantry Regiment which is used to guard the President of the United States and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and for other important ceremonial functions.
Via C.W. Swanson: Hadi Rahnaward: ‘Fragile Balance’ (2023) rug sculpture created with matches. And dangerous, if those are real matches. The temptation for me would be enormous. I don’t know if I could resist.
I’m with him. When the exhibition closes, they absolutely need to light it.
Ludwig von Langenmantel, Girolamo Savonarola Preaching Against Prodigality, 1879. St Bonaventure University.
Robin Hanson observes the magnitude of cultural change during the lifetimes of older people like myself and wonders aloud if the converso elites made sound decisions.
[W]hile as communities we are reluctant to change key institutions, and as individuals we are wary of letting other individuals change our values, as communities we perhaps surprisingly do not at all lock down our deep values. We instead freely, even with abandon, copy behaviors, beliefs, and values of all sorts from our prestigious associates. This allows cultural evolution, The Secret of Our Success relative to other animals.
For example, in my life I have seen a big increase in expected parental attention to kids, a switch from cornerstone to capstone marriage norms, lengthening of expected career preparation durations, great declines in religion, patriotism and militarism, far more acceptance of homo- and trans-sexuality, far stronger norms against sexist or racist language, and a merging of national cultures into a global culture, especially among elites.
These changes are quite shocking if you think about them. A system we rely on far more than our systems of units, voting, or times is changing very fast, and no one seems to be in charge, either of picking these changes ahead of time, or of evaluating them after the fact. In my essay Beware Cultural Drift I consider some stories trying to frame these as something better than maladaptive culture drift, but was not persuaded. The space of possible cultures should mostly be harsh and dysfunctional, where we started was functional due to strong selection centuries ago, yet our cultures really are wandering fast off into that vast space without a plan, map, or light.
Such changes are even more shocking to those of us old enough to remember when our culture told us to have different values than it tells us now. Neither set of values came with detailed justifications, and the arguments we are given now for recent value changes are ones we were aware of long ago, and rejected then. So do we just pretend to go along while secretly keeping our old values, abandon both the old and new values, or give the new values the benefit of the doubt, and assume our elites had good reasons for them, even if we can’t see them?
No real cause for wonder, I’d say. What we have here is one more of the periodic outbreaks of religious mass hysteria resembling the Byzantine Iconoclasm, Savonarola’s Bonfire of the Vanities, and the Puritan version of the English Reformation’s demolition of ecclesiastical art and ban on music and the celebration of Christmas.
Our misfortune, though, consists of the irresistible rise of not one, but two demented species of radical faith-based fanaticism.
On the one hand, we have a hypertrophied Egalitarianism that declines stopping at an obdurate, utterly inflexible denial of reality that insists on regarding that which is not equal as equal and then proceeds hysterically to the inversion of values by which the inferior is transformed into the privileged class owed a limitless debt of apology, homage, and reparation.
And, on the other hand, we have a spectacular recrudescence of the dualist Manichean heresy with Nature and the Environment envisioned as the Good and Humanity, especially all forms of human economic and productive activity as Evil. Nature is envisioned as perfect and self-regulating and unchanging. At this exact moment, every species is essential (Sorry, Darwin!) and any observable change, whether the increase or diminution of some critter’s range or population size is a disaster!, a tragedy! Any extreme or unusual weather; any long-term change in shorelines; ocean currents, or climate is all your fault and mine. Every human activity is violative somehow of that sublime natural order. Really, the best thing we could do is to go extinct ourselves.
Our elites subscribe overwhelmingly simultaneously to both of these crackpot ersatz religious cults and they are ruthlessly intolerant.
Practically, What have you to recommend? I answer at once, Nothing. The whole current of thought and feeling, the whole stream of human affairs, is setting with irresistible force in that direction. The old ways of living… are breaking down all over Europe, and are floating this way and that like haycocks in a flood. Nor do I see why any wise man should expend much thought or trouble on trying to save their wrecks. The waters are out and no human force can turn them back, but I do not see why as we go with the stream we need sing Hallelujah to the river god.”
— James FitzJames Stephen (1829-1894), Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, 1874.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Clarence “Frogman” Henry, who was one of New Orleans’ best known old-time R&B singers and scored a hit at age 19 with “Ain’t Got No Home,” has died. He was 87.
Henry died Sunday night, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation said on social media. It didn’t give the cause of death.
Henry, who had been scheduled to perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival later this month, imitated the voice of a frog in “Ain’t Got No Home.” It was a hit in 1956 and later brought Henry renewed fame when it was featured on the “Forrest Gump” and “Mickey Blue Eyes” soundtracks.
Now, there is a blast from the past. I was in second grade when this was playing in the local Malt Shops.
The 18-year-old Pollini at the the 1960 Chopin Piano Competition. Arthur Rubinstein served as head of the jury who gave Pollini the award that year, and offered his candid assessment: “That boy can play the piano better than any of us.”
I just learned from Ted Gioia that we recently lost Maurizio Pollini, one of the very greatest pianists of our time.
Pollini was the pupil of the great and extraordinarily eccentric Michelangeli and was renowned for the combination of precision with emotional restraint.
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Maurizio Pollini – Beethoven: Sonata No. 30, I. Vivace Ma Non Troppo – 28 March 2022.
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Pollini, aged 14 or 15 circa 1956, plays the Chopin Études op.10 in Milan.
