“When asked to name the greatest soldier of the war, Robert E. Lee replied, ‘A man I have never seen, sir. His name is Forrest.’ ”
Nathan Bedford Forrest had 30 horses shot out from under him and, pari passu, personally killed 31 enemy soldiers. At the commencement of the war, Forrest was a self-made millionaire, one of the richest men in Tennessee. He lost everything in defense of his native state.
Not surprisingly, the State of Tennessee used to honor the memory of one of its greatest heroes and defenders with a bust in the state capitol.
Happily there has been a serious response to Forrest’s targeting by left-wing Cancel Culture.
Not even two weeks after the historical commission voted to remove the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state capitol, state senators are trying to vote to remove all members from the commission.
Senator Joey Hensley, a Hohenwald Republican, sponsored the bill. It would replace all of the members of the 29 person commission with 12 new members.
Currently, 24 of the commissioners are appointed by the governor of the state. Sen. Hensley’s bill would reduce the total number of members to 12. The governor, Lt. Governor and state speaker of the house would each choose four members.
While not specifically mentioning the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the meeting, members made references to decisions the historical commission has recently made.
The commission voted to remove Forrest’s bust from the capitol building on March 8.
Forrest is a controversial figure in the state’s history. He was a slave trader, Confederate war general and [a claim Forrest explicitly denied – JDZ] one of the first leaders of the KKK. His image displayed prominently outside both houses of the legislature has been the center of many protests through the years.
“In our culture today it seems there is a desire to cancel history, cancel culture, cancel narratives that are just based on fact. I think that that’s a dangerous precedent,” said Tullahoma republican Senator Janice Bowling.
Woke hypersensitivity and downright insanity keeps on coming every day, as this NY Post story proves.
Amazon has changed its new smartphone app logo after critics said the earlier incarnation was a dead ringer for Adolf Hitler.
The e-commerce giant introduced the new icon in January to replace the symbol of a shopping cart with one featuring a brown box with a jagged piece of blue tape above the company’s iconic smile-shaped arrow.
But sharp-eyed users noticed the tape disturbingly recalled the Führer’s toothbrush mustache. [!???- JDZ]
“It’s not just a ripped scotch tape, it’s a ripped scotch tape that has a similar shape and is right on top of a smiling mouth. Looks like a happy little cardboard Adolf to me,” one person said on Twitter.
“Amazon’s new app logo be lookin like they’re the THIRD most downloaded in the ‘Reich’ section,” another said, referring to the Nazi regime.
Users also took note of Amazon’s tweak, in which the blue tape was made to look folded over.
“lmao I completely missed that amazon quietly tweaked its new icon to make it look… less like hitler,” one wrote.
“Unsurprisingly they did not send out a press release to announce the second redesign.”
One thing that has obviously changed in America in recent years is that the adults have all died off or retired and our institutions and consumer corporations are now all run by sniveling sheep who can be stampeded in any direction, who can be intimidated into making preposterous concessions, by noisy crazies.
If somebody had come along a few decades ago and proposed tearing down statues of Columbus, George Washington, or Robert E. Lee, if some looney took offense at Uncle Ben or Aunt Jemima, the people in charge would have made circular motions with an index figure beside their temple or responded with cuckoo noises. Today, the nonentities and poltroons running the world instantly grovel and hasten to comply with the demands of the sort of people who used to be locked up safely in rooms with mattresses on the walls in lunatic asylums. If I said this on Facebook today, I’d probably get 30 days in Facebook jail for using the phrase “lunatic asylum.”
The NY Post has today’s daily story of leftist ideological fanaticism.
The company that publishes Dr. Seuss’ children’s books said it will stop selling six of his titles because they contain racist and insensitive images.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises — the firm charged with preserving and protecting the beloved author’s legacy — said it scrapped the books because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”
“Ceasing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and our broader plan to ensure Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ catalog represents and supports all communities and families,” the company said in a statement Tuesday, which is also the author’s birthday.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises said it decided last year to stop publishing and licensing the titles — which include “If I Ran the Zoo,” “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!” and “The Cat’s Quizzer” — after consulting with a panel of educators and other experts.
While Dr. Seuss — whose real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel — remains one of the world’s most popular children’s authors three decades after his death, his books have come under fire in recent years for how they portray black people, Asian people and other groups.
“If I Ran the Zoo,” for instance, has been panned for depicting Africans as “potbellied” and “thick-lipped,” as one biography of Seuss put it. It also describes Asian characters as “helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant” from “countries no one can spell,” notes a 2019 paper on Geisel’s work published in the journal Research on Diversity in Youth Literature.
And “Mulberry Street,” the first children’s book Geisel published under his pen name, contains a controversial illustration of an Asian man holding chopsticks and a bowl of rice whom the text called a “Chinaman who eats with sticks.”
It’s too late to do anything about this international epidemic of insanity. It is apparent that, decades ago, badly-educated fanatics with their heads full of leftist egalitarian religiosity were permitted to take over the great bulk of petty educational institutions, and over the course of a generation, they successfully brain-washed the children irresponsibly committed into theirs hands.
Today, all those former little toddlers are the young adults operating as managers of media organizations, consumer product companies, and publishing houses, and they remain faithful Young Communists, seeing the whole world in terms of Colonialist Oppression, White Injustice, and Racialist Wickedness.
The mere sight of a whimsical cartoon referencing old-timey cultural stereotypes brings a tear to their eyes as they imagine humiliated and mortally offended representatives of groups sacred on the basis of their historical wrongs suffering afresh indignities.
These people have a bee in their bonnet that is driving them to regular outbursts of pure insanity. In the end, there is nothing more dangerous and destructive that a madman infected with delusions of absolute righteousness bent on punishing those he understands to be deliberately evil.
Matthew Fontaine Maury 1806-1873 was a Virginian and an officer in the US Navy, who resigned his commission rather than serve against his native state. He had been seriously injured early in his naval career, and rendered permanently unfit for sea duty, so he devoted his career to the application of science to naval affairs. His studies of winds and ocean currents became the foundation of the fields of Oceanography and Naval Meteorology. In addition to his intellectual services to the Confederacy during the War, Maury played an important role in promoting the founding the National Observatory, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Virginia Tech.
The Independent reports that the management of James Madison University has seen fit to cancel Matthew Fontaine Maury.
James Madison University has renamed three prominent buildings for African Americans who made significant contributions to the public institution in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, culminating a process of historical reckoning that began last summer when officials removed the names of Confederate leaders from the halls.
The buildings, all on the quad of the campus in Harrisonburg, now honour elements of the school’s past that had long been overlooked under a plan the JMU governing board approved Friday.
The action “is part of our deliberate effort to underscore JMU’s commitment to being a welcoming and inclusive institution”, the university’s president, Jonathan Alger, said in a statement.
“These names help us to tell a more complete history of our institution. They highlight and celebrate the contributions and accomplishments of important individuals and groups who have historically been underrepresented in prominent campus namings.
“Collectively they represent faculty, staff, students, alumni and prominent members of our local community.”
What had been Maury Hall, honouring a Confederate naval officer, is now Gabbin Hall. Its new name honours Joanne Gabbin and Alexander Gabbin, a married couple who are longtime members of the university faculty. Joanne Gabbin is an English professor and Alexander Gabbin an accounting professor.
Lieutenant General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson 1824-1863, of course, was one of the greatest military commanders in history, particularly famed for his decisive role in reversing the outcome of the First Battle of Bull Run, for his brilliant campaign in defense of the Valley of Virginia in 1862, and for playing the key role in planning and executing the flank attack at Chancellorsville, in the course of which battle he was mortally wounded.
The former Jackson Hall, named for Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, is now Darcus Johnson Hall.
Sheary Darcus Johnson was the first black graduate of what is now JMU, earning a bachelor’s degree in library science from Madison College in 1970 and a master’s degree in elementary education in 1974.
Brigadier General Turner Ashby 1828-1862 was General Jackson’s cavalry commander. In his relatively brief military career, he nonetheless left an extraordinary record of military efficiency, chivalry, and bravery, and was regarded as “the Bayard of the Confederacy. He was shot through the heart, and killed instantly, rallying his men for a charge, while commanding Jackson’s Army’s rear guard, June 6, 1862, near Harrisonburg.
The former Ashby Hall, named for a Confederate cavalry officer, is now Harper Allen-Lee Hall. Its new name honours Doris Harper Allen, who worked as a cook for a Madison College president … as well as Robert Walker Lee, who provided janitorial and maintenance service at the school in the early 20th century and was believed to be its first black employee.
What can one possibly say?
We are experiencing a cultural revolution featuring an astonishing and reprehensible inversion of values that causes three heroes, men numbered among the greatest, most noble figures in the history of their native state and the nation, two of them especially associated with the specific region of the university, and who gave their lives in defense of their native state, to be cancelled, rejected, dishonored and discarded in favor of a cook and a janitor(!), a recent perfectly ordinary student, and a couple of minor and obscure current academics, all of whom possess no claim to distinction whatsoever beyond their membership in a particular identity group.
My father used to say: “The continent slopes, and all the fruits and nuts roll out to California.” And there, they wind up in public offices, like the school board of San Francisco which recently decided it needs to rename 44 schools on the basis of bizarre leftist grievances and animosities. Dianne Feinstein is not left-wing enough? What did Robert Louis Stevenson ever do? Was he guilty of stereotyping pirates?
The names of presidents, conquistadors, authors and even a current U.S. senator will be removed from 44 San Francisco school sites after the city’s school board Tuesday deemed the iconic figures unworthy of the honor.
The 6-1 vote followed months of controversy, with officials, parents, students and alumni at odds over whether Abraham Lincoln and George Washington high schools, Dianne Feinstein Elementary and dozens of others needed new names with no connection to slavery, oppression, racism or similar criteria.
Critics called the process slapdash, with little to no input from historians and a lack of information on the basis for each recommendation. In one instance, the committee didn’t know whether Roosevelt Middle School was named after Theodore or Franklin Delano.
“I must admit there are reasons to support this resolution, but I can’t,” said community member Jean Barish, who said the process has been flawed and based on emotion rather than expertise. “These are not decisions that should be made in haste.”
School board members, however, have insisted that the renaming is timely and important, given the country’s reckoning with a racist past. They have argued the district is capable of pursuing multiple priorities at the same time, responding to critics who say more pressing issues deserve attention.
The San Francisco school board voted to change the following school names:
Balboa High School, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa
Abraham Lincoln High School, U.S. president
Mission High School, Mission Dolores
George Washington High School, first U.S. president
Lowell High School, poet/critic James R. Lowell
James Denman Middle School, founder of first S.F. school
Everett Middle School, Edward Everett, American statesman
Herbert Hoover Middle School, U.S. president
James Lick Middle School, land baron
Presidio Middle School, S.F. military post
Roosevelt Middle School, Theodore or F.D., both U.S. presidents
Lawton K-8, U.S. Army officer Henry Ware Lawton
Claire Lilienthal (two sites), S.F. school board member
Paul Revere K-8, American Revolution patriot
Alamo Elementary, a poplar tree or the site of Texas Revolution battle
Alvarado Elementary, Pedro de Alvarado, conquistador
Bryant Elementary, author Edwin Bryant
Clarendon Elementary Second Community and Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, English politician
El Dorado Elementary, mythical City of Gold
Dianne Feinstein Elementary, U.S. senator and former S.F. mayor
Garfield Elementary, James Garfield, U.S. president
Grattan Elementary, William Henry Grattan, Irish author
Jefferson Elementary, Thomas Jefferson, U.S. president
Francis Scott Key Elementary, composer of “Star Spangled Banner”
Frank McCoppin Elementary, S.F. mayor
McKinley Elementary, William McKinley, U.S. president
Marshall Elementary, James Wilson Marshall, sawmill worker at Sutter’s Mill
Monroe Elementary, James Monroe, U.S. president
John Muir Elementary, naturalist
Jose Ortega Elementary, Spanish colonizer
Sanchez Elementary, Jose Bernardo Sanchez, Spanish missionary
Junipero Serra Elementary, Spanish priest
Sheridan Elementary, Gen. Philip Sheridan
Sherman Elementary, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
Commodore Sloat Elementary, John Sloat, Navy officer
Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary, author
Sutro Elementary, Adolph Sutro, S.F. mayor
Ulloa Elementary, Don Antonio de Ulloa, Spanish general
This Breitbart story demonstrates that the SF school board looney tunes were frequently confused or misinformed, but were sufficiently self-infatuated and intoxicated with power that they didn’t care.
John Hinderaker notes that all the gaslighting and censorship we see is not the typical behavior of people enjoying the conviction of innocence.
Democrats are making extraordinary efforts to suppress all discussion of whether Joe Biden actually won the 2020 presidential election. In fact, they go even farther: they want to suppress all discussion of the extent to which voter fraud occurred. That naturally makes me want to write about voter fraud, and who really won the election.
First, this question: why are the Democrats so hysterical in their insistence that fraud not be mentioned? One reason is obvious. Joe Biden will take office under a cloud, since close to half of all Americans doubt that he really won the election. The Democrats want to stamp out such doubts to preserve Biden’s authority as president.
But there is a second reason that may be more important. The Democrats want the lax voting procedures that prevailed in 2020 to continue in the future. They know that efforts will be made in many states to improve ballot integrity, and they want those efforts to fail. By rendering all discussion of voter fraud out of bounds, they hope to forestall reforms that would make it harder for them to cheat, or enable cheating, in the future.
So, did the Democrats steal the presidential election, or not? I don’t know the answer to that question. No one does. A number of statistical analyses have been done, which on their face suggest large irregularities. I wrote about one such analysis, by John Lott, here.
Beyond that, major questions remain unanswered. In several key swing states, there were midnight dumps of 100,000 or more votes, virtually all of which were for Joe Biden, something that can’t normally happen. Those dumps may have made the difference in the election. I have seen no attempt by any Democrat to explain or justify them. Maybe I’ve missed it, and maybe they somehow reflected actual ballots cast, but the burden of proof is on those who seek to justify such anomalies.
Even greater doubts about the election arise from the deliberately loose procedures that governed voting. Something like 69 million mail-in votes were cast, and until two months ago, everyone agreed that mail-in voting is highly susceptible to fraud. But the laxity in 2020 went far beyond the risks inherent in mail-in votes. I put it this way: I don’t know whether the Democrats stole the 2020 election, but I do know that they tried hard to steal it.
A pro golfer misses a putt and vents his frustration with an expletive, and voilà the miscreant’s crime against Political Correctness is international news, meriting a story in the (generally conservative) NY Post.
Sheer insanity, too! The obscenity employed when something frustratingly goes amiss –you miss the key putt, you bang your finger with a hammer– has no real object beyond the unfortunate event. And this kind of swearing is standard human, letting-off-steam behavior. The Puritan fathers of Old Salem have nothing on the nincompoop generation running Establishment Media and Big Tech today.
The scumbag shitheel who wrote that article is identified here.
A critically acclaimed young adult author has been “canceled” and dropped by her agent after vociferously defending classic books in a Twitter-fueled rage.
Jessica Cluess, the author of the popular “Kingdom of Fire” series (among others) picked a fight with an anti-racist and anti-bias educator Lorena Germán who founded the #DisruptTexts movement which aims to get more works by people of color into schools and to look critically at works by famous white “classic” authors.
“Did y’all know that many of the ‘classics’ were written before the 50s? Think of US society before then & the values that shaped this nation afterwards. THAT is what is in those books. That is why we gotta switch it up. It ain’t just about ‘being old,”‘ Germán tweeted on her now-private account on Nov. 30.
The tweet triggered Cluess, who then sent out a volley of now-deleted tweets (which were captured by the Daily Mail) including one which [Correctly — JDZ] called Germán an “idiot.”
The series of Cluess tweets read:
“If you think Hawthorne was on the side of the judgmental Puritans in The Scarlet Letter then you are an absolute idiot and should not have the title of educator in your bio.”
“If you think Upton Sinclair was on the side of the meat packing industry then you are a fool and should sit down and feel bad about yourself.”
“Ah yes, remember Their Eyes Were Watching God, and other literature of the extraordinary Harlem Renaissance? I guess not. D–k. This anti-intellectual, anti-curiosity bulls–t is poison and I will stand here and scream that it is sheer godd**n evil until my hair falls out. I do not care.” …
Soon a Twitter mob got on board and called Cluess a racist and demanded her publisher Penguin/Random House drop her, prompting the author to delete her tweets and issue an apology saying: “I take full responsibility for my unproved anger against Lorena Germán and the impact of my words on her and all who read them… I want to acknowledge the pain I caused, and to apologize sincerely for it. My words were misguided, wrong, and deeply hurtful.”
While there has been no word from Penguin/Random House, two days later on Dec. 3, Cluess’ agent at the renowned Janklow & Nesbit literary agency, Brooks Sherman, dropped her as a client.
“I hold myself to certain personal and professional standards for the values I support. I no longer represent Jessica Cluess. Her tweets against Loren Germán earlier this week were racist and unacceptable,” Brooks wrote in a tweet. He has since deactivated his account.
As you see, even groveling and recantation are not enough. The heretic must be impoverished as well and deprived of her means of livelihood.
Happily, the days of traditional publishing being a necessity are over. You don’t need an agent or a large corporation. You can just epublish yourself.
In collaboration with the Black Student Union at the school, University of Wisconsin-Madison leaders are discussing plans to remove a 70-ton boulder from campus grounds due to it once being called a racist name nearly a century ago.
The boulder had traveled to the region over 10,000 years ago, deposited by ancient pre-Cambrian bedrock drift from Canada, according to its plaque.
In 1925, workers pulled the rock out of the side of a hill on campus and named it “Chamberlin Rock†after Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, a 19th century glaciologist and University of Wisconsin president. The rock was adorned with a plaque commemorating Chamberlin and placed at the university’s Washburn Observatory, where it remains today.
While Chamberlin Rock has been a campus fixture for 95 years, it recently came under fire due to once being described as a “n****rhead†in 1925 as was common geological practice at the time to describe large dark rocks, Madison.com reports.
The Black Student Union at UW is now calling on the university to find an alternate way to represent Chamberlin on campus without the legacy implied by the rock.
“You clearly see what the rock was called and you can’t deny the history. Additionally you can’t deny the way it makes some people feel,†Black Student Union president Nalah McWhorter told Madison.com. “If you’re not going to move the things that are disrespectful to us because other students love it, put something up that us Black and brown students can celebrate.â€
In this time of Cancel Culture, not all exhibitions of self-indulgent racial melodrama win Pulitzer Prizes. This recent Harvard grad posted the above rant on TikTok, and was consequently fired by Deloitte.
Their HR Department, alas! poor girl, took her rather-extreme metaphor literally as a “threat.” I’m sure that she actually had no intention of stabbing anyone, but her personal participation in contemporary group psychosis does have plenty of unfortunate real world consequences.
The African-American pattern of persecution fantasy functions to justify unearned and undeserved favoritism and privilege as “compensation.” It operates as an excuse for the suppression of free speech and honest debate. And it fuels a demented and overwheening self-importance, persuading silly people that they are special and specially-entitled on the basis of historical victimhood, that nobody has suffered as they’ve suffered (and are still suffering!) and nobody else can possibly compete in status and entitlement and nobody else can possibly understand how they’ve suffered (and are still suffering!). Being the ultimate entitled victim and at the same time a haute bourgeois elite Ivy League graduate is nice work if you can get it.
Fueling and participating in this nonsense is intellectually dishonest and socially and politically destructive. This fantasy corrupts society, fosters limitless injustice, and sews bitter divisiveness. Stupid people, even some who did not go to Harvard, will swallow this feel-good, addictive poison and proceed to act on it. Last year, just for instance, 23-year-old Temar Bishop raped and beat a 20-year-old white college student to avenge his historical group grievances.
She was a white girl. She deserved it because us minorities have been through slavery.â€
“This is what they used to do to us,†he allegedly told the witness, according to the criminal complaint. “This is what they did to us during slavery. They used to beat us and whip us.â€
The victim suffered a broken nose and teeth, and vomited blood after the attack.
I thought it was sad that she lost her job for a private opinion and because her figure of speech was taken literally, but there is the consolatory thought that she obviously would not feel a bit sorry if the shoe were on the other foot, and some opponent of her Racialist Agitation had his career carpet-bombed due to some social media indiscretion. On the contrary, I have every expectation that she would gloat.
