There is nothing worth reading in American newspapers and they entirely deserve to go out of business. An old editor of mine in Fleet Street liked to emphasize the importance of what she called a "f**k-me headline". In the United States, if a story does not fit their ideological needs, the media prefer a sedate-me headline. From The New York Times:
Suspect in Virginia Shooting of News Team Commits Suicide
Not quite passive and enervated enough for you? Try The Boston Globe:
Suspected gunman in Virginia TV killings dies at hospital
Etc.
On the other hand, from across the pond at The Daily Express:
Virginia gunman claimed he was bullied for being black and gay in rambling suicide-memo
From The Daily Mail:
Revenge race murder: Bitter black reporter who gunned down white ex-colleagues live on air and posted the video online blames Charleston shootings and anti-gay harassment in manifesto
From The Irish Independent:
Killer's fax to ABC News: 'You want a race war? Bring it then you white ....!!!'
In fairness, The Los Angeles Times does get into the race angle ...but only to complain that editors and producers are far more sensitive about white victims of violence:
Are news outlets simply less troubled by the deaths of black people, and thus making the rest of America so?
Of course. That's why when white people get gunned down by a black gay, there are immediate calls for a nationwide ban on the rainbow flag.
UPDATE! Oh, look, here it is - from another non-American newspaper:
In a raid on the apartment on Wednesday, police reportedly confiscated a gay pride flag. They also found "many" sex toys, which may have "human material" on them, the source told this newspaper.
So "sex toys" are this month's Confederate flag: Let's ban them, too.
~Also from our best-not-to-mention-it files: Curt Schilling, formerly of the Boston Red Sox, is now a commentator for ESPN. Last week he reTweeted the following:
Only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How'd that go?
Mr Schilling was immediately suspended:
"Curt's tweet was completely unacceptable, and in no way represents our company's perspective," ESPN said. "We made that point very strongly to Curt and have removed him from his current Little League assignment pending further consideration."
No Little League for you, Curt! Mr Schilling was reTweeting (which, as Tweeters always like to say, isn't necessarily endorsing) the fairly common argument throughout history that what matters in any group of people is not who commands a majority but who makes the running - who wants it more. That's true in an historical sense. Of more immediate relevance, millions upon millions of Muslims openly if somewhat lethargically support ISIS, al-Qaeda, death for apostasy, and the eventual victory of Islam over the west. Why is pointing out something entirely obvious incompatible with being employed as a freelance commentator for ESPN?
Well, because the American sports establishment are even bigger politically correct eunuchs than the Republican establishment. You may recall that last year Rush interviewed me for The Limbaugh Letter, and the subject came up:
STEYN: You're not usually there on the Monday after the Super Bowl, and I'm there sitting in for you [laughs], pretending to know stuff about a sport I'm entirely ignorant of.
RUSH: Well, let me say, it's trending as leftist as every other institution is.
STEYN: Exactly. So even something that is supposed to be kind of raw, and primal, and just about results, is now all tied up and ensnared by the most limp-wristed politically correct progressivism. So not even something as red-meat as sports actually has a conservative disposition anymore. So if you lose all this stuff, if you lose the TV shows, you lose the pop songs, you lose the movies, you lose the churches, you lose the universities, and even lose the locker room, then electing a guy with "R" after his name isn't going to be much use...
Re Curt Schilling, before I get the usual boring mail about how "this is nothing to do with the First Amendment, Steyn. A private company is entitled to do whatever it wants", yes, yes, yes, so bloody stipulated. I'm not talking about laws or regulations or constitutions, but about something bigger - the loss of a culture of speech, indeed the loss of a culture that accepts as a feature of free society the legitimacy of difference of opinion. "Diversity" necessitates ruthless uniformity, so that even the most prominent, popular and successful celebrities in the land cannot point out the obvious without being utterly ruined - which means that Mister No-Name of 27B Elm Street should just shut up and keep his head down.
~In Europe, despite the best efforts of the multiculti commissars, the obvious may be making a comeback. The crisis they face on their southern borders is of a different order than the one America confronts at the Rio Grande, where the First World abuts the corrupt and crime-ridden Latin half of the continent. That's the good news. The bad news is that, on Europe's southern flank, the First World abuts some of the most economically moribund and operationally dysfunctional countries on earth, and with some of the highest birth rates, too. Why stay there? If they can get to poor south-eastern Europe, they can usually make it through to the more welfare-indulgent north-eastern end of the Continent.
What to do? In America, politicians debate building a border wall for three decades or so, just to make sure all the fascinating nuances of the topic are fully explored. In Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, they're just getting on with it: The walls go up, every day. Glenn Reynolds writes:
Bulgaria is building one, with razor wire and steel 12 feet high. And Slovakia is flat-out refusing to accept Muslim migrants, viewing them as dangerous and destabilizing.
So presumably no Slovaks are eligible for ESPN Little League commentary.
Migrants have massed at the Macedonian border and are creating tensions between Serbia and Hungary. Hungary is building a fence too. Norwegian politicians are suggesting that Norway should do something similar to Australia, which is sending unwelcome refugees to New Guinea or to prison.
On the other hand, among the major European powers the reaction is rather more effete, which is why President Obama called to "congratulate" Angela Merkel on her measured (ie, entirely ineffectual) response. Unlike their cruder south-eastern neighbors with their sealed borders and razor wire, the Germans are threatening to seize their citizens' private property and hand it over to the "migrants":
Boris Palmer, the Green Party mayor of Tübingen, told Welt newspaper the town was struggling to find accommodation for migrants.
"The Police Law has clear rules. If there is a threat of homelessness in a city, vacant houses can be seized for accommodation," Mr Palmer said.
"And this emergency can happen when shelters are overcrowded and on some days 50 refugees are still arriving at a time, as they are now in Tübingen."
Mr Palmer said he was currently in talks with landlords over renting or buying empty properties from them, but that if the talks failed he would have no choice but to seize the buildings.
Jean Raspail's novel The Camp of the Saints was brilliant and prophetic, not just in its account of the migrant force arriving to take France, but in the establishment's characterization of them: They're saints, and we're camp.
~From yesterday's SteynPosts:
Unless [Jeb] ups his game fast, he'll be gone before Iowa.
From today's New York Post:
Political forecasters predict Jeb will take the Republican nomination
Oh, dear. Maybe I should put in my application to write his concession speech.
~Re my new book, "the longest, funniest, most savvily organized and meticulous 'screw you' in the history of Western literature" a reader writes:
Mann [after filing his lawsuit] was expecting a stunned silence. Instead he got ... well, you remember that opening scene in the first Back to the Future movie? The one where Marty tries out Doc Emmett's mondo amplifier?
Regards,
The Old and Unimproved Dave
And another:
Hi Mark,
You flattened David Appell not once but twice.That was just great, not just once but twice. Hence two orders of your new book forthcoming.
Thanks and all the Best to you and yours..
Brian Messacar
~We're still a few days from the official release of "A Disgrace to the Profession", and it's already doing well enough at Amazon to attract the steep bestseller discounts, if you're in the mood to save a few bucks - and it's doing well north of the border, too. And it's Number One on the Climatology Hit Parade.
~Today I'll be on the radio with Hugh Hewitt, live coast to coast at 6pm Eastern/3pm Pacific.