Programming note: Tonight I'll be keeping my Monday date with Tucker Carlson, live across America at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific. Hope you'll tune in.
~Toward the end of Ron Ross' piece on virtue-signaling, he mentions en passant:
The Arcata, California city council voted Wednesday night to remove the statue of President William McKinley from the town square. The statue has been in place for over a hundred years. As per usual, McKinley's sins have not been clearly elucidated. He was assassinated in 1901. Like Matt Lauer, the statue will vanish into the ether. One of the groups demanding the statue's removal is the Humboldt State University student group, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanco de Aztlan, whatever that means. I'm embarrassed to admit I'm a resident of Arcata. Our neighboring town to the north is McKinleyville. The town's name is probably not long for this world.
McKinley, huh? So now it's both sides of the Civil War that have to come down. [See John Shuba's note on Major McKinley below]
President McKinley took a bullet for his country, but (as the poster at right suggests) that's no reason not to "re-assassinate" the "POS". He's apparently an "imperialist", though not a terribly ambitious one by the standards of his day. But enough to ensure that even former presidents cannot be honored in the public space of American towns.
I saw Rich Lowry on Fox last year attempting to distinguish between Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis, to whose statuary he was indifferent, and Washington and Jefferson, whom he promised to defend most vigorously.
But it doesn't work like that. The Year Zero crowd doesn't distinguish between Jeff Davis and Columbus, Stephen Foster, William McKinley, Gone With the Wind, Dr Seuss ...or George Washington. It's all gotta go. And right now. Or as members of the mob put it at the council meeting:
F**k the United States.
They mean it - in the sense of entirely f**king a settled polity rooted in an historical continuity based upon an agreed set of facts. This is a revolutionary disposition: The future utopia cannot commence until the actual past is obliterated, and vaporized as totally as McKinley's statue. Of course, the reality is that the Year Zero crowd can build nothing, and will build nothing. But they're awful good at destroying, which is why each concession only feeds the need for more.
~Justin Trudeau's flopperoo of an Indian trip has been an interesting lesson in the limits of being (in Mordecai Richler's phrase) "world-famous all over Canada". He has an attractive and photogenic young wife and children, and a fawning domestic press whose besottedness has a whiff of desperation about it. It has also been utterly baffling to Canuck reporters' far livelier Commonwealth cousins in the Indian media.
Yet the Prime Minister's minders got away with it at home, and as a result they assumed it would travel just as easily. So they sent the Trudeaus off to tour India as, say, William and Kate would, with the press agog at each of the Duchess' new outfits, and the cute amusing childlike interactions by Prince George.
Except it's weirder than that: in this royal family, Justin is the princess and the kid. As with Di or Kate, we're supposed to admire his every stunning change of gown, and sweet Wills- or George-like infant delight at every exotic novelty. Indians are quite understandably completely baffled by the touring Mister Dress-Up. Bhaavna Arora:
Is it just me who's finding Justin Trudeau's fancy dress display fake and annoying?
Why Justin Trudeau in India has begun to look like competition for Virat Kohli as Manyavar model
Who advised Justin Trudeau to dress like a bridegroom at the Bombay event? Only a horse and sehra seemed to be missing.
Trudeau's entourage, meanwhile, has acted as if they're still in Ottawa and a couple of the press-gallery poodles are getting a bit yappy. A critical piece in the Indian magazine Outlook resulted in Canada's High Commissioner withdrawing an invitation to the gala reception at Canada House in Delhi an hour before the event. On the other hand, he was happy to offer A-list access to homicidal terrorists.
This trip is an embarrassment for the child dauphin and his minders. But just as importantly it's also a rebuke to years of coverage of this prime minister by the toadies of the Canadian press. I'll have more to say about this in a special Tuesday appearance with the great John Oakley in Toronto tomorrow, Tuesday. Hope you'll tune in.
~I was delighted to see that Dr Judith Curry has been recognized as one of the Top 50 Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math around the world. To go all Casey Kasem on you, she's at Number 13, just bubbling under the Top Ten. As longtime readers know, last year, in the interminable, endlessly forthcoming Mann vs Steyn trial, Dr Curry filed an amicus brief in the DC court that is a blistering indictment of the wretched Mann and his damage to science. A year before that, I had the honor of testifying alongside Dr Curry before the US Senate, including this exchange with the appallingly ill-mannered Senator Markey of Massachusetts:
In response to Dr Curry's measured and sober critique of Big Climate, Mann and his Mann-boys have attempted to "de-normalize" her in an exhaustive smear campaign which has included the contemptible Mann approvingly linking to goons who accuse her of "literally" getting into bed with me.
Against the ugly misogyny of the climate thugs, Judith Curry has been a tireless and brave campaigner for integrity in science, wherever it leads. It is good to see that Mann's de-normalization campaign has failed, and that she remains one of the most respected scientists around the world. The silence of her own school, Georgia Tech, at this recognition of a member of their faculty is puzzling. But we're pleased to salute her here.
PS Dr Curry is one of over a hundred scientists featured in my book "A Disgrace to the Profession": The World's Scientists - in Their Own Words - on Michael E Mann, his Hockey Stick and their Damage to Science Volume I - proceeds of which go toward propping up my end of this tedious legal travesty.
~We had a busy weekend at SteynOnline, but also a swaggering, cocksure, triumphalist one, as our Song of the Week bellowed from the rooftops, "We Are the Champions!" Before that, I offered my take on the abysmal performance of the Broward County Sheriff's Deputies and the repulsive self-serving blame-shifting of their boss Scott Israel. Our Saturday movie date was a tale of another beleaguered police chief, in the Oscar-nominated Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. And of course we continued with our nightly audio adventure via Episodes Eight, Nine and Ten of my reading of John Buchan's classic thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps. If you were too busy with Democrat memoranda or Korean closing ceremonies, we hope you'll start your week by checking out one or more of the above. Part Eleven of The Thirty-Nine Steps will air this evening at SteynOnline just ahead of my telly appearance.