Nov
10
2023

I Spoke Too Soon

I thought the University Near Here was pretty free of Hamas cheerleading squads, but:

So that happened, yesterday. And …

Note that's from the NH College Republicans. It's unclear how many in the crowd were actually "peaceful demonstrators" demanding Israeli suicide, and how many were just rubbernecking. Also unclear how many demonstrators were actual UNH students. (Or UNH faculty, administrators, …)

NHJournal reports the gubernatorial reaction: Sununu Condemns UNH Students' Chants of 'From River to the Sea'.

Gov. Chris Sununu had harsh words for the UNH students who gathered on campus Thursday to chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” — just a month after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,400 innocent people in Israel.

“This is nothing short of requesting another Holocaust,” Sununu told NHJournal Thursday night. Sununu made his remarks after appearing at a town hall with GOP presidential hopeful former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in Merrimack, where the topic of U.S. policy toward Israel was a major part of the discussion.

“As Gov. Christie said, this isn’t about a territorial dispute. It isn’t about the freedom of individuals. This is simply about wiping out and eradicating Jews,” Sununu said. “These students don’t even know what they’re talking about. I would hope that the leadership over at UNH was swift and firm to condemn this language.”

I haven't seen any indication that UNH leadership has been "swift and firm to condemn this language", but I'll let you know if I do.

Also of note:

  • Doin' it Cambridge style. Philip Greenspun notes the festivities: Fighting genocide by sitting in a corridor at MIT today. Quoting from a "registration form":

    The MIT Coalition for Palestine is planning a demonstration in the Infinite corridor (we’ll be sitting in the hallway) and a fast on Thursday, Nov 9 from 8am-8pm in solidarity with our siblings in Palestine facing genocide and a total blockade orchestrated by the US and Israel. Please fill out the form below if you are committed to taking a stand through this action; details will be sent out later this week.

    Everyone, regardless of affiliation with MIT, are welcome (can enter from 77 Massachusetts Ave)! From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

    Wow, fasting for a whole 12 hours! That'll show 'em.

    Phil comments:

    If you misgender a classmate, you can be expelled from MIT. If you think that college admissions should be on the basis of merit rather than skin color, you will be disinvited from speaking at MIT (New York Times story on Dorian Abbot, 2021). But nobody will complain if you accuse the Jews of Israel of committing a “genocide”.

    Neither will you be in trouble for embracing a slogan that implicitly, as our Gov says, requests another Holocaust.

  • Die, DEI! Bari Weiss says it's time: End DEI.

    Twenty years ago, when I was a college student, I started writing about a then-nameless, niche ideology that seemed to contradict everything I had been taught since I was a child.

    It is possible I would not have perceived the nature of this ideology—or rather I would have been able to avoid seeing its true nature—had I not been a Jew. But I was. I am. And in noticing the way I had been written out of the equation, I started to notice that it wasn’t just me, but that the whole system rested on an illusion.

    What I saw was a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.

    People were to be given authority in this new order not in recognition of their gifts, hard work, accomplishments, or contributions to society, but in inverse proportion to the disadvantages their group had suffered, as defined by radical ideologues. According to them, as James Kirchick concisely put it: “Muslim > gay, black > female, and everybody > the Jews.”

    For your dismayed perusal: UNH's page for Diversity, Equity, Access & Inclusion.

  • Can't we just ignore lawless "Executive Orders"? Virginia Postrel quotes and summarizes: What to Read on the AIEO*.

    And that asterisk:

    *Not a vowel exercise but the Artificial Intelligence Executive Order

    RTWT, but here's she quotes from Steven Sinofsky:

    The President’s Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence is a premature and pessimistic political solution to unknown technical problems and a clear case of regulatory capture at a time when the world would be best served by optimism and innovation

    […]

    Instead, this document is the work of aggregating policy inputs from an extended committee of interested constituencies while also navigating the law—literally what is it that can be done to throttle artificial intelligence legally without passing any new laws that might throttle artificial intelligence. There is no clear owner of this document. There is no leading science consensus or direction that we can discern. It is impossible to separate out the document from the process and approach used to “govern” AI innovation. Govern is quoted because it is the word used in the EO. This is so much less a document of what should be done with the potential of technology than it is a document pushing the limits of what can be done legally to slow innovation.…

    Well, that's … I guess, to be expected.

  • It has been awhile since we rang the bell on the LFOD News Alert. But this news article comes to us Australia's Star Observer ("setting Australia’s LGBTI agenda since 1979"): Queer Erotic Thriller ‘Birder’ Premiering At Melbourne Queer Film Festival.

    The new Queer erotic thriller Birder is premiering in Australia this weekend.

    Directed by Queer filmmaker Nate Dushku and written by Amnon Lourie, Birder is set to premiere at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival on Saturday, November 11.

    […]

    According to the official synopsis, “Birdwatcher Kristian Brooks invades a nude queer campground on a remote lake in New Hampshire. He becomes whatever he needs to be to ensnare the locals in his dark fetish in this nightmarish erotic thriller. Consent has never been more deadly.”

    In the trailer, which was released in September, Kristian creepily mis-states the New Hampshire state motto as, “Live free and die” before being corrected by another camper, “That’s live free or die.”

    A trailer is at the link, but I'm not gonna even try to embed it. There's not a lot of information at the movie's IMDB page. Although "becomes whatever he needs to be" apparently involves wearing the skin of a bear.

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Last Modified 2024-01-10 7:12 AM EDT