Dr. Seuss and the New Iconoclasts
The recent sturm und drang regarding Dr. Seuss leaves me a bit on the outside of things, because, unlike most people, to me the “old” Dr. Seuss is the real Dr. Seuss. I loved the outrageous creatures that populated If I Ran the Zoo, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, and McElligot’s Pool. By the time The Cat in the Hat and all the rest were in print, I had aged out and regarded the new books as “kids’ stuff”. I loved the nonsense of the earlier books, and not the earnestness, that, to my mind, followed.
It seems to me that it would have been an easy matter to simply remove the few banal images that disfigured these books, but for some reason Seuss, Inc. went for the big gesture. And now the books are being pulled from libraries around the country. I can remember when librarians were against censorship! I am old!
I Guess We Just Better “Passover” This One
The New York Times has the word: Schumer and a Teachers’ Union Leader Secure Billions for Private Schools:
Tucked into the $1.9 trillion pandemic rescue law is something of a surprise coming from a Democratic Congress and a president long seen as a champion of public education — nearly $3 billion earmarked for private schools.
More surprising is who got it there: Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader whose loyalty to his constituents diverged from the wishes of his party, and Randi Weingarten, the leader of one of the nation’s most powerful teachers’ unions, who acknowledged that the federal government had an obligation to help all schools recover from the pandemic, even those who do not accept her group.
The deal, which came after Mr. Schumer was lobbied by the powerful Orthodox Jewish community in New York City, riled other Democratic leaders and public school advocates who have spent years beating back efforts by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to funnel federal money to private schools, including in the last two coronavirus relief bills.
Democrats had railed against the push by President Donald J. Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, to use pandemic relief bills to aid private schools, only to do it themselves.
Yes, Chuck Schumer betrayed his party, and Randi Weingarten betrayed her union brothers and sisters, all to wrangle a deal for the benefit of a relative handful of Orthodox Jewish private schools, who will, of course, receive only a handful of cash compared to the money that will go to the far more numerous Catholic and Protestant privates. So, do Chuck and Randi think New York City politics are more important than, you know, America? You’re damn right they do!
Paul Krugman, getting all paleoliberal on your ass
The passage of the Biden administration’s monster “Get America Moving Again” legislation, or whatever it’s called, has Paul Krugman giggling with glee, and dancing on the tombstone of Bill Clinton’s welfare reform bill, passed with Newt Gingrich’s help back in 1994. Ending the End of Welfare as We Knew It, snickers Paul, bouncing off Clinton’s famous/infamous pledge to “end welfare as we know it in two years” when running for president in 1992.1
Krugman tries to explain away the real danger of welfare dependency, which flourished under the old “Aid to Families With Dependent Children” (AFDC), claiming that the new child credit, which goes to every family with an income of less than $75,000 a year, is much less generous than the old program. Which is true, but other “welfare” programs, like Medicaid and Food Stamps, are a much bigger deal these days. The simple fact is, we need to discourage welfare dependency: no matter how much right-thinking liberals like Paul want to deny it, it is a thing. Under the old AFDC program, 80% of the program costs were eaten up by 20% of the participants, who were, I hate to say it, deadbeats. They didn’t ride around in Cadillacs, pace Ronald Reagan, but they didn’t give a damn about “playing by the rules”. They were cheaters who liked to cheat.
I, um, unloaded on poor Paul on this topic before, Stakhanovite liberalism—It’s still a thing!, so if you want to read about why, or how, a liberal can say mean things about poor people, check it out. I wrote about poverty and welfare programs for a living from 1981 through 1996, so, shockingly, I think I know more about this stuff than Paul does. Further thoughts on the topic can be found here: Manhattan Institute dude gets War on Poverty half right, most of the time; Princeton history professors and Berkeley economic professors: which is worse? (guess that should be “which are worse”, but when I’m venting, mere grammar can fall by the wayside); and Liberals, lost on a highway paved with good intentions.
1. This “pledge” was a lot less attractive than the actual legislation that eventually emerged from negotiations and was enacted into law. Clinton encouraged working class whites to believe that he would just eliminate “welfare”. At the same time, he encouraged liberals to believe that he would create federally funded “middle-class jobs”, with paid vacations, health benefits, etc., for all recipients who couldn’t find them on their own.
Georgetown Law Closes its Mind
“You know what? I hate to say this. I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are blacks—happens almost every semester. And it's like, ‘Oh, come on.’ You know? You get some really good ones. But there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy.”
Speaking those words, aka “The Truth”, cost Sandra A. Sellers, formerly adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School in Washington, DC, her job. Non-AV fave rave Allan “The Closing of the American Mind” Bloom must be giggling if not guffawing in his grave.
And Professor Volokh Has a Curious Case of Lockjaw
In a follow up to the Georgetown follies, Volokh Conspiracy dude Eugene Volokh reports that one law professor he spoke to there was totally down with dismissing faculty for thoughtcrimes like this one. Good to know!
The thing is, Professor Volokh, generally a passionate advocate of free speech, fell strangely silent himself during the recent contretemps regarding, you know, Donald Trump’s brutal attempt to overturn the U.S. Constitution on July 6, after predicting that Jan. 21, 2021 would be “a Jan. 20 of an inauguration year much like any other.”
Professor Volokh never walked back that statement, and, even more amusingly (and, one would say, pusillanimously), maintained a Sphinx-like silence a few weeks later throughout a fierce dispute that broke out on his eponymous site when Volokh dude Josh Blackman argued that Trump couldn’t be impeached for what he said on Jan. 6 because he had a First Amendment right to say anything he gosh-darned pleased, and fellow Volokh dude Ilya Somin argued to the contrary. Somehow, the whole thing left the good professor, otherwise most voluable on First Amendment issues of every sort, entirely tongue-tied. So perhaps some truths are better left unspoken! The ones that embarrass the good Professor Volokh, for example!
