Hope Everyone Had A Great Thanksgiving. Holiday Rant.

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A Holiday Rant. (See 1 below.)
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DORIS
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1) Third quarter revised GDP numbers are out and they are slightly better than expected, but one must look behind the number. It is partially better due to inventory buildup, which is large, and will need a very strong Christmas to help whittle that down, or GDP for Q4 and Q1 will be pushed lower as inventory is worked off. The other issue is corporate profits before tax were down.  Margins are getting squeezed. In my view that is because there is so much price transparency now with online shopping, not just for consumer goods, but also for industrial products, that price increases are hard to achieve to cover increasing wages.  Were it not for low interest rates, low energy costs and low logistics costs, things could be a lot more negative. None of this is a real concern as none of those costs will rise much next year, but a lot will depend on a very strong Christmas to help move these issues to a more positive situation. None of this means a recession. It just means a slower growth trajectory, and possibly a slower increase in stock prices if corporate profits do not improve. As of now, stock prices are running up substantially faster than profits, and at some point profits need to grow, or stock prices will decline.  With the job markets till strong, and some early indication that the world economy might be stabilizing, then with the trade deals, cap ex should improve and eventually profits will improve. Consumer spend over the holidays will make a big difference where stock prices go from here.

Mid-sized companies in manufacturing, transport and similar industries are feeling pessimistic, and are worried about the election. They fear a Dem president and Congress who would undo all the good deregulation and tax cuts of Trump, and tank the economy, and the stock market. As a result they are not doing any cap ex. Fear and uncertainty are their guide right now.   The other result is many of these companies are looking at mergers and spinoffs to position themselves to be bigger and better for what they fear could be a recession if their fears are realized.  If this fear reverses, then the economy will pick up materially and stock prices will rise further. The whole effort by the Dems to tarnish Trump by any means possible, is doing real harm to the economy by instilling this fear in company managements that someone like Warren or Budaboy might be elected president. Unfortunately, the mainstream media keep feeding this fear with their daily attacks on Trump, and with their continual pushing the impeachment scenario. It is unlikely that until the election is decided this fear and uncertainty will go away. My own view is that Trump will be reelected and the House has a small chance to revert to Republican. The more impeachment is pushed, the more chance the Republicans have to retake the House. The Dems are losing the independents.

As we head into the holiday shopping season, it is interesting to note that tariffs do not seem to have had much impact on retail prices. One of my friends manufactures a specific type of girls make up kits. He has been hit with 25% tariffs. Solution, instead of 8 pieces to a pack, there are 6 at about the same price. Wal Mart ate a little of the cost and raised the price very slightly, Target did not. The consumer saw minimal rise in price of a package, but they do not seem to notice the lesser number of units per package. Manufacturers in China seem to have been able to adjust some costs, plus the decline of the Yuan helped. Next year this particular product will be manufactured in Thailand. In the end China loses, and the US consumer still bought the product at about the same price although at a higher per unit cost. I believe this story is typical of what is happening. Tariffs just have not had the large negative impact on prices, nor the devastating economic impact many had forecast. Having said that, when tariffs are lifted, and there is a signed deal, the economy will respond well as it, and the signing of USMCA, will lift the uncertainty that is holding down cap ex spending. Whatever many said about tariffs being the wrong way to do this, it appears they worked. China did not pay the tariffs, but their economy and currency will have paid a big price. Farmers may have had a tough time, but in the end they will win big, and that was what they counted on. USMCA will pass by year end as Dems in the Midwest come back to DC and demand it get passed. Both trade deals get done, the stock market and 401k's go up, farmers are happy, the economy improves and impeachment goes nowhere. The Durham indictments start, and Trump wins in a landslide in the electoral college. That is a very realistic scenario.

If you want to better understand why there is no inflation, just look at which retailers are doing great, and which are failing. Amazon, Wal Mart, TJ Max, Costco, Best Buy are big successes, while department stores and ordinary chains are failing. Sears and JC Penny are badly managed, and never understood how to operate in the new retail environment. Online and low prices at brick and mortar are where most shoppers now go. Price transparency has completely changed retail and inflation expectations. Nobody has to pay a higher price anymore when there is easily the same, or similar product to be found online at a lower price. Even wealthy people now shop online and look for bargains. And shipping is free in many cases, which also cuts the cost to the consumer materially. Advances in AI driven worldwide logistics, and robotic warehouses have made a real difference in inflation. Add on fracking bringing very low energy prices, and one understands that inflation is a very different situation than in the past.  It is not clear to me that the Fed understands that. It is very clear the Dems and college kids have no understanding of how fossil fuels at very low cost due to fracking improves the standard of living for low income families by leaving more cash in their pocket. But the Dems want to end fracking and take us back to depending on the Arabs.

The WSJ apparently conducted a study of SAT scores and compared them to neighborhoods and schools. All of us could have told them the results before they started. Kids in poor minority neighborhoods, with a single parent , poorly educated mother, and poor quality schools, scored much worse than white kids from homes with two educated parents. Duh. The education world seems to think they need to take circumstances of growing up into account to excuse the lack of preparedness for elite colleges.  That misses the point. The kid is still not prepared to do the work and making excuses for him does not change that reality.

The solution, as I have said in the past, is not to just admit these kids into elite schools where they are not prepared for the high level of work and competition.  They do not have the cultural nor high school background to succeed in these schools, and eliminating the SAT, as many now are encouraging, will not change anything other than to have more unqualified students admitted to top schools where they will fail. If you admit a kid just because he is from a bad home or neighborhood, he will not succeed any better in an elite school for which he is not prepared, and remedial classes will not make the difference. Until cities instill discipline in the schools so those kids who want to learn, can learn, and until they break the unions, nothing is going to change. That is why non-union charters and vouchers are the best chance for these kids.

There also needs to be a major cultural change in these neighborhoods where they believe in education and opportunity to have a good life, which they now can see with the historic low black unemployment rate.  Instead of pushing these kids into diversity admission to universities they are not prepared for, the high school should push them into state colleges, or vocational schools where they can actually learn and do well, and succeed in life.  You can get a very good education at many state and small schools. The local high schools need to not only kick out disruptive kids, but they need to use more online courses and extensive use of up to date computers. They also need the teachers to not just do the minimum allowed by the union, but they need to instill the benefits of education into the kids since they do not often get that at home. It is often a good encouraging teacher who can make all the difference in someone's life. That takes leadership by the superintendent.

We need to stop the I am a victim scenario of, my failure to be successful is due to racism, and get back to, it's up to the individual to decide to make something of himself in spite of the home or neighborhood situation. There are many people I know who came out of bad homes and bad neighborhoods, but they were determined to do well, and they did. That attitude needs to be instilled in these poor black communities to change the culture. Successful  blacks need to go into the schools and show the kids they too can make it, and not just as basketball or NFL players. Obama and Holder would do far more good for blacks if they made videos for elementary and high school kids that said- see, I made it to the very top and so can you. They need to change the script from, you can't make it due to racism that those two have been playing since Ferguson, which is what has created this everything is racist mantra on campus and social media. I blame those two for starting what has become the victimization script. Instead successful blacks and the press need to change the script to: you now have wide open opportunity if you study hard and stay out of trouble. A lot of Asian kids grow up poor in NY today, but they are determined to succeed, and they study hard to get ahead. That is why they are now such a large percentage of the students in special high schools in NYC, and why DeBozo wants to stop the competitive tests and just take in kids who do not qualify other than skin color. The answer is culture and home life, not money, or shifting where kids go to school to have more desegregation.

Don't be surprised if Trump gets 30% of the black vote. There are those on the left who now are saying even if we are much better off financially under Trump we should give that up if necessary to not have him as a racist president. That is a really dumb position when for the first time ever, blacks are enjoying the work and financial opportunities to get ahead that they always said were denied them, and Obama never gave them.

Pocahontas is done. The bartender from the Bronx has had her moment in the sun. Bernie was never really in contention. Budaboy is a flash in Iowa and that is it. What these three plus Schiff have done is hand the Republicans a major opportunity to retake the House and control of all three branches. If impeachment goes to the Senate, Biden is finished. The longer impeachment and the Dem primaries go on, the better the Republicans will do. It will come down to Biden and Bloomberg, and then possibly Obama will try to broker a deal to make Patrick the nominee.

The below is worth reading. Heather is part of our small group trying hard to change the anti-free speech situation on campus.  Take special note of all of the administrative deans she mentions of head of bias response, sexual issues, gender issues, etc. This is where all the wasted tuition dollars go and why student loans are so high. Those people are who are pushing the students to think anyone not toeing the party line is speaking hate speech and should be barred, and they are the ones who are muzzling free speech. They are dangerous to your kids and American democracy. (See 1a below.)

Here is a very good series of examples of how horrible campus has become and why we all need to demand our alumni stop this or there are no more donations. (See 1b below.)

1a)Why Are College Students So Afraid of Me?

Because adults at places like Bucknell and Holy Cross have convinced them they are oppressed.

By

Heather Mac Donald

Few things upset American college students more than being told they aren’t oppressed. I recently spoke at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. I argued that American undergraduates are among the most privileged individuals in history by virtue of their unfettered access to knowledge. Far from being discriminated against, students are surrounded by well-meaning faculty who want all of them to succeed.

About 15 minutes into my talk, as I was discussing Renaissance humanism, a majority of the audience in the packed auditorium stood up and started chanting: “My oppression is not a delusion!” The chanters then declared that my sexism, racism and homophobia weren’t welcome on campus. “You are not welcome,” they added, as if I didn’t know.

The protesters drowned out my response before filing slowly out of the room, still loudly announcing their victimhood and leaving dozens of seats empty that could have been filled by students who had been turned away for lack of space. (The protesters had hoped to occupy the entire auditorium before vacating it, so no one else could hear me speak.)

In a subsequent open letter, a senior claimed that I came to Holy Cross to “discredit, humiliate, and deny the existence of minority students.” In fact, I came to urge the entire student body to seize their boundless opportunities for learning with joy and gratitude.

The maudlin self-pity on display at Holy Cross doesn’t arise spontaneously. It is actively cultivated by adults on campus. A few days before the Holy Cross protest, faculty and administrators at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., convened a therapeutic “scholars” panel to take place during another talk of mine. The goal was to inoculate the university against the violence that I allegedly represented.

Bucknell’s interpersonal violence prevention coordinator; the director of its Women’s Resource Center; the interim associate provost for diversity, equity, and inclusion; a women’s and gender studies professor; and an economics professor discussed rape culture, trauma and racism. Students and faculty were then invited to join in painting “self-care” rocks.

This craft activity, in which participants write feel-good messages on stones, was originally designed for K-5 classrooms. It may not be what parents paying Bucknell’s $72,000 annual tuition and fees had in mind. No matter. According to Bucknell’s interpersonal violence prevention coordinator, it was “especially important” for students who had attended my talk to come to the scholars “space” afterward and practice self-care. The interim associate provost for diversity, equity, and inclusion said that the administration’s willingness to let my talk proceed shows that it values free speech more than the community’s trauma.

In anticipation of my Bucknell talk, student journalists had claimed that “‘free speech’” merely amplifies “hate speech,” and that hate speech such as mine was intended to “attack students of color” and “survivors of sexual assault.” An English professor cheered them on. The Bucknell Faculty and Staff of Color Working Group urged colleagues to support those whose “first-hand experiences with injustice” at Bucknell were “invalidated and perpetuated” by my arguments.

Bucknell’s Democratic Socialists of America organized a protest at which participants—in between chants of “Hey hey! Ho Ho! Heather Mac has got to go!” and “No justice! No peace!”—were encouraged to share their personal experiences of injustice at Bucknell. Sadly, there is no available record of what the protesters came up with.

Students who can be persuaded to see oppression on an American college campus—where traits that still lead to ostracism and even death outside the West are not just tolerated but celebrated—can be persuaded to see oppression anywhere. The claim that American universities, and the U.S. in general, are defined by white supremacy is the one unifying idea on college campuses today, in the absence of a shared curriculum dedicated to civilization’s greatest works. And that idea is spreading. School systems across the country are training teachers and administrators that colorblind standards and the work ethic are instruments of white privilege. Any private institution without proportional representation of minorities and females is vulnerable to attack, since bigotry is the only allowable explanation for the lack of sex and race “diversity.”

The promiscuous labeling of disagreement as hate speech and the equation of such speech with violence will gain traction in the public arena, as college graduates take more positions of power. The former managing editor of Time has already advocated in the Washington Post for allowing states to define and penalize hate speech; potential censors wait in the wings.

Certain ideas are now taboo in the academy—above all, the idea that behavior and culture better explain socioeconomic disparities in the U.S. than bigotry. A Bucknell student protester claimed that my sin is to force “this elementary conversation about whether structural racism even exists.”

Most Americans are eager and ready for a post-racial country. The perpetual invocation of racial oppression on college campuses and beyond, however, keeps race relations fraught.

After the Holy Cross protest, the co-president of the Black Student Union, which organized the walkout with an assist from the student government, told the campus newspaper: “The fact that we pulled this off is actually amazing. I feel so empowered now, and this is just the beginning. This is the start of something more.”

About that, she is undoubtedly right.

Ms. Mac Donald is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of “The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.”

1b)

There’s No Safe Space for Ideas on Campus ‘Animal Farms’

Zealous student activists find ways to punish those who make them think uncomfortable thoughts.

By

Daniel Payne

Most Americans know that higher education has for several decades been in the grip of a deeply intolerant, fanatical and uncompromising strain of progressive activism. Students and sometimes even faculty members regularly chase heterodox speakers off campus, demand complete fealty from terrified campus bureaucracies, and denounce and destroy each other over the slightest and most inconsequential ideological deviations. The environment isn’t unlike George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” a place where “no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.”

Yet an even more intolerant brand of campus activism is taking shape. This rising political philosophy isn’t merely allergic to dissenting ideas but is opposed even to ideas about dissenting ideas. It’s a bit like the concept of metacognition in reverse: These activists, gripped by zealotry and inflexible dogmatism, are taking pains to avoid even thinking about thoughts with which they disagree.

Consider a recent controversy at Washington College in Maryland. Students there successfully lobbied to shut down a campus production of a play just one day before it was set to open.

The aggrieved students were upset that the play, Larry Shue’s “The Foreigner,” depicts the evil antics of the Ku Klux Klan. But the play doesn’t show Klan members in a sympathetic light—on the contrary, they’re the villains of the piece, and they get their comeuppance in the end. Yet students were deeply upset by the Klan costumes the actors would wear, so the play had to go. (The theater department was “unable to find a satisfactory compromise” with the student activists, a campus official dryly noted.)

Several professors have also landed in hot water recently simply for speaking an offensive word while students were around. At Emory University, law professor Paul Zwier is facing major sanctions from his school because, in a few instances, he said the N-word. Mr. Zwier didn’t direct the word at anyone or anything; he merely mentioned it, first as part of a discussion of case law and then to illustrate a larger point during a private conversation. Students claimed Mr. Zwier threatened their “safety and emotional well-being.” Another student who heard Mr. Zwier use the word was reportedly “visibly shaken” after the experience, as if he had suffered a near-death experience. Faculty wanted Mr. Zwier barred from school events, lest they be forced to sit near him and risk their own reputations.

An employee at the University of North Texas lost her job after referring to the N-word as an example of constitutionally protected speech. Students demanded her firing, claiming that her use of the word proved she was racist. At Augsburg University in Minneapolis, a professor uttered the word while discussing a James Baldwin text that itself used the word. That professor was suspended after a student outcry. A professor at the University of Kansas got booted off the tenure track after referring to the word during a class session.

More evidence of ideological intransigence can be found in the “bias response teams” that are now regular features at many universities. One Michigan State student had a bias report filed against him for watching a Ben Shapiro video in a dorm. A faculty member at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was reported for having a Trump sticker in his office window. Another professor was hit with a bias report after discussing the infamous Janet Jackson “nipplegate” controversy. The offended student said the professor had not couched the discussion with enough moral qualifiers.

These incidents don’t represent the normal campus hysterics to which we’ve become accustomed. A growing and strident sect of campus activism is coming to oppose not merely differing opinions but even talking about differing opinions. This is a new and far more uncompromising brand of progressive politics, where even an unsympathetic and progressive depiction of the Ku Klux Klan is too much to handle.

Administrators are partly to blame. University leaders have been far too quick in recent years to yield ground to political zealots, with the result that zealots feel that they more or less run the show on campus. They aren’t wrong.

But the real responsibility for this mess belongs to the student activists. Nobody forced them to become hyperpartisan fanatics; they did that on their own, and they now find themselves enmeshed in a silly, thought-free ideology, the consequences of which will surely come crashing down one day soon.

Mr. Payne is an assistant editor with the College Fix.

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Thanksgiving Pictures and Some Worthwhile Op Eds!

Thanksgiving Day Dinner

Abby, Daniel and Grandson Henry. DORIS in background.

Max

                                                                                 Daniel,Max , Stella and Tammy - Thanksgiving.
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Some worthwhile op eds:
Democrats Ponder Impeachment PivotFletch DanielsThe Democrats have twisted themselves into a Schiffian Knot, a modern-day unsolvable puzzle. So what happens next? MoreWhy are Journalists so Humorless?Brian C. JoondephPresident Trump is masterfully connecting with average people who enjoy a laugh, those not so caught up in their self-importance that they are unable to laugh at either themselves or the world around them. MoreHatred of Israel is the Symptom. Hatred of Western Society is the Disease.Civis AmericanusMany on the political Left, such as Rep. Ilhan Omar, complain that American Jews support Israel because Israel is a Jewish-majority country. All Americans should support Israel because Israel is a civilized country similar to the United States in terms of culture and values. More+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++DORIS
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Deleveraging - America's Future? Will Michelle Run and Beat Trump?

things not always what they seem.
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This from an old and dear friend and fellow memo reader who is intimately involved with Israeli law and totally knowledgeable of  their judicial system.  He is a retired Professor of Criminology and is nationally  recognized."If Dershowitz would be Bibi’s defense attorney (in court; in Israel) he would lose big time.

The difference is that in the US impeachment is a POLITICAL process. In Israel the process is a JUDICIAL one.

The AG in Israel weighed this case (actually several cases and not just bribery) very carefully and decided, based on ISRAELI LAW, to indict. He may still be acquitted in court but for Dershowitz to blatantly argue that these were trumped up charges is an insult to the Israeli legal system".

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In a discussion with my optimistic son, who believes whether Trump is re-elected or not, America is going through a painful period of de-leveraging. It is clear the federal government can no longer support the type of largess to which we have grown accustomed.  The average personal debt discharged in bankruptcy last year was 3x the annual income of those who filed.  He believes, for institutions to survive, particularly government(s) and universities, they must finally be held to the "lofty" standard of contributing something of value in return for the taxes they collect and the debt they impose upon citizens/students.  

As the student debt bubble bursts and federal funding dries up, universities and institutions of higher education will be forced to survive on market rate tuition and the charitableness of their alumni and endowments.  For those universities able to survive, a decrease in faculty size and closings of entire departments, particularly the humanities, will occur.  

Citizen's and the private sector's access to technology on a scale that was once the sole domain of governments, will continue to reduce our reliance.  At the same time, the government's ability to provide a "floor" for the lower economic rungs will slowly evaporate, reducing the cost of labor and bringing many labor dependent industries back to our shores.  Vocational skills and 2 year degrees, secured with no debt, will produce a better return on one's educational investment and will dictate choices.

America will ultimately return to its traditional capitalist economic roots. In essence, our experience with capitalism was so effective it produced it's own inability to sustain itself and the wealth it helped create.  Like Icarus, we flew too close to the sun and our social and economic wax could not withstand the heat.

Government agencies will shrink, many will be moved out of D.C. and our de-leveraging will take place sooner if Trump is re-elected. Fortunately our country is robust, industrious and will endure.  (See 1 below.)

https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/

I tend to agree with Daniel but believe the process will take longer, though it might accelerate should Trump be re-elected. The process will be far more painful and the resistance will be overwhelming as those with power will not go quietly as evidenced by the current political scene.

In the final analysis, Trump, long after he is gone from the scene, will proved to have been one of America's most transitional president because he came at the right time and saw the implications.  Obviously,God still watches over America.

Stay tuned.
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Who can beat Trump?  That is the anguish Democrats, of all stripes, currently go through on a daily basis.

Almost every day another Democrat top runner bites the dust as they massage their campaign commitments that remain far outside America's mainstream thinking.  

Most Americans do not wish to become China, Russia and/or Venezuela in an economic sense while our no nothing youth love flirting with socialism.

Most Americans enjoy "Trump prosperity"but find his personality and language "deplorable."

Many Americans no longer are capable of thinking for themselves and are influenced by the biased mass media but enough voters are likely to vote in his favor thus,  electing him to a second term.

Some believe Hillary will come in at the last minute and I, personally, pray such an event occurs.

Other die hard's are convinced Michelle Obama is the only one who could beat Trump because she is so beloved, black, female (I assume that is what she still considers herself to be) and the greatest mother in the world as well as a devoted wife to our most beloved former president.

There is much truth in what I have written but, as always, there is another side to everything.

First of all, we have her own voice telling us she hated America. She also received a $300,000 salary for a hospital administrative position and did nothing to earn same. Third, she swears she does not want to go through the

grueling effort and fourth, her husband is no longer beloved by a large segment of the radicals who think they control the Democrat Party and probably do.

Most important of all and also the saddest, far too many think so little of the office of the presidency they believe anyone can sit behind the desk and experience is the last qualification. The current crop of Democrats run the gamut from some senators who have little distinction and accomplishments beyond enriching themselves, a mayor of a small town whose record is inauspicious,  and so the list goes.

Those who lust for Michelle point out Trump declared bankruptcy on some Atlantic City gambling casinos, ran a corrupt for profit business school, cheated on his foundation, screwed everyone he ever had dealings with, slept around, dodged military service and is a stooge of Putin. They willingly/conveniently ignore he created a billion dollar real estate empire, created one of the most popular television shows in America and was sought after by a host of now "Trump Haters" because he was accessible and generous. 

He then ran for president and defeated every foe handily and after becoming president, against the entire sea tide stirred by the mass media, he has accomplished more, as president, than most and against the worst possible odds. Not only did he have the corrupt and lying holdovers from The Obama Administration against him, which included many of the most senior officials in our various intelligence agencies, but he also was up against the "swamp folks" who feared he wanted to defang them and rid them of their power.  

If that is not enough,  he also has the entire mass media of this nation against everything he seeks to do and yet he presses on smiling and running circles around them on a daily basis. If Al Smith was the "Happy Warrior," Trump is an indefatigable/unbelievable/energetic/tireless one.

Now that the Obama's have purchased a vast compound on Cape Cod suitable for a king, are building a library that is costing a bankrupt city more money and dislocating black citizens from their ghetto environment, I seriously doubt Michelle is ready to endure the rigors which she already witnessed for 8 years. After all, why would she wish to serve a nation which she once hated until she became rich and famous?

The fact that she is imminently unqualified, based on true accomplishments, means nothing because popularity has now become the basis for being president just as entertainment and profit, not hard un-biased news,  has become the goal that sustains the mass media's appeal.

Trump has proven what his detractors missed seeing because they were consumed by their hate.  In the case of Michelle, I suspect they are frustrated enough to believe in their own world of fantasy.

Welcome to America where it pays to be president unless you donate your salary and are already wealthy.

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DORIS
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1)

Snowflakes: An Educational Problem

By Michael Curtis

In January 2018 the Oxford English Dictionary added to its normal definition of what has traditionally been a flake of snow, a feathery ice crystal. Now the OED snowflake is an overly sensitive or easily offended person or persons who believe they are entitled to special treatment on account of their supposedly unique characteristics. Life for them comes, or should come, with trigger warnings and safe spaces. Trigger warnings are needed to alert people that a text or image may be disturbing or upsetting. These were proposed at Cambridge University concerning Shakespeare, because of the sexual violence in some of his plays. Those safe places must be established so students can get together without being exposed to ideas and language that makes them feel uncomfortable. 

The term “snowflake” has become more used and popular since the 1996 film Fight Club, staring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. The author of the scenario claims he coined the word, believing that students today are more easily offended than in the past. The context is the passage, “You are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.” Irrespective of the origin of the term, it has been widely invoked by discontented students in universities in the U.S. and the UK. But in counterattack, it is also used for evident parody, as displayed in November 2019 by a fake ad posted by the Oscar Café Bar in Dublin.  

The ad stated the bar was currently recruiting for an experienced snowflake, self-entitled, oversensitive, self-righteous, and passionate, who has the ability to find and take offence for the most innocuous things imaginable. The candidate does not need to be able to work as part of a team, as some of the best work will be done alone, anonymously, and from the successful candidate’s bedroom. The ideal candidate should possess no willingness to consider controversial or opposing views.

Evidently, the ideal snowflake can come speaking any language. In Britain, foreign students at Cambridge University have made clear that the world cuisine dishes the colleges offered were nothing more than cultural appropriation. Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 2017 reviewed its menus after foreign students complained the food that was served “misrepresented” their foreign culture, especially Jamaican stew and Tunisian rice, which were not typical of the dishes they ate at home. The students demanded Pembroke stop mixing mango and beef, and calling it “Jamaican stew.” The menus were changed because the college wanted, “all our students of diverse background to feel a valued part of our community.”

Reviewing some of the recent activities in contemporary universities there should be no shortage of candidates for those willing to work in Dublin. To appreciate the current educational and intellectual climate, it is worth examining the attitudes of the malcontents.

In a number of college institutions, starting with the University of Manchester student union, snowflake students have asked audiences at presentations to use “jazz hands” instead of the usual clapping which it says causes anxiety for some. The union argues the use of “jazz hands” encourages an environment of respect. The union argues in addition that students with autism, sensory issues, and deafness, have been discouraged from attending events because of loud clapping.  

At University College, London, a group of students called for the removal of the wooden statue of Phineas Maclino, a member of the Black Watch, a Scottish unit of the British army, that had been brought to the campus in 1900 to celebrate the British victory at Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.  The statue, once a mascot, and which is encased in a protective glass box in the student pub, is being removed because it is a reminder of the “racially prejudiced policies of British colonial rule.” The events of the British-Boer conflict, it was argued, are not moments to be celebrated today. One expects historical ignorance from these snowflakes in at least two ways. The brutal behavior of the Boers is unmentioned. The statue is wrongly identified as a Jacobite Highlander, since the Jacobite rising was crushed in 1745, and the statue is of a Highlander 150 years later. 

Williams College, an institution noted as an early proponent of the movement to end slavery, is being boycotted by students objecting to the choice of books by the English Department. For the snowflakes, the literature of peoples of color effectively has been given second class status in the department. The English courses should focus on racial issues, but white authors are more frequently assigned than non-white authors. The snowflakes will boycott all English department courses that do not engage substantially with race. They also called for the appointment of four people to teach courses in African-American, Latinx (Latin American), Native American, and Asian-American literature. 

Literature has also been a problem for activists at Manchester University. They defaced a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “If,” and replaced it with a poem by Maya Angelou, symbol of black and brown voices. Kipling is termed a racist, standing for the opposite of liberation, empowerment, and human rights. He was the author of the poem, “The White Man’s Burden,” and for the snowflakes other works that sought to legitimize the British empire’s presence in India.

Students at Hughes Hall, a Cambridge college, demanded removal from its dining room a 17th-century painting, The Fowl Market attributed to Flemish artist Frans Snyders, because it was supposedly offensive to vegans. The painting includes a collection of dead animals, including a swan, boar, deer, and various game birds, strong up on hooks.  

The curators carrying out the move explained that many people are turning to vegetarianism and veganism as a political choice as much as a dietary one, and “we should rethink our relationship with animals and their treatment in an industrialized world.”

They did not suggest what that relationship should be, but the “Snyders” was replaced in the dining room by a work by Damien Hirst. This is a highly colorful 2017 work with a long, curious title, beginning, “Beautiful Teeth Clenching Jaw Muscles…” The Hirst may not be to everyone’s taste, but it does not induce moral anxieties resonating around diet, self-image, or overconsumption.

Goldsmiths College, London, has become a no-burger institution in its attempt to save the planet.  In 2019 it banned the sale of all beef products on campus in response to calls for tackling the climate emergency, stating we should be more environmentally friendly. It argues that the environmental impact of beef is greater than that of any other meats. It is also trying, as are other universities, to eliminate single-use plastics, and adding an extra levy on the sale of bottled water. 

At Syracuse University a movement called NotAgainSU was annoyed at the inadequate response of the university and its chancellor Kent Syverud to a student of color being called the N-word. They stormed the campus gym and refused to leave until all 19 of their demands were met. On November 21, 2019, the chancellor agreed with 16 of the 19 demands.  Unsatisfied with a victory, the students then called for his resignation, apparently because he had not directly negotiated with them, but had sent a representative.

Maybe most offensive is the attributing, according to Kyle Kusz, associate professor of kinesiology at University of Rhode Island, of remarks about Tom Brady, New England Patriots quarterback, who many consider to be the greatest quarterback of all time.  Kusz explains the popularity of Brady, winner of six Super Bowl championships. and four MVP awards, is due to racism, to white rage and white supremacy, and sees him as a man who sold his soul to the devil decades ago. For the snowflakes, Brady represents valorization of a white masculinity, an unapologetic embodiment of upper-class white exceptionality and manly omnipotence. But none of the Dallas Cowboys, or Pittsburgh Steelers, or Miami Dolphins, are likely to be susceptible to this deluge of misinformation. 

The activities of the snowflakes indicates the educational system needs serious reviewing, so that the sense of entitlement, narcissism, and adherence to identity politics does not become the norm. Snowflakes are lightweight, but collectively they can become a blizzard. 

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