Glenn K. Beaton is a writer and columnist living in Colorado. He has been a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, RealClearPolitics, Powerline, Instapundit, Citizen Free Press, American Thinker, Fox News, The Federalist, and numerous other print, radio and television outlets. His most recent book is "High Attitude — How Woke Liberals Ruined Aspen"
Over 100,000 Europeans will die heat-related deaths this summer. That’s up from the usual summer toll.
I’m sure there are worse ways to die but I have this vision of an old man alone in his boxer shorts in his apartment, simmering and sweltering, fanning himself, wishing one of his daughters would call, and finally keeling over from heat stroke.
Days later, neighbors find his rotted remains when the stench wafts down the hallway.
The main reason for this tragic carnage is that Europeans disapprove of air conditioning. They say it uses too much electricity. Producing that electricity requires the burning of fossil fuels which contribute to . . . you know where this is headed . . . global warming.
Too much global warming, and you’re likely to die of . . . you know where this is headed, too . . . heat stroke.
When it comes to heat stroke, the Europeans apparently believe it’s better to die now in the discomfort of your own un-air-conditioned home than later in a warmed globe.
This Luddite loathing of air conditioning means that only about 20% of European homes and offices are air conditioned and habitable during a heat wave. That compares to about 90% in America.
Air conditioning does indeed use electricity, and generating that electricity does indeed burn fossil fuels (though not always – France generates two-thirds of its electricity with nuclear reactors).
But the cost of air conditioning is more than merely a matter of life and death. It also involves money. A recent study found that the productivity of workers during a European heat wave drops significantly. That drop could be avoided if air conditioning were common. In short, air conditioning would largely pay for itself.
Ah, but there’s another big cost to adding air conditioning to homes in Europe, a hidden cost.
About 85% of the heat-related deaths in Europe are elderly people. Think of all the money that is saved by discarding those unproductive old folks. The Eurocrats have certainly thought of it.
In short, Europe’s lack of air conditioning costs lives but saves money. Lengthened life spans for the elderly is a problem. Roasting them is a solution.
Next, they’ll also think of an economically effective use for the corpses. Soylent Green, anyone?
By now, you know the story. A man named Jason Arday was hired by Cambridge to be its “youngest Black* professor.”
Cambridge hired Arday in the wake of the George Floyd death, a tragic death that had as much impact on Great Britain as on Minnesota. What we learned from the George Floyd episode was not that we should treat or incarcerate mentally disturbed, substance-abusing criminals. No, that lesson was too much for those Days of Wokeness.
What we learned instead was that anytime a person dies in police custody, the police must have murdered him – if he was Black.
Just as rebels holler “To the barricades,” the DEI advocates hollered, “To the reparations!”
The reparations were not to take the form of putting the likes of George Floyd into in an expensive institution for treatment, rehabilitation and, if necessary, punishment. The reparations were instead to take the form of putting a person who the DEI advocates view as someone just like George Floyd (to the DEI advocates, they all look the same) into a professorship at Cambridge. Call it the George Floyd Chair.
It didn’t matter whether the Black person was ever a victim of slavery or if his ancestors ever were. What mattered was that the person was Black.
And so, it was no problem that the George Floyd Chair was filled with Jason Arday, even though his parents immigrated to London from Ghana and there is no evidence that he or any ancestor suffered slavery (if they did, it was the Black-on-Black kind).
Arday was a piece of work. Outside the classroom, he bragged that he once ran 600 miles in 6 days. As if that was not enough, he once ran 30 marathons – a 26-mile race – in 33 days. In his spare time, he said, he raised $6 million dollars for charity in the span of a few weeks.
He said he barely spoke until he was 11. He suffered two brain tumors.
Inside the classroom, he was touted as brilliant. Any claims to the contrary were dismissed as “racist.”
Yes, there was much ado about the phenom named Jason Arday. It turned out to be much ado about nothing. I was all lies.
There were no brain tumors. He spoke at the usual age. He apparently ran no marathons, much less 30 in 33 days. The $6 million he single-handedly raised for charity in a short time was actually raised over a long period of time by a charity group he was loosely affiliated with.
The thing that did him in, however, was not his superhuman fabulism. It was his academic fraud. It was discovered that his PhD thesis contained over 100 instances of plagiarism. Some of the plagiarism was page upon page of exact copying.
The initial reaction by Cambridge was of course, “More racism! By racist critics!” Arday himself literally called the police when journalists sent him emails asking for his comment. (The police belatedly dismissed his complaint.)
Despite the stonewalling by both Cambridge and Arday, his plagiarism was too stark to be ignored. Whole pages were cut and pasted, including the grammatical errors. Cambridge finally announced that it was undertaking an investigation.
Arday resigned from his prestigious and tenured position later that day. Cambridge must find another Black man for the George Floyd Chair.
Yesterday, this story went from amusing to bemusing. Arday was found dead in London. Police say there is no evidence of foul play. That’s police talk for suicide. Although I condemn Arday’s fraud and his attacks on critics who sought to point it out, part of me feels bad for him and his family.
Here’s who I don’t feel bad for: Cambridge.
It is often observed that affirmative action may feel good to the advocates, but it does no favors to the beneficiaries. The beneficiary is put into a position they’re not ready for, a position where they are bound to fail. Indeed, the failure rate for affirmative action Black students is significantly higher than for ordinary white students.
Lies are compounded by more lies. Soon, a little resume exaggeration balloons into “I ran 30 marathons in 33 days!” Soon, the Black person is no longer a person, he’s just Black.
Cambridge is not full of dummies. The fabulism claimed by Arday was a red flag, and the plagiarism must have been an open secret. Cambridge didn’t care, for they had their Black.
Cambridge’s charges of “racism!” against accomplished academics who raised good faith questions was a coverup, and one that potentially damaged those academics.
All this was for Cambridge to feel good about itself, to fill the George Floyd Chair.
Cambridge, you have blood on your hands.
*Most Black people want an upper case “B” and so that’s what I give them. It costs me nothing. Most white people want a lower case “w” and so that’s what I give them. That, too, costs me nothing. As for the whole ridiculous controversy, I have bigger fish to fry.
AOC informs us with a laugh that “Woke 1 was crazy!”
Yes, it was. Remember the craziness of DEI, where we admitted kids to college or hired employees based not on the content of their character but on the color of their skin?
Remember when crazed wokesters advocated defunding the police? Or defunding the military? Or opening the southern border?
Recall how they crazily wanted to abolish the prisons or, better yet, to stop prosecuting the criminals?
Don’t forget the crazy new words and phrases that wokesters invented like “Latinx” or “birthing persons” where middle-aged white people mutilate beautiful languages in the name of “inclusiveness.” And don’t forget the crazy new surgical procedures like “gender affirmation” where middle-aged white doctors mutilate the genitals of confused pubescent kids.
AOC wants the wokesters to get a do-over. Call it Woke 2. New “rhetoric” is now required for this new totalitarianism, she says.
But this isn’t a matter of rhetoric. This is a matter of policies.
So, let’s talk about policies. What’s the new policy of Woke 2 on their crazy policy of releasing murderers and other criminals from prison? What about abolishing the military? What about DEI?
What’s the new policy of Woke 2 on crazy words and phrases like “Latinx” and “birthing person”? What about the craze of mutilating the genitals of confused children? What about the crazy opening of the southern border? What about coddling the crazy barbarians of Hamas? What about everyone who got canceled — by crazies — for being out of step with the craziness of woke?
AOC offers no answers, only laughter.
The only change I see between Woke 1 and Woke 2 is the addition of canceling Thanksgiving. And the proclamation that fireworks on Independence Day “sucks,” apparently because it celebrates the birth of the nation.
As for the other things, I suspect that the wokester 2’ers, like the wokester 1’ers, want to do all the same. They just want to do it under a new name with no accountability for the last time.
“Woke” is now considered a joke. But it’s not funny. These people cost us lives, and cost us trillions of dollars. AOC and the rest of the wokesters can’t laugh that away and get a redo of Woke 1 by just calling it Woke 2.
There’s an old saying: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Here’s the latest chapter in the WNBA’s attempt to figure out what the W in their name stands for. A former NBA player named Enes Kanter Freedom has declared eligible for the WNBA draft.
I can’t bring myself to call this person a woman, so I won’t. I’ll instead use plural pronouns. I’d rather be ungrammatical by using a plural pronoun when referring to a single person, than be unscientific by referring to a man as a woman.
You see, Enes’ name rhymes with “tennis.” It does not rhyme with, well, you what it does not rhyme with. But they do have one.
They also have the size and weight of a person who has one, and then some. They stand about 6’10” fully erect. That stature will of course make them the tallest player in the WNBA. Moreover, they last weighed about 250 pounds which will make their muscle mass about double that of the average WNBA player.
Enes is not a bad player for a man, but they are no longer good enough for the NBA. In the NBA before they retired, they got a few minutes of playing time (and only counted as one player!) and more than a few million dollars of compensation.
But here’s the hickey. Enes was born a male. Enes grew up a male. Enes had the flood of testosterone at puberty of a male. Enes played as a male. Enes played with and against males.
Enes now says they “identifies” as a woman. Hence the WNBA draft eligibility.
This forces the WNBA to put a little gloss on the W in their name, right? And I don’t mean lip gloss. The WNBA will have to decide whether Enes is a W.
My guess is that they (I’m referring to the WNBA) will decide that they (I’m referring to Enes) is not a W. However, their (referring again to the WNBA) grounds for that decision will be rather subjective. They (the WNBA) will let a psychologist say that they (Enes) is not really a W. But meanwhile, the psychologist hired by them (Enes) will say that they (Enes) really is.
There’s more. Now another guy, er, gal, wants to do the same thing. It’s the person shown above alongside Enes. No word on whether they will shave their beard.
Here’s a radical idea. What if we say that “W” means “woman,” that “woman” means a person with two X chromosomes, and that plural pronouns refer to a plurality of people?
Painting of “The Tower of Babel” by Endre Rozada, 1958
When I call an investment firm or a doctor’s office to speak with a person, it’s bad enough that I have to listen to a voice mail that gives me six options, none of which includes speaking with a person.
But there’s something else that bugs me. It’s “Press 2 for Spanish.” That part of the recording is often in Spanish.
That Spanish part is usually preceded by “Press 1 for English.”
But wait a minute. I already have the recording in English. Now I have to press 1 for some more?
As for option to converse in Spanish with the recording, I have never felt the need for that, and I doubt I ever will. I’m fed up with being given this option. Being fed up is all the worse when I have to listen to the six options, none of which includes speaking with a person. Who speaks English.
In my extensive travels in Spain and my limited travels in Latin America, I’ve noticed that they don’t return the favor. I’ve never heard a recording in Spain say, “Press 2 for English.” (Or Arabic, even in view of Spain”s recent influx of Moroccans.)
Ah, you say, but what about the people in America who speak only Spanish?
I say, to hell with them. Or more specifically, to home with them.
I dare say that practically everyone legally in America speaks English. The ones who speak only Spanish are invariably here illegally.
The banks and doctors’ offices should not be facilitating the presence of illegals in America. Enough already.
Socialists think poor people have too little money, and rich people have too much.
I happen to think the truth is somewhat the opposite. A big problem is that poor people in America have too much money despite their proven inability to manage it.
Poor people consume monster meals and quart-sized sodas at McDonalds, lease gas-guzzling trucks that are too big for the road, buy lousy food that is too much for them to eat, and get 100” TVs even though there’s nothing on.
But for purposes of the discussion, let’s accept the premise: Poor people have too little money.
Let’s start the discussion with the fact that poor people pay hardly anything in federal income taxes, after considering their low tax rates and credits like the childcare credit. In fact, the top 1% of earners pay about 40% of federal income taxes – much more than any honest calculation of their “fair share” – and the bottom 40% pay practically nothing.
So, it doesn’t help poor people to reduce their taxes. You can’t go lower than zero on their income taxes. So, what to do?
The answer is, do go lower than zero. In other words, give them money. It won’t make them happy for long, but at least it beats the alternative.
That alternative is free stuff. Such as free college tuition, free or subsidized housing, cheap food at government grocery stores (but only if you show an ID, which we are told racial minorities don’t possess, and so racial minorities have to starve), fake “work” from home four days a week, three-day weekends on the other days, food stamps, flip-flops in the office, and purple hair with nose piercings.
OK, it’s not clear that society currently subsidizes purple hair and nose piercings. But it’s more than enough that we tolerate it.
However, here’s where it gets interesting. The Left doesn’t want to give money to poor people. Money is too fungible. Next thing you know, they might be spending it intelligently. They might even – shudder! – save it.
Instead, the Left wants to provide free stuff in lieu of money. That serves two purposes. One, it mandates that the poor recipient will use it for the purpose that the left wants, which is usually amusement. Bread and circuses, you know.
I’m reminded of the discount given to “seniors.” I’m part of the richest demographic in the history of the world. Why do they condescend me with a $3 discount for the city zoo? It’s not because I need the discount. It’s because they think it buys my vote. I’m here to tell you, my vote is not for sale for $3. It’ll take at least $5.
Two, and more importantly, it empowers the Left. The Left gets to control who receives the free stuff, the Left gets the credit for the free stuff, and the Left gets its big cut of the free stuff in the form of administration.
Do you think I’m kidding? The administrative staff at America’s colleges has grown by double to quadruple the faculty staff in the last generation. What the hell are all these staffers doing?
It’s a lot like the mafia.
I have an offer they can’t refuse. Cut out all these Lefty administrators and all these attached strings and just give the poor people the frickin’ money.
the Aspen beat 