Hot Buttered Stupid

College Is Wasted On the Young

Well, maybe not entirely wasted, but it is difficult to avoid the sense that young people these days don't really get that the whole point of going to college is to open their minds to the full range of human ideas, to learn that there are interesting and useful perspectives on life that differ from their own, insights worth thinking about from smart people who lived in earlier times, etc.

More and more these days, the news is filled with depressing stories about college students pursuing just the opposite approach, trying to suppress speakers whose ideas they don't personally support, rejecting thinkers whom they object to for one trendy reason or another, and childishly insisting that their entire campus environment be tailored to conform to the social and political orthodoxies of the passing moment.

Of course, the faculties of our institutions of higher learning bear some responsibility for this, but that's a subject for another time. What's bugging me most today is the growing anti-intellectualism among the students themselves.

Erb Memorial Union, University of Oregon

A recent instance of this kind of thing took place at the University of Oregon, where the student government debated removing an offensive quotation from the wall of the Erb Memorial Union, the campus's primary student center.



It really shouldn't shock you that the "offensive" quotation was from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. No one, no matter how distinguished intellectually, is safe from the modern campus iconoclasts.

And the "offensive" quotation? Here you go:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream...

If you find yourself scratching your head about what could possibly be "offensive" about this excerpt from Dr. King's famous address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, that's because you're not as smart as Oregon sophomore architecture major Mia Ashley:

Does the MLK quote represent us today? Diversity is so much more than race. Obviously race still plays a big role. But there are people who identify differently in gender and all sorts of things like that.

"The stupid, it burns!"

False Alarm

Hey, remember than time ten years ago when hack politician and tree-impersonator Al Gore told us at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival that we only had a decade left to reverse global warming and avoid a "planetary emergency"?

Remember how all the half-witted environmentalists went gaga over Gore's glorified Powerpoint slideshow?

Remember how Gore and his acolytes in the press simply ignored people pointing out the many, many flaws in his presentation?

Remember how Hollywood, in thrall as it usually is to progressive narratives, actually gave this dreck an Academy Award for warning us while we still had a whole decade left to avert catastrophe?

Remember the spate of laughably inept movies Gore's dire prophecy spawned?

Yeah, never mind...

"Maybe he was right. You certainly seem hot and bothered a lot lately."

Purely a coincidence...

Hillary's Campaign Logo (Poll-Corrected Edition)

From the pen of Michael Ramirez, whose editorial cartoons you should read often,
as I do.

Until Next Time...

One of life's sublime pleasures is unexpectedly stumbling across something wonderful.
One afternoon in early 1997 I was shopping at my favorite record store (remember those?) in St. Joseph, Missouri, looking for a recording of a Mozart piece I wanted to use in a play I was directing. I didn't find it, but I did find something much, much better,
a recording that became one of my all-time favorites.

When I found it at my local Hastings store, Sony Classical's Mozart: Piano Quartets Nos. 1 & 2, K. 478, 493 had only just been released.

I bought it without hesitation, as I had never been disappointed by any offerings from pianist Emanuel Ax, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, or violinist Isaac Stern. I was not familiar with violinist Jaime Laredo (who plays viola on this recording), but I am grateful to have made his acquaintance.


It is one of only a handful of classical recordings in my collection that gets as much play as my rock, blues, and other popular music favorites. Not to be missed.

Today's send-off is the group's gorgeous rendition of the second (Larghetto) movement from Piano Quartet No. 2. Enjoy...