Due a long busy day and a major Jamba Juice accident that necessitated completely wiping down both front seats tonight's ONT will only be 40%-assed.

James Taranto: My Anti-Mentor

Where James Taranto of the WSJ's Best of the Web recalls how a cartoon and associated story published in the Cal State Northridge Paper, The Sundial, in 1987 led to political correctness run amok, his suspension, lies and hypocrisy, education about actual journalism, a successful lawsuit against the university, and ultimately a happy and successful career. It's too good to excerpt so read the whole thing.

The vice provost of California State University, Northridge, retires today. Ordinarily that would be unworthy of a national newspaper's notice, but Cynthia Rawitch was a formative figure in your humble columnist's professional and intellectual development.

...That's where we came in. The journalism department at Northridge had a subscription to the Bruin, and early one evening, while waiting to put the next day's Sundial to bed, we started browsing recent issues of the UCLA paper and learned of the rooster kerfuffle. What a story! Months earlier we'd read a disturbing piece in National Review about left-wing censorship on college campuses, mostly in the Ivy League. Here was a real live case right in our front yard.

We drove the half hour to UCLA and did some reporting. While there, we picked up a copy of Nommo, the black paper. We were astonished to find a viciously racist rant against "the possessive and greedy Europeans"--meaning persons of pallor--who "suffer under the mistaken belief that a man can secure himself in an insecure world best by ownership of great personal, private wealth" and whose "abstract theories and philosophy concerning government and economics has [sic] an underlying tone of selfishness, possessiveness and greediness because their character is made up of these things."

...We wrote the story up into a 1,200-word op-ed, which we ran with the cartoon and a Nommo excerpt. It filled the Sundial's opinion page. We finished on March 4, so that the article would appear the same day the Comm Board was to make its final decision on Bell's punishment.

That is, we were not looking to create a controversy at Northridge when we wrote about the one at UCLA. We did not expect one, for two reasons. First, Northridge was a sleepy, third-tier commuter school with nothing like the pressure-cooker politics of its elite neighbor. Second, our student newspaper was overseen by journalism professors, who inculcated their students with inspiring pieties about the ideal of free expression.

As to the first point, our judgment proved reliable. Beyond a few letters to the editor, the op-ed provoked no controversy on our campus--except in the journalism department. Faculty publisher Cynthia Rawitch was not in the newsroom the day the piece ran, a Thursday. But we were there when the editor, ashen-faced, took a phone call from her that was obviously a dressing down. Rawitch ordered all the editors to gather for a Monday meeting.

And then Taranto entered the world of PC hell.

Oh and here's the rather mild cartoon that kicked the whole imbroglio off:

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:23 PM | Comments (607)
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Just a reminder on a slow weekend: look up after sunset. West/northwest, to be exact: more...

Posted by: CAC at 02:19 PM | Comments (427)
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I have seen this ceremony more times than I can count. I never cease to be humbled by it, by the sentinels of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, US Army at Ft. Meyer. The Old Guard.

21 steps. Hurricanes. Snowstorms. Or the brutal summer heat in Virginia.

This tomb will always have a guard.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:54 AM | Comments (53)
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Summer is pretty much here, and with the end of May, arguably the best part of the whole night sky comes into view. Below, a guide to find your way about, and a dark secret hidden inside one of the most glorious of constellations. more...

Posted by: CAC at 05:00 PM | Comments (167)
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This seems to be a trait that we have not yet lost!
The exceptionalism that will save us is in abundance in this guy.

About those MPG numbers for electric vehicles? Uh...maybe not.

Even when Israelis agree with the left, they are ostracized in academia.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:28 AM | Comments (75)
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Via our friends at This Ain't Hell comes this head-scratcher.

The Daily Beast posts an article written by a convicted felon to influence the gun control debate. The NRA Is Wrong: The Myth of Illegal Guns is written by Matthew Parker who by his own admission has been convicted of crimes ranging from “counterfeiting to felony-shoplifting to possession of narcotics and drug paraphernalia”. He claims that because Adam Lanza, didn’t know his way around the underworld, he couldn’t have bought a gun illegally;

My point is that purchasing firearms illegally should be an ordeal, and that effective background checks would be the first step in making it so. But what’s also pertinent is that Lanza was not a shady character with a long criminal history, and so would have had no experience moving in illicit circles. Background checks may have forced him to do so—to risk being arrested, robbed, or even killed in some dark alley for the substantial sum he’d have needed in order to buy a gun illegally.

You want to know what happens when you make law-abiding citizens jump through ridiculous bureaucratic hoops to buy guns? This chart of Massachusetts' gun-related homicides says it all:

Since 1998, gun-related homicides in Massachusetts have doubled. This occurred during a period when gun-related homicide rates were in a significant downtrend nationally.

Why did Massachusetts buck this trend? Because right when other states were making concealed carry easier, Massachusetts went in the opposite direction and enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the country.

In 1998, Massachusetts passed what was hailed as the toughest gun-control legislation in the country. Among other stringencies, it banned semiautomatic "assault" weapons, imposed strict new licensing rules, prohibited anyone convicted of a violent crime or drug trafficking from ever carrying or owning a gun, and enacted severe penalties for storing guns unlocked.

"Today, Massachusetts leads the way in cracking down on gun violence," said Republican Governor Paul Cellucci as he signed the bill into law. "It will save lives and help fight crime in our communities." Scott Harshbarger, the state's Democratic attorney general, agreed: "This vote is a victory for common sense and for the protection of our children and our neighborhoods." One of the state's leading anti-gun activists, John Rosenthal of Stop Handgun Violence, joined the applause. "The new gun law," he predicted, "will certainly prevent future gun violence and countless grief."

It didn't.

The 1998 legislation did cut down, quite sharply, on the legal use of guns in Massachusetts. Within four years, the number of active gun licenses in the state had plummeted. "There were nearly 1.5 million active gun licenses in Massachusetts in 1998," the AP reported. "In June [2002], that number was down to just 200,000." The author of the law, state Senator Cheryl Jacques, was pleased that the Bay State's stiff new restrictions had made it possible to "weed out the clutter."

But the law that was so tough on law-abiding gun owners had quite a different impact on criminals.

This happens every single time. A gun control law (that, by definition, only affects those who aren't disposed to commit crimes) is passed -> increased probability of running into an unarmed victim makes crime go up -> politicians argue for tighter gun control -> repeat.

So, as Jonn at TAH observed, there's a pretty obvious reason that a four-time loser felon would want gun control. It's a workplace safety regulation for him.

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Illinois House Speaker Reverses Longtime Opposition To Gun Rights

As watershed events for gun control go, this is huge. Mike Madigan is supporting a bill that preempts Chicago's ridiculously overreaching and ineffective gun laws. In related news, a flock of pigs just flew past my window.

LAPD SWAT Operating An Illegal Gun Dealership?

Of. Course.

The FBI is investigating whether members of the Los Angeles Police Department's elite SWAT and Special Investigations Section units violated the law by purchasing large numbers of custom-made handguns and reselling them for profit, according to interviews.

Gun Of The Week

(answer below)
more...

Posted by: andy at 05:57 AM | Comments (167)
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Good morning all.

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So Microsoft revealed the console to the mass consumer (reveal to the gamers is at E3) this past Tuesday and for all the rumors, I kinda expected something revolutionary instead of evolutionary. Slightly disappointed in that regards but did they show anything off to make me interested?

Pros and Cons below more...

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 10:10 AM | Comments (137)
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Why we should remember them. Some gave everything.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:18 PM | Comments (185)
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