From my perch on the other side of the world, there doesn't seem to have been much movement between New Hampshire and South Carolina. On the eve of the vote, it's Trump holding a near Granite State-sized lead, Cruz and Rubio tussling for second place, Kasich and Bush for fourth, and Ben Carson fading into oblivion. I see Bernie has just pipped Hillary in a Fox News national poll and is closing in in Nevada, but her stiff, joyless it's-my-turn campaign seems to be holding on in the Palmetto State.
~I confess to pangs of envy upon reading this report from the Rutgers campus newspaper, The Daily Targum, on a recent appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos for his "Most Dangerous Faggot" tour. Noa Halff writes:
Students and faculty gathered in the Paul Robeson Cultural Center on Busch campus to generate dialogue about Yiannopoulos's visit and the protest that occurred during his lecture. A variety of different organizations and departments were present to listen, answer questions and show support.
Representatives from the Rutgers University Police Department, the Office of Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance, Counseling, Alcohol and other Drug Assistance Program and Psychiatric Services and the Bias Prevention and Education Committee were present. Members from the Black Student Union, the Asian American Cultural Center, Center for Latino Arts and Culture, College Student Affairs and many more were also in attendance.
Impressive. Did they need that many trauma counselors for 9/11?
Students described feeling scared, hurt and discriminated against following Yiannopoulos's visit...
"As a sexual assault survivor, that hurt me, I broke down crying after I left," she said. "How can you say that is not violent? Maybe they did not hit me, but that took such a big toll on me emotionally..."
James was scared to walk around campus the next day. Many others agreed and said they felt unsafe at the event and around campus afterward.
She believes the administration has not done enough, and that University Chancellor Richard L. Edwards's email did not address the issue.
"It is upsetting that my mental health is not cared about by the University," James said. "I do not know what else to do for us to be heard for us to be cared about. I deserve an apology, everyone in this room deserves an apology..."
Representatives from the RUPD said that if a student feels threatened, the first step they should take is to call them.
"The whole point of the forum is for student to have recourses, namely the Bias reporting process, which can be found at bias.rutgers.edu. The students also have recourses at CAPS and points of contact and the cultural center and University wide," Handy said.
Questions that remain unresolved were the line between hate speech and freedom of speech and social media regulations.
There is no line between hate speech and free speech. There is only free speech and government-regulated speech, which is what these Ivy League ninnies are panting for. Government-regulated speech is what they now have in Denmark and many other formerly free societies - and which I've been warning against, as best I can, in Australia this last week. See also:
Douglas Murray also has a wonderful quote in here-that young people, university students in particular don't know anything! They know zero facts. You cannot have a conversation about anything if there are no facts involved.
He says "they don't know any of the facts, but they've got all of the feelings". Exactly. Brilliant.
And yet at America's most prestigious educational institutions an endless parade of swollen, ever multiplying bureaucracies has been erected to confirm the most pampered generation in history in their indestructible sense of victimhood. The good news is that, when ISIS lands at Rutgers, they will find there are no heads to chop off.
~Speaking of safe spaces, my old magazine Maclean's publishes an obituary that reads like a latterday Hillaire Belloc. Alas, every word is true:
Dean even wore safety goggles when playing with Nerf guns. "They might be foam, but they could still take your eyes out," says Kelly. "That's called instilling safety."
Dean never grew out of his cautious ways. After moving to live with Kelly and his stepfamily in Hinton, Alta., at age 12, he preached to his friends about safety while driving four-wheelers and dirt bikes. "He always made me wear a helmet," says one of his best friends, Brian Scotland. "I hate helmets. Somehow I listened to Dean." Dean was equally prudent at home. He never turned on the lawnmower without boots and eye protection, and "there's safety stickers all around our house," says his stepbrother, Brendan Bieker...
On work sites, Dean never removed his hard hat or safety harness, not even at lunch...
When their son, Kingston, was born in September 2014, Dean became known as the world's safest dad. He insisted on buying a $300 car seat, with help from his grandmother, Donna Smith. "He had to get the top safety brand," says Donna. Worried that Kingston might knock his head on a sharp corner, Dean moved all four coffee tables out of the living room.
Dean was installing a safety handrail for mill employees to cross a tower without needing to wear a harness. "It was literally to make it 100 per cent safe for them," says Kelly. According to Kelly, Dean's safety lanyard got caught in the coupling of a motor and sucked him into the machinery. Alberta Occupational Health and Safety is investigating the death. Dean was 23.
~On the subject of old haunts of mine, a week ago The Independent became the first British newspaper to announce that it would cease print publication. I was part of the Indy in its glory days from its launch in 1986 to, well, my departure five years later. The very first piece I did for them appeared on the paper's third day - a review of a brand new theatrical production called The Phantom Of The Opera.
It was a beautifully designed newspaper: as someone said, it was born looking a hundred years old - as if it were the paper your family had been reading over the breakfast table for generations. It had the best writing team I've ever been part of (save perhaps for the first five years of The National Post) and it was brilliantly innovative in many areas. I doubt Maclean's would be running obituaries like the one above had not Jamie Fergusson and his team pioneered an entirely new school of obit-writing, quickly picked up by the Telegraph and others. (It is depressing to me what a snoozefest New York Times and other US monodaily obits are.)
I feel sad to think of the Indy as just another website. Maybe we'll run a few of my faves from Independent days as the last press run approaches.
~On Monday I'll be joining Steve Austin on the ABC in Brisbane, round about 10am Queensland time, and then I'll be live in Parliament in Canberra, speaking in the Senate alcove.
