The Week - USA (2021-11-26)

18 NEWS Talking points

AP

(^2

)

QA New Jersey man was

sentenced to 41 months

in prison for assaulting a

police officer during the

Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the

longest sentence yet result-

ing from the uprising. Scott

Fairlamb, a former MMA

fighter who was among

the first to break into the

Capitol, pleaded guilty to

punching an officer in his

face shield, an act caught

on video.

Politico.com

QIn the run-up to the

2020 election at least 13

Trump administration

officials violated the Hatch

Act, which bars federal

employees from using

taxpayer resources for

partisan political purposes,

according to a watchdog

report. The result was “a

taxpayer-funded campaign

apparatus within the upper

echelons of the executive

branch,” said the Office of

Special Counsel.

Axios.com

QThe tight

labor market

and concerns

of Covid risk

have created

a shortage of

Santas, leaving

many orga-

nizations that run holiday

events scrambling to find

bearded men in red suits.

Working Santas are rais-

ing their rates as high as

$200 an hour, and they’re

so overbooked that some

holiday events are being

held early.

The Wall Street Journal

QAbout 1,200 American

women were hit with crimi-

nal charges after a miscar-

riage from 2005 to 2020,

according to data collected

by the National Advocates

of Pregnant Women.

Most of the women were

charged with taking illegal

recreational drugs; in some

cases, falls and miscarriag-

es at home led to arrests.

“Fetal assault laws” exist

in at least 38 states.

BBC.com

Hawley: Why men are struggling

Josh Hawley thinks “men are the

real victims,” said Amanda Mar-

cotte in Salon.com. The Missouri

senator, building his brand in

anticipation of a 2024 presiden-

tial bid, recently accused liberals

of undermining men with their

criticism of “toxic masculinity,”

which he claimed is an attack on

“courage and independence and

assertiveness.” Because liberals

won’t let young men be men,

Hawley insisted, they are retreat-

ing into “idleness and porn and video games.”

Sorry, but no feminist or liberal has condemned

men for being responsible adults, husbands, and

fathers. What we have called “toxic” are men

who think it’s their right to sexually harass women

and bully gays and minorities—men who are like

Hawley’s friend Donald (“grab ’em by the pussy”)

Trump. Hawley knows his audience, and it’s “the

whiny babies who are throwing a childish tantrum

because women told them to make their own

damn sandwiches.”

Actually, Hawley is “dead right” about a funda-

mental problem: “the disintegration of the Ameri-

can family,” said Conn Carroll in the Washington

Examiner. In progressive culture and the globalist

economy, men have been “devalued,” leaving

them unable to find good jobs, marry, and have

families. Rather than just complaining, Hawley

offered real solutions: creat-

ing more well-paid manu-

facturing jobs and giving a

major tax bonus to married

couples and young parents.

It’s unfortunate Hawley

framed that very real prob-

lem as a partisan culture-war

issue, said Mona Charen in

TheBulwark.com. Today,

women earn 60 percent of

bachelor’s degrees, “male

labor-force participation”

is steadily declining, and men are more likely to

be imprisoned and “die of diseases of despair.”

Our society must rebuild its foundations to “raise

healthier, happier, and more successful men.”

“There certainly is a crisis in masculinity,” said

Joe Berkowitz in FastCompany.com, but Hawley

and his defenders mistakenly think “the cure is the

disease.” The traditional masculinity they idealize

taught boys that “women are objects, queerness

is a sin, and violence is a solution to everything.”

In recent decades, many men have embraced a

broader, kinder definition of masculinity, and even

wash dishes and take parental leave to—gasp!—

care for their kids. That generally earns them

nothing but “soy boy” insults from traditional

men. Those guys “are still free to shackle them-

selves” to rigid gender roles, but hopefully, “the

next generation of men will feel freed from it.”

Noted

The upcoming launch of the University of Austin

could be “the best news in academia in a long,

long time,” said Quin Hillyer in Washington

Examiner.com. Former St. John’s College Presi-

dent Pano Kanelos announced last week his plans

to create a “fiercely independent” new institution

of higher learning. His co-founders, columnist

Bari Weiss and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale

among them, include conservatives and classical

liberals who prize free speech. Their dream: a

haven where scholars and students can engage in

open, rigorous debate—what great colleges offered

until they were “hijacked by the illiberal left.”

Here’s why I’ve joined them, said historian Niall

Ferguson in Bloomberg.com. Recent surveys have

found that 62 percent of college students said that

their campus’ progressive orthodoxy made them

fearful of expressing their opinions. Put simply,

“higher ed is broken.”

How seriously should we take this “new, unwoke

university?” asked Alex Shephard in New Republic

.com. Not very. UATX doesn’t have a campus,

accreditation, or degree programs yet—just an

offering cryptically called the “Forbidden Courses.”

Rather than transcending identity- politics issues,

the university boasts a founding faculty that seems

determined to “relentlessly burrow into them”

from one side, including such firebrands as Brit-

ish philosopher Kathleen Stock, who has been at

war with transgender activists, and pundit Ayaan

Hirsi Ali, who has called Islam a “nihilistic cult of

death.” Will the school offer a degree in “owning

the libs”? Its website “largely consists of a plea for

money from any wealthy donors who might also

like to stand athwart history yelling stop.” Sounds

like a “largely half-baked” hustle.

Problems are already surfacing, said AJ McDougall

in TheDailyBeast.com. Two marquee-name schol-

ars, evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker and

University of Chicago chancellor Robert Zimmer,

quit the advisory board this week, evidently

uncomfortable with statements some far-right

founders made about UATX’s mission. To succeed,

said Daniel Drezner in The Washington Post,

the university will need “large-scale investments”

of hundreds of millions of dollars provided by

plutocratic donors. But would the rich bet on the

“cantankerous crew” behind this project, many

of whom are not educators, rather than giving

money to their prestigious alma maters? “Maybe,

just maybe,” those potential donors “are exercis-

ing their own kind of independent thinking.”

University of Austin: Game changer or stunt?

Hawley: It’s the Left’s fault.