12-5-15 Hodgepodge

"Macroagression" Fails to Rain on "Microagression" Parade

Apparently a St. Louis-area school is going to help its female students understand how "oppressive" living in Western society can be for those who wear hijabs:

My university is organizing a "Muslim Challenge." In the course of the event, women will be handed out free hijabs to "get a glimpse of the experience of veiled Muslims."

This, as the academic blogger above points out, is just after (and right across the river from) an incident involving a Mizzou faculty member beating his fourteen-year-old daughter for seeing what going without a hijab would be like. I have a strange feeling that the "Muslim Challenge" will fail to replicate the full experience of being female in a Moslem culture (search term: beaten), and not because of liability concerns.

Weekend Reading

"As paradoxical as it sounds, a surgeon with a 100% positive appendectomy rate is actually a bad surgeon." -- Paul Hsieh, in "Why You Want Your Doctor to Be Wrong (Sometimes)" at Forbes

"So long as we use the Fed's IOU as if it were money, then the Fed is in charge of our interest rate." -- Keith Weiner, in " A Free Market in Interest Rates " at SNB & CHF

"You're sending him the message that his well-being is connected to your own sense of security, rather than to his happiness." -- Michael Hurd, in "Do You Need 'The Perfect Child?'" at The Delaware Wave

"What will not make the impoverished world prosperous -- or free -- is for billionaires to dole out huge sums of conspicuous charity to unfree people while doing absolutely nothing to fight for their freedom." -- Alex Epstein, in "The Truth About Mark Zuckerberg's Letter to His Daughter" at Forbes

"Even if you're stuck with a dishonest co-worker or landlord, it doesn't follow that you have to become like them." -- Michael Hurd, in "Honesty: A Useful Tool and Skill, NOT a Duty" at The Delaware Coast Press

"This dogmatic indifference to the processes whereby wealth is created and acquired, and the habits and dispositions that have proven conducive to individual prosperity, as opposed to the habits and dispositions that reliably result in poverty, means that advocates of 'social justice' like Piketty are devoted to perpetrating a profound injustice." -- Don Watkins, in "Piketty's Unanswered Question" at CRB

"In an effort to combat this misinformation, this paper situates genetic engineering within mankind's long history of food improvement and then highlights how genetic engineering has dramatically improved human life." -- Amanda Maxham, in Executive Summary of "The Gene Revolution" (PDF) at Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property

Thank You, Mr. Epstein

As someone who values freedom, I must say that Alex Epstein's commentary on Mark Zuckerberg's recent letter to his daughter was a much-needed breath of fresh air. I am sick and tired of seeing the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg obtain cheap praise at the cost of billions and at the greater expense of doing the right thing (which can include simply enjoying the wealth they created). I am glad that someone has finally called them on this issue.

Amusing News Reel

A recent post on H.P. Lovecraft drew lots of interesting comments, including one that pointed to a "news reel" that any fan of Lovecraft will find amusing:

As I noted previously, "by the time the subtitle, 'Miskatonic Paleontologists Hit Jackpot,' rolled around, I just started laughing."

-- CAV