Uncouth Reflections

Paleo Retiree writes:

• Toby Young considers what’s become of the meritocracy, a concept invented by his father.
• We’re still living in the wake of America’s meritocratic era.
• Trump isn’t trying to erase trans people.
• “I don’t want to create fear, but I think there’s very little time left.”
• If the U.S. is such a hellhole of racism, sexism and oppressiveness, why do so many people keep trying to move here?
• We? Them? Steve Sailer comments.
• More.
• Patrick Buchanan turns 80. His latest column is a beauty.
• Is liberalism finito? John Gray sure seems to think so.
• The latest from the great James Kunstler includes this startling sentence:  “I hope that Democrats lose as many congressional and senate seats as possible.”
• Douglas Murray asks: “Should it be illegal to call Mohammed a paedophile?”
• Bu-bu-but … Biology isn’t real!!!
• Time to end factory farming?
• Theodore Dalrymple marvels at the ability of intellectuals to reason their way into embracing absurdities.
• Where architecture in particular goes, everday Americans have much better instincts than critics, intellectuals and ideologues do.
• David Brussat writes a great review of what sounds like an enormously important book about architectural modernism.
• I’ve ordered my own copy.
• I’m also looking forward to Katie Hutchison’s upcoming book about cottage-style houses. My wife and I have been living in onesuch for a couple of years and love it to death. What a wonderfully informal, adaptable and delightful style it is. I urge you to poke around Katie’s website too. Katie does a lot of beautiful work.

Paleo Retiree writes:

• The Old Left is very long gone.
• Are white women really the problem?
• More.
• Steve Sailer has been asking an important question: Why exactly, starting in 2013, did the Dems start to go kinda nuts?
• Angelo Codevilla dissects the “revolutionary spiral” that’s currently swirling around us.
• Dem craziness seems to be making more and more good-hearted people just walk away.
• At least 80% of Americans strongly dislike Political Correctness. Why then are we on the defensive?
• Good stuff about the mid 20th century’s “meritocratic” moment, and the consequences of it.
• Was Mohammad a pedophile? Shouldn’t we be able to say so?
• Some fascinating new research has been done about the evolution of skin color in Africa.
• Some great places for people without a lot of money to move to.
• Did Western modernist architecture promote wars in the Middle East? Roger Scruton thinks so.
• What a mess.

Paleo Retiree writes:

• In praise of 360 degree cameras. I’m tempted to get one myself … but would I use it more than once?
• Traffic circles, yay or nay?
• Dutch doors are awesome.
• Speaking of which, why isn’t more of our architecture charming? Great quote: “Modern architecture has thrown out the tools tradition used for centuries to produce charm.”
• How ambitious top-down urban planning goes wrong.
• What’s the difference between the McCarthy era’s insistence on loyalty oaths and today’s proggy enthusiasm for unconscious-bias training?
• More.
• College adminstrators are even more left than profs are.
• More.
• Left/lib circular firing squad du jour.
• Someone’s not getting with the program.
• Why isn’t the murder of this journalist getting more coverage?
• ”Unwanted mass migration is the issue of our time,” claims Patrick Buchanan, and who can argue with that?
• Headlines I never thought I’d read, an ongoing series.
• “Populism is the last refuge of those who do not want to die”: