Pun Salad

■ Sluggards are also a favorite target of the Proverbialist. He returns to the theme in Proverbs 21:25-26:

²⁵ The craving of a sluggard will be the death of him,
    because his hands refuse to work.
²⁶ All day long he craves for more,
    but the righteous give without sparing.

Sluggards and mockers bedevil us even today. Fortunately, the righteous are around too.

[Note: verse 26 continues verse 25. I didn't notice this when I initially posted, sorry.]

■ Nothing new to say about 9/11. I still like my post from 2011, though.

■ Powerline's Stephen Hayward asks the musical question: Have Colleges Completely Lost Their Minds?. Answer: yes. On to the next question.

No, but seriously. Hayward quotes the Telegraph news story:

An acclaimed British conductor has been fired from a prestigious American music festival after a seemingly innocent joke he made to a black friend was labelled racist.

Matthew Halls was removed as artistic director of the Oregon Bach Festival following an incident in which he imitated a southern American accent while talking to his longstanding friend, the African-American classical singer Reginald Mobley.

A third party overheard the "joke", and Halls was reported to the Thought Police Red Guards University of Oregon crack bias response team. And, without further discussion, Halls was sacked from his UofO position; his contract had been scheduled to run until 2020.

■ Ah, but the disease isn't confined to the coasts. Even in as-midwest-as-you-can-get Ames, Iowa: Iowa State requires applicants agree to ‘diversity and inclusion’ pledge.

Iowa State University has added new language to its job applications that requires prospective employees to pledge they will “demonstrate their contribution to diversity and inclusion” once hired.

Calling itself a “global and culturally diverse university committed to providing an inclusive, equitable, and diverse environment for both learning and employment,” the new language stipulates that the “university has an expectation that all employees will demonstrate a contribution to diversity and inclusion as embodied in Iowa State University’s Principles of Community.”

They told me that if I voted for Donald Trump, public employees would have to sign ideological loyalty oaths. Well, I didn't vote for Trump, but we got that anyway.

■ Attention Sheldon Cooper, and all other vexillologists: The New (and Unofficial) Flag of Mars. You can't say he misses important details:

The aspect ratio (height : width) of the flag, 17 : 32, is close to the ratio of an Earth year to a Mars year.

You can click over to see the result, but it would basically be a fine banner to unfurl over the battlefield in the next interplanetary war.