Mar
4
2021

URLs du Jour

2021-03-04

I knew Michael Ramirez would step up with a pictorial comment on Dr. Seuss:

[Dr. Seuss is Canceled]

  • Ah, but that's not all. Kevin D. Williamson shows off his versifying talents in Mulberry Street Exit: Dr. Seuss Is Cancelled.

    When I sit down to read a book,
    Some idjit says to me,
    “Oppressor, check your privilege —
    We’ll decide what you can see!”
    And if I dare to contravene
    Or decline to heed his quarantine,
    Some philistine on Twitter sternly says,
    “That literature’s obscene!
    “You must do as we dictate,
    “And we shall de-platform that hate!”

    Who knew that KDW had such skills with doggerel?

  • But let's stay at National Review for Kyle Smith's take: Dr. Seuss Gets Blindsided by a Moral Minority.

    If, in 1987, the editorial boards of the major newspapers learned that a fanatical cult of angry moral scolds, representing a small sliver of the population, was successfully campaigning to remove books from the public eye with the not-so-subtle encouragement of the president and his political allies, they would have been outraged. In fact, liberal pundits were outraged — by far-less disturbing developments than these — and in the Nineties, they were re-enraged by suggestions that even the most deliberately offensive art should not enjoy a public subsidy, nor scarce space among museum displays.

    So, what changed? The Left used to be against banishing books, banning books, burning books. Now, scarcely a week goes by without some breathtaking new advance in its campaign to bury this or that book in order that the public might never be infected with its ideas. Just six years ago, when Barack Obama was publicly praising Dr. Seuss on March 2, Read Across America Day — a day specifically chosen by the National Education Association to honor Theodor Geisel’s birthday — you would have called me a paranoid wingnut if I had told you that books such as On Beyond Zebra! would soon be yanked from bookshelves across America at the behest of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yesterday, that’s exactly what happened.

    As Kyle notes: "No one who acquires immense power ever says, 'I’ve had enough of control now.'" So look forward to more of the same. Say, before they are memory-holed, maybe it's time to stock up on…

  • … well, someone's already had that good idea. Like gun control proposals are followed by a wave of gun-buying, Allahpundit reports: Sales of Dr. Seuss books skyrocket on Amazon. In response to a tweet claiming that "Thirty-three of the top 50 books on Amazon are Dr. Seuss right now":

    When I checked Amazon’s bestseller list at 6:30 ET, I found that it was (basically) correct. Seuss books weren’t 33 of the top 50 sellers at that hour — but they were 27 of 50. An outright majority.

    Well, I try to not give myself any journalistic airs, but I can count. As I type (7am on March 4), the Doc has 9 titles in the top 10; 14 of the top 20; 20 of the top 30; 24 of the top 40; 25 of the top 50. Not bad!

    There are also a couple books by Tish Rabe in her authorized "Cat in the Hat's Learning Library" series, so I'd guess the Geisel estate gets a cut of the royalties there too.

  • Texas Governor Gregg Abbott caused people to freak out on Tuesday. Jim Treacher has analysis of some of the reaction, specifically: Alamo Drafthouse Still Requires Masks and Wants You to Know About It.

    Here’s a fun thing that liberals do literally every day: They call you a fascist if you want the government to leave you alone. They say you’re a Nazi if you insist you can run your own life without some bureaucrat telling you what to do. If you think a problem, old or new, can be solved with anything short of a federal agent pointing a gun at your head, you’re the worst person in the world and you need to be #canceled. Libs always get it exactly backwards, and then they congratulate themselves for being so smart.

    That’s why our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters are falling all over each other to applaud the Alamo Drafthouse theater chain for bravely requiring masks, after Texas Governor Greg Abbott just lifted the state’s mask mandate:

    It could only have been improved by adding on the Monty Python quote: "We're not only proud of that, we're smug about it."

    In other, totally unrelated news, Alamo Drafthouse went Chapter 11 yesterday.

  • And you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. From Andrew Stiles in the Free Beacon: Democrats Add Bill Clinton's Wife to Women's History Month Collage After Critics Complain.

    March is Women's History Month, and Democrats are celebrating. In related news, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.) is facing pressure to resign after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment. The "Love Gov" recently hired the criminal defense attorney who represented Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen.

    The celebration got off to a rough start on Monday, when the official Twitter account of Senate Democrats posted a collage of women "who have paved the way for future generations," including Kamala Harris, Michelle Obama, Stacey Abrams, Dr. Jill Biden (Ed.D.), and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

    Some critics immediately complained that there weren't enough rich white women represented in the photo. Specifically, former aides to Hillary Clinton, the twice-failed presidential candidate and nominal wife of legendary sex pest Bill Clinton, were upset that she was not included.

    This is marked "satire", but (yes) the Senate Democrats really did leave her off their first draft of their tweet.

    I can't help but wonder if the Senate Democrats will get around to honoring the first female US ambassador to the United Nations.


Last Modified 2024-02-02 4:50 AM EDT